By declaring our Prophet infallible and not permitting ourselves to question him, we Muslims had set up a static tyranny. The Prophet Muhammad attempted to legislate every aspect of life. By adhering to his rules of what is permitted and what is forb...
Unlike me, he realized that Dustfinger would do anything in return for such a promise. All he wants is to go back to his own world. He doesn't even stop to ask if his story there has a happy ending!" "Well, that's no different from real life," remark...
the sign read. Finn read it again, and then again, not sure what to make of it. Then he looked at Bonnie and shrugged. "So?" ... "So?" she hissed. "It's a sign!" "Yeah. It is. A cardboard sign." "Finn! It has our names on it!" "Names which happen to ...
I see what I want of Love... I see horses making the meadow dance, fifty guitars sighing, and a swarm of bees suckling the wild berries, and I close my eyes until I see our shadow behind this dispossessed place... I see what I want of people: their d...
Can't release her? The air caught in my chest, hardened, and refused to move. There was a good chance I wasn't making it out of this basement. The craziest thing I had ever done was ride some insane roller coaster at Cedar Point--and now that seemed ...
Inrealized how valuable the art and practice of writing letters are, and how important it is to remind people of what a treasure letters--handwritten letters--can be. In our throwaway era of quick phone calls, faxes, and email, it's all to easy never...
Okay. I’m not a white male. At least, not predominantly so. And as I mentioned before, I’m in an environment right now where race is really important. See, Chinese men are not that physically intimidating. We’re not that tall. We’re not that ...
Nothing will get you anywhere with me," I exclaimed. "I don't know about that." He put on an introspective look that was both unexpected and intriguing. "You're not as much of a lost cause as she was. I mean, with her, I had to overcome her deep, epi...
Beloved, we join hands here to pray for gin. An aridity defiles us. Our innards thirst for the juice of juniper. Something must be done. The drought threatens to destroy us. Surely, God who let manna fall from the heavens so that the holy children of...
[Y]our agricultural revolution is not an event like the Trojan War, isolated in the distant past and without relevance to your lives today. The work begun by those neolithic farmers in the Near East has been carried forward from one generation to the...
I believe now that we’re the enemy to the things we really want for our lives. We get really good at telling ourselves ugly lies on repeat every day. You’re unworthy. You’re ugly. You’re inadequate.
I was nineteen years five months old when I fell in love for the first time. This seemed to me a profound, advanced age; never can we anticipate being older than we are, or wiser; if we're exhausted, it's impossible to anticipate being strong; as, in...
Everything that happens, happens at the only possible time it can happen, and it is always at exactly the right time. We cannot get to an appointment before we arrive—or after. It is only at the instant of our arrival that we can arrive, and that i...
I was always exceedingly delighted with that saying of Chrysostom, "The foundation of our philosophy is humility"; and yet more pleased with that of Augustine: "As the orator, when asked, What is the first precept in eloquence? answered, Delivery: Wh...
Our plump predicament comes from the way we think. In America life has become a daily quest for instant gratification. Do we think about the long term? Rarely. We ask ourselves, “What sounds good?” That’s where we get into trouble focusing on w...
Jung was the first to propose the model of psychic energy, suggesting that for introverts, energy flows inward, while for extroverts, energy flows outward. Introverts tend to embrace this definition. It fels right for us because we know exactly what ...
We often forget our human connectedness. Throughout my life, I have felt the greatest beauty lies in this connection. It has been in the deepest connections with others that I have experienced the greatest degree of learning, healing and transformati...
I'm a big believer in first impressions," he finally said. "Tell me what your first thought was when Jason walked into the courtroom." Taylor took a sip of her drink and grinned. This one was easy. "I vowed to hate him forever." Jeremy's brown eyes t...
Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward.
Witch' is just a religion, okay? No baby-sacrificing, no Black Masses, no sending imps out to scare the dog-snot out of kids, trying to make them think they're crazy. We don't do things like that. Our number-one law is 'Have fun in this lifetime, but...
Observing people taking in the work I had watched Robert create was an emotional experience. It had left our private world. It was what I had always wanted for him, but I felt a slight pang of possessiveness sharing it with others. Overriding that fe...
