How we think about God matters. It affects the credibility of religion in general and of Christianity in particular. Our concept of God can make God seem real or unreal, just as it can also make God seem remote or near.
When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacr...
Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had...
What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate—to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college profe...
Kat and I talked about Jacob in our own private code. "Are you baking cookies yet?" she said. That was standard for : have you fucked? "Oh yeah. We've made a couple dozen by now." "What kind?" In other words, was Jacob any good. "Chocolate-chip," I s...
Because we don't know the state of our children's souls, and because they might simply want to please us by praying to be saved, we must continue to give them the Law and encourage them to ask God for faith to believe that He is as good as He says He...
Belief in Yahweh doesn't come with your mind. It comes with your heart. When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry... To have faith in Yahweh is to know that there is a realm of the spirit bey...
Do we behave out of fear of punishment, or out of the demands of our heart? For me, it is the latter, as I would hope is true for all adults, thought I know from bitter experience that such is not often the case. To act in a manner designed to catapu...
Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imag...
I was shaking when our lips parted and he leaned his forehead against mine, his fingers carding through my hair, my hands on his face. "I won't let them," Rafael said. "I won't let anyone take you away. I'll protect you. I'll always protect you. I do...
Confession is the act of inviting God to walk the acreage of our hearts. “There is a rock of greed over here, Father. I can’t budge it. And that tree of guilt near the fence? Its roots are long and deep. And may I show you some dry soil, too crus...
Remember that even just watching animals has an impact. Intrusion into their living space can expose them to predation, keep them from feeding or other essential activities, or cause them to leave their young exposed to predation or the elements. No ...
There can be no fooling ourselves into thinking this is something other than what it is—the willful ejection of Molly from our nest. It’s too late for second thoughts, anyway. She has to be moved into her dorm in time for freshman orientation. It...
I know I'm not supposed to argue with you when you talk about dying. And yes, you could die, Neil. But I could get hit by a bus and die tomorrow. Either we need to live every single day together like it's our last, or we need to be comfortable with t...
We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horr...
Through God's grace, he gives us a wealth of resources to bear any burden he allows. Therefore, if God doesn't empty our cup of suffering or take it from us, he will give ample grace (favor, kindness, ability) to bear it.
For most of us, the most common and unfortunate side effect of skin problems is isolation. We don't want to be seen the way we look. You can hide a lot of physical flaws, but not acne. It's right there, on the first thing people notice about us - our...
Our culture is obsessed with perfection, especially when it comes to the way women look. The parameters of acceptability as far as physical appearance go are so limiting that only a handful of women actually fall into this category. And the rest of u...
Human beings, when confronted with the strange and inexplicable, have an immediate instinct to get back to the accustomed and the normal. We do not hug our miracles close; we put them hastily away, preferring the commonplace to live with it. It is as...
You only had to choose which me to talk to, for, you know, we all change our manners, depending on who has come to chat. One doesn’t behave at all the same way to a grandfather as to a bosom friend, to a professor as to a curious niece.
I wondered If things that might seem frightening could lose their hold over you. I wondered If we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered If we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or If we are drawn to it by a similar fo...
