In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it ...
Each of us ought to be so happy that Jesus found us and saved us, that we are running to find the next person who needs to be introduced to Him. That's what church is, a community of rescued people celebrating grace, eager to spread the good news of ...
We will not read of that which hurts our pride or fears or 'feelings'. We forget, or gloss over, or excuse, an experience which injured the tentacles of our personality. We forget the pscyhiatrist's definition of a neurosis as 'refused pain'. In the ...
Pain is not the same as suffering. Left to itself, the body discharges pain spontaneously, letting go of it the moment that the underlying cause is healed. Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the mind’s mysterious instinct to believ...
In trying to make the slave experience intimate, I hoped the sense of things being both under control and out of control would be persuasive throughout; that the order and quietitude of every day life would be violently disrupted by the chaos of the ...
For me, personally, life in South Africa had come to an end. I had been lucky in some of the whites I had met. Meeting them had made a straight 'all-blacks-are-good, all-whites-are-bad' attitude impossible. But I had reached a point where the gesture...
I nod, thinking of how difficult marriage can be, how much effort is required to sustain a feeling between two people - a feeling that you can't imagine will ever fade in the beginning when everything comes so easily. I think of how each person in a ...
Not to be with the one you love, Laura, the one person you should be spending your life with--it’s like a kind of living death. To wake up every morning and know you are still here. To have that brief, sweet moment of blankness, before your mind re...
The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it’s so hard for a person to break his delusion and d...
The people who believe themselves superior to you will reveal themselves in how they respond to criticism from you. An opinion of anyone carries as much weight as whatever value that person's social currency has. A poor man spouting words more though...
Even the best cook can’t make chicken soup out of his own feet. There aren’t so terribly many ingredients in anyone’s life, less meat than there is on a sparrow. The average person could come up with at most two good novels. Many who think very...
Part of the treasure in heaven that Jesus talks about is the feeling of purpose and satisfaction a person has when they know they are performing the will of God. Those who put themselves and money first often complain about life feeling empty and mea...
*Story of a Girl By:Sara Zarr *Lexile:760 SRC:12 pts. *Personal Issues *Choice of getting a job to move out *Major Choice *In Process of making it happen *It effects her bother his girlfriend and their baby, because they will move out with her too. *...
I can tell you that the writing of a book, no matter how deeply, profoundly personal-if it is literature, if you have attended to the formidable task of illumination the human heart in conflict with itself-will do the opposite of expose you. It will ...
War did not come like a hurricane, Rorimer realized, destroying everything in its path. It came like a tornado, touching down in patches, taking with it one life while leaving the next person unharmed.
For only fools, fanatics, and mental cases can stand living at the highest pitch of soul; a sane person must be content with declaring that life would not be worth living without a spark of that mysterious fire.
Cassia. I know which life is my real one now, no matter what happens. It’s the one with you. For some reason, knowing that even one person knows my story makes things different. Maybe it’s like the poem says. Maybe this is my way of not going gen...
Strauss admits to being obsessed by his mother's rejection, and with the resultant rents in self-esteem. The Game echoes with disturbingly abusive comments leveled at his adolescent self, a self he feels was unacceptable. With bravado, he expresses r...
Missional leaders not only feel the burden of God's mission but they also act on the burden and act upon it sacrificially. Leading a missional church is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and to lea...
Certainly I believe that God gave us life for happiness, not misery. Humanity, I am sure, will never be made lazy or indifferent by an excess of happiness. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through ...
The desire we so often hear expressed today for “episcopal figures,” “priestly men,” “authoritative personalities” springs frequently enough from a spiritually sick need for the admiration of men, for the establishment of visible human au...
