And so many things get lost. Not just a set of keys or a photograph of your father with his first truck, but the door those keys once opened, the childhood house you long ago walked into, the father who used to carry you on his shoulders high above t...
Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture...
Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be huge, those of Mars middle-sized, those of Venus very small. Unless it is the same everywhere. There are businessmen, pol...
A student of Syrian affairs soon becomes used to paradox. A comparatively small country, narrowly chauvinistic and jealous of its national sovereignty, Syria is nevertheless the repository, and has often been the origin, of oecumenical and transcende...
Once I had her clean, I wrapped her in a towel and carried her back to the bed. A small red bloodstain was on the sheets, and again the possessive monster inside me threw back his head and roared his pleasure. I stood there holding her and letting th...
Jem grinned. “Where have you been? The Blue Dragon? The Mermaid?” “The Devil Tavern if you must know.” Will sighed and leaned against one of the posts of the bed. “I had such plans for the evening. The pursuit of blind drunkenness and waywa...
No one's place in this world is guaranteed. Not everyone is going to get a happy ending. But life isn't about how it ends. It's about the moments between. It's about the small things. The way our loved ones laugh. The sight of a butterfly in the sunl...
I always hear people talk about 'dysfunctional families.' It annoys me, because it makes you think that somewhere there's this magical family where everyone gets along, and no one ever screams things they don't mean, and there's never a time when sha...
Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multi...
When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don...
Yes, I hate orthodox criticism. I don't mean great criticism, like that of Matthew Arnold and others, but the usual small niggling, fussy-mussy criticism, which thinks it can improve people by telling them where they are wrong, and results only in pu...
When the fight ends you can afford to relax. That’s the worst part. Winner or loser you have again eyes to see around you. Blood, butchered bodies, bodies pierced by arrows. You stir inside, your heart tightens, the feeling of loss wells up. The se...
Immanuel, God with us-that He would leave the spiritual realm and be present in the flesh and blood in such an act of humility is a staggering notion. As it is, He willingly gave His blood, in the flesh, so that others might find life, for it is writ...
It seemed to him he had waited an age for some stir of the great grim hush; the life of the town was itself under a spell--so unnaturally, up and down the whole prospect of known and rather ugly objects, the blankness and the silence lasted. Had they...
Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!” exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument. “Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa’s park gates: nor to go even so far without mama’s permission and guardianship! Crea...
The river reflected whatever it chose of sky and bridge and burning tree, and when the undergraduate had oared his boat through the reflections they closed again, completely, as if they had never been. There one might have sat the clock round lost in...
Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against...
They arrived home again to a most peculiar sight. The small garden at the front of the Banana House had been transformed. A tidal wave of cushions, beanbags, quilts, hearth rugs, and sleeping bags appeared to have swept up the lawn and broken at the ...
…a waitress came out and plonked in front of each of us a small standard terra-cotta flowerpot in which had been baked a little loaf of bread. "What's this?" I asked. "It's bread," she replied. "But it's in a flowerpot?" She gave me a look that I w...
Daily I walk around my small, picturesque town with a thought bubble over my head: Person Going Through A Divorce. When I look at other people, I automatically form thought bubbles over their heads. Happy Couple With Stroller. Innocent Teenage Girl W...
The soul often hangs in a balance of some sort. Tonight do I lie down in the high fields with Dirk Tanner or not? At the fair, do I buy ribbons or wine? For the new ferry’s headboard, do I use camphor or pearwood? Small things. A kiss, a ribbon, a ...
