Encountering gender apartheid and waged slavery shook me to my roots more than half a century ago in Afghanistan. Oh, the women of Afghanistan, the women of the Muslim world. I was no feminist -- but now, thinking back, I see how much I learned there...
I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling re...
Look, Laszlo. I'll have the dentist with me, and I don't want to alarm her any more than necessary. So take Vanna out of the backseat and stick her in the trunk." Shanna halted. Her mouth dropped open. Her throat seized up, making it hard to breathe....
Hell," he said, looking down his body. "I shouldn't have thought about that just yet. Now Alice is going to come out of the bathroom and see you standing there being demanding. That's not very gentlemanly...." This just made him even harder. With a s...
I have a hat for it, actually." Elliott made a vague gesture with one hand. "Well, it's more of a full-body suit, really." "Is that a euphemism for a condom?" "No." He marched past me and lay down on the bed. "My mother knitted me a willy-warmer a fe...
Since the debt limit simply accommodates debt that has already been incurred, raising it should, in theory, be perfunctory. But politicians have found it a useful shibboleth for showing their fealty fiscal discipline, even as they vote to ratify the ...
Every time you worry that you could get trapped in some kind of work you don't care about, you're dealing with the problem of meaningfulness. I guarantee that in the back of your mind is the thought that somehow you have to make a contribution to som...
Are you threatening me?” He looked completely outraged at such a thing. “You bet your incredibly attractive and probably hard enough to bounce a quarter off ass I am!” she snapped back. An indescribable look flitted across his face. “You are ...
But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus' love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually caught some other disease. He fed the ...
The health benefits, both mental and physical, of humor are well documented. A good laugh can diffuse tension, relieve stress, and release endorphins into your system, which act as a natural mood elevator. In Norman Cousin's book, Anatomy of an Illne...
That narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it . The white foam knows nothing better than those sands which wait for it , rise to it and suck it in .but what do ...
...the point, the essential quality of the act of reading, now and always, is that it tends to no foreseeable end, to no conclusion. Every reading prolongs another, begun in some afternoon thousands of years ago and of which we know nothing; every re...
Certainly it's a rare glimpse into the lives of the Secular Ancients. They don't seem as bad as the Dominion histories make them out to be. Though clearly they were imperfect." "I don't deny that they were imperfect," Julian said in a distant voice. ...
If the people of God were to transform the world through fascination, these amazing teachings had to work at the center of these peculiar people. Then we can look into the eyes of a centurion and see not a beast but a child of God, and then walk with...
I saw sadness when I looked at what was left of them. The demigods who had once controlled the heavens had been brought low, humbled to the point of death. I always imagined I heart their crumbled masterpieces singing an endless mourning dirge. I tur...
Charles de Foucauld, the found of the Little Brothers of Jesus, wrote a single sentence that's ahad a profound impact on my life. He said, "The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything." Never to be afraid of anything, eve...
What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, ...
The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort t...
For Ragamuffins, God's name is Mercy. We see our darkness as a prized possession because it drives us into the heart of God. Without mercy our darkness would plunge us into despair - for some, self-destruction. Time alone with God reveals the unfatho...
The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themsel...
The deeper we grow in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the poorer we become - the more we realize that everything in life is a gift. The tenor of our lives becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving. Awareness of our poverty and ineptitude causes us to...
