Our central problem is not sin and guilt, as it is within the monarchical model. For the Spirit model, our central problem is “estrangement,” whose specific meaning of “separated from that to which one belongs” is most appropriate. ... For th...
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that as as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embr...
My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She’d set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I’d begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were fading and blending in with walls. She was shrinking. Or maybe her sph...
Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigo...
I once had a published written debate with a religious apologist who, after I had argued the standard line that the idea of a loving and merciful deity is inconsistent with the fact of natural evil, said this meant his god was not all-powerful, and t...
If there is one thing I'd learned about hospitals, it's that they aren't interested in healing you. They are interested in stabilizing you, and then everyone is supposed to move on. They go to stabilize some more people, and you go off to do whatever...
No use kidding herself. This situation with Jarrod was a slippery slope. She’d had plenty of men since Sam, attractive, well endowed, charming in many ways. Jarrod was different, and she needed to figure out why before she found herself in the midd...
I began praying for the health and safety of my boys before each one was born. Once a week for two years prior to Joseph’s death, I also gathered with other moms to pray for my sons and their schools, and I specifically asked God to protect the hea...
What you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books tha...
Christian equality can be described as equity, or even-handedness. Egalitarianism, in contrast, demands sameness, or equality of outcome. These two visions of equality are about as comparable as dry and wet. Think of it in terms of ten teenage boys t...
The sun hitched up her trousers and soldiered on up into the sky. September squinted at it and wondered if the sun here was different than the sun in Nebraska. It seemed gentler, more golden, deeper. The shadows it cast seemed more profound. But Sept...
These kids spend a majority of their time in school, and if they’re not having a positive experience, they can become depressed. In some cases, they lash out, grabbing whatever weapon is available to them. It can be an assault rifle, a knife, a Mol...
One morning, as he sat at his desk, he heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the path outside his house. He stepped out on to the verandah. There, on a tall grey horse, sat Morgane. 'I've come to have my picture painted,' she said. She took off her ...
Purpose is not that far my child--- it's just a journey's walk. It is the One at the end of the journey, it is the end of the journey, and it is the journey itself. And when you thirst, do you not drink? And when you are cool, do you not warm yoursel...
God can communicate to us through powerful feelings. They have an energy that impels us to action. They grip our mind and will not let us go. What is calling you? What has the voice of God been whispering to you through the desires of your heart? To ...
Why don’t they complain?" "They do sometimes. But usually there's nothing in particular to complain about. Take the case of Hardy's appointment: Who was to blame? Hardy himself? The men? It certainly wasn't the CO. But that's how it always is. When...
This is the truth: we all desire to conquer the comely one, because it affirms our own worth. Speaking for the men of the world, we want to own the beauty of the woman we're fucking. We want to grasp that beauty, tightly in our greedy little fingers,...
Again, Syd had that feeling, the past as an echo, repeating itself as it faded. The poor had longed for Jubilee to save them from the powerful, and now the one-time patrons longed for the Machine to do the same. Every revolution believes it can retur...
He knew clearly enough that his imagination was growing traitor to him, and yet at times it seemed the ship he sailed in, his fellow-passengers, the sailors, the wide sea, were all part of a filmy phantasmagoria that hung, scarcely veiling it, betwee...
Mr Weissman -- Tell us about the film you're going to make. Oh, sure. It's called "Charlie Chan In London". It's a detective story. Set in London? Well, not really. Most of it takes place at a shooting party in a country house. Sort of like this one,...
Mustang...' I rest my hand on her wrist. Despite her strength, it's frail in my hands. Frail as the other girl's was when I held her in the deepmines. I couldn't help that girl. And now I feel like I can't help this woman. Would that my hands were me...
