We wind our way up the spiral staircase and then down the long hallway that leads to his room. I feel almost like I’m watching the scene unfold from outside my body. My fingers are interlocked with his as he pulls me toward a moment that’s going ...
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord? Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness? Think ...
Don’t, Mom.” I begin walking toward her, but I can see the mist forming in her eyes. “No, no, no.” By the time I reach her, it’s too late. She’s bawling. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s crying. Not because it makes me emoti...
In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would feel bad either way, so you could temporarily save yourself a little mental pain by refusing to decide. At the cost of not being able to plan anything in advance, and at ...
The paradox of reading is that the path toward ourselves passes through books, but that this must remain a passage. It is a traversal of books that a good reader engages in - a reader who knows that every book is the bearer of part of himself and can...
To speak without shame about books we haven’t read, we would thus do well to free ourselves of the oppressive image of cultural literacy without gaps, as transmitted and imposed by family and school, for we can strive toward this image for a lifeti...
A radical love story is the only device that makes the time-chariot of a village, a city, a country, gallop faster. Such a love story pulls the wheels of that chariot from a murky, regressive past towards a spotlessly clean road under autumn-blue ski...
Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, wheras literature teaches us to notice. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us b...
I have never, in all my life, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisf...
He waited for Stephanie at the foot of the stairs and when she made her way down he lost his breath. To him she was the most beautiful woman in the world, no matter what she wore, with make up or without. But the way she looked when she walked toward...
I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about le...
So, I’m a playwright. In Minneapolis. Which means that I find myself operating in a pretty lefty crowd, most of the time. And most of my energy goes towards arguing with that, and musing about how I really fucking can’t stand Democrats. So I was ...
I turn away and stare through the window at the field where the scotch broom creeps yellow as hell toward my doorstep. Six years and it has advanced from the hinterlands to the picket fence in the back yard. Six more years and it will have chewed thi...
Within your culture as a whole, there is in fact no significant thrust toward global population control. The point to see is that there never will be such a thrust so long as you're enacting a story that says the gods made the world for man. For as l...
On increasingly warm nice days I liked to sit toward noon on the bench encircling the cherry tree and look at the bare trees, the freshly plowed fields, the green strips of winter planting, the meadows that were already sprouting, and through the fra...
Augustine recast how people should view history, that history was not the story of the rise and fall of empires because those are human things. Those are the city of man. Rather, true history should be the history of salvation, of man moving toward G...
In marriage you are not sacrificing yourself to the other person. You are sacrificing yourself to the relationship. You become mature when you become the authority of your own life. Life will always be sorrowful. We can't change it, but we can change...
Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally dist...
I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, & every war has to me the horror od a family feud. I look upon the true patriotism as the brotherhood of man & the service to of all to all. The only fighting that saves is the one that helps the world to...
Flynn?’ Without thinking, she took a small step toward the wolf. Its ears cocked forward at the sound of the name, and it too took a step forward. Then froze. She shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You look like someone I know.’ The w...
Every good relationship we have is a gift of God's grace. Left to ourselves, nothing good would happen. Our problem has everything to do with sin and our potential has everything to do with Christ. Sin always draws towards self-interest. It is possib...
