So I hear we get to go to town this weekend. Want to catch a movie or something? --Z P.S. That is, if Jimmy doesn't mind. Translation: This weekend might be a good chance for us to see each other outside our school in a social environment, free of co...
I know you're just trying to be kind. But the world isn't always kind. So sometimes you have to know what you're up against, and match it.' He held up a hand to stop the words about to be spoken; I could see the vague shape of it hovering in the blac...
No soul ever fell away from God without giving up prayer. Prayer is that which establishes contact with Divine Power and opens the invisible resources of heaven. However dark the way, when we pray, temptation can never master us. The first step downw...
In the seeker-church movement the emphasis away from the use and explication of creedal confession is obvious, since the whole point is to focus on the 'felt-needs' of the person in the pew - especially the felt-needs of nonbelievers. The rationale i...
Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, t...
You have chastised me, demeaned me and dismantled me, before bringing me back to life. Who would have thought all of this was possible in a grotty cubicle of the men’s room? You hold me there for some time whilst we both catch our breath. Tentative...
As a leader it is your job to protect the missional integrity of the Jesus gathering to which you have been called. It is your responsibility to see to it that the church under your care continues as a gathering of people in process; a place where th...
I stop reading after half an hour. I’ve had enough. Humanity has hit a brick wall. We’re facing our end, like the dinosaurs millions of years before us. The only difference is we’ve got journalists on hand to document every blow and setback, ca...
Harry, life isn't simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you're in the thick of things, sometimes it's hard for us to tell. You didn't do what you did for your own benefit. You did it so that you could protect oth...
Happy. Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that's the way to live. All alone and free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the Ma...
Note: When reading dry political theory, such as the texts you will find on the following pages, it may be useful to apply the Exclamation Point Test from time to time, to determine if the material you are reading is actually relevant to your life. T...
It’s easy to give God a list of excuses for not feeling worthy or as capable as someone else, in our service to him. The problem is that God doesn’t call those who are unprepared or incapable. He calls those who have the talent and ability to ser...
As much as we look up at the stars and know there is more than life on earth, the divinity of dogs is just as unexplainable and profound. They may be the purest example of divine love in an earthly soul many of us ever experience. If we take their le...
I think the idea that we have anything to begin with is a lie we tell ourselves every day until we believe it. I think the law is there to enforce fictions that would not exist otherwise. Certain laws prevent us from deviating from those fictions, an...
As a species, tragedy dwells within us all. We push it to the back of our thoughts, but it is never so far gone that it cannot return, crashing and writhing into our souls: a rogue wave overturning a boat on a calm day. Tragedy is never more than a b...
But Annabeth just smiled and put us in jail. As she was heading back to the front line, she turned and winked. "See you at the fireworks?" She didn't even wait for my answer before darting off into the woods. I looked at Beckendorf. "Did she just...a...
Words taken literally or held as ultimate truth can keep us stagnant and stuck, holding on to old ideologies. I now know that everything I need is already contained within me and is completely aceessible if I allow myself to open up to what I sense i...
The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes mi...
Quote from my book DIVINE INTERRUPTIONS: A BIBLE STUDY THROUGH THE BOOK OF JOB. Available on Amazon. "LIFE lessons are so challenging! God never promised us an easy life, but it’s not all darkness and suffering. We have a choice to see things with ...
In any case I just cannot imagine attaching so much importance to any food or treat that I would grow irate or bitter at the mention of the suffering of animals. A pig to me will always seem more important than a pork rind. There is the risk here of ...
The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree...
