It is said that peace is the basic tenet of all religion. Yet it is in the name of religion that there has been so much disturbance, bloodshed and persecution. It is indeed a pity that even at the close of the twentieth century we've had to witness s...
So long, in fact, as you remain in ignorance of what to aim at and what to avoid, what is essential and what is superfluous, what is upright or honorable conduct and what is not, it will not be travelling but drifting. All this hurrying from place to...
I don't suppose you told the woman you're arse over teakettle in love with her?" "I did. [...] I went about it all wrong." "There's a wrong way to tell a woman you love her?" "Nearly shouting it at her when she's angry and frightened and looking for ...
I didn't deserve a friend like this, who loved me for no reason--- who loved me despite my mistakes. I caught my breath as the thought entered my mind. Could God love me this way too? If Josh was going to jump off this boat and trust in God to save u...
I decided that life rationally considered seemed pointless and futile, but it is still interesting in a variety of ways, including the study of science. So why not carry on, following the path of scientific hedonism? Besides, I did not have the coura...
I've never heard of anybody getting rid of their prized Exile postcards, much less actually writing on them and sending them through the mail to a girl. I watched these two, laughing over this story at the same kitchen table they've shared for thirty...
If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the ...
We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul that avoid the unconscious violence we do when we try to save each other that evoke our capacity to hold another life without dishonoring its mystery never trying to coerce the other...
No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions -- even and especially in the o...
Before unearthing this letter, I had questioned myself about the ways in which a book can be infinite. I could think of nothing other than a cyclic volume, a circular one. A book whose last page was identical with the first, a book which had the poss...
Trying so hard to make things go our way in this world, doing so much leaning, is exhausting. I am convinced that is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said, ‘Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest’ (Matthew...
It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known ca...
Jo's face was a study next day, for the secret rather weighed upon her, and she found it hard not to look mysterious and important. Meg observed it, but did not troubled herself to make inquiries, for she had learned that the best way to manage Jo wa...
When you became a Christian, you were still susceptible to living the way you learned to live before. Your brain was not wiped clean. That conflicts with this new life to which you gave yourself. Is it easy being a Christian in this world today? No! ...
Then I met Linda and the sun rose. I can't find a better way to express it. The sun rose in my life. At first, as dawn breaking on the horizon, almost as if to say, this is where you have to look. Then came the first rays of sunshine, everything beca...
In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She’d bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena’s, which had led to Mount Olympus’s first reality TV punishment program: 'So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a...
It’s a training camp,” Leo realized. He looked at Aphros in awe. “You train heroes, the same way Chiron does?” Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. “We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a merhero, and we have trained him ...
After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this: A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A ...
Little girl, little boy If love has a way Fill their fields with laughter And scatter the sun on their day And if it should happen to rain Make their raindrops kisses Straight from heaven above That touch their hands and faces And that fill them with...
If you simply ignored the feeling, you would never know what might happen, and in many ways that was worse than finding out in the first place. Because if you were wrong, you could go forward in your life without ever looking back over your shoulder ...
And you expect me to commute two hours each way from the Keep to the Order." I kept my voice mild. "I suppose I won't be needing my job, my house, or my clothes anymore." "I didn't say that. Although let me get back to you on the clothes. It's still ...