Have you ever stopped to ponder the amount of blood spilt, the volume of tears shed, the degree of pain and anguish endured, the number of noble men and women lost in battle so that we as individuals might have a say in governing our country? Honor...
They urge us to study our history that we might learn from past tragedies and errors. But sometimes I think it's actually a good thing that humanity so easily forgets. The haze that eventually claims old suffering often enables us to move on.
Learning to be aware of what you unconsciously know may depend on a line of focused effort and specialized knowledge and even some measure of aptitude, but actually learning it may be effortless, automatic, and require very little of what we normally...
I told Mama and Savannah about Ruben's proposal. That got us to talking about marriage and we laughed and cried some, and missed Papa, and it felt good to belong to each other. I don't feel as lonely today as I have in months. At least I know there a...
The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible. There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity a...
...many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased. I remember a man in Salinas who in his middle years traveled to Honolulu and back, and that journey continued for the rest of his life. We could watch him in his rocking chai...
Animals store their fears and at times OUR fears in the body and manifest physical illnesses like we do. Like us, these fears may have occurred in infancy and are still carried in the adult body.
The sound of the blues, rhythm and blues, country music, is what we lived for, black and white alike. It gave you strength to sit on one of those throbbing Allis-Chalmers tractors all day if you knew you were gonna hear something on the radio or mayb...
Life Lesson 8: Change is always hard, but time softens the rough edges and eases the pull of the past. Eventually, we all climb out from under the bed, and even the most unfamiliar places begin to feel like home.
But you can’t put fight into a man’s guts if he hasn’t any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that you can’t ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death. We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don’t l...
Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes) — that didn't end in the Cross — but he couldn't find a strategy m...
We looked at each other for a minute, not saying anything, but I could feel the air between us shift. It became thick, sultry, and tangible—like when the air changes right before a storm. I could feel its power envelop me as it brushed across my sk...
has started you on this?" I asked. "We were talking about the holidays." "Los Angeles is not a safe place for a young woman alone. I feel it in my bones." "That's your arthritis, Aunt Sadie. Do you want me to get a gun? I'd probably shoot myself in t...
Want to grab a beer at Howler's?" Drake blinked, unsure he'd heard him right. After just battering each other to a pulp, Gabriel wanted to geta drink with him?... "Why are you asking me?" Gabriel shrugged, then winced. "Because that's what males do. ...
He continued to attack the gate. His arm started to ache. The hammer was designed for neither brute nor force. "Are you all right up there?" asked Eleanor. "Want me to go see if I can find a small child to give you a lift?" "Maybe if we swapped posit...
Before we go on from here, I just want to say," he paused and took a step closer to me and reached his hand out to my heart. "What I should have said back on the plane is I know you're real." His eyes narrowed, "I'll always fight for you, Lexi, in my...
Today's young people have gay friends whom they love. If they view the church as an unsafe for them, a place more focused on politics than on people, we just might be raising the most anti-Christian generation America has ever seen, a generation that...
I did, of course, on both counts, and started going out with the boy I lost my virginity to - all of it. He lost his to me too, except that neither of us felt we had lost anything - just discovered the meaning of life and love and everything else unn...
If you feel like you have to have them for some reason, tell me and we'll take them out together. Promise?" "If you promise not to tell the whole school about this." "I won't tell them anything. Deal?" "Deal." "I think we should seal it." I gave a ji...
Toleration is the prerogative of humanity; we are all full of weaknesses and mistakes; let us reciprocally forgive ourselves. It is the first law of nature. La tolérance, c'est l'apanage de l'humanité; nous sommes tous pétris de faiblesse et d'err...
When kids made a decision for themselves they have a vested interest in showing they were right. Lee wanted to prove to me that he had made the right choice so he worked hard and did well. If we'd forced him to go to college somewhere else all the in...
