What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in...
Do you like me?” No answer. Silence bounced, fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. It tore cigarettes out of my mouth. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, I did not beg, but blackness filled...
The things that don't happen to us that we'll never know didn't happen to us. The nonstories. The extra minute to find the briefcase that makes you late to the spot where a tractor trailer mauled another car instead of yours. The woman you didn't mee...
So now we pause. Still. Ponder. Hush. Wait. Each day of Advent, He gives you the gift of time, so you have time to be still and wait. Wait for the coming of the God in the manger who makes Himself bread for us near starved. For the Savior in swaddlin...
Almost all the world is natural chemicals, so it really makes you re-think everything. A cup of coffee is filled with chemicals. They've identified a thousand chemicals in a cup of coffee. But we only found 22 that have been tested in animal cancer t...
Even the simplest things had a glorious pointlessness to them. When buttons came in, about 1650, people couldn't get enough of them and arrayed them in decorative profusion on the backs and collars and sleeves of coats, where they didn't actually do ...
Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms...
In Christianity and the body of Christ there is no room for celebrities, the message of the cross doesn't centre around anyone. It is Christ & Him alone. God can do without any of our church celebrities. We've got to let God stand out in all we do. O...
We were very poor. But between the covers of books I could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. As I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that th...
Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to b...
Ourchestra: So you haven't got a drum, just beat your belly. So I haven't got a horn-I'll play my nose. So we haven't any cymbals- We'll just slap our hands together, And though there may be orchestras That sound a little better With their fancy shin...
My girlfriends and I talk a lot about feminism and the inequality between the way men and women are talked about, the kind of things we say are, ‘Why is it mischievous, fun and sexy if a guy has a string of lovers that he’s cast aside; loved and ...
To understand God we must understand ourselves. If I give you an apple and ask you, “What is that?” you reply, “An apple.” “How do you know it’s an apple?” “Because it just is.” “How did it get to be an apple?” “It came from a...
If a mathematician wishes to disparage the work of one of his colleagues, say, A, the most effective method he finds for doing this is to ask where the results can be applied. The hard pressed man, with his back against the wall, finally unearths the...
Sorry, that's unfair. Let me warn you. I want you to follow, because no matter what you think you might know, we will always be one step, three steps- seven steps ahead of you, and just when you think you're catching up, that's when we'll be right be...
The quality self-confidence is not bad in youth. We rather like to see it, for it indicates usually the possession or the motive power which makes a man aggressive and enterprising. He works more vigorously if he is sure that he is nearer right than ...
It's not that Derek brought me out of that depression I had found myself in, but he helped me pull myself the rest of the way out. he made me want to give this crazy thing we call life my full attention again. Take Chances, love a little, free fall, ...
My teacher, Ben Johnston, was convinced that our tuning is responsible for much of our cultural psychology, the fact that we are so geared toward progress and action and violence and so little attuned to introspection, contentment, and acquiescence. ...
We find that one person in life that will stand by us through everything, support us, love us regardless of yourself. That one person that will stand by your side through everything. Grab onto that person with everything for if you don't then one day...
Why bother praying? It does not matter if we have developed bad habits in limiting prayer to only asking for things, but prayer is much, much richer than that. By all means let's keep asking God to keep changing us, but let's also give praise and tha...
Sometimes, laughing like a lunatic can be the best solution. Or crying loudly into a pillow. But don't regret anything. Always tell yourself "I. Regret. Nothing." because really, no matter how sucky, or crappy your life gets, you really shouldn't reg...