The time and space in which I have been working on this cosmopolitan project have convinced me that the disparity between the ideal of cosmopolitan theology and the current sociopolitical configuration of hospitality, welcoming others, unconditional ...
By becoming clearly contemplative in a matter of weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and novel cast; and this was matched by the distinctness in the reprecussions my daily sessions of exercises were having on my everyday life, as well as on ...
For the first time his senses began to register the exotic, heady atmosphere of Mumbai...the odors most insistently demanded his attention. There were layers upon layers of them, all present at once but individually distinct. They shifted in strength...
As Ian looked at her, he felt something in his chest slip and shift. The pressure came with a blood-tingling rush of triumph and satisfaction, pride and a deeply burning sense of possessiveness. His inner caveman warrior had been awakened and wanted ...
Like you and me," said Jade. "How we used to be." "What do you mean? Crazy?" "Living on our own world. Believing what we felt was separate from everything else. We couldn't do anything except be together and nothing else was real." "That's right." "W...
By their actions, the Founding Fathers made clear that their primary concern was religious freedom, not the advancement of a state religion. Individuals, not the government, would define religious faith and practice in the United States. Thus the Fou...
Meditation,” said his teacher, “hasn’t got a damn thing to do with anything, ‘cause all it has to do with is nothing. Nothingness. Okay? It doesn’t develop the mind, it dissolves the mind. Self-improvement? Forget it, baby. It erases the se...
A conscience that is forbidden to operate in the choice of goals for economic activity is not conscience in the sense in which any moralist, pagan or Christian, has every understood the term. And the family (which [Michael] Novak regards as vital to ...
Nations tend to see the other side's war atrocities as systemic and indicative of their culture and their own atrocities as justified or the acts of stressed combatants. In my travels, I sense a smoldering resentment towards WWII Japanese behavior am...
On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel...
1. So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better make sure kids can’t get guns. 2. So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better find out what’s making th...
Human perfection and technical perfection are incompatible. If we strive for one, we must sacrifice the other: there is, in any case, a parting of the ways. Whoever realises this will do cleaner work one way or the other. Technical perfection strives...
If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything is tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can...
There are no guarantees that if we keep the Sabbath we will be successful. But honouring the Sabbath (and not overworking the other six days) will give us an opportunity to grow in our trust of God and experience his faithfulness. If we take time to ...
She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them. But often I did - with time I learned where to look - and tried to fit them together....
Our first youth is of no value; for we are never conscious of it, until after it is gone. But sometimes--always, I suspect, unless one is exceedingly unfortunate--there comes a sense of second youth, gushing out of the heart's joy at being in love; o...
Harry lost any sense of where they were: Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig’s cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees — “No — HEDWIG!” The broomstick sp...
How monotonous our speaking becomes when we speak only to ourselves! And how to the other beings – to foraging black bears and twisted old cypresses – that no longer sense us talking to them, but only about them, as though they were not present i...
To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be non-possessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property ...
The moon splits open. We move through, waterbirds rising to look for another lake. Or say we are living in a love-ocean, where trust works to caulk our body-boat, to make it last a little while, until the inevitable shipwreck, the total marriage, the...
What they have is science, and in science only that which is subject to the senses. The spiritual world, on the other hand, the loftier half of the man's being, is rejected altogether, cast out with a certain triumph, hatred even. The world has procl...
