The day the earth-moving machines arrived, it was as if aliens had invaded Earth. Overnight they appeared, diggers with huge scoops, plodding their slow and ancient ways across the landscape. By the next week they had multiplied and evolved into dive...
Every hour be firmly resolved... to accomplish the work at hand with fitting and unaffected dignity, goodwill, freedom, justice. Banish from your thoughts all other considerations. This is possible if you perform each act as if it were your last, rej...
Over the course of your life you are actually hundreds of different people. You are a different person at the coffee shop than you are at the bar, and a different person for the dry cleaner than you are for your boyfriend, and a different person at w...
A father acts on behalf of his children by working, providing, intervening, struggling, and suffering for them. In so doing, he really stands in their place. He is not an isolated individual, but incorporates the selves of several people in his own s...
For deep adherents, the Koran would seem to echo great truths given directly to a vaunted and hallowed prophet by a deity of overwhelming power and grandeur. If you don’t hold any such archaic notions, however, the words attributed to Allah come ac...
The New Age is not one of bells and whistles and mystical special effects. It is not a fantasy state driven by the alignments of planets or the power of crystals, nor a metaphysical rising to higher plains of consciousness by virtue of chanting esote...
Having it all is just too much hassle. I'm not every-woman. I'm a working woman. And I'm not entirely sure I see the oint of being as dexterous in the kitchen as I am at my desk. If Mr. Y is perfectly satisfied with pre-packaged sushi every night, th...
In other words if a man is armed, then one pretty much has to take his opinions into account. One can see how this worked at its starkest in Xenophon’s Anabasis, which tells the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who suddenly find themselves lea...
Thankfully, Coach had taught me a way of embracing the pain. He called that overwhelming rust of hurt 'The Moment of No Return', a point of pure agony when the body told an athlete to quit, to rest, because the pain was so damn tough. It was a tippin...
The mission that God has given us is a highly relational mission. Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" John 20:21. Jesus came into this world, lived in obscurity for 30 years and then spent three years relationally investing in t...
We can't tell you the origin of the experience. But we can tell you the brain does appear to be built to have these [mystical] experiences. There are examples of people reaching similar states, spontaneously. But for the most part, it takes work. Med...
Did you finish yours, Kota?" "Working on it now, Actually." "How's it going?" He sat up, turning in his chair and holding up his notebook. "I don't know. What rhymes with formaldehyde?" My eyes widened. Gabriel laughed, rubbing his fingers against hi...
More than one thing is never true. People love to say the opposite, love to talk about inner conflict, nuances, levels of complication. But if this last year has taught her anything, it has taught her that people are clearer on what they want than th...
The imagination doesn’t crop annually like a reliable fruit tree. The writer has to gather whatever’s there: sometimes too much, sometimes too little, sometimes nothing at all. And in the years of glut there is always a slatted wooden tray in som...
What are you working on?" Elizabeth asked. Nate could hear her tapping a pencil on her desk. She took notes during their conversations. He didn't know what she did with the notes, but it bothered him. "I have a lecture at the sanctuary in four days."...
And I still say it was just a coincidence;' he muttered pugnaciously. 'You say it too! Look at me and say it! It was just a coincidence. That happened to be the nearest place on the dial where they both met exactly, those two hands. My blows dented t...
When we come under the spell of the deeper domain of technology, its economic character and even its power aspect fascinate us less than its playful side. Then we realize we that we are involved in a play, a dance of the spirit, which cannot be grasp...
How is it?" I ask as we stroll towards the dressing rooms. "Working at the playground. That must be fun." "Sure, they're just adorable," she says, "For the first five minutes. And then I want to wring their adorable little necks." I stop, shocked. "I...
She hardly ever began conversations with strangers just to talk. It was not a matter of shyness. For her, a conversation had a straightforward function. How do I get to the pharmacy? or How much does the hotel room cost? Conversation also had a profe...
At twenty years old, Michael had vague plans to make changes in his life, but turning blue whilst stood in a walk-in bath in an old people's home wasn't one of them. Usually boys of his age might consider changes along the lines of smoking less grass...
The old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy ... a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick...
