D A Carson Quotes

I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.

... the worst possible heritage to leave with children: high spiritual pretensions and low performance.

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

...sometimes God chooses to bless us and make us people of integrity in the midst of abominable circumstances, rather than change our circumstances.

Daughter, we didn't need your note - or a prince's visit - to tell us you'd done nothing wrong. We know the daughter we raised. We fear for your future, but never for your character. You take our love and our trust wherever you wander. Father.

I put my fingers around the unmarked ring of the spyglass and twisted. The scene became clear. Oh no! A hairy brown spider clung to a vine! I couldn't go there! I'd go to the desert to find a dragon. I began to reset the spyglass, but then I stopped myself. A spider was worse than a dragon? No. My first monsters would be spiders, then.

If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.

He loved me. He'd loved me as long as he he'd known me! I hadn't loved him as long perhaps, but now I loved him equally well, or better. I loved his laugh, his handwriting, his steady gaze, his honorableness, his freckles, his appreciation of my jokes, his hands, his determination that I should know the worst of him. And, most of all, shameful though it might be, I loved his love for me.

I know there's no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks, but I don't care, I am me. My name is Valerie, I don't think I'll live much longer and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography ill ever write, and god, I'm writing it on toilet paper. I was born in Nottingham in 1985, I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tuttlebrook, and she use to tell me that god was in the rain. I passed my 11th lesson into girl's grammar; it was at school that I met my first girlfriend, her name was Sara. It was her wrists. They were beautiful. I thought we would love each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that is was an adolescent phase people outgrew. Sara did, I didn't. In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn't have done it without Chris holding my hand. My father wouldn't look at me, he told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing. But I had only told them the truth, was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free. I'd always known what I wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I starred in my first film, "The Salt Flats". It was the most important role of my life, not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again. We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew Scarlet Carsons for me in our window box, and our place always smelled of roses. Those were there best years of my life. But America's war grew worse, and worse. And eventually came to London. After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone. I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like collateral and rendition became frightening. While things like Norse Fire and The Articles of Allegiance became powerful, I remember how different became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much. They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I've never cried so hard in my life. It wasn't long till they came for me.It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years, I had roses, and apologized to no one. I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An Inch, it is small and it is fragile, but it is the only thing the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you. -Valerie

We are dealing with God's thoughts: we are obligated to take the greatest pains to understand them truly and to explain them clearly.

The Christian's whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so.

I had been able to break the curse myself. I'd had to have reason enough, love enough to do it, to find the will and the strength.

All of us would be wiser if we would resolve never to put people down, except on our prayer lists.

I know all about you," Char announced after we'd taken a few more steps. "You do? How could you?" "Your cook and our cook meet at the market. She talks about you." He looked sideways at me. "Do you know much about me?

In that moment I found a power beyond any I'd had before, a will and a determination I would never have need if not for Lucinda, a fortitude I hadn't been able to find for a lesser cause.

Char saw me. Over the shoulder of his partner, he mouthed, "Wait for me." I grew roots. An earthquake could not have moved me. The clock struck a quarter before eleven. If it had struck the end of the world, I'd have stayed as I was.

You'd think after thousands of years on this planet the human race would have released some kind of handbook for teenagers, telling them how to get through teenagehood and get help for their issues. Yet here we are, struggling through it in our own ways.

You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.

If Americans simply choose to vote for the person who has a D or an R by their name, we will get what we deserve, which is what we have now.

Weren't you scared?" I ask. "Yes. But it was a good scared." "There's a good kind?" "Oh, yes." Her voice drops so low I have to strain to hear. "Orlin made me scared all the time. Scared I would starve. Scared I would get too cold. Scared he would hurt me again or get so mad he'd throw me to one of the men. That was nasty bad scared." She pauses, scuffing her boots against the floor. "But you never hit me, even though I'm your slave... You always feed me. You call me my true name. Now when I'm scared, it's not because of meanness. And today, I chose my own scared. It's always a good scared, when you get to pick it your own self.

But my last conscious thought was an image of Prince Char when he'd caught the bridle of Sir Stephan's horse. His face had been close to mine. Two curls had spilled onto his forehead. A few freckles dusted his nose, and his eyes said he was sorry for me to go.

The broader problem is that a great deal of popular preaching and teaching uses the bible as a pegboard on which to hang a fair bit of Christianized pop psychology or moralizing encouragement, with very little effort to teach the faithful, from the Bible, the massive doctrines of historic confessional Christianity.

One reason I didn’t hold any grudges or harsh feelings toward Dad must have been that my mother seldom blamed him—at least not to us or in our hearing. I can hardly think of a time when she spoke against him.

However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars. For the Christian, it is God's Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance. The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ.

Agent Carson pulled up in her SUV. We'd thrown her when we both climbed into her official vehicle, but I quickly explained that Reyes, my affianced, had separation anxiety.

No one ever said, “This isn’t the way normal people live.” Again, I think it was the sense of family unity, strengthened by the Averys, that kept me from being too concerned about the quality of our life in Boston.

effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God, not a technique for acquiring blessings.

I’d rather be treated with respect than treated like a lady.” Hampton

If we harbor bitterness and resentment, praying is little more than wasted time and effort.

I’d never before been infatuated with someone living, someone real.

close the wounds, and the 22-hour surgical ordeal was over. The Siamese

I glanced at Carson, who had promised things would be alright. His gaze was on the floor, and a muscle in his jaw flexed rhythmically but unhelpfully. If he was trying to send me a message, I was out of luck, because I'd never learned Morse Code for Assholes.

God’s purpose for the men and women he redeems is not simply to have them believe certain truths but to transform them in a lifelong process that stretches toward heaven.

Be patient; it is better to be a chastened saint than a carefree sinner.

You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?" I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added, " She is happy, I think, She is rich, so she is happy." Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince! " How do you know?" he said. I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind." "Perhaps she's changed," he said. " I don't think so, your Highness.

when he heard you were at finishing school, he was indignant. He demanded to know why you needed to be finished since there was nothing wrong with you to start with. I couldn’t answer him because I’d like to ask that father of yours the same question.

Great things were going to happen in my life, and I had to do my part by preparing myself and being ready.

we will see profound spiritual renovation if by God’s grace we make it our commitment not to put anyone down—except on our prayer list.

Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness?

Some forms of absolutism are not bad; they may even be heroic.

There was something about speaking in a foreign language that made her feel like she'd been around a lot.

Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship. In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself. Despite the protestations, one sometimes wonders if we are beginning to worship worship rather than worship God. As a brother put it to me, it’s a bit like those who begin by admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset.

In the moral realm, there is very little consensus left in Western countries over the proper basis of moral behavior. And because of the power of the media, for millions of men and women the only venue where moral questions are discussed and weighed is the talk show, where more often than not the primary aim is to entertain, even shock, not to think. When Geraldo and Oprah become the arbiters of public morality, when the opinion of the latest media personality is sought on everything from abortion to transvestites, when banality is mistaken for profundity because [it's] uttered by a movie star or a basketball player, it is not surprising that there is less thought than hype. Oprah shapes more of the nation's grasp of right and wrong than most of the pulpits in the land. Personal and social ethics have been removed from the realms of truth and structures of thoughts; they have not only been relativized, but they have been democratized and trivialized.

What it comes down to is how much heart you have, and how you will give this your all, not because anyone will give you accolades, but on the contrary, because no one ever has, and you don't depend on that for your success. Those guys out there who have been coddled constantly, and cheered for their whole lives, they'll be the first ones to quit when they don't have anyone to depend on but themselves. But not you–because you've never known any different. And that sucks. But in this case, it's your strength. It's your ace in the hole. I'd bet on you, Carson Stinger.

Those guys out there who have been coddled constantly, and cheered for their whole lives, they'll be the first ones to quit when they don't have anyone to depend on but themselves. But not you - because you've never known any different. And that sucks. But in this case, it's your strength. It's your ace in the hole. I'd bet on you, Carson Stinger.

Writing of only one small part of the broader problem, namely the single-minded pursuit of individualistic 'rights,' [Don] Feder is not wrong to conclude: Absent a delicate balance--rights and duties, freedom and order--the social fabric begins to unravel. The rights explosion of the past three decades has taken us on a rapid descent to a culture without civility, decency, or even that degree of discipline necessary to maintain an advanced industrial civilization. Our cities are cesspools, our urban schools terrorist training camps, our legislatures brothels where rights are sold to the highest electoral bidder.

In any career, whether as a surgeon, a musician, or a secretary, one needs to have a confidence that says, “I can do anything, and if I can’t do it, I know how to get help.

Either worrying drives out prayer, or prayer drives out worrying.

The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior.

On the last day, God will ask, in effect, “What have you done with the salvation I bestowed on you?

I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don't want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don't want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don't want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel, please.

How fucking ironic—I’d been looking for love for the last eight years. And when I finally stopped wanting and believing in it, it found me. I didn’t have feelings for Carson—I was in love with him.

One cannot fail to observe a crushing irony: the gospel of relativistic tolerance is perhaps the most “evangelistic” movement in Western culture at the moment, demanding assent and brooking no rivals.

Drualt cleared his throat and began the traditional stanzas from Drualt. They hadn’t been said at weddings in his day, naturally, but they’d been said in Bamarre for centuries now. “Drualt took Freya’s warm hand, Her strong hand, Her sword hand, And pressed it to his lips, Pressed it . . .” Drualt’s voice wavered. He pulled a handkerchief from the pouch at his waist and blew his nose. Then he began again.

The only thing of transcendent importance to human beings is the knowledge of God. This knowledge does not belong to those who endlessly focus on themselves. Those who truly come to know God delight just to know him. He becomes their center. They think of him, delight in him, boast of him.

And Belen?" "Yes, Your Majesty?" Maybe I do want to talk about him. A little. "Humberto would be proud of you, too. He always believed you'd come back to us." Saying his name aloud doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Humberto, I practice silently. Humberto. A soft catch of breath. Then: "He had a way of believing in people long before they believed in themselves, didn't he?" The entrance to my tent flaps closes, and he is gone.

I'd be unnatural if I weren't enraged. And unnatural if I didn't act on my rage." "Perhaps you couldn't help being angry." the earl answered, "but you could certainly stop yourself from repaying one offense with another.

Even if they were trained fighters, they'd likely be as pathetic as the rest of Joya d'Arena's military." "Our pathetic military defeated yours in a single battle," I snap, before remembering that Storm is probably goading me for personal amusement. "No, my dear Queen, you did," he says. "You and your Godstone.

I’d anticipated insults before they came. I’d avoided looking in actual mirrors, but I’d gazed constantly in the mirror in my mind and always hated what I showed myself. I looked again in the real mirror in front of me. Dignified. Dignified and grand. I closed my eyes and saw myself again. Milk-white face, blood-red lips. Dignified and grand.

He asks me which of them two I liked best. Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once--I don't know--I've forgotten; but I loved James Wilson, that's now on trial, above what tongue can tell--above all else on earth put together; and I love him now better than ever, though he has never known a word of it till this minute... I never found out how dearly I loved another till one day, when James Wilson asked me to marry him, and I was very hard and sharp in my answer (for indeed, sir, I'd a deal to bear just then), and he took me at my word and left me; and from that day to this I've never spoken a word to him, or set eyes on him; though I'd fain have done so, to try and show him we had both been too hasty; for he'd not been gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved--far above my life," said she, dropping her voice as she came to this second confession of the strength of her attachment. "But, if the gentleman asks me which I loved the best, I make answer, I was flattered by Mr. Carson, and pleased with his flattery; but James Wilson, I"-- She covered her face with her hands, to hide the burning scarlet blushes, which even dyed her fingers.

It's not what you know but the kind of job you do that makes the difference.

If you're good, you'll be recognized. Because people, even if they're prejudiced, are going to want the best. You just have to make being the best your goal in life.

To walk into the unknown with a God of unqualified power and unfailing goodness is safer than a known way.

Sin is social: although it is first and foremost defiance of God, there is no sin that does not touch the lives of others. Even

All I know is that I'd rather face uncertainty with you than all the certainty in the world with someone else.

We don’t do big magic. Lucinda’s the only one. It’s too dangerous.” “What’s dangerous about ending a storm?” “Maybe nothing, maybe something. Use your imagination.” “Clear skies would be good. People could go outside.” “Use your imagination,” Mandy repeated. I thought. “The grass needs rain. The crops need rain.” “More,” Mandy said. “Maybe a bandit was going to rob someone, and he isn’t doing it because of the weather.” “That’s right. Or maybe I’d start a drought, and then I’d have to fix that because I started it. And then maybe the rain I sent would knock down a branch and smash in the roof of a house, and I’d have to fix that too.” “That wouldn’t be your fault. The owners should have built a stronger roof.” “Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe I’d cause a flood and people would be killed. That’s the problem with big magic. I only do little magic

We quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate “temple” in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. He is more vitally disposed to display his grace than to flatter our intelligence. He is more concerned for justice than for our ease. He is more deeply committed to stretching our faith than our popularity. He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life. These essential values of the gospel must shape our praying, as they shape Paul’s. Indeed, they become the ground for our praying (“For this reason . . . I pray”): it is a wonderful comfort, a marvelous boost to faith, to know that you are praying in line with the declared will of almighty God.

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to basic Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher’s sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity.

My thoughts went to Mother, who probably wasn’t sleeping, either. On nights when we were both troubled—usually about money—we’d each go to the kitchen and find the other there. I’d brew my auntwort tea, which had calming effects, and Mother would build up the fire if the night was chilly. Then we’d sit by the fireplace with quilts over our knees and play guessing games until our yawns came quicker than our ideas.

is it not nevertheless true that by and large we are better at organizing than agonizing? Better at administering than interceding? Better at fellowship than fasting? Better at entertainment than worship? Better at theological articulation than spiritual adoration? Better—God help us!—at preaching than at praying?

To have faith in the gospel message is not the same thing as responding positively to the story of Superman, who is also said to invade our turf from beyond. Although biblical faith has a major ‘subjective’ or ‘personal’ or ‘existential’ component, it depends even more on its object - on the other side of the ‘window’.

Here it is undeveloped, a roll of film with all its mysteries locked up. I never took it anyplace, just left it waiting in a drawer dreaming of stars. That was our time, to see if Lottie Carson was who we thought she was, all those shots we took, cracking up, kissing with our mouths open, laughing, but we never finished it. We thought we had time, running after her, jumping on the bus and trying to glimpse her dimple through the tired nurses arguing in scrubs and the moms on the phone with the groceries in the laps of the kids in the strollers. We hid behind the mailboxes and lampposts half a block away as she kept moving through her neighborhood, where I've never been, the sky getting dark on only the first date, thinking all the while we'd develop it later.

Carson leaned back in his chair. “You’re still gorgeous, if you don’t mind me saying. I like this natural look. I didn’t know what to expect when you agreed to meet. I’ve only seen you at the club, so I had no idea what you’d wear outside in the real world, but I like it. I don’t know about the baseball team itself, but the cap is good. And you’re even more stunning without all the makeup.” He gave her a once-over, allowing his eyes to roam before he stopped at her eyes and gave her another wink.

As theologian and emeritus professor D. A. Carson has observed, People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.1

do not tie your joy, your sense of well-being, to power in ministry. Your ministry can be taken from you. Tie your joy to the fact you are known and loved by God; tie it to your salvation; tie it to the sublime truth that your name is written in heaven.

Vouloir 'contrôler la nature' est une arrogante prétention, née d'une biologie et d'une philosophie qui en sont encore à l'âge de Néandertal, où l'on pouvait croire la nature destinée à satisfaire le bon plaisir de l'homme. Les concepts et les pratiques de l'entomologie appliquée reflètent cet âge de pierre de la science. Le malheur est qu'une si primitive pensée dispose actuellement des moyens d'action les plus puissants, et que, en orientant ses armes contre les insectes, elle les pointe aussi contre la terre.

At the end of the day, prime allegiance must be to God himself, to God alone.

Our true city is the new Jerusalem, even while we still belong to Paris or Budapest or New York.

Where there are disagreements of principle, argue them out. Take out your Bibles, think things through, find out why you are disagreeing, and be willing to be corrected.

To do his best, one needs a confidence that says, "I can do anything, and if I can't do it, I know how to get help.

In all our pursuit of excellence, we must never worship excellence. That would simply be idolatrous.

God’s valuation of his people is established by his valuation of Christ.

si Dios no existe, todo nos está permitido».

It didn't matter. Carson wasn’t the one for me. He wasn’t even the one for right now. My life would hopefully have its great love story but this wasn't it. It would happen in D.C. in the next four years or it would happen in Africa, if I ever got there, or in Sienna or, for all I knew, Kentucky or Timbuktu. Life was long. And people only really had great love affairs in high school in the movies. And maybe during world wars. But this was not a movie and not a war, even if it sometimes felt that way. It was only high school and it was almost over with anyway.

I think you’d better stay extra alert tonight.” “Okay.” “I’m serious, Jeff. Someone snuck up on both Hampton and Martin, and neither of them are shirkers.” He grins. “You’re worried for me, aren’t you?” “Course I am.” “Know what I think?” I scowl at him, which only widens his grin. He steps closer, puts a hand to my chin, and lifts it so I can’t avoid his gaze. “I think you’re in love with me,” he says. I stare at his lips. What comes out of my mouth is: “Jefferson McCauley Kingfisher, you have the swagger of a rooster and the swelled head of a melon.

Char was looking at me with such gladness, and I loved him so. I was the cause of his joy and would be the cause of his destruction: a secret delivered to his enemies, a letter written in my own hand, a covert signal given by me, poison in his glass, a dagger in his ribs, a fall from a parapet. "Marry me, Ella," he said again, the order a whisper now. "Say you'll marry me." Anyone else could have said no or yes. This wasn't a royal command. Char probably had no idea he'd given an order. But I had to obey—wanted to obey—hated to harm him—wanted to marry him. I would destroy my love and my land. They were in anger, and no one could rescue them. We were all doomed, all cursed. Char was too precious to hurt, too precious to lose, too precious to betray, too precious to marry, too precious to kill, to precious to obey.

I didn't look back, I took Rhys's hand and faced ahead. He and I would have our own adventures, and I'd be brave as I could be. Meryl would visit sometimes and tell me her tales. I'd weave her adventures and mine into tapestries. I'd put both of us in them, back to back, Meryl fighting her monsters and I fighting mine. And perhaps one day someone would make up verses about us, and we'd be together again, the two princesses of Bamarre.

The impact of philosophical pluralism on Western culture is incalculable. It touches virtually every discipline—history, art, literature, anthropology, education, philosophy, psychology, the social sciences, even, increasingly, the “hard” sciences—but it has already achieved popularity in the public square, even when its existence is not recognized. It achieves its greatest victory in redefining religious pluralism so as to render heretical the idea that heresy is possible.

To put the matter at its most basic, Paul’s prayer is the product of his passion for people. His unaffected fervency in prayer is not whipped-up emotionalism but the overflow of his love for brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. That means that if we are to improve our praying, we must strengthen our loving. As we grow in disciplined, self-sacrificing love, so we will grow in intercessory prayer. Superficially fervent prayers devoid of such love are finally phony, hollow, shallow.

...Heracles was strangely silent. What is he thinking? / Geryon wondered. / Geryon watched prehistoric rocks move past the car and thought about thoughts. / Even when they were lovers / he had never known what Herakles was thinking. Once in a while he would say, / Penny for your thoughts! / and it always turned out to be some odd thing like a bumper sticker or a dish / he'd eaten in a Chinese restaurant years ago. / What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them / developed a dangerous cloud.

Some honest differences of opinion among genuine believers could be resolved if they would take the time to sort out why they are looking at things differently and if they would take their views and attitudes and submit them afresh, self-critically, to the Scriptures.

go on hating myself forever for all the terrible things I’d done. I sank down on the toilet, sharp mental pictures of other temper fits filling my mind. I saw my anger, clenched my fists against my rage. I wouldn’t be any good for anything if I couldn’t change. My poor mother, I thought. She believes in me. Not even she knows how bad I am. Misery engulfed me in darkness. “If you don’t do this for me, God, I’ve got no place else to go.” At one point I’d slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab a Bible. Now I opened it and began

However, at the moment, I believe the more important thing that can be done with the platform I have been given is to try to convince the American populace that we are not one another’s enemies even if a (D) is by some of our names and an (R) by the names of others. Knowing that the future of my grandchildren and everyone else’s is put in jeopardy by a continuation of reckless spending, godless government, and mean-spirited attempts to silence critics leaves me with little choice but to continue to expound on the principles outlined in my prayer breakfast speech and to fight for a bright future for America.

When Postman wrote the introduction to his important book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he set forth the stance he adopts by contrasting the warnings of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World: Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think…. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared that we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.34

Char was looking at me with such gladness, and I loved him so. I was the cause of his joy and would be the cause of his destruction: a secret delivered to his enemies, a letter written in my own hand, a covert signal given by me, poison in his glass, a dagger in his ribs, a fall from a parapet. "Marry me, Ella," he said again, the order a whisper now. "Say you'll marry me." Anyone else could have said no or yes. This wasn't a royal command. Char probably had no idea he'd given an order. But I had to obey—wanted to obey—hated to harm him—wanted to marry him. I would destroy my love and my land. They were in danger, and no one could rescue them. We were all doomed, all cursed. Char was too precious to hurt, too precious to lose, too precious to betray, too precious to marry, too precious to kill, to precious to obey.

Are you two dating now?” “Yup,” I say with finality. “We’re a couple, so I’m sorry to inform you but your title of cutest couple is about to be stolen.” “You think we’re cuter than Milly and Carson?” Emory asks. “Of course. No competition. Milly is gorgeous but Carson is bringing down the team. I surpass them without even having a girlfriend, hell, if I were coupled up with my nightstand, I’d be a better couple.” “I’ll be sure to spread the news on to Carson.” Knox laughs to himself. “Not the best idea, you know how sensitive he is.” “I think you’re referring to yourself,” Knox points out. I chuckle. “True, I’m very sensitive and if he finds out and comes after my ass, I won’t recover easily, which means I’ll be over here at your place, begging you to nurse me back to health so my lady friend doesn’t have to see me in such a weak state.” Knox scratches the side of his jaw and says, “Have I ever told you how much I really don’t like you?” “Almost every day.” I wink at him.

The emergent Church is the latest act in the wave of antimodernist revolt by liturgical renewal and charismatic revival, a rebellion whose central insight is that rationalistic fundamentalism, as much as liberalism, is a mass of worldly accretions. The historical record and human feeling, not the illusion of inerrancy, are supposed to command authority in the post-Christian age. Yet American evangelicals' craving for clear authority is second only to their refusal to let any authority boss them around. Skeptics note that the Emergent Church is a movement of quintessentially evangelical individualists. 'By constantly appealing to the "capital T" Tradition, and then in effect picking and choosing from its offerings, they do not succeed in living out any of the traditions that flow from the Tradition, but create their own eclectic, ad hod churchmanship,' wrote D.A. Carson, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. 'It is controlled by what these emerging thinkers judge to be appropriate in the postmodern world - and this results, rather ironically, in one of the most self-serving appeals to tradition I have ever seen.

Second, it is imperative that we remind ourselves how innovative philosophical pluralism is. When Machen confronted the impact of modernism on Christianity, his driving point was that the liberalism of his day, whatever it was, was not Christianity at all, even though that was the way it paraded itself.116 At least he recognized what was at stake, and addressed the fundamental issues. Today we must recognize that philosophical pluralism is not only non-Christian (though some Western pluralists think of themselves as Christians), but that the nature of the relativism it spawns and the worldliness that it engenders are in some respects qualitatively new, and must be addressed in fresh terms. Many generations have recognized how difficult it is for finite and sinful mortals to come to close agreement as to the objective truth of this or that subject, but this is the first generation to believe that there is no objective truth out there, or that if there is, there is no access to it. This necessarily changes the character of at least some of the debate.

From A Deadly Shade of Gold, a Travis McGee title: “The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.” From the stand-alone thriller Where Is Janice Gantry?: “Somebody has to be tireless, or the fast-buck operators would asphalt the entire coast, fill every bay, and slay every living thing incapable of carrying a wallet.” These two angles show up everywhere in his novels: the need to—maybe reluctantly, possibly even grumpily—stand up and be counted on behalf of the weak, helpless, and downtrodden, which included people, animals, and what we now call the environment—which was in itself a very early and very prescient concern: Janice Gantry, for instance, predated Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking Silent Spring by a whole year. But the good knight’s armor was always tarnished and rusted. The fight was never easy and, one feels, never actually winnable. But it had to be waged. This strange, weary blend of nobility and cynicism is MacDonald’s signature emotion. Where did it come from? Not, presumably, the leafy block where he was raised in quiet and comfort. The war must have changed him, like it changed a generation and the world.