christian-fiction

The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him, and that his business is to rearrange this essential vision into satisfying patterns, getting himself as little dirty in the process as possible.

Joy is that paradox where a man so trusts, is so enraptured, as to be caught up and lost in the other, while at the same time, being utterly known by the other, thus utterly himself.

In Joy, to lose one__ life is to gain it, and Joy never loses an opportunity to be lost in the other.

When sex was something godlike, Lust was the profane curiosity that killed many a straying cat. Now, having removed mystery, Lust is less a long-standing, overpowering yearning, more a sudden craving of the appetite. Less quest, more impulse buy.

Without God, reality is madness. Reason will tell you so. You either madly trust in God, or you trust in a world gone mad without him.

At the same time, they find their mind-god has played a trick on them. For mind is a part of the very system it has closed around it, and being inside, there is no reason to think any statement made by some part concerning the whole has any validity. Mind was caused by the material universe, if mind is right. But only the greater can accurately define the lesser, never the other way round, so if mind is right, mind would never know.

The more we train a man to labor, deliberate, dictate and demand over the inconsequential, the less capable his mind becomes of holding that of consequence.

So in a man__ mind, he appraises, negotiates, defines, delineates, weighs the information, and that includes God. As you can see, this is a relationship of management, not trust. You don__ trust things you can manage, you manage them. And so, God as information is managed and no relationship of trust is fostered.

For the first time in fifteen years, he felt a mother's love again.

Help me Lord be a Light and not a shadow in the darkness of my fears.

I__ a soldier. Believe me when I say that the greatest weapon anyone can use is not the sword but love. One day the world will see that and it won__ need men like me anymore._-Antoine (from Twiceborn)

I felt empowered by him, as if his very existence manipulated the balance of my nature from a shy little girl to wonder woman.

Their blissfully soft texture calmed me but alerted me at the same time. I couldn't explain the gentle spark of light that dripped off the edges. And of course, the aqua trim felt way too familiar.

All night, I thought about that walk. The touch of the forest tickled my skin long after, while the scent lingered in my nostrils. It was unlike anything back home. There was a feeling in the atmosphere I couldn't shake--something that was trying to draw me back. I felt alive in that forest. --His Name is Moonlight

I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't.

You would have only seen a skittish young deer jumping through the forest, having no idea it was a little girl.

I couldn't shake Zander's beady red eyes or the noise of his pounding wings behind us. His hot breath and foul stench reached for us, but couldn't catch us as we soared above liquid green fields in the Realm Beyond.

If the only tool in Willem's arsenal was a silent supplication to an absent almighty, then I might as well be sitting next to a raving radical ready to die for the promise of seventy-two virgins and a couple of camels.