My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed--though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

Be careful whom you choose to hate. The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough, if you could but see it, to melt you into jelly. Beware those who reside beneath the shadow of the Wings.

It is one thing to say you're at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world shows up with it's crushing numbers and its predatory knowledge, it is another thing completely.

We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.

What else exhausts like sustained deception?

You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sins, you know, and cry tears while doing it that are genuine as any.

Love is a strange fact - it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It makes no sense at all.