We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of "the created." We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. But once we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential.

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.

Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.

The act of tattooing one's skin was a tranformative declaration of power, an announcment to the world: I am in control of my own flesh.

If it wasn't painfully difficult, you did it wrong!

Please accept this humble fax. My love for you is without wax.

Vittoria slipped off her robe. 'You've never been to bed with a yoga master, have you?