Of all facial expressions, which is the worst to have aimed at you? Wouldn't you agree it's disgust?

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.

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.

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth.

Good advice is a wise man's friend, of course; but sometimes it just flies on past, and all you can do is wave.

Fresh peach pie can lift a bullying reprobate into apologetic courtesy; I have watched it happen.

Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week--a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards.