We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing,this seeing. -Aunt Beast

It is not always on the great or the important that the balance of the universe depends.

What is self-image? Who started talking about one? I rather fancy it was Madison Avenue.

In art we are once again able to do all the things we have forgotten; we are able to walk on water; we speak to the angels who call us; we move, unfettered, among the stars.

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.

Refusing to accept God's love because we're unworthy - of course we're unworthy! - is another golden calf.

I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.