In my worldview, there are filers, and there are pilers. Filers think alphabetically. Pilers think geologically.

Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question: If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God? A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine.

Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.

Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.

Dachshunds have their own agenda and can be stubborn about seeing their plans through to completion. What Rosie lacked in consistency, she made up for in enthusiasm. Most of the time when I called her name, she sprinted back, her long ears cocked and flying like a little girl's pigtails. Each encounter was a glorious reunion, even if we'd been parted for only a minute or two. I had never felt so loved.

Maybe that's the way to tell the dangerous men from the good ones. A dreamer of the day is dangerous when he believes that others are less: less than their own best selves and certainly less than he is. They exist to follow and flatter him, and to serve his purposes. A true prophet, I suppose, is like a good parent. A true prophet sees others, not himself. He helps them define their own half-formed dreams, and puts himself at their service. He is not diminished as they become more. He offers courage in one hand and generosity in the other.

Indulge me, John. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money.