When We Did Not Move Or Speak,

Grace Has A Grand Laughter In It.

I Am Grateful For All Those Dark Years, Even Though In Retrospect They Seem Like A Long, Bitter Prayer That Was Answered Finally.

Anybody Who Has Read Any Biblical Scholarship Knows That Every Scholar Struggles Over Completely Intractable Problems With The Original Texts, Or What They Have To Work From. It's One Of The Great, Powerful, Mysterious Objects That Have Come Down Through History. This Does Not Translate Into Literal Interpretation For Me.

...if You Ever Wonder What You've Done In Your Life, And Everyone Does Wonder Sooner Or Later, You Have Been God's Grace To Me, A Miracle, Something More Than A Miracle.

Theologians Talk About A Prevenient Grace That Precedes Grace Itself And Allows Us To Accept It. I Think There Must Also Be A Prevenient Courage That Allows Us To Be Brave - That Is, To Acknowledge That There Is More Beauty Than Our Eyes Can Bear, That Precious Things Have Been Put Into Our Hands And To Do Nothing To Honor Them Is To Do Great Harm. And Therefore, This Courage Allows Us, As The Old Men Said, To Make Ourselves Useful. It Allows Us To Be Generous, Which Is Another Way Of Saying Exactly The Same Thing.