Robert J. Wiersema

“The trouble with chronic pain is that it is so easy to become accustomed to it, both mentally and physically. At first it's absolutely agonizing; it's the only thing you think about, like a rock in your shoe that rubs your foot raw with every step. Then the constant rubbing, the pain and the limp all become part of the status quo, the occasional stabbing pain just a reminder.You are so set to endure, hunched against it - and when it starts to ease, you don't really notice, until the absence washes over you like a balm.”

“Tim looked my way again. "And how to you think you will be judged, on the day the trumpet sounds? You who have caused so much pain, so many deaths.""I have been true to Him. I have stood up for His name when all around me ---""For His name," Tim said. "But what of what He taught? What of the innocents you have killed in His name?""I've only known one miraculous innocent," Father Peter said."And you've spent your lifetimes trying to atone for your betrayal, to protect his memory. A memory that doesn't need your protection.""You're not going to change my mind.""I know," Tim said. His voice was sad.”

“A wise man once said that the best definition of insanity was performing the same action over and over again, expecting different results."Father Peter stopped smiling. "The same could be said of you. What makes you so sure you're right? And so sure I'm wrong?""The difference is that I made a mistake once, out of ignorance," Tim said. "Everything I've done since then has been to try to make amends.""To earn forgiveness.""To protect the innocents." Tim smiled, "And yes, to earn forgiveness.”

“As she cried, I could feel growing there, as had once before, a presence between us: the tiny perfect form of Sherry nestled between her parents' bodies. Our bodies were shaped by her absence, by the almost unbearable weight of her loss.”

“And that's what we'll do every day. If you or your friends spray-paint obscenities on our walls, we'll scrub them off, and the people will come. if you break our windows, we'll fix them, and the people will come. If you hurt us, we'll wash off the blood, slap on some bandages and the people will come...any wound you inflict, we'll stitch up. We're not going to stop, no matter what you do. This work is too important. Too many lives are at stake.”

“Nostalgia is, by its very nature, bittersweet, the happiest memories laced with melancholy. It’s that combination, that opposition of forces, that makes it so compelling. People, places, events, times: we miss them, and there’s a pleasure in the missing and a sadness in the love.The feeling is most acute, sometimes cripplingly so, when we find ourselves longing for the moment we’re in, the people we’re actually with.That nameless feeling, that sense of excruciating beauty, of pained happiness, is at the core of “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).”