“My Cuddle Time Bible Story BookSleeping with Jesus Baby Bibles: Tall Tales for Tiny totsEverybody Poops (Except God)”

“GOD: I own you like I own the caves.THE OCEAN: Not a chance. No comparison.GOD: I made you. I could tame you.THE OCEAN: At one time, maybe. But not now.GOD: I will come to you, freeze you, break you.THE OCEAN: I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what's happened to me.”

“Thank you," he says."Thank who?""I don't know. You?""No, not me. Jesus.""Thank you, Jesus?""Yes, Toph, Jesus died for your Christmas fun.”

“I have had friends who I decided were not good friends, were people who brought more trouble than happiness, and thus I have found ways to create more distance between us. Now I have the same thoughts about God, my faith, that I had for these friends. God is in my life but I do not depend on him. My God is not a reliable God.”

“God who protects my people I call upon you to send away the murahaleen. Protect me God protect my family as they run. Oh God of the sky, keep me safe tonight. Keep me hidden, keep me quiet. Oh God of rain, let me find water. Let me not die of thirst. Oh God of the soul, why are you doing this? I have done nothing to ask for this. I'm a boy. I'm a boy. Would you send this to a lamb? You have no right.”

“When I rest my head on the couch I know that it's coming, coming like something in the mail, something sent away for. We know it is coming, but are not sure when--weeks? months? She is fifty one. I am twenty-one. My sister is twenty-three. My brothers are twenty-four and seven. We are ready. We are not ready. People know.Our house sits on a sinkhole. Our house is the one being swept up in the tornado, the little train-set model floating helplessly, pathetically around in the howling black funnel. We're weak and tiny. We're Grenada. There are men parachuting from the sky.We are waiting for everything to finally stop working--the organs and systems, one by one, throwing up their hands--"The jig is up," says the endocrine; "I did what I could," says the stomach, or what's left of it; "We'll get em next time," adds the heart, with a friendly punch to the shoulder.”

“But what I really want is to just swim around in a warm baby pool of these friends, jump in their dry leaf pile-to rub them all over myself, without words and clothes.”