“I felt the reckless abandon of one who knows she stands already among the damned. "Why not, then, another sin?”

“Here's the problem: when every sin is seen as the same, we are less likely to fight any sins at all. Why should I stop sleeping with my girlfriend when there will still be lust in my heart? Why pursue holiness when even one sin in my life means I'm Osama bin Hitler in God's eyes? Again, it seems humble to act as if no sin is worse than another, but we lose the impetus for striving and the ability to hold each other accountable when we tumble down the slip-n-slide of moral equivalence. All of a sudden the elder who battles the temptation to take a second look at the racy section of the Lands End catalog shouldn't dare exercise church discipline ont he young man fornicating with reckless abandon. When we can no longer see the different gradations among sins and sinners and sinful nations, we have not succeeded in respecting our own badness; we've cheapened God's goodness.”

“Maybe this kind of devotion is sinful," I continued. "Perhaps it was even the origin of sin. But you and I are already damned.”

“I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”

“Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon”

“I was paralyzed with fear. It was unbearable to be among other kids who were just standing around being fine. It was one of the many inconveniences of this paradox I lived with -the more people I was surrounded by, the more frighteningly alone I felt.”