“I have long considered the creative impulse to be a visit-a thing of grace, perhaps. Not commanded, owned, so much as awaited, prepared for. A thing, also, of mystery.”

“In that way the long-awaited visit, for which both had prepared questions and had even anticipated answers, was once more the usual everyday conversation.”

“Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so come to receive contentment.”

“Other things awaited. It was good to be young and to know it for once. So much unfolding to do.”

“My Heart Is a Holy PlaceMy heart is a holy placeWiser and holier than I know it to beWiser than my lips can speakA spring of mystery and grace.You have created my heartAnd have filled it with things of wonder.You have sculpted it, shaped it with your handsTouched it with your breath.In its own season it reveals itself to me.It shows me rivers of goldFlowing in eleganceAnd hidden paths of infinite beauty.You touch me with your stillness as I await its time.You have made it a dwelling place of richness and intricaciesOf wisdom beyond my understandingOf grace and mysteries, from your hands.”

“I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”