“Looking back now, I mourn the mutual wounds inflicted in verbal battles with the "unsaved". In fact, I have chosen to delete that particular term from my vocabulary as I have learned that even with my $500 European-designer bifocals, I cannot see into a person's heart to know his spiritual condition. All I can do is tell the jagged tale of my own spiritual journey and declare that my life has been better for having followed Christ.”

“I have learned that I cannot see into a person's heart to know his spiritual condition. All I can do is tell the jagged tale of my own spiritual journey and declare that my life has been the better for having followed Christ.”

“Leaving Forever My son can look me level in the eyes now,and does, hard, when I tell him he cannot watchchainsaw murders at the midnight movie,that he must bend his mind to Biology,under this roof, in the clear light of a Tensor lamp.Outside, his friends throb with horsepowerunder the moon.He stands close, milk souron his breath, gauging the heat of my conviction,eye-whites pink from his new contacts.He can see me better than before. And I can seemyself in those insolent eyes, mostly headin the pupil's curve, closed in by the contoursof his unwrinkled flesh.At the window he wavesa thin arm and his buddies squall away in a glareof tail lights. I reach out my arm to his shoulder,but he shrugs free and shows me my father's narrow eyes,the trembling hand at my throat, the hard wallat the back of my skull, the raised fist framedin the bedroom window I had climbed through at three A.M."If you hit me I'll leave forever,"I said. But everything was fine in a few days, fine."I would have come back," I said, "false teeth and all."Now, twice a year after the long drive, in the yellow lightof the front porch, I breathe in my father's whiskey,ask for a shot, and see myself distorted inhis thick glasses, the two of us grinning,as he holds me with both hands at arm's length.”

“The pain of losing Deborah still brings tears. And I cannot mask my profound disappointment that God did not answer yes to our prayers for healing. I think He's okay with that. One of the phrases we evangelicals like to throw around is that Christianity is 'not a religion; it's a relationship.' I believe that, which is why I know that when my faith was shattered and raged against Him, He still accepted me. And even though I have penciled a black mark in His column, I can be honest about it. That's what a relationship is all about.”

“There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. ”

“[Philip's death was] beyond comparison the most afflicting of my life.... He was truly a fine youth. But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven and he is now out of the reach of the seductions and calamities of a world full of folly, full of vice, full of danger, of least value in proportion as it is best known. I firmly trust also that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity. (Alexander Hamilton letter to Benjamin Rush about the death of his 19-year old son from mortal wounds inflicted from a duel.)”

“You was the onlyest person that looked past my skin and past my meanness and saw that there was somebody on the inside worth savin...We all has more in common than we think. You stood up with courage and faced me when I was dangerous, and it changed my life. You loved me for who I was on the inside, the person God meant for me to be, the one that had just gotten lost for a while on some ugly roads in life.”