“To tell a tale so great as to tear the soul inside out"Sara Niles, Torn From the Inside Out”

“Nothing good was withheld from me, even moral guidance was provided as my uncle read to me nightly out of a King James red-letter edition Bible. “Them’s the Good Lord’s words in red,” he would say reverently. These lessons installed in me a sense of moral propriety and spiritual obligation that I would later misconstrue to my own detriment. The strength of character I gleaned from them would enable me to survive myself and all lesser foes.”

“The sun would still rise, the seasons would still come, life would continue. I was thankful to have been a part of it; I would take the memories and savor them for the life ahead. I had been given the components that would comprise the fate of my destiny; they had aged into my soul so that part of the past would always remain with me. They would be there for me to draw strength from on days in my future when death would seem a triumph and life too hard to live any more.”

“In the process of my evolution, I became a victim of domestic war, an emotional casualty for a major portion of my life, entwined, entrapped and emotionally involved until I learned how to become free. Freedom has never been easily gained and has often come at high cost throughout history, but one thing I will always know is freedom is worth every fight, and all pain.”

“It was nineteen fifty seven, the Little Rock nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard. This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times”

“The climate of Barrow is Arctic. Temperatures range from cold as shit to fucking freezing.”

“the point of church isn't to get people to come to church." "No?" said Steve, cocking an eyebrow. "What is it?" It seemed obvious to me. "to feed them, so they can go out and, you know, be Jesus." Take this Bread, A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles”