“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”

“It is this nothingness (in solitude) that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“...I can’t help but throw myself at him, wrapping my body around his. I hear him laugh softly before I push my mouth hard against his, pulling a deep groan from him. I feel his arms wrap around me, holding me tight as he turns and backs us up against the closed door. I’m glad we’re alone in here..”

“She closes the door completely, and I crouch there. I allow myself to fall forward and rest my head on the door frame. My breath bleeds. My heartbeat drowns my ears.”

“Pushing Carson back out of the door, I grabbed my jacket off the hook and shoved my feet into the great old clogs that my poor podiatrist father wants outlawed."Don't you want to change or something?" Mom called after me."She'll never change," Carson answered, and followed me down the steps.I settled myself into the passenger seat and buckled up as he back out of the driveway. "Your arches are falling?""Turns out I am deeply flawed," I admitted.”

“Silently, I lifted my doggy bowl off the floor. Then, with a quick, powerful flip of my wrist, I threw it into the back of Blondie’s head so hard that – with an earsplitting bang – it smashed flat before it ricocheted across the room and snapped the round top piece off the thick newel post at the foot of the stairs.”