Theology, Like Fiction, Is Largely Autobiographical.

The Shield Was Another Of The Fear's Names. According To Laughter, It Means He Shields The Seed Of Abraham The Way A Man Starting A Fire Shields The Flame. When Sarah Was About To Die Childless, The Fear Gave Her A Son. When Abraham Was About To Slaughter The Son, The Fear Gave Him The Ram. He Is Always Shielding Us Like A Guttering Wick, Laughter Said, Because The Fire He Is Trying To Start With Us Is A Fire That The Whole World Will Live To Warm Its Hands At. It Is A Fire In The Dark That Will Light The Whole World Home.

When Someone We Love Suffers, We Suffer With That Person, And We Would Not Have It Otherwise, Because The Suffering And The Love Are One, Just As It Is With God's Love For Us.

In Other Words To Live Eternal Life In The Full And Final Sense Is To Be With God As Christ Is With Him, And With Each Other As Christ Is With Us.

What Makes You, In The Deepest Sense Of The Word, Happy? That's What You Should Be Doing, If The Other Part Is Also Met - If It Is Something The World Needs.

My Story Is Important Not Because It Is Mine, God Knows, But Because If I Tell It Anything Like Right, The Chances Are You Will Recognize That In Many Ways It Is Also Yours… It Is Precisely Through These Stories In All Their Particularity, As I Have Long Believed And Often Said, That God Makes Himself Known To Each Of Us More Powerfully And Personally. If This Is True, It Means That To Lose Track Of Our Stories Is To Be Profoundly Impoverished Not Only Humanly But Also Spiritually.