I think 'Hail to the Chief' needs a little bit fresher sound. I might put some gospel beats in 'Hail to the Chief. '
Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat.
You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect- perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, health, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian is uncertain.
God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.
In a democracy in the 20th and 21st century, if you can't base your fiction upon ordinary people and the issues that engage them, then you are reduced to writing about spectacular unreal people. You know, James Bond or something, and you cook up adventures.
Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by
Most success depends on colleagues, on the team. People at the top have large egos, but you must never say 'I': it's always 'we'.
When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow, it was transformed for me into love.