From The Miscellany Drawer

  "The most certain measure of a dumbed-down population is that nobody is asking dumb questions."

"If I were awarding an all-time prize for human ingenuity, it would go to the person who, unable to command anyone's respect or gratitude or love, invented the concept of loyalty." 

Ever wonder what an atheist says the ten or twenty times each day when everyone else says, "Thank God!"

"The central fallacy in parenting is that it's a teaching experience when, in fact, it's a learning experience.  We are asked as parents to absorb each lesson quickly enough to convert it, real-time, into advice and counsel." 

A Trail You Blaze

 "One key to succeeding is to get it out of your head that there's always going to be clear evidence that you are."

On Faith

 "Who is the person of greater faith -- the person of certainty or the person who every day overcomes doubt?"

On Happiness

 "One thing you notice about the happiest people is that they always seem to have the littlest reason."

On Parenting

"There is this curious feeling you have as a parent that nothing you do makes any difference and yet has lifelong consequences."

"All you can do as a parent is to make the recommended mistakes at the recommended age and trust to God."

"What's missing from most How-To books on parenting is how to be on the receiving end of it." 

A Thought By The Fire

 How often do we search to find

  in memories of old

Or in some fancied, wistful dream

 of days to yet unfold

Or in our fond imaginings of places

  far and wide

The happiness that all the while

  is sitting by our side.

Tender Subjects

I asked, "How can anyone who really knows me ever love me?" only to discover that it was the only way anyone ever would.

"It's not easy -- loving someone through the chinks in their armor -- and we seldom appreciate enough the person we ask it of."

"To truly know someone is to know the thing they never speak of -- and to recognize the silences that speak of it."