Our lives teach us who we are.
The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly nothing.
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 '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed. . . I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.
I know today that appreciating your own beauty does not come solely from therapy, make up application, or plastic surgery- although these things can help. Rather, it comes from a little door that opens in our minds and helps us celebrate our differences and find pride in our uniqueness.
The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: me too.
And now, I'm just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time.