our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts u… - Frederick Buechner

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.

The life thatI touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

It was not so much that a door opened as that I suddenly found that a door had been open all along which I had only just then stumbled upon.