When Crickets Cry

by Charles Martin

Charlie leaned in closer and placed one finger in the air. “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” I smiled. What Shakespeare did for me, Helen Keller did for Charlie.

“That which we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence.” At the time I had not read Wittgenstein, but I have read him many times

Saint Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

but maybe life is like that—you never know when something that’s been hidden is going to rise up and bite you, or glow with a golden hue.

“How would you know? You just said you’ve only loved one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one.” “You can buy that lie if you want, but if you’re working for a bank, you don’t study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit.”

On the front was engraved Above all else, guard your heart . . . And on the back . . . for it is the wellspring of life.

if anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart.

Hope is not the result of medicine or anything that science has to offer. It is a flower that sprouts and grows when others pour water upon it. I think sometimes that I spent so much time worrying about how to protect and strengthen the flower—even going so far as to graft in a new stem and root system—that I forgot to simply water it.