Transcendent Kingdom

by Yaa Gyasi

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Egad.

Surely, there’s strength in being dressed for a storm, even when there’s no storm in sight?

I would always have something to prove and that nothing but blazing brilliance would be enough to prove it.

And, though I hadn’t worked out how I felt about the Christianity of my childhood, I did know how I felt about my mother. Her devotion, her faith, they moved me. I was protective of her right to find comfort in whatever ways she saw fit. Didn’t she deserve at least that much? We have to get through this life somehow.

I suppose I’m still waiting for God to reveal himself.

We read the Bible how we want to read it. It doesn’t change, but we do.

I miss thinking in terms of the ordinary, the straight line from birth to death that constitutes most people’s lives.

“Anhedonia” is the psychiatric term for the inability to derive pleasure from things that are normally pleasurable. It’s the characterizing symptom in major depressive disorder, but it can also be a symptom of substance abuse, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease.