-Coldness and warm places.
-Protracted struggles.
-Suffering and God's strength established.
-Health which recognizes excruciating suffering and seeks fervently to empathize and convalesce.
-Tea
-Coffee
-Good and responsibly consumed alcohol.
-Art
-The Lord of the Rings
-T. S. Eliot
-Charlie Brown
-Felix Mendelssohn and Bach.
-Christina Rossetti
-Courage
-Temptation and God's strength to overcome it.
-Second, third, fourth and fifth chances.
-Sci-Fi
-Old movies
-Football
-Baseball
-Evenings
-Fireplaces
-Structure
-Redemption
-Law
-Gospel
-Darkness and Lightness.
-Confusion and patience.
-Aches after a good work-out.
-Empathy, empathy, empathy.
-Family and its good and often ridiculous traditions.
-Christmas trees, ragamuffin cats, beautiful places in the world.
-Challenging people with challenging opinions and challenging thoughts.
-My complete weakness, especially when it terrifies me.
-Realizing sometimes life sucks awfully bad, but understanding that the point of our relationship with God isn't a gee-whiz walk through the park, but an answer to the most pernicious shocks of life.
-Never, ever, ever being isolated from hope and God. No matter what. Not ever.
-Evidence of our own screw-ups and empathy for other's mistakes.
-Love. Pure, technicolor, overwhelming, hard-working, conditionless, sympathetic, Holy, delicious, complicated, simple, antiseptic, soft, fuzzy, palpable, teemingly prolific, and incomprehensibly mighty love.
-God and His unending fountain of the aforementioned love.