varying degrees of light

What's more terrifying than asking your subject to read what you've written?
The movie Coraline, and a few other things but not a lot of other things.

What's more encouraging than hearing their laugh and seeing their smile as they read?
Running against the treacherous wind with only the stars to light the way, and then turning around at the end of the path, beaten but aided with that same wind. That comes close.

I've been told that they need leaders in Indonesia... and just that they thought to tell me this, that they need leaders, is also encouraging. And it leads me to ask how I could possibly be capable of fostering growth, or instilling confidence.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

God's Plot and Man's Stories by Leopold Damrosch, Jr.

The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life edited by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr.

Paradise Lost by John Milton