Anyone could tell he didn’t belong once he opened his mouth to sing the first line of the song “Kumbaya.” Apart from the unconscious cracks and the battle of staying on the key of C major, Joni was shaking with each breath exhaled. His legs wobbled, his hands waggled, and his eyes spoke the language of fear mixed with doubt. How shocking! He was introduced to the choir as a tenor singer from a sister church called Oasis. Unfortunately, this oasis had its lungs and throat all dried up. Joni stopped singing from the looks on every face. By a corner, he saw the man playing the drums lift his eyebrows - not in wonder but a mechanism most people adopt to hold back laughter. The woman playing the bass guitar was looking down at nothing. As Joni’s eyes roved around the church, he saw an invisible congregation, all rising from their seats, eyes tight with laughter! The white walls were bloody-looking. Ah! Even the brown wooden cross on the altar resembled a negation. Joni felt the wo...
If— BY RUDYARD KIPLING If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnin...