Our lives flicker on the edge of darkness for our brief moment in the world before the mystery where we were birthed takes us back again. The elusive hope we nurture while we cast a shadow, is more certain than we imagine. In our anxiety about whether our lives will end well, we can overlook the fact that our simple presence on the earth is unfathomable miracle, and that a life well lived is not about its end. Indeed, the most uncertain aspect of life on earth is whether it has an end at all. Even our beginning remains an enigma to us. We aren't here long at all before we've totally forgotten our birth. In our hearts, we might have been here forever.

Here are eighteen stories exploring the ongoing miracle of life (and death), offered to remind the reader that ordinary is merely the illusion we foster to shield ourselves from the constant unbearable onslaught of glory.