As the apple is not the cause of the apple tree, but a fruit of it: even so good works are not the cause of our salvation, but a sign and fruit of the same.

Before the war an apple tree had stood behind the church. It was an apple tree that ate its own apples.

Evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith but then add a man-made waiver that you have to work as hard as you can can meet middle-class behavioral patterns to hang onto it.

I asked her what was so scary about unmerited free grace? She replied something like this: "If I was saved by my good works -- then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with rights. I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a sinner saved by sheer grace -- at God's infinite cost -- then there's nothing he cannot ask of me.

The fig tree grows its flowers strangely inside out, concealed within the soft interior of the fruit. Erszébet imagines the fig's hidden fairy weight of seeds, grown in sweetness that is also a darkness. Like treasure in a cave.

This is an invalid ordinance. Everything is fruit of the poisonous tree.