Berries Positive Quotes

Especially among Christians in positions of wealth and power, the idea of reading the Gospels and keeping Jesus' commandments as stated therein has been replaced by a curious process of logic. According to this process, people first declare themselves to be followers of Christ, and then they assume that whatever they say or do merits the adjective "Christian".

I fell in love with this self that was built from every positive thought I had between the shameful ones. She came from every bright light I’d noticed before it was overshadowed with darkness. I hoarded these delicate bits of time, waiting for when they could radiate again.

There was a time, in their flat, when the position of the piano meant that while James... saw only the left side of her face. She looked just like the girl he'd first seen at the parish dance in Poplar. But when a furniture rearrangement took place, on a whim, leaving Hazel's right side on display, James decided he liked that view even better. She was his, from every angle. The scars were a reminder that she came back

It could be said that a liberal education has the nature of a bequest, in that it looks upon the student as the potential heir of a cultural birthright, whereas a practical education has the nature of a commodity to be exchanged for position, status, wealth, etc., in the future. A liberal education rests on the assumption that nature and human nature do not change very much or very fast and that one therefore needs to understand the past. The practical educators assume that human society itself is the only significant context, that change is therefore fundamental, constant, and necessary, that the future will be wholly unlike the past, that the past is outmoded, irrelevant, and an encumbrance upon the future -- the present being only a time for dividing past from future, for getting ready. But these definitions, based on division and opposition, are too simple. It is easy, accepting the viewpoint of either side, to find fault with the other. But the wrong is on neither side; it is in their division... Without the balance of historic value, practical education gives us that most absurd of standards: "relevance," based upon the suppositional needs of a theoretical future. But liberal education, divorced from practicality, gives something no less absurd: the specialist professor of one or another of the liberal arts, the custodian of an inheritance he has learned much about, but nothing from.

This was supposed to be enjoyable, Matthew thought grimly. Berry had taught him the positions and steps last week, but with the fiddling and the drumming and Gilliam Vincent’s stick poised to strike a blow for artful perfection

The conventional public opposition of 'liberal' and 'conservative' is, here as elsewhere, perfectly useless. The 'conservatives' promote the family as a sort of public icon, but they will not promote the economic integrity of the household or the community, which are the mainstays of family life. Under the sponsorship of 'conservative' presidencies, the economy of the modern household, which once required the father to work away from home - a development that was bad enough - now requires the mother to work away from home, as well. And this development has the wholehearted endorsement of 'liberals,' who see the mother thus forced to spend her days away from her home and children as 'liberated' - though nobody has yet seen the fathers thus forced away as 'liberated.' Some feminists are thus in the curious position of opposing the mistreatment of women and yet advocating their participation in an economy in which everything is mistreated.

Work hard. Work dirty. Choose your favourite spade and dig a small, deep hole; located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Then bury your cellphone and then find a hobby. Actually, 'hobby' is not a weighty enough word to represent what I am trying to get across. Let's use 'discipline' instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands, instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook, play music, sew, carve, shit - bedazzle! Or, maybe not bedazzle... The arrhythmic is quite simple, instead of playing draw something, fucking draw something! Take the cleverness you apply to words with friends and utilise it to make some kick ass cornbread, corn with friends - try that game. I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favourite writer, Wendell Berry writes on this topic with great eloquence, he posits that we've been sold a bill of goods claiming that work is bad. That sweating and working especially if soil or saw dust is involved are beneath us. Our population especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labour that one loves is actually a privilege.

We are healthy, we think, if we do not feel any pain or too much pain, and if we are strong enough to do our work. If we become unhealthy, then we go to a doctor who we hope will “cure” us and restore us to health. By health, in other words, we mean merely the absence of disease. Our health professionals are interested almost exclusively in preventing disease (mainly by destroying germs) and in curing disease (mainly by surgery and by destroying germs). But the concept of health is rooted in the concept of wholeness. To be healthy is to be whole. The word health belongs to a family of words, a listing of which will suggest how far the consideration of health must carry us: heal, whole, wholesome, hale, hallow, holy. And so it is possible to give a definition to health that is positive and far more elaborate than that given to it by most medical doctors and the officers of public health.

Wendell and Tanya and I spoke at length about one of his themes that drives me with constancy, that of “good work.” One aspect of this topic that I often regurgitate is his dislike for a society that celebrates the notion of “Thank God it’s Friday!” Taking this position, people are necessarily saying that they despise five of every seven days of their lives. He said he first noticed it when he was teaching college, that people would answer the question “How are you doing?” with “Well, pretty good, for a Monday.” This exposed a joylessness that filled Mr. Berry with concern. “It’s a great harbinger of what’s to come. If you don’t like the classes about what you’re going to do, you’re not going to like going to do it.” “More

found myself constantly drawn to the subject of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which I have concluded is inextricably linked to psychopathy, although this link is rarely mentioned in medical papers or among the psychiatric profession generally. As with psychopathy, people with NPD make up approximately 1 per cent of the population with rates greater in men. Another direct comparison between those suffering with NPD and psychopathy/sociopathy is that both types are characterised by exaggerated feelings of self-importance. In its moderate to extreme forms these people are excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity; mentally unable to see the destructive damage they are causing themselves and others. Symptoms of the NPD disorder include seeking constant approval from others who are successful in positions of power in whatever form it may be. Many are selfish, grandiose pathological liars; their egos and sense of self-esteem over-inflated, while at once they are torn between exaggerated self-appraisal and the reality that they might never amount to much.

He fed the meter, and we walked the short distance to Hannibal's Kitchen, which was famous for its soul food. It was crowded, but we only had to wait fifteen minutes to be seated. Having Dante cook for us spoiled me, but I was always down to try another Gullah-Geechee soul food spot. I ordered the crab and shrimp fried rice and shark steak. Quinton had the rice with oxtails but then begged until I gave him some of my fish. Once we left, we went down East Bay to King Street, stopped in a bookstore, and walked through the City Market. Quinton picked up a pound cake from Fergie's Favorites, and I picked out a beautiful bouquet of flowers fashioned from sweetgrass. Sweetgrass symbolized harmony, love, peace, strength, positivity, and purity. I needed any symbol of those things that I could get. I also thought they'd be a nice peace offering for Mariah. I'd give her a few. We walked to Kaminsky's for dessert. I had their berry cobbler with ice cream. It was served in the ceramic dish it was baked in. I liked the coziness of eating out of a baking dish. The ice cream tasted homemade. The strawberry syrup exploded on my tongue. I didn't make pies, so whenever I had dessert out, I got pie. Quinton had his favorite milkshake and took key lime pie and bourbon pecan pie to go for his mother.

The real improvements then must come, to a considerable extent, from the local communities themselves. We need local revision of our methods of land use and production. We need to study and work together to reduce scale, reduce overhead, reduce industrial dependencies; we need to market and process local products locally; we need to bring local economies into harmony with local ecosystems so that we can live and work with pleasure in the same places indefinitely; we need to substitute ourselves, our neighborhoods, our local resources, for expensive imported goods and services; we need to increase cooperation among all local economic entities: households, farms, factories, banks, consumers, and suppliers. If. we are serious about reducing government and the burdens of government, then we need to do so by returning economic self-determination to the people. And we must not do this by inviting destructive industries to provide "jobs" to the community; we must do it by fostering economic democracy. For example, as much as possible the food that is consumed locally ought to be locally produced on small farms, and then processed in small, non- polluting plants that are locally owned. We must do everything possible to provide to ordinary citizens the opportunity to own a small, usable share of the country. In that way, we will put local capital to work locally, not to exploit and destroy the land but to use it well. This is not work just for the privileged, the well-positioned, the wealthy, and the powerful. It is work for everybody. I acknowledge that to advocate such reforms is to advocate a kind of secession-not a secession of armed violence but a quiet secession by which people find the practical means and the strength of spirit to remove themselves from an economy that is exploiting and destroying their homeland. The great, greedy, indifferent national and international economy is killing rural America, just as it is killing America's cities--it is killing our country. Experience has shown that there is no use in appealing to this economy for mercy toward the earth or toward any human community. All true patriots must find ways of opposing it. --1991

STRAWBERRY SHORTBREAD BAR COOKIES Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.   Hannah’s 1st Note: These are really easy and fast to make. Almost everyone loves them, including Baby Bethie, and they’re not even chocolate! 3 cups all purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) ¾ cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar (don’t sift un- less it’s got big lumps) 1 and ½ cups salted butter, softened (3 sticks, 12 ounces, ¾ pound) 1 can (21 ounces) strawberry pie filling (I used Comstock)*** *** - If you can’t find strawberry pie filling, you can use another berry filling, like raspberry, or blueberry. You can also use pie fillings of larger fruits like peach, apple, or whatever. If you do that, cut the fruit pieces into smaller pieces so that each bar cookie will have some. I just put my apple or peach pie filling in the food processor with the steel blade and zoop it up just short of being pureed. I’m not sure about using lemon pie filling. I haven’t tried that yet. FIRST STEP: Mix the flour and the powdered sugar together in a medium-sized bowl. Cut in the softened butter with a two knives or a pastry cutter until the resulting mixture resembles bread crumbs or coarse corn meal. (You can also do this in a food processor using cold butter cut into chunks that you layer between the powdered sugar and flour mixture and process with the steel blade, using an on-and-off pulsing motion.) Spread HALF of this mixture (approximately 3 cups will be fine) into a greased (or sprayed with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray) 9-inch by 13-inch pan. (That’s a standard size rectangular cake pan.) Bake at 350 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the edges are just beginning to turn golden brown. Remove the pan to a wire rack or a cold burner on the stove, but DON’T TURN OFF THE OVEN! Let the crust cool for 5 minutes. SECOND STEP: Spread the pie filling over the top of the crust you just baked. Sprinkle the crust with the other half of the crust mixture you saved. Try to do this as evenly as possible. Don’t worry about little gaps in the topping. It will spread out and fill in a bit as it bakes. Gently press the top crust down with the flat blade of a metal spatula. Bake the cookie bars at 350 degrees F. for another 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden. Turn off the oven and remove the pan to a wire rack or a cold burner to cool completely. When the bars are completely cool, cover the pan with foil and refrigerate them until you’re ready to cut them. (Chilling them makes them easier to cut.) When you’re ready to serve them, cut the Strawberry Shortbread Bar Cookies into brownie-sized pieces, arrange them on a pretty platter, and if you like, sprinkle the top with extra powdered sugar.

Typing fast, I added several former British Prime Ministers and ex-US Presidents to my permanent hate list. This, of course, was just out of basic principles. I certainly didn’t know any of them. In fact, several of them had died before I was born. But I thought they deserved to be hated all the same. They must have done something wrong. People usually don’t ascend to positions of power like that by being nice.

Our earliest ancestors were descended from primates who thrived for millions of years in a treetop environment, and who in the process had evolved one of the most remarkable visual systems in nature. To move quickly and efficiently in such a world, they developed extremely sophisticated eye and muscle coordination. Their eyes slowly evolved into a full-frontal position on the face, giving them binocular, stereoscopic vision. This system provides the brain a highly accurate three-dimensional and detailed perspective, but is rather narrow. Animals that possess such vision—as opposed to eyes on the side or half side—are generally efficient predators like owls or cats. They use this powerful sight to home in on prey in the distance. Tree-living primates evolved this vision for a different purpose—to navigate branches, and to spot fruits, berries, and insects with greater effectiveness. They also evolved elaborate color vision.

To remember people’s names, use usual Imagery—Connect the name with a mental picture that will remind you of that person. If his name is Barry, think of berries. If her name is Cheri, imagine her drinking cherry punch.

I found myself constantly drawn to the subject of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which I have concluded is inextricably linked to psychopathy, although this link is rarely mentioned in medical papers or among the psychiatric profession generally. As with psychopathy, people with NPD make up approximately 1 per cent of the population with rates greater in men. Another direct comparison between those suffering with NPD and psychopathy/sociopathy is that both types are characterised by exaggerated feelings of self-importance. In its moderate to extreme forms these people are excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity; mentally unable to see the destructive damage they are causing themselves and others. Symptoms of the NPD disorder include seeking constant approval from others who are successful in positions of power in whatever form it may be. Many are selfish, grandiose pathological liars; their egos and sense of self-esteem over-inflated, while at once they are torn between exaggerated self-appraisal and the reality that they might never amount to much.

poet Wendell Berry writes eloquently about the positive values that exist in rural communities that embrace an ethic of communalism and the sharing of resources. [...] Berry exposes the extent to which the interests of big business lead to the destruction of rural communities, reminding us that destruction is fast becoming the norm in all types of communities.

Nobody’s warnings could have prepared me for what meets my eyes. The room is a dirty white box with thick padded walls that remind me of an upholstered headboard. Even the ceiling is covered, as if someone could jump high enough to hit their head. There’s nothing in the room except Nichole. She huddles in the corner in the fetal position, rocking in rapid, repetitive motions, back and forth, and back and forth.

My grandmother brought me here with my twin sister, Alliw, when we were five years old,” Willa said. “She asked us to dip our hands into a bowl of paint she had made from berries. And then we pressed our palms right here, one beside the other, the left and the right, the Willa and Alliw, just like a thousand twins had done before us.” Trying to keep her breathing steady and strong, Willa put her left hand over the print she had made on the wall eight years before. To her surprise, Adelaide slowly leaned forward and put her right hand on the print next to hers. Willa thought Adelaide was trying to show that she was on her side, that she was her friend, and that although they were human and Faeran, they were sisters in a way. Their hands were positioned opposite to one another, their thumbs almost touching, as if a single girl was pressing her two hands to the wall. Because of the way the light was falling through the holes in the ceiling, Willa’s hand was cast in shadow, but Adelaide’s hand was bright. Left and right, dark and light, Faeran and human, green skin and white…Everything should have been different about their hands. But the more Willa looked, the more she marveled at what she was seeing. Other than the color, their hands were identical in size and shape, down to the wrinkles on their fingers. Willa’s heart began to pound in her chest. How could this be? How could their hands be so similar? She slowly turned her head and looked at Adelaide. Adelaide stared back at her, her eyes wide, as amazed as she was. And then Adelaide gazed all around at the walls of the cave and the long flow of the River of Souls. Willa watched as a trace of fear crept into Adelaide’s face. “Willa…” Adelaide whispered, her voice trembling with astonishment. “I think I’ve been here before.

Today it came back positive. But I will not have this thing growing inside me. I refuse. I will not bring his devil child into the world. I have a purpose now. A reason to live and I thought all my reasons were gone. I have to find a way to kill this thing.

Before I was kidnapped, I would have thought: What bad luck that my first flight was so horrible. Now, after learning to focus on the positive, I think: What good luck that we landed safely.

p. 371 – 372 Living in a paradise of magnificent meadows and forests abundant with wild game, berries, and nuts, the Utes were self-supporting and could have existed entirely without the provisions doled out to them by their agents at Los Pinos and White River. In 1875 agent F. F. Bond at Los Pinos replied to a request for a census of his Utes: “A count is quite impossible. You might as well try to count a swarm of bees when on the wing. They travel all over the country like the deer which they hunt.” Agent E. H. Danforth at White River estimated that about nine hundred Utes used his agency as a headquarters, but he admitted that he had no luck in inducing them to settle down in the valley around the agency. At both places, the Utes humoured their agents by keeping small beef herds and planting a few rows of corn, potatoes, and turnips, but there was no real need for any of these pursuits. The beginning of the end of freedom upon their own reservation came in the spring of 1878, when a new agent reported for duty at White River. The agent’s name was Nathan C. Meeker, former poet, novelist, newspaper correspondent, and organizer of cooperative agrarian colonies. Most of Meeker’s ventures failed, and although he sought the agency position because he needed the money, he was possessed of a missionary fervor and sincerely believed that it was his duty as a member of a superior race to “elevate and enlighten” the Utes. As he phrased it, he was determined to bring them out of savagery through the pastoral stage to the barbaric, and finally to “the enlightened, scientific, and religious stage.” Meeker was confident he could accomplish all this in “five, ten, or twenty years.” In his humourless and overbearing way, Meeker set out systematically to destroy everything the Utes cherished, to make them over into his image, as he believed he had been made in God’s image.

People usually don’t ascend to positions of power like that by being nice.

Hi, Kate.” He rose from his position on the floor when I walked into the room. He hugged me before kneeling back on the floor. I sat across from him. I held back the urge to giggle as we sat cross-legged in front of each other, like we were back in elementary school about to have a shoe-tying race. “It’s okay. You can laugh. Release any feeling that comes up,” he said.

us. And why must vines be pruned, my friend?” I considered his question. Surely there was a trap set for me. “First, the dead canes must be cut off in this season when the vine is sleeping. This season … you see the workers there … the pruning is severe. Down to the trunk of the vine. Dead canes will not bear fruit and so must be cut off first. In another month or so, depending on the weather, there will be bud break. The vine will produce new, healthy shoots. New growth will bear fruit.” Jesus asked, as though he did not know, “Is the job of the vinedresser finished when he cuts away these dead branches?” “Well … no. Through the growing season, we train the branches. Set them in the best position to expose fruit to the sun. Thin the leaves that block the sun from the berries; break off clusters that will never ripen evenly. They only steal the life of the vine from the good clusters. The vinedresser cuts away excess foliage to concentrate the life of the vine into the best berries that will make the finest quality wine. The vine can’t nourish the new growth properly … the quality of the grapes is not as good

The question stands and waits, to be asked and asked, never finally to be answered, which he believes affirms a kind of faith. The world is fitted together, is held in its place in the great sky, has held together so far, through the worst of human damage so far, and by no human's power to save or make or know. That he can sometimes fit a mere poem's parts together is his fallback position, a sign of his limits, his formal ignorance, his faith in the great coherence.

Nothing seemed sacred anymore. Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media site seemed proof positive of that. What no one would have ever yelled from their front porch to neighbors across the street was now posted for billions to see for all eternity. Still, he loved the internet. So much could be learned so fast with little effort and no fingerprints.

Our transposal of these priorities-seeking first "all these things" that Jesus promised would be given to us after we'd sought His kingdom-has drained the Christian message of its grandeur. Too many believers have rationalized this, Moore said, by avowing that God is most glorified when Christians hold the commanding heights of society. But this is exactly backward. 'A Christian witness is always best when not from a position of power as defined by the outside world,' Moore said. He quoted the essayist Wendell Berry: 'If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.

STRAWBERRY FLIP COOKIES Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position. 1 cup melted butter (2 sticks) 1 cup white (granulated) sugar 2 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork) 1/3 cup seedless strawberry jam 1 teaspoon strawberry extract (or vanilla, if you can’t find it) 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon soda ½ teaspoon salt 1½ cups chopped walnuts (or pecans) 3 cups flour (not sifted) small bowl of powdered (confectioner’s) sugar 1 bag frozen strawberries for garnish*** Melt the butter and add the white sugar. Then add the eggs and the strawberry jam. When the jam is fully incorporated, add the strawberry extract, baking powder, soda, and salt. Then add the chopped walnuts and the flour, and mix well. Roll dough balls with your hands about the size of unshelled walnuts. (If the dough is too sticky, chill it for a half hour or so and then try it again.) Roll the dough balls in the powdered sugar and place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. Make a deep thumbprint in the center of each cookie. While the strawberries are still partially frozen, cut them in half lengthwise. (If your berries are too large to fit on your cookie balls, cut them in quarters instead of halves.) Flip the cut piece over and place it skin side up in the thumbprint you’ve made on top of each cookie. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Dust the cookies with powdered sugar and place them on a pretty plate before serving. Yield: 7 to 8 dozen cookies. The tart strawberry pieces are wonderful with the sweet cookie. Carrie Rhodes just adores these. As a variant, you can also makes these with seedless raspberry jam and whole fresh raspberries on top. Chapter

Staying positive is difficult for humans because our DNA is hardwired to hold on to negative experiences over positive ones, for sheer survival. Way back when our species was in survival mode, it was far more important to know and remember that the big furry animal with claws and teeth would kill you than it was to know and remember that the butterfly was pretty. It was more important to remember which berries would kill you than which ones were tastiest. We developed a survival instinct that is ingrained in a negative mindset.

Work hard. Work dirty. Choose your favourite spade and dig a small, deep hole; located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Then bury your cell phone. And then find a hobby. Actually, 'hobby' is not a weighty enough word to represent what I am trying to get across. Let's use 'discipline' instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands, instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook. Play music. Sew. Carve. Shit, bedazzle! Or, maybe not bedazzle. The arrhythmic is quite simple, instead of playing Draw Something, fucking draw something. Take the cleverness you apply to Words with Friends and utilize it to make some kick ass corn bread, Corn Bread with Friends - try that game. I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favourite writer, Wendell Berry writes on this topic with great eloquence, he posits that we've been sold a bill of goods claiming that work is bad. That sweating and working especially if soil or saw dust is involved are beneath us. Our population especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labor that one loves is actually a privilege.

Frankly, Mr. Hale, your situation is not something the White House cares about one way or the other.” “You should. The first president and the second Congress of this country legally granted us the authority to act, so long as it was directed toward our enemies.” “With one problem,” Davis said. “The legal authority for your letter of marque does not exist. Even if we wanted to honor it, that could prove impossible. There is no written reference in the congressional journals for that session addressing them. Two pages are missing, which I believe you are well aware of. Their location is guarded by Jefferson’s cipher. I read Andrew Jackson’s letter to your great-great-grandfather.” “Am I to assume that if we solve the cipher and find those missing pages, the president will honor the letter?” “You can assume that your legal position will be much stronger since, as of now, you don’t have one.