Carson Wells Quotes

She asks why I like her. Might as well ask Why I breathe. Maybe tomorrow I won't Breathe or like her Anymore. Maybe tomorrow the tides Will stop. Maybe tomorrow will bring No more rainbows. Maybe tomorrow She will stop Asking useless questions.

We do have CIA agent Lily Carson in the room. You overseas folks know Lily very well." Wesley Bromwell joked. "Oxford University hasn't been the same since Lily left England with her masters degree.

You doubt God? Well more to the point I credit God with the good sense to doubt me. What is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us? For an instant God suspends assent and poof! we disappear.

Madness and witchery as well as bestiality are conditions commonly associated with the use of the female voice in public.

He loved me. He'd loved me as long as he he'd known me! I hadn't loved him as long perhaps, but now I loved him equally well, or better. I loved his laugh, his handwriting, his steady gaze, his honorableness, his freckles, his appreciation of my jokes, his hands, his determination that I should know the worst of him. And, most of all, shameful though it might be, I loved his love for me.

Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you. Have you given much thought to our mortal condition? Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen. All mortals owe a debt to death. There's no one alive who can say if he will be tomorrow. Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery. No one can teach it, no one can grasp it. Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink! But don't forget Aphrodite--that's one sweet goddess. You can let the rest go. Am I making sense? I think so. How about a drink. Put on a garland. I'm sure the happy splash of wine will cure your mood. We're all mortal you know. Think mortal. Because my theory is, there's no such thing as life, it's just catastrophe.

There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

[Short Talk on the Sensation of Airplane Takeoff] Well you know I wonder, it could be love running toward my life with its arms up yelling let’s buy it what a bargain!

The insidious nature of socialism, cloaked in a façade of compassion, makes it very dangerous to an uneducated and trusting populace. And as socialism creates dependency, it is well on its way to eliminating freedom of choice and incentives for high productivity and innovation.

Alot can happen in eleven minutes. Decker can run two miles in eleven minutes. I once wrote an English essay in ten. And God knows Carson Levine can talk a girl out of her clothes in less then half that time. Eleven minutes might as well be eternity underwater. It only takes three minutes without air for loss consciousness. Permanent brain damange begins at four minutes. And then, when the oxygen runs out, full cardiac arrest occurs. Death is possible at five minutes. Probable at seven. Definite at ten. Decker pulled me out at eleven.

Beware the abuse of Power. Both by those we disagree with, as well as those we may agree with

If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in, the chances are very high that you will interest other people as well.

Well maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe you'll marry a man who is rich and powerful and wise AND wonderful to be naked with.' I can't help the giggle that bubbles from my mouth. 'Maybe,' she says, 'you should ask all your suitors to drop their breeches so you can inspect the merchandise.' 'Mara!' 'You could make it a royal command.' I toss a pillow at her.

I smashed his hand as hard as I could with the Wiffle bat. "Ow!" he screamed. Carson was rubbing his red palm, inspecting it for damage. "That hurt," he shrieked. "You really hurt me." "Right back at you," I said. "Good-bye Carson." He frowned, massaging his hand, the big baby. "I just wanted to end this nicely." "Yeah?" I cocked the bat up to hit him again. "Well, this time you don't get what you want.

You were her friend?" he asked. "You liked her?" I told him Ella was the best friend I ever had. He paused again, and I feared he would say she died. But he finally answered that he believed her to be well and married to a rich gentleman. He added, " She is happy, I think, She is rich, so she is happy." Without thinking, I blurted, "Ella doesn't care about riches." Then I realized I'd contradicted a prince! " How do you know?" he said. I answered, "At school everyone hated me because I wasn't wealthy and because I spoke with an accent. She was the only one who was kind." "Perhaps she's changed," he said. " I don't think so, your Highness.

Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue green shoots and the plant called "audacity", which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said. ... I will do anything to escape boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.

Yes, well, everyone is ignorant when it comes to their own life and love.

I can see that. She is lovely, very different from you. Oh, my clumsy tongue." Vollys's bells clanged. "You are lovely too, but in a quieter way. In temperament I see that you are different as well. She could lead a charge, but you could last a siege. This is fascinating, little Adelina. The more I look at her, the more clearly I see you. You may be a worthier opponent than even my Willard was.

For several years, while I searched for, found, and studied black women writers, I deliberately shut O'Connor out, feeling almost ashamed that she had reached me first. And yet, even when I no longer read her, I missed her, and realized that though the rest of America might not mind, having endured it so long, I would never be satisfied with a segregated literature. I would have to read Zora Hurston and Flannery O'Connor, Nella Larsen and Carson McCullers, Jean Toomer and William Faulkner, before I could begin to feel well read at all.

Well, we'll have no more of such foolishness," I say harshly, to cover the wavering in my voice. "We're getting married, and that's that.

The things they have done to us! The truths they have turned into lies! The ideals they have fouled and made vile. Take Jesus. He was one of us. He knew. When He said that it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God—He damn well meant just what He said. But look at what the church has done to Jesus in the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word he spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if He was living today. Jesus would be one who really knows. Me and Jesus would sit across the table and I would look at Him and He would look at me and we would both know that the other knew. Me and Jesus and Karl Marx could all sit at a table and -

I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don't want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don't want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don't want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel, please.

Many well-meaning Americans have bought into the PC speech code, thinking that by being extra careful not to offend anyone we will achieve unity. What they fail to realize is that this is a false unity that prevents us from talking about important issues and is a Far Left strategy to paralyze us while they change our nation. People have been led to become so sensitive that fault can be found in almost anything anyone says because somewhere, somehow, someone will be offended by it.

With these surface waters, through a series of delicately adjusted, interlocking relationship, the life of all parts of the sea is linked. What happens to a diatom in the upper, sunlit strata of the sea may well determine what happens to a cod lying on a ledge of some rocky canyon a hundred fathoms below, or to a bed of multicolored, gorgeously plumed seaworms carpeting an underlying shoal. or to a prawn creeping over the soft oozes of the sea floor in the balckness of mile-deep water.

If you are not the free person you want to be you must find a place to tell the truth about that. To tell how things go for you. Candor is like a skein being produced inside the belly day after day, it has to get itself woven out somewhere. You could whisper down a well. You could write a letter and keep it in a drawer. You could inscribe a curse on a ribbon of lead and bury it in the ground to lie unread for thousands of years. The point is not to find a reader, the point is the telling itself. Consider a person standing alone in a room. The house is silent. She is looking down at a piece of paper. Nothing else exists. All her veins go down into this paper. She takes her pen and writes on it some marks no one else will ever see, she bestows on it a kind of surplus, she tops it off with a gesture as private and accurate as her own name

Early one morning words were missing. Before that, words were not. Facts were, faces were. In a good story, Aristotle tells us, everything that happens is pushed by something else. Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue-green shoots and the plant called “audacity,” which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said. The marks construct an instant of nature gradually, without the boredom of a story. I emphasize this. I will do anything to avoid boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.

We'll carry you for a bit. It's our turn.

Because he believed in my ability, I was able to believe in it as well.

Thought Experiment: Imagine that you are Johnny Carson and find yourself caught in an intolerable one-on-one conversation at a cocktail party from which there is no escape. Which of the two following events would you prefer to take place: (1) That the other person become more and more witty and charming, the music more beautiful, the scene transformed to a villa at Capri on the loveliest night of the year, while you find yourself more and more at a loss; or (2) that you are still in Beverly Hills and the chandeliers begin to rattle, a 7.5 Richter earthquake takes place, and presently you find yourself and the other person alive and well, and talking under a mound of rubble. If your choice is (2), explain why it is possible for a true conversation to take place under the conditions of (2) but not (1).

We quickly learn that God is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He more greatly delights in the integrity and purity of his church than in the material well-being of its members. He shows himself more clearly to men and women who enjoy him and obey him than to men and women whose horizons revolve around good jobs, nice houses, and reasonable health. He is far more committed to building a corporate “temple” in which his Spirit dwells than he is in preserving our reputations. He is more vitally disposed to display his grace than to flatter our intelligence. He is more concerned for justice than for our ease. He is more deeply committed to stretching our faith than our popularity. He prefers that his people live in disciplined gratitude and holy joy rather than in pushy self-reliance and glitzy happiness. He wants us to pursue daily death, not self-fulfillment, for the latter leads to death, while the former leads to life. These essential values of the gospel must shape our praying, as they shape Paul’s. Indeed, they become the ground for our praying (“For this reason . . . I pray”): it is a wonderful comfort, a marvelous boost to faith, to know that you are praying in line with the declared will of almighty God.

That is a lovely quilt, recruit," he says. "Thank you, sir." "It's the envy of every little girl in Brisadulce. I saw them sitting on the wall today, staring at that blanket and asking their mothers if they could join the Guard so they could have one just like it. Is that what you want, recruit? You want a Guard full of girls?" "If they can fight well enough to defend the King, sir.

I recognized others’ abilities as well. But in any career, whether it’s that of a TV repairman, a musician, a secretary—or a surgeon—an individual must believe in himself and in his abilities. To do his best, one needs a confidence that says, “I can do anything, and if I can’t do it, I know how to get help.

Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring.

As Sokrates tells it, your story begins the moment Eros enters you. That incursion is the biggest risk of your life. How you handle it is an index of the quality, wisdom and decorum of the things inside you. As you handle it you come into contact with what is inside you, in a sudden and startling way. You perceive what you are, what you lack, what you could be. What is this mode of perception, so different from ordinary perception that it is well described as madness? How is it that when you fall in love you feel as if suddenly you are seeing the world as it really is? A mood of knowledge floats out over your life. You seem to know what is real and what is not. Something is lifting you toward an understanding so complete and clear it makes you jubilant. This mood is no delusion, in Sokrates’ belief. It is a glance down into time, at realities you once knew, as staggeringly beautiful as the glance of your beloved (249e-50c).

HE WAS FOURTEEN it was years ago and Sad’s name wasn’t Sad yet. First comet. G had just stumbled off a bus they looked at one another and that lasted until G was almost twenty but he. Well. Being a loyal soul himself. Sad’s need to make friends everywhere. Sex friends club friends gym friends dope friends shopping friends breakdown friends a common enough problem. Sad didn’t see a problem. One day he looked around and G was gone.

Your generation is suffering from what for lack of a better word I shall call over-debunk. There was a lot of debunking that had to be done, of course. Bigotry, militarism, nationalism, religious intolerance, hypocrisy, phonyness, all sorts of dangerous, ready-made, artificially preserved false values. But your generation and the generation before yours went too far with their debunking job. You went overboard. Over-debunk, that's what you did. It's moral overkill. It's like those insecticides Rachel Carson speaks of in her book, that poison everything, and kill all the nice, useful bugs as well as the bad ones, and in the end poison human beings as well. In the end, it poisons life itself, the very air we breathe. That's what you did, morally and intellectually speaking. Yours is a silent spring. You have overprotected yourselves. You are all no more than twenty, twenty-two years old, but yours is a silent spring, I'm telling you. Nothing sings for you any more.

For we were thinking of freedom. That’s the word like a worm in my brain. Yes? No? How much? How little? The word is a signal for piracy and theft and cunning. We’ll be free and the smartest will then be able to enslave the others. But! But there is another meaning to the word. Of all words this one is the most dangerous. We who know must be wary. The word makes us feel good—in fact the word is a great ideal. But it’s with this ideal that the spiders spin their ugliest webs for us.

do not tie your joy, your sense of well-being, to power in ministry. Your ministry can be taken from you. Tie your joy to the fact you are known and loved by God; tie it to your salvation; tie it to the sublime truth that your name is written in heaven.

What if you get stranded in the town where pears and winter are variants for one another? Can you eat winter? No. Can you live six months inside a frozen pear? No. But there is a place, I know the place, where you will stand and see pear and winter side by side as walls stand by in silence. Can you punctuate yourself as silence? You will see the edges cut away from you, back into a world, of another kind-- back into real emptiness, some would say. Well, we are objects in a wind that stopped, is my view.

when the Vietnamese came to the United States they often faced prejudice from everyone—White, Black, and Hispanics. But they didn’t beg for handouts and often took the lowest jobs offered. Even well-educated individuals didn’t mind sweeping floors if it was a paying job. Today many of these same Vietnamese are property owners and entrepreneurs. That’s the message I try to get across to the young people. The same opportunities are there, but we can’t start out as vice president of the company. Even if we landed such a position, it wouldn’t do us any good anyway because we wouldn’t know how to do our work. It’s better to start where we can fit in and then work our way up.

It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried. It well has been said: “A religion that ends with the individual, ends.

Many well-meaning Americans have bought into the PC speech code, thinking that by being extra careful not to offend anyone we will achieve unity. What they fail to realize is that this is a false unity that prevents us from talking about important issues and is a Far Left strategy to paralyze us while they change our nation. People have been led to become so sensitive that fault can be found in almost anything anyone says because somewhere, somehow, someone will be offended by it. To stop this, Americans need to recognize what is happening, speak up courageously, avoid fearful or angry responses, and ignore the barking and snarling as we put political correctness to bed forever.

Well, they said, these are the pies we have. It was a proverb.

Well, Katie Rodgers, a little exercise never hurt anyone.” “Other than people who have heart attacks, get hit by buses, or get attacked by grizzly bears.

I'm going to lay it out straight for you here, Carson. And the reason that I'm going to do that is because I have every confidence that it will scare you off badly enough that I can then finish my drink in peace, and we can part as acquaintances who simply have nothing in common." He raised one eyebrow and I joined my hands in my lap, tilting my head as I continued. "I'm the kind of girl who wants to get married in a big, white dress, wearing my grandma's pearls. I want a husband who love me and is faithful to me. I want him to come home me every night, and I don't want to have to worry if he's doing his secretary, because he's the kind of man who has too much honor to do that. I want to wait a year and then I want to start trying for the two kids that we'll eventually have, a girl and a boy. And when we have those kids, I do not want, one day, to have to explain why their daddy is on the internet having relations with everyone from College Honeys to Cougars Gone Wild for money. I want to throw a cartoon themed birthday party at a jump house for my six year old, not mark the occasion by explaining what a "money shot" is. I have a feeling your life goals are somewhat different than mine. And by 'somewhat,' I mean, utterly and completely. Does that explain why it would be a waste of time for both of us to continue being in each other's presence?" Chapter 1

Perhaps because I have spent hours sermonizing to students about the sins of the passive voice—how it can obfuscate meaning, deaden vitality, and abandon the task of assigning agency or responsibility—I find the grammar of justice maddening. It’s always “rendered,” “served,” or “done.” It always swoops down from on high—from God, from the state—like a bolt of lightning, a flaming sword come to separate the righteous from the wicked in Earth’s final hour. It is not, apparently, something we can give to one other, something we can make happen, something we can create together down here in the muck. The problem may also lie in the word itself, as for millennia “justice” has meant both “retribution” and “equality,” as if a gaping chasm did not separate the two. If you really want to know what justice is, don’t only ask questions and then score off anyone who answers, and refute him, roars Thrasymachus to Socrates in The Republic. You know very well that it is much easier to ask questions than to answer them. Give an answer yourself and tell us what you say justice is. When justice is done, writes Anne Carson, the world drops away. This does not seem to me a happy thought. I am not yet sure I want the world to drop away.

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum, and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their homes, sank their wells, and built their barns. Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, the cattle, and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children whoe would be stricken suddently while at play and die within a few hours. There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example--where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs--the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were not lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of life in this stricken world. The people had done it to themselves.

Carson Craig!” Bertha was trying hard not to laugh. “You stop making fun of my granddaughter this instant. I haven’t laughed that hard in years. Well, unless it was the time that Tennyson was shouting at me in the grocery store and some guy invited him to an AA meeting.

Capitalism is a system that works extremely well for someone who is highly motivated and very energetic, but it is not a great system for someone who is not interested in working hard or for someone who feels no need to contribute to the economic well-being of their community.

If we no longer talk freely and openly about faith, we won’t understand the language or the significance of faith, we’ll misinterpret the religious words and deeds of others, and we’ll underestimate the power faith can have in the lives of those deeply committed to their spiritual beliefs. This may present a serious risk to a generation whose most troubling conflicts promise to involve people who are primarily motivated by a very different faith. If we don’t understand the faith roots of our American culture, how will we be able to defend it against theirs?

Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good.

Okay, mostly rations. Her Resistance friends were always complaining about the food, saying it was tasteless and unsatisfying, but Rey had no idea what they were talking about. She’d never eaten so well in her life, or so often. She always kept a few nutrient packs stuffed under her cot, though. Just in case.

As we crowd together toward a ladder, Becky leans over and whispers, “You handled that very well.” “I did?” “Once you started giving orders, he never once looked to any of the men for confirmation.” She squeezes my arm. Jefferson comes up on the other side. “Don’t let it go to your head.” “Huh?” He nods at my right hand. “You’re the only one holding a gun, which kinda demands attention. And you tend to jab with it emphatically whenever you’re making a point.” “I do not jab.” “You jab.” He points again. My arm is tensed and I’m thrusting the barrel of the gun at his feet while I talk. “Huh. I never noticed that before.

Leslie Marmon Silko whispers the story is long. No, longer. Longer than that even. Longer than anything. With Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath drink at the bar. Laugh the dark laughter in the dark light. Sing a dark drunken song of men. Make a slurry toast. Rock back and forth, and drink the dark, and bask in the wallow of women knowing what women know. Just for a night. When you need to feel the ground of your life and the heart of the world, there will be a bonfire at the edge of a canyon under a night sky where Joy Harjo will sing your bonesong. Go ahead-with Anne Carson - rebuild the wreckage of a life a word at a time, ignoring grammar and the forms that keep culture humming. Make word war and have it out and settle it, scattering old meanings like hacked to pieces paper doll confetti. The lines that are left … they are awake and growling. With Virginia Woolf there will perhaps be a long walk in a garden or along a shore, perhaps a walk that will last all day. She will put her arm in yours and gaze out. At your backs will be history. In front of you, just the ordinary day, which is of course your entire life. Like language. The small backs of words. Stretching out horizonless. I am in a midnight blue room. A writing room. With a blood red desk. A room with rituals and sanctuaries. I made it for myself. It took me years. I reach down below my desk and pull up a bottle of scotch. Balvenie. 30 year. I pour myself an amber shot. I drink. Warm lips, throat. I close my eyes. I am not Virginia Woolf. But there is a line of hers that keeps me well: Arrange whatever pieces come your way. I am not alone. Whatever else there was or is, writing is with me.

Productivity -- real, self-driven productivity -- was one of the first entrepreneurial skills I learned. It served me well when I was on my own, and it has served me even better as an employee because it requires a kind of organization and self-motivation that employees aren't necessarily incentivized to cultivate. After all, if you are superproductive, all you'll get is more work to do, right?

I slip my canteen strap over my head, open the lid, and take a drink. Then I hand it to Hampton. A peace offering. “It’s not communionif there’s no wine.” Hampton tips it to his lips and swallows long and hard. He wipes his mouth when he’s done. “Well, darn. The Savior got confused and turned this wine into water.” “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Henry says, taking the canteen fromHampton

He peers closer, his hand dropping away. “What happened to your hair?” “I cut it.” “Why on earth would . . . Oh.” “I’d appreciate it if you kept my secret.” He frowns. “I don’t see how anyone with half a mind would mistake you for a boy.” “It’s worked so far. I’m strong and I work hard and I ride well.” “Also, you can spit farther than any boy I know.” “And shoot straighter!” He nods solemnly. “And opine louder.

You can't really be too concerned with what people think of you. You're on your own adventure of growth and discovery. Like Charles Bukowski said, 'People think I'm down on Fifth and Main at the Blarney Stone, but really I'm on top floor of the health club with a towel in my lap, watching Johnny Carson.' So it's not always good to be where people think you are, especially if you subscribe to it as well ... which is easily done, because then you don't have to figure out who you are, you just ask somebody else.

But man, unhappily, has written one of his blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands. He has seldom set foot on an island that he has not brought about disastrous changes. He has destroyed environments by cutting, clearing, and burning; he has brought with him as a chance associate the nefarious rat; and almost invariably he has turned loose upon the islands a whole Noah’s Ark of goats, hogs, cattle, dogs, cats, and other non-native animals as well as plants. Upon species after species of island life, the black night of extinction has fallen.

Emulate those who are interested in the well-being of others, not in their own. Be on the alert for Christians who really do exemplify this basic Christian attitude, this habit of helpfulness. They are never the sort who strut their way into leadership with inflated estimates of their own importance. They are the kind who cheerfully pick up after other people. They are not offended if no one asks about them; they are too busy asking about others. They are the kind who are constantly seeking to do good spiritually, to do good materially, to do good emotionally. They are committed to the well-being of others.

Our country, as well as the rest of the world, faces an enormous threat from ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist organizations that aspire to achieve world domination. These were the same aspirations held by the followers of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Our government must recognize the importance of directly and vigorously confronting these forces of evil. We must not make the mistake of avoiding necessary conflict; we did not get involved in World War I or World War II until we felt that American interests were directly threatened, and this proved to be the wrong choice, though we eventually were victorious. If a vicious enemy that is willing to decapitate people, burn people alive, and even crucify children is allowed to grow with only minor to moderate resistance, it will only become a more formidable adversary in the future. If during this period of tepid responses to terrorist expansion the radical Islamists manage to acquire nuclear weapons, providing for the common defense will take on an entirely new different meaning. The longer we wait to eliminate the threat, the more difficult that task will become and the more dangerous the world will be for our children and grandchildren. We must use all necessary resources to protect the lives of our people. Given the existence of enemies who have a stated goal of destroying our nation and our way of life, one way to provide for the common defense is to hide, which in our case would not be possible. A better option is to try to eliminate the threat, and the earlier the threat can be eliminated, the fewer lives will be lost in the conflict.

The founders feared that the central government, once it had united the states, would become too powerful and would impose its will upon the people—or the individual states—without regard to their wishes. This “government knows best” model was one that they were quite familiar with from their extensive studies of other governmental models as well as from their personal experience with the British monarchy. They felt that their best defense against a tyrannical government was to divide the power three ways, with each branch of government having the power to check the other two. They also listed the powers that the federal government would have, being sure to leave the balance of power in the hands of the states and the people. They wisely concluded that the states would not be eager to give additional power to the federal government and limited its power accordingly. Unfortunately, the founders did not realize that the time would come when the federal government would approve a federal taxation system that could control the states by giving or withholding financial resources. Such an arrangement significantly upsets the balance of power between the states and the federal government. As a result, today there are numerous social issues, such as the legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, and welfare reform, that could probably be more efficiently handled at the state level but with which the federal government keeps interfering. The states, instead of standing up for their rights, comply with the interference because they want federal funds. It will require noble leaders at the federal level and courageous leaders at the state level to restore the balance of power, but it is essential that such balance be restored for the sake of the people.

Perhaps well-meaning individuals temporarily forgot that we live in a nation where the majority does not impose its will on the minority simply because it can.

estimation. Wolf knew Cassidy Frost, had known her well for the last seven months, because she was dating Wolf’s fifteen-year-old son, Jack. She

That brings us to the nub of the issue. The second reason for drawing lines even when drawing lines is not “cool” (as my daughter and son would say) is that the New Testament documents model the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy, even if these terms are not deployed exactly in their English sense. Despite the faddish popularity of religious pluralism, despite the erroneous historical reconstructions of Walter Bauer and others, despite the common practice of treating other religions with more deference than a Christianity that tries to conform to the Bible, the fact remains that there is something disturbingly unfaithful about forms of expression that attempt to be more “broadminded” than the New Testament documents themselves. True, most who read these pages will want to avoid the kind of obscurantist “fundamentalism” that is less concerned with fundamentals than with fences. But most who read these pages will not be tempted down that path, and so they scarcely need to be warned against it. It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others. We are more likely to squirm when we read words like these: Do you agree with those who say that a spirit of love is incompatible with the negative and critical denunciation of blatant error, and that we must always be positive? The simple answer to such an attitude is that the Lord Jesus Christ denounced evil and denounced false teachers. I repeat that He denounced them as “ravening wolves” and “whited sepulchres,” and as “blind guides.” The Apostle Paul said of some of them, “whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame”. That is the language of the Scriptures. There can be little doubt but that the Church is as she is today because we do not follow New Testament teaching and its exhortations, and confine ourselves to the positive and the so-called “simple Gospel”, and fail to stress the negatives and the criticism. The result is that people do not reconize error when they meet it. It is not pleasant to be negative; it is not enjoyable to have to denounce and to expose error. But any pastor who feels in a little measure, and with humility, the responsibility which the Apostle Paul knew in an infinitely greater degree for the souls and the well-being spiritually of his people is compelled to utter these warnings. It is not liked and appreciated in this modern flabby generation.29

1. If postmodern thought has tried to gag God, unsuccessfully, by its radical hermeneutics and its innovative epistemology, the church is in danger of gagging God in quite another way. The church in Laodicea, toward the end of the first century, thought of itself as farsighted, respectable, basically well off. From the perspective of the exalted Christ, however, it was blind, naked, bankrupt. The nearby town of Colossae enjoyed water that was fresh and cold, and therefore useful; the nearby town of Hierapolis enjoyed hotsprings where people went to take the cure: its water, too, was useful. But Laodicea’s foul water was channeled in through stone pipes, and it was proverbial for its nauseating taste. The church had become much like the water it drank: neither hot and useful, nor cold and useful, but merely nauseating. Jesus is prepared to spue this church out of his mouth (Rev. 3:16). This church makes the exalted Jesus gag. I cannot escape the dreadful feeling that modern evangelicalism in the West more successfully effects the gagging of God, in this sense, than all the postmodernists together, in the other sense. 2. This calls for repentance. The things from which we must turn are not so much individual sins—greed, pride, sexual promiscuity, or the like, as ugly and as evil as they are—as fundamental heart attitudes that squeeze God and his Word and his glory to the periphery, while we get on with religion and self-fulfillment. 3. At issue is not only what we must turn from, but also what we must turn to: We will not be able to recover the vision and understanding of God’s grandeur until we recover an understanding of ourselves as creatures who have been made to know such grandeur. This must begin with the recovery of the idea that as beings made in God’s image, we are fundamentally moral beings, not consumers, that the satisfaction of our psychological needs pales in significance when compared with the enduring value of doing what is right. Religious consumers want to have a spirituality for the same reason that they want to drive a stylish and expensive auto. Costly obedience is as foreign to them in matters spiritual as self-denial is in matters material. In a culture filled with such people, restoring weight to God is going to involve much more than simply getting some doctrine straight; it’s going to entail a complete reconstruction of the modern self-absorbed pastiche personality.94 4. It follows that teachers and preachers in seminaries and churches must be people “for whom the great issue is the knowledge of God,”95 whatever their area of specialization might be. Preachers and teachers who do not see this point and passionately hold to it are worse than useless: they are dangerous, because they are diverting.

At time of writing, the National Education Standards and Improvement Council, set up by the Clinton Administration,61 is due to prescribe what students in grades five through twelve are supposed to know about American history. Not a single one of the thirty-one standards set up mentions the Constitution. Paul Revere is unmentioned; the Gettysburg address is briefly mentioned once. On the other hand, the early feminist Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments receives nine notices. Joseph McCarthy is mentioned nineteen times; there is no mention of the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Robert E. Lee; Harriet Tubman receives six notices. The Ku Klux Klan is mentioned seventeen times; the American Federation of Labor comes up with nine appearances. The role of religion, especially Christianity, in the founding and building of the nation is totally ignored; the grandeur of the court of Mansa Musa (King of Mali in fifteenth-century Africa) is praised, and recommended as a topic for further study.62 Such standards are linked in the minds of many with “outcome-based-education” (OBE). If the “outcomes” were well balanced and not less than thoroughly cognitive (though hopefully more than cognitive), there would be few objections. But OBE has become a lightening-rod issue precisely because in the hands of many it explicitly minimizes cognitive tests and competency skills, while focusing much more attention on attitudes, group conformity, and the like. In other words, granred the postmodernism that grips many educational theorists and the political correctness that shapes their values, this begins to look like one more experiment in social engineering.

The generation brought up during the Great Depression and the Second World War, still in measure steeped in the much-maligned Protestant work ethic, resolved to work hard and provide a more secure heritage for their children. And, in measure, they did. But the children, for whom the Depression and the War belonged to the relics of history, had nothing to live for but more “progress.” There was no grand vision, no taste of genuine want, and not much of the Protestant work ethic either.83 Soon the war in Vietnam became one of the central “causes” of that generation, but scarcely one that incited hard work, integrity in relationships, frugality, self-denial, and preparation for the next generation. That ’60s generation, the baby boomers, have now gone mainstream—but with a selfishness and consumerism that outstrips anything their parents displayed. There is no larger vision. Contrast a genuine Christian vision that lives life with integrity now because this life is never seen as more than the portal to the life to come, including perfect judgment from our Maker. At its best, such a stance, far from breeding withdrawal from the world, fosters industry, honest work for honest pay, frugality, generosity, provision for one’s children, honesty in personal relationships and in business relationships, the rule of law, a despising of greed. A “Protestant work ethic” of such a character I am happy to live with. Of course, a couple of generations later, when such a Christian vision has eroded, people may equate prosperity with God’s blessing, and with despicable religious cant protest that they are preparing for eternity when in their heart of hearts they are merely preparing for retirement. But a generation or two after that their children will expose their empty fatuousness. In any case, what has been lost is a genuinely Christian vision. This is not to say that such a vision will ensure prosperity. When it is a minority vision it may ensure nothing more than persecution. In any case, other unifying visions may bring about prosperity as well, as we have seen. From the perspective of the Bible, prosperity is never the ultimate goal, so that is scarcely troubling. What is troubling is a measuring stick in which the only scale is measured in terms of financial units.

All of us develop our expectations about how people will treat us based on our relationships with our parents. If those relationships are, for the most part, emotionally nourishing, respectful of our rights and feelings, we’ll grow up expecting others to treat us in much the same way. . . . But if childhood is a time of unrelenting anxiety, tension, and pain, then we develop negative expectations and rigid defenses.

Public praying is a responsibility as well as a privilege.

Although it sounds magnanimous to say the rich should bear virtually all of the tax burden and the poor should not have their lives complicated by paying any taxes, this is actually quite demeaning to the poor and is basically saying to them, “You poor little thing, don’t you worry because I will take care of you since you can’t take care of yourself.” Robbing people of dignity by making them feel like freeloaders is not compassionate, but it can be quite effective in assuaging the guilt of some of the economically well-off individuals in our society.

While wisdom dictates the need for education, education does not necessarily make one wise. I remember a man when I was growing up who was extremely well educated and had two master’s degrees. He could wax eloquently on many subjects but had a very difficult time sustaining himself economically. In fact, he would frequently mooch off of anyone who would take pity on him. On the other hand, many of the greatest achievers in our society never finished college. That includes Bill Gates Jr., Steve Jobs, and Dan Snyder, who is the owner of the Washington Redskins. This does not mean that higher education isn’t highly desirable and beneficial, but it does indicate that the wise use of knowledge is more important than knowledge itself.

is commonplace today to find large groups of people who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of all the basic necessities of its citizens. Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good.3

Though often lost sight of today, the self-authenticating quality of Scripture was perhaps surprisingly well recognized, especially among some early Greek writers.

Dark shapes, skulking around in the shadows. "Well, what’s it all mean Tom?

Sam hesitated. "He's a nice man, Mom." "Sounds like maybe you think Carson Marino is more than just nice." For the second time in one day, Sam surprised herself. No denial, no changing the subject. "Well, mom," she said, "What if I do?" "I'm 56 years old, Sam," Ellie said. "I'll take any color of grandchild I can get.

Among “knowing” beings—humans, angels, God—there are high barriers that keep one knowing being from understanding fully what another knowing being is thinking about. No matter how well I know you, I will never know all your thoughts; no matter how well you know me, you will never know all of mine. How much less shall we understand the thoughts of the angel Gabriel when, say, he spoke to Mary (Luke 1:26–38). However, the one “knowing being” who knows all thoughts, even the thoughts of God, is God himself. Or, to put it another way, “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God” (2:10b).

We might well ask ourselves what steps we take to teach our children to fear the Lord our God, not with the cringing terror that is frightened of whimsical malice but with the profound conviction that this God is perfectly just and does not play around with sin.

Even for those at the academic bottom of the class, the questions are still valid. All of us can do something. a. At what have I done well so far in life? b. In what school subjects have I done well? c. Why did I choose those subjects? d. What do I like to do that has caused others to compliment me? e. What do I do well and think of as fun although my friends see it as work — or as a boring activity? 3. Analyze yourself and your situation. As much as you can, analyze matters for yourself instead of depending upon tests and outside advice. However, I know that some people are not very good at self-reflection and do better by interacting with others. (By the way, part of the talent of people-centered individuals is to interact well with others!) 4. Whether you can figure out the answers to these questions, or you talk them over with someone else, find someone whose judgment is respected. Your parents, perhaps. A teacher. Your pastor. An older family friend. Your closest friend. 5. Write down what is said by those in whom you confide. 6. Compare those ideas to what you have written about yourself. Are the answers the same? What do you now see about yourself that you didn’t think of before? For four or five days, spend some time each day by yourself in thinking about these answers.

. That danger is no less treacherous today than in Ezekiel’s time. Somehow we manage to adhere to our creedal profession, but if anything goes wrong our undisciplined rage shows that we maintain little real trust in the living God: our secret idol is comfort and physical well-being. We attend church, but rarely do we pray in private or thoughtfully read the Word of God. We sing lustily at missionary conventions, but have not shared the Gospel with anyone for years. And deep down we are more interested in our reputation, or in sex, or in holidays, than we are in basking in the awesome radiance and majesty of God. Meditate on 14:8, and ask for forgiveness and grace to become more consistent.

I also praise the cooperative efforts in our pediatric intensive care unit. In fact, this togetherness permeates every aspect of our program here, including our office staff. We're friends, we work well together, we're dedicated to alleviating pain, and we're interested in each other's problems, too. We're a team, and Ben Carson is only part of that team.

He pointed to a list of times tables in the back of his notebook. “Mrs. Williamson says we need to know them all, but that’s impossible.” As soon as he finished speaking, Ben knew he’d said the wrong thing. “Impossible!” his mother scolded, putting her hands on her hips. “Impossible is not in our vocabulary, Benjamin Solomon Carson. You know that. Nothing is impossible. Look at me. I didn’t go past third grade, and I know all of my times tables up to twelve. How’s that, Bennie?” Ben knew better than to say another word. His mother was out to prove a point. “Impossible! Impossible! We’ll see. You’re going to learn those times tables, Bennie. Starting tomorrow you’re not going to go outside to play after school until you’ve learned them—all of them.” “But Mama . . .” “No buts about it, Bennie. With God’s help you can wipe that im right off the word impossible and make it possible.

When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say It is well, it is well with my soul

well

. What a remarkable notion! Paul does not say that these Christians have been called to suffer as well as to believe, but that it has been granted to them to suffer as well as to believe—as if both suffering for Christ and believing in Christ were blessed privileges that have been graciously granted. That, of course, is precisely what he means. We often think of faith as a gracious gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9), but suffering?

This includes more than the well-known paradox: slavery to God is perfect freedom. For a start, freedom must be defined. If our steps are directed to God's word, there is freedom from sin (cf. 119:133); observance of God's "precepts" is tied to walking about in "freedom" (119:45). Moreover, reflection on and conformity with God's words generates not narrow-minded bigotry, but a largeness of spirit that potentially stretches outward to the farthest dimensions of the mind of God; for "your commands are boundless.

If you are not the free person you want to be you must find a place to tell the truth about that. To tell how things go for you. Candor is like a skein being produced inside the belly day after day, it has to get itself woven out somewhere. You could whisper down a well. You could write a letter and keep it in a drawer. You could inscribe a curse on a ribbon of lead and bury it in the ground to lie unread for thousands of years. The point is not to find a reader, the point is the telling itself. Consider a person standing alone in a room. The house is silent. She is looking down at a piece of paper. Nothing else exists. All her veins go down into this paper. She takes her pen and writes on it some marks no one else will ever see, she bestows on it a kind of surplus, she tops it off with a gesture as private and accurate as her own name. —Anne Carson, from section “Could 1” of “Candor,” BOMB Magazine (no. 116, Summer 2011)

Several pills and a hot shower later, I felt well enough to go back to the party. To my surprise, the three girls were skinny-dipping in the rooftop swimming pool, while Johnny, wearing nothing but an apron, served them wine from a silver platter. “Ze white is a 1968 Chassagne-Montrachet,” he said in a cheesy accent plucked from the Mighty Carson Art Players, “and ze rhedd is a 1966 Pétrus.” I was impressed; that Pétrus went for $3,000 a bottle. “Come on, Henry,” Johnny shouted. “Take off your clothes! Join the fun!” Well, I

Early one morning words were missing. Before that, words were not. Facts were, faces were. In a good story, Aristotle tells us, everything that happens is pushed by something else. Three old women were bending in the fields. What use is it to question us? they said. Well it shortly became clear that they knew everything there is to know about the snowy fields and the blue-green shoots and the plant called "audacity," which poets mistake for violets. I began to copy out everything that was said. The marks construct an instant of nature gradually, without the boredom of a story. I emphasize this. I will do anything to avoid boredom. It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.

Perhaps it is the essence of any sport. If you peel away the modern mass-market spectacle that sport has become, and the history of sport, to its root—the genesis of sport—there’s ritual sacrifice. In the oldest chronicles of sport that we have, from ancient Greece, sport is sacrifice. It is the sacrifice of human energy. In the first Olympics, the ritual veneration of Zeus, the footrace began at the far end of the stadium. The athletes tore forward to a finish line at the footsteps up to the statue of their preeminent god. It was the winner who carried a torch to the top of the steps. At the altar, the torch was lowered to light a fire, not for the view of the crowd, but to consume the burnt offering of an animal. The champion himself was dedicated, although not literally sacrificed, to the god as well. His athletic performance was also an offering. It was energy, exertion, wattage, offered up alongside the animal. That athlete with the torch at the foot of the statue would recognize and understand what Rich Froning is doing in the arena in Carson, California.

The countless allusions to the Old Testament (e.g., references to the tabernacle, Jacob’s ladder, Jacob’s well, manna, the serpent in the wilderness, Sabbath, and various feasts) presuppose both a writer and readers who are steeped in the Scriptures.76

Children make you see distances. What do you mean “distances”? Lazer paused and picked an olive from the plate. He spun it slowly on the toothpick. Well for example this morning I was sitting at my desk at home looking out on the acacia trees that grow beside the balcony beautiful trees very tall and my daughter was there she likes to stand beside me and draw pictures while I write in my journal. It was very bright this morning unexpectedly clear like a summer day and I looked up and saw a shadow of a bird go flashing across the leaves of the acacia as if on a screen projected and it seemed to me that I was standing on a hill. I have labored up to the top of this hill, here I am it has taken about half my life to get here and on the other side the hill slopes down. Behind me somewhere if I turned around I could see my daughter beginning to climb hand over hand like a little gold animal in the morning sun. That is who we are. Creatures moving on a hill. At different distances, said Geryon.

I’ve got to let him suffer a bit or he’ll never learn to take care of himself.” Sedric pondered his words. “Do you think I should do the same Relpda? Let her be hungry?” Even as he spoke the words aloud, he felt his dragon become aware of the thought. No! I don’t like to be hungry! Don’t be mean to me! “I know it seems harsh,” Carson said, almost as if he, too, had shared Relpda’s thought. “But we have to do something, Sedric. It can’t go on this way. Even if I hunted morning until night every day and was successful in every hunt, it wouldn’t be enough to feed them all. All of them are hungry, all the time, some more than others. But there’s a limit to what we keepers can do. The dragons need to make an effort to fly and to feed themselves. And they need to do it now, before it’s too late.” “Too late?” Carson looked grim. “Look at them Sedric. They should be creatures of the air, but they are living like ground animals. They aren’t growing properly. Their wings are weak, and on some they’re simply too small. Rapskal had the right of it. From the time he first took charge of Heeby, he made her try to fly, every day. Look at her some time and compare the lines of her body to those of the other dragons. Look where the muscle is developed and where it’s not.” He shook his head. “Trying to get Spit to exercise his wings is difficult. He’s willful, and he knows full well that he’s bigger and stronger then I am. My only handle on him is food. He knows my rule. He tries to fly. And then I feed him. He has to try every day. And that’s what the other dragons have to do. But I don’t think they will until they’re forced to it.” Not liking Carson. But we know it’s true, Relpda. You’re too big for me to keep you fed. I know how hungry you get. I bring you food, but it’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough until you can fly and make your own kills. We both know that. Falling hurts. Being hungry hurts, too. All the time. Being hurt from falling will stop once you learn to fly. But if you don’t learn to fly, the hurt of being hungry will go on always. You have to try. Carson is right. You have to try harder, and you have to try every day. Not liking YOU, now.

Critics—as well as the network and his own producers—often cited Jay Leno’s apparent lack of interest in the stories guests on the show told. Certainly most of the staff knew that Jay devoted little time preparing to speak to guests. Worse, was a habit Jay adopted later in his Tonight Show run. As described by one A-level movie star guest, an appearance with Jay could be thoroughly disconcerting... 'I’m sitting there telling him a story about some damn thing that happened and I realize he’s not looking at me at all,” the star said. 'His eyes are going straight past me. The audience can’t see this because he’s still looking vaguely in my direction, but his eyes are not on me at all. When he went to commercial I took a look over my shoulder. There was a guy with cue cards standing off to the side behind him. Jay was just reading the questions off the cards. Not paying attention to me at all. The whole thing was so artificial; I was totally put off by it.'

Self-care is a personalized wellness practice that is only effective when it is responding to your needs.

You doubt God? Well more to the point I credit God with the good sense to doubt me

Today we have no time, tomorrow we'll be too tired, and the day after tomorrow may never come. If I'm not here tomorrow, today is all we have. No time to waste, no promises to postpone. When time is short and tomorrow holds no promise, with no guarantee of tomorrow, today becomes our only certainty. Live with urgency, love with intensity.

~ In the rush of life, we often find ourselves saying there's no time today, we'll handle it tomorrow, or we’ll be too tired to deal with it then. Every moment is precious and fleeting. Let's not wait for a better time, a more convenient moment, or the illusion of tomorrow.

*Geryon what's wrong? Jesus I hate it when you cry. What is it?* Geryon thinks hard. l once loved you, now I don't know you at all. He does not say this. *I was thinking about time* -he gropes- *you know how apart people are in time together and apart at the same time* -stops. Herakles wipes tears from Geryon's face with one hand. *Can't you ever just fuck and not think?* Herakles gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom. Then he comes back and stands at the window a long while. By the time he returns to the bed it is getting light. *Well Geryon just another Saturday morning me laughing and you crying,* he says as he climbs in. Geryon watches him pull the blanket up to his chin. *Just like the old days.* *Just like the old days,* Geryon says too.

Empathy allows us to share the joys & sorrows of others. Setting #boundaries isn't a betrayal of empathy but rather a safeguarding of one's own well-being. So, don't let your empathy extinguish the boundaries you've set to protect your emotional space. #ProtectYourSpace