Challenging Yet Rewarding Quotes

I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-fainthearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.

There was a slight noise from the direction of the dim corner where the ladder was. It was the king descending. I could see that he was bearing something in one arm, and assisting himself with the other. He came forward into the light; upon his breast lay a slender girl of fifteen. She was but half conscious; she was dying of smallpox. Here was heroism at its last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit; this was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with all the odds against the challenger, no reward set upon the contest, and no admiring world in silks and cloth of gold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king’s bearing was as serenely brave as it had always been in those cheaper contests where knight meets knight in equal fight and clothed in protecting steel. He was great now; sublimely great. The rude statues of his ancestors in his palace should have an addition—I would see to that; and it would not be a mailed king killing a giant or a dragon, like the rest, it would be a king in commoner’s garb bearing death in his arms that a peasant mother might look her last upon her child and be comforted.

What rules, then, can one follow if one is dedicated to the truth? First, never speak falsehood. Second, bear in mind that the act of withholding the truth is always potentially a lie, and that in each instance in which the truth is withheld a significant moral decision is required. Third, the decision to withhold the truth should never be based on personal needs, such as a need for power, a need to be liked or a need to protect one’s map from challenge. Fourth, and conversely, the decision to withhold the truth must always be based entirely upon the needs of the person or people from whom the truth is being withheld. Fifth, the assessment of another’s needs is an act of responsibility which is so complex that it can only be executed wisely when one operates with genuine love for the other. Sixth, the primary factor in the assessment of another’s needs is the assessment of that person’s capacity to utilize the truth for his or her own spiritual growth. Finally, in assessing the capacity of another to utilize the truth for personal spiritual growth, it should be borne in mind that our tendency is generally to underestimate rather than overestimate this capacity. All this might seem like an extraordinary task, impossible to ever perfectly complete, a chronic and never-ending burden, a real drag. And it is indeed a never-ending burden of self-discipline, which is why most people opt for a life of very limited honesty and openness and relative closedness, hiding themselves and their maps from the world. It is easier that way. Yet the rewards of the difficult life of honesty and dedication to the truth are more than commensurate with the demands. By virtue of the fact that their maps are continually being challenged, open people are continually growing people. Through their openness they can establish and maintain intimate relationships far more effectively than more closed people. Because they never speak falsely they can be secure and proud in the knowledge that they have done nothing to contribute to the confusion of the world, but have served as sources of

Elena was hardly a trophy. She was the entire goddamned competition—a complex yet worthwhile challenge, not a mindless reward.

Above all, geology makes explicit challenges to our understanding of time. It giddies the sense of here-and-now. The imaginative experience of what the writer John McPhee memorably called ‘deep time’–the sense of time whose units are not days, hours, minutes or seconds but millions of years or tens of millions of years–crushes the human instant; flattens it to a wafer." ... "Yet there is also something curiously exhilarating about the contemplation of deep time. True, you learn yourself to be a blip in the larger projects of the universe. But you are also rewarded with the realization that you do exist–as unlikely as it may seem, you do exist.

One of the remarkable things about Life After Life is the way that this formal experimentation is combined with a consistently involving plot. It is as if the writing of B. S. Johnson had been crossed with the better novels of Anthony Trollope. An entire world emerges but shows itself again and again in different lights. It’s an unusual book in many ways: in part a tribute to England and to the resilience of the English character revealed under the stress of wartime; in part a book about love that doesn’t contain a love story but instead celebrates the bond between siblings. It’s a book full of horror vividly described, as in the repeated image of a dress with human arms still inside it, seen in a bombed building. Yet the most memorable passages are those which describe the prewar English countryside before suburbia encroached upon “the flowers that grew in the meadow beyond the copse—flax and larkspur, buttercups, corn poppies, red campion and oxeye daisies.” Above all, it’s a book about the act of reading itself. As you read it, it asks you to think about your expectations of plot and outcome. The reader desires happiness for certain characters, and Atkinson both challenges and rewards that tendency.

again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness for it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.

Be so busy loving your life and your loved ones so that you have no time for the naysayers, doubters, haters, or regrets. You will be joined on this mission by other AAOC's some known to you and some yet to reveal themselves to you as you progress on this journey known as life. The reward will be a legacy of meaningful lessons learned and experiences shared with family and friends which will make it clear that you have truly lived not simply existed. Like most challenges that seem incredibly hard, this is no different. However, what awaits you at the finish line is what you have made of it. Agent 025 The Oracle

Think about some of your toughest experiences in life. I bet it is as true for you as it has been for me that going through them with people you cared about, who cared about you, and who were working as hard as you were for the same mission, was incredibly rewarding. As hard as they were, we look back on some of these challenging times as our finest moments. For most people, being part of a great community on a shared mission is even more rewarding than money. Numerous studies have shown there is little to no correlation between one’s happiness and the amount of money one accumulates, yet there is a strong correlation between one’s happiness and the quality of one’s relationships.

HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make in thinking about the happiness of excellence is to focus on moments of achievement. They imagine the mountain climber on the summit. That's part of the happiness of excellence, and a very real part. What counts more, though, is not the happiness of being there, but the happiness of getting there. A mountain climber heads for the summit, and joy meets her along the way. You head for the bottom of the ocean, and joy meets you on the way down...you create joy along the way...the concept of flow, the kind of happiness that comes when we lose ourselves through complete absorption in a rewarding task...the idea of flow..."Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."...Joy, like sweat, is usually a byproduct of your activity, not your aim...A focus on happiness will not lead to excellence. A focus on excellence will, over time, lead to happiness. The pursuit of excellence leads to growth, mastery, and achievement. None of these are sufficient for happiness, yet all of them are necessary...the pull of purpose, the desire to feel "needed in this world" - however we fulfill that desire - is a very powerful force in a human life...recognize that the drive to live well and purposefully isn't some grim, ugly, teeth-gritting duty. On the contrary: "it's a very good feeling." It is really is happiness...Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole...Real happiness comes from working together, hurting together, fighting together, surviving together, mourning together. It is the essence of the happiness of excellence...The happiness of pleasure can't provide purpose; it can't substitute for the happiness of excellence. The challenge for the veteran - and for anyone suddenly deprived of purpose - is not simple to overcome trauma, but to rebuild meaning. The only way out is through suffering to strength. Through hardship to healing. And the longer we wait, the less life we have to live...We are meant to have worthy work to do. If we aren't allowed to struggle for something worthwhile, we'll never grow in resilience, and we'll never experience complete happiness.

Each purpose, each mission, is meant to be fully lived to the point where it becomes empty, boring, and useless. Then it should be discarded. This is a sign of growth, but you may mistake it for a sign of failure. For instance, you may take on a business project, work at it for several years, and then suddenly find yourself totally disinterested. You know that if you stayed with it for another few years you would reap much greater financial reward than if you left the project now. But the project no longer calls you. You no longer feel interested in the project. You have developed skills over the last few years working on the project, but it hasn’t yet come to fruition. You may wonder, now that you have the skills, should you stick with it and bring the project to fruition, even though the work feels empty to you? Well, maybe you should stick with it. Maybe you are bailing out too soon, afraid of success or failure, or just too lazy to persevere. This is one possibility. Ask your close men friends if they feel you are simply losing steam, wimping out, or afraid to bring your project to completion. If they feel you are bailing out too soon, stick with it. However, there is also the possibility that you have completed your karma in this area. It is possible that this was one layer of purpose, which you have now fulfilled, on the way to another layer of purpose, closer to your deepest purpose. Among the signs of fulfilling or completing a layer of purpose are these: 1. You suddenly have no interest whatsoever in a project or mission that, just previously, motivated you highly. 2. You feel surprisingly free of any regrets whatsoever, for starting the project or for ending it. 3. Even though you may not have the slightest idea of what you are going to do next, you feel clear, unconfused, and, especially, unburdened. 4. You feel an increase in energy at the prospect of ceasing your involvement with the project. 5. The project seems almost silly, like collecting shoelaces or wallpapering your house with gas station receipts. Sure, you could do it, but why would you want to? If you experience these signs, it is probably time to stop working on this project. You must end your involvement impeccably, however, making sure there are no loose ends and that you do not burden anybody’s life by stopping your involvement. This might take some time, but it is important that this layer of your purpose ends cleanly and does not create any new karma, or obligation, that will burden you or others in the future. The next layer of your unfolding purpose may make itself clear immediately. More often, however, it does not. After completing one layer of purpose, you might not know what to do with your life. You know that the old project is over for you, but you are not sure of what is next. At this point, you must wait for a vision. There is no way to rush this process. You may need to get an intermediary job to hold you over until the next layer of purpose makes itself clear. Or, perhaps you have enough money to simply wait. But in any case, it is important to open yourself to a vision of what is next. You stay open to a vision of your deeper purpose by not filling your time with distractions. Don’t watch TV or play computer games. Don’t go out drinking beer with your friends every night or start dating a bunch of women. Simply wait. You may wish to go on a retreat in a remote area and be by yourself. Whatever it is you decide to do, consciously keep yourself open and available to receiving a vision of what is next. It will come.

Try this on. What if I didn’t want to have babies because I loved my job too much to compromise it, or because serious travel makes me feel in relation to the world in an utterly essential way? What if I’ve always liked the looks of my own life much better than those of the ones I saw around me? What if, given the option, I would prefer to accept an assignment to go trekking for a month in the kingdom of Bhutan than spend that same month folding onesies? What if I simply like dogs a whole lot better than babies? What if I have become sure that personal freedom is the thing I hold most dear? Some of my closest friends love being mothers, live, to a certain extent, to be mothers. It has been the single most challenging and rewarding endeavor of their lives. Others of my friends don’t like it that much, thought they would like it better than they do, are counting the days till the last kid goes off to college so they can turn their attention to their own dreams. A few friends pretend to love it, but everyone within twelve square miles can hear them grinding their teeth. Still others pretend motherhood is the world’s biggest hassle and yet you can tell they love it deep down. And

I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these feelings at appropriate times. But the adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming.

I want you to know that Jesus Christ is real. He is real in history and he is also vibrantly real in our daily lives. He is alive. God’s love for you and longing for you are real. You may not believe this, or you may feel disappointed by God and his Church. You may not want to have anything to do with God. He knows this because he knows you. He meets you and respects you wherever you find yourself. He calls. He waits. He invites. God has created us for himself, and as St. Augustine so fittingly wrote, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in You.” The great journey of authentic love is the most challenging yet most rewarding journey you will ever make. Are you ready to step forward on this journey? Come and see.

The unintentional learning that occurs as the result of these three mistakes makes us think about strategy in terms of using same frames. The incidental learning that results from such inclusion and exclusion is that expressing contrary views, challenging authority, or testing tradition is punished, while conformity of thinking is rewarded. Yet challenge and testing are essential for shifting and shattering frames and for learning to think in innovative and adaptive ways.

Prince Yosef glanced at the bright anomaly and also wondered if it would ever cease existing or if it were to be a permanent addition to the night sky. “But then, what is permanent? The stars that men gaze on, are they really there? The atmosphere of the earth, has it always been oxygen? Could it not have been another substance? The animals on the earth, were they always as they were or were there different types?” Yosef pondered. “How often have oceans risen and fallen? “The mysterious light that has been present since Miriam’s conception, does it descend from a star that is real or from a star that had perished eons ago? Do our words somehow remain, captured in the atmosphere, waiting to return to someone’s ears. The internal energy of man—his soul—when it perishes, as it must, will the man whom it embraced be forgotten? “Ideologies, how often do they change? Every generation? Every hundred years? Every thousand years? Mohse wrote the books of constant law! Ezra sealed them, making them unchangeable! But then the Greeks came. They invaded the world with different ideas. Different ways of discerning truth! Cyrus came before them with his Zoroastrianism, challenging the established Marduk! Can Yehuway’s truth reside alongside Greeks and Babylonian philosophers? No. For man is a thing inside Yehuway, and without Yehuway, what can be? Can Yehuway perish leaving us behind?” Yosef shook his head. “No! Yehuway’s essence cannot perish! Nothing exists without Yehuway! The Greeks’ intellect, how cunning is its invasion into the concrete reality of Mohse! Hellenistic thoughts have penetrated and conquered the P’rushim’ and Tz’dukim’ intellect. Immortality of the soul! No resurrection! No angels. Heaven’s reward and hell’s damnation according to one’s earthly deeds! All invasive Greek ideologies that are steadfastly adhering and corrupting the Mosaic truths. The Greeks’ intellect is an infectious intellect, founded on nothing but myth and fantasy. “It is man’s spirit that transcends itself to wait in a holding place in Yehuway’s memory. The Greeks declared a heaven and a hell. A tormenting residence and a rewarding residence. Such invasive thoughts are hideous to me. Paganism at its supreme level! The soul perishes. All thoughts become nonexistent! The body is consumed by the earth’s processes. A well versed man in the laws of Yehuway could not accept anything else! I will teach my son to be aware of false tautologies. “It is the personality of the individual that is remembered by Yehuway and it is that exact personality that is brought back to life. It will come back in a different body. In a different tone of voice. But the mannerisms will be the same. The intellect identical. “Yet, what man can return if the Mashi’ach fails in his mission to ransom man’s sins? What man may dwell alongside his past, risen ancestors if the Mashi’ach fails? What man can be if the Mashi’ach fails? What future can there be? Before Adam was created there was void! What is void? It is nothingness. It is total darkness! Total nonexistence. No thoughts. No light. No stars. No motions of the wind or of the seas.

Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always. A promise, like a reward for persisting through life so long alone. A belief in each other and the possibility of love. A decision to ignore simply rise above the pain in the past. A covenant, which at once binds two souls and yet severs prior ties. The celebration of the chance taken and the challenge that lies ahead. For two will always be stronger than one. Like a team braced against the tempests of the world. And love will always be the guiding force in our lives. For tonight is mere formality. Only an announcement to the world of feelings long held, promises made long ago in the sacred space in our hearts.

Our life was about us yet critically connected with those around. Some people were sent as tests, and to some, we were their trials. Few saw us as blessings, and for others, we unintentionally became a challenge they had to pass. What we encountered was to refine us into better individuals for ourselves, yet it wasn’t limited to just that. Perhaps it was also a preparation of a reward for the sincere caller who was seeking the person we were being transformed into through our tests. It was all about us, and so much about us was connected to others. Our book was but a chapter in another story.

As the trio continued their conversation, a sense of hope began to emerge from the depths of their concerns. Stella’s thoughts wandered to the broader implications of smart contracts. “You know, guys,” she said thoughtfully, “although Travis might be right in principle, smart contracts are decentralized and anonymous and if done right, very challenging to connect with a real-life person. Let’s say, as a thought experiment, what if someone created a smart contract that put a price on a leader’s head? A contract that could challenge those in power, just like offering a reward in the past.” Edie raised an eyebrow, intrigued yet cautious. “That’s a scary idea, Stella. We must be careful not to resort to violence. We need to find ways to inspire behavioral change, not replace one oppressive force with another. I severely doubt that this would suffice to bring an end to the cycle of violence we want to step away from in the first place.” Stella considered Edie’s words, but a spark of daring lingered in her eyes. “True, but imagine if we could show the world that the masses, when united, are never powerless. What if we created a smart contract that paid a bounty if a target was hit with a harmless paintball instead, preferably on their forehead? A contract funded by the crowd, proving that collective strength can be a force to reckon with, and signaling to the top-dogs there is an end to what people are willing to accept.

One of the most challenging (yet also rewarding) aspects of knowledge work is that it requires our creativity. And creativity can’t really be sustained without a sense of motivation. You can’t keep doing your best thinking and contributing your best ideas if you’re burned out and demoralized. What does our motivation depend on? Mostly, on making consistent progress. We can endure quite a bit of stress and frustration in the short term if we know it’s leading somewhere.

...an incisive, smartly informative memoir that celebrates the power of the cohesive family unit—its outcome will offer positivity and hope to those facing similar challenges. —KIRKUS REVIEWS Deep Waters is a survival story of the highest order, navigating the complex terrain of marriage, medical crisis, and a future reimagined. After the trauma of her husband’s stroke, Mathews returns to a basic truth: through love, we discover who we are, and who we hope to become. —CAROLINE VAN HEMERT, award-winning author of The Sun is a Compass Mathews has penned a deeply personal love story with the careful rigor of the scientist she is, free of any giddy prose or rainbows. Instead, Deep Waters comes at the reader with the gloves off and goes a full twelve rounds, documenting in granular detail the fears and conflicts attending a life-altering event that can drive even a strong relationship onto the ropes, and the endurance, commitment, and deep love that can save it. —LYNN SCHOOLER, critically acclaimed author of The Blue Bear and Walking Home With love as rugged and wild as the Alaskan landscape she made home, biologist Beth Ann Mathews tells the story of another wilderness: marriage after a life-altering stroke. Deep Waters is a thoughtful and provoking read, a reminder that life and love are inexplicably fragile and resilient, full of unexpected discovery. —ABBY MASLIN, author of Love You Hard Urgent, informative, emotionally satisfying, and thought-provoking, Deep Waters opens with a harrowing medical mystery and rewards the reader with a loving account of an adventurous partnership made stronger by crisis. —ANDROMEDA ROMANO-LAX, author of Annie and the Wolves We felt like we were there with Beth, sharing her emotions, anguish and struggles through the stroke, hospital stay, and recovery. We felt like part of the family as we read, gasped, cried and hoped for recovery and for peace in her heart.”—TBD BOOK CLUB, Seattle, WA If books were birds, this one would be an arctic tern—powerful and graceful, beset by storms and learning to survive, and more, to thrive. The writing is feather-light yet strong. —KIM HEACOX, author of Jimmy Bluefeather Mathews writes with poignant honesty about the challenges of marriage, family, and community in a moving story that highlights the strengths of human relationships. Deep Waters starts with a bang and just keeps going—lively, vivid, and personal. — ROMAN DIAL, author of The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir

Poured Out Moab has been at rest from youth, like wine left on its dregs, not poured from one jar to another. . . . So she tastes as she did, and her aroma is unchanged. Jeremiah 48:11 (NIV) God is working in you a process that goes beyond simple obedience down to the roots of unrighteousness that produce disobedience. He is cleansing you moment by moment, moving you from one level to the next and never leaving you to “sit on your dregs.” Jeremiah is describing Moab as people who have never been challenged and forced to face disappointment or disruption of their lives. They are like wine on its dregs, which becomes bitter and harsh. Wine making involves different stages and vessels of different size, shape, and construction. A wine must be moved from vessel to vessel. Each stage accomplishes something different for the final product—the wine that it is becoming. At each stage, the dregs settle to the bottom and must be strained out. Only the winemake can tell the stage at which a wine must be emptied from one vessel to another God, the great Winemaker, is fermenting a rich and perfect wine in you. Do you feel yourself being emptied from vessel to vessel? Just as you get used to the shape and feel of your life as it is, you find yourself being emptied out. It is disorienting. Then you find yourself poured into a life of a completely different shape and size. Don’t be frightened when the shape of your life seems to be changing. God will not let you sit on your dregs. You will not be locked into your immaturity, retaining the same aroma as in your youth. God is ripening you, fermenting you, enriching you. Embrace his transitions, because God moves only forward. Father, you are the Winemaker—fermenting my life until it is a perfect vintage with beautiful aroma. I trust you and thank you for all the stages of my journey. With you, nothing is wasted or capricious but is part of a beautiful process. I yield myself to you. Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. —ST. AUGUSTINE (354–430), Latin North African theologian and philosopher,

An alternative to coddling one’s body with products that mimic the effects of exercise is to try non-physically active forms of suffering. This kind of “no pain, no gain” philosophy has inspired a dizzying array of self-inflicted hardships thought to ward off aging (an added benefit is their aura of virtue). Hoping to live longer, people take cold showers, restrict their caloric intake, endure long periods without eating, shun carbohydrates, burn their digestive tracts with spicy food, and more.53 Some of these strategies are downright questionable, and, with the exception of intermittent fasting, none is yet supported by solid evidence as a way to extend human longevity.54 Why is regular physical activity the best way to delay senescence and extend life? Recall that according to the costly repair hypothesis, organisms with restricted energy supplies (just about everyone until recently) must allocate limited calories toward either reproducing, moving, or taking care of their bodies, but natural selection ultimately cares only about reproduction. Consequently, our bodies evolved to spend as little energy as possible on costly maintenance and repair tasks. So while physical activities trigger cycles of damage and restoration, selection favors individuals who allocate enough but not too much energy to producing antioxidants, ramping up the immune system, enlarging and repairing muscles, mending bones, and so on. The challenge is to maintain and repair any damage from physical activity just enough and in the right place and the right time.

We today know that only too well: someone may carry, and transmit, the Covid-19 virus without knowing they have it. So the natural inclination of a Jesus-follower, to obey Jesus’ call to go and help at the place of danger, even at the risk of one’s own life, looks rather different when that apparently heroic action might easily make matters worse. The generous one-dimensional desire to be a hero, to ‘do the right thing’, needs to be rounded out with the equally generous willingness to restrain apparent heroism when it might itself bring disaster. Yet this cannot become an excuse for doing nothing. Out of lament must come fresh action. At the very least, clergy (properly trained, authorized and protectively clothed) must be allowed to attend the sick and dying. If, as sometimes seems to be the case, secular doctors suppose that such ministry is superfluous, this must be challenged at every level. As we thank God that in the last two or three centuries the long-term calling of the Church to bring healing and hope has been shared in the wider secular world, we must work with the medical profession, not least to ensure a fully rounded, fully human approach. This applies particularly when people are near the point of death; the hospice movement of the last fifty years has been largely a Christian innovation, privately funded, witnessing to a hope that secular medicine has sometimes ignored. The call to Jesus’ followers, then, as they confront their own doubts and those of the world through tears and from behind locked doors, is to be sign-producers for God’s kingdom. We are to set up signposts–actions, symbols, not just words–which speak, like Jesus’ signs, of new creation: of healing for the sick, of food for the hungry, and so on. This means things like running food banks, working in homeless shelters, volunteering to help those visiting relatives in prisons, and so on. These can be rewarding tasks but they, and all similar things, are also demanding. For them we will need, as Mary, Thomas and the disciples in the upper room needed, the living presence of Jesus, and the powerful breath of his Spirit. That is what we are promised.

Assimilation: The Ideal and the Reality By B. A. Nelson, Ph.D Milton M. Gordon, in his Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins, has defined three discrete stages in the development of this concept. The ideal of “Anglo-conformity,” which “demanded the complete renunciation of the immigrant’s ancestral culture in favor of the behavior and values of the Anglo-Saxon core group” prevailed almost until the end of the nineteenth century. It was superseded in the following two decades by the “melting pot” ideal, which heralded “a biological merger of the Anglo-Saxon peoples with other immigrant groups and a blending of their respective cultures into a new indigenous American type.” During the 1920s, the ideal of ”cultural pluralism” came into vogue, postulating “the preservation of the communal life and significant portions of the culture of the later immigrant groups within the context of American citizenship and political and economic integration into American society.” … total and widespread acceptance of “Anglo-conformity” would be an impossible anachronism in the 1980s, when the majority of the nation’s immigrants come from Third World nations. Despite the glaring contradiction between the ideal of “Anglo-conformity” and the reality of contemporary immigration, one aspect of “Anglo-conformity” does, however, linger on as a phantom “residue,” much like the whiff of scent which remains in a long-emptied bottle. Although both leaders and the led know that “Anglo-conformity” has become an impossible ideal, both retain this one notion that has become a perennial source of solace whenever anyone dares to suggest that future immigration might challenge and deny the national premise of e pluribus unum. … This notion assures those who believe in it that, even if the “Anglo-Saxon core group” dwindles in numbers and power to the point of becoming marginal, the Anglo-Saxon political heritage will yet survive. … This last “residue” of belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority would be simply an innocuous illusion were there not indications that official public policy is moving in a direction directly contrary to the Anglo-Saxon political tradition. ,,, The new American dilemma, as fateful as the one once addressed by Gunnar Myrdal, is the nation’s drift away from its tradition of “liberal pluralism,” in which “government gives no formal recognition to categories of people based on race or ethnicity,” and towards a new, “corporate pluralism,” which “envisages a nation where its racial and ethnic entities are formally recognized as such -- are given formal standing as groups in the national polity -- and where patterns of political power and economic reward are based on a distributive formula which postulates group rights and which defines group membership as an important factor in the outcome for individuals.” … Corporate pluralism is, in fact, the opposite of the popular notion of assimilation as the disappearance of alien characteristics in an all-transforming native culture. Since corporate pluralism replaces “individual meritocracy” with “group rewards,” it strongly discourages assimilation…

The first stage is the roundup. Vast numbers of people are swept into the criminal justice system by the police, who conduct drug operations primarily in poor communities of color. They are rewarded in cash—through drug forfeiture laws and federal grant programs—for rounding up as many people as possible, and they operate unconstrained by constitutional rules of procedure that once were considered inviolate. Police can stop, interrogate, and search anyone they choose for drug investigations, provided they get “consent.” Because there is no meaningful check on the exercise of police discretion, racial biases are granted free rein. In fact, police are allowed to rely on race as a factor in selecting whom to stop and search (even though people of color are no more likely to be guilty of drug crimes than whites)—effectively guaranteeing that those who are swept into the system are primarily black and brown. The conviction marks the beginning of the second phase: the period of formal control. Once arrested, defendants are generally denied meaningful legal representation and pressured to plead guilty whether they are or not. Prosecutors are free to “load up” defendants with extra charges, and their decisions cannot be challenged for racial bias. Once convicted, due to the drug war’s harsh sentencing laws, people convicted of drug offenses in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control—in jail or prison, on probation or parole—than people anywhere else in the world. While under formal control, virtually every aspect of one’s life is regulated and monitored by the system, and any form of resistance or disobedience is subject to swift sanction. This period of control may last a lifetime, even for those convicted of extremely minor, nonviolent offenses, but the vast majority of those swept into the system are eventually released. They are transferred from their prison cells to a much larger, invisible cage. The final stage has been dubbed by some advocates as the “period of invisible punishment.”13 This term, first coined by Jeremy Travis, is meant to describe the unique set of criminal sanctions that are imposed on individuals after they step outside the prison gates, a form of punishment that operates largely outside of public view and takes effect outside the traditional sentencing framework. These sanctions are imposed by operation of law rather than decisions of a sentencing judge, yet they often have a greater impact on one’s life course than the months or years one actually spends behind bars. These laws operate collectively to ensure that the vast majority of people convicted of crimes will never integrate into mainstream, white society. They will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives—denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Unable to surmount these obstacles, most will eventually return to prison and then be released again, caught in a closed circuit of perpetual marginality.

But as Bill Gates said to us when Mark and I met with him in his Seattle-area office, “People invest in high-probability scenarios: the markets that are there. And these low-probability things that maybe you should buy an insurance policy for by investing in capacity up front, don’t get done. Society allocates resources primarily in this capitalistic way. The irony is that there’s really no reward for being the one who anticipates the challenge.” Every time there is a new, serious viral outbreak, such as Ebola in 2012 and Zika in 2016, there is a public outcry, a demand to know why a vaccine wasn’t available to combat this latest threat. Next a public health official predicts a vaccine will be available in x number of months. These predictions almost always turn out to be wrong. And even if they’re right, there are problems in getting the vaccine production scaled up to meet the size and location of the threat, or the virus has receded to where it came from and there is no longer a demand for prevention or treatment. Here is Bill Gates again: Unfortunately, the message from the private sector has been quite negative, like H1N1 [the 2009 epidemic influenza strain]: A lot of vaccine was procured because people thought it would spread. Then, after it was all over, they sort of persecuted the WHO people and claimed GSK [GlaxoSmithKline] sold this stuff and they should have known the thing would end and it was a waste of money. That was bad. Even with Ebola, these guys—Merck, GSK, and J & J [Johnson & Johnson]—all spent a bunch of money and it’s not clear they won’t have wasted their money. They’re not break-even at this stage for the things they went and did, even though at the time everyone was saying, “Of course you’ll get paid. Just go and do all this stuff.” So it does attenuate the responsiveness. This model will never work or serve our worldwide needs. Yet if we don’t change the model, the outcome will not change, either.

Ideology develops in order to convince subjects that loss is not absolute and that it can become profitable. No subsequent acquisition or reward can redeem the loss of the privileged object that founds subjectivity; it is a loss without the possibility of recompense. And yet, ideology proclaims that every loss has a productive dimension to it. In this sense, ideology is singular: all ideologies are nothing but forms of ideology as such. According to Christian ideology, our suffering on earth finds its reward in heavenly bliss. According to capitalist ideology, our labor today has its reward in tomorrow's riches. According to Islamic fundamentalist logic, our suicidal sacrifice results in an eternity in paradise. No ideology can avow a completely unproductive loss, a loss that doesn't lead to the possibility of some future pleasure, and yet an unproductive loss is precisely what defines us. One challenges ideology not by proclaiming that loss or sacrifice is unnecessary that we might live lives of plenitude but by insisting on the unproductivity of loss. Once a subject grasps that no future gain can redeem the initial loss, ideology loses its ability to control that subject.

Foster care can be one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, experiences you will ever encounter. To welcome forgotten kids into your home and love them as your own children showcases the heart of Jesus in a powerful way.