Circumstances Changed Me Quotes

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown..

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Love wasn't forged by circumstance or changed by sorrow. It simply was. Fierce and free as the wolf within me.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.

Learn to adapt. Things change, circumstances change. Adjust yourself and your efforts to what it is presented to you so you can respond accordingly. Never see change as a threat, because it can be an opportunity to learn, to grow, evolve and become a better person.

Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, money, circumstances, than failures and success, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, ability, or skill. It will make or break a business, a home, a friendship, an organization. The remarkable thing is I have a choice every day of what my attitude will be. I cannot change my past. I cannot change the actions of others. I cannot change the inevitable. The only thing I can change is attitude. Life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.

THE DAWN OF NEW POSSIBILITIES Therefore glorify the LORD in the dawning light. —ISAIAH 24:15 Every new day with God brings the dawn of new and better possibilities. Today could turn out to be the best day of your life—but how it ends largely depends on how you begin it. You are in charge of taking control of your day from its very beginning—as you command your morning—and as you do, know that whatever begins with God has to end right. No matter how good or bad your life is, every circumstance can change for the best if you learn how to command your morning before your day begins. Father, I stand and declare that today is a new day. Every element of my day shall cooperate with Your purpose and destiny for me. Anything or anyone assigned to undermine, frustrate, hinder, or hurt me, I command to be moved out of my sphere of influence. I greet

The fact that my circumstances had changed drastically but my behavior hadn't was beginning to wear on me.

Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her through or around these challenges, and I'll show you supreme power of choice.

You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance. Lost, injured, hurt by chance. I screamed to the heavens....loudly screamed.... Trying to change our nightmares into dreams...

by now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago.

Faith is not merely “feeling good about God” but a conscious choice, even in the utter absence of feelings or external encouragements to obey His word when He says, “Trust Me.” This choice has nothing to do with mood but is a deliberate act of laying hold of the character of God whom circumstances never change.

The very quality of your life, whether you love it or hate it, is based upon how thankful you are toward God. It is one's attitude that determines whether life unfolds into a place of blessedness or wretchedness. Indeed, looking at the same rose bush, some people complain that the roses have thorns while others rejoice that some thorns come with roses. It all depends on your perspective. This is the only life you will have before you enter eternity. If you want to find joy, you must first find thankfulness. Indeed, the one who is thankful for even a little enjoys much. But the unappreciative soul is always miserable, always complaining. He lives outside the shelter of the Most High God. Perhaps the worst enemy we have is not the devil but our own tongue. James tells us, "The tongue is set among our members as that which . . . sets on fire the course of our life" (James 3:6). He goes on to say this fire is ignited by hell. Consider: with our own words we can enter the spirit of heaven or the agonies of hell! It is hell with its punishments, torments and misery that controls the life of the grumbler and complainer! Paul expands this thought in 1 Corinthians 10:10, where he reminds us of the Jews who "grumble[d] . . . and were destroyed by the destroyer." The fact is, every time we open up to grumbling and complaining, the quality of our life is reduced proportionally -- a destroyer is bringing our life to ruin! People often ask me, "What is the ruling demon over our church or city?" They expect me to answer with the ancient Aramaic or Phoenician name of a fallen angel. What I usually tell them is a lot more practical: one of the most pervasive evil influences over our nation is ingratitude! Do not minimize the strength and cunning of this enemy! Paul said that the Jews who grumbled and complained during their difficult circumstances were "destroyed by the destroyer." Who was this destroyer? If you insist on discerning an ancient world ruler, one of the most powerful spirits mentioned in the Bible is Abaddon, whose Greek name is Apollyon. It means "destroyer" (Rev. 9:11). Paul said the Jews were destroyed by this spirit. In other words, when we are complaining or unthankful, we open the door to the destroyer, Abaddon, the demon king over the abyss of hell! In the Presence of God Multitudes in our nation have become specialists in the "science of misery." They are experts -- moral accountants who can, in a moment, tally all the wrongs society has ever done to them or their group. I have never talked with one of these people who was happy, blessed or content about anything. They expect an imperfect world to treat them perfectly. Truly, there are people in this wounded country of ours who need special attention. However, most of us simply need to repent of ingratitude, for it is ingratitude itself that is keeping wounds alive! We simply need to forgive the wrongs of the past and become thankful for what we have in the present. The moment we become grateful, we actually begin to ascend spiritually into the presence of God. The psalmist wrote, "Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing. . . . Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations" (Psalm 100:2, 4-5). It does not matter what your circumstances are; the instant you begin to thank God, even though your situation has not changed, you begin to change. The key that unlocks the gates of heaven is a thankful heart. Entrance into the courts of God comes as you simply begin to praise the Lord.

If you do not want what I want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong. Or if my beliefs are different from yours, at least pause before you set out to correct them. Or if my emotion seems less or more intense than yours, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel other than I do. Or if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, please let me be. I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up trying to change me into a copy of you.

Here’s an example. When I first met Nick Gautier it was fated that he was to get married at age thirty and have a dozen kids. As our friendship grew, I lost the ability to see how his future would play out. Then in one moment of anger, I changed his destiny by telling him he should kill himself. I didn’t mean it, but as a god of fate, such proclamations when made by me are law. Fate realigned the circumstances around him that would lead him to make a decision to take his own life. The woman he was to marry ended up dead in her store. His mother’s life was taken by a Daimon and Nick shot himself at her feet. My free will would have been to not lash out at him. Instead I did. His free will would have been to seek revenge as a human against a Daimon and not kill himself. But because of who I am, my proclamation that he kill himself outweighed his will and he didn’t really have any choice. I took his free will and I cost him everyone who was close to him. (Acheron)

The Bible is not a Christian owner’s manual but a story—a diverse story of God and how his people have connected with him over the centuries, in changing circumstances and situations.

A woman in her thirties came to see me. As she greeted me, I could sense the pain behind her polite and superficial smile. She started telling me her story, and within one second her smile changed into a grimace of pain. Then, she began to sob uncontrollably. She said she felt lonely and unfulfilled. There was much anger and sadness. As a child she had been abused by a physically violent father. I saw quickly that her pain was not caused by her present life circumstances but by an extraordinarily heavy pain-body. Her pain-body had become the filter through which she viewed her life situation. She was not yet able to see the link between the emotional pain and her thoughts, being completely identified with both. She could not yet see that she was feeding the pain-body with her thoughts. In other words, she lived with the burden of a deeply unhappy self. At some level, however, she must have realized that her pain originated within herself, that she was a burden to herself. She was ready to awaken, and this is why she had come. I directed the focus of her attention to what she was feeling inside her body and asked her to sense the emotion directly, instead of through the filter of her unhappy thoughts, her unhappy story. She said she had come expecting me to show her the way out of her unhappiness, not into it. Reluctantly, however, she did what I asked her to do. Tears were rolling down her face, her whole body was shaking. “At this moment, this is what you feel.” I said. “There is nothing you can do about the fact that at this moment this is what you feel. Now, instead of wanting this moment to be different from the way it is, which adds more pain to the pain that is already there, is it possible for you to completely accept that this is what you feel right now?” She was quiet for a moment. Suddenly she looked impatient, as if she was about to get up, and said angrily, “No, I don't want to accept this.” “Who is speaking?” I asked her. “You or the unhappiness in you? Can you see that your unhappiness about being unhappy is just another layer of unhappiness?” She became quiet again. “I am not asking you to do anything. All I'm asking is that you find out whether it is possible for you to allow those feelings to be there. In other words, and this may sound strange, if you don't mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness? Don't you want to find out?” She looked puzzled briefly, and after a minute or so of sitting silently, I suddenly noticed a significant shift in her energy field. She said, “This is weird. I 'm still unhappy, but now there is space around it. It seems to matter less.” This was the first time I heard somebody put it like that: There is space around my unhappiness. That space, of course, comes when there is inner acceptance of whatever you are experiencing in the present moment. I didn't say much else, allowing her to be with the experience. Later she came to understand that the moment she stopped identifying with the feeling, the old painful emotion that lived in her, the moment she put her attention on it directly without trying to resist it, it could no longer control her thinking and so become mixed up with a mentally constructed story called “The Unhappy Me.” Another dimension had come into her life that transcended her personal past – the dimension of Presence. Since you cannot be unhappy without an unhappy story, this was the end of her unhappiness. It was also the beginning of the end of her pain-body. Emotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus an unhappy story is unhappiness. When our session came to an end, it was fulfilling to know that I had just witnessed the arising of Presence in another human being. The very reason for our existence in human form is to bring that dimension of consciousness into this world. I had also witnessed a diminishment of the pain-body, not through fighting it but through bringing the light of consciousness to it.

As life has taught me time and again, you often have to lose your present circumstance to make room for your forthcoming one.

There comes a day in every man's life when he stops looking forward and starts looking back. Because of my father's circumstances, I had a sad commentary on life, but I now understood that he was offering me his own gift, one that only time can provide. He was offering me the gift of perspective. My father was telling me that while we tend to remember the dramatic incidents that change history---Armstrong's walk on the moon, Nixon's resignation, and the Loma Prieta earthquake---we live for the quiet, intimate moments that mark not our calendars, but our hearts: The day we marry. The days our children are born. Their first step. Their first word. Their first day of school. And when our children grow, we remember those moments with a touch of melancholy: the day they get their driver's license, the day we drive them to college, the day they marry, and the day they have their children. And the cycle begins anew. We realize it is in those quiet moments that each of us has the ability to make our lives extraordinary.

Maybe it was possible that you could take someone out of their life and drop them in the middle of another place entirely and they could seem like someone completely different. But even if that were the case, she thought, it wasn't really 'they' change—it was just the backdrop, the circumstances, the cast of characters. Just because you painted a house didn't mean the furniture inside was any different. It had to be the same with people. Deep down, at the very core, they'd still be the same no matter where they were, wouldn't they?

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

So here's the flash: Continuing to live life as a victim of circumstance, forever focusing on what's wrong with everything and everybody, will never, ever, bring the life desired. It will only bring one thing: more of whatever it is we're wanting so desperately to change.

I spent just one day with Will, and it changed my life I once thought he might be my soulmate. I thought he and I would be here together under very different circumstances.

He once told me that, just as wild animals play when they are young in preparation for lethal circumstances arising later in their lives, mathematics may be, to a large extent, nothing but a strange and wonderful collection of games, an enterprise whose real purpose, beyond any one stated outright, is to slowly work changes in the individual and collective human psyche, as a way to prepare us for a future that nobody can imagine.

This is treachery, to change faith in accord with shifting fortune. The justice of my cause impelled me to withstand even adverse circumstance.

Believe me there is one thing that is permanent. That is LOVE. The circumstances, beginning, ending and the protagonist all changes.

The sun has come. The mist has gone. We see in the distance... our long way home. I was always yours to have. You were always mine. We have loved each other in and out of time. When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun and the first tree struggled up from the forest floor I had always loved you more. You freed your braids... gave your hair to the breeze. It hummed like a hive of honey bees. I reached in the mass for the sweet honey comb there.... Mmmm...God how I love your hair. You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance. Lost, injured, hurt by chance. I screamed to the heavens....loudly screamed.... Trying to change our nightmares into dreams... The sun has come. The mist has gone. We see in the distance our long way home. I was always yours to have. You were always mine. We have loved each other in and out in and out in and out of time.

I understand the circumstances, and I chose you. Amore mio, you must believe that nothing can change my choice or how much I love you. There’s only one person who can keep me from you, and that’s you.

What did I learn that day in the sabha? All this time I'd believed in my power over my husbands. I'd believed that because they loved me they would do anything for me. But now I saw that though they did love me—as much perhaps as any man can love—there were other things they loved more. Their notions of honor, of loyalty toward each other, of reputation were more important to them than my suffering. They would avenge me later, yes, but only when they felt the circumstances would bring them heroic fame. A woman doesn't think that way. I would have thrown myself forward to save them if it had been in my power that day. I wouldn't have cared what anyone thought. The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies

People always complain that they can't do this and they can't do that." "If we look at our lives and concentrate on things that we don't have or wish to have, that doesn't change the circumstances. The truth is that we have to focus on what we have and make the best out of it.

Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her way through or around these challenges, and I'll show you the supreme power of choice.

Having seen all this unfold convinced me that things can change, that hope can prevail, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

It is dangerous for us to allow our difficulties to reside in the forefront of our thinking. Rather, our focus should always remain on our matchless God, who can triumph over any trouble we bring to Him. When God said no to one blessing, it was so I could experience a greater one later on. God speaks to you and me through every situation, but hearing Him is dependent upon our anticipating and paying attention to His instruction. Regardless of the circumstances we experience, we know God is teaching us something, and we will intentionally and eagerly learn and apply whatever it is. There are many days when I cannot wait to get home and be alone with the Father. I am eager to leave behind all the stresses and decisions, change out of my suit and tie, go into my prayer closet, open God’s Word, and relax in His loving arms. Many times I don’t need to say a word. I simply want to hear from the Lord, experiencing His peaceful wisdom and loving presence. There is nothing better in life than just being with Him.

It is sometimes so bitterly cold in the winter that one says, `The cold is too awful for me to care whether summer is coming or not; the harm outdoes the good.’ But with or without our approval, the severe weather does come to an end eventually and one fine morning the wind changes and there is the thaw. When I compare the state of the weather to our state of mind and our circumstances, subject to change and fluctuation like the weather, then I still have some hope that things may get better.

He chuckled. "I cannot speak for other men, but I want the woman who stumbles over a word like virgin and can say whore without raising a blush." His smile faded and he spoke soberly. "Your soldier… your first love… and every circumstance that followed in some way brought you to me, and while I can wish that you had never had your heart hurt, that you had never suffered even a moment of doubt, of pain, of sadness… of betrayal, I also know that you would in some way be changed. It would have made your life different. Mine also." North gave her hand a light squeeze. "Whether we are shaped by the circumstances of our lives, or by our perceptions of them, I still find I very much admire the shape you have become.

Accepting the power to change your life means admitting we cannot always change circumstances or the past, but we can change ourselves. It is within our control to change our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, actions, and reactions. We create our experiences by choosing how we perceive circumstances and events around us.

My favorite stories are the ones I can escape into. The ones where I can leave be-hind this bleak existence and be somebody else, even if just for a little while. Someone braver than me. Someone with the power to change their circumstances.

Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constituitionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the state and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible. It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong', or 'They can't do that; it's against the law', are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney's Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan's Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take places at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a 'miscarriage of British justice'. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory. An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is 'just the same as' or 'just as bad as' totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct,national life is different because of them. In proof of which, look about you. Where are the rubber truncheons, where is the caster oil? The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays corruption cannot go beyond a certain point. The English electoral system, for instance, is an all but open fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the moneyed class. But until some deep change has occurred in the public mind, it cannot become completely corrupt. You do not arrive at the polling booth to find men with revolvers telling you which way to vote, nor are the votes miscounted, nor is there any direct bribery. Even hypocrisy is powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horse-hair wig,whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe,is one of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privilege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in its familiar shape.

Seeing my own contribution to my circumstances makes me stronger, not weaker. If I contribute to my own problems, there are things I have the power to change.

The peace of God doesn't promise to change our circumstances, it's meant to redefine them.

I cried hard for everything. For nothing. For myself. For my parents. For the lives that we were supposed to have. For the stupid life that we did have. For the circumstances that made my father and mother who they were. I wanted to believe that they were better people. I cried for who they were and who they wanted to be. I cried for everything being so fucked up. I cried because I didn't see any future in front of me except for the bottom of Liam's closet. Whatever life I had hoped to have was gone and irreversibly changed. I felt sure of that.

Once upon a time, my government turned my city into a police state, kidnapped me, and tortured me. When I got free, I decided that the problem wasn’t the system, but who was running it. Bad guys had gotten into places of high office. We needed good apples. I worked my butt off to get people to vote for good apples. We had elections. We installed the kind of apples everyone agreed would be the kind of apples we could be proud of. They said good things. A few real dirtbags like Carrie Johnstone lost their jobs. And then, well, the good apples turned out to act pretty much exactly like the bad apples. Oh, they had reasons. There were emergencies. Circumstances. It was all really regrettable. But there were always emergencies, weren’t there?

When the pain and sadness brought me to a breaking point, I would cry, and although my tears didn’t change the circumstances, they lightened the burden and enabled me to get up and go on again.

Sometimes I look back and think my whole adult life has been underlined with a feeling of waiting – waiting for something to happen, waiting for circumstances to change, waiting for the right man or the right job or the right shoes-and-clothes-and-haircut to swoop down from above and change me, to infuse me from the outside in with a feeling of well-being and validation and peace of mind.

As long as we share our stories, as long as our stories reveal our strengths and vulnerabilities to each other, we reinvigorte our understanding and tolerance for the little quirks of personality that in other circumstances would drive us apart. When we live in a family, a community, a country where we know each other's true stories, we remember our capacity to lean in and love each other into wholeness. I have read the story of a tribe in southern Africa called the Babemba in which a person doing something wrong, something that destroys this delicate social net, brings all work in the village to a halt. The people gather around the "offender," and one by one they begin to recite everything he has done right in his life: every good deed, thoughtful behavior, act of social responsibility. These things have to be true about the person, and spoken honestly, but the time-honored consequence of misbehavior is to appreciate that person back into the better part of himself. The person is given the chance to remember who he is and why he is important to the life of the village. I want to live under such a practice of compassion. When I forget my place, when I lash out with some private wounding in a public way, I want to be remembered back into alignment with my self and my purpose. I want to live with the opportunity for reconciliation. When someone around me is thoughtless or cruel, I want to be given the chance to respond with a ritual that creates the possibility of reconnection. I want to live in a neighborhood where people don't shoot first, don't sue first, where people are Storycatchers willing to discover in strangers the mirror of themselves.

The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land — Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes — and yet I shudder.

Life experience, especially negative experiences, help callous the mind. But it’s up to you where that callous lines up. If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar. It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world. It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind.

Water everywhere, falling in thundering cataracts, singular drops, and draping sheets. Kellhus paused next to one of the shining braziers, peered beneath the bronze visage that loomed orange and scowling over his father, watched him lean back into absolute shadow. “You came to the world,” unseen lips said, “and you saw that Men were like children.” Lines of radiance danced across the intervening waters. “It is their nature to believe as their fathers believed,” the darkness continued. “To desire as they desired … Men are like wax poured into moulds: their souls are cast by their circumstances. Why are no Fanim children born to Inrithi parents? Why are no Inrithi children born to Fanim parents? Because these truths are made, cast by the particularities of circumstance. Rear an infant among Fanim and he will become Fanim. Rear him among Inrithi and he will become Inrithi … “Split him in two, and he would murder himself.” Without warning, the face re-emerged, water-garbled, white save the black sockets beneath his brow. The action seemed random, as though his father merely changed posture to relieve some vagrant ache, but it was not. Everything, Kellhus knew, had been premeditated. For all the changes wrought by thirty years in the Wilderness, his father remained Dûnyain … Which meant that Kellhus stood on conditioned ground. “But as obvious as this is,” the blurred face continued, “it escapes them. Because they cannot see what comes before them, they assume nothing comes before them. Nothing. They are numb to the hammers of circumstance, blind to their conditioning. What is branded into them, they think freely chosen. So they thoughtlessly cleave to their intuitions, and curse those who dare question. They make ignorance their foundation. They confuse their narrow conditioning for absolute truth.” He raised a cloth, pressed it into the pits of his eyes. When he withdrew it, two rose-coloured stains marked the pale fabric. The face slipped back into the impenetrable black. “And yet part of them fears. For even unbelievers share the depth of their conviction. Everywhere, all about them, they see examples of their own self-deception … ‘Me!’ everyone cries. ‘I am chosen!’ How could they not fear when they so resemble children stamping their feet in the dust? So they encircle themselves with yea-sayers, and look to the horizon for confirmation, for some higher sign that they are as central to the world as they are to themselves.” He waved his hand out, brought his palm to his bare breast. “And they pay with the coin of their devotion.

Never blame circumstances for your condition, you yourself are responsible for what you go through. If someone's treating you bad, its your fault not theirs. If you are not satisfied with your life, its time you take a step and change it. Nobody will stand for you, nobody will help you, its you who has to ultimately do something for yourself. Doesn't matters if you're hurting yourself for a small time, imagine when things will change and your life will change, how happy you'll be... Let that imagination drive you and help you in your betterment. God is watching everything, always think that, as long as, there's someone in the sky to watch over me, nobody on earth can hurt me...

Quoting from Phillip Moffitt Will Yoga and Meditation Really Change My Life? The most profound change I’m aware of just now is a growing realization that life is not personal. This may seem a surprising or even strange view to those unfamiliar with Eastern spirituality, but it has powerful implications. It’s very freeing to see that events in my life are arising because of circumstances in which I am not involved, but that I’m not at the center of them in any particular way. They’re impersonal. They’re arising because of causes and conditions. They are not “me.” There is a profound freedom in this. It makes life much more peaceful and harmonious because I’m not in reaction to events all the time. (134)

I had no particular problem about getting divorced. For all intents and purposes we already were divorced. And I had no emotional hang up about signing and sealing the official documents. If that's what she wanted, fine. It was a legal formality, nothing more. But when it came to why, and how, things had turned out this way, the sequence of events was beyond me. I understood, of course, that over time, and as circumstances changed, a couple could grow closer, or move apart. Changes in a person's feelings aren't regulated by custom, logic, or the law. They're fluid, unstable, free to spread their wings and fly away. Like migratory birds have no concept of borders between countries. But these were all just generalizations, and I couldn't easily grasp the individual case here-that this woman, Yuzu, refused to love this man, me, and chose instead to be loved by someone else. It felt terribly absurd, a horribly ugly way to be treated. There wasn't any anger involved (I think). I mean, what was I supposed to be angry with? What I was feeling was a fundamental numbness. The numbness your heart automatically activates to lessen the awful pain when you want some-body desperately and they reject you. A kind of emotional morphine.

is a series of promises.” When she’d realized that—marriage equaled promises—she hadn’t feared it. As much. “Maybe you can’t keep them all. The whole till-death-do-us-part business. Maybe you can’t keep that one. Life can be long, and people change, circumstances change, so okay. You realize you don’t really want this life or this person, or the person you made the promises to isn’t who you thought, or they’ve changed in a way you can’t accept or support. Whatever. You make a choice. Stick and try to work it through, or don’t. But don’t give me the boo-hoo, I’m not happy so I’m getting naked with somebody else on the side. It insults everybody.

Fear can change you if you let. Even a proud,strong woman can become a whimpering mess if her fear overwhelms her. Terror reaches inside you and twists your mind, colors your decisions, and limits your options. If I'm going to live my life under the constant threat of death, then I'm going to live it on my terms. And when I do die, I want people to remember me as I am, not as whatever creature my fear wants to turn me into." ... "My circumstances have taken certain choices from me. I'll be damned if I let fear take any more...

Those last six words—'for a time such as this'—resonate with me to my core. I believe that in certain situations, we each have a moral responsibility to act. We all have unique opportunities that derive from our unique circumstances, and we have a duty to take them.

PROLOGUE Have you ever had the feeling that someone was playing with your destiny? If so, this book is for you! Destiny is certainly something people like to talk about. Wherever we go, we hear it mentioned in conversations or proverbs that seek to lay bare its mysteries. If we analyse people’s attitude towards destiny a little, we find straight away that at one extreme are those who believe that everything in life is planned by a higher power and that therefore things always happen for a reason, even though our limited human understanding cannot comprehend why. In this perspective, everything is preordained, regardless of what we do or don’t do. At the other extreme we find the I can do it! believers. These focus on themselves: anything is possible if done with conviction, as part of the plan that they have drawn up themselves as the architects of their own Destiny. We can safely say that everything happens for a reason. Whether it’s because of decisions we take or simply because circumstances determine it, there is always more causation than coincidence in life. But sometimes such strange things happen! The most insignificant occurrence or decision can give way to the most unexpected futures. Indeed, such twists of fate may well be the reason why you are reading my book now. Do you have any idea of the number of events, circumstances and decisions that had to conspire for me to write this and for you to be reading it now? There are so many coincidences that had to come together that it might almost seem a whim of destiny that today we are connected by these words. One infinitesimal change in that bunch of circumstances and everything would have been quite different… All these fascinating issues are to be found in Equinox. I enjoy fantasy literature very much because of all the reality it involves. As a reader you’re relaxed, your defences down, trying to enjoy an loosely-structured adventure. This is the ideal space for you to allow yourself to be carried away to an imaginary world that, paradoxically, will leave you reflecting on real life questions that have little to do with fiction, although we may not understand them completely.

One does not ask about one's true identity simply as a matter of course, but only in rather special circumstances. What this means, I believe, is that "who I really am" becomes an issue for me only when my system of values "breaks down," that is, only when I realize that the values according to which I have lived until now are insufficient to inform a life that I can recognize as satisfying. This realization can occur in variety of circumstances: when my beliefs about myself or the world undergo significant change; when I find that two of my values conflict in a fundamental way; or when, as in the present example, the relations among my previous commitments are insufficiently determinate to tell me what to do in the particular situation I face.

Winnie, We don’t know each other well, but I want this wedding to be everything you want it to be given the circumstances. I have started an account with every bridal store in the area. I’ve given them strict instructions to spare nothing when it comes to you choosing the perfect dress for tomorrow. I’m eager to discover what dress you choose. I hope in time, I can change your mind about trusting me. I’ll be waiting for you at the altar. Yours, Archer

To attempt to change circumstances before I change my own imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of my own being, for my own imaginal activity is animating my world. If I believe that I am injured or that others are against me, I have conjured them in my world, and they have to be against me. If I fully believe that all are working towards the fulfillment of my good, they have to work towards the fulfillment of my good. I don’t ask them. I don’t compel them. I simply do it only within myself, and the whole vast world exists within me. Therefore, it is myself “pushed out.” It’s objectified. I don’t have to change affairs; I only change it within myself, and then every one, though I know him or not by name, – it doesn’t really matter, – it’s myself “pushed out.

It’s not over, and you know it.” “No, I don’t.” I back around the side of the coffee table. He matches my every step. I step back; he steps forward. I move away; he moves in. “Yes, you do because you know it will never be over.” … “Time, circumstance, tragedy— nothing can change that. You and me, there isn’t an over for us.

...due to a change in circumstances I was very sorry but I wouldn't be able to take the job.

Circumstances are in flux, and the world seems to be whirling around you. The only way to keep your balance is to fix your eyes on Me, the One who never changes.

Could circumstances possibly change who I forever am in You?

you are the only one that has the power to change your circumstances and to make your life how you want it to be.

I had changed.And that, at least, gave me some hope: that even under ordinary circumstances, I still might find a way to live and extraordinary life.

Trust me, change can happen in much less time given the right circumstances. Hell, sometimes the people we're closest to change and there's nothing we can do to bring them back.

As you feel bad, and don’t make any effort to change your thoughts and feel better, you are in effect saying, “Bring me more circumstances that will make me feel bad. Bring it on!

Extenuating Circumstances. That is me. That is Violet Markey. Poor forever-changed Violet and her Extenuating Circumstances.

When I was twenty-five I met a woman who changed everything for me. She was bright and vibrant and whenever I was with her I felt like I could do anything.” "Even though our circumstances are strange, and we’re a bit of a mismatch, I really do want to be a part of your life. We may not be a regular kind of family, but if you’ll have me, I’ll be your family just the same.

What’s sturdy and effective for you may not be what’s sturdy and effective in the hands of your boss, or your mother, or your life partner. A spatula won’t help you change a flat tire; a tire iron won’t help you fry an egg. (Though by all means, feel free to prove me wrong.) Tools evolve over time, based on our circumstances and growth. What works in one phase of life may not work in another.

We are, in a certain way, defined as much by our potential as by its expression. There is a great difference between an acorn and a little bit of wood carved into an acorn shape, a difference not always readily apparent to the naked eye. The difference is there even if an acorn never has the opportunity to plant itself and become an oak. Remembering its potential changes the way in which we think of an acorn and react to it. How we value it. If an acorn were conscious, knowing its potential would change the way it might think and feel about itself. The Hindus use the greeting "Namaste" instead of our more noncommittal "Hello." The connotation of this is roughly, whatever your outer appearance, I see and greet the soul in you. There is a wisdom in such ways of relating. Sometimes we can best help other people by remembering that what we believe about them may be reflected back to them in our presence and may affect them in ways we do not fully understand. Perhaps a sense of possibility is communicated by our tone of voice, facial expression, or certain choice of words . . . Holding and conveying a sense of possibility does not mean making demands or having expectations. It may mean having no expectations, but simply being open to whatever promise the situation may hold and remembering the inability of anyone to know the future. Thoreau said that we must awaken and stay awake not by mechanical means, but by a constant expectation of the dawn. There's no need to demand the dawn, the dawn is simply a matter of time. And patience. And the dawn may look quite different from the story we tell ourselves about it. My experience has shown me the wisdom of remaining open to the possibility of growth in any and all circumstances, without ever knowing what shape that growth may take.

These are not the circumstances that I want.’ Is it up to you to choose them? You have been given that particular body, these particular parents and brothers, this particular social position and place to live. You come to me hoping that I can somehow change these circumstances for you, not even conscious of the assets that are already yours that make it possible to cope with any situation you face.

I am. I always was. I always am. I shall always be. The past and the future meet in the eternal now. I am the eternal now. I exist. I am. I am in the past. I am in the future. I am in the now. One is all, and all are one. We are one. Everything I see is a part of myself. Everything I can imagine is a part of myself. I could not imagine something that is not. Everyone I interact with is a part of myself. Whatever I put out, I get it back. My state of being matters, it crystallises in my circumstances. The way I respond to my circumstances reinforces my state of being. When I see an echo of an old belief I respond with peace in my heart. My actions are matched with the highest version of myself I can imagine in that moment. Everything changes, and everything transforms from one form of life to yet another. It is a constant flow of life. It is the heart of all existence. Nothing can perish, nothing can cease being. I am always new. I am always history free. I am always consequence free. Yet I can create an illusion of consequence. Everything is possible, yet not everything is probable. It all depends on my synchronicity. What I choose to explore shall present itself to me. What I believe to be true, is true. All illusions are made out of different beliefs. Yet there is only one knowledge. It is the wisdom of old, yet new. The thought gains the power, when it merges with the feeling. I feel what I desire. I always receive what I ask for. I always manifest instantly with no effort. My wisdom is to be aware of what I request. So it be. So it is. I ask for love, and I welcome bliss.

When we experience self-loss, we often don’t participate with intention or discernment, and, as a result, we struggle to defend or accept not just our circumstances, consequences, or responsibilities, but who we are.

I spent just one day with Will, and it changed my life. I once thought he might be my soulmate. I once thought he and I would be here together under very different circumstances. I once thought a lot of things about Will.

It was the lyrics from PartyNextDoor’s song Come and See Me featuring Drake: “I’ll admit I’m sorry when I feel I’m truly sorry. Things change, people change, feelings change, too. Never thought the circumstances would’ve changed you.

I don't have a lot of time for worry, because I accept that if I'm truly powerless to do something about the situation or change the circumstances; I have an abundance of faith that makes me know I can trust God to work it out. It's not about giving up or not caring, it's more about knowing within my spirit that not all burdens are ours to carry... and I refuse to sacrifice one day of my life over something or someone that only our Creator has the power to change.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me; but if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed; moral Justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty, even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose Justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself; it is then no longer Justice, it is indiscriminate revenge.

What I wished another songwriter would have told me years and years ago is that your circumstances make up your story, and no one has exactly your story. It is your very own. You need never envy someone else’s life story. Not as a songwriter.

Looking out of myself, and my own painful sense of change, the progress all around me is right and necessary. I must not think so much of how circumstances affect me myself, but how they affect others, if I wish to have a right judgment, or a hopeful trustful heart.

But just because I had come so far, it didn’t mean the healing process was over; in fact, I realized it would probably never end. It would just keep changing and adapting along with me, taking on deeper meaning with every new experience and every new season of my life.

Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled. Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border. It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world. But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence. Regulations like these were part of our daily life, but they never failed to infuriate me. One day I was seized by an absolute compulsion to get out. I faked illness and got permission to go to a hospital in the middle of the city. I wandered the streets desperately trying to spot the sea, without success. The local people were unhelpful: they did not like non-Cantonese speakers, and refused to understand me. We stayed in the port for three weeks, and only once were we allowed, as a special treat, to go to an island to see the ocean. As the point of being there was to talk to the sailors, we were organized into small groups to take turns working in the two places they were allowed to frequent: the Friendship Store, which sold goods for hard currency, and the Sailors' Club, which had a bar, a restaurant, a billiards room, and a ping-pong room. There were strict rules about how we could talk to the sailors. We were not allowed to speak to them alone, except for brief exchanges over the counter of the Friendship Store. If we were asked our names and addresses, under no circumstances were we to give our real ones. We all prepared a false name and a nonexistent address. After every conversation, we had to write a detailed report of what had been said which was standard practice for anyone who had contact with foreigners. We were warned over and over again about the importance of observing 'discipline in foreign contacts' (she waifi-lu). Otherwise, we were told, not only would we get into serious trouble, other students would be banned from coming.

Our ideal self is actually holding us back, not propelling us forward. Like our true self, the notion of the ideal self once again limits us to one ultimate self, instead of giving us room to grow and explore alongside our evolving circumstances and desires. It limits our future. Once we’ve arrived at destination Ideal Self, there isn’t anywhere else to go. To some, this might be an achievement. To me, it’s stifling. I hope that I’m not actually my ideal self now, because I want to know who else I can be, what other layers I might shed or add.

PROLOGUE Equinox: Whispers of Destiny Have you ever had the feeling that someone was playing with your destiny? If so, this book is for you. Destiny is certainly a topic people like to talk about. Wherever we go, we hear it mentioned in conversations or proverbs that seek to lay bare its mysteries. If we analyze people’s attitude towards destiny a little, we find straight away that at one extreme there are those who believe that everything in life is planned by a higher power and that therefore things always happen for a reason, even though our limited human understanding cannot comprehend why. In that perspective, everything is preordained, regardless of what we do or don’t do. At the other extreme we find the I can do it! Believers. These focus on themselves: anything is possible if done with conviction, as part of the plan that they have drawn up themselves as the architects of their own destiny. We can safely say that everything happens for a reason. Whether it’s because of decisions we take or simply because circumstances determine it, there is always more causation than coincidence in life. But sometimes such strange things happen. The most insignificant occurrence or decision can give way to the most unexpected futures. Indeed, such twists of fate may well be the reason why you are reading my book now. Do you have any idea of the number of events, circumstances and decisions that had to conspire for me to write this and for you to be reading it now? There are so many coincidences that had to come together that it might almost seem a whim of destiny that today we are connected by these words. One infinitesimal change in that set of circumstances and everything would have been quite different… All these fascinating ideas are to be found in Equinox. I am drawn to fantasy literature because of all the coincidences to reality. As a reader you’re relaxed, your defenses down, trusting the writer to take you on an adventure. This is the ideal space for you to allow yourself to be carried away to an imaginary world that, paradoxically, will leave you reflecting on life questions that have little to do with fiction, but I ask you that perhaps maybe they do.   Gonzalo Guma

17.  According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans. [Sun Tzu, as a practical soldier, will have none of the “bookish theoric.” He cautions us here not to pin our faith to abstract principles; “for,” as Chang Yu puts it, “while the main laws of strategy can be stated clearly enough for the benefit of all and sundry, you must be guided by the actions of the enemy in attempting to secure a favorable position in actual warfare.” On the eve of the battle of Waterloo, Lord Uxbridge, commanding the cavalry, went to the Duke of Wellington in order to learn what his plans and calculations were for the morrow, because, as he explained, he might suddenly find himself Commander-in-chief and would be unable to frame new plans in a critical moment. The Duke listened quietly and then said: “Who will attack the first tomorrow—I or Bonaparte?” “Bonaparte,” replied Lord Uxbridge. “Well,” continued the Duke, “Bonaparte has not given me any idea of his projects; and as my plans will depend upon his, how can you expect me to tell you what mine are?”75] 18.  All warfare is based on deception. [The truth of this pithy and profound saying will be admitted by every soldier. Col. Henderson tells us that Wellington, great in so many military qualities, was especially distinguished by “the extraordinary skill with which he concealed his movements and deceived both friend and foe.”] 19. 

This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems. In the course of reporting it, I spoke to engineers and genetic engineers, biologists and microbiologists, atmospheric scientists and atmospheric entrepreneurs. Without exception, they were enthusiastic about their work. But, as a rule, this enthusiasm was tempered by doubt. The electric fish barriers, the concrete crevasse, the fake cavern, the synthetic clouds- these were presented to me less in a spirit of techno-optimism than what might be called techno-fatalism. They weren't improvements on the originals; they were the best that anyone could come up with, given the circumstances... It's in this context that interventions like assisted evolution and gene drives and digging millions of trenches to bury billions of trees have to be assessed. Geoengineering may be 'entirely crazy and quite disconcerting', but if it could slow the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, or take some of 'the pain and suffering away', or help prevent no-longer-fully-natural ecosystems from collapsing, doesn't it have to be considered?

Let me see if I can state it for you this way, Senator,” he said slowly. “Under certain circumstances that may have existed in the past, the United States guided her actions by certain standards that had been proved to be valid for their time when those circumstances were found to exist. Now the circumstances may have changed and she may still be adhering to those standards although they no longer can be effectively or justifiably applied to the new circumstances which now confront us in which other standards may prove to be more beneficial than those of the past.

Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her way through or around these challenges, and I’ll show you the supreme power of choice. Hopelessness.

If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man’s nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick.’ ‘No, no, it is not man’s nature. I will not allow it to be more man’s nature than woman’s to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather.’ ‘Your feelings may be the strongest,’ replied Anne, ‘but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer-lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments. Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. You have difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with. You are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship. Your home, country, friends, all quitted. Neither time, nor health, nor life, to be called your own. It would be to hard indeed if woman’s feelings were to be added to all this…

I AM WITH YOU AND FOR YOU, your constant Companion and Provider. The question is whether you are with Me and for Me. Though I never leave you, you can essentially “leave” Me by ignoring Me: thinking or acting as if I am not with you. When you feel distance in our relationship, you know where the problem lies. My Love for you is constant; I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is you who change like shifting sand, letting circumstances toss you this way and that. When you feel far from Me, whisper My Name. This simple act, done in childlike faith, opens your heart to My Presence. Speak to Me in love-tones; prepare to receive My Love, which flows eternally from the cross. I am delighted when you open yourself to My loving Presence. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” —GENESIS 28:15 What, then, shall we say

I had heard an amazing story that supported what the Archbishop was saying. When I met James Doty, he was the founder and director of the Center of Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford and the chairman of the Dalai Lama Foundation. Jim also worked as a full-time neurosurgeon. Years earlier, he had made a fortune as a medical technology entrepreneur and had pledged stock worth $30 million to charity. At the time his net worth was over $75 million. However, when the stock market crashed, he lost everything and discovered that he was bankrupt. All he had left was the stock that he had pledged to charity. His lawyers told him that he could get out of his charitable contributions and that everyone would understand that his circumstances had changed. “One of the persistent myths in our society,” Jim explained, “is that money will make you happy. Growing up poor, I thought that money would give me everything I did not have: control, power, love. When I finally had all the money I had ever dreamed of, I discovered that it had not made me happy. And when I lost it all, all of my false friends disappeared.” Jim decided to go through with his contribution. “At that moment I realized that the only way that money can bring happiness is to give it away.” •

Our life is like a journey…’ – and so the journey seems to me less an adventure and a foray into unusual realms than a concentrated likeness of our existence: residents of a city, citizens of country, beholden to a class or a social circle, member of a family and clan and entangled by professional duties, by the habits of an ‘everyday life’ woven from all these circumstances, we often feel too secure, believing our house built for all the future, easily induced to believe in a constancy that makes ageing a problem for one person and each change in external circumstances a catastrophe for another. We forget that this is a process, that the earth is in constant motion and that we too are affected by ebbs and tides, earthquakes and events far beyond our visible and tangible spheres: beggars, kings, figures in the same great game. We forget it for our would-be peace of mind, which then is built on shifting sand. We forget it so as not to fear. And fear makes us stubborn: we call reality only what we can grasp with our hands and what affects us directly, denying the force of the fire that’s sweeping our neighbour’s house, but not yet ours. War in other countries? Just twelve hours, twelve weeks from our borders? God forbid – the horror that sometimes seizes us, you feel it too when reading history books, time or space, it doesn’t matter what lies between us and it. But the journey ever so slightly lifts the veil over the mystery of space – and a city with a magical, unreal name, Samarkand the Golden, Astrakhan or Isfahan, City of Rose Attar, becomes real the instant we set foot there and touch it with our living breath.

Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age, we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon: the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate, and the wonderful facts which he relates, soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind; and, bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book, and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash." If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded, and that a modern system of science had been introduced, which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical; under such circumstances, I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside, and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents; and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.

Ma was isolated and alone. Under those circumstances people behave differently. Kya made a soft groan. “Please don't talk to me about isolation. No one has to tell me how it changes a person. I have lived it. I am isolation," Kya whispered with a slight edge. "I forgive Ma for leaving. But I don't understand why she didn't come back- why she abandoned me. You probably don't remember, but after she walked away, you told me that a she-fox will sometimes leave her kits if she's starving or under some other extreme stress. The kits die- as they probably would have anyway- but the vixen lives to breed again when conditions are better, when she can raise a new litter to maturity. "I've read a lot about this since. In nature- out yonder where the crawdads sing- these ruthless-seeming behaviors actually increase the mother's number of young over her lifetime, and thus her genes for abandoning offspring in times of stress are passed on to the next generation. And on and on. It happens in humans, too. Some behaviors that seem harsh to us now ensured the survival of early man in whatever swamp he was in at the time. Without them, we wouldn't be here. We still store those instincts in our genes, and they express themselves when certain circumstances prevail. Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive- way back yonder.

I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I’d like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don’t settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don’t hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. Take care Ron, Alex

You feel like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, don’t you?” he finally said, staring at me. That was exactly the way I felt. He seemed to empathize with me. He said that my mood reminded him of a song and began to sing in a low tone; his singing voice was very pleasing and the lyrics carried me away: “I’m so far away from the sky where I was born. Immense nostalgia invades my thoughts. Now that I am so alone and sad like a leaf in the wind, sometimes I want to weep, sometimes I want to laugh with longing.” (Que lejos estoy del cielo donde he nacido. Immensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento. Ahora que estoy tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento, quisiera llorar, quisiera reir de sentimiento.) We did not speak for a long while. He finally broke the silence. “Since the day you were born, one way or another, someone has been doing something to you,” he said. “That’s correct,” I said. “And they have been doing something to you against your will.” “True.” “And by now you’re helpless, like a leaf in the wind.” “That’s correct. That’s the way it is.” I said that the circumstances of my life had sometimes been devastating. He listened attentively but I could not figure out whether he was just being agreeable or genuinely concerned until I noticed that he was trying to hide a smile. “No matter how much you like to feel sorry for yourself, you have to change that,” he said in a soft tone. “It doesn’t jibe with the life of a warrior.

I tell myself that I want to live a happy life, and that the circumstances for happiness just haven’t arisen. But what if that’s not true? What if I’m the one who can’t let myself be happy? Because I’m scared, or I prefer to wallow in self-pity, or I don’t believe I deserve good things, or some other reason. Whenever something good happens to me I always find myself thinking: I wonder how long it will be until this turns out badly. And I almost want the worst to happen sooner, sooner rather than later, and if possible straight away, so at least I don’t have to feel anxious about it anymore. If, as I think is quite possible now, I never have any children and never write any books, I suppose I will leave nothing on this earth to be remembered by. And maybe that’s better. It makes me feel that rather than worrying and theorising about the state of the world, which helps no one, I should put my energy into living and being happy. When I try to picture for myself what a happy life might look like, the picture hasn’t changed very much since I was a child – a house with flowers and trees around it, and a river nearby, and a room full of books, and someone there to love me, that’s all. Just to make a home there, and to care for my parents when they grow older. Never to move, never to board a plane again, just to live quietly and then be buried in the earth. What else is life for? But even that seems so beyond me that it’s like a dream, completely unrelated to anything in reality.

For Paul, a new creation meant a total renovation of the inner self, a change of mind and heart. It meant far more than the passive union achieved in water baptism. To be “in Christ,” he told the Philippians, means to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus, to think as Christ thought, to have the ideals Christ had, to throb with the desires that filled Christ’s heart, to replace all your natural actions to persons, events and circumstances with the response of Jesus Christ. In a word, a christocentric life means to live in the heart of Jesus, to share His tastes and aversions, to have the same interests, affections and attitudes, to be motivated in everything by His loving compassion. It means making the habitual thought patterns of Jesus Christ so completely your own that truly “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

Marriage is about so much more than sex. It takes a lot of work on a daily basis to have a successful relationship. Missy and I are spiritual partners and best friends, despite the constant changing of circumstances. I have realized that my dad was right, women are strange, but the differences we have keep life interesting. The righteous acts we commit in overcoming our differences are what make marriage exciting. It does not matter to me where we live or what we drive; what matters is the person I have chosen to be with and how long we reside together. My number one goal in life is to help my wife and kids get to heaven, where we plan to live together as part of a forever family. While we are on this earth I try to live out on a daily basis the words of Joshua 24:15: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Yes! All it would take is just once in my life to be careful and patient and – and that’s all there is to it! All it would take is to stand firm just once, and I can change my whole destiny in a single hour! The main thing is standing firm. Just remember what happened to me in similar circumstances seven months ago in Roulettenburg, before my final loss. Oh, that was a remarkable instance of resolve: I had lost everything, everything … I’m leaving the casino, and I see that I still have a single gulden knocking about in my waistcoat pocket. ‘Ah, so I’ll be able to buy myself some dinner!’ I thought, but after taking about a hundred steps, I changed my mind and went back. I staked that gulden on manque (this time it was manque), and there really is something peculiar in the feeling, when you’re alone, in a foreign country, far from your native land and friends, and you don’t know if you’re going to eat that day, you stake your last gulden, the very, very last one! I won and twenty minutes later I walked out of the casino with 170 gulden in my pocket. That is a fact, sir! That’s what your last gulden can mean sometimes! And what if I had lost heart, if I hadn’t dared to bring myself to do it? … Tomorrow, tomorrow it will all be over! 1866

As I sat there with him, I felt the way I always do when alone in certain circumstances with certain men—that anything could happen. That he could go about his business, mannerly and kind, or he could grab me and change the course of things entirely in an instant. With Frank in his truck, I watched his hands, his every move, each cell in my body on high alert, though I appeared as relaxed as if I’d just woken from a nap.

In and Out of Time The sun has come. The mist has gone. We see in the distance... our long way home. I was always yours to have. You were always mine. We have loved each other in and out of time. When the first stone looked up at the blazing sun and the first tree struggled up from the forest floor I had always loved you more. You freed your braids... gave your hair to the breeze. It hummed like a hive of honey bees. I reached in the mass for the sweet honey comb there.... Mmmm...God how I love your hair. You saw me bludgeoned by circumstance. Lost, injured, hurt by chance. I screamed to the heavens....loudly screamed.... Trying to change our nightmares into dreams... The sun has come. The mist has gone. We see in the distance our long way home. I was always yours to have. You were always mine. We have loved each other in and out in and out in and out of time.

What do I think was modernism’s subject, then? What was it about? No doubt you can guess my starting point. It was about steam—in both the Malevich and the de Chirico a train still rushes across the landscape. It was about change and power and contingency, in other words, but also control, compression, and captivity—an absurd or oppressive orderliness is haunting the bright new fields and the sunlit squares with their eternally flapping flags. Modernism presents us with a world becoming a realm of appearances—fragments, patchwork quilts of color, dream-tableaux made out of disconnected phantasms. But all of this is still happening in modernism, and still resisted as it is described. The two paintings remain shot through, it seems to me, with the effort to answer back to the flattening and derealizing-the will to put the fragments back into some sort of order. Modernism is agonized, but its agony is not separable from weird levity or whimsy. Pleasure and horror go together in it. Malevich may be desperate, or euphoric. He may be pouring scorn on the idea of collective man, or spelling the idea out with utter childish optimism. We shall never know his real opinions. His picture entertains both. Modernism was certainly about the pathos of dream and desire in twentieth- century circumstances, but, again, the desires were unstoppable, ineradicable. The upright man will not let go of the future. The infinite still exists at the top of the tower. Even in the Picasso the monster flashing up outside the window is my monster, my phantasm, the figure of my unnegotiable desire. The monster is me—the terrible desiring and fearing subject inside me that eludes all form of conditioning, all the barrage of instructions about what it should want and who it should be. This is Picasso’s vestigial utopianism. You think that modernity is a realm of appetite and immediacy! I’ll show you appetite! I’ll show you immediacy! I shall, as a modernist, make the dreams of modernity come true. Modernism was testing, as I said before. It was a kind of internal exile, a retreat into the territory of form; but form was ultimately a crucible, an act of aggression, an abyss into which all the comfortable “givens” of the culture were sucked and then spat out.

She touched his arm. “If you need anything, send word. It’ll be a few weeks before we reach Orynth, but—I suppose with magic returned, you can find a messenger to get word to me quickly.” “Thanks to you—and to your friends.” She glanced over her shoulder at them. They were all trying their best to look like they weren’t eavesdropping. “Thanks to all of us,” she said quietly. “And to you.” Dorian gazed toward the city horizon, the rolling green foothills beyond. “If you had asked me nine months ago if I thought …” He shook his head. “So much has changed.” “And will keep changing,” she said, squeezing his arm once. “But … There are things that won’t change. I will always be your friend.” His throat bobbed. “I wish I could see her, just one last time. To tell her … to say what was in my heart.” “She knows,” Aelin said, blinking against the burning in her eyes. “I’ll miss you,” Dorian said. “Though I doubt the next time we meet will be in such … civilized circumstances.” She tried not to think about it. He gestured over her shoulder to her court. “Don’t make them too miserable. They’re only trying to help you.” She smiled. To her surprise, a king smiled back. “Send me any good books that you read,” she said. “Only if you do the same.” She embraced him one last time. “Thank you—for everything,” she whispered. Dorian squeezed her, and then stepped away as Aelin mounted her horse and nudged it into a walk.

I think the reason lay partly in his idea of immortality, but I think too it belonged to his war against the Inland Revenue. He was a great believer in delaying tactics. “Never answer all their questions,” he would say. “Make them write again. And be ambiguous. You can always decide what you mean later according to circumstances. The bigger the file the bigger the work. Personnel frequently change. A newcomer has to start looking at the file from the beginning. Office space is limited. In the end it’s easier for them to give in.” Sometimes, if the inspector was pressing very hard, he told me that it was time to fling in a reference to a non-existing letter. He would write sharply, “You seem to have paid no attention to my letter of April 6, 1963.” A whole month might pass before the inspector admitted he could find no trace of it. Mr Pottifer would send in a carbon copy of the letter containing a reference which again the inspector would be unable to trace. If he was a newcomer to the district, of course he blamed his predecessor; otherwise, after a few years of Mr Pottifer, he was quite liable to have a nervous breakdown. I think when Mr Pottifer planned to carry on after death (of course there was no notice in the papers and the funeral was very quiet) he had these delaying tactics in mind. He didn’t think of the inconvenience to his clients, only of the inconvenience to the inspector.’ Aunt Augusta

Since childhood, I was afflicted with a sick hypersensitivity, and my imagination quickly turned everything into a memory, too quickly: sometimes one day was enough, or an interval of a few hours, or a routine change of place, for an everyday event with a lyrical value that I did not sense at the time, to become suddenly adorned with a radiant echo, the echo ordinarily reserved only for those memories which have been standing for many years in the powerful fixative of lyrical oblivion. In my case, as I said, this process of galvanic overlaying would proceed with a kind of sick intensity as things and persons took on a thin coating of gilt and a noble patina, and yesterday's outing, if some objective circumstance was suggestive of its finality, of the fact that it would not and could not be repeated, would become for me the very next day a cause for melancholic and still indeterminate contemplation. In my case, two days were enough for things to take on the preciousness of a memory.

Please don’t think that my circumstances stand between me and a full stomach.” At least not until lately. “It has been all for vanity, of course. I can sustain somewhere between one point five and one point six chins. But the moment I have more than that, my looks suffer catastrophically.” Mrs. Jebediah laughed, startled. “But surely you exaggerate, my dear.” “I assure you I do not. Via scientific trials, I have determined the precise weight, to the ounce, at which the shape of my face changes to my detriment.

You are a good enough judge of painting to see and understand what I may have of originality, and also to see the uselessness of presenting what I am doing to the modern public, because the others surpass me in clearness of touch. That is more the fault of wind and circumstances, compared to what I could do without the mistral and without the fatal conditions of vanished youth and comparative poverty. For my part I am in no way set on changing my condition, and I count myself only too happy to be able to go on as I do.

There have been a lot of Smedries over the centuries," he said, "and a lot of Talents. Many of them tend to be similar, in the long run. There are four kinds: Talents that affect space, time, knowledge, and the physical world." "Take my talent, for instance," he continued. "I change things in space. I can get lost, then get found again." "What about grandpa Smedry?" "Time," Kas said. "He arrives late to things. Australia, however, has a Talent that can change the physical world--in this case, her own shape. Her Talent is fairly specific, and not as broad as your grandfather's. For instance, there was a Smedry a couple of centuries back who could look ugly any time he wanted, not just when he woke up in the morning. Other have been able to change anyone's appearance, not just their own. Understand?" I shrugged. "I guess so." "The closer the Talent gets to its purest form, the more powerful it is," Kaz said. "Your grandfather's Talent is very pure--he can manipulate time in a lot of different circumstances. Your father and I have very similar Talents--I can get lost and Attica can lose things--and both are flexible." "What about Sing?" I asked. "Tripping. That's what we call a knowledge Talent--he knows how to do something normal with extraordinary ability. Like Australia, though, his power isn't very flexible." I nodded slowly. "So...what does this have to do with me?" "Well, it's hard to say," Kaz said. "You're getting into some deep philosophy now, kid. There are those who argue that the Breaking Talent is simply a physical-world Talent, but one that is very versatile and very powerful. There are others who argue that the Breaking Talent is much more. It seems to be able to do things that affect all four areas. Legends say that one of your ancestors--one of only two others to have this Talent--broke time and space together, forming a little bubble where nothing aged. Other records speak of breakings equally marvelous. Breakings that change people's memory or their abilities. What is it to 'break' something? What can you change? How far can the Talent go?

His answer to the nuclear dilemma was a perfect reflection of the best and the worst in him: mercilessly logical, completely counterintuitive, and so utterly rational that it bordered on the psychopathic. The thing about my husband that people don’t understand is that he truly saw life as a game, he regarded all human endeavors, no matter how deadly or serious, in that spirit. He once told me that, just as wild animals play when they are young in preparation for lethal circumstances arising later in their lives, mathematics may be, to a large extent, nothing but a strange and wonderful collection of games, an enterprise whose real purpose, beyond any one stated outright, is to slowly work changes in the individual and collective human psyche, as a way to prepare us for a future that nobody can imagine. The problem with those games, the many terrible games that spring forth from humanity’s unbridled imagination, is that when they are played in the real world—whose rules and true purpose are known only to God—we come face-to-face with dangers that we may not have the knowledge or the wisdom to overcome.

When I told him that I just wanted you to be happy, he gave me his opinion of happiness. He claimed it was a superficial, fleeting sensation that most people don't even recognize when it happens to them. They only pay attention when they find themselves unhappy." ... "He went on to say that what really mattered was the ability to experience joy. He seems to feel that is the more powerful emotion because it endures, regardless of circumstances. Once you've known joy, you are never quite the same. It changes a person." - Octavia in Promise Not to Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz

I thought of the long-ago afternoon when we first met, a boy and a girl in a crowded plaza. Even then he was an ingrained macho, able to direct his destiny; in contrast, he believed that because I had been born a girl I was at a disadvantage, I should accept my limitations and entrust myself to others’ care. In his eyes, I would never be independent. Huberto had thought that way since he could think at all; it was not likely that the Revolution was going to change those attitudes. I realized that our problems were not related in any way to the fortunes of the guerillas; even if he achieved his dream, there would be no equality for me. For Naranjo, and others like him, “the people” seemed to be composed exclusively of men; we women should contribute to the struggle but were excluded from decision-making and power. His revolution would not change my fate in any fundamental way; under any circumstances, as long as I lived I would still have to make my own way. Perhaps it was at that moment I realized that mine is a war with no end in view; I might as well fight it cheerfully or I would spend my life waiting for some distant victory in order to be happy.

When I told him that I just wanted you to be happy, he gave me his opinion of happiness. He claimed it was a superficial, fleeting sensation that most people don’t even recognize when it happens to them. They only pay attention when they find themselves unhappy. And then they tend to feel resentful and angry.” “He has a point, I suppose.” “He went on to say that what really mattered was the ability to experience joy. He seems to feel that is the more powerful emotion because it endures, regardless of circumstances. Once you’ve known joy, you are never quite the same. It changes a person.

For the first time in my life, I fully realized that I was not in charge. I knew that I needed to submit to Heavenly Father's will. I couldn't have what I wanted when and how I wanted it just because I was keeping the commandments. The purpose of prayer was not to tell Heavenly Father what to do, rather to find out what He would have me do and learn. I needed to align my will with His...Prayer is less about changing our circumstances and more about changing us. It is about seeking His will and asking for His help to do what we need to do." June 2013 Ensign, "Improving Your Personal Prayers

Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude.… I believe the single most important decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my attitude choice. It’s more important than my past. It’s more important than my education or my bankroll or my success or my failures. My attitude choice is more important than my fame or my pain or what others think or say about me or my position or my circumstances. Attitudes keep me going or cripple my progress. Attitude alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitude is right, there is no barrier too high nor valley too deep nor dream too extreme nor challenge too great for me.2

I clutch to William’s hand. “I can do this.” He nods and pulls me tight into his arms. “I know you can. I believe in you.” I hug him tightly. I don’t want to lose this … I don’t want this to change anything; I still want to love this man when this is over. “Take care of the others.” He whispers in my ear. “I will.” He picks me up and kisses me, deeply and desperately, for a long time. When we finally release our lip lock, we’re both in tears. His voice is barely a whisper. “I love you, Alanna.” I stroke his cheek. “I love you.” It’s the first time we’ve both said it out loud at the same time. Something about that makes me feel very hopeful, despite the circumstances.

In the long run, there is no running from your pain. You can try to numb yourself with slow, self-sabotaging methods—excessive eating, drinking, and drugs—or you can end it through suicide. But in the end, these methods don’t heal anything. While I’m reminded here in Spirit that I’m much more than my wounds, being here doesn’t heal the wounds I ran away from. I can gain understanding about how and why the wounds were created, but when I choose another physical body in another physical life, the same wounds will be front and center. Spirited life rejuvenates me, gives me greater perspective and strengthens my power to love myself with the wounds; but I have wounds that can only be worked out in physical form. I’ll strive to remember and bring this fresh perspective back into a new physical life, but I’ll still be subject to the veil of forgetfulness. We choose the physical circumstances that will remind us of what needs to be healed. Everything is orchestrated to provide us with what we need. During my life review, I saw that I’d had countless opportunities to heal the wounds, but because I’d been so afraid of change, I hadn’t even entertained them as possibilities. If I’d acted on the opportunities, I could have taken Physical Bill to his full potential. Instead, I’m now focused on creating another physical life and having to do it over again. Irene: Isn’t reincarnation

If the change be not from outward circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man’s nature, which has done the business for Captain Benwick.’ ‘No, no, it is not man’s nature. I will not allow it to be more man’s nature than woman’s to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather.’ ‘Your feelings may be the strongest,’ replied Anne, ‘but the same spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most tender. Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer-lived; which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.

Researchers have shown that the flooding of stress hormones resulting from a traumatic separation from your parents at a young age kills off so many dendrites and neurons in the brain that it results in permanent psychological and physical changes. One psychiatrist I went to told me that my brain looked like a tree without branches. So I just think about all the children who have been separated from their parents, and there's a lot of us, past and present, and some under more traumatic circumstances than others--like those who are in internment camps right now--and I just imagine us as an army of mutants. We’ve all been touched by this monster, and our brains are forever changed, and we all have trees without branches in there, and what will happen to us? Who will we become? Who will take care of us?

…There is some firm place in me which knows that what happened to Wally, whatever it was, whatever it is that death is as it transliterates us, moving us out of this life into what we can’t know, is kind. I shock myself, writing that. I know that many deaths are anything but gentle. I know people suffer terribly…I know many die abandoned, unseen, their stories unheard, their dignity violated, their human worth ignored. I suspect that the ease of Wally’s death, the rightness of it, the loving recognition which surrounded him, all made it possible for me to see clearly, to witness what other circumstances might obscure. I know, as surely as I know anything, that he’s all right now. And yet. And yet he’s gone, an absence so forceful it is itself a daily hourly presence. My experience of being with Wally… brought me to another sort of perception, but I can’t stay in that place, can’t sustain that way of seeing. The experience of knowing, somehow, that he’s all right, lifted in some kind process that turns at the heart of the world, gives way, as it must, to the plain aching fact that he’s gone. And doubt. And the fact that we can’t understand, that it’s our condition to not know. Is that our work in the world, to learn to dwell in such not-knowing? We need our doubt so as to not settle for easy answers. Not-knowing pushes us to struggle after meaning for ourselves…Doubt’s lesson seems to be that whatever we conclude must be provisional, open to revision, subject to correction by forces of change. Leave room, doubt says, for the unknowable, for what it will never quite be your share to see. Stanley Kunitz says somewhere that if poetry teaches us anything, it is that we can believe two completely contradictory things at once. And so I can believe that death is utter, unbearable rupture, just as I know that death is kind.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

And yet it seems to me that the thought and activity of those friends who have never given up direct political work and who are always ready to assume direct political responsibility very often suffer from one chronic fault: an insufficient understanding of the historical uniqueness of the posttotalitarian system as a social and political reality. They have little understanding of the specific nature of power that is typical for this system and therefore they overestimate the importance of direct political work in the traditional sense. Moreover, they fail to appreciate the political significance of those "pre-political" events and processes that provide the living humus from which genuine political change usually springs. As political actors-or, rather, as people with political ambitions-they frequently try to pick up where natural political life left off. They maintain models of behavior that may have been appropriate in more normal political circumstances and thus, without really being aware of it, they bring an outmoded way of thinking, old habits, conceptions, categories, and notions to bear on circumstances that are quite new and radically different, without first giving adequate thought to the meaning and substance of such things in the new circumstances, to what politics as such means now, to what sort of thing can have political impact and potential, and in what way- Because such people have been excluded from the structures of power and are no longer able to influence those structures directly (and because they remain faithful to traditional notions of politics established in more or less democratic societies or in classical dictatorships) they frequently, in a sense, lose touch with reality. Why make compromises with reality, they say, when none of our proposals will ever be accepted anyway? Thus they find themselves in a world of genuinely utopian thinking.

More than one of the persons whom this afternoon party had collected or whose memory it evoked, provided me with the successive appearances he had presented under widely dissimilar circumstances. The individual rose before me again as he had been and, in doing so, called forth the various aspects of my own life, like different perspectives in a countryside where a hill or a castle seems at one moment to be to the right, at another to the left, to dominate a forest or emerge from a valley, thus reminding the traveller of changes of direction and altitude in the road he has been following. As I went further and further back I finally discovered pictures of the same individual, separated by such long intervals, represented by such distinct personalities, with such different meanings that, as a rule, I eliminated them from my field of recollection when I believed I had made contact with them, and often ceased believing they were the same people I had formerly known.

What the East has given me is the thought that this I of mine is not so unique. Nothing much will be lost when it disappears. It isn't important. I am a hindrance to the world, and the world is a hindrance to me. There will only be harmony if I get rid of both at once. What dies in that case is a bundle of circumstances that bore my name, plus the limited and moreover constantly changing knowledge that these circumstances had about themselves. It doesn't matter to me. I have learnt not to be afraid. That in itself is quite a lot, and I am not capable of anything more. In a Zen monastery I would probably get the stick mercilessly, because it's all no good, but it satisfies me. What I have achieved is negative. I am no longer afraid, and I can quietly dissolve myself the way you dissolve a bottle of poison in an ocean. The ocean won't feel any ill effect, and the poison has been freed from a great burden; it does not have to be poison any more." "And is that the only solution?" "What I lack is love.

There were clear differences in how the young men responded to being called a bad name. For some, the insult changed their behavior. For some it didn’t. The deciding factor in how they reacted wasn’t how emotionally secure they were, or whether they were intellectuals or jocks, or whether they were physically imposing or not. What mattered—and I think you can guess where this is headed—was where they were from. Most of the young men from the northern part of the United States treated the incident with amusement. They laughed it off. Their handshakes were unchanged. Their levels of cortisol actually went down, as if they were unconsciously trying to defuse their own anger. Only a few of them had Steve get violent with Larry. But the southerners? Oh, my. They were angry. Their cortisol and testosterone jumped. Their handshakes got firm. Steve was all over Larry. “We even played this game of chicken,” Cohen said. “We sent the students back down the hallways, and around the corner comes another confederate. The hallway is blocked, so there’s only room for one of them to pass. The guy we used was six three, two hundred fifty pounds. He used to play college football. He was now working as a bouncer in a college bar. He was walking down the hall in business mode—the way you walk through a bar when you are trying to break up a fight. The question was: how close do they get to the bouncer before they get out of the way? And believe me, they always get out of the way.” For the northerners, there was almost no effect. They got out of the way five or six feet beforehand, whether they had been insulted or not. The southerners, by contrast, were downright deferential in normal circumstances, stepping aside with more than nine feet to go. But if they had just been insulted? Less than two feet. Call a southerner an asshole, and he’s itching for a fight. What Cohen and Nisbett were seeing in that long hall was the culture of honor in action: the southerners were reacting like Wix Howard did when Little Bob Turner accused him of cheating at poker.

On a drive down from Philly to D.C., where I was scheduled to appear the next morning on Meet the Press, Gibbs and Axe, along with Axe’s business partner, David Plouffe, asked me what I planned to say when the show’s host, Tim Russert, inevitably grilled me about my plans. “He’s going to run back the old tape,” Axe explained. “The one where you say unequivocally you will not run for president in 2008.” I listened for a few minutes as the three of them began hashing out various ways to sidestep the question before I interrupted. “Why don’t I just tell the truth? Can’t I just say that I had no intention of running two years ago, but circumstances have changed and so has my thinking, and I plan to give it serious thought after the midterms are over?” They liked the idea, admitting that it said something about the strangeness of politics that such a straightforward answer would be considered novel. Gibbs also advised that I give Michelle a heads-up, predicting that a direct suggestion that I might run would cause the media frenzy to immediately intensify.

You’re called to come out of the crowd. You’re called to be counter-culture. You’re not called to live in this world, be of this world-you’re called to come out. News flash-the crowd is stupid. The crowd has no identity at all. We just do what everyone else is doing. “ “When you decide, you divide the enemy and his tactics, and his distractions towards your life. The moment you actually conqueror the urge, you get stronger and the urges get weaker. But it will never happen, until you determine “I am not like the crowd, I’m coming out of the crowd. I’m apart of the minority. Ruth is determined to choose right over easy. You want to know what the right thing is? The right thing is God’s word, and it’s not just about knowing it, it’s about applying it to your life!” “Choose right over easy.” “See, when you come out of the crowd, and when you say, and when you say with the crowd, it’s all crowded here, and when you say I’m going to be apart of the minority, but let my commitments stand. Hey Naomi, you don’t know me, I made a commitment, and my commitment matters. You can tell me I’m relieved of my responsibility, but my vow is my vow. And I’m not going to be swayed, just because the circumstances have changed.” “Stay on the path, because you don’t know what lies ahead of you. Because you’re not God. All He asks you and I is to put one foot in front of another. To keep on moving. Keep on going. Commit to God’s way, and watch God make a way, when there seems to be no way. “ “Being single is awesome! When you’re single, everything in your house, you own all of it. All the money in your bank account, belongs to you.” :) “I think one of the hardest things, that people don’t talk about is that you get to decorate your house exactly how you want to do it.” “The older I get, the more I realize that people are borderline obsessed with what’s next…but if you’re not careful you’ll get so obsessed with what’s next, you won’t care about what is now. It doesn’t take a lot of use to realize, that if you’re graduating from high school, everyone’s going-“where you going to college?” If you’re in college, everyone’s like “where are you going to work?” You work for a little while as a single person, and it’s like “when are you going to get married.” You get married, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have kids?” You have a kid, and everyone’s like, “when are you going to have more kids.” “Singleness is not a stop sign. It’s not a period, it’s not a comma. Your life doesn’t begin when you get married. A boy-friend or a girl-friend doesn’t make your life start happening. Life is happening. The question is, “are you happening?” You don’t have to live boring or be bored to be single. A life filled with Jesus is full of adventure. It’s filled with spontaneity, it’s full of ups and downs. And it’s time for you to get on mission. Let me just be loud and clear and frank with it-Jesus is a better partner than any spouse could ever dream of being.” “The truth is, sometimes sitting on the path can be just as detrimental as getting off the path. You’re called to move forward, you’re called to grow, you’re called to become.” “Be the minority, because the majority is overrated.” -Rich Wilkerson Jr., Single and Secure

Those who wish to write quickly a piece about nothing that no one will read through even once, whether in a newspaper or a book, extol with much conviction the style of the spoken language, because they find it much more modern, direct, facile. They themselves do not know how to speak. Neither do their readers, the language actually spoken under modern conditions of life being socially reduced to its indirect representation through the suffrage of the media, and including around six or eight turns of phrase repeated at every moment and fewer than two hundred words, most of them neologisms, with the whole thing submitted to replacement by one third every six months. All this favours a certain rapid solidarity. On the contrary, I for my part am going to write without affectation or fatigue, as if it were the most natural and easiest thing in the world, the language that I have learned and, in most circumstances, spoken. It’s not up to me to change it. The Gypsies rightly contend that one is never compelled to speak the truth except in one’s own language; in the enemy’s language, the lie must reign.

He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes. (1 Samuel 3:18) If I see God in everything, He will calm and color everything I see! Perhaps the circumstances causing my sorrows will not be removed and my situation will remain the same, but if Christ is brought into my grief and gloom as my Lord and Master, He will “surround me with songs of deliverance” (Ps. 32:7). To see Him and to be sure that His wisdom and power never fail and His love never changes, to know that even His most distressing dealings with me are for my deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain, and loss, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21). Seeing God in everything is the only thing that will make me loving and patient with people who annoy and trouble me. Then I will see others as the instruments God uses to accomplish His tender and wise purpose for me, and I will even find myself inwardly thanking them for the blessing they have become to me. Nothing but seeing God will completely put an end to all complaining and thoughts of rebellion. Hannah Whitall Smith

After gathering evidence on this for decades, Alan concluded that “none of what I originally believed turned out to be true,” and a “clear majority” of the kids who were later diagnosed “were not born to be ADHD. They developed these problems in reaction to their circumstances.” There was one crucial question, Alan said, that held the key to whether parents overcame these problems—one that seemed to me to tell us a lot about Sami’s work: Is there somebody giving you support? The families they studied sometimes got help from people around them. It usually wasn’t from a professional—they just found a supportive partner, or a group of friends. When their social support went up in this way, they found “the children are less likely to have problems at the next stage.” Why would this be? Alan wrote: “Parents experiencing less stress can be more responsive to their infants; then infants can become more secure.” This effect was so large that “the strongest predictor of positive change was an increase in social support available to the parents during the intervening years.” Social support is, I reflected, the main thing Sami provides to families whose children struggle with attention.

Look at the stories of people who have changed the world - they have so often started with little, but they distinguished themselves by how they approached life, opportunity, relationships and struggle. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. You name them. The list is huge but the common qualities are small. Resourcefulness and a determination to survive the ‘lemons’ are invariably at the heart of these successes. The secret to a life well lived is taking the resources around us - the people we know, the possessions we own, the skills we’ve acquired - and combining them in such a way that they add up to something greater than their constituent parts. That’s the lemonade bit. So often in the wild I have felt totally beaten, but I have kept going, kept trying to think smart, be resourceful, positive, energetic - despite the fatigue - and it has always made a critical difference. We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny. A life in the wild has taught me not to fear the unexpected, but to embrace it. In fact, I have learnt that those curve balls from left-field are very often the making of us.

Despite our differences, Missy and I built a foundation for our marriage in Christ. Before we were married, we were mocked by some of our friends and acquaintances for being virgins. I remember one of my friends constantly belittling me and saying I needed to experience sex before marriage just to know what to do and how to do it. I saw him years later and quickly told him, “I’ve got three kids. I figured it out.” Marriage is about so much more than sex. It takes a lot of work on a daily basis to have a successful relationship. Missy and I are spiritual partners and best friends, despite the constant changing of circumstances. I have realized that my dad was right, women are strange, but the differences we have keep life interesting. The righteous acts we commit in overcoming our differences are what make marriage exciting. It does not matter to me where we live or what we drive; what matters is the person I have chosen to be with and how long we reside together. My number one goal in life is to help my wife and kids get to heaven, where we plan to live together as part of a forever family. While we are on this earth I try to live out on a daily basis the words of Joshua 24:15: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

Apply the following statements to a significant EIP in your life and in your journal write “agree” or “disagree” for each one. I agree that your needs should come before anyone else’s. I agree not to speak my own mind when I’m around you. Please say anything you want, and I won’t object. Yes, I must be ignorant if I think differently from you. Of course you should be upset if anyone says no to you about anything. Please educate me about what I should like or dislike. Yes, it makes sense for you to decide how much time I should want to spend with you. You’re right, I should show you “respect” by disowning my own thoughts in your presence. Of course you shouldn’t have to exercise self-control if you don’t feel like it. It’s fine if you don’t think before you speak. It’s true: you should never have to wait or deal with any unpleasantness. I agree: you shouldn’t have to adjust when circumstances change around you. It’s okay if you ignore me, snap at me, or don’t act glad to see me: I’ll still want to spend time with you. Of course you are entitled to be rude. I agree that you shouldn’t have to take direction from anyone. Please talk as long as you like about your favorite topics; I’m ready to just listen and never be asked any questions about myself.

Statement on Hamas (October 10th, 2023) When Israel strikes, it's "national security" - when Palestine strikes back, it's "terrorism". Just like over two hundred years ago when native americans resisted their homeland being stolen, it was called "Indian Attack". Or like over a hundred years ago when Indian soldiers in the British Army revolted against the empire, in defense of their homeland, it was called "Sepoy Mutiny". The narrative never changes - when the colonizer terrorizes the world, it's given glorious sounding names like "exploration" and "conquest", but if the oppressed so much as utters a word in resistance, it is branded as attack, mutiny and terrorism - so that, the real terrorists can keep on colonizing as the self-appointed ruler of land, life and morality, without ever being held accountable for violating the rights of what they deem second rate lifeforms, such as the arabs, indians, latinos and so on. After all this, some apes will still only be interested in one stupid question. Do I support Hamas? To which I say this. Until you've spent a lifetime under an oppressive regime, you are not qualified to ask that question. An ape can ask anything its puny brain fancies, but it's up to the human to decide whether the ape is worthy of a response. What do you think, by the way - colonizers can just keep coming as they please, to wipe their filthy feet on us like doormat, and we should do nothing - just stay quiet! For creatures who call themselves civilized, you guys have a weird sense of morality. Yet all these might not get through your thick binary skull, so let me put it to you bluntly. I don't stand with Hamas, I am Hamas, just like, I don't stand with Ukraine, I am Ukraine. Russia stops fighting, war ends - Ukraine stops fighting, Ukraine ends. Israel ends invasion, war ends - Palestine ends resistance, Palestine ends. However, I do have one problem here. Why do civilians have to die, if that is indeed the case - which I have no way of confirming, because news reports are not like reputed scientific data, that a scientist can naively trust. During humankind's gravest conflicts news outlets have always peddled a narrative benefiting the occupier and demonizing the resistance, either consciously or subconsciously. So never go by news reports, particularly on exception circumstances like this. No matter the cause, no civilian must die, that is my one unimpeachable law. But the hard and horrific fact of the matter is, only the occupier can put an end to the death and destruction peacefully - the resistance does not have that luxury.

Remember, freedom does not imply that we have no constraints; freedom implies that we have a certain relationship with our “givens.” Sartre said, “Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” And Frankl perfectly summarized this relationship by saying: “It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.” His positioning is as firm as Sartre’s—he doesn’t call us condemned, but he states that human beings are always free (even if the freedom looks different for each circumstance). Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher who is regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, similarly suggested that the Self (what he called Dasein, which translates as “being there” or “to be there”) is a dynamic between who we are at this very moment and who we can and will be as time goes on. We are constantly straddling what has happened and what hasn’t happened yet, and all the possibilities that remain. One could say that we are everything that’s happened and everything that will happen. There is something liberating about knowing there is always more that we will become. As long as we are alive, we will never stop becoming; never stop having the ability to create our Self. It really puts our “givens” into a helpful perspective

We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.” Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.” Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him. And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with. But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into. “Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband- a husband who truly loves his wife - wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.” Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?” “I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.” Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!” He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!” He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry. He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!” He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.

This book festival...grew to attract thousands of visitors every year. Now they felt like they needed a new purpose. The festival’s continuing existence felt assured. What was it for? What could it do? How could it make itself count? The festival’s leadership reached out to me for advice on these questions. What kind of purpose could be their next great animating force? Someone had the idea that the festival’s purpose could be about stitching together the community. Books were, of course, the medium. But couldn’t an ambitious festival set itself the challenge of making the city more connected? Couldn’t it help turn strong readers into good citizens? That seemed to me a promising direction—a specific, unique, disputable lodestar for a book festival that could guide its construction...We began to brainstorm. I proposed an idea: Instead of starting each session with the books and authors themselves, why not kick things off with a two-minute exercise in which audience members can meaningfully, if briefly, connect with one another? The host could ask three city- or book-related questions, and then ask each member of the audience to turn to a stranger to discuss one of them. What brought you to this city—whether birth or circumstance? What is a book that really affected you as a child? What do you think would make us a better city? Starting a session with these questions would help the audience become aware of one another. It would also break the norm of not speaking to a stranger, and perhaps encourage this kind of behavior to continue as people left the session. And it would activate a group identity—the city’s book lovers—that, in the absence of such questions, tends to stay dormant. As soon as this idea was mentioned, someone in the group sounded a worry. “But I wouldn’t want to take away time from the authors,” the person said. There it was—the real, if unspoken, purpose rousing from its slumber and insisting on its continued primacy. Everyone liked the idea of “book festival as community glue” in theory. But at the first sign of needing to compromise on another thing in order to honor this new something, alarm bells rang. The group wasn’t ready to make the purpose of the book festival the stitching of community if it meant changing the structure of the sessions, or taking time away from something else. Their purpose, whether or not they admitted it, was the promotion of books and reading and the honoring of authors. It bothered them to make an author wait two minutes for citizens to bond. The book festival was doing what many of us do: shaping a gathering according to various unstated motivations, and making half-hearted gestures toward loftier goals.

Here I will mention one more strange thing; but whether this peculiarity was owing to my shadow at all, I am not able to assure myself. I came to a village, the inhabitants of which could not at first sight be distinguished from the dwellers in our land. They rather avoided than sought my company, though they were very pleasant when I addressed them. But at last I observed, that whenever I came within a certain distance of any one of them, which distance, however, varied with different individuals, the whole appearance of the person began to change; and this change increased in degree as I approached. When I receded to the former distance, the former appearance was restored. The nature of the change was grotesque, following no fixed rule. The nearest resemblance to it that I know, is the distortion produced in your countenance when you look at it as reflected in a concave or convex surface—say, either side of a bright spoon. Of this phenomenon I first became aware in rather a ludicrous way. My host's daughter was a very pleasant pretty girl, who made herself more agreeable to me than most of those about me. For some days my companion-shadow had been less obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spirits occasioned by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had cause enough besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy. My impression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances that existed between the people of the place and myself, and had resolved to amuse herself at my expense; for one evening, after some jesting and raillery, she, somehow or other, provoked me to attempt to kiss her. But she was well defended from any assault of the kind. Her countenance became, of a sudden, absurdly hideous; the pretty mouth was elongated and otherwise amplified sufficiently to have allowed of six simultaneous kisses. I started back in bewildered dismay; she burst into the merriest fit of laughter, and ran from the room. I soon found that the same undefinable law of change operated between me and all the other villagers; and that, to feel I was in pleasant company, it was absolutely necessary for me to discover and observe the right focal distance between myself and each one with whom I had to do. This done, all went pleasantly enough. Whether, when I happened to neglect this precaution, I presented to them an equally ridiculous appearance, I did not ascertain; but I presume that the alteration was common to the approximating parties. I was likewise unable to determine whether I was a necessary party to the production of this strange transformation, or whether it took place as well, under the given circumstances, between the inhabitants themselves.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principles of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge. This single reflection will show that the doctrine of redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of second redemptions, obtained through the means of money given to the church for pardons, the probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth, there is no such thing as redemption; that it is fabulous; and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did stand, since man existed; and that it is his greatest consolation to think so. Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and morally, than by any other system. It is by his being taught to contemplate himself as an out-law, as an out-cast, as a beggar, as a mumper, as one thrown as it were on a dunghill, at an immense distance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by creeping, and cringing to intermediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous disregard for everything under the name of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affection of it. His prayers are reproaches. His humility is ingratitude. He calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities. He despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself. Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions. He finds fault with everything. His selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of the universe. He prays dictatorially. When it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine. He follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers, but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say - thou knowest not so well as I.

I remember my very first day in the gym back in Indiana. My palms were soft and quickly got torn up on the bars because they weren’t accustomed to gripping steel. But over time, after thousands of reps, my palms built up a thick callous as protection. The same principle works when it comes to mindset. Until you experience hardships like abuse and bullying, failures and disappointments, your mind will remain soft and exposed. Life experience, especially negative experiences, help callous the mind. But it’s up to you where that callous lines up. If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar. It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world. It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind. That’s where I was as a teenager, but after my second Hell Week, I’d become someone new. I’d fought through so many horrible situations by then and remained open and ready for more. My ability to stay open represented a willingness to fight for my own life, which allowed me to withstand hailstorms of pain and use it to callous over my victim’s mentality. That shit was gone, buried under layers of sweat and hard fucking flesh, and I was starting to callous over my fears too. That realization gave me the mental edge I needed to outlast Psycho Pete one more time.

MORE FROM GOD’S WORD A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9 HCSB For everything created by God is good, and nothing should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. 1 Timothy 4:4 HCSB Should we accept only good from God and not adversity? Job 2:10 HCSB He is the Lord. Let him do what he thinks is best. 1 Samuel 3:18 NCV Sheathe your sword! Should I not drink the cup that the Father has given Me? John 18:11 HCSB Can you understand the secrets of God? His limits are higher than the heavens; you cannot reach them! They are deeper than the grave; you cannot understand them! His limits are longer than the earth and wider than the sea. Job 11:7-9 NCV Human plans, no matter how wise or well advised, cannot stand against the LORD. Proverbs 21:30 NLT SHADES OF GRACE The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. Frederick Buechner A PRAYER FOR TODAY Lord, when I am discouraged, give me hope. When I am impatient, give me peace. When I face circumstances that I cannot change, give me a spirit of acceptance. In all things great and small, let me trust in You, Dear Lord, knowing that You are the Giver of life and the Giver of all things good, today and forever. Amen

I’ve been in these parts before. I know what dwells in the deep caves beneath Devil Mountain. There are various denizens there. But it’s impossible to talk to the vast majority of them, except with a sword. What else did your druidess say? What else am I to believe?” “She gave me clearly to understand—” the vampire’s black eyes bored into Geralt “—that she isn’t generally fond of individuals who destroy and kill flora and fauna, and of witchers in particular. I explained that at the present moment you are more of a titular witcher. That you absolutely don’t pester flora or fauna, as long as the aforementioned doesn’t pester you. The flaminika, you ought to know, is an extremely shrewd woman, and noted that you have abandoned witcherhood, not as a result of ideological changes, but because you were compelled to by circumstances. I know very well, she said, that misfortune has befallen a person close to the Witcher. The Witcher was thus forced to abandon witcherhood and go to her rescue…” Geralt didn’t comment, but his gaze was expressive enough to make the vampire hurry to explain. “She declared, and I quote: ‘The Witcher-who-is-not-a-witcher will prove he is capable of humility and sacrifice. He will enter the sombre mouth of the earth. Unarmed. Having laid down all weapons, all sharp iron. All sharp thoughts. All aggression, fury, anger and arrogance. He will enter in humility. And then in the abyss, the humble not-witcher will find answers to the questions which torment him. He will find answers to many questions. But should the Witcher remain a witcher, he will find nothing.

Well before the end of the 20th century however print had lost its former dominance. This resulted in, among other things, a different kind of person getting elected as leader. One who can present himself and his programs in a polished way, as Lee Quan Yu you observed in 2000, adding, “Satellite television has allowed me to follow the American presidential campaign. I am amazed at the way media professionals can give a candidate a new image and transform him, at least superficially, into a different personality. Winning an election becomes, in large measure, a contest in packaging and advertising. Just as the benefits of the printed era were inextricable from its costs, so it is with the visual age. With screens in every home entertainment is omnipresent and boredom a rarity. More substantively, injustice visualized is more visceral than injustice described. Television played a crucial role in the American Civil rights movement, yet the costs of television are substantial, privileging emotional display over self-command, changing the kinds of people and arguments that are taken seriously in public life. The shift from print to visual culture continues with the contemporary entrenchment of the Internet and social media, which bring with them four biases that make it more difficult for leaders to develop their capabilities than in the age of print. These are immediacy, intensity, polarity, and conformity. Although the Internet makes news and data more immediately accessible than ever, this surfeit of information has hardly made us individually more knowledgeable, let alone wiser, as the cost of accessing information becomes negligible, as with the Internet, the incentives to remember it seem to weaken. While forgetting anyone fact may not matter, the systematic failure to internalize information brings about a change in perception, and a weakening of analytical ability. Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance and interpretation depend on context and relevance. For information to be transmuted into something approaching wisdom it must be placed within a broader context of history and experience. As a general rule, images speak at a more emotional register of intensity than do words. Television and social media rely on images that inflamed the passions, threatening to overwhelm leadership with the combination of personal and mass emotion. Social media, in particular, have encouraged users to become image conscious spin doctors. All this engenders a more populist politics that celebrates utterances perceived to be authentic over the polished sound bites of the television era, not to mention the more analytical output of print. The architects of the Internet thought of their invention as an ingenious means of connecting the world. In reality, it has also yielded a new way to divide humanity into warring tribes. Polarity and conformity rely upon, and reinforce, each other. One is shunted into a group, and then the group polices once thinking. Small wonder that on many contemporary social media platforms, users are divided into followers and influencers. There are no leaders. What are the consequences for leadership? In our present circumstances, Lee's gloomy assessment of visual media's effects is relevant. From such a process, I doubt if a Churchill or Roosevelt or a de Gaulle can emerge. It is not that changes in communications technology have made inspired leadership and deep thinking about world order impossible, but that in an age dominated by television and the Internet, thoughtful leaders must struggle against the tide.

Yes, monsieur, I believe so; for until now, no man has found himself in a position similar to mine. The dominions of kings are limited either by mountains or rivers, or a change of manners, or an alteration of language. My kingdom is bounded only by the world, for I am not an Italian, or a Frenchman, or a Hindu, or an American, or a Spaniard—I am a cosmopolite. No country can say it saw my birth. God alone knows what country will see me die. I adopt all customs, speak all languages. You believe me to be a Frenchman, for I speak French with the same facility and purity as yourself. Well, Ali, my Nubian, believes me to be an Arab; Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman; Haydée, my slave, thinks me a Greek. You may, therefore, comprehend, that being of no country, asking no protection from any government, acknowledging no man as my brother, not one of the scruples that arrest the powerful, or the obstacles which paralyze the weak, paralyzes or arrests me. I have only two adversaries—I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them,—they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most terrible—that is my condition as a mortal being. This alone can stop me in my onward career, before I have attained the goal at which I aim, for all the rest I have reduced to mathematical terms. What men call the chances of fate—namely, ruin, change, circumstances—I have fully anticipated, and if any of these should overtake me, yet it will not overwhelm me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am, and therefore it is that I utter the things you have never heard, even from the mouths of kings—for kings have need, and other persons have fear of you. For who is there who does not say to himself, in a society as incongruously organized as ours, 'Perhaps some day I shall have to do with the king's attorney'?

My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show'd itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc'd me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix'd opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

Straightening reluctantly, she strolled about the room with forced nonchalance, her hands clasped behind her back, looking blindly at the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, trying to think what to say. And then inspiration struck. The solution was demeaning but practical, and properly presented, it could appear she was graciously doing him a favor. She paused a moment to arrange her features into what she hoped was the right expression of enthusiasm and compassion, then she wheeled around abruptly. “Mr. Thornton!” Her voice seemed to explode in the room at the same time his startled amber gaze riveted on her face, then drifted down her bodice, roving boldly over her ripened curves. Unnerved but determined, Elizabeth forged shakily ahead: “It appears as if no one has occupied this house in quite some time.” “I commend you on that astute observation, lady Cameron,” Ian mocked lazily, watching the tension and emotion play across her expressive face. For the life of him he could not understand what she was doing here or why she seemed to be trying to ingratiate herself this morning. Last night the explanation he’d given Jake had made sense; now, looking at her, he couldn’t quite believe any of it. Then he remembered that Elizabeth Cameron had always robbed him of the ability to think rationally. “Houses do have a way of succumbing to dirt when no one looks after them,” she stated with a bright look. “Another creditable observation. You’ve certainly a quick mind.” “Must you make this so very difficult!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I apologize,” he said with mocking gravity. “Do go on. You were saying?” “Well, I was thinking, since we’re quite stranded here-Lucinda and I, I mean-with absolutely nothing but time on our hands, that this house could certainly use a woman’s touch.” “Capital idea!” burst out Jake, returning from his mission to locate the butter and casting a highly hopeful look at Lucinda. He was rewarded with a glare from her that could have pulverized rock. “It could use an army of servants carrying shovels and wearing masks on their faces,” the duenna countered ruthlessly. “You needn’t help, Lucinda,” Elizabeth explained, aghast. “I never meant to imply you should. But I could! I-“ She whirled around as Ian Thornton surged to his feet and took her elbow in a none-too-gentle grasp. “Lady Cameron,” he said. “I think you and I have something to discuss that may be better spoken in private. Shall we?” He gestured to the open door and then practically dragged her along in his wake. Outdoors in the sunlight he marched her forward several paces, then dropped her arm. “Let’s hear it,” he said. “Hear what?” Elizabeth said nervously. “An explanation-the truth, if you’re capable of it. Last night you drew a gun on me, and this morning you’re awash with excitement over the prospect over the prospect of cleaning my house. I want to know why.” “Well,” Elizabeth burst out in defense of her actions with the gun, “you were extremely disagreeable!” “I am still disagreeable,” he pointed out shortly, ignoring Elizabeth’s raised brows. “I haven’t changed. I am not the one who’s suddenly oozing goodwill this morning.” Elizabeth turned her head to the lane, trying desperately to think of an explanation that wouldn’t reveal to him her humiliating circumstances. “The silence is deafening, Lady Cameron, and somewhat surprising. As I recall, the last time we met you could scarcely contain all the edifying information you were trying to impart to me.” Elizabeth knew he was referring to her monologue on the history of hyacinths in the greenhouse. “I just don’t know where to begin,” she admitted. “Let’s stick to the salient points. What are you doing here?

I believe that if, like me, you have privilege and are equipped with the resources and knowledge to have these conversations, it is your job to educate those who have no idea how to navigate this information, define these resources, and to challenge their own preconceived ideas. It is not solely the responsibility of marginalised people to advocate for their own rights, to explain their own oppression, or to hold hands with the very people undermining them. This is a reminder that each and every one of us has arrived at our current worldview because of people who took the time to explain things, who performed labour to educate us. We need to pay that forward, not sit on high horses. I know I am the product of the people closest to me, and that our debates and occasional conflicts are at the crux of my self-development, reflection, and empowerment. It isn’t your job to engage in harmful conversations with those committed to misunderstanding you but it isn’t helpful to demonise people whose views do not mirror your own or whose progress is slower. It isn’t effective to shut down and to turn your back on those with other worldviews once you believe you know better. We shouldn’t pull the ladder up behind us when we decided we’re in the right place. We shouldn’t be shutting up shop. This is the ultimate opportunity to use what we have learned to ensure marginalised people do not have to have these conversations. We don’t need to speak on behalf of anyone but we can direct people to resources, we can push back on problematic language and views, and we can use our knowledge and privilege for change-making. If you hold the privileges that I do, a White woman claiming to be a feminist, your fear is not enough of a barrier. I know that is a confronting statement but it is something we must interrogate. It is vital to note that there are many circumstances where breaking your silence, challenging the status quo, and speaking out pose a threat. I want to be clear that this is not a call to subject yourself to devastating outcomes, or dangerous conversations, or situations that pose a threat to your safety or security. But if the only thing standing between you and change is fear of causing your friends discomfort, or lowering the mood by calling out something that may be considered taboo, you must walk through that fear. History depends on it. Change is contingent on your voice. If you want to identify as a feminist. If you want to claim this space and that you are #doingthework, this is exactly what that work looks like. Having difficult conversations, being brave, and challenging widely held assumptions. Turning up to the protest. Putting your money toward causes you claim to stand for. Buying the book and using what you’ve learned to ensure this work does not remain the sole responsibility of the impacted, marginalised communities, but becomes something that those without lied experiences understand and advocate for. Doing all this, is more than half the battle. The next time you bookend a conversation with “it is not my job to educate you”, I think it is really important to remember that, actually, it kind of is. Your privilege means you have access to people and influence over them. You are considered by society to be more palatable in your anger, and your advocacy, and people are more willing to hear you speak to difficult topics. It is your job to educate yourself, and to use that inherent privilege to educate others, or to at least have a go. It is your job, as the feminist you claim to be, to act as a barricade for people experiencing compounding marginalisations. It is your job to educate yourself and others. It is as simple as that.

January 30, 1944 I stood at the top of the stairs while German planes flew back and forth, and I knew I was on my own, that I couldn't count on others for support. My fear vanished. I looked up at the sky and trusted in God. ... Who knows, perhaps a day will come when I'm left alone more than I'd like! February 3, 1944 I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end. February 12, 1944 (entire entry) February 23, 1944 The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with the sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As long as this exists, and that should be forever, I know that there will be a solace for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances. I firmly believe that nature can bring comfort to all who suffer. ... This morning, when I was sitting in front of the window and taking a long, deep look outside at God and nature, I was happy, just plain happy. Peter, as long as people feel that kind of happiness within themselves, the joy of nature, health and much more besides, they'll always be able to recapture that happiness. Riches, prestige, everything can be lost. But the happiness in your own heart can only be dimmed; it will always be there, as long as you live, to make you happy again. Whenever you're feeling lonely or sad, try going to the loft on a beautiful day and looking outside. Not at the houses and the rooftops, but at the sky. As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you are pure within and will find happiness once more.

MAY 1 His Consistent Character In ages past you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Even they will perish, but you remain forever; they will wear out like old clothing. You will change them like a garment, and they will fade away. But you are always the same; your years never end. The children of your people will live in security. Their children’s children will thrive in your presence. Psalm 102:25-28 Our world has seen more change from 1900 to the present than in all history recorded before 1900, and things continue to accelerate rapidly. As time speeds by, measured not just in minutes or seconds but in nanoseconds (billionths of a second), everything changes. Technology changes so fast in our twenty-first-century world that we can barely keep up with the upgrades on our computers. Our bodies undergo the inevitable aging process, and we witness constant upheaval in the nations of the world. Material things change and deteriorate. Even the flowers of the field and the stars in the heavens will fade away. But you, Lord, are always the same, says the psalmist in these verses. The changes in the world do not change God one bit or thwart his plans. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, and his love extends to the next generation and the next. This psalm reminds us that our security can’t be found in any of the things in this ever-changing world. Instead, our security is in God and his promises, including the wonderful ones in these verses: that the children and grandchildren of God’s people will live in security and will thrive in the Lord’s presence.   UNCHANGING LORD, I praise you and worship you for your love and faithfulness that extend from one generation to the next. Thank you for this reminder that although our circumstances may change and the things around us pass away, you remain the same forever. Help me to find my security in your eternal sameness.

I was never really a child, and therefore something in the nature of childhood will cling to me always, I'm certain. I have simply grown, become older, but my nature never changed. I enjoy mischief just as I did years ago, but that's just the point, actually I never played mischevious tricks. Once, very early on, I gave my brother a knock on the head. That just happened, it wasn't mischief. Certainly there was plenty of mischief and boyishness, but the idea always interested me more than the thing itself. I began, early on, to look for deep things everywhere, even in mischief. I don't develop. At least, that's what I claim. Perhaps I shall never put out twigs and branches. One day some fragrance or other will issue from my nature and my originating, I shall flower, and the fragrance will shed itself around a little, then I shall bow my head, which Kraus calls my stupid arrogant pig-head. My arms and legs will strangely sag, my mind, pride, and character, everything will crack and fade, and I shall be dead, not really dead, only dead in a certain sort of way, and then I shall vegetate and die for perhaps another sixty years. I shall grow old. But I'm not afraid of myself. I couldn't possibly inspire myself with dread. For I don't respect my ego at all, I merely see it, and it leaves me cold. Oh, to come in from the cold! How glorious! I shall be able to come into the warmth, over and over again, for nothing personal or selfish will ever stop me from becoming warm and catching fire and taking part. How fortunate I am, not to be able to see in myself anything worth respecting and watching! To be small and to stay small. And if a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favored me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions.

Trust His Promises This is my comfort in my affliction: Your promise has given me life. Psalm 119:50 HCSB God’s promises are found in a book like no other: the Holy Bible. It is a roadmap for life here on earth and for life eternal. As Christians, we are called upon to trust its promises, to follow its commandments, and to share its Good News. As believers, we must study the Bible daily and meditate upon its meaning for our lives. Otherwise, we deprive ourselves of a priceless gift from our Creator. God’s Holy Word is, indeed, a transforming, life-changing, one-of-a-kind treasure. And, a passing acquaintance with the Good Book is insufficient for Christians who seek to obey God’s Word and to understand His will. God has made promises to mankind and to you. God’s promises never fail and they never grow old. You must trust those promises and share them with your family, with your friends, and with the world. Joy is not mere happiness. Nor does joy spring from a life of ease, comfort, or peaceful circumstances. Joy is the soul’s buoyant response to a God of promise, presence, and power. Susan Lenzkes Claim all of God’s promises in the Bible. Your sins, your worries, your life—you may cast them all on Him. Corrie ten Boom We have ample evidence that the Lord is able to guide. The promises cover every imaginable situation. All we need to do is to take the hand He stretches out. Elisabeth Elliot Do not be afraid, then, that if you trust, or tell others to trust, the matter will end there. Trust is only the beginning and the continual foundation. When we trust Him, the Lord works, and His work is the important part of the whole matter. Hannah Whitall Smith Brother, is your faith looking upward today? / Trust in the promise of the Savior. / Sister, is the light shining bright on your way? / Trust in the promise of thy Lord. Fanny Crosby The meaning of hope isn’t just some flimsy wishing. It’s a firm confidence in God’s promises—that He will ultimately set things right. Sheila Walsh

This is not to say that he was not qualified, though he concealed his beginnings as a scullion, to lend a hand like anyone else. It required some exceptional circumstance nevertheless to induce him one day to carve the turkeys himself. I was out, but I heard afterwards that he carved them with a sacerdotal majesty, surrounded, at a respectful distance from the service-table, by a ring of waiters who, endeavouring thereby not so much to learn the art as to curry favour with him, stood gaping in open-mouthed admiration. The manager, however, as he plunged his knife with solemn deliberation into the flanks of his victims, from which he no more deflected his eyes, filled with a sense of his high function, than if he were expecting to read some augury therein, was totally oblivious of their presence. The hierophant was not even conscious of my absence. When he heard of it, he was distressed: “What, you didn’t see me carving the turkeys myself?” I replied that having failed, so far, to see Rome, Venice, Siena, the Prado, the Dresden gallery, the Indies, Sarah in Phèdre, I had learned to resign myself, and that I would add his carving of turkeys to my list. The comparison with the dramatic art (Sarah in Phèdre) was the only one that he seemed to understand, for he had learned through me that on days of gala performances the elder Coquelin had accepted beginners’ roles, even those of characters who had only a single line or none at all. “All the same, I’m sorry for your sake. When shall I be carving again? It will need some great event, it will need a war.” (It needed the armistice, in fact.) From that day onwards, the calendar was changed, and time was reckoned thus: “That was the day after the day I carved the turkeys myself.” “It was exactly a week after the manager carved the turkeys himself.” And so this prosectomy furnished, like the Nativity of Christ or the Hegira, the starting point for a calendar different from the rest, but neither so extensively adopted nor so long observed.

Perhaps the immobility of the things around us is imposed on them by our certainty that they are themselves and not anything else, by the immobility of our mind confronting them. However that may be, when I woke thus, my mind restlessly attempting, without success, to discover where I was, everything revolved around me in the darkness, things, countries, years. My body, too benumbed to move, would try to locate, according to the form of its fatigue, the position of its limbs so as to deduce from this the direction of the wall, the placement of the furniture, so as to reconstruct and name the dwelling in which it found itself. Its memory, the memory of its ribs, its knees, its shoulders, offered in succession several of the rooms where it had slept, while around it the invisible walls, changing place according to the shape of the imagined room, spun through the shadows. And even before my mind, hesitating on the thresholds of times and shapes, had identified the house by reassembling the circumstances, it—my body—would recall the kind of bed in each one, the location of the doors, the angle at which the light came in through the windows, the existence of a hallway, along with the thought I had had as I fell asleep and that I had recovered upon waking. My stiffened side, trying to guess its orientation, would imagine, for instance, that it lay facing the wall in a big canopied bed and immediately I would say to myself: “Why, I went to sleep in the end even though Mama didn’t come to say goodnight to me,” I was in the country in the home of my grandfather, dead for many years; and my body, the side on which I was resting, faithful guardians of a past my mind ought never to have forgotten, recalled to me the flame of the night-light of Bohemian glass, in the shape of an urn, which hung from the ceiling by little chains, the mantelpiece of Siena marble, in my bedroom at Combray, at my grandparents’ house, in faraway days which at this moment I imagined were present without picturing them to myself exactly and which I would see more clearly in a little while when I was fully awake.

men having power too often misapplied it; that though we made slaves of the negroes, and the Turks made slaves of the Christians, I believed that liberty was the natural right of all men equally. This he did not deny, but said the lives of the negroes were so wretched in their own country that many of them lived better here than there. I replied, "There is great odds in regard to us on what principle we act"; and so the conversation on that subject ended. I may here add that another person, some time afterwards, mentioned the wretchedness of the negroes, occasioned by their intestine wars, as an argument in favor of our fetching them away for slaves. To which I replied, if compassion for the Africans, on account of their domestic troubles, was the real motive of our purchasing them, that spirit of tenderness being attended to, would incite us to use them kindly that, as strangers brought out of affliction, their lives might be happy among us. And as they are human creatures, whose souls are as precious as ours, and who may receive the same help and comfort from the Holy Scriptures as we do, we could not omit suitable endeavors to instruct them therein; but that while we manifest by our conduct that our views in purchasing them are to advance ourselves, and while our buying captives taken in war animates those parties to push on the war, and increase desolation amongst them, to say they live unhappily in Africa is far from being an argument in our favor. I further said, the present circumstances of these provinces to me appear difficult; the slaves look like a burdensome stone to such as burden themselves with them; and that if the white people retain a resolution to prefer their outward prospects of gain to all other considerations, and do not act conscientiously toward them as fellow-creatures, I believe that burden will grow heavier and heavier, until times change in a way disagreeable to us. The person appeared very serious, and owned that in considering their condition and the manner of their treatment in these provinces he had sometimes thought it might be just in the Almighty so to order it.

Those women who fought the original battles suffer more than most. Hated and opposed when originally pushing down the barriers, they now often have to face contempt from a society which takes for granted their achievements. At a recent party I witnessed one such woman being challenged by a young man who had no sense of feminism's history or her involvement in it. 'Do you really call yourself a feminist?' he asked belligerently. 'Yes,' she answered rather wistfully, 'I'd still call myself that.' 'But what on earth does it mean?' he continued. 'I mean, is there really any need for it? Isn't it just part of the way we are, part of our unconscious?' It was a difficult and poignant moment for me, because it encapsulated both sides of my relationship with feminism. I greatly respected the woman for what she had achieved and deplored the man's lack of respect for why she had placed herself as she did. In such circumstances, no wonder she dug her heels in. This continuing lack of credibility and acceptance explains why feminists react badly when the fundamental tenets of the movement are challenged. But when I began to examine feminist ideas critically and challenge the idea that nothing had changed, I too met with resistance. There is a real reluctance to submit feminism's fundamental assumptions to an audit to see just how relevant they are to changing realities. The problem is that, by and large, I also agreed with what the man at that party said. Somewhere along the line something remarkable has happened. Individual feminists still meet with resistance and problems, but feminism as a movement has been extraordinarily successful; it has sunk into our unconscious. Our contemporary social world — and the way the sexes interact in it — is radically different from the one in which modern feminism emerged. Many of feminism's original objectives have been met, including the principle of equal pay for equal work, and the possibility of financial independence. Girls now are growing up in a world radically different from the one described by the early feminists. Feminism no longer has to be reiterated but simply breathed.

I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fix'd opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points. In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

The liberal notion that more government programs can solve racial problems is simplistic—precisely because it focuses solely on the economic dimension. And the conservative idea that what is needed is a change in the moral behavior of poor black urban dwellers (especially poor black men, who, they say, should stay married, support their children, and stop committing so much crime) highlights immoral actions while ignoring public responsibility for the immoral circumstances that haunt our fellow citizens. The common denominator of these views of race is that each still sees black people as a “problem people,” in the words of Dorothy I. Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, rather than as fellow American citizens with problems. Her words echo the poignant “unasked question” of W. E. B. Du Bois, who, in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), wrote: They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town.… Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. Nearly a century later, we confine discussions about race in America to the “problems” black people pose for whites rather than consider what this way of viewing black people reveals about us as a nation. This paralyzing framework encourages liberals to relieve their guilty consciences by supporting public funds directed at “the problems”; but at the same time, reluctant to exercise principled criticism of black people, liberals deny them the freedom to err. Similarly, conservatives blame the “problems” on black people themselves—and thereby render black social misery invisible or unworthy of public attention. Hence, for liberals, black people are to be “included” and “integrated” into “our” society and culture, while for conservatives they are to be “well behaved” and “worthy of acceptance” by “our” way of life. Both fail to see that the presence and predicaments of black people are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but rather constitutive elements of that life.

Thanks to our discussion in the last chapter, we can also agree that character is a product of perseverance: “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3–4). I don’t know how that idea strikes you, but it sounds a little backward to me. I would expect that a person with character would find it easier to persevere through difficult circumstances. That makes sense. But how does perseverance produce character? When I look at the world around me, it seems to me that most things actually decay over time rather than grow stronger. The longer we live in our home, the more I see spots that need a paint touch-up. The longer I drive my car, the more I find I need to take it in for tune-ups and repairs. And the longer I live, the more I realize my body isn’t what it used to be! But maybe this process of perseverance leading to character works differently. Surely God is the X-factor. When you add God to the equation, persistence over time builds up character and strength instead of taking it away. Consider, if you will, the snowball. Left by itself, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s just a little round chunk of white frozen water. Yet place that snowball at the top of a steep hill on a snowy day, and things begin to change. If you invest some time rolling that snowball across the ground so it picks up snow and grows into a larger ball, you begin to create something big and heavy. If you invest even more time and energy (this is where perseverance comes in), you might get that ball rolling down the hill. And the longer it rolls, the faster it goes, the bigger it gets. Now you’ve got something powerful. This is a force to be reckoned with. This is when people start running for cover. Your little snowball suddenly becomes a runaway freight train! I believe that equation of suffering, which produces perseverance, which produces character, works in a similar fashion. Our willingness to trust and rely on the Lord in a time of trouble invites His power to work in our lives. The more we trust and depend on Him, the easier it becomes. As the Lord says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30). Pretty soon our perseverance enables the Lord to add character to our “snowball”—and the more we persevere, the stronger we grow. We find ourselves rolling downhill toward a godly life. It still might be a bumpy ride, but the size and momentum of our snowball just about guarantees that as long as we are pursuing God’s will for our lives, nothing will stop us.

On many occasions in our nearly thirty years of marriage my wife and I have had a disagreement—sometimes a deep disagreement. Our unity appeared to be broken, at some unknowably profound level, and we were not able to easily resolve the rupture by talking. We became trapped, instead, in emotional, angry and anxious argument. We agreed that when such circumstances arose we would separate, briefly: she to one room, me to another. This was often quite difficult, because it is hard to disengage in the heat of an argument, when anger generates the desire to defeat and win. But it seemed better than risking the consequences of a dispute that threatened to spiral out of control. Alone, trying to calm down, we would each ask ourselves the same single question: What had we each done to contribute to the situation we were arguing about? However small, however distant…we had each made some error. Then we would reunite, and share the results of our questioning: Here’s how I was wrong…. The problem with asking yourself such a question is that you must truly want the answer. And the problem with doing that is that you won’t like the answer. When you are arguing with someone, you want to be right, and you want the other person to be wrong. Then it’s them that has to sacrifice something and change, not you, and that’s much preferable. If it’s you that’s wrong and you that must change, then you have to reconsider yourself—your memories of the past, your manner of being in the present, and your plans for the future. Then you must resolve to improve and figure out how to do that. Then you actually have to do it. That’s exhausting. It takes repeated practice, to instantiate the new perceptions and make the new actions habitual. It’s much easier just not to realize, admit and engage. It’s much easier to turn your attention away from the truth and remain wilfully blind. But it’s at such a point that you must decide whether you want to be right or you want to have peace.216 You must decide whether to insist upon the absolute correctness of your view, or to listen and negotiate. You don’t get peace by being right. You just get to be right, while your partner gets to be wrong—defeated and wrong. Do that ten thousand times and your marriage will be over (or you will wish it was). To choose the alternative—to seek peace—you have to decide that you want the answer, more than you want to be right. That’s the way out of the prison of your stubborn preconceptions. That’s the prerequisite for negotiation. That’s to truly abide by the principle of Rule 2 (Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping).

On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest? Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished. As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.

I gave humble and hearty thanks that God had been pleased to discover to me even that it was possible I might be more happy in this solitary condition, than I should have been in a liberty of society, and in all the pleasures of the world; that He could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and the want of human society, by His presence, and the communications of His grace to my soul, supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon His providence here, and hope for His eternal presence hereafter. It was now that I began sensibly to feel how much more happy this life I now led was, with all its miserable circumstances, than the wicked, cursed, abominable life I led all the past part of my days. And now I changed both my sorrows and my joys; my very desires altered, my affections changed their gusts, and my delights were perfectly new from what they were at my first coming, or indeed for the two years past. Before, as I walked about, either on my hunting, or for viewing the country, the anguish of my soul at my condition would break out upon me on a sudden, and my very heart would die within me, to think of the woods, the mountains, the deserts I was in, and how I was a prisoner, locked up with the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean, in an uninhabited wilderness, without redemption. In the midst of the greatest composures of my mind, this would break out upon me like a storm, and make me wring my hands, and weep like a child. Sometimes it would take me in the middle of my work, and I would immediately sit down and sigh, and look upon the ground for an hour or two together; and this was still worse to me, for if I could burst out into tears, or vent myself by words, it would go off, and the grief, having exhausted itself, would abate. But now I began to exercise myself with new thoughts. I daily read the Word of God, and applied all the comforts of it to my present state. One morning, being very sad, I opened the Bible upon these words, "I will never, never leave thee, nor forsake thee." Immediately it occurred that these words were to me; why else should they be directed in such a manner, just as the moment when I was mourning over my condition, as one forsaken of God and man? "Well, then," said I, "if God does not forsake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world should all forsake me, seeing on the other hand if I had all the world, and should lose the favor and blessing of God, there would be no comparison in the loss?" From that moment I began to conclude in my mind that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken solitary condition, than it was probable I should ever have been in any other particular state in the world, and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.

APRIL 6 Don’t be discouraged at the spiritual war you’re called to fight every day. The Lord almighty is with you and wars on your behalf. Between the “already” and the “not yet,” life is war. It can be exhausting, frustrating, and discouraging. We all go through moments when we wish life could just be easier. We wonder why parenting has to be such a continual spiritual battle. We all wish our marriages could be free of war. We all would love it if there were no conflicts at our jobs or in our churches. But we all wake up to a war-torn world every day. It is the sad legacy of a world that has been broken by sin and is constantly under the attack of the enemy. The way the apostle Paul ends his letter to the Ephesian church is interesting and instructive. Having laid out the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ and having detailed their implications for our street-level living, he ends by talking about spiritual warfare: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:10–20) When you get to this final part of Paul’s letter, it’s tempting to think that he has entirely changed the subject. No longer, it seems, is he talking about everyday Christianity. But that’s exactly what he’s talking about. He is saying to the Ephesian believers, “You know all that I’ve said about marriage, parenting, communication, anger, the church, and so on—it’s all one big spiritual war.” Paul is reminding you that at street level, practical, daily Christianity is war. There really is moral right and wrong. There really is an enemy. There really is seductive and deceptive temptation. You really are spiritually vulnerable. But he says more. He reminds you that by grace you have been properly armed for the battle. The question is, will you use the implements of battle that the cross of Jesus Christ has provided for you?

If we take God’s Word seriously, we should avoid debt when possible. In those rare cases where we go into debt, we should make every effort to get out as soon as we can. We should never undertake debt without prayerful consideration and wise counsel. Our questions should be, Why go into debt? Is the risk called for? Will the benefits of becoming servants to the lender really outweigh the costs? What should we ask ourselves before going into debt? Before we incur debt, we should ask ourselves some basic spiritual questions: Is the fact that I don’t have enough resources to pay cash for something God’s way of telling me it isn’t his will for me to buy it? Or is it possible that this thing may have been God’s will but poor choices put me in a position where I can’t afford to buy it? Wouldn’t I do better to learn God’s lesson by foregoing it until—by his provision and my diligence—I save enough money to buy it? What I would call the “debt mentality” is a distorted perspective that involves invalid assumptions: • We need more than God has given us. • God doesn’t know best what our needs are. • God has failed to provide for our needs, forcing us to take matters into our own hands. • If God doesn’t come through the way we think he should, we can find another way. • Just because today’s income is sufficient to make our debt payments, tomorrow’s will be too (i.e., our circumstances won’t change). Those with convictions against borrowing will normally find ways to avoid it. Those without a firm conviction against going into debt will inevitably find the “need” to borrow. The best credit risks are those who won’t borrow in the first place. The more you’re inclined to go into debt, the more probable it is that you shouldn’t. Ask yourself, “Is the money I’ll be obligated to repay worth the value I’ll receive by getting the money or possessions now? When it comes time for me to repay my debt, what new needs will I have that my debt will keep me from meeting? Or what new wants will I have that will tempt me to go further into debt?” Consider these statements of God’s Word: • “True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content” (1 Timothy 6:6-8). • “Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). • “My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang on to them, for they will refresh your soul. They are like jewels on a necklace. They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear; you will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap” (Proverbs 3:21-26). • “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

*Wife's Letter* Pt1 ... It was not the mask that died among the boots, but you. The girl with the yoyo was not the only one to know about your masked play. From the very first instant, when, elated with pride, you talked about the distortion of the magnetic field, I too saw through you completely. Please don’t insult me any more by asking how I did it. Of course, I was flustered, confused, and frightened to death. Under any circumstances, it was an unimaginably drastic way of acting, so different from your ordinary self. It was hallucinatory, seeing you so full of self-confidence. Even you knew very well that I had seen through you. You knew and yet demanded that we go on with the play in silence. I considered it a dreadful thing at first, but I soon changed my mind, thinking that perhaps you were acting out of sympathy for me. Then, though the things you did seemed a little embarrassing, they began to present the appearance of a delicate and suave invitation to a dance. And as I watched you become amazingly serious and go on pretending to be deceived, my heart began to fill with a feeling of gratitude, and so I followed after you meekly. But you went from one misunderstanding to the next, didn’t you? You write that I rejected you, but that’s not true. Didn’t you reject yourself all by yourself? I felt that I could understand your wanting to. In view of the accident and all, I had more than half resigned myself to sharing your suffering. For that very reason, your mask seemed quite good to me. In a happy frame of mind, I reflected that love strips the mask from each of us, and we must endeavor for those we love to put the mask on so that it can be taken off again. For if there is no mask to start with, there is no pleasure in removing it, is there? Do you understand what I mean? I think you do. After all, don’t even you have your doubts? Is what you think to be the mask in reality your real face, or is what you think to be your real face really a mask? Yes, you do understand. Anyone who is seduced is seduced realizing this. But the mask did not return. At first you were apparently trying to get your own self back by means of the mask, but before you knew it you had come to think of it only as your magician’s cloak for escaping from yourself. So it was not a mask, but somewhat the same as another real face, wasn’t it? You finally revealed your true colors. It was not the mask, but you yourself. It is meaningful to put a mask on, precisely because one makes others realize it is a mask. Even with cosmetics, which you abominate so, we never try to conceal the fact that it is make-up. After all, it was not that the mask was bad, but that you were too unaware of how to treat it. Even though you put the mask on, you could not do a thing while you were wearing it. Good or bad, you could not do a thing. All you could manage was to wander through the streets and write long, never-ending confessions, like a snake with its tail in its mouth. It was all the same to you whether you burned your face or didn’t, whether you put on a mask or didn’t. You were incapable of calling the mask back. Since the mask will not come back, there is no reason for me to return either.

Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in Iraq, I’ve learnt that life is not about being happy or sad, not about laughing or crying, leaving or staying. Life is about endurance. Since most feelings, moods, and states of being are fleeting, endurance, for me, is the common denominator that helps me go through the darkest and most beautiful moments of life knowing that they are fleeing. In that sense, I believe it is good for us to master the art of resilience and endurance. Yet, how should we think about the meaning of ‘resilience’ when used by ruling classes that push for wars and occupations, and that contribute to producing millions of deaths and refugees to profit from plundering the planet? What does it mean when these same warmongers fund humanitarian organizations asking them to go to war-torn countries to teach people the value of ‘resilience’? What happens to the meaning of ‘resilience’ when they create frighteningly precarious economic structures, uncertain employment, and lay off people without accountability? All this while also asking us to be ‘resilient’… As such, we must not let the word ‘resilience’ circulate or get planted in the heads of our youth uncritically. Instead, we should raise questions about what it really means. Does it mean the same thing for a poor young man or woman from Ghana, Ecuador, Afghanistan vs a privileged member from the upper management of a U.S. corporation? Resilience towards what? What is the root of the challenges for which we are expected to be resilient? Does our resilience solve the cause or the root of the problem or does it maintain the status quo while we wait for the next disaster? Are individuals always to blame if their resilience doesn’t yield any results, or should we equally examine the social contract and the entire structure in which individuals live that might be designed in such a way that one’s resilience may not prevail no matter how much perseverance and sacrifice one demonstrates? There is no doubt that resilience, according to its neoliberal corporate meaning, is used in a way that places the sole responsibility of failure on the shoulders of individuals rather than equally holding accountable the structure in which these individuals exist, and the precarious circumstances that require work and commitment way beyond individual capabilities and resources. I find it more effective not to simply aspire to be resilient, but to distinguish between situations in which individual resilience can do, and those for which the depth, awareness, and work of an entire community or society is needed for any real and sustainable change to occur. But none of this can happen if we don’t first agree upon what each of us mean when we say ‘resilience,’ and if we have different definitions of what it means, then we should ask: how shall we merge and reconcile our definitions of the word so that we complement not undermine what we do individually and collectively as people. Resilience should not become a synonym for surrender. It is great to be resilient when facing a flood or an earthquake, but that is not the same when having to endure wars and economic crises caused by the ruling class and warmongers. [From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]

There is no place in Buddhism for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Relieve your bowels, pass water, put on your clothes, and eat your food. When you’re tired, go and lie down. Ignorant people may laugh at me, but the wise will understand….As you go from place to place, if you regard each one as your own home, they will all be genuine, for when circumstances come you must not try to change them. Thus your usual habits of feeling, which make karma for the Five Hells, will of themselves become the Great Ocean of Liberation.

Gertie C. had had a half-controlled hallucinosis for decades before she started on L-dopa - bucolic hallucinations of lying in a sunlit meadow or floating in a creek near her childhood home. This changed when she was given L-dopa, and her hallucinations assumed a social and sometimes sexual character. When she told me about this, she added, anxiously - You surely wouldn’t forbid a friendly hallucination to a frustrated old lady like me! I replied that if her hallucinations had a pleasant and controllable character, they seemed rather a good idea under the circumstances. After this, the paranoid quality dropped away, and her hallucinatory encounters became purely amicable and amorous. She developed a humor and tact and control, never allowing herself a hallucination before eight in the evening and keeping its duration to thirty to forty minutes at most. If her relatives stayed too late, she would explain firmly but pleasantly that she was expecting a gentleman visitor from out of town in a few minutes’ time, and she felt he might take it amiss if he was kept waiting outside. She now receives love, attention, and invisible presents from a hallucinatory gentleman who visits faithfully each evening.

I had been waiting for external circumstances to change, but God wanted me to realise that it was an internal change—the position of my heart, not my circumstances—that was the key to flourishing.

Besides, I’ve … er, dealt with a case of rape once before. There isn’t a great deal you can do, externally. Maybe there isn’t a great deal you can do, period,” I added. I changed my mind and picked up the cup again. “Perhaps not,” Raymond agreed. “But if anyone is capable of reaching the patient’s center, surely it would be La Dame Blanche?” I set the cup down, staring at him. My mouth was unbecomingly open, and I closed it. Thoughts, suspicions, and realizations were rioting through my head, colliding with each other in tangles of conjecture. Temporarily sidestepping the traffic jam, I seized on the other half of his remark, to give me time to think. “The patient’s center?” He reached into an open jar on the table, withdrew a pinch of white powder, and dropped it into his goblet. The deep amber of the brandy immediately turned the color of blood, and began to boil. “Dragon’s blood,” he remarked, casually waving at the bubbling liquid. “It only works in a vessel lined with silver. It ruins the cup, of course, but it’s most effective, done under the proper circumstances.” I made a small, gurgling noise. “Oh, the patient’s center,” he said, as though recalling something we had talked about many days ago. “Yes, of course. All healing is done essentially by reaching the … what shall we call it? the soul? the essence? say, the center. By reaching the patient’s center, from which they can heal themselves. Surely you have seen it, madonna. The cases so ill or so wounded that plainly they will die—but they don’t. Or those who suffer from something so slight that surely they must recover, with the proper care. But they slip away, despite all you can do for them.” “Everyone who minds the sick has seen things like that,” I replied cautiously.

Because of my father’s circumstances, I had thought it a sad commentary on life, but I now understood that he was offering me his own gift, one that only time can provide. He was offering me the gift of perspective. My father was telling me that while we tend to remember the dramatic incidents that change history—Armstrong’s walk on the moon, Nixon’s resignation, and the Loma Prieta earthquake—we live for the quiet, intimate moments that mark not our calendars but our hearts: The day we marry. The days our children are born. Their first step. Their first word. Their first day of school. And when our children grow, we remember those moments with a touch of melancholy: the day they get their driver’s license, the day we drive them to college, the day they marry, and the day they have their children. And the cycle begins anew.

toys,” I told Santiago. “Think about it this way. When you were young, you only had three toys. But more importantly, you knew that wasn’t going to change. You had three, that’s it. So you were forced to make do with what you had and find happiness in it. That was your only choice.” My friend was nodding, so I knew he was with me so far. I went on: “Your daughter, on the other hand, is in a completely different circumstance. Whenever she wants something new, whether it’s something she saw in a commercial or something her friend has, she just asks for it and then she gets it. You allow her to keep looking for happiness in the next toy, the next game, the next purchase. Heck, you practically encourage it. Maybe if she was forced to find happiness in the toys she already has, she just might find it. But for now, she is able to live under the impression that the next toy is going to bring it.” My friend’s face grew sadder because he knew that what I was saying was true. His own decisions were contributing greatly to the unhealthy relationship his daughter had formed with possessions. This is a reminder all of us parents need: Our kids need boundaries! If we don’t give them a sense of how much is too much, they’ll just keep wanting more. And if we let them grow up without considering the downsides of overaccumulation, we could be dooming them to repeat the errors of excess that are so common in our world today. Don’t you want to spare your kids the bondage that comes with having too much stuff? Start early to teach them that less is more — more fun, that is! It’s one of the best ways you can show them your love.

Listen to me. I want, nah, I need you to be what you’ve always been in my life. My light. My Love. That beam of life when shit gets gloomy. Ain’t nothing gon’ change between us just because the circumstances have. I’m not asking you to change, baby. I swear, I’m not.

and let’s hold on to hope for these two crazy kids. Sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes people make big sacrifices. And sometimes”—he tugged me closer to his chest, the warmth of his heart fluttering against my back—“sometimes, lovers follow through with the promises they made,

Cats do seem to prefer us to talk to them in a high-pitched voice. Perhaps gruff male voices remind them of the rumbling growl of an angry tomcat. Cats' paws are exceptionally sensitive, which explains why many cats don't like having their feet handled. Cats become extravagantly demonstrative only when they are angry or afraid. Purring seems to convey a general request: Please settle down next to me. The cat instinctively uses the purr to try to change the situation to its advantage. Each cat simply learns that purring under certain circumstances makes its life run more smoothly. The most satisfying exchanges between cat and owner are often those that the cat chooses to initiate, rather than those in which the owner approaches the cat, which may regard such uninvited advances with suspicion. Most cats are extraordinarily sensitive to human body language.

I, as you may have discovered, regard the whole idea of marriage with abhorrence. I hold that, as things now stand in this civilization of ours, a woman's one absolute right is her right to herself. She is her own inalienable possession. Why should she give herself up to a man; becoming his chattel, to do with as he pleases? Why should she lose all right over her own person, her own property, her own liberty of action and regulation of circumstance? Why should she change her very name for his? If the two could stand on a platform of absolute independence and equality, the thing might be bearable—for some. It would still be intolerable to me! But, as the law and social usage now stand, marriage is—to the woman—practically slavery; and, therefore, an unspeakable degradation!

Eventually, he brought me a translation of the Islamic Holy Book, the Quran, and one night, as I read, I came across a sura that touched me so deeply, moved me so profoundly, it was as though God had whispered in my ear. My life didn't change, the circumstances that plagued me -- poverty, exile from the real world, continuous fears about what lay ahead -- didn't change. I wasn't instantly, miraculously cured of the blackness that was rooted in my soul, but I was comforted. I, who felt and believed that I was beyond even the capability of God to love and forgive, who feared daily retribution of the meanest, vilest kind, cried to the first time since I'd come to this house, not bitterly, not grudging the tears. 'By the morning hours, And by the night when it is stillest The Lord hath not forsaken thee nor doth He hate thee And verily the latter portion will be better for thee than the former And verily thy Lord will give unto thee so that thou will be content Did He not find thee an Orphan and protect thee? Did He not find thee wandering and direct thee? Did He not find thee destitute and enrich thee? Therefore the orphan oppress not, Therefore the beggar drive not away, Therefore the bounty of thy Lord be thy discourse. (Sura 93)' That verse freed me. I was not an outcast, not hated by a God who could love and forgive everyone but me. In time, I could see my being in this house as an act of man, not an act of God. I also began to believe that there might be another reason for my being directed here; I was not here to die, but perhaps to do something about the place and the people. I began to feel I'd been given back purpose.

I once witnessed a fender bender in a grocery store parking lot. Two cars were backing up at the same time and their rear bumpers collided. The collision appeared to cause only minor damage to each vehicle. I watched as one driver jumped out of his vehicle and said, “Just what I needed. Why do these things always happen to me? As if I didn’t already have enough to deal with today!” Meanwhile, the other driver stepped out of his vehicle shaking his head. In a very calm voice he said, “Wow, we’re so lucky that no one got hurt. What a great day it is when you can get into an accident and walk away from it without a single injury.” Both men experienced the exact same event. However, their perception of the event was completely different. One man viewed himself as a victim of horrible circumstance while the other man viewed the event as good fortune. Their reaction was all about their differences in perception.

To the presidents of the chambers, the institutions of the country are on the eve of profound changes, various indications and circumstances have convinced me that it is desirable in the new situation, a new administration should take office, I request you on my behalf to inform the chambers of my abdication, with the highest and most special esteem, your affectionate King,

Hatred is a commodity I couldn't afford in prison. Too expensive then. Too expensive now... I couldn't live every day with that stuff bubbling up inside me.... Gage taught me that. He found me in a bad place. Picked me up. Showed me I had a choice. I couldn't change my circumstances, but I had a lot to say about who I was in the midst of them. And who I became. Gage helped me, showed me, how to lay it down.

I once read that after every 7 years or so, every cell in the human body has completely regenerated and the body becomes made entirely of a different collection of physical material. At which point, nothing that was once you, is you anymore. And across 7 years, your life circumstances are likely different too, if not completely different. Meaning both your interior physical state and exterior circumstances are constantly changing completely, and yet you always feel mostly the same. At least in the sense that you still feel like you. It seems as if all processes of change in life are sifted through the same colander of self, and the only thing that is ever consistent on any level in any circumstances is that thing inside your head that continually identifies you with you, despite what’s going on around and through it. And that’s sort of ultimately what it all comes down to, I think. How well you exist with that strange, central you that observes all the other dynamics and constantly changing yous. If anything, it is this that solitude and separation provide. The value and reformative nature of confinement are, at least for me, not necessarily to develop into a different person but to properly face the strange, painful, difficult, and almost inexplicable person you might really be. The person who isn’t really a person, but the thing that lacks a complete and obvious person, but longs relentlessly for one. The truth of what you might be, that you went to great, massive efforts to otherwise avoid. And instead, you direct your efforts to learn how to live with this, rather than always lashing and flailing away from it. That’s where the real trouble came from for me anyway. Eventually, your strategy is to flail violently against yourself, in an effort to overtake it, you’ll end up going to the end of the world, losing everything you have and love just to ultimately end up being put here, to confront the same fact that you knew all along, that you always go with you. Arguably, some level of solitude is inevitable, in any life. But perhaps, some level of deeper, intentional solitude is necessary for a good one. At least for a period of time. Even in a crowd of thousands of people, every person is ultimately alone inside their head, as a solitary receiver of everything. Everything and everyone is experienced individually, skull by skull, moment by moment, once, for all eternity. And so, what does it mean to be a solitary receiver of a world of noise, if when the noise is turned down, you can barely stand it? Perhaps some decent amount of solitude grants you the first step in confronting just how broken the receiver inherently is, finally letting you hear the static buzz that’s been humming in the background of everything, that you can only notice when nearly everything else turns down. Sometimes this humming drove me crazy, sometimes to the brink of all hopelessness, but then like everything else, you begin to adapt. I think it probably takes a full lifetime to ever know what you really are and what good anything was for you. Eventually, everyone figures out how to be ok. Eventually, you don’t have a choice.

Look, I’m not joking around. Smartphones are dangerous. Not because they may cause stress, anxiety, and even depression, but because they change your behavior. It seems like we can’t focus on one thing for more than 5 seconds. Why? Well, we can’t because our smartphone is constantly going off. Not because people are calling you (it seems like people are afraid of calling these days, but that’s another topic), but because you’re constantly getting notifications about THINGS THAT DON’T MATTER. Change Your Smartphone Behavior The same study I mentioned above also found something else: “Researchers asked participants to perform a concentration test under four different circumstances: with their smartphone in their pocket, at their desk, locked in a drawer and removed from the room completely.” The results are significant — test results were lowest when the smartphone was on the desk, but with every additional layer of distance between participants and their smartphones, test performance increased. Overall, test results were 26% higher when phones were removed from the room.” Sure, it’s just a study. And you don’t have to believe everything you read. But this is something I can personally attest. For the past two years, I’ve significantly changed my smartphone behavior. Namely: I have turned off ALL my notifications except messages and calls I’ve removed myself from all Whatsapp groups except for one with my closest friends I’ve removed all news apps (if something important happens, you’ll hear it from the people around you) I only consume music, paid journalism, articles from specific authors I follow, podcasts, YouTube videos (mostly to learn, but also for entertainment because I’m not a robot), books, and audiobooks on it For the rest, I use my phone to call, text, and to take notes, photos and videos Also, I’ve stopped immediately responding to notifications. That doesn’t mean I don’t value other people who try to reach me. It means that I refuse to be a slave to my phone. I control my phone. For most of us, it’s the other way around. In the past, Facebook, Instagram, Apple, Google, etc, all controlled my mind. Obviously, they still do because the only way to escape those idiots is to cut yourself off and run to the woods. That’s not realistic. I like my phone. But I don’t need it. The results have been great since I started using my smartphone in the above way. During the past two years, I got more things done than ever. And, I still have time to work out daily, hang out with my friends, have dinner with my family, and

I never stopped writing. It was what I did, no matter where I was or how my circumstances changed. One of the reasons I remember those early Bombay months so well is that, whenever I was alone, I wrote about those new friends and the conversations we shared. And writing was one of the things that saved me: the discipline and abstraction of putting my life into words, every day, helped me to cope with shame and its first cousin, despair.

Michelle, the girls, and I visited a sprawling favela on the western end of Rio, where we dropped in at a youth center to watch a capoeira troupe perform and I kicked a soccer ball around with a handful of local kids. By the time we were leaving, hundreds of people had massed outside the center, and although my Secret Service detail nixed the idea of me taking a stroll through the neighborhood, I persuaded them to let me step through the gate and greet the crowd. Standing in the middle of the narrow street, I waved at the Black and brown and copper-toned faces; residents, many of them children, clustered on rooftops and small balconies and pressed against the police barricades. Valerie, who was traveling with us and witnessed the whole scene, smiled as I walked back inside, saying, “I’ll bet that wave changed the lives of some of those kids forever.” I wondered if that was true. It’s what I had told myself at the start of my political journey, part of my justification to Michelle for running for president—that the election and leadership of a Black president stood to change the way children and young people everywhere saw themselves and their world. And yet I knew that whatever impact my fleeting presence might have had on those children of the favelas and however much it might cause some to stand straighter and dream bigger, it couldn’t compensate for the grinding poverty they encountered every day: the bad schools, polluted air, poisoned water, and sheer disorder that many of them had to wade through just to survive. By my own estimation, my impact on the lives of poor children and their families so far had been negligible—even in my own country. My time had been absorbed by just trying to keep the circumstances of the poor, both at home and abroad, from worsening: making sure a global recession didn’t drastically drive up their ranks or eliminate whatever slippery foothold they might have in the labor market; trying to head off a change in climate that might lead to a deadly flood or storm; or, in the case of Libya, trying to prevent a madman’s army from gunning people down in the streets. That wasn’t nothing, I thought—as long as I didn’t start fooling myself into thinking it was anywhere close to enough.

A sour feeling takes up a spot in my stomach, but I can’t find it in me to change the circumstance and admit who I am.

To fully integrate new ideas into our lives, we need to experiment with them, and through trial and error, explore how they might work for our unique circumstances.

On May 27, Bryn Mawr awarded 167 bachelor of arts degrees. Sixty percent of the class was headed straight to graduate or professional school. My friends and teachers had assumed I would go to law school, but I could not imagine devoting myself to the details of torts or civil procedure. If I decided to pursue further education, I knew it would be for graduate work in history. What had always captured me intellectually was the broad sweep of ideas and social forces. And having grown up in a changing and not-changing Virginia, I knew how those assumptions and circumstances exerted their power through time, often creating silences and blindnesses that undermined human possibility. From at least when I had written to Eisenhower as a nine-year-old, I had recognized the force and the burden of history; I understood the words of the white southern poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren: “History is what you can’t / Resign from.”11 Coming to terms with the past would ultimately become an intellectual and professional commitment as well as a personal necessity. I grew up to be a historian. My page in the Bryn Mawr college yearbook, 1968. On my right wrist I am wearing the bracelet my grandmother gave me the night my mother died. But not yet. I had decided I needed to be in the real world for a while. I had loved school since I began kindergarten at the age of four, and at Bryn Mawr I had become caught up not just in learning

Love is the sweetness of life.” “Pray is gold, whereas love is a diamond.” “Love does not wear hatred and bias.” “Love is a fulfillment of life; without that, life is nothing.” Love cannot appear and become true love without respect, tolerance, empathy, sympathy, care, and sacrifice.” “One can love whoever and whenever one wants; however, expecting similar feelings from that whom one loves is a risk of self-hurting.” “Love speaks in your words, sights with your eyes, grows on your conduct, and finally resides in your heart, becoming your heartbeat.” “When your mind is rich in wisdom, and your heart is sensitive and filled with love, you are a person who can change the world.” “Love does not recognize the terms hide and seek. When it happens, it becomes visible without any fear or hesitation.” “Those who care for self-respect show real and true love, and they do not break the trust and certainty of their beloved. Love cannot stay where there is no self-respect.” “If you love someone, and you are also keeping the options, it is not fair to your lover, not even yourself. You are just an opportunist. True love knows no options.” “Love for humanity is the mother of every love; no other love can prevail over it.” “Etiquette, respect, and love embellish and beautify the character while also helping to reach and qualify for success in life.” “Love with motives does not have success and embraces shame and sorry.” “My religion is love, which I have learned from my religion.” “Beauty hits eyes, and love touches heartbeats.” “The billions of beautiful faces exist in the world, but I fell in love with one face.” “The silent love has more truth than the spoken one.” “Please pray for me. I am going to fall in love.” “I do not search for a true friend and true love. I practice becoming a true friend and giving true love.” “I can never feel again such love which I had felt for the first time in my youth.” “If there is no current, the lamp does not light up; similarly, if there is no passion, love does not become the heartbeat.” “Love with the heart validates purity and truth. Love with the mind may evidence diplomacy and tact.” “Real and pure love exists at the age of nine and ninety years; between that lies a risk. However, an exception may become a wonder.” “Love fragrances, and colors, the breath waves that inspire the heart language.” “Love bears two negative feelings; fear and jealousy, overcoming that beautify life; otherwise, these become self-hurting.” “Love is not just a remedy for sex frustration; it is a solemn life pledge to be together for all seasons and circumstances.” “How simple it is, how deep it is, and how true it is, within the two-L-that you are my Life and Love. Do we honestly make also perfumed that?” “Log in Love; log out Hatred and scan evil threats with the purity of thoughts: Life becomes secure and stays smooth and flowery.” “Anyone who indulges only in self-love remains devoid of true love.” "Your words can be constructive or destructive. Love is a positive energy that grows when it is filled up with sweet words and keeps love fresh and alive. If there are destructive words, love will go dry and finally die. "Love is a context of heartbeats; intimacy is its dictionary; use it carefully and properly; otherwise, typos can cause risks.

There is no universal rule to decide rights and wrongs, it is solely dependent upon the circumstances we are in and something which is right for you might be wrong for me and vice versa.

It would be masochistic and sadistic of me to tell the truth about something if I knew for sure that I would create only misery for myself and others. We’ve all heard of pathological liars. Telling the truth in such circumstances would be an example of being pathologically honest. We need to judge each behavior on its specific consequences for happiness and not on the basis of whether or not it accords to a generally good rule.

One day, meandering through the bookcases, I had picked up his diaries and begun to read the account of his famous meeting with Hitler prior to Munich, at the house in Berchtesgaden high up in the Bavarian mountains. Chamberlain described how, after greeting him, Hitler took him up to the top of the chalet. There was a room, bare except for three plain wooden chairs, one for each of them and the interpreter. He recounts how Hitler alternated between reason – complaining of the Versailles Treaty and its injustice – and angry ranting, almost screaming about the Czechs, the Poles, the Jews, the enemies of Germany. Chamberlain came away convinced that he had met a madman, someone who had real capacity to do evil. This is what intrigued me. We are taught that Chamberlain was a dupe; a fool, taken in by Hitler’s charm. He wasn’t. He was entirely alive to his badness. I tried to imagine being him, thinking like him. He knows this man is wicked; but he cannot know how far it might extend. Provoked, think of the damage he will do. So, instead of provoking him, contain him. Germany will come to its senses, time will move on and, with luck, so will Herr Hitler. Seen in this way, Munich was not the product of a leader gulled, but of a leader looking for a tactic to postpone, to push back in time, in hope of circumstances changing. Above all, it was the product of a leader with a paramount and overwhelming desire to avoid the blood, mourning and misery of war. Probably after Munich, the relief was too great, and hubristically, he allowed it to be a moment that seemed strategic not tactical. But easy to do. As Chamberlain wound his way back from the airport after signing the Munich Agreement – the fateful paper brandished and (little did he realise) his place in history with it – crowds lined the street to welcome him as a hero. That night in Downing Street, in the era long before the security gates arrived and people could still go up and down as they pleased, the crowds thronged outside the window of Number 10, shouting his name, cheering him, until he was forced in the early hours of the morning to go out and speak to them in order that they disperse. Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognising the fundamental question. And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. That sounds daft – surely it is obvious; but analyse the situation for a moment and it isn’t. You might think the question was: can Hitler be contained? That’s what Chamberlain thought. And, on balance, he thought he could. And rationally, Chamberlain should have been right. Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was supreme in Germany. Why not be satisfied? How crazy to step over the line and make war inevitable.

One day, meandering through the bookcases, I had picked up his diaries and begun to read the account of his famous meeting with Hitler prior to Munich, at the house in Berchtesgaden high up in the Bavarian mountains. Chamberlain described how, after greeting him, Hitler took him up to the top of the chalet. There was a room, bare except for three plain wooden chairs, one for each of them and the interpreter. He recounts how Hitler alternated between reason – complaining of the Versailles Treaty and its injustice – and angry ranting, almost screaming about the Czechs, the Poles, the Jews, the enemies of Germany. Chamberlain came away convinced that he had met a madman, someone who had real capacity to do evil. This is what intrigued me. We are taught that Chamberlain was a dupe; a fool, taken in by Hitler’s charm. He wasn’t. He was entirely alive to his badness. I tried to imagine being him, thinking like him. He knows this man is wicked; but he cannot know how far it might extend. Provoked, think of the damage he will do. So, instead of provoking him, contain him. Germany will come to its senses, time will move on and, with luck, so will Herr Hitler. Seen in this way, Munich was not the product of a leader gulled, but of a leader looking for a tactic to postpone, to push back in time, in hope of circumstances changing. Above all, it was the product of a leader with a paramount and overwhelming desire to avoid the blood, mourning and misery of war. Probably after Munich, the relief was too great, and hubristically, he allowed it to be a moment that seemed strategic not tactical. But easy to do. As Chamberlain wound his way back from the airport after signing the Munich Agreement – the fateful paper brandished and (little did he realise) his place in history with it – crowds lined the street to welcome him as a hero. That night in Downing Street, in the era long before the security gates arrived and people could still go up and down as they pleased, the crowds thronged outside the window of Number 10, shouting his name, cheering him, until he was forced in the early hours of the morning to go out and speak to them in order that they disperse. Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognising the fundamental question. And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. That sounds daft – surely it is obvious; but analyse the situation for a moment and it isn’t. You might think the question was: can Hitler be contained? That’s what Chamberlain thought. And, on balance, he thought he could. And rationally, Chamberlain should have been right. Hitler had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. He was supreme in Germany. Why not be satisfied? How crazy to step over the line and make war inevitable. But that wasn’t the fundamental question. The fundamental question was: does fascism represent a force that is so strong and rooted that it has to be uprooted and destroyed? Put like that, the confrontation was indeed inevitable. The only consequential question was when and how. In other words, Chamberlain took a narrow and segmented view – Hitler was a leader, Germany a country, 1938 a moment in time: could he be contained? Actually, Hitler was the product

Winnie, We don’t know each other well, but I want this wedding to be everything you want it to be given the circumstances. I have started an account with every bridal store in the area. I’ve given them strict instructions to spare nothing when it comes to you choosing the perfect dress for tomorrow. I’m eager to discover what dress you choose. I hope in time, I can change your mind about trusting me. I’ll be waiting for you at the altar. Yours, Archer I

A sour feeling takes up a spot in my stomach, but I can’t find it in me to change the circumstance and admit who I am. I don’t feel that guilty.

I know what it feels like to be locked in a tower. Figuratively trapped away in solitude with my future just out of reach. Desperately hoping my circumstances will change even though they seem to be set in stone… If only it was as easy as a prince saving me from myself.

As it was written about Abraham, “A father of many nations I have made you.” That is future. But in the present, he was father of no one. You can be honest about what the situation looks like. But you then must find yourself speaking more about what God says to your situation in the Word of God. Staying close to God’s Word will help you speak into future instead of complaining about your present circumstances. Fill your mouth with what He promised, His Word. Finally, the God you believe in will determine your faith level. There is a biblical phrase used many times about Abraham: “Abraham believed God.” It is used all over the Bible—from Genesis to Romans, Galatians to James. But what makes the phrase valid is that there is another phrase associated with Abraham in the Bible just like this one. It’s in 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, and James. And I think it has something to do with the first phrase. The second phrase determined his faith level. It is friend of God. Friend of God makes belief in God easy. Abraham could say, “Regardless of what circumstances I am facing, my Friend is with me.” The God Abraham believed in was his Friend. He trusted his Friend. That’s why when you connect Abraham’s raw circumstances with his faith in his Friend, you get these verses that The Passion Translation makes come alive: In spite of being nearly one hundred years old when the promise of having a son was made, his faith was so strong that it could not be undermined by the fact that he and Sarah were incapable of conceiving a child. He never stopped believing God’s promise, for he was made strong in his faith to father a child. And because he was mighty in faith and convinced that God had all the power needed to fulfill his promises, Abraham glorified God! (Romans 4:19-20, TPT)

…I am a storyteller. From barstools to back porches, from kitchen tables to campfires, from podiums to park benches, I have spun my yarns to audiences both big and small, both rapt and bored. I didn’t start out that way. I was just a dreamer, quietly imagining myself as something special, as someone who would “make a difference” in the world. But the fact is, I was just an ordinary person leading an ordinary life. Then, partly by design, partly by happenstance, I was thrust into a series of adventures and circumstances beyond anything I had ever dreamed. It all started when I ran away from home at eighteen and hitchhiked around the country. Then I joined the Army, became an infantry lieutenant, and went to Vietnam. After Vietnam, I tried to become a hippie, got involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), and became a National Coordinator for the organization. I was subsequently indicted for conspiracy to incite a riot at the Republican Convention in 1972—the so-called Gainesville Eight case—and one of my best friends turned out to be an FBI informant who testified against me at the trial. In the early eighties, I was involved with the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial Commission, which built a memorial for Vietnam veterans in New York City and published the book Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. In the late eighties, I was part of a delegation of Vietnam veterans who went to the Soviet Union to meet with Soviet veterans of their Afghanistan War. I fell in love with a woman from Russia, married her, and spent nine years living there, during which I fathered two children, then brought my family back to the U.S. and the suburban middle-class life I had left so many years before. The adventures ultimately, inevitably perhaps, ended, and like Samwise Gamgee, I returned to an ordinary life once they were over. The only thing I had left from that special time was the stories… I wrote this book for two reasons. First and foremost, I wrote it for my children. Their experience of me is as a slightly boring “soccer dad,” ordinary and unremarkable. I wanted them to know who I was and what I did before I became their dad. More importantly, I hope the book can be inspiring to the entire younger generation they represent, who will have to deal with the mess of a world that we have left them. The second reason is that when I was young, I had hoped that my actions would “make a difference,” but I’m not so sure if they amounted to “a hill of beans,” as Humphry Bogart famously intoned. If my actions did not change the world, then I dream that maybe my stories can.

Just because your circumstances are hard doesn’t mean God’s purpose for you has changed. Joseph, Esther, and even Jesus could have said, “I must have done something wrong. Look at what’s happening to me! I’m going to give up and just hang on until heaven.” Instead, each one looked past the present and held on to an eternal perspective. You have not been sidelined. You have not been disqualified. You have not been placed on the bench to wait out the rest of the game.

My thoughts are on Brux. The alien I never thought I’d see again. My hero. My savior. The alien who won me my freedom. Five years ago, I worked for an old mesakkah—one of the blue aliens with horns. He was the meanest son of a bitch, and spent all his time pinching and hitting me if I didn’t work fast enough. That old alien was a scrapper, too, and he taught me a lot. His hands didn’t work as well as they did when he was younger, so he used me to do the delicate repair work on things. And he starved me and kicked me and treated me like the worst junkyard dog. I’m told that humans are expensive, so I’m not sure why he wanted one if he was just going to beat the crap out of me and abuse me, but maybe he wanted to make sure that whatever slave he got he could beat up on without fear of reprisal. That was my life, dodging slaps and trying frantically to work fast enough to avoid the next hit. Trying to “behave” so I’d get fed that day. Brux showed up at the scrapper’s junk hole one day. I’m not even sure what he was looking for. But he watched the old guy beat up on me while I tried to work and then turned around and left. Which made my owner hit me even harder. Neither of us had counted on Brux returning, though. He did. Threw a bag of credits onto the counter and demanded my price. My owner didn’t even haggle. Just named some astronomically high price and Brux shoved the bag of credits across the counter and unlocked my collar. He led me to a hotel that night and ordered food. I scarfed everything down and showered, and cried I was so happy. The moment I got out of the shower and in Brux’s oversized tunic, I sat next to my new owner and let him know just how happy I was. I seduced him. Brux declined my advances, like any decent guy would. But I had a full belly and I was away from that old monster, and at this point, anything would be better. I put my mouth all over him, ignoring his attempts to brush me aside, and sat myself down onto his lap—and his cock. For all that he’s an enormous alien with tree trunks for arms and legs, his cock was the perfect size. Better than that, he was exceedingly gentle with me and made sure that I wasn’t hurting or scared. He came, I didn’t, but it didn’t matter to me. It was about connection, and gratitude, and just celebrating that my circumstances had changed. But I think it made Brux feel weird about things. Because in the morning, he took me directly to the doorstep of Lord va’Rin and left me there.

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”3 Deep suffering often has a distinct, poignant effect on our lives. It did for me. The chosen suffering for me was deep, but not deep enough. Maybe I wasn’t tough enough to initiate the type of pain that unchosen suffering caused me. Welcome to unchosen suffering. Unchosen suffering brought me to my knees. It’s a pain inflicted upon us by circumstances outside our control. You wouldn’t choose this suffering if given the option. It causes deep wounds and ropey scars on your soul. Not every type of unchosen suffering drops us but the one I experienced did. Nothing prepares anyone for this sudden life alteration. It’s a jolting, shocking pain. At thirty-six years old, I found out through personal experience, and it would change the way I thought and the way I walked on this planet.