Disciplines Mother Quotes

‎Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

When we have faith and discipline everything becomes easier. Patience is the mother of all virtues. With anxiety all our lives become worse.

Giving birth does not make you a mother. Being there daily in good times and bad to provide, care, comfort, teach, sing, feed, clothe, encourage, discipline, clean, hug, pray, listen, cry, experience, protect, kiss, read, advocate, bandage, educate, coach, cheer, laugh, play and love unconditionally...well, that's a mother.

It struck me just how young he was—no more than seventeen. Older than my mortal form, yes, but not by much. This young man had lost his mother. He had survived the harsh training of Lupa the wolf goddess. He’d grown up with the discipline of the Twelfth Legion at Camp Jupiter. He’d fought Titans and giants. He’d helped save the world at least twice. But by mortal standards, he was barely an adult. He wasn’t old enough to vote or drink.

When, in the street, I see a mother walking with her grown-up daughter, I can hardly bear to witness the mother’s pride, the softening of her face, her incredulous joy at being granted her daughter’s company; and the iron discipline she imposes on herself, to muffle and conceal this joy.

Teaching a boy to be a man is the primary job of a father.

Our children are humans and deserve to be treated respectfully. Discipline doesn’t include raging, screaming, abusing, neglecting, humiliating, or shaming our kids. God never treats us like that. That sort of discipline never “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

There’s a wound most troubled boys share, which, at its core, comes from the feeling that they don’t have their father’s unconditional love.

When a boy feels as if no one cares about him, or as if he will never amount to anything, he truly believes it doesn’t matter what he does.

Mothers do, every day. It’s funny, Bo, how a woman can bring two children into the world, raise them up the same way—the same rules and values, indulgences and disciplines. And still two separate people come out of it all.

It was as if my father had given me, by way of temperament, an impossibly wild, dark, and unbroken horse. It was a horse without a name, and a horse with no experience of a bit between its teeth. My mother taught me to gentle it; gave me the discipline and love to break it; and- as Alexander had known so intuitively with Bucephalus- she understood, and taught me, that the beast was best handled by turning it toward the sun.

Saint Thomas Aquinas says, wisely, that the only way to drive out a bad passion is by a stronger good passion. The same is true of thoughts as of passions. When your mind wanders, like a child, your will must bring it back, like a mother. [. . .] The will-parent must discipline the mind-child, avoiding both the opposite extremes commonly made in disciplining either children or thoughts: tyranny or permissiveness.

Servitude is not easy. Obedience is not a one-time decision. Obedience is alife time discipline. But it does bring a cimplicty to life because it settles the issue of who is in control.

When the subject of kids first came up years ago, I'd joked that the only thing I could imagine worse than me as a mother was Clay as a father. I couldn't have been more wrong. Clay was an amazing parents. The guy who couldn't spare a few minutes to hear a mutt's side of the story could listen to his kids talk all day. The guy who couldn't sit still through a brief council meeting could spend hours building Lego castles with his kids. The guy who solved problems with his fists never even raised his voice to his children. And if sometimes Clay was a little too indulgent, a little too slow to discipline, preferring to leave that to me, I was okay with it. He supported and enforced my decisions and we presented a unified front to our children, and that was all that mattered.

The wrath of God is never an evil wrath. God gets angry because he loves people like a mother would love her child if someone were to harm it. There is something wrong if the mother never gets angry; it is safe to say that that is the unloving mother.

My mom says, "Do you know what the AIDS memorial quilt is all about?" Jump to how much I hate my brother at this moment. I bought this fabric because I thought it would make a nice panel for Shane," Mom says. "We just ran into some problems with what to sew on it." Give me amnesia. Flash. Give me new parents. Flash. Your mother didn't want to step on any toes," Dad says. He twists a drumstick off and starts scraping the meat onto a plate. "With gay stuff you have to be so careful since everything means something in secret code. I mean, we didn't want to give people the wrong idea." My Mom leans over to scoop yams onto my plate, and says, "Your father wanted a black border, but black on a field of blue would mean Shane was excited by leather sex, you know, bondage and discipline, sado and masochism." She says, "Really, those panels are to help the people left behind." Strangers are going to see us and see Shane's name," my dad says. "We didn't want them thinking things." The dishes all start their slow clockwise march around the table. The stuffing. The olives. The cranberry sauce. "I wanted pink triangles but all the panels have pink triangles," my mom says. "It's the Nazi symbol for homosexuals." She says,"Your father suggested black triangles, but that would mean Shane was a lesbian. It looks like female pubic hair. The black triangle does." My father says, "Then I wanted a green border, but it turns out that would mean Shane was a male prostitute." My mom says, "We almost chose a red border, but that would mean fisting. Brown would mean either scat or rimming, we couldn't figure which." Yellow," my father says, "means watersports." A lighter shade of blue," Mom says, "would mean just regular oral sex." Regular white," my father says, "would mean anal. White could also mean Shane was excited by men wearing underwear." He says, "I can't remember which." My mother passes me the quilted chicken with the rolls still warm inside. We're supposed to sit and eat with Shane dead all over the table in front of us. Finally we just gave up," my mom says, "and I made a nice tablecloth out of the material." Between the yams and the stuffing, Dad looks down at his plate and says, "Do you know about rimming?" I know it isn't table talk. And fisting?" my mom asks. I say, I know. I don't mention Manus and his vocational porno magazines. We sit there, all of us around a blue shroud with the turkey more like a big dead baked animal than ever, the stuffing chock full of organs you can still recognize, the heart and gizzard and liver, the gravy thick with cooked fat and blood. The flower centerpiece could be a casket spray. Would you pass the butter, please?" my mother says. To my father she says, "Do you know what felching is?

Society tried to teach me that children are by nature selfish, out-of-control, and demanding, that their goal is power and that they are always trying to see how much they can get away with, that you can't let children manipulate you or become too dependant, and that disobedience equals disrespect. As a mother, I have come to believe strongly that my child's primary goals are having his needs met, feeling connected to others, and feeling self-worth. His misbehavior is an attempt to get a need met or to feel significance and connection, done in an appropriate way.... my job as a parent is to help my child identify and meet those needs in appropriate ways." - Lisa S.

The story is told of Mother Theresa that when an interviewer asked her. "What do you say when you pray?" she answered, "I listen." The reporters paused a moment, then asked, "Then what does God say?" and she replied, "He listens." It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.

Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother's gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.

Inside, a mother superior, ethereal, delicate, who took me under her wing. She caressed me with her slender, soft hands, she sat next to me as if I were a friend. One day she disappeared. In her place arrived a buxom Swiss from Canton Uri. It's common knowledge that a new leader will hate the predecessors' favourites. A boarding school is like a harem.

Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador.

It needs more than ever to be stressed that the best and truest educators are parents under God. The greatest school is the family. In learning, no act of teaching in any school or university compares to the routine task of mothers in teaching a babe who speaks no language the mother tongue in so short a time. No other task in education is equal to this. The moral training of the children, the discipline of good habits, is an inheritance from the parents to the children which surpasses all other. The family is the first and basic school of man.

Show me a mother who says she is 100 percent gentle, 100 percent of the time, and I'll show you a mother in deep, deep denial, and probably passive-agressive to boot." - Lynn Siprelle

The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts. The baby cries, and the mother's milk flows. The nurse of creation has said, Let them cry a lot. This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow. Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening, so your life will stay fresh. Cry easily like a little child. Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase. Diminish what you give your physical self. Your spiritual eye will begin to open. When the body empties and stays empty, God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl. That way a man gives his dung and gets purity. Listen to the prophets, not to some adolescent boy. The foundation and the walls of spiritual life are made of self-denials and disciplines. Stay with friends who support you in these. Talk with them about sacred texts, and how you're doing, and how they're doing, and keep your practices together.

Mothers serve their families in all manner of dirty and undignified positions, willingly taking on a workload so extensive and ongoing you could never hire someone to to it.

Despite what you might believe right now, your son’s future is bright. You only need the right tools to help him get there.

Self discipline is the mother of success

Some people have never seen their fathers beat their mothers, only because their mothers are the ones who did or do the beating.

As it is the sister of reading, so it is the mother of prayer. Though a man's heart be much indisposed to prayer, yet, if he can but fall into a meditation of God, and the things of God, his heart will soon come off to prayer....Begin with reading or hearing. Go on with meditation; end in prayer....Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is hurtful; to meditate and to read without prayer upon both, is without blessing.

The back of his hand slams into my mouth, shoving any other words down my throat. I stumble. My back hits the mirror, sending spikes of pain through my shoulder. I’ve never been hit in the face. My mother didn’t bother disciplining me. Though I saw men hit her and my aunt from time to time, no man has ever hit me, so I didn’t know. I couldn’t have known that the first hit, that baptism into violence, doesn’t just sting the flesh. It startles the soul.

what is the expression which the age demands? the age demands no expression whatever. we have seen photographs of bereaved asian mothers. we are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. there is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. do not even try. you will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. we have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. you are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. this should make you very quiet. speak the words, convey the data, step aside. everyone knows you are in pain. you cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. you have nothing to teach them. you are not more beautiful than they are. you are not wiser. do not shout at them. do not force a dry entry. that is bad sex. if you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver what you promise. and remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. what is our need? to be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. the bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit have destroyed more than just the trees and villages. they have also destroyed the stage. did you think that your profession would escape the general destruction? there is no more stage. there are no more footlights. you are among the people. then be modest. speak the words, convey the data, step aside. be by yourself. be in your own room. do not put yourself on. do not act out words. never act out words. never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you talk about death. do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. if you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. if ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material. this is an interior landscape. it is inside. it is private. respect the privacy of the material. these pieces were written in silence. the courage of the play is to speak them. the discipline of the play is not to violate them. let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. be good whores. the poem is not a slogan. it cannot advertise you. it cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. you are students of discipline. do not act out the words. the words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition. the poem is nothing but information. it is the constitution of the inner country. if you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. you are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. think of the words as science, not as art. they are a report. you are speaking before a meeting of the explorers' club of the national geographic society. these people know all the risks of mountain climbing. they honour you by taking this for granted. if you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. if you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. it will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. it will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence. avoid the flourish. do not be afraid to be weak. do not be ashamed to be tired. you look good when you're tired. you look like you could go on forever. now come into my arms. you are the image of my beauty.

...home is less a location than a discipline. It is a way of being, a domestic, considered attention to familiar routines and the small, essential details of everyday life. From now on, I promised myself, home would be wherever I was, not the place that I one day hoped it to be. I would create it by being present. I would try to do better.

People who think nonviolence is easy don't realize that it's a spiritual discipline that requires a great deal of strength, growth, and purging of the self so that one can overcome almost any obstacle for the good of all without being concerned about one's own welfare.

He and Harmony had been wed a week now, and still the briefest glance at his wife awakened the savage in him. The smallest movement or casual touch made him want to rip off her clothes and press her back on the table and rut on her wildly. His mother would not have approved.

And Mr Verloc, temparamentally identical with his associates, drew fine distinctions in his mind on the strenght of insignificant differences. He drew them with a certain complacency, because the instinct of conventional respectability was strong within him, being only overcome by defect which he shared with a large proportion of revolutionary reformers of a given social state. For obviously one does not revolt against the advantages and opportunities of that state, but against the price which must be paid for the same in the coin of accepted morality, self-restraint, and toil. The majority of revolutionists are the enemies of discipline and fatigue mostly. There are natures, too, to whose sense of justice the price exacted looms up monstrously enormous, odious, oppressive, worrying, humiliating, extortionate, intolerable. Those are the fanatics. The remaining portion of social rebels is accounted for by, vanity, the mother of all noble and vile illusions, the companion of poets, reformers, charlatans, prophets, and incendiaries.

When Jordan was cut from the varsity team, he was devastated. His mother says, “I told him to go back and discipline himself.

According to most studies on the subject, boys who grow up without fathers grow up at a disadvantage.

Healing, it turns out, is a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once.

His childhood had been a pleasant, though disciplined, one. He got on well with his brothers and sisters, and he did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him.

Across ideological differences, the femjnists have realized that a hierarchical ranking of human faculties and the identification of women with a degraded conception of corporeal reality has been instrumental, historically, to the consolidation of patriarchal power and the male exploration of female labor. Thus, analyses of sexuality, procreation, and mothering have been at the center of feminist theory and women's history. In particular, feminists have uncovered and denounced the strategies and the violence by means of which male-centered systems of exploitation have attempted to discipline and appropriate the female body, demonstrating that women's bodies have been the main targets, the privileged sites, for the deployment of power techniques and power relations. and power-relations

When you are angry with your mother, you forget all the wonderful things she has done for you. And when you are happy with your father, you forget all the strict discipline he has imposed upon you. Right?

What virtue was once attached to this notion – of going beyond your strength, of not sparing yourself, of ruining your health! Nobody is born with that kind of selflessness: it can be acquired only by the most relentless discipline, a crushing-out of natural inclination, and by my time the knack or secret of it must have been lost. Or perhaps I didn’t try, having suffered from the effects it had on my mother.

Her good, solid, middle-class mother had tried so hard to iron out her rough edges—and blamed herself when she realized she hadn’t succeeded. Those rough edges had rubbed quite a few people the wrong way. Somehow Jo had always sensed those weren’t the kind of people she wanted around her. And as she grew older, she saw that those who wanted girls to be docile and disciplined were often the same people who took advantage of them.

Mothers and fathers must be gentle at least some of the time. Mothers and fathers must also be strict at least some of the time. Most of the time, though, most mothers and fathers must be mostly strict and gentle together.

The majority of revolutionists are the enemies of discipline and fatigue mostly.  There are natures too, to whose sense of justice the price exacted looms up monstrously enormous, odious, oppressive, worrying, humiliating, extortionate, intolerable.  Those are the fanatics.  The remaining portion of social rebels is accounted for by vanity, the mother of all noble and vile illusions, the companion of poets, reformers, charlatans, prophets, and incendiaries

The imported discovery, that human nature is too good to be made better by discipline, that children are enticed from the right way by religious instruction, and driven from it by the rod, and kept in thraldom by the conspiracy of priests and legislators, has united not a few in the noble experiment of emancipating the world by the help of an irreligious, ungoverned progeny. The indolent have rejoiced in the discovery that our fathers were fools and bigots, and have cheerfully let loose their children to help on the glorious work; while thousands of families, having heard from their teachers, or believing, in spite of them, that morality will suffice both for earth and heaven, and not doubting that morality will flourish without religion, have either not reared the family altar, or have put out the sacred fire, and laid aside together the rod and the Bible, as superfluous auxiliaries in the education of children. From the school, too, with pious regard for its sacred honors, the Bible, by some, has been withdrawn, lest, by a too familiar knowledge of its contents, children should learn to despise it; as if ignorance were the mother of devotion, and the efficacy of laws depended upon their not being understood.

5. Nature is the Mother of All Things. Furthermore, man has come into existence out of Nature. He is her child. She provided him food, raiment, and shelter. She nourishes him, strengthens him, and vitalizes him. At the same time she disciplines, punishes, and instructs him.

By what route the infant Hansen found his way to the Jesuits, the file did not relate. Perhaps the mother converted. Those were dark years still, and if expediency required it, she may have swallowed her Protestant convictions to buy the boy a decent education. Give the Jesuits his soul, she may have reasoned, and they will give him a brain. Or perhaps she sensed in her son from early on the mercurial nature that later ruled his life, and she determined to subordinate him to a stronger religious discipline than was offered by the easy-going Protestants. If so, she was wise.

My mother’s problem is that she can’t submit to any authority. She lost her parents years ago, and she lost her husband. She takes no account of her relatives’ views—she never has—and especially not her children’s. There’s no human or spiritual discipline to which she’ll subject her will. She just has her own opinions, and they’re the only tribunal that’s permitted to judge her when she makes a mistake. Can you imagine what you would be like if you didn’t have anyone close who was capable of influencing you? Anyone to point out your flaws, to confront you when you went too far, to correct you when you did something wrong?” Miss

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Three, four, ten, thirty multi-coloured little beings with backpacks ran down the stairs, Pieces of humanity, a mass to direct and discipline. Four hundred of them were stuffed into this building six hours a day, four hundred were let out again when those six hours were up. Material. But zoom in on one single child and there you had an upholder of the world. A child with a mother and father, grandparents, relatives and friends. A child whose existence is necessary for the proper functioning of many lives. Children are fragile, and carry so many lives on their frail shoulders. Fragile is their world, controlled by adults. Everything is fragile.

There's a pattern in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived. Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing. Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep. But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 t “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,  u but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

The issue of respect is also useful in guiding parents’ interpretation of given behavior. First, they should decide whether an undesirable act represents a direct challenge to their authority . . . to their leadership position as the father or mother. The form of disciplinary action they take should depend on the result of that evaluation.

Children and Parents EPHESIANS 6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3“that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Give so a child’s basic physical needs can be met. 2. Understand so a child is not provoked or exasperated. 3. Instruct so your child can know and apply God’s wisdom. 4. Discipline so your child can correct poor choices. 5. Encourage so your child can courageously develop God-given gifts. 6. Supplicate in prayer so your child can experience God’s touch and truth.

I move in slow motion to roll out of bed, arrange clothing under the covers, and silently remove the screen from my window. Smoothly and soundlessly, I slip out and lower myself to the ground, reaching high above my head to replace the screen. I crouch and skim across the lawn to the street, moving quickly from tree shadow to tree shadow until I reach his car, the passenger door already open and waiting. “Ready?” Steve asks as we synchronize the closing of the door with the starting of the engine. Within moments, we’re on our way to our favorite spot. “You’re awfully quiet tonight, baby.” He parks the car and we both peer out at the lights of the town displayed below us. “Your father get after you again?” It’s a peculiar way to word it, but even my father won’t use words like beat or hit to describe his actions. He’ll use a quote like, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Or declare that he is saving my soul. But my silence tonight isn’t about my father’s form of discipline, nor my mother’s sharp tongue. I take a long, slow breath before speaking the words that I’ve rehearsed for over a month. “I’m pregnant.” My voice comes out soft and raspy.

Richard and I always called you the punisher. We never had to discipline you. Not like we did Hermione or Polly. Because you were so hard on yourself. If there's anything I want for you now, as a mother, even if I don't 'deserve' it is: I want you to be gentle. I want you to have compassion. For yourself and everyone. It's what every parent wants. If their any good. Which maybe I wasn't...

Shorten is one of that interesting pack of politicians born of determined mothers and largely absent fathers. There are so many: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair are distinguished alumni. Among recent Labor leaders in Australia are Rudd, Albanese and Shorten. Among the qualities these men share are self-discipline, boundless ambition and an appetite for approval on a national scale.

And now, in looking back upon it, and reviewing the part of my life intervening between her death and the present time, I think I can distinctly see how it has worked for ultimate good. I humbly believe the Lord intended it so. We lost the benefit of her motherly care and instruction, but we gained the benefit of tuition in the school of affliction; and eternity alone will reveal how important that discipline was.

OLD YOUTHFUL [sneezing]. But sir, it’s not fair. Where’s the justice… BARTHOLO. Justice! Ignorant clods like you can go on and on about justice. But I’m your master and that means I’m always right! OLD YOUTHFUL [sneezing]. But if a thing is true… BARTHOLO. If something’s true! If I don’t want a thing to be true, it isn’t true by my say-so. If you let any Tom, Dick, or Harry be right, you’d soon see what’s to become of authority and discipline!

The Party's all-around intrusion into people's lives was the very point of the process known as 'thought reform." Mao wanted not only external discipline, but the total subjection of all thoughts, large or small. Every week a meeting for 'thought examination' was held for those 'in the revolution." Everyone had both to criticize themselves for incorrect thoughts and be subjected to the criticism of others.The meetings tended to be dominated by self-righteous and petty-minded people, who used them to vent their envy and frustration; people of peasant origin used them to attack those from 'bourgeois' backgrounds. The idea was that people should be reformed to be more like peasants, because the Communist revolution was in essence a peasant revolution. This process appealed to the guilt feelings of the educated; they had been living better than the peasants, and self-criticism tapped into this.Meetings were an important means of Communist control. They left people no free time, and eliminated the private sphere. The pettiness which dominated them was justified on the grounds that prying into personal details was a way of ensuring thorough soul-cleansing. In fact, pettiness was a fundamental characteristic of a revolution in which intrusiveness and ignorance were celebrated, and envy was incorporated into the system of control. My mother's cell grilled her week after week, month after month, forcing her to produce endless self-criticisms.She had to consent to this agonizing process. Life for a revolutionary was meaningless if they were rejected by the Party. It was like excommunication for a Catholic. Besides, it was standard procedure. My father had gone through it and had accepted it as part of 'joining the revolution." In fact, he was still going through it. The Party had never hidden the fact that it was a painful process. He told my mother her anguish was normal.At the end of all this, my mother's two comrades voted against full Party membership for her. She fell into a deep depression. She had been devoted to the revolution, and could not accept the idea that it did not want her; it was particularly galling to think she might not get in for completely petty and irrelevant reasons, decided by two people whose way of thinking seemed light years away from what she had conceived the Party's ideology to be. She was being kept out of a progressive organization by backward people, and yet the revolution seemed to be telling her that it was she who was in the wrong. At the back of her mind was another, more practical point which she did not even spell out to herself: it was vital to get into the Party, because if she failed she would be stigmatized and ostracized.

Mother wrote today with a good letter of maxims; skeptical as always at first, I read what struck home: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter – – – for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.… Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” Those words spoke to my heart with peace, as if in comment, kindly, on my life, my days.

Gods, what an easy life the Guild-beggars have," the other niche-guard observed to his mate. "What slack discipline and low standards of skill! Perfect, my sacred butt! You'd think a child could see through those disguises." "Doubtless some children do," his mate retorted. "But their dear mothers and fathers only drop a tear and a coin or give a kick. Grown folk go blind, lost in their toil and dreams, unless they have a profession such as thieving which keeps them mindful of things as they really are.

And if I was seen as temperamentally cool and collected, measured in how I used my words, Joe was all warmth, a man without inhibitions, happy to share whatever popped into his head. It was an endearing trait, for he genuinely enjoyed people. You could see it as he worked a room, his handsome face always cast in a dazzling smile (and just inches from whomever he was talking to), asking a person where they were from, telling them a story about how much he loved their hometown (“Best calzone I ever tasted”) or how they must know so-and-so (“An absolutely great guy, salt of the earth”), flattering their children (“Anyone ever tell you you’re gorgeous?”) or their mother (“You can’t be a day over forty!”), and then on to the next person, and the next, until he’d touched every soul in the room with a flurry of handshakes, hugs, kisses, backslaps, compliments, and one-liners. Joe’s enthusiasm had its downside. In a town filled with people who liked to hear themselves talk, he had no peer. If a speech was scheduled for fifteen minutes, Joe went for at least a half hour. If it was scheduled for a half hour, there was no telling how long he might talk. His soliloquies during committee hearings were legendary. His lack of a filter periodically got him in trouble, as when during the primaries, he had pronounced me “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” a phrase surely meant as a compliment, but interpreted by some as suggesting that such characteristics in a Black man were noteworthy. As I came to know Joe, though, I found his occasional gaffes to be trivial compared to his strengths. On domestic issues, he was smart, practical, and did his homework. His experience in foreign policy was broad and deep. During his relatively short-lived run in the primaries, he had impressed me with his skill and discipline as a debater and his comfort on a national stage. Most of all, Joe had heart. He’d overcome a bad stutter as a child (which probably explained his vigorous attachment to words) and two brain aneurysms in middle age.

It was not an easy discipline to master, for it involved surrendering my own needs and interests to subservience to his. “Watch a mother with an infant, any kind of a mother, human or beast. There you will see this done on the simplest and most instinctive level. If one is willing to work at it, one can extend that same sort of perception to others. It is a worthwhile thing to do, for it conveys a level of understanding of one another that makes hate almost impossible. Seldom can one hate a person if one understands that person.

But a child who was merely pushed aside and disciplined, who never experienced soothing caresses, is not aware that anything like nonexploitative caresses can exist. She has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed. Under certain circumstances she will even accept sexual abuse for the sake of finding at least some affection rather than freezing up entirely. When, as an adult woman, she comes to realize that she was cheated out of love, she may be ashamed of her former need and hence feel guilty. She will blame herself because she dare not blame her mother, who failed to satisfy the child’s need or perhaps even condemned it. Psychoanalysts protect the father and embroider the sexual abuse of the child with the Oedipus, or Electra, complex, while some feminist therapists idealize the mother, thus hindering access to the child’s first traumatic experiences with the mother. Both approaches can lead to a dead end, since the dissolving of pain and fear is not possible until the full truth of the facts can be seen and accepted.

If you hurt your knee, you wouldn’t wait until you couldn’t walk before seeking help. You’d ice the joint, elevate it, skip your workouts—and then, if you didn’t see any improvement after a couple of days, you’d make an appointment with an orthopedist. Unfortunately, most people don’t turn to a mental health professional for help until they’re in real crisis. Nobody expects to heal their knees themselves, using self-discipline and gumption. Because of stigma, though, we do expect to be able to think our way out of the pain in our minds.

Dataism is most firmly entrenched in its two mother disciplines: computer science and biology. Of the two biology is the more important. It was biology’s embrace of Dataism that turned a limited breakthrough in computer science into a world-shattering cataclysm that may completely transform the very nature of life. You may not agree with the idea that organisms are algorithms, and that giraffes, tomatoes and human beings are just different methods for processing data. But you should know that this is current scientific dogma, and it is changing our world beyond recognition.

She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to their young lives before their mother's wrongs had been righted, had operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather than suffered.

As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room. His parents. The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside. His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears. "I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking. Evie's gentle hands patted his back. "I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion. Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?" "That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?" "It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?" Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head. "Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me." "Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery." "You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement. "I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover." "I agree," Evie said firmly. Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her. After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit." "A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.

There's a patter in these Commandments of setting things apart so that their holiness will be perceived. Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced. Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father, who usually labor and are heavy laden, and may be cranky or stingy or ignorant or overbearing. Believe me, I know this can be a hard Commandment to keep. But I believe also that the rewards of obedience are great, because at the root of real honor is always the sense of the sacredness of the person who is its object.

Mother said: “Isn’t it better for the press to be able to criticize everyone equally?” “A wonderful idea,” he said. “But you socialists live in a dream world. We practical men know that Germany cannot live on ideas. People must have bread and shoes and coal.” “I quite agree,” Mother said. “I could use more coal myself. But I want Carla and Erik to grow up as citizens of a free country.” “You overrate freedom. It doesn’t make people happy. They prefer leadership. I want Werner and Frieda and poor Axel to grow up in a country that is proud, and disciplined, and united.” “And in order to be united, we need young thugs in brown shirts to beat up elderly Jewish shopkeepers?

Lincoln’s liberal use of his pardoning power created the greatest tension between the two men (Lincoln and Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War). Stanton felt compelled to protect military discipline by exacting proper punishment for desertions or derelictions of duty, while Lincoln looked for any “good excuse for saving a man’s life.” When he found one, he said, “I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him and his family and his friends.” Stanton would not allow himself such leniency. A clerk recalled finding Stanton one night in his office, “the mother, wife, and children of a soldier who had been condemned to be shot as a deserter, on their knees before him pleading for the life of their loved one. He listened standing, in cold and austere silence, and at the end of their heart-breaking sobs and prayers answered briefly that the man must die. The crushed and despairing little family left and Mr. Stanton turned, apparently unmoved, and walked into his private room.” The clerk thought Stanton an unfeeling tyrant, until he discovered him moments later, “leaning over a desk, his face buried in his hands and his heavy frame shaking with sobs. ‘God help me to do my duty; God help me to do my duty!’ he was repeating in a low wail of anguish.” On such occasions, when Stanton felt he could not afford to set a precedent, he must have been secretly relieved that the president had the ultimate authority.

I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger—thirst—fear—transport—selection—fire—chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else. Writing in my mother tongue—at that point close to extinction—I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was "it"? "It" was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. Was there a way to describe the last journey in sealed cattle cars, the last voyage toward the unknown? Or the discovery of a demented and glacial universe where to be inhuman was human, where disciplined, educated men in uniform came to kill, and innocent children and weary old men came to die? Or the countless separations on a single fiery night, the tear- ing apart of entire families, entire communities? Or, incredibly, the vanishing of a beautiful, well-behaved little Jewish girl with golden hair and a sad smile, murdered with her mother the very night of their arrival? How was one to speak of them without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity?

Gabriel was stunned by Pandora's compassion for a man who had caused her such harm. He shook his head in wonder as he stared into her eyes, as dark as cloud-shadow on a field of blue gentian. "That doesn't excuse him," he said thickly. Gabriel would never forgive the bastard. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to strip the flesh from the bastard's corpse and hang up his skeleton to scare the crows. His fingers contained a subtle tremor as he reached out to trace the fine edges of her face, the sweet, high plane of her cheekbone. "What did the doctor say about your ear? What treatment did he give?" "It wasn't necessary to send for a doctor." A fresh flood of rage seared his veins as the words sunk in. "Your eardrum was ruptured. What in God's name do you mean a doctor wasn't necessary?" Although he had managed to keep from shouting, his tone was far from civilized. Pandora quivered uneasily and began to inch backward. He realized the last thing she needed from him was a display of temper. Battening down his rampaging emotions, he used one arm to bring her back against his side. "No, don't pull away. Tell me what happened." "The fever had passed," she said after a long hesitation, "and... well, you have to understand my family. If something unpleasant happened, they ignored it, and it was never spoken of again. Especially if it was something my father had done when he'd lost his temper. After a while, no one remembered what had really happened. Our family history was erased and rewritten a thousand times. But ignoring the problem with my ear didn't make it disappear. Whenever I couldn't hear something, or when I stumbled or fell, it made my mother very angry. She said I'd been clumsy because I was hasty or careless. She wouldn't admit there was anything wrong with my hearing. She refused even to discuss it." Pandora stopped, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. "I'm making her sound terrible, and she wasn't. There were times when she was affectionate and kind. No one's all one way or the other." She flicked a glance of dread in his direction. "Oh God, you're not going to pity me, are you?" "No." Gabriel was anguished for her sake, and outraged. It was all he could do to keep his voice calm. "Is that why you keep it a secret? You're afraid of being pitied?" "That, and... it's a shame I'd rather keep private." "Not your shame. Your father's." "It feels like mine. Had I not been eavesdropping, my father wouldn't have disciplined me." "You were a child," he said brusquely. "What he did wasn't bloody discipline, it was brutality." To his surprise, a touch of unrepentant amusement curved Pandora's lips, and she looked distinctly pleased with herself. "It didn't even stop my eavesdropping. I just learned to be more clever about it." She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he'd never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.

Great Discourse on Blessings AT one time the Exalted One was living in Jeta Grove. A certain deity of astounding beauty approached the Exalted One and said: Many deities and humans have pondered on blessings. Tell me the blessings supreme. The Buddha replied: To associate not with the foolish, to be with the wise, to honor the worthy ones this is a blessing supreme. To reside in a suitable location, to have good past deeds done, to set oneself in the right direction this is a blessing supreme. To be well spoken, highly trained, well educated, skilled in handicraft, and highly disciplined, this is a blessing supreme. To be well caring of mother, of father, to look after spouse and children, to engage in a harmless occupation, this is a blessing supreme. Outstanding behavior, blameless action, open hands to all relatives and selfless giving, this is a blessing supreme. To cease and abstain from evil, to avoid intoxicants, to be diligent in virtuous practices, this is a blessing supreme. To be reverent and humble, content and grateful, to hear the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To be patient and obedient, to visit with spiritual people, to discuss the Dharma at the right time, this is a blessing supreme. To live austerely and purely, to see the noble truths, and to realize nirvana, this is the blessing supreme. A mind unshaken when touched by the worldly states, sorrowless, stainless, and secure, this is the blessing supreme. Those who have fulfilled all these are everywhere invincible; they find well-being everywhere, theirs is the blessing supreme. adapted from MANGALA SUTTA, translated by Gunaratana Mahathera

Love demands something unrevealed; it flourishes, therefore, only in mystery. No one ever wants to hear a singer hit her highest note, nor an orator “tear a passion to tatters,” for once mystery and the infinite are denied, life’s urge is stilled and its passion glutted. In a true marriage, there is an ever-enchanting romance. There are at least four distinct mysteries progressively revealed. First, there is the mystery of the other partner, which is body-mystery. When that mystery is solved and the first child is born, there begins a new mystery. The husband sees something in the wife he never before knew existed, namely, the beautiful mystery of motherhood. She sees a new mystery in him she never before knew existed, namely, the mystery of fatherhood. As other children come to revive their strength and beauty, the husband never seems older to the wife than the day they were married, and the wife never seems older than the day they first met and carved their initials in an oak tree. As the children reach the age of reason, a third mystery unfolds, that of fathercraft and mothercraft—the disciplining and training of young minds and hearts in the ways of God. As the children grow into maturity, the mystery continues to deepen, new areas of exploration open up, and the father and mother now see themselves as sculptors in the great quarry of humanity, carving living stones and fitting them together in the Temple of God, Whose Architect is Love. The fourth mystery is their contribution to the well-being of the nation. Here, too, is the root of democracy, for it is in the family that a person is valued not for what he is worth, nor for what he can do, but primarily for what he is.

As a parent, you have authority because God calls you to be an authority in your child's life. You have the authority to act on behalf of God. As a father or mother, you do not exercise rule over your jurisdiction, but over God's. You act at his command. You discharge a duty that he has given. You may not try to shape the lives of your children as pleases you, but as pleases him. All you do in your task as parents must be done from this point of view. You must undertake all your instruction, your care and nurture, your correction and discipline, because God has called you to. ... If you are God's agent in this task of providing essential training and instruction of the Lord, then you, too, are a person under authority. You and your child are in the same boat. You are both under God's authority. You have different roles, but the same Master.

The love of freedom is naturally so strong in man, that when once he has grown accustomed to freedom, he will sacrifice everything for its sake. For this very reason discipline must be brought into play very early; for when this has not been done, it is difficult to alter character later in life. Undisciplined men are apt to follow every caprice. [...] Men should therefore accustom themselves early to yield to the commands of reason, for if a man be allowed to follow his own will in his youth, without opposition, a certain lawlessness will cling to him throughout his life. And it is no advantage to such a man that in his youth he has been spared through an over-abundance of motherly tenderness, for later on all the more will he have to face opposition from all sides, and constantly receive rebuffs, as soon as he enters into the business of the world.

Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't give it a lick and a promise, don't make it evident that you posted what was 'good enough for government work,' don't try and fake it. Give it your best, your all, not for pence, but for the love of the craft. Do these things, as these writers and scores I have not named do, bring to your work your self, your heart, your voice, motherly or youthful, lawyerly or priestly, conservative or liberal, it matters not. Do this and I and hundreds of others will return again and again to your work, not merely because we may have a burning need for a new printer or an abiding interest in college newspapers or what have you, but because we wish to spend time with your mind and voice.

The New Testament writers, even while writing the texts on love and forbearance that we are trying to understand and obey, condemn false prophets, expel the man who is sleeping with his step-mother, declare that it would be better for Judas Iscariot if he had not been born, assure readers that the evil of Alexander the metal-worker will be required of him, and solemnly warn of eternal judgement to come. Sometimes, of course, churches with right-wing passions use these same texts to bully their members unto unflagging submission to the local dictator. The threat of church discipline can degenerate into a form of manipulation, of spiritual abuse. Where, then, is the line to be drawn? To a postmodern relativist, any form of confessional discipline will seem nothing more than intolerant, manipulative abuse. From a Christian perspective, what lines must be drawn and why? How does Christian love work itself out in such cases? (p. 149).

Her hands Her hands held me gently from the day I took my first breath. Her hands helped to guide me as I took my first step. Her hands held me close when the tears would start to fall. Her hands were quick to show me that she would take care of it all. Her hands were there to brush my hair, or straighten a wayward bow. Her hands were often there to comfort the hurts that didn't always show. Her hands helped hold the stars in place, and encouraged me to reach. Her hands would clap and cheer and praise when I captured them at length. Her hands would also push me, though not down or in harm's way. Her hands would punctuate the words, just do what I say. Her hands sometimes had to discipline, to help bend this young tree. Her hands would shape and mold me into all she knew I could be. Her hands are now twisting with age and years of work, Her hand now needs my gentle touch to rub away the hurt. Her hands are more beautiful than anything can be. Her hands are the reason I am me.

I know he’s had his problems in the past… “He can’t keep his hands off a liquor bottle at the best of times, and he still hasn’t accepted the loss of his wife!” “I sent him to a therapist over in Baltimore,” she continued. “He’s narrowed his habit down to a six-pack of beer on Saturdays.” “What does he get for a reward?” he asked insolently. She sighed irritably. “Nobody suits you! You don’t even like poor old lonely Senator Holden.” “Like him? Holden?” he asked, aghast. “Good God, he’s the one man in Congress I’d like to burn at the stake! I’d furnish the wood and the matches!” “You and Leta,” she said, shaking her head. “Now, listen carefully. The Lakota didn’t burn people at the stake,” she said firmly. She went on to explain who did, and how, and why. He searched her enthusiastic eyes. “You really do love Native American history, don’t you?” She nodded. “The way your ancestors lived for thousands of years was so logical. They honored the man in the tribe who was the poorest, because he gave away more than the others did. They shared everything. They gave gifts, even to the point of bankrupting themselves. They never hit a little child to discipline it. They accepted even the most blatant differences in people without condemning them.” She glanced at Tate and found him watching her. She smiled self-consciously. “I like your way better.” “Most whites never come close to understanding us, no matter how hard they try.” “I had you and Leta to teach me,” she said simply. “They were wonderful lessons that I learned, here on the reservation. I feel…at peace here. At home. I belong, even though I shouldn’t.” He nodded. “You belong,” he said, and there was a note in his deep voice that she hadn’t heard before. Unexpectedly he caught her small chin and turned her face up to his. He searched her eyes until she felt as if her heart might explode from the excitement of the way he was looking at her. His thumb whispered up to the soft bow of her mouth with its light covering of pale pink lipstick. He caressed the lower lip away from her teeth and scowled as if the feel of it made some sort of confusion in him. He looked straight into her eyes. The moment was almost intimate, and she couldn’t break it. Her lips parted and his thumb pressed against them, hard. “Now, isn’t that interesting?” he said to himself in a low, deep whisper. “Wh…what?” she stammered. His eyes were on her bare throat, where her pulse was hammering wildly. His hand moved down, and he pressed his thumb to the visible throb of the artery there. He could feel himself going taut at the unexpected reaction. It was Oklahoma all over again, when he’d promised himself he wouldn’t ever touch her again. Impulses, he told himself firmly, were stupid and sometimes dangerous. And Cecily was off limits. Period. He pulled his hand back and stood up, grateful that the loose fit of his buckskins hid his physical reaction to her. “Mother’s won a prize,” he said. His voice sounded oddly strained. He forced a nonchalant smile and turned to Cecily. She was visibly shaken. He shouldn’t have looked at her. Her reactions kindled new fires in him.

When we walk to church on Sunday morning down Broadway,” her mother said, cheeks red in her light brown skin, “you see the dirty men with their shirts all out their pants, drinking the devil’s liquor and stinking to high heaven when good people are going to church. Do you know what they’ve been doing all night?” “No, ma’am.” She did know, because now this discipline had wound its way down the hills away from the music and into a familiar body, and Jennifer was well acquainted with its currents and undertow. She knew all about the good-for-nothing niggers who passed bottles back and forth and were an eyesore. But it seemed best to feign ignorance. “Staying up all night drinking and listening to music like this!” her mother screeched. “Because they are good-for-nothing niggers who don’t care about making a better life for themselves. They want to stay up all night and carry on and pretend that just because they don’t have to pick cotton they have no more duties to attend to. We can’t do anything about good-for-nothing niggers who don’t want to take their place in America, but we can watch ourselves.

I was thinking about changing into a different sort of person than the one I am. I do think about that. I read a book called The Art of Loving. A lot of things seemed clear while I was reading it but afterwards I went back to being more or less the same. What has Cam ever done that actually hurt me, anyway, as Haro once said. And how am I better than he is after the way i felt the night Mother lived instead of died? I made a promise to myself i would try.I went over there one day taking them a bakery cake - which Cam eats now as happily as anyone else - and I heard their voices out in the yard - now it’s summer, they love to sit in the sun - Mother saying to some visitor, “Oh, yes I was, I was all set to take off into the wild blue yonder, and Cam here, this idiot, came and danced outside my door with a bunch of his hippie friends - ‘ ‘My God, woman,’ roared Cam, but you could tell he didn’t care now, ‘members of an ancient holy discipline.” I had a strange feeling, like I was walking n coals and trying a spell so I wouldn’t get burnt. Forgiveness in families is a mystery to me, how it comes or how it lasts

From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.

From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.

From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence and abstinence not only from evil deeds but even from evil thoughts and further simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather not to have frequented public schools and to have had good teachers at home and to know that on such things a man should spend liberally. From my tutor to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the circus nor a partisan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius of the gladiators fights, from him too I learned to endure pain and to want little and to work with my own hands and not to meddle with other people's affairs and not to be ready to listen to slander. From Diognetus not to get excited about trifling things and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers and sorcerers about incantations and driving away demons and such things; and not to breed quails for fighting nor to give myself up to a passion for such things and to allow people to have their say. And to have become intimate with philosophy and have gone to hear Bacchius and then Tandasis and Marcianus; and to have written essays in my youth; and have been happy with a plank bed and a hide for covering and whatever else goes with the greek discipline.

Spirituality is more about whether or not we can sleep at night than about whether or not we go to church. It is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her. Irrespective of whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any explicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality. And what shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies—and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the cosmic world. The habits and disciplines5 we use to shape our desire form the basis for a spirituality, regardless of whether these have an explicit religious dimension to them or even whether they are consciously expressed at all. Spirituality concerns what we do with desire. It takes its root in the eros inside of us and it is all about how we shape and discipline that eros. John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, begins his famous treatment of the soul’s journey with the words: “One dark night, fired by love’s urgent longings.”6 For him, it is urgent longings, eros, that are the starting point of the spiritual life and, in his view, spirituality, essentially defined, is how we handle that eros.

Catching my eye in the mirror, Mrs. Armiger said, “Your mother tells me you’ve forgotten how to play the parlor organ, Andrew.” I began to apologize, but Mrs. Armiger hushed me. “It’s all right, dear. I understand.” She paused to adjust her hat. “In the fall, we shall begin your lessons again. We’ll get along famously this time, won’t we?” Not daring to meet Theo’s eyes, I said, “Yes, ma’am.” Mrs. Armiger smiled at Mama. “I can’t believe he’s the same boy. Do you suppose some other child put that glue in my metronome after all? Surely it wasn’t this dear angel who drew a mustache on my bust of Beethoven. Nor could he have been the rascal who climbed out my window on recital day and hid in a tree.” She squeezed my shoulder just hard enough to hurt. “No, no, no--not this sweet little fellow. It must have been some naughty boy who looked just like him.” After she and Mama shared a chuckle, Mrs. Armiger hugged me. “I believe I can make a perfect gentleman out of this child.” When Theo heard hat, the laughter he’d been struggling to control exploded in a series of loud snorts. He tried to pretend he was choking on his phosphate, but he didn’t fool Mama. “Music lessons are exactly what Theodore needs,” she told Mrs. Armiger. “The discipline will do him good. Suppose I sent both boys to you every Wednesday afternoon?” While Mrs. Armiger and Mama made plans, I stirred the chocolate sauce into my ice cream, appetite gone. Beside me, Theo seethed. He was blaming everything on me--the scolding, the music lessons, Mrs. Armiger. It was all my fault. He hated me.

Once or twice, at night, he planted himself in front of the type-writer, trying to get back to the book he'd come to New York to write. It was supposed to be about America, and freedom, and the kinship of time to pain, but in order to write about these things, he'd needed experience. Well, be careful what you wish for. For now all he seemed capable of producing was a string of sentences starting, Here was William. Here was William's courage, for example. And here was William's sadness, smallness of stature, size of hands. Here was his laugh in a dark movie theater, his unpunk love of the films of Woody Allen, not for any of the obvious ways they flattered his sensibility, but for something he called their tragic sense, which he compared to Chekhov's (whom Mercer knew he had not read). Here was the way he never asked Mercer about his work; the way he never talked about his own and yet seemed to carry it with him just beneath the skin; the way his skin looked in the sodium light from outside with the light off, with clothes off, in silver rain; the way he embodied qualities Mercer wanted to have, but without ruining them by wanting to have them; the way his genius overflowed its vessel, running off into the drain; the unfinished self-portrait; the hint of some trauma in his past, like the war a shell-shocked town never talks about; his terrible taste in friends; his complete lack of discipline; the inborn incapacity for certain basic things that made you want to mother him, fuck him, give your right and left arms for him, this man-child, this skinny American; and finally his wildness, his refusal to be imaginable by anyone.

The cultural code of the stiff upper lip is not for her boys. She is teaching them that it is not “sissy” to show their feelings to others. When she took Prince William to watch the German tennis star Steffi Graff win the women’s singles final at Wimbledon last year they left the royal box to go backstage and congratulate her on her victory. As Graff walked off court down the dimly lit corridor to the dressing room, royal mother and son thought Steffi looked so alone and vulnerable out of the spotlight. So first Diana, then William gave her a kiss and an affectionate hug. The way the Princess introduced her boys to her dying friend, Adrian Ward-Jackson, was a practical lesson in seeing the reality of life and death. When Diana told her eldest son that Adrian had died, his instinctive response revealed his maturity. “Now he’s out of pain at last and really happy.” At the same time the Princess is acutely aware of the added burdens of rearing two boys who are popularly known as “the heir and the spare.” Self-discipline is part of the training. Every night at six o’clock the boys sit down and write thank-you notes or letters to friends and family. It is a discipline which Diana’s father instilled in her, so much so that if she returns from a dinner party at midnight she will not sleep easily unless she has penned a letter of thanks. William and Harry, now ten and nearly eight respectively, are now aware of their destiny. On one occasion the boys were discussing their futures with Diana. “When I grow up I want to be a policeman and look after you mummy,” said William lovingly. Quick as a flash Harry replied, with a note of triumph in his voice, “Oh no you can’t, you’ve got to be king.

Ironically, the same scientific disciplines which shape our milk machines and egg machines have lately demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that mammals and birds have a complex sensory and emotional make-up. They not only feel physical pain, but can also suffer from emotional distress. Evolutionary psychology maintains that the emotional and social needs of farm animals evolved in the wild, when they were essential for survival and reproduction. For example, a wild cow had to know how to form close relations with other cows and bulls, or else she could not survive and reproduce. In order to learn the necessary skills, evolution implanted in calves – as in the young of all other social mammals – a strong desire to play (playing is the mammalian way of learning social behaviour). And it implanted in them an even stronger desire to bond with their mothers, whose milk and care were essential for survival. What happens if farmers now take a young calf, separate her from her mother, put her in a closed cage, give her food, water and inoculations against diseases, and then, when she is old enough, inseminate her with bull sperm? From an objective perspective, this calf no longer needs either maternal bonding or playmates in order to survive and reproduce. But from a subjective perspective, the calf still feels a very strong urge to bond with her mother and to play with other calves. If these urges are not fulfilled, the calf suffers greatly. This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction. The tragedy of industrial agriculture is that it takes great care of the objective needs of animals, while neglecting their subjective needs.

The Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel had lived only for God during his childhood in Hungary; his life had been shaped by the disciplines of the Talmud, and he had hoped one day to be initiated into the mysteries of Kabbalah. As a boy, he was taken to Auschwitz and later to Buchenwald. During his first night in the death camp, watching the black smoke coiling to the sky from the crematorium where the bodies of his mother and sister were to be thrown, he knew that the flames had consumed his faith forever. He was in a world which was the objective correlative of the Godless world imagined by Nietzsche. “Never should I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live,” he wrote years later. “Never shall I forget these moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”33 One day the Gestapo hanged a child. Even the SS were disturbed by the prospect of hanging a young boy in front of thousands of spectators. The child who, Wiesel recalled, had the face of a “sad-eyed angel,” was silent, lividly pale and almost calm as he ascended the gallows. Behind Wiesel, one of the other prisoners asked: “Where is God? Where is He?” It took the child half an hour to die, while the prisoners were forced to look him in the face. The same man asked again: “Where is God now?” And Wiesel heard a voice within him make this answer: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows.”34 Dostoevsky had said that the death of a single child could make God unacceptable, but even he, no stranger to inhumanity, had not imagined the death of a child in such circumstances. The horror of Auschwitz is a stark challenge to many of the more conventional ideas of God. The remote God of the philosophers, lost in a transcendent apatheia, becomes intolerable. Many Jews can no longer subscribe to the biblical idea of God who manifests himself in history, who, they say with Wiesel, died in Auschwitz. The idea of a personal God, like one of us writ large, is fraught with difficulty. If this God is omnipotent, he could have prevented the Holocaust. If he was unable to stop it, he is impotent and useless; if he could have stopped it and chose not to, he is a monster. Jews are not the only people who believe that the Holocaust put an end to conventional theology.

What can he tell them? He, who knows nothing. Ibn al Mohammed has not planned atrocities nor committed them. He has never been in the presence of terrorists. Yet Satan’s agents suspect him. He is dark-complected. His hair and beard are black. His name is Muslim. Body tall and slender, hands large, their fingers long and tapered. Dark eyes sunken in a narrow face. Irises like obsidian. He prays on hands and knees, forehead touching the floor. Thoughtlessly aligned, his cage obliges him to face a white plastic wall to bow toward Mecca. No matter; Ibn al Mohammed requires no sight of ocean or sky to know his place in the universe. He knows himself as one chosen, beloved of God. A man whose devotion will allow him to be saved. Standing at the bars, he stares at the plastic wall. Modesty panel, they call it. The detainee wills nothing, attempts nothing, merely stares at blankness as his mind opens toward such signs as might appear. Something, nothing. However little, however great, whatever God vouchsafes is sufficient. The least sign is enough. A crease in the plastic. A shadow cast against its insensate skin, then fleeing, gone. A raindrop: trickling through the roof, one small drop might touch the wall, leave a transparent streak, a tear without sorrow to confirm his understanding of what is and must be. Recognition. Acceptance. By such a sign he will know he is not forsaken. That God notices and prepares a place. He will not serve in the harvest. He will eat the food, drink the water, ride the bus. He will not pick the berries so prized by his captors. Droids will cajole and threaten; perhaps they will beat him. If so, they incriminate themselves. He relishes their degradation together with God’s tasking, this new test of will and faith. To suffer in silence, as meek as a lamb. Ibn al Mohammed will remove himself from himself. Self fading into background, his presence will diminish. His body will persist; corporeally, he must endure. But his self will become absent. Mind and its thought, heart and all emotion will disperse smoke-like into nothingness and in its vanishing forestall injury, indignity, all pain. Does God approve? Does God see? A mere token will assure Ibn al Mohammed for a lifetime. Standing at the bars, he watches. Minutes pass. How long must he wait? God speaks at His leisure to those with patience to attend. What does it mean, to have enough patience to attend to God? It is a discipline to expect nothing because you deserve nothing and merit only death. Ibn al Mohammed has waited all his life. What has he seen? His father taken away. His mother and sisters scrounging in a desert. He himself is confined in-cage. Squats on a stool, shits in a pail. Rain rattles across sheet tin, pock-pock-pock-pock. Food is delivered on a tray. A damp bed beneath his body, a white wall before his eyes. What does Ibn al Mohammed see? He sees nothing. [pp. 203-204]

A similar theological—and particularly ecclesiological—logic shapes the Durham Declaration, a manifesto against abortion addressed specifically to the United Methodist Church by a group of United Methodist pastors and theologians. The declaration is addressed not to legislators or the public media but to the community of the faithful. It concludes with a series of pledges, including the following: We pledge, with Cod’s help, to become a church that hospitably provides safe refuge for the so-called “unwanted child” and mother. We will joyfully welcome and generously support—with prayer, friendship, and material resources—both child and mother. This support includes strong encouragement for the biological father to be a father, in deed, to his child.27 No one can make such a pledge lightly. A church that seriously attempted to live out such a commitment would quickly find itself extended to the limits of its resources, and its members would be called upon to make serious personal sacrifices. In other words, it would find itself living as the church envisioned by the New Testament. William H. Willimon tells the story of a group of ministers debating the morality of abortion. One of the ministers argues that abortion is justified in some cases because young teenage girls cannot possibly be expected to raise children by themselves. But a black minister, the pastor of a large African American congregation, takes the other side of the question. “We have young girls who have this happen to them. I have a fourteen year old in my congregation who had a baby last month. We’re going to baptize the child next Sunday,” he added. “Do you really think that she is capable of raising a little baby?” another minister asked. “Of course not,” he replied. No fourteen year old is capable of raising a baby. For that matter, not many thirty year olds are qualified. A baby’s too difficult for any one person to raise by herself.” “So what do you do with babies?” they asked. “Well, we baptize them so that we all raise them together. In the case of that fourteen year old, we have given her baby to a retired couple who have enough time and enough wisdom to raise children. They can then raise the mama along with her baby. That’s the way we do it.”28 Only a church living such a life of disciplined service has the possibility of witnessing credibly to the state against abortion. Here we see the gospel fully embodied in a community that has been so formed by Scripture that the three focal images employed throughout this study can be brought to bear also on our “reading” of the church’s action. Community: the congregation’s assumption of responsibility for a pregnant teenager. Cross: the young girl’s endurance of shame and the physical difficulty of pregnancy, along with the retired couple’s sacrifice of their peace and freedom for the sake of a helpless child. New creation: the promise of baptism, a sign that the destructive power of the world is broken and that this child receives the grace of God and hope for the future.29 There, in microcosm, is the ethic of the New Testament. When the community of God’s people is living in responsive obedience to God’s Word, we will find, again and again, such grace-filled homologies between the story of Scripture and its performance in our midst.

Mother made sure her little kids were subjected to a strict routine. We were given a timetable which covered our every waking moment, copies of which were posted by our bedside, in the sitting room and in the kitchen. Story hour meant that mother would read us novels and short stories by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde and Edmondo de Amicis. Soon we graduated to Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenev. She read them to us in Chinese and I never realised until much later that the writers wrote them in different European languages. Comics were absolutely forbidden and so were Enid Blyton adventures and pop music. . .Lee Cyn and I soon went to a primary school nearby. . .After mother’s rigorous timetable, school became fun and easy-going.

Around me umpteen birds are singing umpteen marvelous melodies, whistles and warbles and chirps and quavers cutting pitches high then sweep-swooping low, the pulchritudinous swimming pool sized pond glimmering picturesque in the lazy and hazy early afternoon sun. An attractive well-groomed mother duck- followed in a flawless and disciplined line by its ducklings like fluffy automatons - plies her trade alongside a young and jubilant hominid couple who, satisfactorily fulfilled to have settled and copulated once and to never again except on birthdays or anniversaries be carnal, play with their progeniture with proficiently prepared picnics loaded with an overkill of mother's home made tarts and buns and baskets of ham and cheese sandwiches; it was all sensationally Disney and dizzying and droll and not at all what this trip desired.

explaining to Rosemary, there’s no way I can leave. I’ve got a deal closing middle of next week. But I think she should go.”       “I’d be worried if he stayed here by himself,” Rosemary said adamantly.       “I’ll be fine.” Dan sounded like a kid with an overly protective mother.       “Tell him he needs to go, Matt.”       Uh, oh. Mom telling Dad to discipline junior. “I’m most concerned about you, Rosemary. Dan’s a step removed. He’ll be okay. I’d like to get you on a plane out of here, today if possible.”       “Go ahead, hon. Matt’s right. You’ll get to see Rebecca, your folks.”       The look Rosemary gave me said she wasn’t convinced. “Oh, all right,” she said hesitantly. “I’ll call, see about flights.”       “‘Bye, Matt,” Dan said.       I hung up. They talked a while longer. When she hung up, I said, “Call A-One Travel. Charge it to the company.”       She made a face. “You don’t have to pay for my trip.”       “Call,” I told her and went back to work.       “It’s done,” she said, twenty minutes later.