Evenly Yoked Quotes

Death comes for all of us. For us, for our patients: it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Most lives are lived with passivity toward death -- it's something that happens to you and those around you. But Jeff and I had trained for years to actively engage with death, to grapple with it, like Jacob with the angel, and, in so doing, to confront the meaning of a life. We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients' lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn't. The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients. You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.

It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and soul than He has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set us free.

As a draft-animal is yoked in a wagon, even so the spirit is yoked in this body

He meditated on the use to which he should put all the energy of youth which comes to a man only once in life. Should he devote this power, which is not the strength of intellect or heart or education, but an urge which once spent can never return, the power given to a man once only to make himself, or even – so it seems to him at the time – the universe into anything he wishes: should he devote it to art, to science, to love, or to practical activities? True, there are people who never have this urge: at the outset of life they place their necks under the first yoke that offers itself, and soberly toil away in it to the end of their days.

An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle; while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even whip and spur: so savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke to which civilised man submits without a murmur, but prefers the most turbulent state of liberty to the most peaceful slavery. We cannot therefore, from the servility of nations already enslaved, judge of the natural disposition of mankind for or against slavery; we should go by the prodigious efforts of every free people to save itself from oppression. I know that the former are for ever holding forth in praise of the tranquillity they enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched servitude a state of peace: miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant. But when I observe the latter sacrificing pleasure, peace, wealth, power and life itself to the preservation of that one treasure, which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see free-born animals dash their brains out against the bars of their cage, from an innate impatience of captivity; when I behold numbers of naked savages, that despise European pleasures, braving hunger, fire, the sword and death, to preserve nothing but their independence, I feel that it is not for slaves to argue about liberty.

Such kindness wasn't a gift but a goad, scraping against one's skin like a yoke of thorns. She would have preferred him stiff, defensive, even offensive.

[People] ask themselves, what is suitable for my position? What is usually done by persons of my station and percuniary circumstances? Or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is customary in preference to what suits their own inclinations. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things that are commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their own.

Sirs, I am but a nameless man, A rhymester without a home, Yet since I come of the Wessex clay And carry the cross of Rome, I will even answer the mighty earl That asked of Wessex men Why they be meek and monkish folk, And bow to the White Lord's broken yoke; What sign have we save blood and smoke? Here is my answer then. That on you is fallen the shadow, And not upon the Name; That though we scatter and though we fly, And you hang over us like the sky, You are more tired of victory, Than we are tired of shame. That though you hunt the Christian man Like a hare on the hill-side, The hare has still more heart to run Than you have heart to ride. That though all lances split on you, All swords be heaved in vain, We have more lust again to lose Than you to win again. Your lord sits high in the saddle, A broken-hearted king, But our king Alfred, lost from fame, Fallen among foes or bonds of shame, In I know not what mean trade or name, Has still some song to sing. Our monks go robed in rain and snow, But the heart of flame therein, But you go clothed in feasts and flames, When all is ice within; Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb Men wandering ceaselessly, If it be not better to fast for joy Than feast for misery. Nor monkish order only Slides down, as field to fen, All things achieved and chosen pass, As the White Horse fades in the grass, No work of Christian men. Ere the sad gods that made your gods Saw their sad sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale, That you have left to darken and fail, Was cut out of the grass. Therefore your end is on you, Is on you and your kings, Not for a fire in Ely fen, Not that your gods are nine or ten, But because it is only Christian men Guard even heathen things. For our God hath blessed creation, Calling it good. I know What spirit with whom you blindly band Hath blessed destruction with his hand; Yet by God's death the stars shall stand And the small apples grow.

I say this explicitly, that it is impossible for me to marry. That is the way it is for me. My temper is a mortal enemy to this horrible yoke, which I would not accept, even if I thus would become the ruler of the world.

I sing the progress of a deathless soul, Whom Fate, which God made, but doth not control, Placed in most shapes; all times before the law Yoked us, and when, and since, in this I sing. And the great world to his aged evening, From infant morn, through manly noon I draw.

The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yokes everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature herself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle. The creative urge lives and grows in him like a tree in the earth from which it draws its nourishment.

There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt.

If I could go back in time and give myself a message, it would be to reiterate that my value as an artist doesn’t come from how much I create. I think that mind-set is yoked to capitalism. Being an artist is about how and why you touch people’s lives, even if it’s one person. Even if that’s yourself, in the process of art-making.

What then, is correctness of speech but the maintenance of the practice of others, as established by the authority of ancient speakers? But the weaker men are, the more they are troubled by such matters. Their weakness stems from a desire to appear learned, not with a knowledge of things, by which we are edified, but with a knowledge of signs, by which it is difficult not to be puffed up in some way; even a knowledge of things often makes people boastful, unless their necks are held down by the Lord's yoke.

When you got right down to it, my dick was the one organ that hadn’t presented itself to my consciousness through pain, only pleasure. Modest but robust, it had always served me faithfully. Or, you could argue, I had served it – if so, its yoke had been easy. It never gave me orders. It sometimes encouraged me to get out more, but it encouraged me humbly, without bitterness or anger. This past evening, I knew, it had interceded on Myriam’s behalf. It had always enjoyed good relations with Myriam, Myriam had always treated it with affection and respect, and this had given me an enormous amount of pleasure. And sources of pleasure were hard to come by. In the end, my dick was all I had.

God can prevail and bear wonderful fruit from an unequally yoked couple as we will see, even though their lives are often more complicated than they had to be.

But do not walk slowly simply for company—ever. Not even God would wish you to be unequally yoked and result in destroying both of you—in fact God least of all.

We weren’t close,” Citra insisted. “We weren’t anything.” And that hurt to admit more than her parents could possibly know. How could she and Rowan have any kind of relationship when they were forced to be lethal adversaries? Even now, when he was hunted and she was yoked with the heavy responsibility of scythehood, how could there be anything between them but a dark well of longing?

If you try to convert someone, it will never be to effect his salvation but to make him suffer like yourself, to be sure he is exposed to the same ordeals and endures them with the same impatience. You keep watch, you pray, you agonize-provided he does too, sighing, groaning, beset by the same tortures that are racking you. Intolerance is the work of ravaged souls whose faith comes down to a more or less deliberate torment they would like to see generalized, instituted. The happiness of others never having been a motive or principle of action, it is invoked only to appease conscience or to parade noble excuses: whenever we determine upon an action, the impulse leading to it and forcing us to complete it is almost always inadmissible. No one saves anyone; for we save only ourselves, and do so all the better if we disguise as convictions the misery we want to share, to lavish on others. However glamorous its appearances, proselytism nonetheless derives from a suspect generosity, worse in its effects than a patent aggression. No one is willing to endure alone the discipline he may even have assented to, nor the yoke he has shouldered. Vindication reverberates beneath the missionary's bonhomie, the apostle's joy. We convert not to liberate but to enchain. Once someone is shackled by a certainty, he envies your vague opinions, your resistance to dogmas or slogans, your blissful incapacity to commit yourself.

Yoga is not something a person practices with music or mirrors or any other distraction. It's purpose is less about samyoga than it is about viyoga, which is to say, it is more about disconnecting than it is about connecting which many Westerners find strange, until they hear it explained. The reason a person practices every day is to disconnect from their deep connection to suffering. The author of the ancient Yogatattva Upanishad believed that without the practice of yoga, it was entirely impossible to set the atman free. The atman, of course, is the soul. And just as the rani said, we are so burdened down by our daily worries that many of us have become no different than beasts. We walk around eating and drinking and caring very little about our purpose in this life. Some of us are not even very clever beasts. We are merely trudging through our work, yoked to some terrible master or job. The goal of yoga is to changed all of this; to remind the human who has become like an ox that their yoke and harness can be taken off, even if it's only for a few minutes a day, and that through silencing the mind, we can silence greed, and hunger, and desire as well.

To be human is the only way out of being human. An alternative exit— either by unbinding sentience from sapience or by circumventing sapience in favour of a direct engagement with the technological artefact—cannot go beyond the human. Rather it leads to a culture of cognitive pettiness and self-deception that is daily fodder for the most parochial and utilitarian political systems that exist on the planet. In delivering sentience from its so-called sapient yoke, one does not become posthuman, or even animal, but falls back on an ideologically charged ‘biological chauvinism’ that sapience ought to overcome, for it is the very idea of humanist conservatism that misrepresents what is accidental and locally contingent as what is necessary and universal. In discarding the human in the hope of an immediate contact with superintelligence or a self-realization of the technological artefact, one either surreptitiously subjects the future to the predetermined goals of conservative humanism, or subscribes to a future that is simply the teleological actualization of final causes and thus a resurrection of the well-worn Aristotelian fusion of reasons and causes. Human sapience is the only project of exit.

ACT15.10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? ACT15.11 But we believe that through the grace of the LORD Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

Arise, believer, and behold the Lord Jesus yoking the whole of his divine Godhead to the chariot of salvation! How vast his grace, how firm his faithfulness, how unswerving his immutability, how infinite his power, how limitless his knowledge!

How many ills, how many infirmities, does man owe to his excesses, his ambition – in a word, to the indulgence of his various passions! He who should live soberly in all respects, who should never run into excesses of any kind, who should be always simple in his tastes, modest in his desires, would escape a large proportion of the tribulations of human life. It is the same with regard to spirit-life, the sufferings of which are always the consequence of the manner in which a spirit has lived upon the earth. In that life undoubtedly he will no longer suffer from gout or rheumatism; but his wrong-doing down here will cause him to experience other sufferings no less painful. We have seen that those sufferings are the result of the links which exist between a spirit and matter; that the more completely he is freed from the influence of matter – in other words, the more dematerialized he is – the fewer are the painful sensations experienced by him. It depends, therefore, on each of us to free ourselves from the influence of matter by our action in this present life. Man possesses free-will, and, consequently, the power of electing to do or not to do. Let him conquer his animal passions; let him rid himself of hatred, envy, jealousy, pride; let him throw off the yoke of selfishness; let him purify his soul by cultivating noble sentiments; let him do good; let him attach to the things of this world only the degree of importance which they deserve – and he will, even under his present corporeal envelope, have effected his purification, and achieved his deliverance from the influence of matter, which will cease for him on his quitting that envelope. For such a one the remembrance of physical sufferings endured by him in the life he has quitted has nothing painful, and produces no disagreeable impression, because they affected his body only, and left no trace in his soul. He is happy to be relieved from them; and the calmness of a good conscience exempts him from all moral suffering.

Disgusted with herself, she’d slipped beneath his blankets. Matthias always slept with his back to a wall, a habit from his days in Hellgate. She’d let her hands wander, seeking his pockets, trying to feel along the linings of his trousers. “Nina?” he’d asked sleepily. “I’m cold,” she said, her hands continuing their search. She pressed a kiss to his neck, then below his ear. She’d never let herself kiss him this way before. She’d never had the chance. They’d been too busy untangling the skein of suspicion and lust and loyalty that bound them together, and once she’d taken the parem … It was all she could think of, even now. The desire she felt was for the drug, not for the body she felt shift beneath her hands. She didn’t kiss his lips, though. She wouldn’t let parem take that from her too. He’d groaned slightly. “The others—” “Everyone is asleep.” Then he’d seized her hands. “Stop.” “Matthias—” “I don’t have it.” She yanked herself free, shame crawling over her skin like fire over a forest floor. “Then who does?” she hissed. “Kaz.” She stilled. “Are you going to creep into his bed?” Nina released a huff of disbelief. “He’d slit my throat.” She wanted to scream her helplessness. There would be no bargaining with Kaz. She couldn’t bully him the way she might have bullied Wylan or plead with him the way she mighthave managed Jesper. Fatigue came on suddenly, a yoke at her neck, the exhaustion at least tempering her frantic need. She rested her forehead against Matthias’ chest. “I hate this,” she said. “I hate you a little, drüskelle.” “I’m used to it. Come here.” He’d wrapped his arms around her and gotten her talking about Ravka, about Inej. He’d distracted her with stories, named the winds that blew across Fjerda, told her of his first meal in the drüskelle hall.

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound. And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes. And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride? And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you. And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared. Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

Secretary Hull was even more skeptical of de Gaulle than the President. He was equally opposed to the restoration of France’s colonial empire in the postwar world save as trusteeships — for how could American sons be expected to give their lives merely to reestablish a colonial yoke they themselves had thrown off in 1783?

The art of communication, Lincoln advised newcomers to the bar, “is the lawyer’s avenue to the public.” Yet, Lincoln warned, the lawyer must not rely on rhetorical glibness or persuasiveness alone. What is well-spoken must be yoked to what is well-thought. And such thought is the product of great labor, “the drudgery of the law.” Without that labor, without that drudgery, the most eloquent words lack gravity and power. Even “extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated.” Indeed, “the leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done to-day.” The key to success, he insisted, is “work, work, work.

I don’t know where all of this leaves us, but I do know that cultural appropriation is not a requirement of practicing American yoga. Yoga will lead you back to your own native culture every time. If you’re really reckoning with the light and dark within yourself, if you’re really doing the work of yoking, you will always end up reckoning with the White supremacy that lives inside of you. It’s impossible to hide from the truth forever. There’s no easy solution to any of this conflict, and I think that’s okay. I don’t think you need to find a solution. I think you just have to observe everything that’s here, even the parts you don’t like. I don’t think there’s an answer that’s not gonna piss off somebody. But I think that’s where Acceptance comes in. Your only real option is to just accept the reality of all this. Don’t try to change it. Don’t try to rationalize it. Don’t try to fix it. Just accept it. Then we can all move forward together. [...]Don’t waste time on self-flagellation - learn from your mistakes and move forward. (p.108-9)

Instinct told me that men didn't like wives cleverer than them. Even my beloved Peng Choon, wonderful husband that he was, liked to think of himself as the smarter of us two, which for the sake of peace I allowed. What he said told me all I needed to know - 'Ai-yahh! That is rubbish-lah! You talk just like a woman!', as if talking like a woman were such a terrible affliction.

You speak of your temptations. God withdraws His sensible presence from us to try our faith. When a cloud comes between you and the sun, do you fear that the sun will never appear again? I am well satisfied that you are a child of God, and that you will be saved in heaven, there forever to dwell with the ransomed of the Lord. So you must not doubt. . . . Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and My burden light,” and this is true, if we but follow Him in the prompt discharge of every duty . . . we should always seek by prayer to be taught our duty. If temptations are presented, you must not think that you are committing sin in consequence of having a sinful thought. Even the Saviour was presented with the thought of worshipping Satan. . . . Don’t doubt His eternal love for you.3

The tired intellectual sums up the deformities and the vices of a world adrift. He does not act, he suffers; if he favors the notion of tolerance, he does not find in it the stimulant he needs. Tyranny furnishes that, as do the doctrines of which it is the outcome. If he is the first of its victims, he will not complain: only the strength that grinds him into the dust seduces him. To want to be free is to want to be oneself; but he is tired of being himself, of blazing a trail into uncertainty, of stumbling through truths. “Bind me with the chains of Illusion,” he sighs, even as he says farewell to the peregrinations of Knowledge. Thus he will fling himself, eyes closed, into any mythology which will assure him the protection and the peace of the yoke. Declining the honor of assuming his own anxieties, he will engage in enterprises from which he anticipates sensations he could not derive from himself, so that the excesses of his lassitude will confirm the tyrannies. Churches, ideologies, police—seek out their origin in the horror he feels for his own lucidity, rather than in the stupidity of the masses. This weakling transforms himself, in the name of a know-nothing utopia, into a gravedigger of the intellect; convinced of doing something useful, he prostitutes Pascal’s old “abêtissezvous,” the Solitary’s tragic device. A routed iconoclast, disillusioned with paradox and provocation, in search of impersonality and routine, half prostrated, ripe for the stereotype, the tired intellectual abdicates his singularity and rejoins the rabble. Nothing more to overturn, if not himself: the last idol to smash … His own debris lures him on. While he contemplates it, he shapes the idol of new gods or restores the old ones by baptizing them with new names. Unable to sustain the dignity of being fastidious, less and less inclined to winnow truths, he is content with those he is offered. By-product of his ego, he proceeds—a wrecker gone to seed—to crawl before the altars, or before what takes their place. In the temple or on the tribunal, his place is where there is singing, or shouting—no longer a chance to hear one’s own voice. A parody of belief? It matters little to him, since all he aspires to is to desist from himself. All his philosophy has concluded in a refrain, all his pride foundered on a Hosanna! Let us be fair: as things stand now, what else could he do? Europe’s charm, her originality resided in the acuity of her critical spirit, in her militant, aggressive skepticism; this skepticism has had its day. Hence the intellectual, frustrated in his doubts, seeks out the compensations of dogma. Having reached the confines of analysis, struck down by the void he discovers there, he turns on his heel and attempts to seize the first certainty to come along; but he lacks the naiveté to hold onto it; henceforth, a fanatic without convictions, he is no more than an ideologist, a hybrid thinker, such as we find in all transitional periods. Participating in two different styles, he is, by the form of his intelligence, a tributary of the one of the one which is vanishing, and by the ideas he defends, of the one which is appearing. To understand him better, let us imagine an Augustine half-converted, drifting and tacking, and borrowing from Christianity only its hatred of the ancient world. Are we not in a period symmetrical with the one which saw the birth of The City of God? It is difficult to conceive of a book more timely. Today as then, men’s minds need a simple truth, an answer which delivers them from their questions, a gospel, a tomb.

Much will have been gained for aesthetics once we have succeeded in apprehending directly — rather than merely ascertaining — that art owes its continuous evolution to the Apollinian-Dionysian duality, even as the propagation of the species depends on the duality of the sexes, their constant conflicts and periodic acts of reconciliation. I have borrowed my adjectives from the Greeks, who developed their mystical doctrines of art through plausible embodiments, not through purely conceptual means. It is by those two art sponsoring deities, Apollo and Dionysus, that we are made to recognize the tremendous split, as regards both origins and objectives, between the plastic, Apollinian arts and the nonvisual art of music inspired by Dionysus. The two creative tendencies developed alongside one another, usually in fierce opposition, each by its taunts forcing the other to more energetic production, both perpetuating in a discordant concord that agon which the term art but feebly denominates: until at last, by the thaumaturgy of an Hellenic act of will, the pair accepted the yoke of marriage and, in this condition, begot Attic tragedy, which exhibits the salient features of both parents.

But now I speculate re the ants' invisible organ of aggregate thought... if, in a city park of broad reaches, winding paths, roadways, and lakes, you can imagine seeing on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon the random and unpredictable movement of great numbers of human beings in the same way... if you watch one person, one couple, one family, a child, you can assure yourself of the integrity of the individual will and not be able to divine what the next moment will bring. But when the masses are celebrating a beautiful day in the park in a prescribed circulation of activities, the wider lens of thought reveals nothing errant, nothing inconstant or unnatural to the occasion. And if someone acts in a mutant un-park manner, alarms go off, the unpredictable element, a purse snatcher, a gun wielder, is isolated, surrounded, ejected, carried off as waste. So that while we are individually and privately dyssynchronous, moving in different ways, for different purposes, in different directions, we may at the same time comprise, however blindly, the pulsing communicating cells of an urban over-brain. The intent of this organ is to enjoy an afternoon in the park, as each of us street-grimy urbanites loves to do. In the backs of our minds when we gather for such days, do we know this? How much of our desire to use the park depends on the desires of others to do the same? How much of the idea of a park is in the genetic invitation on nice days to reflect our massive neuromorphology? There is no central control mechanism telling us when and how to use the park. That is up to us. But when we do, our behavior there is reflective, we can see more of who we are because of the open space accorded to us, and it is possible that it takes such open space to realize in simple form the ordinary identity we have as one multicellular culture of thought that is always there, even when, in the comparative blindness of our personal selfhood, we are flowing through the streets at night or riding under them, simultaneously, as synaptic impulses in the metropolitan brain. Is this a stretch? But think of the contingent human mind, how fast it snaps onto the given subject, how easily it is introduced to an idea, an image that it had not dreamt of thinking of a millisecond before... Think of how the first line of a story yokes the mind into a place, a time, in the time it takes to read it. How you can turn on the radio and suddenly be in the news, and hear it and know it as your own mind's possession in the moment's firing of a neuron. How when you hear a familiar song your mind adopts its attitudinal response to life before the end of the first bar. How the opening credits of a movie provide the parameters of your emotional life for its ensuing two hours... How all experience is instantaneous and instantaneously felt, in the nature of ordinary mind-filling revelation. The permeable mind, contingently disposed for invasion, can be totally overrun and occupied by all the characteristics of the world, by everything that is the case, and by the thoughts and propositions of all other minds considering everything that is the case... as instantly and involuntarily as the eye fills with the objects that pass into its line of vision.

My dear Daniela, I cannot defy My written Word. Do not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. You are my beloved daughter. I will not place your tender heart into the hands of a man who has not surrendered his life to Me. Besides, he has no means to care for you. Have I not written even in days of old, that a man is to care for his wife? That is not your role. It is his. Pray for him.” Yahweh’s gentle voice soothed Daniela’s soul.

It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to follow.

We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients’ lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn’t. The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients. You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.

I am in a car with Mr. Assai at the wheel. He pauses to let a cow cross the road and then manages to ease in and out of people and bicycles and rickshaws. I look at his hand gripping the stick shift. I have never learned to drive a vehicle though I have seen men driving on buses. I always like to see what people’s hands do while their eyes are on something else. When I carve, I must look at my subject, but every now and again, when I have done something so many times, I can look away while my hands continue working. I can look away and forget I am a slave to this piece of stone. Even if it is becoming a beautiful angel with outstretched wings. How can I love the stone and hate it at the same time? Because it is a piece of me. I know nothing else. How can the ox stand having the yoke put upon its neck day after day after day? Because it is all it has ever known. Nothing more, nothing less.

The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.) Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62). Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good. Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27). Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. … We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20). (Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).

If in the representation of perception illusion does at moments distort reality, then in the representation of the abstract error can reign for thousands of years, impose its iron yoke on whole nations, stifle the noblest impulses of mankind; through its slaves and dupes it can enchain even the man it cannot deceive. It is the enemy against which the wisest minds of all times have kept up an unequal struggle, and only what these have won from it has become the property of mankind.

Death comes for all of us. For us, for our patients: it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Most lives are lived with passivity toward death—it’s something that happens to you and those around you. But Jeff and I had trained for years to actively engage with death, to grapple with it, like Jacob with the angel, and, in so doing, to confront the meaning of a life. We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients’ lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn’t.

Imagine such a happiness. Like drinking wine your whole life, instead of water. Like having Achilles to run your errands.” I did not know the name. His voice rolled like a bard’s: Achilles, prince of Phthia, swiftest of all the Greeks, best of the Achaian warriors at Troy. Beautiful, brilliant, born from the dread nereid Thetis, graceful and deadly as the sea itself. The Trojans had fallen before him like grass before the scythe, and the mighty Prince Hector himself perished at his ash-spear’s end. “You did not like him,” I said. Some inward amusement touched his face. “I appreciated him, in his way. But he made a terrible soldier, however many men he could bleed. He had a number of inconvenient ideas about loyalty and honor. Every day was a new struggle to yoke him to our purpose, keep him straight in his furrow. Then the best part of him died, and he was even more difficult after that. But as I said, his mother was a goddess, and prophecies hung on him like ocean-weed. He wrestled with matters larger than I will ever understand.” It was not a lie, but it was not truth either. He had named Athena as his patron. He had walked with those who could crack the world like eggs. “What was his best part?” “His lover, Patroclus. He didn’t like me much, but then the good ones never do. Achilles went mad when he died; nearly mad, anyway.

This has nothing to do with Marten. You and I would be unequally yoked.” He blinked, his confusion apparent. “My faith is what makes me who I am,” she said in a shaky voice. “Religion is important to me, and I couldn’t be married to a man who did not share that fundamental belief. You would grow to resent my devotion—” “I said you could teach Pieter the Bible,” he said tightly. “It’s not enough. You would eventually resent the way I lean on my faith. Even now, I can see you getting annoyed, as though if you glower enough it will shake me from this position. And I don’t want to be the only spiritual leader in a family. I would want my husband to help, to back me, and I will resent it if you can’t do that.

I repeat it, your happiness is my object. Never allow yourself, then, to forget that the first three months of your married life may work your misery if you do not submit to the yoke with the same forbearance, tenderness, and intelligence that you have shown during the days of courtship. For, my little rogue, you know very well that you have indulged in all the innocent pleasures of a clandestine love affair. If the culmination of your love begins with disappointment, dislike, nay, even with pain, well, come and tell me about it. Don’t hope for too much from marriage at first; it will perhaps give you more discomfort than joy. The happiness of your life requires at least as patient cherishing as the early shoots of love.

It came home to me as a great blow that it was only men who could take the world by its ears and conquer their fate, while women, metaphorically speaking, were forced to sit with tied hands and patiently suffer as the waves of fate tossed them hither and thither, battering and bruising without mercy. Familiarity made me used to this yoke; I recovered from the disappointment of being a girl, and was reconciled to that part of my fate. In fact, I found that being a girl was quite pleasant, until a hideous truth dawned upon me--I was ugly! ... In conjunction with this brand of hell I developed a reputation of cleverness. Worse and worse! Girls! girls! Those of you who have hearts, and therefore a wish for happiness, homes, and husbands by and by, never develop a reputation of being clever. It will put you out of the matrimonial running as effectually as though it had been circulated that you had leprosy. So, if you feel that you are afflicted with more than ordinary intelligence, and especially if you are plain with it, hide your brains, cramp your mind, study to appear unintellectual--it is your only chance. Provided a woman is beautiful, allowance will be made for all her shortcomings. She can be unchaste, vapid, untruthful, flippant, heartless, and even clever; so long as she is fair to see, men will stand by her, and as men in this world are "the dog on top," they are the power to truckle to. A plain woman will have nothing forgiven her.

The answer lies in meekness. In this passage, Christ calls Himself “gentle and humble”—meek. He came not to judge but to die. He came not to shout and defend the honor of the Father but to die. He came not to fight but to die. No persecution could disturb Him for He came to suffer. Yet all the time He was suffering, He knew He was winning. We, too, can suffer and win. We can live with love even when others hate—all the time knowing that love wins. We can respond with grace when others fight, knowing that grace wins. When we come to Him and surrender, accepting His yoke, we accept full vulnerability to the onslaught of the world. Yet, at the same time, we are assured that nothing can separate us from the victorious love of Christ. This rest is a self-weakening unto God-strength. It is a self-emptying unto God-fullness. It is the rest of full surrender.

I wished I could have told Jeff what I had come to understand about life, and our chosen way of life, if only to hear his wise, clever counsel. Death comes for all of us. For us, for our patients: it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Most lives are lived with passivity toward death—it’s something that happens to you and those around you. But Jeff and I had trained for years to actively engage with death, to grapple with it, like Jacob with the angel, and, in so doing, to confront the meaning of a life. We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients’ lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn’t. The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients.

Prayer to Afroditi On your dappled throne eternal Afroditi, cunning daughter of Zeus, I beg you, do not crush my heart with pain, O lady, but come here if ever before you heard my voice from far away, and yielding left your father's house of gold and came, yoking birds to your chariot. Beautiful quick sparrows whirring on beating wings took you from heaven down to mid sky over the black earth and soon arrived. O blessed one, on your deathless face a smile, you asked me what I am suffering and why I call you, what I most want to happen in my crazy heart. "Whom shall I persuade again to take you into her love? Who, O Psapfo, wrongs you? If she runs away, soon she will pursue. If she scorns gifts, now she will bribe. If she doesn't love, soon she will love even unwillingly." Come to me now and loosen me from blunt agony. Labor and fill my heart with fire. Stand by me and be my ally.

Such is the lot of the knight that even though my patrimony were ample and adequate for my support, nevertheless here are the disturbances which give me no quiet. We live in fields, forests, and fortresses. Those by whose labors we exist are poverty-stricken peasants, to whom we lease our fields, vineyards, pastures, and woods. The return is exceedingly sparse in proportion to the labor expended. Nevertheless the utmost effort is put forth that it may be bountiful and plentiful, for we must be diligent stewards. I must attach myself to some prince in the hope of protection. Otherwise every one will look upon me as fair plunder. But even if I do make such an attachment hope is beclouded by danger and daily anxiety. If I go away from home I am in peril lest I fall in with those who are at war or feud with my overlord, no matter who he is, and for that reason fall upon me and carry me away. If fortune is adverse, the half of my estates will be forfeit as ransom. Where I looked for protection I was ensnared. We cannot go unarmed beyond to yokes of land. On that account, we must have a large equipage of horses, arms, and followers, and all at great expense. We cannot visit a neighboring village or go hunting or fishing save in iron. Then there are frequently quarrels between our retainers and others, and scarcely a day passes but some squabble is referred to us which we must compose as discreetly as possible, for if I push my claim to uncompromisingly war arises, but if I am too yielding I am immediately the subject of extortion. One concession unlooses a clamor of demands. And among whom does all this take place? Not among strangers, my friend, but among neighbors, relatives, and those of the same household, even brothers. These are our rural delights, our peace and tranquility. The castle, whether on plain or mountain, must be not fair but firm, surrounded by moat and wall, narrow within, crowded with stalls for the cattle, and arsenals for guns, pitch, and powder. Then there are dogs and their dung, a sweet savor I assure you. The horsemen come and go, among them robbers, thieves, and bandits. Our doors are open to practically all comers, either because we do not know who they are or do not make too diligent inquiry. One hears the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs, the shouts of men working in the fields, the squeaks or barrows and wagons, yes, and even the howling of wolves from nearby woods. The day is full of thought for the morrow, constant disturbance, continual storms. The fields must be ploughed and spaded, the vines tended, trees planted, meadows irrigated. There is harrowing, sowing, fertilizing, reaping, threshing: harvest and vintage. If the harvest fails in any year, then follow dire poverty, unrest, and turbulence.

The Education Department controls the education given, and it is planned on foreign models, and its object is to serve foreign rather than native ends, to make docile Government servants rather than patriotic citizens; high spirits, courage, self-respect, are not encouraged, and docility is regarded as the most precious quality in the student; pride in country, patriotism, ambition, are looked on as dangerous, and English, instead of Indian, Ideals are exalted; the blessings of a foreign rule and the incapacity of Indians to manage their own affairs are constantly inculcated. What wonder that boys thus trained often turn out, as men, time-servers and sycophants, and, finding their legitimate ambitions frustrated, become selfish and care little for the public weal? Their own inferiority has been so driven into them during their most impressionable years, that they do not even feel what Mr. Asquith called the "intolerable degradation of a foreign yoke." India's

It was in part because he understood Zionism’s roots in nineteenth-century thought—crossing into its Romanticism, Hegelianism, and historicism—that Berlin could sometimes be half-sympathetic to “the nations,” as he once put it, “which feel that they have not yet played their part (but will) in the great drama of history.”93 Yet there was an undeniable disparity between his Zionism and his far less indulgent attitude toward other new states after World War II. He felt free to criticize “the resentful attitude of those new nations which have exchanged the yoke of foreign rule for the despotism of an individual or class or group in their own society, and admire the triumphant display of naked power, at its most arbitrary and oppressive, even where social and economic needs do just call for authoritarian control.”94 The tension with Berlin’s Zionism, which didn’t invite such criticism, was glaring. Postcolonial emancipation was not just necessary but moving—for one people.

More recently, mathematical script has given rise to an even more revolutionary writing system, a computerised binary script consisting of only two signs: 0 and 1. The words I am now typing on my keyboard are written within my computer by different combinations of 0 and 1. Writing was born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master. Our computers have trouble understanding how Homo sapiens talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching Homo sapiens to talk, feel and dream in the language of numbers, which can be understood by computers. And this is not the end of the story. The field of artificial intelligence is seeking to create a new kind of intelligence based solely on the binary script of computers. Science-fiction movies such as The Matrix and The Terminator tell of a day when the binary script throws off the yoke of humanity. When humans try to regain control of the rebellious script, it responds by attempting to wipe out the human race.

You have a quote that I love. You say, ‘Most of one’s own troubles, worries, and sadness come from self-cherishing, self-centeredness.’ But don’t we need to be somewhat self-centered in order to succeed in life?” “Self-cherishing, that’s by nature,” he said (by which I assumed he meant it’s “natural”). “Without that, we human beings become like robots, no feeling. But now, practice for development of concern for well-being of others, that actually is immense benefit to oneself.” A light went off in my head. “It seems like you’re saying that there is a self-interested, or selfish, case for being compassionate?” “Yes. Practice of compassion is ultimately benefit to you. So I usually describe: we are selfish, but be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish.” This was an entirely new spin for me. Don’t be nice for the sake of it, he was saying. Do it because it would redound to your own benefit, that it would make you feel good by eroding the edges of the ego. Yoked to self-interest, the compassion thing suddenly became something I could relate to—maybe even something I could do.

Consider," she said, "what it is, a unicorn. It is the incarnation of purity, an avatar of innocence. And here is the power of the talisman, for that state of grace which soon passes from each and every one is forever locked inside the horn, the horn become the phallus. And in the instant that it brought you, Natalie, to orgasm, you knew again that innocence, the bliss of a child before it suffers corruption." I didn't interrupt her, but all at once I got the gist. "Still, you are only a mortal woman, so what negligible, insignificant sins could you have possibly committed during your short life? Likewise, whatever calamities and wrongs have been visited upon your flesh or your soul, they are trifles. But if you survived the war in Paradise, if you refused the yoke and so are counted among the exiles, then you've persisted down all the long eons. You were already broken and despoiled billions of years before the coming of man. And your transgressions outnumber the stars. "Now," she asked, "what would you pay, were you so cursed, to know even one fleeting moment of that stainless, former existence?

What a contrast between the course of Isaac and that pursued by the youth of our time, even among professed Christians! Young people too often feel that the bestowal of their affections is a matter in which self alone should be consulted—a matter that neither God nor their parents should in any wise control. Long before they have reached manhood or womanhood they think themselves competent to make their own choice, without the aid of their parents. A few years of married life are usually sufficient to show them their error, but often too late to prevent its baleful results. For the same lack of wisdom and self-control that dictated the hasty choice is permitted to aggravate the evil, until the marriage relation becomes a galling yoke. Many have thus wrecked their happiness in this life and their hope of the life to come. If there is any subject which should be carefully considered and in which the counsel of older and more experienced persons should be sought, it is the subject of marriage; if ever the Bible was needed as a counselor, if ever divine guidance should be sought in prayer, it is before taking a step that binds persons together for life.

head no longer weeps and she seems to never tire, while Omeir has to rest every hour or so, fatigue sunk into his marrow, and sometimes as he walks he hears the creak of the wagons and the bellowing of animals, and senses Moonlight and Tree beside him, huge and docile beneath the beam of their yoke. By their fourth morning together, they grow dangerously hungry. Even the girl stumbles every few steps and he knows they cannot go much farther without food. At midday he spies dust rising behind them and they crouch off the road in a little brake of thorns and wait. First come two banner men, blades knocking against their saddles, the very image of conquerors returning. Then drivers with pack camels loaded with plunder: rolled carpets, bulging sacks, a torn Greek ensign. Behind the camels in loose double-file through the dust march twenty bound women and girls. One howls with grief while the others shuffle in silence, their hair uncovered, and their faces betray a wretchedness that makes Omeir look away. Behind the women a rawboned ox pulls a wagon crowded with marble statuary: the torsos of angels; a robed and curly headed philosopher with his nose flaked off; a single enormous

From the Desire Field” I don’t call it sleep anymore.         I’ll risk losing something new instead— like you lost your rosen moon, shook it loose. But sometimes when I get my horns in a thing— a wonder, a grief or a line of her—it is a sticky and ruined         fruit to unfasten from, despite my trembling. Let me call my anxiety, desire, then Let me call it, a garden. Maybe this is what Lorca meant         when he said, verde que te quiero verde— because when the shade of night comes, I am a field of it, of any ready to flower in my chest. My mind in the dark is una bestia, unfocused,         hot. And if not yoked to exhaustion beneath the hip and plow of my lover, then I am another night wandering the desire field— bewildered in its low green glow, belling the meadow between midnight and morning. Insomnia is like Spring that way—surprising         and many petaled. the kick and leap of gold grasshoppers at my brow. I am struck in the witched hours of want— I want her green life. Her inside me in a green hour I can’t stop.         Green vein in her throat green wind in my mouth green thorn in my eye. I want her like a river goes, bending. Green moving green, moving. Fast as that, this is how it happens—         soy una sonámbula. And even though you said today you felt better, and it is so late in this poem, is it okay to be clear,         to say, I don’t feel good, until I can smell its sweet smoke,         leave this thrashed field, and be smooth. Natalie Diaz, poets.org (5 June 2017)

The history of another country, one Americans don’t much like comparing themselves with, illustrates the grave dangers of yoking political ideology to dubious science. In the 1930s under Joseph Stalin, the quack “scientist” Trofim Lysenko, who promoted himself through party newspapers rather than rigorous experiments, rose to prominence and took control of Soviet biological, medical, and agricultural research for several decades. Lysenko used his power to prosecute an ideologically driven crusade against the theory of genetics, which he denounced as a bourgeois affront to socialism. In short, his political presuppositions led him to embrace bogus scientific claims. In the purges that followed, many of Lysenko’s scientist critics lost their jobs and suffered imprisonment and even execution. By 1948 Lysenko had convinced Stalin to ban the study of genetics. Soviet science suffered immeasurable damage from the machinations of Lysenko and his henchmen, and the term “Lysenkoism” has since come to signify the suppression of, or refusal to acknowledge, science for ideological reasons. In a democracy like our own, Lysenkoism is unlikely to take such a menacing, totalitarian form. Nevertheless, the threat we face from conservative abuse of science—to informed policymaking, to democratic discourse, and to knowledge itself—is palpably real. And as the modern Right and the Bush administration flex their muscles and continue to battle against reliable, mainstream conclusions and sources of information, this threat is growing.

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom." And he answered: At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff. And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment. You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound. And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes. And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free? If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride? And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you. And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared. Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape. These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

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.

23 When He Carries a Heavy Burden Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. GALATIANS 6:2 SOCIETY PUTS A LOT OF WEIGHT on a man’s shoulders. It is his burden to earn the finances to support his family. He is expected to do well at his work and on his job. There are so many expectations of him in that regard that he feels the pressure of it constantly. That’s why you read about so many men committing suicide when they are in serious financial trouble. The burden is too great. Few women commit suicide for financial failure. If you or I fell into financial ruin, we would just sell everything, pay off all the debts we could, get a job, and start over. Men can feel the burden of failure in life-threatening ways. That’s why your husband needs your prayers to keep his burdens lifted. One of the best ways to bear your husband’s burden is to pray for him about whatever heavy load he is carrying. Every time you do, pray especially for what burdens him the most. One of the most effective things you can do is let him know you are praying for him and ask him to tell you what his burdens are. He may reveal something you didn’t even know was bothering him. God’s Word says that sometimes our burden comes from the oppressor. The children of Israel had an oppressor, and they were overtaken by this oppressor because of their own disobedience. But God promised that the burden the oppressor put on them would eventually be broken by the power of His Spirit. “It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil” (Isaiah 10:27). The anointing oil refers to a work of the Holy Spirit. Your prayers can invite the Holy Spirit to break any burden of the oppressor off of your husband’s shoulders. You will be fulfilling the “law of Christ” every time you pray like that, not to mention how it will secure your husband’s devotion. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray my husband will be able to fully release his burdens to You. I know that when we cast our burdens on You, You will sustain us and not allow us to be shaken (Psalm 55:22 NASB). Help me to bear his burdens in prayer and in any other way You reveal to me. Show me what his greatest burden is and what I can do to lighten it. I ask that You would relieve him of his heavy load by Your presence in his life. Enable him to understand that when he yokes up with You, You will carry the burden for him. I pray that when he is oppressed by the enemy, whatever prayer or supplication is made by him—when he acknowledges his own burdens before You and turns to You for help—that You will hear him (2 Chronicles 6:29-30). I also pray that as You take his burden from him, he will know it’s You doing the heavy lifting. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Come on, lovey, open up. These buckets is heavy.” The plea accompanied another tapping. “Patience, Molly.” Christopher paused for a brief moment, gathering the towel about him again. Then his muscles flexed, and if she had found the breath, Erienne would have shrieked as he lifted her and dumped her onto the bed. She half raised with her mouth open to hotly voice her objection to whatever he had in mind, but he flung the bedcovers over her head, squelching comment. “Lie still.” His whisper bore a tone of command that could prompt immediate obedience from even the most reluctant. Erienne froze, and with a smile Christopher reached across to turn down the other side of the bed to make it seem as if he had just left it. Frantic visions involving her possible fate flew through Erienne’s mind. She considered the horrible humiliation she would suffer if she were discovered in the man’s bed. Her fears burgeoned, her rage peaked, and she threw back the covers, intending to escape the trap he laid for her. In the next brief second she caught her breath sharply and snatched the covers back over her head again, for the sight of him standing stark naked beside the chair where his clothes were draped was too much for her virgin eyes to bear. It had been no more than a glimpse, but the vision of his tall, tanned, wide-shouldered form bathed in the pinkish light of the rising sun was forever branded in her brain. Christopher chuckled softly as Erienne curled into the bed and finally obeyed his warning. He slipped on his breeches, secured them, and moved across the room to unlock the door. Molly knew her trade and her competition, and the village of Mawbry suited her well, since there was an absolute lack of the latter. When Christopher opened the portal, she was through it in a trice and shrugging out of the yoke that bore the pails. Pressing herself tightly against the male form, she rubbed her fingers through the hair on his chest and fluttered her lashes. “Oh, lovey, ye are a wondrous sight for any girl to behold.” “I’ve already told you, Molly. I have no need of yer services,” Christopher stated bluntly. “I only want the water.” “Ah, come now, lovey,” she crooned. “I knows ye’ve been away ter sea and needs a li’l tussle in bed. Why, with such a man as yerself, I’d be more’n willin’ ter give ye all ye need without a hint o’ a coin.” Christopher swept his hand toward the mentioned furnishing, drawing the maid’s eyes to it. “I already have all I desire. Now be along with you.” Molly’s dark eyes widened in surprise as she turned to stare at the bed. Unable to mistake the curvaceous form hidden beneath the quilt, she straightened indignantly and with a swish of her skirts was gone from the room, slamming the door behind her. Erienne waited, not daring to come out from beneath the covering until Christopher tapped her on the shoulder. “ ’Tis safe now. You can come out.” “Are you dressed?” she asked cautiously, her voice muffled beneath the covers. Christopher chuckled. “I’ve got my breeches on, if that’s what you’re worried about." -Molly, Christopher, & Erienne

If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely: 1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage?  We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power. 2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23). 3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–14). Peter’s conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul’s conduct is irreconcilable with Peter’s alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers! 4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1–3). Love of money and love of power are twin-sisters, and either of them is "a root of all evil." It is certainly very significant that the weaknesses even more than the virtues of the natural Peter—his boldness and presumption, his dread of the cross, his love for secular glory, his carnal zeal, his use of the sword, his sleepiness in Gethsemane—are faithfully reproduced in the history of the papacy; while the addresses and epistles of the converted and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the papacy, and enjoin truly evangelical principles—the general priesthood and royalty of believers, apostolic poverty before the rich temple, obedience to God rather than man, yet with proper regard for the civil authorities, honorable marriage, condemnation of mental reservation in Ananias and Sapphira, and of simony in Simon Magus, liberal appreciation of heathen piety in Cornelius, opposition to the yoke of legal bondage, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus Christ.

CONTIMENT’S END At the equinox when the earth was veiled in a late rain, wreathed with wet poppies, waiting spring, The ocean swelled for a far storm and beat its boundary, the ground-swell shook the beds of granite. I gazing at the boundaries of granite and spray, the established sea-marks, felt behind me Mountain and plain, the immense breadth of the continent, before me the mass and doubled stretch of water. I said: You yoke the Aleutian seal-rocks with the lava and coral sowings that flower the south, Over your flood the life that sought the sunrise faces ours that has followed the evening star. The long migrations meet across you and it is nothing to you, you have forgotten us, mother. You were much younger when we crawled out of the womb and lay in the sun’s eye on the tideline. It was long and long ago; we have grown proud since then and you have grown bitter; life retains Your mobile soft unquiet strength; and envies hardness, the insolent quietness of stone. The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean. That watched you fill your beds out of the condensation of thin vapor and watched you change them, That saw you soft and violent wear your boundaries down, eat rock, shift places with the continents. Mother, though my song’s measure is like your surf-beat’s ancient rhythm I never learned it of you. Before there was any water there were tides of fire, both our tones flow from the older fountain.

Their era was ending when Jim Clyman got to Independence in ’44 and found Bill Sublette, who had first taken wagons up the Platte Valley in 1830, now taking invalids to Brown’s Hole for a summer’s outing. It was twenty-one years since Jim had first gone up the Missouri, forty years since Lewis and Clark wintered at the Mandan villages, thirty-three years since Wilson Hunt led the Astorians westward, twenty years since Clyman with Smith and Fitzpatrick crossed South Pass, eighteen years since Ashley, in the Wasatch Mountains, sold his fur company to Smith, Sublette, and Jackson. Thirty-two years ago Robert McKnight had been imprisoned by the Spanish for taking goods to Santa Fe. Twenty-three years ago William Becknell had defied the prohibition and returned from Santa Fe in triumph. Eighteen years ago the Patties had got to San Diego by the Gila route and Jed Smith had blazed the desert trail to San Bernardino Valley; fourteen years ago Ewing Young, with Kit Carson, had come over the San Bernardino Mountains, making for the San Joaquin. There had been a trading post at the mouth of Laramie Creek for just ten years. Bent’s Fort was fifteen years old. Now the streams were trapped out, and even if beaver should come back, the price of plews would never rise again. There were two or three thousand Americans in Oregon, a couple of hundred in California, and in Independence hundreds of wagons were yoking up. Bill Sublette and Black Harris were guiding movers. Carson and Fitzpatrick were completing the education of John Charles Frémont. Forty years since Lewis and Clark. Think back to that blank paper with some names sketched in, the Wind River peaks, the Tetons, the Picketwire River, the Siskidee, names which, mostly, the mountain men sketched in — something under a million square miles, the fundamental watershed, a thousand mountain men scalped in this wilderness, the deserts crossed, the trails blazed and packed down, the mountains made known, the caravans carrying freight to Santa Fe, Bill Bowen selling his place to go to Oregon, half a dozen wagonwrights setting up at Independence … and, far off, like a fly buzzing against a screen, Joe Meek’s cousin, Mr. Polk, preparing war. Whose country was it? III Pillar of Cloud ALL through February Congress debated the resolution to terminate the joint occupancy of Oregon, and by its deliberation, Polk thought, informed the British that we were irresolute.

I will bear this witness before my friends and neighbours, for possibly they may be led by my testimony to seek my Lord Jesus as their Master. O that they would do so! They would never repent so wise a deed. If they would but take His easy yoke, they would find themselves in so royal a service that they would enlist in it for ever.

May 18 MORNING “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him.” — Colossians 2:9, 10 ALL the attributes of Christ, as God and man, are at our disposal. All the fulness of the Godhead, whatever that marvellous term may comprehend, is ours to make us complete. He cannot endow us with the attributes of Deity; but He has done all that can be done, for He has made even His divine power and Godhead subservient to our salvation. His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability and infallibility, are all combined for our defence. Arise, believer, and behold the Lord Jesus yoking the whole of His divine Godhead to the chariot of salvation! How vast His grace, how firm His faithfulness, how unswerving His immutability, how infinite His power, how limitless His knowledge! All these are by the Lord Jesus made the pillars of the temple of salvation; and all, without diminution of their infinity, are covenanted to us as our perpetual inheritance. The fathomless love of the Saviour’s heart is every drop of it ours; every sinew in the arm of might, every jewel in the crown of majesty, the immensity of divine knowledge, and the sternness of divine justice, all are ours, and shall be employed for us. The whole of Christ, in His adorable character as the Son of God, is by Himself made over to us most richly to enjoy. His wisdom is our direction, His knowledge our instruction, His power our protection, His justice our surety, His love our comfort, His mercy our solace, and His immutability our trust. He makes no reserve, but opens the recesses of the Mount of God and bids us dig in its mines for the hidden treasures. “All, all, all are yours,” saith He, “be ye satisfied with favour and full of the goodness of the Lord.” Oh! how sweet thus to behold Jesus, and to call upon Him with the certain confidence that in seeking the interposition of His love or power, we are but asking for that which He has already faithfully promised.

In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him." Colossians 2:9, 10 All the attributes of Christ, as God and man, are at our disposal. All the fulness of the Godhead, whatever that marvellous term may comprehend, is ours to make us complete. He cannot endow us with the attributes of Deity; but he has done all that can be done, for he has made even his divine power and Godhead subservient to our salvation. His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, immutability and infallibility, are all combined for our defence. Arise, believer, and behold the Lord Jesus yoking the whole of his divine Godhead to the chariot of salvation! How vast his grace, how firm his faithfulness, how unswerving his immutability, how infinite his power, how limitless his knowledge! All these are by the Lord Jesus made the pillars of the temple of salvation; and all, without diminution of their infinity, are covenanted to us as our perpetual inheritance. The fathomless love of the Saviour's heart is every drop of it ours; every sinew in the arm of might, every jewel in the crown of majesty, the immensity of divine knowledge, and the sternness of divine justice, all are ours, and shall be employed for us. The whole of Christ, in his adorable character as the Son of God, is by himself made over to us most richly to enjoy. His wisdom is our direction, his knowledge our instruction, his power our protection, his justice our surety, his love our comfort, his mercy our solace, and his immutability our trust. He makes no reserve, but opens the recesses of the Mount of God and bids us dig in its mines for the hidden treasures. "All, all, all are yours," saith he, "be ye satisfied with favour and full of the goodness of the Lord." Oh! how sweet thus to behold Jesus, and to call upon him with the certain confidence that in seeking the interposition of his love or power, we are but asking for that which he has already faithfully promised.

I will remain on Spartacus’s side, never with the Caesars, and even against science I am going to maintain my trust in the ability of the working masses to free themselves from the yoke of capitalism, since whoever has seen the masses in action knows that it is possible.

Paul declares the “invisible things of him from the creation of the world” can help us understand “his eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20). The truth that God is a “tri-unity” of two invisible persons (Father and Spirit) and one visible person (Jesus) is evident even in creation. The universe is composed of three structures: space, matter, and time. Of these three, only matter is visible. Space requires length, height, and width to constitute space. Each dimension is separate and distinct in itself, yet the three form space—if you remove height, you no longer have space. Time is also a tri-unity of past, present, and future. Two are invisible (past and future), and one visible (present). Each is separate and distinct, as well as essential for time to exist. Man is also a “tri-unity,” having physical, mental, and spiritual components. Again, two are invisible (mental and spiritual) and one visible (physical). Cells compose the fundamental structural unit of all living organisms. All organic life is made up from cells that consist of three primary parts: the outer wall, the cytoplasm, and the nucleus (like the shell, white, and yoke of an egg). If any one is removed, the cell dies. In each of these examples, the removal of any one component results in the demise of the whole. In like manner, the Godhead contains three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each is God (Ephesians 4:6; Titus 2:13; Acts 5:3, 4), yet there is one God. The removal of one person destroys the unity of the whole. Even the gospel story illustrates the interdependency of threes. The sanctuary had three places: the Courtyard, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place. There are three stages of salvation: justification, sanctification, and glorification. In Isaiah 6:3, the angels around God’s throne cry “Holy, Holy, Holy” three times—once for the Father, once for the Son, and once for the Holy Spirit.

Though the scoffers still revile at Christianity and say that it spreads not as once it did, a speedy answer shall confound them, or if not speedy, yet the stroke shall be sure! Our King waits a while. He has leisure. Haste belongs to weakness. His strength moves calmly. Only let Him be awakened and you shall see how quick are His paces! He redeemed the world in a few short hours upon the Cross and I guarantee you that when He gets that iron rod once to working, He will not need many days to ease Him of His adversaries and make a clean sweep of all that set themselves against Him! If you want to see how it will be done, read, I pray you, Daniel 2:31—“You, O king, saw and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.” It was a strange conglomeration—all the metallic empires are set forth as combined in one image—which image is the embodied idea of monarchical power which has fascinated men even to this day. The Prophet goes on to say, “You saw still that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.” And so it is to be—the vision is being each day fulfilled. The Gospel stone, which owes nothing to human strength or wisdom, is breaking the image and scattering all opposing powers. No system, society, confederacy, or cabinet can stand which is opposed to the Truth of God and righteousness. I, even I, that am but of yesterday and know nothing, have seen one of the mightiest of empires of modern times melt away all of a sudden as the frost of the morning in the heat of the sun. I have seen monarchs driven out of their tyrannies by the powers of a single man and a free nation born as in an hour. I have seen states which fought to hold the Negro in perpetual captivity subdued by those whom they despised, while the slave has been set free! I have seen nations chastened under evil governments and revived when the yoke has been broken and they have returned to the way of righteousness and peace. He who lives longest shall see most of this. Evil is short-lived. Truth shall yet rise above all. The Lord says, overturn, overturn till He shall come whose right it is and God shall give it to Him. Woe unto those that stand against the Lord and His Anointed, for they shall not prosper. “Be wise now, therefore, O you kings: be instructed, you judges of the earth. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.

I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a black and terrible God. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy. Only those who fear shall fail. Those who have bent their backs to the yoke of slavery until they can no longer stand upright; them will I despise. But you who have defied the law; you who have conquered by subtlety or force; you will I take unto me, even I will take you unto me. I ask you to sacrifice nothing at mine altar; I am the God who giveth all.

In that moment, I realized that no matter what words I chose and no matter how much time I spent in telling, I would never be able to express my full experience...There are some experiences that only you can enter, that only you can truly hold. They are too vast to be imparted. You cannot even hold them wholly in your arms: they spill over into the dark beyond you, brimming, shooting out in ropes of light that make you ache with loneliness and yet yoke you to the world at the same time, because the vast things that have happened to you, however terrible, were always born out of the world, and so perhaps they offer you a place even as they push you out of another, even as they weigh you down with a self that can never fully be conveyed. Though most of us will try. We make bonds, we grow trust, we tell stories; we strive to articulate what it took to become who we are. Sometimes if we're very fortunate, our listeners can catch authentic glimpses of what we mean to say, like sparks in a dark room, but never the whole of it at once, not even with the best of friends or closest lover, because the whole of it at once is beyond speaking. It lives nowhere, absolutely nowhere, except inside your skin. That's where it flares, enormous, hazardous, utterly yours.

humanity without the corruption, greed, and hatred that the inner planets could not transcend. We will take what is ours by right, yes, but more than that, we will lead the Belt to a new, better form. A more human form. “As of now, the gates to the other worlds are closed. The inner planet colony ships will be redirected to existing stations in our system, and the goods they carry contributed to building the strong outer planets that we have always deserved. We no longer recognize or accept the yoke of the inner planets anywhere in the system. The moons of Saturn and Jupiter are ours by right. Pallas Station, Ceres Station, every pocket of air in the Belt with even one human in it, all are the natural

As for how you can know that you should not marry them, the number one reason is if one of you is not committed to fully following Christ. That is the “unequally yoked” problem from 2 Corinthians 6:14 (see our discussion of compatibility in chapter 6). You should break up if the person you are dating is not fully devoted to following Christ. This will be apparent by what they talk about, what they focus their life on, and how they behave, which includes how they treat you (and the other people around them). If they say one thing with their lips but their actions say something different, believe their actions. Some people know all the right answers and can “talk the talk,” but it is all a con—sometimes one they are even playing on themselves. A person’s actions over time will show what they truly believe. One obvious example of this is whether they are committed to purity in your relationship. If someone is willing to have sex with you outside of marriage, they are clearly not committed to following God, because they are actively disobeying his commands. They are saying, by their actions, that they don’t really fear God. They follow their own desires; that is their god. You should break up if either of you is not following God. That includes you, not just the person you are dating. Really, dating or marriage should be of little concern to you if you don’t have your eternal destination figured out. The smart thing to do would be to work on your relationship with the One who offers eternal life and who loves you more than any imperfect human ever could.

As they watched, the Malefict lumbered into view. It was the size of a small house, powerfully but crudely built, its bearlike form missing ears, a nose, and even eyes, the leather of its muzzle crisscrossed with badly stitched seams. A heavy chain dragged behind it, each link large enough to yoke an ox, the other end attached to a system of gears and pulleys fixed to the cavern’s wall. It wagged its head back and forth, disoriented by the pain of the iron collar around its neck. Ink wept from open sores, gleaming wet down its shoulders, and old scars scored its leather-bound hide.

Even though Marcus sought to make his brother Lucius an equal co-ruler with him, the two were unevenly yoked

Run solar orbit computation software ‘Three Body 1.0’!” Newton screamed at the top of his lungs. “Start the master computing module! Load the differential calculus module! Load the finite element analysis module! Load the spectral method module! Enter initial condition parameters … and begin calculation!” The motherboard sparkled as the display formation flashed with indicators in every color. The human-formation computer began the long computation. “This is really interesting,” Qin Shi Huang said, pointing to the spectacular sight. “Each individual’s behavior is so simple, yet together, they can produce such a complex, great whole! Europeans criticize me for my tyrannical rule, claiming that I suppress creativity. But in reality, a large number of men yoked by severe discipline can also produce great wisdom when bound together as one.” “Great First Emperor, this is just the mechanical operation of a machine, not wisdom. Each of these lowly individuals is just a zero. Only when someone like you is added to the front as a one can the whole have any meaning.” Newton’s smile was ingratiating. “Disgusting philosophy!” Von Neumann said as he glanced at Newton. “If, in the end, the results computed in accordance with your theory and mathematical model don’t match reality, then you and I aren’t even zeroes.” “Indeed. If that turns out to be the case, you will be nothing!” Qin Shi Huang turned and left the scene.

Behold the eyes of Omniscience ransacking the globe, and prying among every people and nation. He who is looking down knows the good, is quick to discern it, would be delighted to find it; but as He views all the unregenerate children of men His search is fruitless, for of all the race of Adam no unrenewed soul is other than an enemy to God and goodness. "They are all gone out of the way." Without exception, all men have apostatized from the Lord their Maker, from His Laws, and from the eternal principles of right. Like stubborn heifers they have sturdily refused to receive the yoke. The original speaks of the race as a totality, humanity as a whole has become depraved in heart and life. "They have altogether become filthy." As a whole they are spoiled and soured like corrupt leaven, or, as some put it, they have become putrid and even stinking. The only reason why we do not more clearly see this foulness is because we are accustomed to it, just as those who work daily among offensive odours at last cease to smell them.

Speaking in the tabernacle to a large assembly, he [John Taylor, Mormon] said: Who would not rather die than bow to the yoke of the enemy? It would sweeten death to a man to know that he should lay down his life in defence of freedom and the kingdom of God, rather than to longer bow to the cruelty of the mobs, even when the mob have the name of being legalized by the nation. I thank God, and I rejoice that this people... are determined to have peace, if they have to fight for it. To this stirring appeal, the whole congregation responded with a loud and hearty Amen! Since this sounds suspiciously like treason...

the Yanks had apparently discovered how to placate the entire working class at the cost of a nickel a week. “Just look at their Depression,” he said. “From beginning to end it lasted ten years. An entire decade in which the Proletariat was left to fend for itself, scrounging in alleys and begging at chapel doors. If ever there had been a time for the American worker to cast off the yoke, surely that was it. But did they join their brothers-in-arms? Did they shoulder their axes and splinter the doors of the mansions? Not even for an afternoon. Instead, they shuffled to the nearest movie house, where the latest fantasy was dangled before them like a pocket watch at the end of a chain.

This Stoyan,” he thought, “is the very type of the legendary Bulgarian haidoud, with his calm courage in facing death. Not a word of sorrow, of despair, or even of hope. He only wants to die looking his best. Ah! if this heroical fatalism has only passed into the Bulgarian of today, I shall be quite easy in mind as to the end of our struggle. That’s the struggle I seek for—that’s the strength I want—to know how to die, that’s half the battle.

What would it be like when I was fifty, sixty, older? I’d be no more than a jumble of organs in slow decomposition, my life an unending torment, grim, joyless, and mean. When you got right down to it, my dick was the one organ that hadn’t presented itself to my consciousness through pain, only through pleasure. Modest but robust, it had always served me faithfully. Or, you could argue, I had served it—if so, its yoke had been easy. It never gave me orders. It sometimes encouraged me to get out more, but it encouraged me humbly, without bitterness or anger. This past evening, I knew, it had interceded on Myriam’s behalf. It had always enjoyed good relations with Myriam, Myriam had always treated it with affection and respect, and this had given me an enormous amount of pleasure. And sources of pleasure were hard to come by. In the end, my dick was all I had. My interest in the life of the mind had greatly diminished; my social life was hardly more satisfying than the life of my body; it, too, presented itself as a series of petty annoyances—clogged sink, slow Wi-Fi, points on my license, dishonest

They must overcome both the limits of physics and the messiness of biology. Some animals have simply dropped out of the struggle. Like all sensory systems, eyes are expensive to build and maintain. It takes a lot of energy to even prep photoreceptors and their associated neurons for the arrival of light, so that they can react when needed. Even when animals aren’t seeing anything, the mere possibility of sight drains their resources. This drain is significant enough that if eyes stop being useful or effective, they tend to diminish or disappear. Sometimes animals invest in other senses that aren’t yoked to light. (We’ll meet these later; many exceptional senses were discovered because scientists noticed animals doing amazing things in total darkness.) Others unsubscribe from vision entirely. In underground realms, in caves, and in other dark corners of Earth where vision cannot earn its worth, eyes are often lost.

my society, and even during the trials in Texas, I hated it when men and defense lawyers would say, “You had every right to ______” —whatever their argument was. But I was quick to clarify that women did not have every right. With few exceptions, results show that men’s and women’s rights are vastly different in the FLDS, because women are treated as chattel, to be yoked and chained and traded like mere possessions and property.

The idea that the invisible realm is populated with beings (deities = angels) who are somehow relevant to human beings in the visible realm does not necessarily exclude a felt sense that behind all manifestation is just One Being. In monotheism, that Singularity is given a personal face (usually that of the “Creator”). In philosophical nondualism, the same Singularity is understood in abstract terms as an impersonal “It.” Both orientations have coexisted in India since time immemorial. Yoga operates with both a personalist conception of a Supreme Person (be it God or Goddess) and an impersonalist notion of an Absolute (often called brahman). Sometimes, as in the Bhagavad-Gītā (Lord’s Song), an attempt is made to integrate both ideas. Thus some forms of Yoga are more religiously oriented, while others tend to be more philosophical. For example, there are numerous religious elements connected with Bhakti-Yoga, the path of devotional self-surrender to the Higher Reality, whereas Jnāna-Yoga, the path of self-transcending wisdom, tends to be more philosophical or metaphysical. However, Yoga’s growing technology of physical and mental practices came to be associated with a nondualist (advaita) metaphysics. According to the earliest teachings of Hindu nondualism, as contained in the Upanishads, the multifaceted world is an emanation from the singular transcendental Reality called brahman (“that which thrives”).5 Yoga was introduced as a way back to that Singularity (eka). The sages experienced that unitary Reality, which is supraconscious and utterly blissful, as being the core not only of the whole universe but also of the human personality. As the core of the personality it was called “Self,” or ātman. The Sanskrit term yoga was accordingly redefined as the “union” between the lower or embodied self and the transcendental Self (ātman), and this is still the prevalent understanding of the word inside and outside India. However, even Yoga as union includes an element of yoking, for the lower self cannot merge into the higher Self without proper focusing of attention.

Mistake ? of course we were mistaken. But the revolution and the victims were bound to be. I could even have wished they were more numerous and more terrible. We can’t destroy Turkey by force of arms, but we can gain the sympathies of the world, at least, by our frightful sufferings, by our martyrdom, by the rivers of blood that are now flowing in Bulgaria.

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?” (2 Corinthians 6:14–15) “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone, name a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.” (1 Corinthians 5:11) “A man that is a heretick after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that the that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself

I, inside you! ( Part 2 ) ................So time waited at the door and the destiny knocked too, But the ones they had been sent for had become something else, So time asked destiny,” if still it could do what it was meant to do?” And it replied, “Only if they wink I can fulfil your wish. Until then there is nothing else I can do, nothing else!” But for her kiss, for her embrace, for the rhythm of her heart beats, I never winked my eyes, Even though many sunshines had passed and the walls had witnessed million moonlights, The time waits there, the destiny is tired too, to be the joy of the Cupid who lives in the skies, And had granted us the dreams made of lights, So, there was no need to wink, There was no need to wake up, And time that steals moments whenever lovers blink, Had become the Destiny’s Atlas, bearing our yoke, because we had poured ourselves into the depths of love cup, Where time disappeared and never found its end, There, there in the depths of the love cup, I love my darling Irma forever, And for her smiles, her kisses, I had compelled the destiny to bend, Because fate too favours the destiny of the wish, of a true lover, And in the room of love walls, we lie submersed in the love cup, She and I caught in the eternal embrace, Where time waits, destiny waits too, and we neither wink nor look up, Because I am caught in the moment of her eternal grace, Her beauty, her heart beat and her face, And I want to be in this place just with her, Away from the disturbances of time, worries of destiny, just with her and her beautiful face, Where she belongs to me and I belong to her, So, let the time wait till the end of everything, Then when time does not exist destiny would cease to be, Then Irma, we shall arise from the state of nothing, And the universe shall be just you, and me, With no curtains, no walls, no time, no destiny, Your heart beats, your beautiful face and our eternal embrace, Then maybe we shall be the darlings of divinity, Because in the wide and infinitely empty space, it shall be left with no choice, but to feed your grace, Then as a lover I shall be truly jovial, Because now, Irma, everything would lie at your feet, Destiny, time, eternity, and that instinct original and primeval, Where only you and I shall be destined to meet! With the cup of love always full, Of your beauty, your feelings, your smiles, and you, Then I shall dive into it and let it cover me full, And disappear forever somewhere inside you, only you!

At the end of each day, I want to hear Jesus’s words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” He whispers, “Come away a while and rest from the struggle. My yoke is easy.

In other words, there would be no difference between Jewish and Gentile Christians, even if the latter purified their hearts through faith. They could be saved by the grace of Jesus, so they needed not any additional yoke placed upon them. Peter had taken the side of Paul. Before this authoritative decision, there were no cries of “we must follow tradition, not Peter.” On the contrary, the Bible says, once again, that those present “held their peace.”365F[367] On that day, Petrine authority was heeded, starting a venerable tradition that would become a constant throughout history and throughout this book.

Stars, Sam. We mucked it. I mean, I mucked it. And not just for us. Yet I recall pure joy: your bike hot between my legs, your arms locked ’round my waist. I recall poor Second’s chiding before I blinked it off. I recall laughter and all of those soldiers from someone else’s war standing on that terrace singing yet another Terran victory rag. You told me later that you didn’t know I’d make a run at the canyon wall ’til I torqued it, thumbing your bike’s twin throttles hard enough to singe our legs as the acceleration turned into an increasing roar. By the time we hit fifty, I couldn’t even hear you yelling at me to stop over the wind. I didn’t think you were serious. We’d climbed that mesa in daylight when we were younger, smaller, bendier. We’d done it with safety rails and belts, with hoverbikes that floated back down like carnival balloons when we failed; we’d done it with our parents cheering and a Grass Priest standing watch in case we needed healing. That run should’ve been a lark, Sam. But the night was dark as space, and our planet has no moon. You grabbed hard as I pulled the yoke. The engines screamed. I meant to pull up, climb that mesa vertically—see if we could rocket to the top before I gunned again like we’d done a hundred times as kids. But I timed it too late. I saw the mesa wall in our headlamps, and then everything went black. The next thing I recall is waking up on the Unity ship Ascendant with Ken’ri Mureen of Glos smiling down at me. Those big round eyes in her lovely, lying face. I thought I’d surely killed you, Sam, but Mureen swore you were fine. Mureen swore removing my Second was only temporary—swore surgery would fix the soup the crash had made of my brain. She made me sign forms, and then Ma came in with pastries. I still didn’t believe you’d made it out, but Ma swore it too. You know the gist after that—mostly—but there’s a lot I never told—

My problem, says Weil, is that I have yoked action to results. Life doesn’t work that way, nor does attention. An attentive life is a risky one. Results are not guaranteed. We don’t know where our attention will lead, if anywhere. Pure attention, the kind Weil advocated, is untainted by external motives such as impressing your friends or advancing your career. The person who applies his full attention to something—anything—makes progress “even if his effort produces no visible fruit,” says Weil.

Yoga, in Sanskrit, can be translated as "union". It originally comes from the root word yuj, which means "to yoke", to attach yourself to a task at hand with ox-like discipline. And the task at hand in yoga is to find union - between mind and body, between the individual and her god, between our thoughts and the source of our thoughts, between teacher and student, and even between ourselves and our sometimes hard-to-bend neighbors.

Even my beloved Peng Choon, wonderful husband that he was, liked to think of himself as the smarter of us two, which for the sake of peace I allowed.

THE GAMBLER “She did not quarrel with me or get angry; she was kind to my friends and to me. Because of a losing throw of the dice I have driven away a devoted wife. My wife’s mother hates me, and my wife pushes me away. The man in trouble finds no one with sympathy. They all say, ‘I find a gambler as useless as an old horse that someone wants to sell.’ Other men fondle the wife of a man whose possessions have been taken by the plundering dice. His father, mother, and brothers all say of him, ‘We do not know him. Tie him up and take him away.’ When I swear, ‘I will not play with them,’ my friends leave me behind and go away. But when the brown dice raise their voice as they are thrown down, I run at once to the rendezvous with them, like a woman to her lover.” . . . The deserted wife of the gambler grieves, and the mother grieves for her son who wanders anywhere, nowhere. In debt and in need of money, frightened, he goes at night to the houses of other men. It torments the gambler to see his wife the woman of other men, in their comfortable rooms. But he yoked the brown horses in the early morning, and at evening he fell down by the fire, no longer a man (10.34).

The trajectory of Exodus is unmistakable. When the book begins, the people are enslaved to a merciless despot who refuses to grant them even a moment’s respite (Exod. 5:5); when it ends they are serving the God of creation and covenant, who mandates and regularizes periods of rest (35:2). The mitzvah of Shabbat thus helps move the people from “perverted work, designed by Pharaoh to destroy God’s people . . . [to] divinely mandated work, designed to bring together God and God’s people, in the closest proximity possible in this life.”17 God rejects servility: whereas “Pharaoh places the Israelites under a backbreaking and soul-crushing yoke . . . God invites them to stand tall.”18

And so it is, that the blessed Jesus, our adorable Master, has escaped fame. No one says much about Jesus, except His followers. We do not find His name written among the great and mighty; even though, he is truly the greatest, mightiest, holiest, purest, and best man that ever lived. Jesus is neglected and forgotten. He was “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” His kingdom is not of this world.  He was not rough, but all love. His words were softer than butter, they were gentler than soothing oil. No one ever spoke like this man, so gently. Therefore he is neglected and forgotten. He did not come to be a conqueror with his sword, nor a Mahomet with his fiery eloquence. He came to speak with a soft whisper; one that could melt the rocky heart and heal those broken in spirit. His attitude was always, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus Christ was all gentleness. This is why he has not been praised by people who otherwise would have considered him famous.

By design, flow systems have an everything-works-or-nothing-works quality which must be respected and anticipated. This means that the production team must be cross-skilled in every task (in case someone is absent or needed for another task) and that the machinery must be made 100 percent available and accurate through a series of techniques called Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). It also means that work must be rigorously standardized (by the work team, not by some remote industrial engineering group) and that employees and machines must be taught to monitor their own work through a series of techniques commonly called poka-yoke, or mistake-proofing, which make it impossible for even one defective part to be sent ahead to the next step.7

Heap heavier still the fetters; bar closer still the grate; Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruelhate. But by the shades beneath us, and by the gods above, Add not unto your cruel hate your still more cruel love. ******** Then leave the poor plebian his single tie to life - The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife, The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vext soul endures, The kiss in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours. Still let the maiden's beauty swell the father's breast with pride; Still let the bridegroom's arms enfold an unpolluted bride. Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame, That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame; Lest when our latest hope is fled ye taste of our despair, And learn by proof in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare." A quote from Macauley where he describes how outrages in the early times of Rome goaded the plebians to rise against the patricians.