Extending A Helping Hand Quotes

Dare to Be When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully. When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light. When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it. When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway. When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back. When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some. When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going. When times are tough, dare to be tougher. When love hurts you, dare to love again. When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal. When another is lost, dare to help them find the way. When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand. When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile. When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too. When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best. Dare to be the best you can – At all times, Dare to be!

When you're too religious, you tend to point your finger to judge instead of extending your hand to help.

One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on "going it alone." Somehow we've come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we're very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It's as if we've divided the world into "those who offer help" and "those who need help." The truth is that we are both.

Come on, Hathaway," he said, taking my arm. "You can be my partner. Let’s see what you’ve been doing all this time." An hour later, he had his answer. "Not practicing, huh?" "Ow,” I groaned, momentarily incapable of normal speech. He extended a hand and helped me up from the mat he’d knocked me down on—about fifty times. "I hate you,” I told him, rubbing a spot on my thigh that was going to have a wicked bruise tomorrow. "You’d hate me more if I held back." "Yeah, that’s true," I agreed, staggering along as the class put the equipment back. "You actually did okay." "What? I just had my ass handed to me." "Well, of course you did. It’s been two years. But hey, you’re still walking. That’s something." He grinned mockingly. "Did I mention I hate you?” He flashed me another smile, which quickly faded to something more serious. "Don’t take this the wrong way…I mean, you really are a scrapper, but there’s no way you’ll be able to take your trials in the spring—" "They’re making me take extra practice sessions," I explained. Not that it mattered. I planned on getting Lissa and me out of here before those practices really became an issue. "Extra sessions with who?" "That tall guy. Dimitri." Mason stopped walking and stared at me. "You’re putting in extra time with Belikov?" "Yeah, so what?" "So the man is a god." "Exaggerate much?" I asked. "No, I’m serious. I mean, he’s all quiet and antisocial usually but when he fights...wow. If you think you’re hurting now, you’re going to be dead when he’s done with you." Great. Something else to improve my day.

Let’s go now.” He extended his hand to help me get up. I grabbed it and, turning on my side facing the wall away from him to prevent him from seeing me, I asked, “Must we?” This was the closest I would ever come to saying, Stay. Just stay with me.

If you follow your heart, if you listen to your gut, and if you extend your hand to help another, not for any agenda, but for the sake of humanity, you are going to find the truth.

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.

Ethan extended his hand. "Mr. Merit. Thank you for your help." My grandfather shook his hand, but he also shook his head. "Thank your Sentinel. She's a fine representative of your House." Ethan looked at me, pride-and love?-in his eyes. "We're in agreement there.

It seems to me that the only way one can be helpful is to extend one's hand to someone else involuntarily, and without ever knowing how useful this will be.

The happiest people I've ever met, regardless of their profession, their social standing, or their economic status, are people that are fully engaged in the world around them. The most fulfilled people are the ones who get up every morning and stand for something larger than themselves. They are the people who care about others, who will extend a helping hand to someone in need or will speak up about an injustice when they see it.

I hope you are entertained by your prattling idiocy.” “Eternally so,” Aelin said with a mocking bow. “I suppose I’ll be more entertained when I wipe you from the face of the earth.” She sighed skyward. “Gods above, what a sight that will be.” Maeve extended a hand before her, darkness swirling in her cupped palm. “There are no gods left to watch, I’m afraid. And there are no gods left to help you now, Aelin Galathynius.” Aelin smiled, and Goldryn burned brighter. “I am a god.” She unleashed herself upon them.

Being generous often consists of simply extending a hand. That's hard to do if you are grasping tightly to your righteousness, your belief system, your superiority, your assumptions about others, your definition of normal.

She was extending a hand that I didn't know how to take, so I broke its fingers with my silence, she said, "You don't want to talk to me, do you?" I took my daybook out of my knapsack and found the next blank page, the second to last. "I don't speak," I wrote. "I'm sorry." She looked at the piece of paper, then at me, then back at the piece of paper, she covered her eyes with her hands and cried, tears seeped between her fingers, she cried and cried and cried, there weren't any napkins nearby, so I ripped the page from the book - "I don't speak. I'm sorry" - and used it to dry her cheeks, my explanation and apology ran down her face like mascara, she took my pen from me and wrote on the next blank page of my daybook, the final one: Please marry me I flipped back and pointed at: "Ha ha ha!" She flipped forward and pointed at: "Please marry me." I flipped back and pointed at: "Thank you, but I'm about to burst." She flipped forward and pointed at: "Please marry me." I flipped back and pointed at: "I'm not sure, but it's late." She flipped forward and pointed at: "Please marry me", and this time put her finger on "Please", as if to hold down the page and end the conversation, or as if she were trying to push through the word, and into what she was trying to say. I thought about life, about my life, the embarrassments, the little coincidences, the shadows of alarm clocks on bedside tables, I thought about my small victories and everything I'd seen destroyed. I'd swum through mink coats on my parents' bed while they hosted downstairs, I'd lost the only person with whom I could have spent my only life, I'd left behind a thousand tonnes of marble from which I could have released sculptures, I could have released myself from the marble of myself, I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough? The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering, what a mess I am, I thought, what a fool, how foolish and narrow, how worthless, how pinched and pathetic, how helpless in the universe. None of my pets knows their own name. What kind of person am I? I flipped back, one page at a time: Help

The culture in which we live stresses looking out for number one. Without adopting such a self-centered value system, we can demand the best of ourselves while we are extending our hands to help others.

Though no law was written, there was a crude rule of law, adherence to a covenant that transcended their selfish interests. It was biblical in its depth, and its importance grew with each step into wilderness. When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, to his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another.

I found out for the first time that things like this could happen. That a helping hand could be extended miraculously like that... you were the first one that taught me. Like all of these―" Nezumi slowly looked about his room. "―these thousand of stories here, you taught me that sometimes we encounter the most unexpected things. And that's why I was able to survive..." he lapsed into momentary silence. "So you're right. There are times when people are saved by other people. And you're the one that taught me that. You were the only one that taught me that. The debt I owe for that is high― unfortunately for me.

Why books?” Her brows rose. “I beg your pardon?” “Why are they your vice?” She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather bound books nearby and extending it to him. “Go on.” He took it. “Now what?” “Smell it.” He tilted his head. She couldn’t help but smile. “Do it.” He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled. “Not like that,” she said. “Really give it a smell.” He raised one brow but did as he was told. “What do you smell?” Sophie asked. “Leather and ink?” She shook her head. “Happiness. That’s what books smells like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness?

Never look down on anyone unless you're looking down to extend a helping hand, or word.

Extend your hand to help others and be an example.

Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both.

I ain't going to talk to you until I am blue in the face trying to make you change. I'm going to tell you what's on my mind and hope you get it and I'm going to move on. That's what we have to do sometimes--move on. Try to help others, extend your hand, and then help the next. If they don't want to accept it, keep moving on. Don't let them discourage you. Never stop doing what you're doing because of somebody else's unwillingness to learn.

If anyone attempted to rule the world by the gospel and to abolish all temporal law and sword on the plea that all are baptized and Christian, and that, according to the gospel, there shall be among them no law or sword - or need for either - pray tell me, friend, what would he be doing? He would be loosing the ropes and chains of the savage wild beasts and letting them bite and mangle everyone, meanwhile insisting that they were harmless, tame, and gentle creatures; but I would have the proof in my wounds. Just so would the wicked under the name of Christian abuse evangelical freedom, carry on their rascality, and insist that they were Christians subject neither to law nor sword, as some are already raving and ranting. To such a one we must say: Certainly it is true that Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, are subject neither to law nor sword, and have need of neither. But take heed and first fill the world with real Christians before you attempt to rule it in a Christian and evangelical manner. This you will never accomplish; for the world and the masses are and always will be unchristian, even if they are all baptized and Christian in name. Christians are few and far between (as the saying is). Therefore, it is out of the question that there should be a common Christian government over the whole world, or indeed over a single country or any considerable body of people, for the wicked always outnumber the good. Hence, a man who would venture to govern an entire country or the world with the gospel would be like a shepherd who should put together in one fold wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep, and let them mingle freely with one another, saying, “Help yourselves, and be good and peaceful toward one another. The fold is open, there is plenty of food. You need have no fear of dogs and clubs.” The sheep would doubtless keep the peace and allow themselves to be fed and governed peacefully, but they would not live long, nor would one beast survive another. For this reason one must carefully distinguish between these two governments. Both must be permitted to remain; the one to produce righteousness, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds. Neither one is sufficient in the world without the other. No one can become righteous in the sight of God by means of the temporal government, without Christ's spiritual government. Christ's government does not extend over all men; rather, Christians are always a minority in the midst of non-Christians. Now where temporal government or law alone prevails, there sheer hypocrisy is inevitable, even though the commandments be God's very own. For without the Holy Spirit in the heart no one becomes truly righteous, no matter how fine the works he does. On the other hand, where the spiritual government alone prevails over land and people, there wickedness is given free rein and the door is open for all manner of rascality, for the world as a whole cannot receive or comprehend it.

extend your hand to help other,s but don't expect anything back from them.

Adam found a break through the thicket and up the hill. He turned around and extended his hand to help me up. I froze, staring at him in the thick heat, leaves tickling my legs. Boys did not help girls. Not in my experience, anyway. When I was one of the boys, they tromped ahead of me and never once looked back to see if I was still there, much less in need of assistance. Boys had helped me only recently, when they wanted something. No, this walk through the woods would not be innocent. Taking his hand, I said, “Fank woo.” “Hm,” he laughed with his mouth closed.

When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, to his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another.

The redheaded man flashed her a dazzling smile. He really was gorgeous. "They're only teasing you." He stood and extended his hand to her. "I'm Darling Cruel and yes, my parents really were nasty enough to name me that." Kiara shook his gloved hand as she realized this was the man Syn had wanted to kill when they rescued her. Something in Dalring's manner reminded her of an aristocrat. He seemed easy enough to get along with, unlike the two Andarions. He indicated the Andarion eating her food as he retook his seat. "The glutton is Dancer Hauk." "Dancer?" Kiara was amused by the revelation. Hauk stiffened. "It means 'killer' in Andarion." Darling laughed, a deep throaty sound as he draped his arms over the back of the couch in a decidedly masculine pose. "You wish. Nykyrian told me it meant 'of beautiful cheeks.'" Hauk gave Nykyrian a glare that bordered on murder. Nykyrian shrugged, apparently unconcerned by the unspoken threat. "Don't waste that look on me, chiran. I didn't name you and I can't help it if your adoring mother was as sick as Darling's." -Darling, Kiara, Hauk, & Nykyrian

She could not read the look on his face—he hid what he felt from everyone and it had the opposite effect he intended: it only made her care more. Rafiq extended his hand to help her up the stairs. Her children would all leave. But Rafiq would remain a blessing in her life, the center, the constant, the only one who truly bore the weight of this moment the way she did.

Marcellus, it’s me.” The octopus shifts slightly out of its corner and peers at her, blinking its creepy eye. Who is this lady? And how did she get in here, anyway? She nods, encouraging. “It’s okay.” She holds out her hand, and to Cameron’s shock the creature extends one of its arms and winds it around her wrist. She repeats, “It’s okay. I’m going to help you down now, all right?” The octopus nods. Wait, no. It did not. Did it? He rubs his eyes. Are they pumping hallucinogens through the ductwork here?

Therapy labels as sickness what might otherwise be judged as weak or willful actions; it thus equips the patient to fight (or resign himself to) the disease, instead of irrationally finding fault with himself. Inappropriately extended beyond the consulting room, however, therapeutic morality encourages a permanent suspension of the moral sense. There is a close connection, in turn, between the erosion of moral responsibility and the waning of the capacity for self-help—in the categories used by John R. Seeley, between the elimination of culpability and the elimination of competence. "What says 'you are not guilty' says also 'you cannot help yourself.' " Therapy legitimates deviance as sickness, but it simultaneously pronounces the patient unfit to manage his own life and delivers him into the hands of a specialist.

My name is Captain Najarian. Most of what’s left of my platoon just call me Cap.” He extended a hand to help Doc up. “The shooter is Corporal Hildie. Her illegal fraternizing partner next to her is Lieutenant Butz. Just call him ‘Buzz’ or he gets mad. This is my wife Dina,” he said, introducing the woman to his right. “And then there’s Chaplin. We think he might be prior military, but since he hasn’t said a word in the two months we’ve known him, we don’t have a clue.

If God gives you comfort, extend a comforting hand unto others. If God saves you, extend a saving hand unto others

You... didn't use the knockout pills, I take it?" he finally asked, staring out into the void. I shook my head. He sat down and we spilt the last Twinkie. "You realise we just sent a herd of flying pigs soaring out over medieval Wales," I said, sometime later, when the last little oinking cloud had disappeared over the horizon. "Hm." "You don't look too concerned." Rosier got to his feet and then actually extended a hand to help me up. "Maybe it will give the Pythias something else to do. And in any case......" "In any case?" " Well. The expression had to start somewhere, didn't it?

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

The entire room turns and stares. There’s no doubt what they see—ripped jeans, a black T-shirt, tattoos and earrings. I don’t care what they see. All I care about is what she sees: a person unwelcomed or the guy she loves. A tear flows down her face, and the hand wrapped at her waist tells me she’s paralyzed. In a long gold ball gown that’s more skirt than dress, Rachel is truly the angel I believe her to be. A man in a tuxedo stands. “Son, I think you have the wrong room.” “No. I don’t.” I stride between the tables, keeping my eyes locked with hers. The closer I get, the more she straightens. Her hand falls from her stomach, and the tear clears from her face. Rachel gazes at me as if I’m a dream. I extend my hand, palm out. “I need help.” Her blue eyes lose their glaze, and the hue of violet I love so much returns. “So do I.”

When I’m sitting by my gay friends in church, I hear everything through their ears. When I’m with my recently divorced friend, I hear it through hers. This is good practice. It helps uncenter us (which is, you know, the whole counsel of the New Testament) and sharpens our eye for our sisters and brothers. It trains us to think critically about community, language, felt needs, and inclusion, shaking off autopilot and setting a wider table. We must examine who is invited, who is asked to teach, who is asked to contribute, who is called into leadership. It is one thing to “feel nice feelings” toward the minority voice; it is something else entirely to challenge existing power structures to include the whole variety of God’s people. This is not hard or fancy work. It looks like diversifying small groups and leadership, not defaulting to homogeny as the standard operating procedure. Closer in, it looks like coffee dates, dinner invites, the warm hand of friendship extended to women or families outside your demographic. It means considering the stories around the table before launching into an assumed shared narrative. It includes the old biblical wisdom on being slow to speak and quick to listen, because as much as we love to talk, share, and talk-share some more, there is a special holiness reserved for the practice of listening and deferring.

Overcome and sobbing, the young woman sank down before the cross at the side of the road, where thousands of pilgrims had lain and thanked God because helping hands were extended to them on their journey through the perilous and beautiful world.

You still out there, Princess?” My lips parted as my eyes widened at the sound of his voice. It was Hawke. In that room. I couldn’t believe it. “Or have you fallen to your death?” He continued. I briefly debated the merits of jumping. “I really hope that’s not the case since I’m pretty positive that would reflect poorly on me since I assumed you were in your room.” A pause. ”Behaving. And not on a ledge, several dozen feet in the air, for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom but am dying to learn.”? “Dammit,” I whispered, looking around as if I could find another escape route. Which was stupid. Unless I suddenly sprouted wings, the only exit point was through the window. A heartbeat later, Hawke stuck his head out and looked up at me. The soft glow of the lamp glanced off his cheekbone as he raised his brow. “Hi?” I squeaked. He stared at me a moment. “Get inside.” I didn’t move. With a sigh so heavy it should’ve rattled the walls, he extended his hand toward me. “Now.” “You could say please,” I muttered. His eyes narrowed. “There are a whole lot of things I could say to you that you should be grateful I’m keeping to myself.” “Whatever,” I grumbled. “Move back.” He waited, but when I didn’t take his hand, he disappeared back into the room, grousing under his breath. “If you fall, you’re going to be in so much trouble.” “If I fall, I’ll be dead, so I’m not sure how I’d also be in trouble.” “Poppy,” he snapped, and I couldn’t help it. I grinned.

Understand the nuances of rivalry can help extend your career. It doesn’t mean you’ll be holding hands across the finish line. It means their presence makes you better, faster, stronger. Because of them, you’ll find out exactly what you are made of.

Understanding the nuances of rivalry can help extend your career. It doesn’t mean you’ll be holding hands across the finish line. It means their presence makes you better, faster, stronger. Because of them, you’ll find out exactly what you are made of.

A dark flask dangled from the bedpost like a ripe fruit.   Someone he could not see was seated beside his bed. He turned his head and craned his neck to no avail. At last he extended a hand toward the visitor; and the visitor took it between his own, which were large and hard and warm. As soon as their hands touched, he knew. You said you weren’t going to help, he told the visitor. You said I wasn’t to expect help from you, yet here you are. The visitor did not reply, but his hands were clean and gentle and full of healing.

You... didn't use the knockout pills, I take it?" he finally asked, staring out into the void. I shook my head. He sat down and we spilt the last Twinkie. "You realise we just sent a herd of flying pigs soaring out over medieval Wales," I said, sometime later, when the last little oinking cloud had disappeared over the horizon. "Hm." "You don't look too concerned." Rosier got to his feet and then actually extended a hand to help me up. "Maybe it will give the Pythias something else to do. And in any case......" "I any case?" " Well. The expression had to start somewhere, didn't it?

If every day you were to walk past the same individual and ignore him, never smiling or saying hello or returning any kind gesture he extended toward you, would you expect that same individual to readily respond if suddenly you were to implore his helping hand? Then don’t ignore God. Say ‘hello’ now and then.

BUT WHAT, really, had the People’s Party—the farmers who called themselves “Alliancemen”—asked for? Only that when men found themselves at the mercy of forces too big for them to fight alone, government—their government—help them fight. What were the demands for railroad and bank regulation, for government loans, for public-works projects, but an expression of a belief that after men have banded together and formed a government, they have a right, when they are being crushed by conditions over which they have no control, to ask that government to extend a helping hand to them—if necessary, to fight for them, to be their champion? They

The acts of kindness I do for my community comes from the heart. If your mind wonders why I serve the community with such a kind heart, there goes a great connection between heart and mind. Once your mind figures out why my heart drives me to service my community with unselfish intentions, this will lead to you extending a helping hand and rendering service to your community; there goes a great connection between heart, mind and body. We will both rejoice in the great feeling of doing community service and our souls will experience fulfillment together; there goes a great connection between heart, mind, body and soul. Our community service is complete.

Oh, good lord! What did she truly know of the colonel? That he was friendly and Mr. Darcy’s cousin. What did she know of the man whose arm offered her protection and safety? That Mr. Darcy was far more than she ever expected him to be. And that he was standing in the rain with his hand extended, waiting to help her inside. Lizzy, you are a dunce.

You thought yourself the lynx, your claws gladly sheathed, but always, should you need them, they would extend from the tufted fur and velvet-soft paws to slash at any foe. But you are not the lynx. You are the caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful butterfly whose wings glitter with promse and whose touch helps the flower grow." Uluenia closed Desidora's hand. "But you have lost your jaws.

Though no law was written, there was a crude rule of law, adherence to a covenant that transcended their selfish interests. It was biblical in its depth, and its importance grew with each step into wilderness. When the need arose, a man extended a helping hand to his friends, to his partners, to strangers. In so doing, each knew that his own survival might one day depend upon the reaching grasp of another. The

You really aren’t very good,” she said with brutal honesty. “I am not used to striking young girls,” I said. “How could you become used to it?” She laughed. “To grow used to a thing, you must do it over and again. I expect you have never struck a woman even once.” Celean extended a hand. I took it in what I hoped was a gracious manner, and she helped pull me to my feet. “I mean where I come from, it is not right to fight with women.” “I do not understand,” she said. “Do they not

Don't devote yourself to anyone. Eventually, everyone walks out of your life If you are so filled with love, there are many out there who are waiting for just one kind gesture, one kind word Extend your hand and help the right ones. Again, don't get involved! Attachment only leads to emotional exhaustion. This world is a simple place. Get busy exploring its simplicity. Get busy exploring its beauty. People are complicated. Life is too short to get involved in their complications.

And messieurs, mesdames, mesdemoiselles, you must not presume that it is enough for you to condescend to the criminal child, lavishing your attention, your concern, your indulgence upon him in the belief that he will respond with affection and gratitude: for that you will have to be the child and you will have to be the crime as well, hallowing it through a magnificent life, through daring to liberate yourself from worldly powers. Since we are divided—since some of us have shown such desire and daring—divided between the not-guilty (I won’t say innocent), between you, the not-guilty, and us, the guilty, remember that all your life you’ve lived on one side where you presume yourselves at no risk whatsoever, where you can even feel Good, extend a hand to shake. I’ve made my own decision, however: I’m on the side of crime. And I’ll help these children, not to return to your houses, your factories, your schools, your laws, and your sacraments, but to steal them all.

They aren’t destroying everything, then,” she said. “Yes, how terribly blessed we must be.” Aturach laughed, extending his arms to the sky. “Thank you, O Wise Healer, for in Your infinite wisdom, You have decided to kill only most of the people in this city. Let all who doubt Your mercy hear my cry.” He cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed into the night sky. “It could have been worse, ingrates! Fall to your knees and be grateful that the Gods killed only half of your families!” “You’re not helping.

Please wait here. "Annoying yet romantic," she said aloud. She sat down on the folding chair and peered inside the paper bag. A handful of tiny jam-filled donuts dusted with cinnamon and sugar sent up an intoxicating scent. The bag was warm in her hands, flecked with little bits of oil seeping through. Luce popped one into her mouth and took a sip from the tiny white cup, which contained the richest, most delightful espresso Luce had ever tasted. "Enjoying the bombolini?" Daniel called from below. Luce shot to her feet and leaned over the railing to find him standing at the back of a gondola painted with images of angels. He wore a flat straw hat bound with a thick red ribbon, and used a broad wooden paddle to steer the boat slowly toward her. Her heart surged the way it did each time she first saw Daniel in another life. But he was here. He was hers. This was happening now. "Dip them in the espresso, then tell me what it's like to be in Heaven," Daniel said, smiling up at her. "How do I get down to you?" she called. He pointed to the narrowest spiral staircase Luce had ever seen, just to the right of the railing. She grabbed the coffee and bag of donuts, slipped the peony stem behind her ear, and made for the steps. She could feel Daniel's eyes on her as she climbed over the railing and slinked down the stairs. Every time she made a full rotation on the staircase, she caught a teasing flash of his violet eyes. By the time she made it to the bottom, he had extended his hand to help her onto the boat. There was the electricity she'd been yearning for since she awoke. The spark that passed between them every time they touched. Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in so that there was no space between their bodies. He kissed her, long and deep, until she was dizzy. "Now that's the way to start a morning." Daniel's fingers traced the petals of the peony behind her ear. A slight weight suddenly tugged at her neck and when she reached up, her hands found a find chain, which her fingers traced down to a silver locket. She held it out and looked at the red rose engraved on its face. Her locket!

Only that when men found themselves at the mercy of forces too big for them to fight alone, government—their government—help them fight. What were the demands for railroad and bank regulation, for government loans, for public-works projects, but an expression of a belief that after men have banded together and formed a government, they have a right, when they are being crushed by conditions over which they have no control, to ask that government to extend a helping hand to them—if necessary, to fight for them, to be their champion?

Now that you’re old, cut yourself some slack, would you? Let yourself off the hook. Give yourself a break. You don’t have to do it all anymore. Take it easy for a change. It’s OK with the rest of the world. So why not you? For the first time in your life, do what you want. Not what everyone else thinks you should. Not what you think everyone else thinks you should. Do what you want. Excuse yourself. Say no. Back out. Beg off. Stay home. Take a rain check. Take a nap. Watch the ball game on TV. Anything but what you’d rather not do but feel you have to for everyone else's sake but your own. And then feel bad about having done it. That's plain wrong. And ask for some help when you need it: 'It’s too heavy.' 'It's too far.' Too near. Too cold. Too hot. Too bright. Too dark. Whatever. It's OK because there's always going to be something you need help with anymore. And be grateful for the helping hand. You'll find more and more people extend one to you these days. Whatever the reason for accepting you’ve got the best excuse in the world. The only one you’ll ever need: 'Hey, I’m old.

Then Richard did something surprising. He politely halted the conversation. In his flip flops, he climbed onto the table amid our plates and glasses. He then extended his hand to Kristina , who was sitting next to me, and helped her up onto the table. "Let's dance," he said. And they did. A beautiful slow dance right there in the middle of the feast while everyone else watched--surprised and amused--cutlery and wine glasses be damned. It was the perfect reminder that life is not all business. We're here in this brief span of time to be happy together.

Prayer to an Unseen Friend My special friend, thank you for listening to me. You know how hard I am trying to fulfill your faith in me. Thank You, also for the place in which I dwell. Let neither work nor play, no matter how satisfying or glorious, ever separate me for long from my precious family. Teach me how to play the game of life with fairness, courage, fortitude and confidence. Provide me with a few friends who understand me and yet remain my friends. Allow me a forgiving heart and a mind unafraid to travel though the trail may not be marked. Give me a sense of humor and a little leisure with nothing to do. Help me to strive for the highest legitimate reward of merit, ambition and opportunity, and yet never allow me to forget to extend a kindly, helping hand to others who need encouragement and assistance. Provide me with the strength to encounter whatever is to come, that I be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in anger and always prepared for any change of fortune. Enable me to give a smile instead of a frown, a kindly word instead of harshness and bitterness. Make me sympathetic to the grief of others, realizing that there are hidden woes in every life, no matter how exalted. Keep me forever serene in every activity of life, neither unduly boastful nor given to the more serious sin of self-depreciation. In sorrow, may my soul be uplifted, by the thought that if there were no shadow, there would be no sunshine. In failure, preserve my faith. In success, keep me humble. Steady me to do the full share of my work, and more, as well as I can, and when that is done, stop me, pay me what wages Thou wilt, and permit me to say, from a loving heart... A grateful Amen

ESTABLISHING A DAILY MEDITATION First select a suitable space for your regular meditation. It can be wherever you can sit easily with minimal disturbance: a corner of your bedroom or any other quiet spot in your home. Place a meditation cushion or chair there for your use. Arrange what is around so that you are reminded of your meditative purpose, so that it feels like a sacred and peaceful space. You may wish to make a simple altar with a flower or sacred image, or place your favorite spiritual books there for a few moments of inspiring reading. Let yourself enjoy creating this space for yourself. Then select a regular time for practice that suits your schedule and temperament. If you are a morning person, experiment with a sitting before breakfast. If evening fits your temperament or schedule better, try that first. Begin with sitting ten or twenty minutes at a time. Later you can sit longer or more frequently. Daily meditation can become like bathing or toothbrushing. It can bring a regular cleansing and calming to your heart and mind. Find a posture on the chair or cushion in which you can easily sit erect without being rigid. Let your body be firmly planted on the earth, your hands resting easily, your heart soft, your eyes closed gently. At first feel your body and consciously soften any obvious tension. Let go of any habitual thoughts or plans. Bring your attention to feel the sensations of your breathing. Take a few deep breaths to sense where you can feel the breath most easily, as coolness or tingling in the nostrils or throat, as movement of the chest, or rise and fall of the belly. Then let your breath be natural. Feel the sensations of your natural breathing very carefully, relaxing into each breath as you feel it, noticing how the soft sensations of breathing come and go with the changing breath. After a few breaths your mind will probably wander. When you notice this, no matter how long or short a time you have been away, simply come back to the next breath. Before you return, you can mindfully acknowledge where you have gone with a soft word in the back of your mind, such as “thinking,” “wandering,” “hearing,” “itching.” After softly and silently naming to yourself where your attention has been, gently and directly return to feel the next breath. Later on in your meditation you will be able to work with the places your mind wanders to, but for initial training, one word of acknowledgment and a simple return to the breath is best. As you sit, let the breath change rhythms naturally, allowing it to be short, long, fast, slow, rough, or easy. Calm yourself by relaxing into the breath. When your breath becomes soft, let your attention become gentle and careful, as soft as the breath itself. Like training a puppy, gently bring yourself back a thousand times. Over weeks and months of this practice you will gradually learn to calm and center yourself using the breath. There will be many cycles in this process, stormy days alternating with clear days. Just stay with it. As you do, listening deeply, you will find the breath helping to connect and quiet your whole body and mind. Working with the breath is an excellent foundation for the other meditations presented in this book. After developing some calm and skills, and connecting with your breath, you can then extend your range of meditation to include healing and awareness of all the levels of your body and mind. You will discover how awareness of your breath can serve as a steady basis for all you do.

I understand Mrs. Donovan is a free woman, Mr. Dardano. It’s all for a good cause after all, isn’t it?” “Fifty thousand dollars,” Alessandro countered, deadly calm though inside he was fairly trembling with rage. “One hundred thousand dollars,” Hadley countered, getting to his feet, appearing to enjoy the spectacle of all eyes being on the two of them now. Alessandro stood, his fists clenched tight at his sides. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Bree was staring at them both, her mouth open. Kevin smiled at him. “Three hundred thousand dollars,” “One million dollars,” Alessandro shot back, his eyes clouding with rage. So help him, if the son of a bitch opened his mouth, Alessandro was gonna shove his fist down his throat. The entire ballroom was dead silent. Holding its breath. “Uh…Going once?” Alex announced. Kevin met Alessandro’s gaze, smirking. “Going twice?” Kevin lifted his hands in surrender. “The best man won. I hope you get more than a dance, my friend,” “Sold,” Alex announced, slamming the little gavel down. Alessandro felt a rush of both victory and relief as he stared at Brianna. He walked up to her and extended his hand. “Darling?

Goggles but no bathing suit?" she asked. Daniel blushed. "I guess that was stupid. But I was in a hurry, only thinking about what you would need to get the halo." He drove the paddle back into the water, propelling them more quickly than a speedboat. "You can swim in your underwear, right?" Now Luce blushed. Under normal circumstances, the question might have seemed thrilling, something they both would have giggled at. Not these nine days. She nodded. Eight days now. Daniel was deadly serious. Luce just swallowed hard and said, "Of course." The pair of green-gray spires grew larger, more detailed, and then they were upon them. They were tall and conical, made of rusted slats of copper. They had once been capped by small teardrop-shaped copper flags sculpted to look like they were rippling in the wind, but one weathered flag was pocked with holes, and the other had broken off completely. In the open water, the spires' protrusion was bizarre, suggesting a cavernous cathedral of the deep. Luce wondered how long ago the church had sunk, how deep it sat below. The thought of diving down there in ridiculous goggles and mom-bought underwear made her shudder. "This church must be huge," she said. She meant I don't think I can do this. I can't breathe underwater. How are we going to find one small halo sunk in the middle of the sea? "I can take you down as far as the chapel itself, but only that far. So long as you hold on to my hand." Daniel extended a warm hand to help Luce stand up in the gondola. "Breathing will not be a problem. But the church will still be sanctified, which means I'll need you to find the halo and bring it out to me." Daniel yanked his T-shirt off over his head, dropping it to the bench of the gondola. He stepped out of his pants quickly, perfectly balanced on the boat, then kicked off his tennis shoes. Luce watched, feeling something stir inside her, until she realized she was supposed to be stripping down, too. She kicked off her boots, tugged off her socks, stepped out of her jeans as modestly as she could. Daniel held her hand to help her balance; he was watching her but not the way she would have expected. He was worried about her, the goose bumps rising on her skin. He rubbed her arms when she slipped off he sweater and stood freezing in her sensible underwear n the gondola in the middle of the Venetian lagoon. Again she shivered, cold and fear an indecipherable mass inside her. But her voice sounded brave when she tugged the goggles, which pinched, down over her eyes and said, "Okay, let's swim." They held hands, just like they had the last time they'd swum together at Sword & Cross. As their feet lifted off the varnished floor of the gondola, Daniel's hand tugged her upward, higher than she ever could have jumped herself-and then they dove. Her body broke the surface of the sea, which wasn't as cold as she'd expected. In fact, the closer she swam beside Daniel, the warmer the wake around them grew. He was glowing.

All right,” he said slowly, as if he’d only just made up his mind about something. “You win. I’ve decided to help you.” Serilda’s heart lifted, filling fast with untethered hope. “In exchange,” he continued, “for this.” He pointed a finger at her. His sleeve slipped back toward his elbow, revealing a ghastly knot of scar tissue above his wrist. Serilda gaped at his extended arm, momentarily speechless. He was pointing at her heart. She stepped back and placed a protective hand to her chest, where she could feel her heartbeat thudding underneath. Her gaze lingered on his hand, as if he might reach into her chest and tear out the beating organ at any moment. He didn’t exactly look like one of the dark ones, with their majestic figures and flawless beauty, but he didn’t look half-faded like a ghost either. He seemed harmless enough, but she couldn’t trust anyone in this castle. The boy frowned, confused at her reaction. Then understanding hit him and he dropped his hand with a roll of his eyes. “Not your heart”, he said, exasperated. “That locket.” Oh. That. Her hand shifted to the chain around her neck. She gripped the locket, still hanging open, in her fist. “It will hardly suit you.” “Strongly disagree. Besides, there’s something familiar about her.

I don’t want to be the type of beautiful princess who sits in her castle with servants waiting on her hand and foot. I want to be the type of princess who makes a difference in the kingdom, one who gets up, goes out, and serves others by being God’s hands and feet. God has given us power and authority for a purpose—to make a difference in the kingdom. We’re to help set captives free from the evil oppression of Satan. We’re to extend our hands with the sword of the Spirit into the dark and lonely pits where prisoners are being held captive. We’re to pray and encourage them to grab hold of the sword (God’s Word and truth) and help pull them out of the darkness and into the light.

A dachshund came out of the bushes. Ruzena's father extended his pole toward him, but the dog alertly evaded it and ran over to the boy, who lifted him up and hugged him. Other old men rushed over to help Ruzena's father and tear the dachshund out of the boy's arms. The boy was crying, shouting, and grappling with them so that the old men had to twist his arms and put a hand over his mouth because his cries were attracting too much attention from the passersby, who were turning to look but not daring to intervene. [...] Jakub was leading the dog by the collar toward the hotel steps when one of the old men shouted: "Release that dog at once!" And the other old man: "In the name of the law!" Jakub pretended not to notice the old men and kept going, but behind him a pole slowly descended alongside his body and the wire loop wavered clumsily over the boxer's head. Jakub grabbed the end of the pole and brusquely pushed it aside. A third old man ran up and shouted: "Its an attack on law and order! I'm going to call the police!" And the high-pitched voice of another old man complained: "He ran on the grass! He ran in the playground, where it's prohibited! He pissed in the kids' sandbox! Do you like dogs more than children?" The boxer scampered around the room curiously, unaware that he had just escaped danger. Jakub stretched out on the daybed, wondering what to do with him. He liked the lively, good-natured dog. The insouciance with which, in a few minutes, he had made himself at home in a strange room and struck up a friendship with a strange man was nearly suspicious and seemed to verge on stupidity. After sniffing all corners of the room, he leaped up on the daybed and lay down beside Jakub. Jakub was startled, but he welcomed without reservation this sign of camaraderie. He put his hand on the dog's back and felt with delight the warmth of the animal's body. He had always liked dogs. They were familiar, affectionate, devoted, and at the same time entirely incomprehensible. We will never know what actually goes on in the heads and hearts of these confident, merry emissaries from incomprehensible nature.

Sebastian nodded his way. “This is Hadrian … er, Hadrian…” He snapped his fingers and looked for help. “Blackwater.” He extended his hand and shook with each. “And where do you hail from, Hadrian?” Eugene asked. “Nowhere really.” “A man with no home?” Samuel’s voice was nasal and a bit suspicious. Hadrian imagined him the type of man to count money handed him by a priest. “What do you mean?” Eugene asked. “He came off the boat from Calis. We talked about it just last night.” “Don’t be a fool, Eugene,” Sebastian said. “Do you think Calians have sandy hair and blue eyes? Calians are swarthy brutes and clever beyond measure. Never trust one, any of you.” “What were you doing in Calis, then?” Eugene’s tone was inquisitorial and spiteful, as if Hadrian had been the one to declare him foolish. “Working.” “Making his fortune, I suspect,” Sebastian said, motioning toward Hadrian. “The man wears a heavy purse. You should be half as successful, Eugene.” “All Calian copper dins, I’ll wager.” Eugene sustained his bitter tone. “If not, he’d have a fine wool robe like us.” “He wears a fine steel sword, two of them in fact. So you might consider your words more carefully,” Sebastian said. “Three,” Samuel added. “He keeps another in his cabin. A big one.” “There you have it, Eugene. The man spends all his coin on steel, but by all means go right on insulting him. I’m certain Samuel and I can manage just fine without you.

For three days and three nights, Phædrus stares at the wall of the bedroom, his thoughts moving neither forward nor backward, staying only at the instant. His wife asks if he is sick, and he does not answer. His wife becomes angry, but Phædrus listens without responding. He is aware of what she says but is no longer able to feel any urgency about it. Not only are his thoughts slowing down, but his desires too. And they slow and slow, as if gaining an imponderable mass. So heavy, so tired, but no sleep comes. He feels like a giant, a million miles tall. He feels himself extending into the universe with no limit. He begins to discard things, encumbrances that he has carried with him all his life. He tells his wife to leave with the children, to consider themselves separated. Fear of loathsomeness and shame disappear when his urine flows not deliberately but naturally on the floor of the room. Fear of pain, the pain of the martyrs is overcome when cigarettes burn not deliberately but naturally down into his fingers until they are extinguished by blisters formed by their own heat. His wife sees his injured hands and the urine on the floor and calls for help. But before help comes, slowly, imperceptibly at first, the entire consciousness of Phædrus begins to come apart — to dissolve and fade away. Then gradually he no longer wonders what will happen next. He knows what will happen next, and tears flow for his family and for himself and for this world.

Neliss, why is this rug wet?” Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before. “We have a rug there?” “Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?” “Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about.” “You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound.” “Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?” “I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again.” “Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately.” “I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is.” Legna came around the corner, moving into his embrace with her hands behind her back. He immediately tried to see what she had in them. “What is that?” “Remember when you asked me why I cut my hair?” “Ah yes, the surprise. Took you long enough to get to it.” “If you do not stop, I am not going to give it to you.” “Okay. I am stopping. What is it?” She held out the box tied with a ribbon to him and he accepted it with a lopsided smile. “I do not think I even remember the last time I received a gift,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek warmly. He changed his mind, though, and opted to go for her mouth next. She smiled beneath the cling of their lips and pushed away. “Open it.” He reached for the ribbon and soon was pulling the top off the box. “What is this?” “Gideon, what does it look like?” He picked up the woven circlet with a finger and inspected it closely. It was an intricately and meticulously fashioned necklace, clearly made strand by strand from the coffee-colored locks of his mate’s hair. In the center of the choker was a silver oval with the smallest writing he had ever seen filling it from top to bottom. “What does it say?” “It is the medics’ code of ethics,” she said softly, taking it from him and slipping behind him to link the piece around his neck beneath his hair. “And it fits perfectly.” She came around to look at it, smiling. “I knew it would look handsome on you.” “I do not usually wear jewelry or ornamentation, but . . . it feels nice. How on earth did they make this?” “Well, it took forever, if you want to know why it took so long for me to make good on the surprise. But I wanted you to have something that was a little bit of me and a little bit of you.” “I already have something like that. It is you. And . . . and me, I guess,” he laughed. “We are a little bit of each other for the rest of our lives.” “See, that makes this a perfect symbol of our love,” she said smartly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. “Well, thank you, sweet. It is a great present and an excellent surprise. Now, if you really want to surprise me, help me find out what that noise is.

Get it off!" Julian howled, shimmying his back in front of Sacha. Sacha was too busy being doubled over laughing his ass off to give half a shit about the fact that his friend had gotten crapped on by a bird. For the second time in less than an hour. We were at King's Park in Perth, the largest inner-city park in the world, the day after we’d arrived in the Land Down Under. Sacha, Julian, my brother, Isaiah and I had all caught a ride to the beautiful location late that morning. What had started with me banging on my brother’s door so he could accompany me somewhere, ended up becoming an extended invitation to the other guys during breakfast. "Quit laughing and somebody wipe it off!" Julian was practically screeching as he made his stop in front of me, hoping I'd be his savior. I wanted to help Julian with his issue. Really. I did. The problem was that I couldn't stop cracking up either. “Gaby! Please! Get it off!” It seriously took everything inside of me to get it together. I finally cleaned the gooey spot with the last napkin I’d tucked into my pocket earlier, but it took longer than it normally would have. A second later another bird swarmed overhead and made him start cursing in annoyance and probably fear. It was bad enough to get pooped on once, but twice? And in front of Eli and Sacha? There was no way Julian was ever going to be able to live it down. "I feel like I should take a shit on you too now. What exactly am I missing out on, you know?" Eli cackled, slapping the poor guy on the back before immediately yanking his hand away and checking it with a grimace. The same bird swooped dangerously over our heads, and I started crying, not imagining the look of pure horror on Julian's face all over again. "You better run before they come after you again," Sacha teased him through a gulp of air. He stole a glance in my direction, and then lost it once more; this loud, belly-aching laugh that fueled my own.

Yesterday while I was on the side of the mat next to some wrestlers who were warming up for their next match, I found myself standing side by side next to an extraordinary wrestler. He was warming up and he had that look of desperation on his face that wrestlers get when their match is about to start and their coach is across the gym coaching on another mat in a match that is already in progress. “Hey do you have a coach.” I asked him. “He's not here right now.” He quietly answered me ready to take on the task of wrestling his opponent alone. “Would you mind if I coached you?” His face tilted up at me with a slight smile and said. “That would be great.” Through the sounds of whistles and yelling fans I heard him ask me what my name was. “My name is John.” I replied. “Hi John, I am Nishan” he said while extending his hand for a handshake. He paused for a second and then he said to me: “John I am going to lose this match”. He said that as if he was preparing me so I wouldn’t get hurt when my coaching skills didn’t work magic with him today. I just said, “Nishan - No score of a match will ever make you a winner. You are already a winner by stepping onto that mat.” With that he just smiled and slowly ran on to the mat, ready for battle, but half knowing what the probable outcome would be. When you first see Nishan you will notice that his legs are frail - very frail. So frail that they have to be supported by custom made, form fitted braces to help support and straighten his limbs. Braces that I recognize all to well. Some would say Nishan has a handicap. I say that he has a gift. To me the word handicap is a word that describes what one “can’t do”. That doesn’t describe Nishan. Nishan is doing. The word “gift” is a word that describes something of value that you give to others. And without knowing it, Nishan is giving us all a gift. I believe Nishan’s gift is inspiration. The ability to look the odds in the eye and say “You don’t pertain to me.” The ability to keep moving forward. Perseverance. A “Whatever it takes” attitude. As he predicted, the outcome of his match wasn’t great. That is, if the only thing you judge a wrestling match by is the actual score. Nishan tried as hard as he could, but he couldn’t overcome the twenty-six pound weight difference that he was giving up to his opponent on this day in order to compete. You see, Nishan weighs only 80 pounds and the lowest weight class in this tournament was 106. Nishan knew he was spotting his opponent 26 pounds going into every match on this day. He wrestled anyway. I never did get the chance to ask him why he wrestles, but if I had to guess I would say, after watching him all day long, that Nishan wrestles for the same reasons that we all wrestle for. We wrestle to feel alive, to push ourselves to our mental, physical and emotional limits - levels we never knew we could reach. We wrestle to learn to use 100% of what we have today in hopes that our maximum today will be our minimum tomorrow. We wrestle to measure where we started from, to know where we are now, and to plan on getting where we want to be in the future. We wrestle to look the seemingly insurmountable opponent right in the eye and say, “Bring it on. - I can take whatever you can dish out.” Sometimes life is your opponent and just showing up is a victory. You don't need to score more points than your opponent in order to accomplish that. No Nishan didn’t score more points than any of his opponents on this day, that would have been nice, but I don’t believe that was the most important thing to Nishan. Without knowing for sure - the most important thing to him on this day was to walk with pride like a wrestler up to a thirty two foot circle, have all eyes from the crowd on him, to watch him compete one on one against his opponent - giving it all that he had. That is what competition is all about. Most of the times in wrestlin

Brunelleschi’s successor as a theorist of linear perspective was another of the towering Renaissance polymaths, Leon Battista Alberti (1404 –1472), who refined many of Brunelleschi’s experiments and extended his discoveries about perspective. An artist, architect, engineer, and writer, Alberti was like Leonardo in many ways: both were illegitimate sons of prosperous fathers, athletic and good-looking, never-married, and fascinated by everything from math to art. One difference is that Alberti’s illegitimacy did not prevent him from being given a classical education. His father helped him get a dispensation from the Church laws barring illegitimate children from taking holy orders or holding ecclesiastical offices, and he studied law at Bologna, was ordained as a priest, and became a writer for the pope. During his early thirties, Alberti wrote his masterpiece analyzing painting and perspective, On Painting, the Italian edition of which was dedicated to Brunelleschi. Alberti had an engineer’s instinct for collaboration and, like Leonardo, was “a lover of friendship” and “open-hearted,” according to the scholar Anthony Grafton. He also honed the skills of courtiership. Interested in every art and technology, he would grill people from all walks of life, from cobblers to university scholars, to learn their secrets. In other words, he was much like Leonardo, except in one respect: Leonardo was not strongly motivated by the goal of furthering human knowledge by openly disseminating and publishing his findings; Alberti, on the other hand, was dedicated to sharing his work, gathering a community of intellectual colleagues who could build on each other’s discoveries, and promoting open discussion and publication as a way to advance the accumulation of learning. A maestro of collaborative practices, he believed, according to Grafton, in “discourse in the public sphere.” When Leonardo was a teenager in Florence, Alberti was in his sixties and spending much of his time in Rome, so it is unlikely they spent time together. Alberti was a major influence nonetheless.

The lady was all business. “Come,” she said, extending a hand. The boy looked up at his mother. He had no reason to hold back the tears, and he didn’t. They flowed down his face freely. He jumped to his feet and hugged her, shattering her heart a million times over. She squeezed him back. “You’re going to do great things for this world,” she whispered, somehow keeping herself under control. “You’re going to make me so proud. I love you, sweet boy. I love you so much and don’t you ever forget it.” His only response was to sob into her shoulder. And that said everything. Finally it had to end. “I’m very sorry,” the lady in the dark suit and mask said. “But we have a tight schedule. Truly, I’m sorry.” “Go on now,” the mother said to her son. “Go on, and be brave.” He pulled back, his face wet, his eyes red. A strength seemed to come over him and he nodded, helping her believe he’d be okay in the end. He was strong, this one. The boy turned away, never to look at her again. He walked to the door and went through it with no hesitation. No glance back, no complaints. “Thank you again,” the visiting lady said. She followed the boy out.

His hand felt odd against her swollen belly. She started to speak at the same moment that the baby suddenly moved. Tate’s hand jerked back as if it had been stung. He stared at her stomach with pure horror as it fluttered again. She couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing. “Is that…normal?” he wanted to know. “It’s a baby,” she said softly. “They move around. He kicks a little. Not much, just yet, but as he grows, he’ll get stronger.” “I never realized…” He drew in a long breath and put his hand back against her body. “Cecily, does it hurt you when he…” He hesitated. His black, stunned eyes met hers. “He?” She nodded. “They can tell, so soon?” “Yes,” she said simply. “They did an ultrasound.” His fingers became caressing. A son. He was going to have a son. He swallowed. It was a shock. He hadn’t thought past her pregnancy, but now he realized that there was going to be a miniature version of himself and Cecily, a child who would embody the traits of all his ancestors. All his ancestors. It made him feel humble. “How did you find me?” she asked. He glared into her eyes. “Not with any help from you, let me tell you! It took me forever to track down the driver who brought you to Nashville. He was off on extended sick leave, and it wasn’t until this week that anybody remembered he’d worked that route before Christmas.” She averted her eyes. “I didn’t want to be found.” “So I noticed. But you have been, and you’re damned well coming home,” he said furiously. “I’m damned if I’m going to leave you here at the mercy of people who go nuts over an inch of snow!” She sat up, displacing his hand, noticed that she was too close to him for comfort, swung her legs off the sofa and got up. “I’m not going as far as the mailbox with you!” she told him flatly. “I’ve made a new life for myself here, and I’m staying!” “That’s what you think.” He got up, too, and went toward the bedroom. He found her suitcase minutes later, threw it open on the bed and started filling it. “I’m not going with you,” she told him flatly. “You can pack. You can even take the suitcase and all my clothes. But I’m not leaving. This is my life now. You have no place in it!” He whirled. He was furious. “You’re carrying my child!” The sight of him was killing her. She loved him, wanted him, needed him, but he was here only out of a sense of duty, maybe even out of guilt. She knew he didn’t want ties or commitments; he’d said so often enough. He didn’t love her, either, and that was the coldest knowledge of all. “Colby asked me to marry him for the baby’s sake,” she said bitterly. “Maybe I should have.” “Over my dead body,” he assured her.

GCHQ has traveled a long and winding road. That road stretches from the wooden huts of Bletchley Park, past the domes and dishes of the Cold War, and on towards what some suggest will be the omniscient state of the Brave New World. As we look to the future, the docile and passive state described by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World is perhaps more appropriate analogy than the strictly totalitarian predictions offered by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bizarrely, many British citizens are quite content in this new climate of hyper-surveillance, since its their own lifestyle choices that helped to create 'wired world' - or even wish for it, for as we have seen, the new torrents of data have been been a source of endless trouble for the overstretched secret agencies. As Ken Macdonald rightly points out, the real drives of our wired world have been private companies looking for growth, and private individuals in search of luxury and convenience at the click of a mouse. The sigint agencies have merely been handed the impossible task of making an interconnected society perfectly secure and risk-free, against the background of a globalized world that presents many unprecedented threats, and now has a few boundaries or borders to protect us. Who, then, is to blame for the rapid intensification of electronic surveillance? Instinctively, many might reply Osama bin Laden, or perhaps Pablo Escobar. Others might respond that governments have used these villains as a convenient excuse to extend state control. At first glance, the massive growth of security, which includes includes not only eavesdropping but also biometric monitoring, face recognition, universal fingerprinting and the gathering of DNA, looks like a sad response to new kinds of miscreants. However, the sad reality is that the Brave New World that looms ahead of us is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. It is driven by technologies such as text messaging and customer loyalty cards that are free to accept or reject as we choose. The public debate on surveillance is often cast in terms of a trade-off between security and privacy. The truth is that luxury and convenience have been pre-eminent themes in the last decade, and we have given them a much higher priority than either security or privacy. We have all been embraced the world of surveillance with remarkable eagerness, surfing the Internet in a global search for a better bargain, better friends, even a better partner. GCHQ vast new circular headquarters is sometimes represented as a 'ring of power', exercising unparalleled levels of surveillance over citizens at home and abroad, collecting every email, every telephone and every instance of internet acces. It has even been asserted that GCHQ is engaged in nothing short of 'algorithmic warfare' as part of a battle for control of global communications. By contrast, the occupants of 'Celtenham's Doughnut' claim that in reality they are increasingly weak, having been left behind by the unstoppable electronic communications that they cannot hope to listen to, still less analyse or make sense of. In fact, the frightening truth is that no one is in control. No person, no intelligence agency and no government is steering the accelerating electronic processes that may eventually enslave us. Most of the devices that cause us to leave a continual digital trail of everything we think or do were not devised by the state, but are merely symptoms of modernity. GCHQ is simply a vast mirror, and it reflects the spirit of the age.

JANUARY 26 Being Kind-I You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. —KAHLIL GIBRAN The great and fierce mystic William Blake said, There is no greater act than putting another before you. This speaks to a selfless giving that seems to be at the base of meaningful love. Yet having struggled for a lifetime with letting the needs of others define me, I've come to understand that without the healthiest form of self-love—without honoring the essence of life that this thing called “self” carries, the way a pod carries a seed—putting another before you can result in damaging self-sacrifice and endless codependence. I have in many ways over many years suppressed my own needs and insights in an effort not to disappoint others, even when no one asked me to. This is not unique to me. Somehow, in the course of learning to be good, we have all been asked to wrestle with a false dilemma: being kind to ourselves or being kind to others. In truth, though, being kind to ourselves is a prerequisite to being kind to others. Honoring ourselves is, in fact, the only lasting way to release a truly selfless kindness to others. It is, I believe, as Mencius, the grandson of Confucius, says, that just as water unobstructed will flow downhill, we, given the chance to be what we are, will extend ourselves in kindness. So, the real and lasting practice for each of us is to remove what obstructs us so that we can be who we are, holding nothing back. If we can work toward this kind of authenticity, then the living kindness—the water of compassion—will naturally flow. We do not need discipline to be kind, just an open heart. Center yourself and meditate on the water of compassion that pools in your heart. As you breathe, simply let it flow, without intent, into the air about you. JANUARY 27 Being Kind-II We love what we attend. —MWALIMU IMARA There were two brothers who never got along. One was forever ambushing everything in his path, looking for the next treasure while the first was still in his hand. He swaggered his shield and cursed everything he held. The other brother wandered in the open with very little protection, attending whatever he came upon. He would linger with every leaf and twig and broken stone. He blessed everything he held. This little story suggests that when we dare to move past hiding, a deeper law arises. When we bare our inwardness fully, exposing our strengths and frailties alike, we discover a kinship in all living things, and from this kinship a kindness moves through us and between us. The mystery is that being authentic is the only thing that reveals to us our kinship with life. In this way, we can unfold the opposite of Blake's truth and say, there is no greater act than putting yourself before another. Not before another as in coming first, but rather as in opening yourself before another, exposing your essence before another. Only in being this authentic can real kinship be known and real kindness released. It is why we are moved, even if we won't admit it, when strangers let down and show themselves. It is why we stop to help the wounded and the real. When we put ourselves fully before another, it makes love possible, the way the stubborn land goes soft before the sea. Place a favorite object in front of you, and as you breathe, put yourself fully before it and feel what makes it special to you. As you breathe, meditate on the place in you where that specialness comes from. Keep breathing evenly, and know this specialness as a kinship between you and your favorite object. During your day, take the time to put yourself fully before something that is new to you, and as you breathe, try to feel your kinship to it.

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

Can you send stuff out from Nepal by air, John?’ ‘Ooh! No. No. I can’t do anything like that. No. No. No. Now, I know a man. He knows a man who might know.’ ‘How much would it cost?’ ‘Well, money is the thing, and they always do things for a fair and honest price, I promise you.’ ‘What’s a fair price, John?’ ‘You will tell me, I’m quite sure.’ ‘What will you want out of it, John?’ ‘If I help you do business, I’m sure you will give me a drink.’ ‘A drink?’ ‘Yes. If a man does something for you, you give him a drink. Please, if everything goes well, give me a drink.’ ‘Can you check that the quality will be all right?’ ‘I only smoke Tom Thumb, but I know a man who has a knife.’ I took this as a yes. ‘Can you make it smell-proof?’ ‘Not if God made it smell.’ ‘Do you know a man who can?’ ‘No. But if you do, let him come and do it, or give me instructions.’ ‘How much can they send?’ ‘I should think it depends on when you want to do it by.’ ‘Well, John, the Americans will want to do a ton as soon as possible.’ ‘Now I was in America once, and the thing is that Americans will always want more, and there is no end to their madness. Lovely people, for sure, but you have to keep them in line. When my visa ran out, the Immigration asked me why I wanted to extend it, and I said it was because I hadn’t run out of money. He stamped it and said, “Have a nice day.” So, if the Americans ask for a ton tomorrow, say you will do half a ton when Wales win the Triple Crown. That will deal with their madness, and everyone can get on with their lives. It saves all that tidding.’ ‘Tidding?’ ‘Talking Imaginary Deals.’ Accurately conveying the contents of my conversation with Old John to Ernie wasn’t easy. I told Ernie hashish could be exported from Nepal for about the same price as Robert Crimball charged in Bangkok, but 500 kilos was the most they could do at one time, and someone would have to be sent out to ensure the consignment was smell-proof. Ernie sent his right-hand man, Tom Sunde, with money, instructions, and smell-proof know-how. Tom came to London first before going to Kathmandu to meet Old John. He had been authorised by Ernie to keep nothing from me regarding the intricacies of the New York scam.

Oh, my," said Nerissa, when she could speak. Juliet, smiling, murmured, "Would you just look at her." "I don't think we can help but look at her," murmured an urbane voice, and gasping, all three women turned to see Lucien standing in the doorway, arms crossed and his black eyes gleaming in the candlelight. He lifted his hand.  "Turn around, my dear," he said, giving a negligent little wave.  Her eyes huge, Amy slowly did as he asked, staring down at herself in awe and disbelief.  The gown, an open-robed saque of watered silk, shimmered with every movement, a vibrant purplish-blue in this light, a vivid emerald-green in that.  Its robed bodice open to show a stomacher of bright yellow satin worked with turquoise and green embroidery, it had tight sleeves ending in treble flounces just behind the elbow, which, combined with the chemise's triple tiers of lace, made Amy feel as though she had wings.  She smoothed her palms over the flounced and scalloped petticoats of royal blue silk, and then, with impulsive delight, threw back her head on a little laugh, extended her arms and spun on her toe, making gauzy sleeves, shining hair, and yards upon yards of shimmering fabric float in the air around her. Hannah, who did not think such behavior was quite appropriate, especially in front of a duke, frowned, but Lucien was trying hard to contain his amusement.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd made anyone so happy, and it touched something deep inside him that he'd long thought dead.  He exchanged a look of furtive triumph with Nerissa. "Oh!  Is it really me?" Amy breathed, reverently touching her sleeve and then raising wide, suddenly misty eyes to her small audience. "It is really you," Juliet said, smiling. "Only someone with your coloring could wear such bold shades and make them work for instead of against you," said Nerissa, coming forward to tie a black ribbon around Amy's neck.  "Lud, if I tried to wear those colors, I daresay they would overwhelm me!" "Speaking of overwhelmed . . ."  Amy turned to face the man who still lounged negligently in the doorway, his fingers trying, quite unsuccessfully, to rub away the little smile that tugged at his mouth.  "Your Grace, I don't know how to thank you," she whispered, dabbing away one tear, then another.  "No one has ever done anything like this for me before and I . . . I feel like a princess." "My dear girl.  Don't you know?"  His smile deepened and she saw what was almost a cunning gleam come into his enigmatic black eyes.  "You are a princess.  Now dry those tears and if you must thank me, do so by enjoying yourself tonight." "I will, Your Grace." "Yes," he said, on a note of finality.  "You will." And

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

Archangel Raphael This is the realm of healing Love. As natural healers from the heart, you who carry this realm innately project blue healing rays through your hands. As a Raphaelite, the way your Soul emanates its gifts is through this healing energy. You don’t need to do anything outwardly for healing Love to be radiated to others. Raphaelites have a tendency to overexert this healing influence unnecessarily. It works on the level of being, not doing. In essence, healing naturally occurs wherever the frequency of Love is present. You Raphaelites can overextend yourselves based on your feeling that everything needs healing, feeling that it’s your job to bring that healing Love wherever it is lacking. That is an endless, exhausting, fruitless task. Love is the same energy as life force. You are here to help us to return to the natural state of wholeness through the power of healing Love. You are always present with understanding and care. You are loving individuals who have a tendency to deplete yourselves by attempting to fill the seemingly endless needs of others. Your challenge is to discern who is part of your Soul plan to extend your energy toward and how to do it in a way that does not leave you depleted. You are here to show people that Love is an infinite commodity universally available. It is not yours to personally give to others. When a Raphaelite feels the need to personally give the divine Love they inherently feel connected to, to another, as though it belongs solely to them, it can become a caretaking exchange, which is disempowering to both people. This caretaking level of love is different than the frequency of divine Love. Healing as Love is not meant to be at the level of caretaking. It is not for you to say, “I’ll give all I have to you, because it feels so natural to do so, and it doesn’t matter if I get anything in return.” This state can lead to the expectation for others that you are here to fill their needs for Love. The Raphaelite is here to remind us that divine Love is the healing force moving through everyone. You must visualize or feel an umbilical cord from your heart to the source of divine Love. This is how Love, in fact, feeds us all. The channel from our Creator to our heart is filled with divine Love. When we feel thanksgiving for the eternal presence of Love, it ignites the miracle of healing that hasn’t held a place for Love. We can co-create as Love with those around us freely and appropriately from this place and this place alone. Remember, healer, to heal yourself first in this way and you will have much to give and will be rewarded joyously in return for that gift. The Raphael realm can be tapped into any time by anyone requesting the healing balm of Love that is vital to our life nourishment. We are designed to know this healing Love as a natural flow of our heart’s expression.

In Romans 12:4-8, Paul writes about gifts: “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” Recognize that the gifts inside you are not only for you; just as the gifts inside other people around you are not only for them. We are meant to help each other. God designed us this way on purpose! All being members of one body, our successes are shared — there is no need to be threatened by another person’s gift. Use your gifts, and encourage the people in your life to use their gifts as well. You will be blessed as a result! Unfortunately, one thing that keeps us from asking for help or taking advantage of the talents in people around us is pride. Never allow pride to keep you from asking for counsel when it is needed! 1 Corinthians 12:20 is another passage about gifts: “now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ ” We need each other, and joining our gifts together will result in a much stronger body. If you have time, read 1 Corinthians 12:4-20. Reflect on how there can be unity in the diversity of gifts if we use our different gifts properly. Determine that you will not be threatened by anyone else’s gifts! Esther was not afraid of the gifts in the people around her. Let’s see how she responds to the wisdom of others today. And every day Mordecai paced in front of the court of the women’s quarters, to learn of Esther’s welfare and what was happening to her. Esther 2:11 Every day, Mordecai goes to the palace gates to inquire after Esther and learn of what was happening to her. He goes to the palace gates with purpose. He paces in front of the women’s court until he has learns the day’s news about Esther. Even though she is no longer under his roof, he stills feels a strong responsibility toward her, and acts accordingly. He is a faithful man, and has set a great example before Esther. The news that he hears concerning Esther daily must be good: her inward beauty and submission to authority are two of the many wonderful traits that God placed in her so that she will be effective in Persia. Even though Esther is in an unfamiliar place and experiencing “firsts” every day in the palace, God is making sure she has what she needs. Esther did not need to feel nervous! She needed wise counsel; it has been provided for her in Mordecai and Hegai. She needs a pleasant and patient personality; that has been being developed in her by the Lord for many years. In your own life, you are constantly undergoing change and growth as you are submitting to the Lord. Whether or not you can see it, God is continually preparing you for what lies ahead so that you will have what you need when you need it. The God who loves you so much knows your future, and He is preparing you today for what you will experience tomorrow. Esther is receiving what she needs as well. She is in the palace undergoing her beauty preparations — a twelve month process! Even through this extended period of time, Mordecai is still at the palace gates every day (the Bible does not say that he stopped his concern for her at any point). It is an entire

We kissed again, and I shivered in the cold night air. Wanting to get me out of the cold, he led me to his pickup and opened the door so we could both climb in. The pickup was still warm and toasty, like a campfire was burning in the backseat. I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.” I’d been afflicted with acute boy-craziness for over half my life. But what I was feeling for Marlboro Man was indescribably powerful. It was a primal attraction--the almost uncontrollable urge to wrap my arms and legs around him every time I looked into his eyes. The increased heart rate and respiration every time I heard his voice. The urge to have twelve thousand of his babies…and I wasn’t even sure I wanted children. “So anyway,” he continued. That’s when we heard the loud knocking on the pickup window. I jumped through the roof--it was after 2:00 A.M. Who on earth could it be? The Son of Sam--it had to be! Marlboro Man rolled down the window, and a huge cloud of passion and steam escaped. It wasn’t the Son of Sam. Worse--it was my mother. And she was wearing her heather gray cashmere robe. “Reeee?” she sang. “Is that yoooou?” She leaned closer and peered through the window. I slid off of Marlboro Man’s lap and gave her a halfhearted wave. “Uh…hi, Mom. Yeah. It’s just me.” She laughed. “Oh, okay…whew! I just didn’t know who was out here. I didn’t recognize the car!” She looked at Marlboro Man, whom she’d met only one time before, when he picked me up for a date. “Well, hello again!” she exclaimed, extending her manicured hand. He took her hand and shook it gently. “Hello, ma’am,” he replied, his voice still thick with lust and emotion. I sank in my seat. I was an adult, and had just been caught parking at 2:00 A.M. in the driveway of my parents’ house by my robe-wearing mother. She’d seen the foggy windows. She’d seen me sitting on his lap. I felt like I’d just gotten grounded. “Well, okay, then,” my mom said, turning around. “Good night, you two!” And with that, she flitted back into the house. Marlboro Man and I looked at each other. I hid my face in my hands and shook my head. He chuckled, opened the door, and said, “C’mon…I’d better get you home before curfew.” My sweaty hands still hid my face. He walked me to the door, and we stood on the top step. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he kissed me on the nose and said, “I’m glad I came back.” God, he was sweet. “I’m glad you did, too,” I replied. “But…” I paused for a moment, gathering courage. “Did you have something you wanted to say?” It was forward, yes--gutsy. But I wasn’t going to let this moment pass. I didn’t have many more moments with him, after all; soon I’d be gone to Chicago. Sitting in coffee shops at eleven at night, if I wanted. Working. Eventually going back to school. I’d be danged if I was going to miss what he’d started to say a few minutes earlier, before my mom and her cashmere robe showed up and spoiled everything.

The Cornell Method The Cornell method is probably the best-known and most widely used note taking method out there. It is a brilliantly simple method that is characterized by how it divides the page you use. To use the Cornell method, first take a page of lined paper. There will usually be a margin on the left of the page. From this margin, measure roughly 6cm in and then draw a line down the page from top to bottom. Next, draw a line across the page six lines up from the bottom of the sheet. (The measurements are not set in stone, so feel free to modify them to your own taste.) This will divide the page into three areas: the section across the bottom, the now extended margin on the left of the page, and a section on the right. The right of the page will be where you will make your “normal notes.” The reduced area will have the effect of encouraging you to take fewer notes as there is simply less space to do so. The section along the bottom of the page is where you write a summary of everything on the page. This will be no more than a couple of sentences, and depending on how you prefer to work, this summary can be written perhaps at the end of the class, later that evening, or on another day. Writing this summary will solidify your understanding of your notes and help cut them down further. The section on the left of the page can be used in a few different ways. You may choose to use this area to write down the most important words, like names, dates, and essential ideas. Another way to use the left side of the page is to record your own reactions to the notes you are taking. This is a brilliant way to encourage active listening, as writing down your personal reactions ensures that you engage fully with the lesson. Don’t worry about writing anything smart or insightful in these reactions. Perhaps comment on how something relates back to another topic, how you find something interesting, or maybe you write a few question marks to denote that you find it confusing. Using the Cornell method is a straightforward technique for note taking, and can be adapted in various ways to fit your own preferences. It can be helpful for studying and testing yourself later on, too. One way to do this is to use the left hand area to write questions that correspond to the right side of the page. You can then test yourself by covering the right side of the page and attempting to answer the questions, slowly revealing the notes and “answers” on the right as you go. You can also test yourself by attempting to recite the summary at the bottom of the page.

Some viewed Chinese investors as the latest “dumb money” to hit Hollywood. It is no doubt true that financing movies is not the smartest way for any investor, from anywhere in the world, to earn the best returns. Others had a different theory—that some wealthy Chinese individuals and businesses were seeking to get their money out of China, where an autocratic government could still steal anyone’s wealth at any time, for any reason. Certainly Hollywood had long been a destination for legal money laundering. But those who worked most closely with the Chinese knew that the biggest reason for these investments was a form of reverse-colonialism. After more than a decade as a place for Hollywood to make money, China wanted to turn the tables. The United States had already proved the power of pop culture to help establish a nation’s global dominance. Now China wanted to do the same. The Beijing government considered art and culture to be a form of “soft power,” whereby it could extend influence around the world without the use of weapons. Over the past few years, locally produced Chinese films had become more successful at the box office there. But most were culturally specific comedies and love stories that didn’t translate anywhere else. China had yet to produce a global blockbuster. And with box-office growth in that country slowing in 2016 and early 2017, hits that resonated internationally would be critical if the Communist nation was to grow its movie business and use it to become the kind of global power it wanted to be. So Chinese companies, with the backing of the government, started investing in Hollywood, with a mission to learn how experienced hands there made blockbusters that thrived worldwide. Within a few years, they figured, China would learn how to do that without anyone’s help. “Working with a company like Universal will help us elevate our skill set in moviemaking,” the head of the Chinese entertainment company Perfect World Pictures said, while investing $250 million in a slate of upcoming films from the American studio. Getting there wouldn’t be easy. One of the highest-profile efforts to produce a worldwide hit out of China was The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon and made by Wanda’s Legendary Pictures. The $150 million film, about a war against monsters set on the Chinese historic landmark, grossed an underwhelming $171 million and a disastrous $45 million in the United States. Then, to create another obstacle, Chinese government currency controls established in early 2017 slowed, at least temporarily, the flow of money from China into Hollywood. But by then it was too late to turn back. As seemed to always be true when it came to Hollywood’s relationship with China, the Americans had no choice but to keep playing along. Nobody else was willing to pour billions of dollars into the struggling movie business in the mid-2010s, particularly for original or lower-budget productions.

There’s no embarrassment to ask for help, Every Time you extend your hand asking for help, Every Time There’s Someone willing to grab your hand.

One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on “going it alone.” Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both. I’ve learned so much about giving and receiving from the men and women who are engaged in Wholehearted living but nothing more important than this: Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.

Making a difference by extending a helping hand for a social cause is like prestidigitating the magic of highest prestige.

Thomson, long-necked and vulture-like, stood with his slender hand extended. His sagging, weary eyes and hollow cheeks made his nose prominent and beak-like. His shoulders were stooped and his threadbare, black coat ill-fitting and loose around the collar. Lou assessed him as a man who’d seen rough times. Though Thomson was courteous, Lou couldn’t help feeling intimidated, but at the same time sympathetic. At times like this, he remembered what his grandmother once told him: ‘Remember, son, inside every man there’s a small boy’. Her words floated down from the ether at this moment.

Thomson, long-necked and vulture-like, stood with his slender hand extended. His Though Thomson was courteous, Lou couldn’t help feeling intimidated, but at the same time sympathetic. At times like this, Lou remembered what his grandmother once told him: ‘Remember, son, inside every man there’s a small boy’. Her words floated down from the ether at this moment.

Leave me alone,” Win cried. “Go dust something!” “Win, if you don’t—” Amelia’s attention was diverted as she saw her sister’s gaze fly to the kitchen threshold. Merripen stood there, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. Although it was early morning, he was already dusty and perspiring, his shirt clinging to the powerful contours of his chest and waist. He wore an expression they knew well—the implacable one that meant you could move a mountain with a teaspoon sooner than change his mind about something. Approaching Win, he extended a broad hand in a wordless demand. They were both motionless. But even in their stubborn opposition, Amelia saw a singular connection, as if they were locked in an eternal stalemate from which neither wanted to break free. Win gave in with a helpless scowl. “I have nothing to do.” It was rare for her to sound so peevish. “I’m sick of sitting and reading and staring out the window. I want to be useful. I want…” Her voice trailed away as she saw Merripen’s stern face. “Fine, then. Take it!” She tossed the broom at him, and he caught it reflexively. “I’ll just find a corner somewhere and quietly go mad. I’ll—” “Come with me,” Merripen interrupted calmly. Setting the broom aside, he left the room. Win exchanged a perplexed glance with Amelia, her vehemence fading. “What is he doing?” “I have no idea.” The sisters followed him down a hallway to the dining room, which was spattered with rectangles of light from the tall multipaned windows that lined one wall. A scarred table ran down the center of the room, every available inch covered with dusty piles of china … towers of cups and saucers, plates of assorted sizes sandwiched together, bowls wrapped in tattered scraps of gray linen. There were at least three different patterns all jumbled together. “It needs to be sorted,” Merripen said, gently nudging Win toward the table. “Many pieces are chipped. They must be separated from the rest.” It was the perfect task for Win, enough to keep her busy but not so strenuous that it would exhaust her. Filled with gratitude, Amelia watched as her sister picked up a teacup and held it upside down. The husk of a tiny dead spider dropped to the floor. “What a mess,” Win said, beaming. “I’ll have to wash it, too, I suppose.” “If you’d like Poppy to help—” Amelia began. “Don’t you dare send for Poppy,” Win said. “This is my project, and I won’t share it.

How Much Money Can We Afford To Give To Charity? Knowing how much money you can safely give to charity is challenging for everyone. Who doesn’t want to give more to make the world a better place? On the other hand, no one wants to become a charity case as a result of giving too much to charity. On average, Americans who itemize their deductions donate about three or four percent of their income to charity. About 20% give more than 10% of their income to charity. Here are some tips to help you find the right level of donations for your family: You can probably give more than you think. Focus on one, two or maybe three causes rather than scattering money here and there. Volunteer your time toward your cause, too. The money you give shouldn’t be the money you’d save for college or retirement. You can organize your personal finances to empower you to give more. Eliminating debt will enable you to give much more. The interest you may be paying is eating into every good and noble thing you’d like to do. You can cut expenses significantly over time by driving your cars for a longer period of time; buying cars—the transaction itself—is expensive. Stay in your home longer. By staying in your home for a very long time, your mortgage payment will slowly shrink (in economic terms)with inflation, allowing you more flexibility over time to donate to charity. Make your donations a priority. If you only give what is left, you won’t be giving much. Make your donations first, then contribute to savings and, finally, spend what is left. Set a goal for contributing to charity, perhaps as a percentage of your income. Measure your financial progress in all areas, including giving to charity. Leverage your contributions by motivating others to give. Get the whole family involved in your cause. Let the kids donate their time and money, too. Get your extended family involved. Get the neighbors involved. You will have setbacks. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks. Think long term. Everything counts. One can of soup donated to a food bank may feed a hungry family. Little things add up. One can of soup every week for years will feed many hungry families. Don’t be ashamed to give a little. Everyone can do something. When you can’t give money, give time. Be patient. You are making a difference. Don’t give up on feeding hungry people because there will always be hungry people; the ones you feed will be glad you didn’t give up. Set your ego aside. You can do more when you’re not worried about who gets the credit. Giving money to charity is a deeply personal thing that brings joy both to the families who give and to the families who receive. Everyone has a chance to do both in life. There Are Opportunities To Volunteer Everywhere If you and your family would like to find ways to volunteer but aren’t sure where and how, the answer is just a Google search away. There may be no better family activity than serving others together. When you can’t volunteer as a team, remember you set an example for your children whenever you serve. Leverage your skills, talents and training to do the most good. Here are some ideas to get you started either as a family or individually: Teach seniors, the disabled, or children about your favorite family hobbies.

There's nothing like PEACE. It's neglected by many but the surest way to greatness. It gives you the consciousness to move about without fear, peace is seen as a panacea for economic growth and human capital development of any society. Fighting your colleague in the office or school is not gonna make you have an edge but it's certainly will limit you. You cannot be trusted if you're not a peace loving person. No wonder, people distance themselves from you because of your anti-peace attitude. If you end up crucifying someone, what's gonna be your gain? why not extend hand of fellowship and dialogue it out. Violence isn't gonna help any situation! Peace is everything for a prosperous living. I envisage a future where people will preach peace, act peace and live peacefully. #LetsDialogue #PeaceAdvocate #PositiveImpact

Need some help?” He reached for the books in her arms before she could object. “Hey ...” She looked like a viper ready to strike, but then her pupils dilated as she stared up at him. “I’m sorry ... do I know you?” “No.” He offered her a smile, hoping to settle her nerves. He didn’t speak to many women, but when he did, he always got that same staggered expression. “But you looked as though you needed a third hand.” “I don’t think I could manage if I were an octopus.” He laughed. Beautiful and a sense of humor. Most of the women he knew were too serious. “Funny. Are you off to another lecture?” “No ... I’m late for work. I keep telling my boss not to schedule me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but he doesn’t listen, and then — sorry. TMI. I tend to ramble on, something the professors keep fussing at me about. Thanks. I sent the message, so I can carry my books now. I’m not up on all these new gadgets.” She waved her phone. “This is my first cell phone. I can’t afford it, but I really needed it. ” She smacked her hand over her mouth and reached for her books. “See ... I never shut up.” Derrick couldn’t help but smile. She was so cute. “I’ll walk you to your car. That way if your boss replies, you can respond quickly.” Her eyes narrowed this time, a look he wasn’t accustomed to; the few women he talked to trusted him completely. Even the female professors said he had a wonderful bedside manner. “Umm ... it’s okay. I take the T.” “Would you like a lift, then, so you aren’t late?” She shook her head. “No. Thank you. I appreciate it ... but I don’t even know you.” “Derrick Ashton.” He offered her his hand. The young woman hesitantly extended her slender, creamy-skinned hand. Her hand looked so small and delicate in his larger, olive-skinned hand. “Nice to meet you, Derrick. I’m Janelle Heskin. But still ... ” Derrick released her after a second and lifted his hands in front of him. “I’m harmless, I swear. They wouldn’t have accepted me into medical school if I had a record, and I’m here because I want to help people, and you looked like you needed help.” She

Touching Like nodding, touching shows interest. Upon meeting someone, the best way to show respect and sincere interest is to shake hands. A warm, firm handshake shows that you have an open, friendly social attitude. Don’t be afraid to be the first to smile, offer your name, and extend your hand—people will appreciate your interest and willingness to connect. With whom should you shake hands? These days, it’s appropriate to shake hands man to man, woman to woman, or man to woman—in both social and business contexts while exchanging names with other people. (Of course, a man should use a slightly gentler grip when shaking a woman’s hand.) A number of clients who have come to me say that their previous therapists or their parents have advised them to take a dance class in order to gain interactive skills and desensitize themselves to social anxiety. That’s a good idea. But it’s not that simple. The ideal situation would be one in which you could progress through the various levels of intimacy at a natural pace in an actual interactive situation. Developing a keen sense of interactive chemistry will help you to understand what type of touching behavior is appropriate. As for other, more personal forms of touch, these should be undertaken more cautiously, and with keen attention to the body language of the other person. When it seems appropriate, gestures such as taking someone’s arm or offering your own as you enter or leave a room or cross the street, touching a companion’s back as you introduce him or her to an acquaintance—all of these are fairly noncommittal, but are a display of caring and interest. When you try these things, take special note of the response you get. Remember that body language involves communication between two people. Not only do you need to give signals of friendliness and approval but also to take cues from the other person involved.

When you fall into the gutter you tell yourself that you can climb out. Then you notice that you’re covered in filth but you still think that you can get out. But the smell seeps into your soul and is always there with you. All you need is someone else to look at you differently, talk to you like you’re someone that matters and extend a hand. Only then can you climb into the gutter.

Watching you and my daughter, seeing how you’ve survived things other women couldn’t--” She licked her lips. “That steel in your backbones came from your bringin’ up, from me. I’ve taught you to stand up and fight back. I’ve raised you proud. Lately, I’ve been staring into my looking glass, wondering where the old Rachel has got off to.” “Oh, Aunt Rachel, you’ve only done what you felt you had to for me and Amy.” Rachel nodded. “Yes. But there comes a time when a body must draw the line." She sighed and rolled her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at her mouth. “If it’s a draw between a baby and Henry, I’ll kick his ornery butt all the way to the fancy house in Jacksboro and tell him to stay there this time.” Appalled and uncertain how to react, Loretta said, “Fancy house?” “You don’t really think he goes there to get tobacco and coffee and the Godey’s Lady’s Book for us, do you?” Rachel touched Loretta’s shoulder. “Don’t look so woebegone. He leaves me alone for nigh on a month after. I consider it a blessing.” Loretta threw back her head and gave a weak laugh. “Uncle Henry visiting a fancy house? Oh, Aunt Rachel, I bet those ladies double their rates when they see the likes of him coming!” “No doubt,” Rachel said grimly. “A lover, Henry ain’t. I’ve wasted a lot of years kowtowing to him. I don’t plan to waste any more. I can make it without a man. Just you watch me.” She pushed to her feet and extended Loretta a helping hand. “Come on, little mother. I’ll fix you some remedy for that rolling tummy.” “Oh, Aunt Rachel, do you think it’s for sure?” “Sure enough that we’d best start cutting out nightshirts. I got flannel tucked away in my barrel. That’ll make up nice.” Loretta smiled, and taking a deep breath, she passed a hand over her brow. “I am powerful pleased, Aunt Rachel!” “Just keep thinkin’ that way until I get Henry told.” “Do we have to tell him right now?” “Honey, if you go to upchucking of a morning before you can reach the privacy, he’s gonna know anyway. May as well light his fuse when we’re expecting the explosion.

A gasp for breath turned into a choke, and then she vomited on herself. The metallic smell of it filled the hallway, and people ducked into classrooms or pulled their clothes up over their noses to avoid it. Someone ran for the nurse, who extended rubber-gloved hands to help Jennifer to her feet. She

Page 22: Yet it would be a mistake to consider these immigrants of the last several decades alone and friendless in an alien land. Even before leaving China, their way had been smoothed by good organization and a spirit of co-operation. The prospective immigrants merely registered with a hotel in any of the cities of South China, and this hotel secured passage for the immigrant and his family if necessary—usually on the open deck of a European coastal steamer—took care of legal documentation, and saw that at their destination the emigrants were welcomed by persons speaking their own dialect, guided safely through immigration inspection and finally housed at another Chinese hotel until a more permanent residence could be found. … Once in Bangkok, the usual port of disembarkation, the immigrant was certain to have helpful hands extended from relatives, friends from his own village in China, or persons speaking his dialect. Through these persons, living quarters, a job, and perhaps sufficient capital to get started as a street hawker would be provided without question.

There was a popular and rather clever saying during the 1960s that asked, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” This is not quite as ludicrous a concept as it may seem on the surface. There is a constant danger on the battlefield that, in periods of extended close combat, the combatants will get to know and acknowledge one another as individuals and subsequently may refuse to kill each other. This danger and the process by which it can occur is poignantly represented by Henry Metelmann’s account of his experiences as a German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. There was a lull in the battle, during which Metelmann saw two Russians coming out of their foxhole, and I walked over towards them…they introduced themselves…[and] offered me a cigarette and, as a non-smoker, I thought if they offer me a cigarette I’ll smoke it. But it was horrible stuff. I coughed and later on my mates said “You made a horrible impression, standing there with those two Russians and coughing your head off.”…I talked to them and said it was all right to come closer to the foxhole, because there were three dead Russian soldiers lying there, and I, to my shame, had killed them. They wanted to get the [dog tags] off them, and the paybooks…. I kind of helped them and we were all bending down and we found some photos in one of the paybooks and they showed them to me: we all three stood up and looked at the photos…. We shook hands again, and one patted on my back and they walked away. Metelmann was called away to drive a half-track back to the field hospital. When he returned to the battlefield, over an hour later, he found that the Germans had overrun the Russian position. And although there were some of his friends killed, he found himself to be most concerned about what happened to “those two Russians.” “Oh they got killed,” they said. I said: “How did it happen?” “Oh, they didn’t want to give in. Then we shouted at them to come out with their hands up and they did not, so one of us went over with a tank,” he said, “and really got them, and silenced them that way.” My feeling was very sad. I had met them on a very human basis, on a comradely basis. They called me comrade and at that moment, strange as it may seem, I was more sad that they had to die in this mad confrontation than my own mates and I still think sadly about it.

Straight right leads to the head are blocked by either (1) the extended left hand, or (2) by the hunched left shoulder. The extended left hand does the blocking if the lead is thrown at you when you are in normal punching position. Let your mate throw a right lead at you in slow motion. You step in and block or "smother" his right fist with the heel of your opened left hand before his right lead is well under way (Figure 51); and, at the same time, shoot your own straight right at his chin (Figure 52). If, however, his right lead is thrown at you when you are out of normal position-when, for example, you have permitted your left hand to drop down in an overzealous feint to the body-you must block with your left shoulder. You give your left shoulder a frantic, whirling hunch to protect your already snuggled chin. Thus, the blow thuds into your shoulder instead of into your face (Figure 53). You'll be tempted to use your right hand to help your left shoulder in that block. You'll be tempted to make a "shell defense" with shoulder and hand. But don't do it. You've got to keep that right hand in its normal position, ready to (1) guard against the possibility of a following left hook, and (2) smash a straight right counter to your opponent's solar plexus or chin.

Instances in which we’re able to lend a helping hand are always remembered when we die. When the opportunity to extend compassion comes our way, no kind deed is meaningless. Our lives provide opportunities for us to extend compassion unique to what our situations allow, and we must strive to take every chance we can to look out for one another. Our life review doesn’t emphasize the times you spent doing mindless work or distracting yourself, it reflects most the moments where fulfillment could have been increased. Just as we’re faced with what we didn’t do and could’ve done, we enjoy seeing the fruits of our compassionate labor. We see how every act of kindness, particularly selflessness, made the collective a better whole. We realize ourselves as part of the bigger picture, a mere extension of a greater unit. Souls on the other side eventually see the true nature of our existence and its entangled, interwoven nature that unites us.

Throughout childhood, at home and at school they are told they are defective. They are called dumb, stupid, lazy, stubborn, willful, or obnoxious. They hear terms like “spaceshot” or “daydreamer” or “out in left field” all the time. They are blamed for the chaos of family mealtimes or the disaster of family vacations. They are reprimanded for classroom disturbances of all sorts and they are easily scapegoated at school. They are the subject of numerous parent-teacher conferences. Time and again, an exasperated teacher meets a frustrated parent in a meeting that later explodes all over the child who isn’t there. He feels the shock waves afterward. “Do you know what your teacher said? Do you know how embarrassed your mother and I were?” Or, from the teacher, “I understand you have no greater control of yourself at home than you do in school. We must work on this, mustn’t we?” Month after month, year after year, the tapes of negativity play over and over again until they become the voice the child knows best. “You’re bad,” they say in many different ways. “You’re dumb. You just don’t get it. You’re so out of it. You really are pathetic.” This voice pulls the child’s self-esteem down and down, out of the reach of the helping hands that might be extended, into the private world of adolescent self-reproach. Liking yourself in adolescence is hard enough work for any child. But for the child with ADD it is especially difficult.

Secure Man VS Vulnerable Man A secure man is someone who can identify their own weaknesses and improve. He can accept his flaws and maintain his self esteem. He knows his journey is never over, so he always strives for more. He lends strength to others needing a helping hand. He prefers to take the hard right over the easy wrong. He can handle constructive criticism without bitterness. He can provide for himself and his family. He can set goals for himself knowing one day he can achieve them. He is a multitasker. He doesn't make decisions just for the moment; He makes decisions that he knows will benefit and effect his whole life. If this man makes a mistake he will hold himself responsible and correct his mistake. He has confidence in himself and holds no one else accountable for his happiness and/or peace of mind. A sincere understanding of empathy for others, a sense of humility, and humbleness are reinforcing characteristics of this man. A secure man has faith in the Lord. A vulnerable man is someone who depends on others. He can not accomplish routine tasks or deliver on his own. He is always asking for a helping hand and has little or no self esteem. He lives for the moment without a life plan. He doesn't set lifetime goals. A vulnerable man is either too arrogant and ignorant to notice when somebody is trying to help him, so he rebels against those closest to him. A vulnerable man gets angry when things doesn't go his way. He doesn't only complain, he also complains about what others aren't doing for him. He can't provide for himself or others. You can never go to him for advice or will he extend a hand of help to others without wanting something in return. A vulnerable man can not make a decision and lives a reactive life instead of a proactive one. He knows right from wrong...but still decides to go the wrong way because it's the easiest. A vulnerable man seeks an enabler one who will bail them out time and time again. Others notices his individual weaknesses...However he chooses a life of denial and deflection. This man believes it is always someone else's fault and feels entitled to others hard work and efforts. A vulnerable man has no faith in a higher power and thinks he'll never have to answer for the choices made in their life.-27 September 2012-