Feathers From My Nest Quotes

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” JEREMIAH 29:13

To My Wife You are like a young white hen. Her feathers ruffle in the wind, her neck curves down to drink, and she rummages in the earth: but, in walking, she has your slow, queenly step, haughty and proud. She is better than the male. She is like the females of all the serene animals who draw near to God. Here, if my eye, if my judgment doesn’t deceive me, among these, you find your equals, and in no other woman. When evening lulls the little hens to sleep, they make sounds that call to mind those mild, sweet voices with which you argue with your pains, and don’t know that your voice has the soft, sad music of the henyard. You are like a pregnant heifer, still free, and without heaviness, merry, in fact; who, if someone strokes her, turns her neck, where a tender pink tinges her flesh. If you meet up with her, and hear her bellow, so mournful is this sound that you tear at the earth to give her a present. In the same way, I offer my gift to you when you are sad. You are like a tall, thin female dog, that always has so much sweetness in her eyes and ferociousness in her heart. At your feet, she seems a saint who burns with an indomitable fervor and in this way looks at you as her God and Lord. When you are at home, or going down the street, to anyone who tries, uninvited, to approach you, she uncovers her shining white teeth. And her love suffers from jealousy. You are like the fearful rabbit. Within her narrow cage, she stands upright to look at you, and extends her long, still ear; she deprives herself of the husks and roots that you bring her, and cowers, seeking the darkest corners. Who might take away this food? Who might take away the fur which she tears from her back to add to the nest where she will give birth? Who would ever make you suffer? You are like the swallow which returns in the spring. But each autumn will depart— you don’t have this art. You have this of the swallow: the light movements; that which, to me, seemed and was old, you proclaim another spring. You are like the provident ant. She whom the grandmother speaks of to the child as they go out in the countryside. And thus I find you in the bumble bee and in all the females of all the serene animals who draw near to God. And in no other woman.

I'm a basic boneless chicken, yes, I have no bones inside, I'm without a trace of rib cage, yet I hold myself with pride, other hens appear offended by my total lack of bones, they discuss me impolitely in derogatory tones. I am absolutely boneless, I am boneless through and through, I have neither neck nor thighbones, and my back is boneless too, and I haven't got a wishbone, not a bone within my breast, so I rarely care to travel from the comfort of my nest. I have feathers fine and fluffy, I have lovely little wings, but I lack the superstructure to support these splendid things. Since a chicken finds it tricky to parade on boneless legs, I stick closely to the hen house, laying little scrambled eggs.

I'm not saying everything else is unimportant. I'm just saying that I've learned to see everything else as optional.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

The goal of life is not the absence of pain. It's the presence of glory. God's glory. And sometimes that comes most vividly with pain. Not only have I learned that pain doesn't kill; I have learned that I will never lose or be betrayed by the one thing with absolute power to destroy me—God Himself.

It is entirely different from kissing Callum. It is, for a start, significantly less wet. Less impulsive and frantic and out of control. It feels bold and shy both at once, like giving and taking. Her lips are chapped but her mouth is soft as milkweed silk and rimmed with salt water from the cold spray kicked up against the side of the boat. When they part against mine, I open my mouth in return. Her thumb skims my jawline, feather-light. But beyond the physical observations, it’s nothing. Not wholly unpleasant, but neither something I’m anxious to repeat. Just a thing people do. She pulls back, her hand still upon my cheek, and looks at me. “Did that work any sort of magic?” “Not really.” “That’s a shame.” She settles back into our little nest of cloaks, pulling the collar higher around her face. “It worked for me.

Kuan Yin looks very traditional. Her hands are folded together. The thick cloth of her costume is folded perfectly," describes Lena. "Just as in the previous session, I’m reminded of the significance of the folds. I’m having an interesting vision that I haven’t thought about in many years. I see a beautiful tree where I used to go when I was a teenager. It stands majestic, atop the rolling hills behind the house where I grew up. Kuan Yin is at the tree looking very luminous. I see the bark of the tree, which looks very real, very three-dimensional. For some reason, Kuan Yin is touching the trunk of the tree. She suddenly seems very small next to me and she wants me to touch the tree. I’m not sure why. There is a tiny bird, with pretty feathers in its nest. It is about the size of a wren. I see the texture of the tree. I think it might be a birch. I’m not sure. ’Why should I touch the tree,’ I ask. She’s telling me that I created the tree, that it is another realm I was able to visit because life was too painful and lonely at home.” “You created the tree. You create your whole world with thoughts,” assures Kuan Yin. “Every time I try to touch the tree, Kuan Yin wants to help me touch it. There’s something different about this conversation. Usually we work on something about the earth. Because we’re revisiting my childhood, I get the impression Kuan Yin’s trying to show me something that maybe I created in my childhood.” “Well, do we all create our reality?” Kuan Yin asks of Lena. “I think she’s going to answer her own question,” comments Lena, from her trance. “Yes, you can create your reality. Once you free yourself from the negative effects of karma. I know it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between free will and karma. Focus upon your free will and your ability to create reality. I’m optimistic and hopeful you can do this.

A cold moon rises over glittering cages & you fasten the lock on each silver door. The sparrows are nesting & I begin to count the buttons on your black wool coat. My eyes adrift along its luminous satin inlay. Now the night has been opened like a box of exotic blue canaries & I'm brushing feathers from my long dark sleeves. You smile as the song rises, hesitant, in my cool white throat— —Kristina Marie Darling, “Aviary,” The Body is a Little Gilded Cage: A Story in Letters and Fragments. (Gold Wake Press February 4, 2012)

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

In the deep woods of the far North, under feathery leaves of fern, was a great fairyland of merry elves, sometimes called forest brownies. These elves lived joyfully. They had everything at hand and did not need to worry much about living. Berries and nuts grew plentiful in the forest. Rivers and springs provided the elves with crystal water. Flowers prepared them drink from their flavorful juices, which the munchkins loved greatly. At midnight the elves climbed into flower cups and drank drops of their sweet water with much delight. Every elf would tell a wonderful fairy tale to the flower to thank it for the treat. Despite this abundance, the pixies did not sit back and do nothing. They tinkered with their tasks all day long. They cleaned their houses. They swung on tree branches and swam in forested streams. Together with the early birds, they welcomed the sunrise, listened to the thunder growling, the whispering of leaves and blades of grass, and the conversations of the animals. The birds told them about warm countries, sunbeams whispered of distant seas, and the moon spoke of treasures hidden deeply in the earth. In winter, the elves lived in abandoned nests and hollows. Every sunny day they came out of their burrows and made the forest ring with their happy shouts, throwing tiny snowballs in all directions and building snowmen as small as the pinky finger of a little girl. The munchkins thought they were giants five times as large as them. With the first breath of spring, the elves left their winter residences and moved to the cups of the snowdrop flowers. Looking around, they watched the snow as it turned black and melted. They kept an eye on the blossoming of hazel trees while the leaves were still sleeping in their warm buds. They observed squirrels moving their last winter supplies from storage back to their homes. Gnomes welcomed the birds coming back to their old nests, where the elves lived during winters. Little by little, the forest once more grew green. One moonlight night, elves were sitting at an old willow tree and listening to mermaids singing about their underwater kingdom. “Brothers! Where is Murzilka? He has not been around for a long time!” said one of the elves, Father Beardie, who had a long white beard. He was older than others and well respected in his striped stocking cap. “I’m here,” a snotty voice arose, and Murzilka himself, nicknamed Feather Head, jumped from the top of the tree. All the brothers loved Murzilka, but thought he was lazy, as he actually was. Also, he loved to dress in a tailcoat, tall black hat, boots with narrow toes, a cane and a single eyeglass, being very proud of that look. “Do you know where I’m coming from? The very Arctic Ocean!” roared he. Usually, his words were hard to believe. That time, though, his announcement sounded so marvelous that all elves around him were agape with wonder. “You were there, really? Were you? How did you get there?” asked the sprites. “As easy as ABC! I came by the fox one day and caught her packing her things to visit her cousin, a silver fox who lives by the Arctic Ocean. “Take me with you,” I said to the fox. “Oh, no, you’ll freeze there! You know, it’s cold there!” she said. “Come on.” I said. “What are you talking about? What cold? Summer is here.” “Here we have summer, but there they have winter,” she answered. “No,” I thought. “She must be lying because she does not want to give me a ride.” Without telling her a word, I jumped upon her back and hid in her bushy fur, so even Father Frost could not find me. Like it or not, she had to take me with her. We ran for a long time. Another forest followed our woods, and then a boundless plain opened, a swamp covered with lichen and moss. Despite the intense heat, it had not entirely thawed. “This is tundra,” said my fellow traveler. “Tundra? What is tundra?” asked I. “Tundra is a huge, forever frozen wetland covering the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean.

I was a bird. I lived a bird's life from birth to death. I was born the thirty-second chick in the Jipu family. I remember everything in detail. I remember breaking out of the shell at birth. But I learned later that my mother had gently cracked the shell first to ease my way. I dozed under my mother's chest for the first few days. Her feathers were so warm and soft! I was strong, so I kicked away my siblings to keep the cozy spot. Just 10 days after I was born, I was given flying lessons. We all had to learn quickly because there were snakes and owls and hawks. My little brothers and sisters, who didn't practice enough, all died. My little sister looked so unhappy when she got caught. I can still see her face. Before I could fly, I hadn't known that our nest was on the second-lowest branch of a big tree. My parents chose the location wisely. Snakes could reach the lowest branch and eagles and hawks could attack us if we lived at the top. We soared through the sky, above mountains and forests. But it wasn't just for fun! We always had to watch out for enemies, and to hunt for food. Death was always nearby. You could easily starve or freeze to death. Life wasn't easy. Once, I got caught in a monsoon. I smacked into a tree and lay bleeding for days. Many of my family and friends died, one after another. To help rebuild our clan, I found myself a female and married her. She was so sweet. She laid many eggs, but one day, a human cut down the tree we lived in, crushing all the eggs and my beloved. A bird's life is an endless battle against death. I survived for many years before I finally met my end. I found a worm at some harvest festival. I came fluttering down. It was a bad mistake. Some big guy was waiting to ambush hungry little birdies like me. I heard my own guts pop. It was clear to me that I was going to die at last. And I wanted to know where I'd go when I died.

I have had so many Dwellings, Nat, that I know these Streets as well as a strowling Beggar: I was born in this Nest of Death and Contagion and now, as they say, I have learned to feather it. When first I was with Sir Chris. I found lodgings in Phenix Street off Hogg Lane, close by St Giles and Tottenham Fields, and then in later times I was lodged at the corner of Queen Street and Thames Street, next to the Blew Posts in Cheapside. (It is still there, said Nat stirring up from his Seat, I have passed it!) In the time before the Fire, Nat, most of the buildings in London were made of timber and plaister, and stones were so cheap that a man might have a cart-load of them for six-pence or seven-pence; but now, like the Aegyptians, we are all for Stone. (And Nat broke in, I am for Stone!) The common sort of People gawp at the prodigious Rate of Building and exclaim to each other London is now another City or that House was not there Yesterday or the Situacion of the Streets is quite Changd (I contemn them when they say such things! Nat adds). But this Capital City of the World of Affliction is still the Capitol of Darknesse, or the Dungeon of Man's Desires: still in the Centre are no proper Streets nor Houses but a Wilderness of dirty rotten Sheds, allways tumbling or takeing Fire, with winding crooked passages, lakes of Mire and rills of stinking Mud, as befits the smokey grove of Moloch. (I have heard of that Gentleman, says Nat all a quiver). It is true that in what we call the Out-parts there are numberless ranges of new Buildings: in my old Black-Eagle Street, Nat, tenements have been rais'd and where my Mother and Father stared without understanding at their Destroyer (Death! he cryed) new-built Chambers swarm with life. But what a Chaos and Confusion is there: meer fields of Grass give way to crooked Passages and quiet Lanes to smoking Factors, and these new Houses, commonly built by the London workmen, are often burning and frequently tumbling down (I saw one, says he, I saw one tumbling!). Thus London grows more Monstrous, Straggling and out of all Shape: in this Hive of Noise and Ignorance, Nat, we are tyed to the World as to a sensible Carcasse and as we cross the stinking Body we call out What News? or What's a clock? And thus do I pass my Days a stranger to mankind. I'll not be a Stander-by, but you will not see me pass among them in the World. (You will disquiet your self, Master, says Nat coming towards me). And what a World is it, of Tricking and Bartering, Buying and Selling, Borrowing and Lending, Paying and Receiving; when I walk among the Piss and Sir-reverence of the Streets I hear, Money makes the old Wife trot, Money makes the Mare to go (and Nat adds, What Words won't do, Gold will). What is their God but shineing Dirt and to sing its Devotions come the Westminster-Hall-whores, the Charing-cross whores, the Whitehall whores, the Channel-row whores, the Strand whores, the Fleet Street whores, the Temple-bar whores; and they are followed in the same Catch by the Riband weavers, the Silver-lace makers, the Upholsterers, the Cabinet-makers, Watermen, Carmen, Porters, Plaisterers, Lightemen, Footmen, Shopkeepers, Journey-men... and my Voice grew faint through the Curtain of my Pain.

I don’t know what it was about menopause, specifically, that caused me all of a sudden to become a gatherer of “found objects.” But now, wherever I went in this bleakly untamed and often inhospitable landscape in the wild western extremes of Ireland, I seemed to hear things calling out to me. I was rooting for something — I didn’t know what. For fragments of myself, perhaps; my life, my loves. For fragments which reflected something of myself back at me — whatever I might be becoming now, at this turbulent, shapeshifting time of my life. And all the fragments I seemed to need came from this new place, from the ancient, uncompromising earth around me: that land which I walked compulsively, day after day after day. I would come home from the woods reverently carrying strangely shaped sticks, from the lough with pebbles and water-bird feathers, from the beach with seashells and mermaid’s purses — as if I were reassembling myself from elements of the land itself. After the deep dissolutions of menopause, I was refashioning myself from those calcinated ashes; I was growing new bones. It’s something we all have to do at this time in our lives; somehow, with whatever tools are available to us, we have to begin to curate the vision of the elder we will become. It’s an act of bricolage. And so now I had become like the bright-eyed, cackling magpies which regularly ransacked our garden: a collector — though not of trinkets, but of clues. I was gathering them together in the safety of my new nest. The clues were there in the pieces; those clues are threaded through this book. Scattered in shadowy corners and brightly lit windows, these objects I’ve selected are so much more than random gatherings of whatever it was that I happened to come across in my wanderings. They’re so much more than mere clutter. They are active choices, carefully selected objects that mirror my sense of myself as a shapeshifting, storied creature. Because the clues to our re-memberings are in the stories, and the stories are always born from the land.

The birds had multiplied. She'd installed rows upon rows of floating melamine shelves above shoulder height to accommodate the expression of her once humble collection. Though she'd had bird figurines all over the apartment, the bulk of her prized collection was confined to her bedroom because it had given her joy to wake up to them every morning. Before I'd left, I had a tradition of gifting her with bird figurines. It began with a storm petrel, a Wakamba carving of ebony wood from Kenya I had picked up at the museum gift shop from a sixth-grade school field trip. She'd adored the unexpected birthday present, and I had hunted for them since. Clusters of ceramic birds were perched on every shelf. Her obsession had brought her happiness, so I'd fed it. The tiki bird from French Polynesia nested beside a delft bluebird from the Netherlands. One of my favorites was a glass rainbow macaw from an Argentinian artist that mimicked the vibrant barrios of Buenos Aires. Since the sixth grade, I'd given her one every year until I'd left: eight birds in total. As I lifted each member of her extensive bird collection, I imagined Ma-ma was with me, telling a story about each one. There were no signs of dust anywhere; cleanliness had been her religion. I counted eighty-eight birds in total. Ma-ma had been busy collecting while I was gone. I couldn't deny that every time I saw a beautiful feathered creature in figurine form, I thought of my mother. If only I'd sent her one, even a single bird, from my travels, it could have been the precursor to establishing communication once more. Ma-ma had spoken to her birds often, especially when she cleaned them every Saturday morning. I had imagined she was some fairy-tale princess in the Black Forest holding court over an avian kingdom. I was tempted to speak to them now, but I didn't want to be the one to convey the loss of their queen. Suddenly, however, Ma-ma's collection stirred. It began as a single chirp, a mournful cry swelling into a chorus. The figurines burst into song, tiny beaks opening, chests puffed, to release a somber tribute to their departed beloved. The tune was unfamiliar, yet its melancholy was palpable, rising, surging until the final trill when every bird bowed their heads toward the empty bed, frozen as if they hadn't sung seconds before. I thanked them for the happiness they'd bestowed on Ma-ma.

Danica’s eyes fluttered open the instant I stepped through the door, and she smiled softly. “I was starting to wonder if you were planning on obeying Betsy after all.” “Never,” I assured her. “Though I’ve promised I will let you get some sleep. How do you feel?” I went to her side, and Danica hooked and arm across my shoulders to steady herself as she sat up. Danica winced. “I hurt.” She rolled her shoulders, as if the muscles were sore. “I’m sure,” I responded sympathetically. Offering the Ahnleh A’isha had given to me, I went on, “This is a congratulatory gift from sha’Mehay.” I explained the significance of the ancient coin and repeated A’isha’s words regarding why she was giving it to Danica. She took the coin reverently, closing it in her hand for a moment before tying the cord into place. “Thank you,” she said softly, as she snuggled closer. I knew the words were not for me, but for the nest around us. I began to massage her shoulders, and she closed her eyes and leaned back toward my touch. My fingertips brushed the feathers growing under her hair at the nape of her neck. There was still a moment of hesitation in my mind every time I felt those feathers, a moment when my thoughts protested, remembering so many years of war when this beautiful woman had been my enemy, so hated that when fate crossed our paths there had been no choice but for me to love her. She met my gaze now without any hint of the fear that had once been there. Cobriana eyes had once been for Danica what her feathers were for me. Avian legend said that a royal cobra’s garnet eyes possessed demonic power, and it had taken a long time for Danica to trust me enough to look into mine. Most avians still shuddered and avoided my gaze. “I feel…tired, but wonderful. Betsy tells me--” She broke off, words failing her, and then gave up on speech and kissed me. “I love you,” she whispered--then yawned widely. “Take a nap with me?” The request, as always, made me smile. When we had first met, the idea of resting with another person was as foreign to the lovely but reserved hawk as the idea of flying was to me. I was happy that Danica had not yet taken me into the air, but she had grown used to a second heartbeat while she rested. That blessing pleased me almost as much as any could. I wrapped my arms around milady; Danica sighed, tucking her head down against my chest like a chick in the nest. Having her there calmed my fears and let me drift into sleep.

The pain will not kill you. It will be a reminder that you are very much alive, engaged, and that you loved with abandon.

I’d hate for us to get into an argument,” he said, “but if that’s the only way we could communicate....” Carlotta said that grown-ups recover from arguments if they keep their knives in the drawer. “What if our talents don’t mesh?” he worried. “We’ll create a weave that works,” she said in a silvery tone. He brought her to a bench by the lake; they chatted while kids played soccer behind them. “I’m not sure the west coast would appeal with me.” “So you don’t want me to disrupt your life,” Carlotta needled him. “I know two men who’ll provide for me from their millions.” “And let their money ruin your talent?” he nearly exploded. “Over my dead body. I thought you could support yourself. You and I together....” We’ve encircled each other; I can about guess what will happen next. Either her “no” or her “yes” would cause him to quake. They inspected the flowers in a rock garden – purple and red, daisies past their prime, white dots and white dust on deep green leaves, brown tufts that created an impression of mauve from a distance but looked red and green as they moved closer – all on purplish brown stalks. Other nearby blooms could have been the tails of the proudest birds – the kind that have red maple feathers and violet eyes. Carlotta interrupted his reverie. “You’ll have to speak up. I can’t say ‘yes’ for both of us.

God is so inconceivably good. He's not looking for perfection. He already saw it in Christ. He's looking for affection. That's why every lasting change in every home will invariably be a change of heart.

Moms of babies and toddlers often have no idea how much their children are soaking in early truths about the love of God … even through a song! The sketch they later develop of both God and themselves can be dramatically colored by the crayons of influence they're given in those primary years. We wonder if we're wasting our breath on such young ears and don't see a correlation when our children develop an affection for God later. Our early encouragements are not guarantees, but when we lead them by the hand down the path, they'll know where to find Him long after they've let go of us. Mercifully, God makes Himself discoverable to those who search even if the jungle is deep and the path totally unfamiliar. He tenderly offers them His own hand.

agape is a love primarily based on best interest. When Scripture speaks of God's love for His children, it almost always refers to agape love. God's love for us undoubtedly prioritizes what is in our best interest. While I desperately want God to be my friend and think of me as His, what I need more than anything is a courageous heavenly Father who will look after my best interests even when I'm too nearsighted to recognize them. That's what our children need from us too. They need courageous parents who are willing to insist on their best interest even when they don't understand. Even when our decisions won't make us popular. What our culture refers to as “tough love” falls under the category of agape. Sometimes tough love is in the best interest of a terribly and repeatedly rebellious child. Our children don't need a buddy. They need a parent. Sometimes we have to be willing to love our children more than we're desperate for them to like us.