Graceful Morning Quotes

Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route.

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2 a.m., gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologize for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that didn’t happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don’t see the lightning, but you hear the echoes.

The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day.

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow. I am the gentle showers of rain, I am the fields of ripening grain. I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the starshine of the night. I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room. I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing. Do not stand at my grave bereft I am not there. I have not left.

Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

The day we decide to drop the flimsy makeshift scenarios in our cluttered mind and eschew the ‘alleluias’ of self-importance, life can become genuine, lucid and graceful, like a flow of wellness in the glow of a new morning. ("Words flew away like birds")

Thus, when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are.

Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace.

Looking for Your Face From the beginning of my life I have been looking for your face but today I have seen it Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable grace of the face that I was looking for Today I have found you and those who laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I did I am bewildered by the magnificence of your beauty and wish to see you with a hundred eyes My heart has burned with passion and has searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold I am ashamed to call this love human and afraid of God to call it divine Your fragrant breath like the morning breeze has come to the stillness of the garden You have breathed new life into me I have become your sunshine and also your shadow My soul is screaming in ecstasy Every fiber of my being is in love with you Your effulgence has lit a fire in my heart and you have made radiant for me the earth and sky My arrow of love has arrived at the target I am in the house of mercy and my heart is a place of prayer

And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day.

Have I lived enough? Have I loved enough? Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusion? Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace? - A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver

You think you’re a very clever fellow, don’t you?” Saldur challenged. “No, Your Grace,” Merrick replied. “Clever is the man who makes a fortune selling dried-up cows, explaining how it saves the farmers the trouble of getting up every morning to milk them. I’m not clever—I’m a genius.

Grace stopped in the door, dimly silhouetted by the dull gray morning light, and looked back at me, at my eyes, my mouth, my hands, in a way that made something inside me knot and unknot unbearably. I didn't think I belonged here in her world, a boy stuck between two lives, dragging the dangers of the wolves with me, but when she said my name, waiting for me to follow, I knew I'd do anything to stay with her.

Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split the frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you that that is beautiful, and a part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.

I can’t lie to you and tell you that standing in front of someone and offering them your soul and having them reject you is not gonna be one of the worst things that ever happens to you. You will wonder for days or weeks or months or years afterward what it is about you that was so wrong or broken or ugly that they couldn’t love you the way you loved them. You will look for all the reasons inside yourself that they didn’t want you and you will find a million. Maybe it was the way you looked in the mornings when you first woke up and hadn’t showered. Maybe it was the way you were too available, because despite what everyone says, playing hard to get is still attractive. Some days you will believe that every atom of your being is defective somehow. What you need to remember, as I remembered as I watched Grace Town leave, is that you are extraordinary.

His Grace woke up in the morning red-eyed as a ferret and in roughly the same temper as a rabid badger. Had I a tranquilizing dart, I would have shot him with it without an instant's hesitation.

To be in love was to be dazed twenty times a morning: by the latticework of frost on his windshield; by a feather loosed from his pillow; by a soft, pink rim of light over the hills.

She grasped the crook and flail with cool hands and sank gracefully to her knees. The High Priest of Amun placed a piece of flatbread imprinted with an ankh, the symbol of everlasting life, upon her tongue. It was gritty, the dough having been sprinkled with sand blessed by all the High Priests before it was baked that morning.

You may break the clods, you may sow your seeds, but what can you do without the rain? As absolutely needful is the divine blessing.

Until I die there will be those moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches, when his face will come before me, that face in all its changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. Sometimes, in the days which are coming--God grant me the grace to live them-- in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head.

He gazed into eyes the color of a summer morning sky and sighed. It felt as if his soul had just come home.

It takes grace to stop working and go to bed. When in bed, more grace is needed to rise up and begin work again.

What a blessed habit I have found my prayer list, morning by morning, it takes me via the Throne of all Grace straight to the intimate personal heart of each one mentioned here, and I know that He Who is not prescribed by time and geography answers immediately.

One of these poems I wrote after having been here only a month. The other, I wrote this morning. In the space between the two poems, I have found acres of grace

Contentment celebrates grace. The contended heart is satisfied with the Giver and is therefore freed from craving the next gift.

In times of unprecedented evil, God wants to give unprecedented grace. For, as St. Paul wrote, “Where sin abounds grace abounds all the more” (Rom 5:20).

I am still not good enough. I am still not whole enough. I am still not pure enough. I am still weakness and sharp edges and broken, but He is good and pure and whole, all that I strive for but am not. I wake up every morning and I sit in silence and I choose to believe. I may speak. I may not. I let Him wrap up all my broken in to His grace. He takes me imperfect. This is the great mystery I never knew.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, 'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich--yes, richer than a king-- And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The Clock on the Morning Lenape Building Must Clocks be circles? Time is not a circle. Suppose the Mother of All Minutes started right here, on the sidewalk in front of the Morning Lenape Building, and the parade of minutes that followed--each of them, say, one inch long-- headed out that way, down Bridge Street. Where would Now be? This minute? Out past the moon? Jupiter? The nearest star? Who came up with minutes, anyway? Who needs them? Name one good thing a minute's ever done. They shorten fun and measure misery. Get rid of them, I say. Down with minutes! And while you're at it--take hours with you too. Don't get me started on them. Clocks--that's the problem. Every clock is a nest of minutes and hours. Clocks strap us into their shape. Instead of heading for the nearest star, all we do is corkscrew. Clocks lock us into minutes, make Ferris wheel riders of us all, lug us round and round from number to number, dice the time of our lives into tiny bits until the bits are all we know and the only question we care to ask is "What time is it?" As if minutes could tell. As if Arnold could look up at this clock on the Lenape Building and read: 15 Minutes till Found. As if Charlie's time is not forever stuck on Half Past Grace. As if a swarm of stinging minutes waits for Betty Lou to step outside. As if love does not tell all the time the Huffelmeyers need to know.

Grace headed in desperation for the coffeemaker. Apparently it was going to be one of those mornings. Funny how often those happened after a short night's sleep.

My father for teaching me the grace of power unused, and mother for teaching me the joy of power used well.

This was the morning I realized that failure is not the enemy of formation; it is the liturgy of formation. How we deal with failure says volumes about who we really believe we are. Who we really believe God is. When we trip on failure, do we fall into ourselves? Or do we fall into grace?

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack

In the morning when I wake up, my first thoughts are on God. I am always thankful for safe sleep and the grace to wake up to see the light of a new day.

I thought that it was strange to assume that it was abnormal for anyone to be forever asking questions about the nature of the universe, about what the human condition really was, my condition, what I was doing here, if there was really something to do. It seemed to me, on the contrary, that it was abnormal for people NOT to think about it, for them to allow themselves to live, as it were, unconsciously. Perhaps it's because everyone, all the others, are convinced in some unformulated, irrational way that one day everything will be made clear. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for humanity. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for me.

Eat slowly," the blueblood said. "Don't cut your food with the fork. Cut it with the knife, and make the pieces small enough so you can answer a question without having to swallow first." Why me? "Right. Any other tips?" Her sarcasm whistled right over his head. "Yes. Look at me and not at your plate. If you have to look at your plate, glance at it occasionally." Rose put down her fork. "Lord Submarine..." "Camarine." "Whatever." "You can call me Declan." He said it as if granting her a knighthood. The nerve. "Declan, then. How did you spend your day?" He frowned. "It's a simple question: How did you spend your day? What did you do prior to the fight and the pancake making?" "I rested from my journey," he said with a sudden regal air. "You took a nap" "Possibly." "I spent my day scrubbing, vacuuming and dusting ten offices in the Broken. I got there at seven thirty in the morning and left at six. My back hurts, I can still smell bleach on my fingers, and my feet feel as flat as these pancakes. Tomorrow, I have to go back to work, and I want to eat my food in peace and quiet. I have good table manners. They may not be good enough for you, but they're definitely good enough for the Edge, and they are the height of social graces in this house. So please keep your critique to yourself." The look on his face was worth having him under her roof. As if he had gotten slapped. She smiled at him. "Oh and thank you for the pancakes. They are delicious.

The more unworthy you feel yourself to be, the more evidence have you that nothing but unspeakable love could have led the Lord Jesus to save such a soul as yours. The more demerit you feel, the clearer is the display of the abounding love of God in having chosen you, and called you, and made you an heir of bliss.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, we people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, and he was always human when he talked; but still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich - yes, richer than a king - And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.

But I don´t want to lose you, Leah. I don´t want to be without you, ever again. I woke up this morning and found you gone, and I thought...it was like my heart had just walked out the door by itself.

Answers seemed to float through the space around him. It was about love. It was about getting handed at conception a gift that sets you apart from everyone and you spend your whole life drifting through the margins of time, not understanding hours like everyone else seems to: glancing at wristwatches, checking timetables - you hardly know what it is people are trying to accomplish when they go through their days: morning, noon, evening, night. Wake up and sleep and wake up. This was about family, how blood superseded death; it was about trying your hardest, it was about snow.

WHAT YOU DO WITH TODAY MATTERS Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place? —JOB 38:12 Today has a place in eternity that no other day can take. There are things God has established for you to accomplish this day, and there are things the devil has set up to distract you. Certainly there is some leeway in this, and God gives an incredible amount of grace, but what we do with today matters, not only for ourselves but also for those God has appointed for us to touch. Father, I do not take today for granted. Download fresh vision and purpose into my spirit today so that I might take advantage of every opportunity You bring my way. I have a fresh anointing for the day ahead that is uncontaminated and uncompromised. By this anointing, every yoke is broken off of my life and every burden is lifted. Your yoke is easy, and Your burden is light. I declare that a new cycle of power and victory in my life begins right now. I break free from the cares of yesterday and will not take on any worries about tomorrow, for You have given me grace that is sufficient for each day in and of itself. Your mercies are new every morning, and You clothe me with newness of purpose as I wait upon You. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Until i die there will be these moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches, when his face will come before me, that face in all its changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. Sometimes, in the days which are coming--God grant me the grace to live them--in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head.

When thou art at thy worst and lowest, yet 'underneath' thee 'are everlasting arms'. Sin may drag thee ever so low, but Christ's great atonement is still under all.

Jesus does not cherish an offense, loving us as well after the offense as before it.

If my heart is ever going to be freed of grumbling and ruled by gratitude, I need your grace: grace to remember, grace to see, grace that produces a heart of humble joy.

Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace?

Of course, he showed me this one afternoon when he was skipping class. When trolls cut classes, you think they are losers. When the beautiful and/or reasonably erudite do the same thing to sit on the library steps and read poetry, you think they are on to something deep. You see only deep brown wavy hair and strong legs, well honed by years of Ultimate Frisbee. You see that book of T. S. Eliot poems held by the hand with the long, graceful fingers, and you never stop to think that it shouldn't take half a semester to read one book of poems... that maybe he is not so much reading as getting really high every morning and sleeping it off on the library steps, forcing the people who actually go to class to step or trip over him.

When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being born under the covenant of works, flies directly to a covenant of works again. And as Adam and Eve hid themselves… and sewed fig leaves… so the poor sinner, when awakened, flies to his duties and to his performances, to hide himself from God, and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own. Says he, I will be mighty good now–I will reform–I will do all I can; and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy on me.

Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route.

A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, Come, you may stand upon my Back and face your distant destiny, But seek no haven in my shadow. I will give you no hiding place down here. You, created only a little lower than The angels, have crouched too long in The bruising darkness, Have lain too long Face down in ignorance. Your mouths spelling words Armed for slaughter. The rock cries out today, you may stand on me, But do not hide your face. Across the wall of the world, A river sings a beautiful song, Come rest here by my side. Each of you a bordered country, Delicate and strangely made proud, Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. Your armed struggles for profit Have left collars of waste upon My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. Yet, today I call you to my riverside, If you will study war no more. Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs The Creator gave to me when I And the tree and stone were one. Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow And when you yet knew you still knew nothing. The river sings and sings on. There is a true yearning to respond to The singing river and the wise rock. So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, The African and Native American, the Sioux, The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek, The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, The privileged, the homeless, the teacher. They hear. They all hear The speaking of the tree. Today, the first and last of every tree Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river. Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river. Each of you, descendant of some passed on Traveller, has been paid for. You, who gave me my first name, You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, Then forced on bloody feet, Left me to the employment of other seekers-- Desperate for gain, starving for gold. You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot... You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare Praying for a dream. Here, root yourselves beside me. I am the tree planted by the river, Which will not be moved. I, the rock, I the river, I the tree I am yours--your passages have been paid. Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage, Need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon The day breaking for you. Give birth again To the dream. Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands. Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country. No less to Midas than the mendicant. No less to you now than the mastodon then. Here on the pulse of this new day You may have the grace to look up and out And into your sister's eyes, Into your brother's face, your country And say simply Very simply With hope Good morning.

He never mocks your weaknesses or throws your sin in your face. He never gets tired of you or gives up on his relationship with you. He doesn’t ask you to earn what you can never deserve, and he never makes you feel guilty for needing his good gifts. His love isn’t conditional and his grace is never temporary.

Some days seem to fit together like a stained glass window. A hundred little pieces of different color and mood that, when combined, create a complete picture. The last twenty-four hours had been like that. The night at the hospital was one pane, sickly green and flickering. The dark hours of the early morning in Grace's bed were another, cloudy and purple. Then the cold blue reminder of my other life this morning, and finally the brilliant, clear pane that was our kiss.

Beautiful surroundings, the society of learned men, the charm of noble women, the graces of art, could not make up for the loss of those light-hearted mornings of the desert, for that wind that made one a boy again. He had noticed that this peculiar quality in the air of new countries vanished after they were tamed by man and made to bear harvests. Parts of Texas and Kansas that he had first known as open range had since been made into rich farming districts, and the air had quite lost that lightness, that dry, aromatic odour. The moisture of plowed land, the heaviness of labour and growth and grain-bearing, utterly destroyed it; one could breathe that only on the bright edges of the world, on the great grass plains or the sage-brush desert.

Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.

The fading dawn colors revive momentarily, and the sky shines with lilac and daffodil, layering colors in clouds like quilts stacked on a bed. More birds chime into the morning air: a nuthatch’s nasal onk joins the crow’s croak and a black-throated green warbler’s murmur from the branches above the mandala. As the colors finally fade under the fierce gaze of their mother, the sun, a wood thrush caps the dawn chorus with his astounding song. The song seems to pierce through from another world, carrying with it clarity and ease, purifying me for a few moments with its grace. Then the song is gone, the veil closes, and I am left with embers of memory.

When Sterling’s eyesight did finally fail him completely, we were up in years, content to sit in our garden and reflect on what a wondrous and exciting life we’d led. He did not see my hair fade into silver. For him it was always a vibrant red. I watched him age gracefully and with dignity. He leaned on me much more than he did his walking stick, which was how it should be, because when I needed him most, he was always there for me. Each day I thought I could love him no more than I already did—and the following morning I was always proven wrong, for I awoke loving him just a little bit more.

And once you feel love, real love, you can never forget the taste of those kisses, the sun-drenched mornings, the secret pleasures of the gasping, restless nights.

Morning parties, as a rule, are failures. People never know how to get away from them gracefully.

March, rain at the windows, and he had to be up at five the next morning. He listened to the click and patter of drops against the panes.

I would like to go mad on one condition, namely, that I would become a happy madman, lively and always in a good mood, without any troubles and obsessions, laughing senselessly from morning to night. Although I long for luminous ecstasies, I wouldn't ask for any, because I know they are followed by great depressions. I would like instead a shower of warm light to fall from me, transfiguring the entire world, a nunecstatic burst of light preserving the calm of luminous eternity. Far from the concentrations of ecstasy, it would be all graceful lightness and smiling warmth. The entire world should float in this dream of light, in this transparent and unreal state of delight. Obstacles and matter, form and limits would cease to exist. Then let me die of light in such a landscape.

Laurent entered, an edge to his grace, like a leopard with a headache, around whom one must tread very, very carefully. ‘Good morning,’ said Damen. ‘Good morning,’ said Laurent. This

In the cage is the lion. She paces with her memories. Her body is a record of her past. As she moves back and forth, one may see it all: the lean frame, the muscular legs, the paw enclosing long sharp claws, the astonishing speed of her response. She was born in this garden. She has never in her life stretched those legs. Never darted farther than twenty yards at a time. Only once did she use her claws. Only once did she feel them sink into flesh. And it was her keeper's flesh. Her keeper whom she loves, who feeds her, who would never dream of harming her, who protects her. Who in his mercy forgave her mad attack, saying this was in her nature, to be cruel at a whim, to try to kill what she loves. He had come into her cage as he usually did early in the morning to change her water, always at the same time of day, in the same manner, speaking softly to her, careful to make no sudden movement, keeping his distance, when suddenly she sank down, deep down into herself, the way wild animals do before they spring, and then she had risen on all her strong legs, and swiped him in one long, powerful, graceful movement across the arm. How lucky for her he survived the blow. The keeper and his friends shot her with a gun to make her sleep. Through her half-open lids she knew they made movements around her. They fed her with tubes. They observed her. They wrote comments in notebooks. And finally they rendered a judgment. She was normal. She was a normal wild beast, whose power is dangerous, whose anger can kill, they had said. Be more careful of her, they advised. Allow her less excitement. Perhaps let her exercise more. She understood none of this. She understood only the look of fear in her keeper's eyes. And now she paces. Paces as if she were angry, as if she were on the edge of frenzy. The spectators imagine she is going through the movements of the hunt, or that she is readying her body for survival. But she knows no life outside the garden. She has no notion of anger over what she could have been, or might be. No idea of rebellion. It is only her body that knows of these things, moving her, daily, hourly, back and forth, back and forth, before the bars of her cage.

He freely gives grace in all its forms, to His people: saving grace, comforting grace, preserving grace, sanctifying grace, directing grace, instructing grace, assisting grace! He gives grace . . . abundantly, seasonably, constantly, readily, sovereignly!

Lidewij, I believe Agustus Waters sent a few pages from a notebok to Peter Van Houten shortly before he (Augustus) died. It is very important to me that someone reads these pages. I want to read them, of course, but maybe they weren't written for me. Regardless, they must be read. They must be. Can you help? Your friend, Hazel Grace Lancaster "She responded late that afternoon." Dear Hazel, I did not know that Augustus had died. I am very sad to hear this news. He was such a very charismatic young man. I am so sorry, and so sad. I have not spoken to Peter since I resigned that day we met. It is very late at night here, but I am going over to his house first thing in the morning to find this letter and force him to read it. Mornings were his best time, usually. Your friend, Lidewij Vliegenthart p.s. I am bringing my boyfriend in case we have to physically retsrain Peter.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.—But the age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

Go to sleep,” she murmured, barely audible, hooking her fingers in my T-shirt in a way that didn’t make me think of sleep. I kissed her closed eyes and sighed. She made an appreciative noise and whispered, eyes still closed, “Shh, Sam. Whatever it is will keep till morning. And if it doesn’t, it isn’t worth it anyway. Sleep.

It isn’t Easter,” he said, “but this week has caused me to think a lot about the Easter story. Not the glorious resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday but the darkness that came before. I know of no darker moment in the Bible than the moment Jesus in his agony on the cross cries out, ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Darker even than his death not long after because in death Jesus at last gave himself over fully to the divine will of God. But in that moment of his bitter railing he must have felt betrayed and completely abandoned by his father, a father he’d always believed loved him deeply and absolutely. How terrible that must have been and how alone he must have felt. In dying all was revealed to him, but alive Jesus like us saw with mortal eyes, felt the pain of mortal flesh, and knew the confusion of imperfect mortal understanding. “I see with mortal eyes. My mortal heart this morning is breaking. And I do not understand. “I confess that I have cried out to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ ” Here my father paused and I thought he could not continue. But after a long moment he seemed to gather himself and went on. “When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark night and death and on the third day he rose again through the grace of his loving father. For each of us, the sun sets and the sun also rises and through the grace of our Lord we can endure our own dark night and rise to the dawning of a new day and rejoice. “I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to rejoice with me in the divine grace of the Lord and in the beauty of this morning, which he has given us.

My mom always said, there are two kinds of love in this world: the steady breeze, and the hurricane. The steady breeze is slow and patient. It fills the sails of the boats in the harbor, and lifts laundry on the line. It cools you on a hot summer’s day; brings the leaves of fall, like clockwork every year. You can count on a breeze, steady and sure and true. But there’s nothing steady about a hurricane. It rips through town, reckless, sending the ocean foaming up the shore, felling trees and power lines and anyone dumb or fucked-up enough to stand in its path. Sure, it’s a thrill like nothing you’ve ever known: your pulse kicks, your body calls to it, like a spirit possessed. It’s wild and breathless and all-consuming. But what comes next? “You see a hurricane coming, you run.” My mom told me, the summer I turned eighteen. “You shut the doors, and you bar the windows. Because come morning, there’ll be nothing but the wreckage left behind.” Emerson Ray was my hurricane. Looking back, I wonder if mom saw it in my eyes: the storm clouds gathering, the dry crackle of electricity in the air. But it was already too late. No warning sirens were going to save me. I guess you never really know the danger, not until you’re the one left, huddled on the ground, surrounded by the pieces of your broken heart. It’s been four years now since that summer. Since Emerson. It took everything I had to pull myself back together, to crawl out of the empty wreckage of my life and build something new in its place. This time, I made it storm-proof. Strong. I barred shutters over my heart, and found myself a steady breeze to love. I swore, nothing would ever destroy me like that summer again. I was wrong. That’s the thing about hurricanes. Once the storm touches down, all you can do is pray.

Oh, what can you do with a man like that? What can you do? How can you dissuade his eye in a crowd from seeking out the cheek with acne, the infirm hand; how can you teach him to respond to the inestimable greatness of the race, the harsh surface beauty of life; how can you put his finger for him on the obdurate truths before which fear and horror are powerless? The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming--Diana and Helen--and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful, and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea.

Today Means Amen Dear you, whoever you are, however you got here, this is exactly where you are supposed to be. This moment has waited its whole life for you. This moment is your lover and you are a soldier. Come home, baby, it's over. You don't need to suffer anymore. Dear you, this moment is your surprise party. You are both hiding in the dark and walking through the door. This moment is a hallelujah. This moment is your permission slip to finally open that love letter you've been hiding from yourself, the one you wrote when you were little when you still danced like a sparkler at dusk. Do you remember the moment you realized they were watching? When you became ashamed of how much light you were holding? When you first learned how to unlove yourself? Dear you, the word today means amen in every language. Today, we made it. Today, I'm going to love you. Today, I'm going to love myself. Today, the boxcutter will rust in the garbage. The noose will forget how to hold you, today, today-- Dear you, and I have always meant you, nothing would be the same if you did not exist. You, whose voice is someone's favorite voice, someone's favorite face to wake up to. Nothing would be the same if you did not exist. You, the teacher, the starter's gun, the lantern in the night who offers not a way home, but the courage to travel farther into the dark. You, the lover, who worships the taste of her body, who is the largest tree ring in his heart, who does not let fear ration your love. You, the friend, the sacred chorus of how can I help. You, who have felt more numb than holy, more cracked than mosaic. Who have known the tiles of a bathroom by heart, who have forgotten what makes you worth it. You, the forgiven, the forgiver, who belongs right here in this moment. You, this clump of cells, this happy explosion that happened to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever is up there, you got here. You made it this whole way: through the nights that swallowed you whole, the mornings that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel, the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt is over. Today, you made it. You made it. You made it here.

There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day, Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. The early lilacs became part of this child, And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover, And the song of the phoebe-bird, And the Third-month lambs and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal and the cow's calf, And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side, And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid, And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all became part of him.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss. Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Thank you.

As someone said to me--I can't remember now who it was--it is really remarkable that when you wake up in the morning you nearly always find everything in exactly the same place as the evening before. For when asleep and dreaming you are, apparently at least, in an essentially different state from that of wakefulness; and therefore, as that man truly said, it requires enormous presence of mind or rather quickness of wit, when opening your eyes to seize hold as it were of everything in the room at exactly the same place where you had let it go on the previous evening. That was why, he said, the moment of waking up was the riskiest moment of the day. Once that was well over without deflecting you from your orbit, you could take heart of grace for the rest of the day.

Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away;" but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love

I understand why many people who call themselves Christians are not excited about grace. If you think your environment is your problem, you won’t esteem grace, but once you admit that you’re your biggest problem, you will celebrate the grace that rescues you from you.

I thought. I thought of the slow yellow autumn in the swamp and the high honey sun of spring and the eternal silence of the marshes, and the shivering light on them, and the whisper of the spartina and sweet grass in the wind and the little liquid splashes of who-knew-what secret creatures entering that strange old place of blood-warm half earth, half water. I thought of the song of all the birds that I knew, and the soft singsong of the coffee-skinned women who sold their coiled sweet-grass baskets in the market and on Meeting Street. I thought of the glittering sun on the morning harbor and the spicy, somehow oriental smells from the dark old shops, and the rioting flowers everywhere, heavy tropical and exotic. I thought of the clop of horses' feet on cobblestones and the soft, sulking, wallowing surf of Sullivan's Island in August, and the countless small vistas of grace and charm wherever the eye fell; a garden door, a peeling old wall, an entire symmetrical world caught in a windowpane. Charlestone simply could not manage to offend the eye. I thought of the candy colors of the old houses in the sunset, and the dark secret churchyards with their tumbled stones, and the puresweet bells of Saint Michael's in the Sunday morning stillness. I thought of my tottering piles of books in the study at Belleau and the nights before the fire when my father told me of stars and butterflies and voyages, and the silver music of mathematics. I thought of hot, milky sweet coffee in the mornings, and the old kitchen around me, and Aurelia's gold smile and quick hands and eyes rich with love for me.

He graces you with good things because he is good, not because you are.

Morning, noon and night, I loved Grace Astor, but she always took my breath away first thing in the morning.

Every breath I draw is for you. Every morning I wake is for you. It was always for you, Grace.

The more grace we have, the less we shall think of ourselves, for grace, like light, reveals our impurity.

Every moment thou waitest does but increase thy misery; thine attempts to plume thyself and make thyself fit for Jesus are all vanity.

Never go hungry while the daily bread of grace is on the table of mercy.

If ever there came a morning when mercy and simple good fortune took to their heels and fled, grace alone might have to do.

The dread that had been rising all morning rose higher in his throat as if by capillary action.

Every new morning, I write a grateful gratitude for the new grace.

That was how I met Giovanni. I think we connected the instant that we met. And remain connected still, in spite of our later separation de corps, despite the fact that Giovanni will be rotting soon in unhallowed ground near Paris. Until I die there will be those moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches, when his face will come before me, that face in all its changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. Sometimes, in the days which are coming - God grant me the grace to live them: in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head.

Jake?" "Mmm?" "I like it when you spend the day thinking." He brought his head up, twinkling eyes and a mischie­vous grin gracing his countenance. "Reb, honey, that was just what I thought about this morning. Wait until I show you what I thought about this afternoon.

This is what grace does. It rescues us from our spiritual blindness. It releases us from our bondage to our rationalism and materialism. Grace gives us the faith to be utterly assured of what we cannot see. It frees us from refusing to believe in anything we cannot experience with our physical senses. But grace does more. It connects us to the invisible One in an eternal love relationship that fills us with joy we have never known before and gives us rest of heart that we would have though impossible. And that grace is still rescuing us, because we still tend to forget what is important, real, and true. We still tend to look to the physical world for our comfort. We still fail to remember in given moments that we really do have a heavenly Father. Grace has done a wonderful thing for us and continues to do more and more.

Since dark antiquity the words have been spoken by women of every caste to sailors in every port; words of docile acceptance of the horizon's authority, of reckless homage to that mysterious azure boundary; words never failing to bestow on even the haughtiest woman the sadness, the hollow hopes, and the freedom of the whore: 'You'll be leaving in the morning, won't you?...

I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father’s house.

Fear in a believer is a function of forgetfulness. To the degree that you forget who God is, who you are as his child, and what you have been given by his grace, fear is your default emotion.

Finding God’s grace wasn’t like locating missing keys or the forgotten name of a 1940s pinup girl – it was more of a feeling: the sun breaking through an overcast morning, the softest bed sinking under your weight. And, of course, you couldn’t find God’s grace unless you admitted you were lost.

The Resurrection is not a single event, but a loosening of God's power and light into the earth and history that continues to alter all things, infusing them with the grace and power of God's own holiness. It is as though a door was opened, and what poured out will never be stopped, and that door cannot be closed.

When the heart stops oozing blood & the outpouring is clear as water (so to speak) then you know you've turned the corner & will be well. When you look inward & all pathways are no longer dark but clearly lighted & shine like transparent drinking straws then you know you'll find your way alone. When the gray morning has nothing to do with you & doesn't weigh you down like a heavy blanket, then you know that moving will be easy again and your body will flow through time like the river it really is, smooth & deep. no rocks, no shallows to smash or catch you, keep you from moving on. When the heart slows to its normal rhythm and the beauty of birdsong at dawn doesn't make you cry because you are alone listening, then you know that everything has happened that is going to for now, and you can get on with your life & everything about it that was yours alone and always finer than anyone could ever imagine it would be without him.

Envy is self-focused and self-righteous. It inserts you into the center of your world. It makes it all about you. It tells you that you deserve what you don't deserve. Envy is expectant and demanding. Envy tells you that you are someone you aren't and you are entitled to what is not rightfully yours. Envy cannot celebrate the blessing of another because it tells you that you are more deserving. Envy tells you that you have earned what you could never earn. The world of envy no more mixes with the world of grace than oil does with water. Envy forgets who you are, forgets who God is, and is confused about what life is all about.

If anyone poisoned your drink, I’m not to blame.”  She bared her teeth.  “This time.” A hard swat on her shoulder made her jerk away.  Cinnia glared at her, a blush dusting her cheekbones.  “Lou, stop being so rude!”   She offered a conciliatory smile to Ambrose.  “My apologies, Ambrose.  She’s always been a scold in the morning.” He huffed and raised his tankard in mock toast to Louvaen.  “You must live a life of eternal morning.

If every morning you look at your child as a gift from God, a blessing that He has bestowed today, and thank Him for that blessing, you will approach your children with love, patience, and grace. You have to bow your knee and say, "God, you really are good and you knew exactly what you were doing when you gave me this child.

I am a mother at heart. I build a home, which seems like a place to stay, but really, it is a place to leave. That is the way of it. Children are meant to grow up. I understand that now. Maybe you have yet to come face-to-face with what that means. I hope you will take courage and allow your children to walk away with grace.

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light, And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye, The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave that is her womb, And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find, Many for many virtues excellent, None but for some and yet all different. O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give, Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; And vice sometimes by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this small flower Poison hath residence and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

I am so grateful that You are always with me, no matter what season, test, or trial I walk through! Please give me a greater revelation of Your grace and Your presence in the midst of the hard times. I am content in Your presence.

As the wind swelled, my tree started to sway. Almost like a human body it swung back and around, gently at first, then more and more wildly. While the swaying intensified, so did my fears that the trunk might snap and hurl me to the ground. But in time my confidence returned. Amazed at how the tree could be at once so flexible and so sturdy, I held on tight as it bent and waved, twisted and swirled, slicing curves and arcs through the air. With each graceful swing, I felt less a creature of the land and more a part of the wind itself. "The rain began falling, it's sound merging with the splashing river and the singing trees. Branches streamed like waterfalls of green. Tiny rivers cascaded down every trunk, twisting through moss meadows and bark canyons. All the while, I rode out the gale. I could not have felt wetter. I could not have felt freer. "When, at last, the storm subsided, the entire world seemed newly born. Sunbeams danced on rain-washed leaves. Curling columns of mist rose from every glade. The forest's colors shown more vivid, its smells struck more fresh. And I understood, for the first time in my life, that the Earth was always being remade, that life was always being renewed. That it may have been the afternoon of this particular day, but it was still the very morning of Creation.

When she remembers to look at herself in a spiritual light, she sees the deep capacity for love this pain has brought her. The realization fills her with wonder. Now she can rise in the morning and greet the new day with eagerness and grace.

Ms. Lane.”Barrons’ voice is deep, touched with that strange Old World accent and mildly pissed off. Jericho Barrons is often mildly pissed off. I think he crawled from the swamp that way, chafed either by some condition in it, out of it, or maybe just the general mass incompetence he encountered in both places. He’s the most controlled, capable man I’ve ever known. After all we’ve been through together, he still calls me Ms. Lane, with one exception: When I’m in his bed. Or on the floor, or some other place where I’ve temporarily lost my mind and become convinced I can’t breathe without him inside me this very instant. Then the things he calls me are varied and nobody’s business but mine. I reply: “Barrons,” without inflection. I’ve learned a few things in our time together. Distance is frequently the only intimacy he’ll tolerate. Suits me. I’ve got my own demons. Besides I don’t believe good relationships come from living inside each other’s pockets. I believe divorce comes from that. I admire the animal grace with which he enters the room and moves toward me. He prefers dark colors, the better to slide in and out of the night, or a room, unnoticed except for whatever he’s left behind that you may or may not discover for some time, like, say a tattoo on the back of one’s skull. “What are you doing?” “Reading,” I say nonchalantly, rubbing the tattoo on the back of my skull. I angle the volume so he can’t see the cover. If he sees what I’m reading, he’ll know I’m looking for something. If he realizes how bad it’s gotten, and what I’m thinking about doing, he’ll try to stop me. He circles behind me, looks over my shoulder at the thick vellum of the ancient manuscript. “In the first tongue?” “Is that what it is?” I feign innocence. He knows precisely which cells in my body are innocent and which are thoroughly corrupted. He’s responsible for most of the corrupted ones. One corner of his mouth ticks up and I see the glint of beast behind his eyes, a feral crimson backlight, bloodstaining the whites. It turns me on. Barrons makes me feel violently, electrically sexual and alive. I’d march into hell beside him. But I will not let him march into hell beside me. And there’s no doubt that’s where I’m going. I thought I was strong, a heroine. I thought I was the victor. The enemy got inside my head and tried to seduce me with lies. It’s easy to walk away from lies. Power is another thing. Temptation isn’t a sin that you triumph over once, completely and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say your prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows exactly how you take it. He skirts the Chesterfield sofa and stands over me. “Looking for something, Ms. Lane?” I’m eye level with his belt but that’s not where my gaze gets stuck and suddenly my mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow and I know I’m going to want to. I’m Pri-ya for this man. I hate it. I love it. I can’t escape it. I reach for his belt buckle. The manuscript slides from my lap, forgotten. Along with everything else but this moment, this man. “I just found it,” I tell him.

asking your teenage son or daughter to go to bed and fall asleep at ten p.m. is the circadian equivalent of asking you, their parent, to go to sleep at seven or eight p.m. No matter how loud you enunciate the order, no matter how much that teenager truly wishes to obey your instruction, and no matter what amount of willed effort is applied by either of the two parties, the circadian rhythm of a teenager will not be miraculously coaxed into a change. Furthermore, asking that same teenager to wake up at seven the next morning and function with intellect, grace, and good mood is the equivalent of asking you, their parent, to do the same at four or five a.m.

Every morning, in his extreme loneliness, the Laughing Man stole off (he was as graceful on his feet as a cat) to the dense forest surrounding the bandits' hideout. There he befriended any number and species of animals: dogs, white mice, eagles, lions, boa constrictors, wolves. Moreover, he removed his mask and spoke to them, softly, melodiously, in their own tongues. They did not think him ugly.

In Jewish culture, days begin in the evening with the setting of the sun. (We see this in Genesis 1 with the repetition of “And there was evening and there was morning.”) The day begins with rest. We start by settling down and going to sleep. This understanding of time is powerfully reorienting, even jarring, to those of us who measure our days by our own efforts and accomplishments. The Jewish day begins in seemingly accomplishing nothing at all. We begin by resting, drooling on our pillow, dropping off into helplessness. Eugene Peterson says, “The Hebrew evening/morning sequence conditions us to the rhythms of grace. We go to sleep and God begins his work.

When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark night

Swinging the door open, I took a sip. All of the coffee in the world wouldn't help if more visitors showed up at my door this early in the morning but the caffeine fortification was a bonus. The delivery guy pushed his clipboard at me. I held up my cup and raided my eyebrows. We had an entire conversation in the next seven seconds with our eyes and eyebrows. I told him that I wasn't giving up my coffee for his delivery. He told me that if I'd just sign on the damned dotted line he would get the hell out of here. I replied in turn that if he'd hold the clipboard instead of shoving it at me (I threw in a nod here for good measure), I'd sign the damned line. He finally sighed, turned the clipboard around and held the pen out. I braced the door with my hip, grabbed the pen and scrawled Wilma Flinstone on the paper.

You esteem this Penrose more than you do my lords bannermen. Why?” “He keeps faith.” “A misplaced faith in a dead usurper.” “Yes,” Davos admitted, “but still, he keeps faith.” “As those behind us do not?” Davos had come too far with Stannis to play coy now. “Last year they were Robert’s men. A moon ago they were Renly’s. This morning they are yours. Whose will they be on the morrow?” And Stannis laughed. A sudden gust, rough and full of scorn. “I told you, Melisandre,” he said to the red woman, “my Onion Knight tells me the truth.” “I see you know him well, Your Grace,” the red woman said. “Davos, I have missed you sorely,” the king said. “Aye, I have a tail of traitors, your nose does not deceive you. My lords bannermen are inconstant even in their treasons. I need them, but you should know how it sickens me to pardon such as these when I have punished better men for lesser crimes. You have every right to reproach me, Ser Davos.” “You reproach yourself more than I ever could, Your Grace. You must have these great lords to win your throne—” “Fingers and all, it seems.” Stannis smiled grimly.

You do not need to swindle yourself into thinking that you are strong. You can face your weakness with joy because you know that you have been given grace for that weakness; grace that is not a thing, but a person—the Holy Spirit, who makes you the place where he dwells in power.

I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. Nighttime I'd lay on my back an' look up at the stars; morning I'd set an' watch the sun come up; midday I'd look out from a hill at the rollin' dry country; evenin' I'd foller the sun down. Sometimes I'd pray like I always done. On'y I couldn' figure out what I was prayin' to or for. There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy...An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin', it was deeper down than thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, and' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' and draggin' and fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, no one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang -- that's right, that's holy. An' then I got to thinkin' I don't even know what I mean by holy...I can't say no grace like I use' ta say. I'm glad of the holiness of breakfast. I'm glad there's love here. That's all.

Things that remind me of Mother are these: the truth ‘mid deception, a warm summer breeze, the calm within chaos, a stitch in a rip, a comforting blanket, the smile on her lip, an ocean of love in a heart big as whales, the morals in everyday stories she tells, a wink amid laughter, the wisdom in books, the peace in humility, beauty in looks, the light and the life in a ray of the sun, the hard work accomplished disguised as pure fun, concern in a handclasp, encouragement too, the hope in a clear morning sky azure blue, the power in prayers uttered soft and sincere, the faith in a promise, and joy in a tear. These things all attest to the wonder and grace of my precious mother, none else could replace.

It’s a grace to regret. Grace allows you to face your sin, to own it and not shift the blame. But it is also grace that forgives what has been exposed. Grace forces you to feel the pain of your regrets, but never asks you to pay for them, because the price has already been paid by Jesus.

You will not find Jesus in heaven, reclining on a cloud. He isn’t in church on Sunday morning, sitting in the pews. He isn’t locked away in the Vatican or held hostage by a denominational seminary. Rather, Jesus is sitting in the Emergency Room, an uninsured, undocumented immigrant needing healing. He is behind bars, so far from his parole date he can’t think that far into the future. He is homeless, evicted from his apartment, waiting in line at the shelter for a bed and a cup of soup. He is the poor child living in government housing with lice in his hair, the stripes of abuse on his body and a growl in his stomach. He is an old forgotten woman in a roach infested apartment who no one thinks of anymore. He is a refugee in Sudan, living in squalor. He is the abused and molested child who falsely feels responsible for the evil that is perpetrated against her. He is the young woman who hates herself for the decisions she has made, decisions that have imperiled her life, but did the best she could, torn between impossible choices. Jesus is anyone without power, ability or the means to help themselves, and he beckons us to come to him; not on a do-gooding crusade, but in solidarity and embrace.

The sea that morning was iridescent and dark. My wife and my sister were swimming--Diana and Helen--and I saw their uncovered heads, black and gold in the dark water. I saw them come out and I saw that they were naked, unshy, beautiful, and full of grace, and I watched the naked women walk out of the sea.

Time passed, and a morning came when Grace woke up at Yeotown feeling, if not quite happy, at least without a stifling blanket of unhappiness. This blanket had hitherto weighed upon her like something physical, so that there had been days when she had hardly been able to rise from under it and get out of bed.

And while he waited in the castle court, The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang Clear through the open casement of the hall, Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird, Heard by the lander in a lonely isle, Moves him to think what kind of bird it is That sings so delicately clear, and make Conjecture of the plumage and the form; So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint; And made him like a man abroad at morn When first the liquid note beloved of men Comes flying over many a windy wave To Britain, and in April suddenly Breaks from a coppice gemmed with green and red, And he suspends his converse with a friend, Or it may be the labour of his hands, To think or say, 'There is the nightingale;' So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said, 'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me.

All of creation is ever present in God. You. Me. That annoying person at your job. That waffle you ate this morning. The coffee cup you just threw away. Everything. Many of us may already think this, but the trick is not just perceiving grace in the brain, but feeling it in the heart. It’s about having the experience.

Winter Grace It is autumn again and our anxiety blows With the wind, breaking the heart of the rose, Petals and leaves fall down and everything goes. All but the seed, all but the hard bright berry And the bulbs we kneel on the earth to bury And lay away with our anguish and our worry. It is time we learned again the winter grace To put the nerves to sleep in a dark place And smooth the lines in the self-tortured face. For we are at the end of our endurance nearly And we shall have to die this winter surely, For this is the end of more than a season clearly. Now we shall have to be poor, to yield up all, With the leaves wither, with the petals fall, Now we shall have to die, once and for all. Before the seed of faith so deep and still Pushes up gently through the frozen will And the joyless wake and learn to be joyful. Before this buried love leaps up from sorrow And doubt and violence and pity follow To greet the radiant morning and the swallow.

When the farmer arises in the morning unreconciled to get out of bed, he feels no anxiety that he has wasted time through his sleep; au contraire, he is confident that the seed has continued to grow during the night. So, too, the spiritual woman does not fret and flap over opportunities missed, does not hammer herself for not working hard enough, and does not have a panic attack wondering whether she has received grace in vain. She lives in quiet confidence that God is working in her by day and by night. Like the farmer, she is not totally passive or presumptuous. The woman knows that she has her full measure of work to do, but she realizes that the outcome rests with God and that the decisive factor is unearned grace. Thus, she works as if everything depends on God and prays as if everything depends on her.

Sickness may befall, but the Lord will give grace; poverty may happen to us, but grace will surely be afforded; death must come but grace will light a candle at the darkest hour. Reader, how blessed it is as years roll round, and the leaves begin again to fall, to enjoy such an unfading promise as this, "The Lord will give grace.

To the primitive believers came the Psalter, like an aftermath, wet with the dews of a new birth as from the womb of the morning. The Spirit had descended upon it anew, as showers upon the mown grass; and it had sprung up afresh, sweeter than before, for the pasture of flocks. The Church received it as full of Christ, as the inheritance of a nobler and truer Israel, for which His coming had illuminated it with a genuine interpretation, painting even its darker and clouded surfaces with the bow of promise, now made the symbol of an everlasting covenant and of all promises fulfilled in Him. Hence the local and temporary meanings of the Psalms were regarded as insignificant.

Morning Meditation I used to rise early in meditation, As the ancient saints and mystics, Looking for peace, bliss, and ecstasy. Now I awake as the sun rises. I lie beside her, Her head and the tops of her shoulders Revealed from the top of the covers Where we lay. Her face shines, As the sun rolls through the bedroom Curtains and leave her with a mandorla As if she were the subject of iconography. I lay in silence as I meditate on the artistry Of freckles that are perfectly dotted On her face and shoulders. I venerate the delicate curvature Of her lips and nose. Her eyes closed, Veiled by a composition of lashes That shroud the green mystery underneath. As her hair lays dark and graceful Across the pillows in front of me, I lay in adoration, and know there are none like her. Moses was not even shown God's face, Yet she has done me one better.

This man's music has become part of Souren's mornings, as essential as the sun rising over the rooftops of the city. The familiar melody offers him a moment of quiet grace, and this gives him strength for the day ahead. The pianist knows nothing of this, of course. He plays only for himself. Souren wonders how the arc of the man's own days is changed by creating such beauty each morning. He watches as the pianist makes his lonely way down the street. The man looks tired, defeated. He does not play for joy, thinks Souren. He plays for survival.

You, this clump of cells, this happy explosion that happened to start breathing, and by the grace of whatever is up there, you got here. You made it this whole way: through the nights that swallowed you whole, the mornings that arrived in pieces. The scabs, the gravel, the doubt, the hurt, the hurt, the hurt is over. Today, you made it. You made it. You made it here.

Hymn At morn- at noon- at twilight dim- Maria! thou hast heard my hymn! In joy and woe- in good and ill- Mother of God, be with me still! When the hours flew brightly by, And not a cloud obscured the sky, My soul, lest it should truant be, Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast Darkly my Present and my Past, Let my Future radiant shine With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

God, go with us. Help us to be an honor to the church. Give us the grace to follow Christ’s word, to be clear in our task and careful in our speech. Give us open hands and joyful hearts. Let Christ be on our lips. May our lives reflect a love of truth and compassion. Let no one come to us and go away sad. May we offer hope to the poor, and solace to the disheartened. Let us so walk before God’s people, that those who follow us might come into his kingdom. Let us sow living seeds, words that are quick with life, that faith may be the harvest in people’s hearts. In word and in example let your light shine in the dark like the morning star. Do not allow the wealth of the world or its enchantment flatter us into silence as to your truth. Do not permit the powerful, or judges, or our dearest friends to keep us from professing what is right. Amen.

I wish you the sweetness of sticky kisses, the fragrance of muddy bouquets of weeds, the simplicity of macaroni necklaces, the warmth of bedtime snuggles, the promise of beautiful tomorrows. I wish you the hope to carry your heart through the hard times, the grace to forgive your inevitable mistakes, the strength to start again every morning, the wisdom to enjoy the journey. I wish you enough joy and laughter in the present to fill the silence that comes too soon when life grows quiet and rooms grow still and your heart beats in constant prayer for the once-small feet that now choose their own path guided by the whisper of their childhood.

Don’t be afraid of aging. As the saying goes, don’t be afraid of anything but fear itself. Find “your” perfume before you turn thirty. Wear it for the next thirty years. No one should ever see your gums when you talk or laugh. If you own only one sweater, make sure it’s cashmere. Wear a black bra under your white blouse, like two notes on a sheet of music. One must live with the opposite sex, not against them. Except when making love. Be unfaithful: cheat on your perfume, but only on cold days. Go to the theater, to museums, and to concerts as often as possible: it gives you a healthy glow. Be aware of your qualities and your faults. Cultivate them in private but don’t obsess. Make it look easy. Everything you do should seem effortless and graceful. Not too much makeup, too many colors, too many accessories …  Take a deep breath and keep it simple. Your look should always have one thing left undone—the devil is in the details. Be your own knight in shining armor. Cut your own hair or ask your sister to do it for you. Of course you know celebrity hairdressers, but only as friends. Always be fuckable: when standing in line at the bakery on a Sunday morning, buying champagne in the middle of the night, or even picking the kids up from school. You never know. Either go all gray or no gray hair. Salt and pepper is for the table.

You desperately want all the right tools because you want to mother 'the right way'. But motherhood is messy, and raw, and nuanced, and requires things a baby registry could never provide: surrender, and trust, and dependence on the Lord Almighty to fuel you with grace, with perseverance, with steadfast love, with sacrificial willingness to get up the next morning with your eyes half shut and do it all over again. That is what you need to mother.

Dear Abba, I’m stepping into a new day brimming with new mercies, fresh-slate-do-over grace extended freely to me by Your hands. But it is not just given to me but to all. So that my attempts to control and manipulate others, even if it’s in their best interests, is not only to spit on the grace given them, but also that given to me. Father, the only thing truly “for our own good” is Your mercy. Nothing else comes close. Nothing. Have mercy on me.

There is a wonderful simple human reality to Christ's hunger. The man is famished. He's missed meals for three days, He has a lot on his mind, He's on His way back to heaven, but before He goes He is itching for a nice piece of broiled fish and a little bread on the side with the men and women He loves. Do we not like Him the more for His prandial persistance? And think for a moment about the holiness of our own food, and the ways that cooking and sharing a meal can be forms of love and prayer. And realize again that the Eucharist at the heart of stubborn Catholicism is the breakfast that Christ prepares for Catholics, every morning, as we return from fishing in vast dreamy seas?

TWENTY SMALL GRAVES There was a woman who bore a child almost every year, but the children never lived longer than six months. Usually after three or four months they would die. She grieved long and publicly. "I take on the work of pregnancy for nine months, but the joy vanishes quicker than a rainbow." Twenty children went like that, in fevers to their small graves. One night she had a revelation. She saw the place of unconditional love, call it the garden or source of gardens. The physical eye cannot see its unseeable light. Lamp, green flower, these are just comparisons, so that some of the love-bewildered may catch a fragrance. The woman saw pure grace and, drunk with the seeing, fell to the ground. Those who have the vision said then, "This morning meal is for those who rise with sincere devotion. The tragedies you've had came from other times when you did not take refuge." "Lord, give me more grief. Tear me to pieces, if it leads here." She said this and walked into the presence she had seen. Her children were all there, "Lost to me," she cried, "but not to you." Without this great grieving no one can enter the spirit.

A few months ago on a school morning, as I attempted to etch a straight midline part on the back of my wiggling daughter's soon-to-be-ponytailed blond head, I reminded her that it was chilly outside and she needed to grab a sweater. "No, mama." "Excuse me?" "No, I don't want to wear that sweater, it makes me look fat." "What?!" My comb clattered to the bathroom floor. "Fat?! What do you know about fat? You're 5 years old! You are definitely not fat. God made you just right. Now get your sweater." She scampered off, and I wearily leaned against the counter and let out a long, sad sigh. It has begun. I thought I had a few more years before my twin daughters picked up the modern day f-word. I have admittedly had my own seasons of unwarranted, psychotic Slim-Fasting and have looked erroneously to the scale to give me a measurement of myself. But these departures from my character were in my 20s, before the balancing hand of motherhood met the grounding grip of running. Once I learned what it meant to push myself, I lost all taste for depriving myself. I want to grow into more of a woman, not find ways to whittle myself down to less. The way I see it, the only way to run counter to our toxic image-centric society is to literally run by example. I can't tell my daughters that beauty is an incidental side effect of living your passion rather than an adherence to socially prescribed standards. I can't tell my son how to recognize and appreciate this kind of beauty in a woman. I have to show them, over and over again, mile after mile, until they feel the power of their own legs beneath them and catch the rhythm of their own strides. Which is why my parents wake my kids early on race-day mornings. It matters to me that my children see me out there, slogging through difficult miles. I want my girls to grow up recognizing the beauty of strength, the exuberance of endurance, and the core confidence residing in a well-tended body and spirit. I want them to be more interested in what they are doing than how they look doing it. I want them to enjoy food that is delicious, feed their bodies with wisdom and intent, and give themselves the freedom to indulge. I want them to compete in healthy ways that honor the cultivation of skill, the expenditure of effort, and the courage of the attempt. Grace and Bella, will you have any idea how lovely you are when you try? Recently we ran the Chuy's Hot to Trot Kids K together as a family in Austin, and I ran the 5-K immediately afterward. Post?race, my kids asked me where my medal was. I explained that not everyone gets a medal, so they must have run really well (all kids got a medal, shhh!). As I picked up Grace, she said, "You are so sweaty Mommy, all wet." Luke smiled and said, "Mommy's sweaty 'cause she's fast. And she looks pretty. All clean." My PRs will never garner attention or generate awards. But when I run, I am 100 percent me--my strengths and weaknesses play out like a cracked-open diary, my emotions often as raw as the chafing from my jog bra. In my ultimate moments of vulnerability, I am twice the woman I was when I thought I was meant to look pretty on the sidelines. Sweaty and smiling, breathless and beautiful: Running helps us all shine. A lesson worth passing along.

The devil delights in reminding us daily of all our mistakes from the past. On Monday he reminds us of Saturday and Sunday’s failures; on Tuesday he reminds us of sins committed on Monday, and so on. One morning I was spending my time with the Lord, thinking about my problems and all the areas in which I had failed, when suddenly the Lord spoke to my heart: “Joyce, are you going to fellowship with Me or with your problems?” It is our fellowship with God that helps and strengthens us to overcome our problems. We are strengthened through our union with Him. If we spend our time with God fellowshipping with our mistakes from yesterday, we never receive strength to overcome them today. Meditating on all of our faults and failures weakens us, but meditating on God’s grace and willingness to forgive strengthens us: For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him]. Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:10-11, emphasis mine) Our

God, our Heavenly Father, loves us, His children—and one of our greatest privileges is coming to Him in prayer. And because He already knows our needs, we can be confident His answer will be best. If He didn’t know our needs, why bother to pray? But He does, and this should give us confidence in prayer. Thank God that He knows your needs and wants you to come to Him in prayer. Remember: His Son gave His life “that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

I am just like you. My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating. Let’s admit that we all start there. The False Self seems to have the “first gaze” at almost everything. The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: “How will this affect me?” or “How can I get back in control of this situation?” This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live “undefended,” can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes lots of practice. On my better days, when I am “open, undefended, and immediately present,” as Gerald May says, I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. The True Self seems to always be ridden and blinded by the defensive needs of the False Self. It is an hour-by-hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer, in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile “Richard self.

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow. I am the gentle showers of rain, I am the fields of ripening grain. I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the starshine of the night. I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room. I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I do not die.

This is an unpopular yet essential truth. All ships that land at the shore of grace weigh anchor from the port of sin. We must start where God starts. We won’t appreciate what grace does until we understand who we are. We are rebels. We are Barabbas. Like him, we deserve to die. Four prison walls, thickened with fear, hurt, and hate, surround us. We are incarcerated by our past, our low-road choices, and our high-minded pride. We have been found guilty. We sit on the floor of the dusty cell, awaiting the final moment. Our executioner’s footsteps echo against stone walls. Head between knees, we don’t look up as he opens the door; we don’t lift our eyes as he begins to speak. We know what he is going to say. “Time to pay for your sins.” But we hear something else. “You’re free to go. They took Jesus instead of you.” The door swings open, the guard barks, “Get out,” and we find ourselves in the light of the morning sun, shackles gone, crimes pardoned, wondering, What just happened? Grace happened.

Through the stillness, snow fell not in skeins but in infinitely layered arabesques, filigree in motion, ornamenting the icy air, of an especially intense white in the dove-gray light of the morning, laying boas on the limbs of leafless trees, ermine collars on the tops of walls, a grace of softness in a hard world. You might have thought it would fall forever, endlessly beautifying all it touched, except for the reminder of the river. When the snowflakes met the undulant water, they ceased to exist.

The Yamato spirit is not a tame, tender plant, but a wild--in the sense of natural--growth; it is indigenous to the soil; its accidental qualities it may share with the flowers of other lands, but in its essence it remains the original, spontaneous outgrowth of our clime. But its nativity is not its sole claim to our affection. The refinement and grace of its beauty appeal to our æsthetic sense as no other flower can. We cannot share the admiration of the Europeans for their roses, which lack the simplicity of our flower. Then, too, the thorns that are hidden beneath the sweetness of the rose, the tenacity with which she clings to life, as though loth or afraid to die rather than drop untimely, preferring to rot on her stem; her showy colours and heavy odours--all these are traits so unlike our flower, which carries no dagger or poison under its beauty, which is ever ready to depart life at the call of nature, whose colours are never gorgeous, and whose light fragrance never palls. Beauty of colour and of form is limited in its showing; it is a fixed quality of existence, whereas fragrance is volatile, ethereal as the breathing of life. So in all religious ceremonies frankincense and myrrh play a prominent part. There is something spirituelle in redolence. When the delicious perfume of the sakura quickens the morning air, as the sun in its course rises to illumine first the isles of the Far East, few sensations are more serenely exhilarating than to inhale, as it were, the very breath of beauteous day.

It would have been helpful if there was a Mayo Clinic chapter about the topic of "leaving." Man, I would have read that chapter over and over -- leaving your wailing baby in the morning without wanting to slit your wrists; leaving your desk even though you are only a half hour away from completing something that would feel so good to wrap up; leaving the building so no one notices that you are actually leaving. I was much more interested in honing that skill than learning how to puree apples and carrots to freeze in ice-cube trays (not that I ever did that either). As long as I was a full-time working mother with a clock to punch or a train to catch -- as I would be for eight more years -- I never figured out how to leave with grace or with so-called conviction.

Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep Was aerie-light, from pure digestion bred, And temperate vapors bland, which the only sound Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song Of birds on every bough; so much the more His wonder was to find unwakened Eve With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek, As through unquiet rest: He, on his side Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love Hung over her enamored, and beheld Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake, My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colors, how the bee Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.

You took it with good grace when you could have sliced him to ribbons with a few words." "I was tempted," she admitted. "But I couldn't help remembering something Mother once said." It had been on a long-ago morning in her childhood, when she and Gabriel had still needed books stacked on their chairs whenever they sat at the breakfast table. Their father had been reading a freshly ironed newspaper, while their mother, Evangeline, or Evie, as family and friends called her, fed spoonfuls of sweetened porridge to baby Raphael in his high chair. After Phoebe had recounted some injustice done to her by a playmate, saying she wouldn't accept the girl's apology, her mother had persuaded her to reconsider for the sake of kindness. "But she's a bad, selfish girl," Phoebe had said indignantly. Evie's reply was gentle but matter-of-fact. "Kindness counts the most when it's given to people who don't deserve it." "Does Gabriel have to be kind to everyone too?" Phoebe had demanded. "Yes, darling." "Does Father?" "No, Redbird," her father had replied, his mouth twitching at the corners. "That's why I married your mother- she's kind enough for two people." "Mother," Gabriel had asked hopefully, "could you be kind enough for three people?" At that, their father had taken a sudden intense interest in his newspaper, lifting it in front of his face. A quiet wheeze emerged from behind it. "I'm afraid not, dear," Evie had said gently, her eyes sparkling. "But I'm sure you and your sister can find a great deal of kindness in your own hearts." Returning her thoughts to the present, Phoebe said, "Mother told us to be kind even to people who don't deserve it.

I decided to start from scratch, with a simple prayer: “Hi!” I said. Someone or something hears. I don’t know much about its nature, only that when I cry out, it hears me and moves closer to me, and I don’t feel so alone. I feel better. And I felt better that morning, starting over. No shame in that—Saint Augustine said that you have to start your relationship with God all over from the beginning, every day. Yesterday’s faith does not wait for you like a dog with your slippers and the morning paper in its mouth. You seek it, and in seeking it, you find it.

प्रातः स्मरामि हृदि संस्फुरदात्मतत्त्वं सच्चित्सुखं परमहंसगतिं तुरीयम् । यत्स्वप्नजागरसुषुप्तिमवैति नित्यं तद्ब्रह्म निष्कलमहं न च भूतसङ्घः ॥१॥ prātaḥ smarāmi hṛdi saṃsphuradātmatattvaṃ saccitsukhaṃ paramahaṃsagatiṃ turīyam | yatsvapnajāgarasuṣuptimavaiti nityaṃ tadbrahma niṣkalamahaṃ na ca bhūtasaṅghaḥ ||1|| ~ At dawn, I meditate in my heart on the truth of the radiant inner Self. This true Self is Pure Being, Awareness, and Joy, the transcendent goal of the great sages. The eternal witness of the waking, dream and deep sleep states. I am more than my body, mind and emotions, I am that undivided Spirit. At dawn, I worship the true Self that is beyond the reach of mind and speech, By whose grace, speech is even made possible, This Self is described in the scriptures as “Not this, Not this”. It is called the God of the Gods, It is unborn, undying, one with the All. At dawn, I salute the true Self that is beyond all darkness, brilliant as the sun, The infinite, eternal reality, the highest. On whom this whole universe of infinite forms is superimposed. It is like a snake on a rope. The snake seems so real, but when you pick it up, it’s just a rope. This world is ever-changing, fleeting, but this eternal Light is real and everlasting. Who recites in the early morning these three sacred Slokas, which are the ornaments of the three worlds, obtains the Supreme Abode. ~ Adi Shankara (8th century)

Now, the typical way to measure your potential is to compare the size of the problem to your natural gifts and your track record so far. No, it’s not irrational to measure your potential this way, but for the believer in Christ Jesus, it simply isn’t enough. By grace, God doesn’t leave you on your own. He doesn’t leave you with the tool box of your own strength, righteousness, and wisdom. No, he invades you with his presence, power, wisdom, and grace. Paul captures this reality with these life-altering words: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

Today, as I sit looking at the tarnished old brass morning-glory horn of May’s gramophone—as brassy as May herself—I wonder whether she ever saw any of the three motion pictures inspired by this small but significant part of her life. In a way it is painful to imagine her sitting in a movie theater, watching as a private hurt of hers was laid bare, even in fictionalized, literally “whitewashed” form … and with a happy ending that likely never graced her real life. But somehow I doubt she ever saw the movie, or was aware of the revenge Maugham had taken on her. Because if she had seen it, I can’t help but envision her sitting in the theater in a righteous lather, as the lights come up and the last frame of film fades from the screen. “Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle!” I hear her cry out, indignantly. “So where the hell is my piece of the take?” The “Sadie Thompson” I knew would have sued—and won.

Have I not reason, beldams as you are, Saucy and overbold? How did you dare To trade and traffic with Macbeth In riddles and affairs of death; And I, the mistress of your charms, The close contriver of all harms, Was never call'd to bear my part, Or show the glory of our art? And, which is worse, all you have done Hath been but for a wayward son, Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, Loves for his own ends, not for you. But make amends now: get you gone, And at the pit of Acheron Meet me i' the morning: thither he Will come to know his destiny: Your vessels and your spells provide, Your charms and every thing beside. I am for the air; this night I'll spend Unto a dismal and a fatal end: Great business must be wrought ere noon: Upon the corner of the moon There hangs a vaporous drop profound; I'll catch it ere it come to ground: And that distill'd by magic sleights Shall raise such artificial sprites As by the strength of their illusion Shall draw him on to his confusion: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear He hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear: And you all know, security Is mortals' chiefest enemy. Music and a song within: 'Come away, come away,' & c Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see, Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.

She did not like bigots or brilliant bores or academicians who wore their honors, or scholars who wore their doctorates, like dogtags. But she had an infinite capacity to love peasants and children and great but simple causes across the board and a grace in giving that was itself gratitude and she had a body like sculpture in the thinnest of wire and a face made of a million mosaics in a gauze-web of cubes lighter than air and a piñata of a heart in the center of a mobile at fiesta time with bits of her soul swirling in the breeze in honor of life and love and Good Morning to you, Bon Jour, Muy Buenos, Muy Buenos! Muy Buenos! On Nancy Cunard

It was weird to hear Grace this way. It was weird to be here, sitting in my car with her best friend when Grace was home, needing me for once. It was weird to want to tell her that we didn’t need to go to the studio until things calmed down. But I couldn’t tell her no. I physically couldn’t say it to her. Hearing her like this…she was a different thing than I’d ever seen her be, and I felt some dangerous and lovely future whispering secrets in my ear. I said, “I wish it were Sunday, too.” “I don’t want to be alone tonight,” Grace said. Something in my heart twinged. I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again. I thought about sneaking over myself; I thought about telling her to sneak out. I imagined lying in my bedroom beneath my paper cranes, with the warm shape of her tucked against me, not having to worry about hiding in the morning, just having her with me on our terms, and I ached and ached some more with the force of wanting it. I echoed, “I miss you, too.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Secondly, it is the very nature of spiritual life to grow. Wherever they principle of this life is to be found, it can be no different for it must grow. "But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. 4:18); "The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger" (Job 17:9). This refers to the children of GOd, who are compared to palm and cedar trees (Psa. 92:12). As natural as it is for children and trees to grow, so natural is growth for the regenerated children of God. Thirdly, the growth of His children is the goal and objective God has in view by administering the means of grace to them. "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints...that we henceforth be no more children...but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head" (Eph. 4:11-15). This is also to be observed in 1 Peter 2:2: "as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby, " God will reach His goal and His word will not return to Him void; thus God's children will grow in grace. Fourthly, is is the duty to which God's children are continually exhorted, and their activity is to consist in a striving for growth. That it is their duty is to be observed in the following passages: "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18); "He that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still" (Rev. 22:11). The nature of this activity is expressed as follows: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after" (Phil. 3:12). If it were not necessary for believers to grow the exhortations to that end would be in vain. Some remain feeble, having but little life and strength. this can be due to a lack of nourishment, living under a barren ministry, or being without guidance. It can also be that they naturally have a slow mind and a lazy disposition; that they have strong corruptions which draw them away; that they are without much are without much strife; that they are too busy from early morning till late evening, due to heavy labor, or to having a family with many children, and thus must struggle or are poverty-stricken. Furthermore, it can be that they either do not have the opportunity to converse with the godly; that they do not avail themselves of such opportunities; or that they are lazy as far as reading in God's Word and prayer are concerned. Such persons are generally subject to many ups and downs. At one time they lift up their heads out of all their troubles, by renewal becoming serious, and they seek God with their whole heart. It does not take long, however , and they are quickly cast down in despondency - or their lusts gain the upper hand. Thus they remain feeble and are, so to speak, continually on the verge of death. Some of them occasionally make good progress, but then grieve the Spirit of God and backslide rapidly. For some this lasts for a season, after which they are restored, but others are as those who suffer from consumption - they languish until they die. Oh what a sad condition this is! (Chapter 89. Spiritual Growth, pg. 140, 142-143)

Unfortunately,” he said, “I am not a fan of fairy stories.” “That is unfortunate, as you are in so many of them.” “Yes, but I am always cast as the villain.” He craned his head. “Even you cast me as the villain.” “It is hard not to, my lord. Why, just this morning you abandoned four children by the side of the road, their hearts devoured by nachtkrapp and their bodies left to the rest of the scavengers.” Her chest squeezed and she dared not look at the spirits standing at the king’s side, knowing she would dissolve into tears if she did. “I think you rather like playing the villain.” Finally, a real smile graced his features, down to the sharp points of his teeth. “And who is the hero of this story?” “I am, naturally.” Serilda hesitated for a moment before adding, “At least, I hope to be.” “Not the prince?” It felt like a trap, but Serilda knew better. She laughed lightly. “He’s had his moments. But no. This is not his story.” “Ah.” He clucked his tongue. “Perhaps you are trying to save him, then.

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.

And then there was the expansive garden that ran the length of the rear of the house- lush with color and fragrances that seemed to burst from every branch and bloom. Whoever had designed it possessed a keen eye for beauty, each plant chosen with obvious care and an affinity for nature. She'd even acquired a new cat from its depths, a stray orange tom she found wandering among the hydrangea bushes one morning. An offered dish of milk and he'd been her bosom beau ever since. She'd decided to call him Ranunculus because Buttercup was far too feminine a name for such a large and impressive male. She gazed at him now where he slept in the sunshine, basking like a small potentate in the heat of the day.

My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE: (1) CONSIDER the bright morning hours, (2) and the night when it grows still and dark.5242 (3) Thy Sustainer has not forsaken thee, nor does He scorn thee:5243 (4) for, indeed, the life to come will be better for thee than this earlier part [of thy life]! (5) And, indeed, in time will thy Sustainer grant thee [what thy heart desires], and thou shalt be well-pleased. (6) Has He not found thee an orphan, and given thee shelter?5244 (7) And found thee lost on thy way, and guided thee? (8) And found thee in want, and given thee sufficiency? (9) Therefore, the orphan shalt thou never wrong, (10) and him that seeks [thy] help shalt thou never chide,5245 (11) and of thy Sustainer’s blessings shalt thou [ever] speak.5246

I’m about to hop out when Peter reaches across me and stops me from opening the door. “Give me my good-night kiss,” he says. I laugh. “Peter! I have to go.” Stubbornly he closes his eyes and waits, and I lean forward and plant a quick kiss on his lips. “There. Satisfied?” “No.” He kisses me again like we have all the time in the world and says, “What would happen if I came back after everyone went to sleep, and I spent the night, and left really early in the morning? Like, before dawn?” Smiling, I say, “You can’t, so we’ll never know.” “But what if?” “My dad would kill me.” “No, he wouldn’t.” “He’d kill you.” “No, he wouldn’t.” “No, he wouldn’t,” I agree. “But he’d be pretty disappointed in me. And he’d be mad at you.” “Only if we got caught,” Peter says, but it’s halfhearted. He won’t risk it either. He’s too careful about staying in my dad’s good graces. “You know what I’m really looking forward to the most?” He gives my braid a tug before saying, “Not having to say good night. I hate saying good night.” “Me too,” I say. “I can’t wait until we’re at college.” “Me too,” I say, and I kiss him one more time before jumping out of the car and running toward my house.

It didn’t occur to him to think that better is not the same as well. Was he fooling himself? He would not have said so. Even at twenty-two, when his diagnosis was confirmed, he was realistic. Most suffer. Everyone dies. He knew how, if not when. Now more than ever, he was determined to cheat the Fates of entertainment, but naturally, his time would come. When it did, he believed he would accept death as Socrates had: with cool philosophical distance. He would say something funny, or profound, or loving. Then he would let life fall gracefully from his hands. Horseshit, as James Earp would say, of the highest order. The truth is this. On the morning of August 14, 1878, Doc Holliday believed in his own death exactly as you do—today, at this very moment. He knew that he was mortal, just as you do. Of course, you know you’ll die someday, but … not quite the same way you know that the sun will rise tomorrow or that dropped objects fall. The great bitch-goddess Hope sees to that. Sit in a physician’s office. Listen to a diagnosis as bad as Doc’s. Beyond the first few words, you won’t hear a thing. The voice of Hope is soft but impossible to ignore. This isn’t happening, she assures you. There’s been a mix-up with the tests. Hope swears, You’re different. You matter. She whispers, Miracles happen. She says, often quite reasonably, New treatments are being developed all the time! She promises, You’ll beat the odds. A hundred to one? A thousand to one? A million to one? Eight to five, Hope lies. Odds are, when your time comes, you won’t even ask, “For or against?” You’ll swing up on that horse, and ride.

I been thinkin'," he said. "I been in the hills, thinkin', almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles. Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn't figure nothin' out, an' He got to feelin' what the hell good is it all, an' what's the use fightin' an' figurin'. Got tired, got good an' tired, an' His sperit all wore out. Jus' about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An' so He went off into the wilderness." "I ain't sayin' I'm like Jesus," the preacher went on. "But I got tired like Him, an' I got mixed up like Him, an' I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin' stuff. Nighttime I'd lay on my back an' look up at the stars; morning I'd set an' watch the sun come up; midday I'd look out from a hill at the rollin' dry country; evenin' I'd foller the sun down. Sometimes I'd pray like I always done. On'y I couldn' figure what I was prayin' to or for. There was the hills, an' there was me, an' we wasn't separate no more. We was one thing. An' that one thing was holy." "An' I got thinkin', on'y it wasn't thinkin, it was deeper down than thinkin'. I got thinkin' how we was holy when we was one thing, an' mankin' was holy when it was one thing. An' it on'y got unholy when one mis'able little fella got the bit in his teeth an' run off his own way, kickin' an' draggin' an' fightin'. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they're all workin' together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that's right, that's holy. An' then I got thinkin' I don't even know what I mean by holy." He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the "amen" signal. "I can't say no grace like I use' ta say. I'm glad of the holiness of breakfast. I'm glad there's love here. That's all." The heads stayed down. The preacher looked around. "I've got your breakfast cold," he said; and then he remembered. "Amen," he said, and all the heads rose up.

A morning-flowered dalliance demured and dulcet-sweet with ebullience and efflorescence admiring, cozy cottages and elixirs of eloquence lie waiting at our feet - We'll dance through fetching pleasantries as we walk ephemeral roads evocative epiphanies ethereal, though we know our hearts are linked with gossamer halcyon our day a harbinger of pretty things infused with whispers longing still and gamboling in sultry ways to feelings, all ineffable screaming with insouciance masking labyrinthine paths where, in our nonchalance, we walk through the lilt of love’s new morning rays. Mellifluous murmurings from a babbling brook that soothes our heated passion-songs and panoplies perplexed with thought of shadows carried off with clouds in stormy summer rains… My dear, and that I can call you 'dear' after ripples turned to crashing waves after pyrrhic wins, emotions drained we find our palace sunned and rayed with quintessential moments lit with wildflower lanterns arrayed on verandahs lush with mutual love, the softest love – our preferred décor of life's lilly-blossom gate in white-fenced serendipity… Twilight sunlit heavens cross our gardens, graced with perseverance, bliss, and thee, and thou, so splendid, delicate as a morning dove of charm and mirth – at least with me; our misty mornings glide through air... So with whippoorwill’d sweet poetry - of moonstones, triumphs, wonder-woven in chandliers of winglet cherubs wrought with time immemorial, crafted with innocence, stowed away and brought to light upon our day in hallelujah tapestries of ocean-windswept galleries in breaths of ballet kisses, light, skipping to the breakfast room cascading chrysalis's love in diaphanous imaginings delightful, fleeting, celestial-viewed as in our eyes which come to rest evocative, exuberant on one another’s moon-stowed dreams idyllic, in quiescent ways, peaceful in their radiance resplendent with a myriad of thought soothing muse, rhapsodic song until the somnolence of night spreads out again its shaded truss of luminescent fantasies waiting to be loved by us… Oh, love! Your sincerest pardons begged! I’ve gone too long, I’ve rambled, dear, and on and on and on and on - as if our hours were endless here… A morning toast, with orange-juiced lips exalting transcendent minds suffused with sunrise symphonies organic-born tranquilities sublimed sonorous assemblages with scintillas of eternity beating at our breasts – their embraces but a blushing, longing glance away… I’ll end my charms this enraptured morn' before cacophony and chafe coarse in crude and rough abrade when cynical distrust is laid by hoarse and leeching parasites, distaste fraught with smug disgust by hairy, smelly maladroit mediocrities born of poisoned wells grotesque with selfish lies - shrill and shrieking, biting, creeping around our love, as if they rose from Edgar Allen’s own immortal rumpled decomposing clothes… Oh me, oh my! I am so sorry! can you forgive me? I gone and kissed you for so long, in my morning imaginings, through these words, through this song - ‘twas supposed to be "a trifle treat," but little treats do sometimes last a little longer; and, oh, but oh, but if I could, I surly would keep you just a little longer tarrying here, tarrying here with me this pleasant morn

eyes. She felt the changes shimmer across her scales. The hardest part was the extra horns IceWings had around their heads. She concentrated on making her ruff look like it was made of icicles and hoped that would do. She also couldn’t make her claws ridged like IceWing claws, and her tail wasn’t as whip-thin at the end as an IceWing’s would be. Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe there’s no way I’ll get away with it. But it was still pretty dark out . . . and she really, really wanted to know what a NightWing was doing out here. Well, she thought ruefully, if he figures me out, I guess I’ll just kill him. Somehow it didn’t sound as funny as she’d hoped. She leaped into the air and flew back to the spot where she’d seen the strange dragon. For a moment she was afraid she’d lost him, before she realized that he was lying down, his black scales half-hidden in the long shadows. Confidence, she told herself. It’s all about attitude. “Hey!” she barked, landing with a thump beside him. “Who are you, and what are you doing in our territory?” The NightWing leaped up in surprise and stared at her. He was a lot younger and smaller than Morrowseer, wiry and graceful in his movements even when he was startled. The silver scales sparkling under his wings caught the morning light like trapped stars. “Great moons. Where did you come from?” he asked. He looked up at the sky with a puzzled expression. “Where do you think?” she said. “And I’m asking the questions here. What are you doing in the Ice Kingdom?” “Technically this isn’t the Ice Kingdom yet,” he said. “Or didn’t you know that?” It isn’t? she thought. The map she’d memorized didn’t exactly have borders drawn on it, not that those would have helped her out here anyway.

At one-thirty in the deep dark morning, the cooking odors blew up through the windy corridors of the house. Down the stairs, one by one, came women in curlers, men in bathrobes, to tiptoe and peer into the kitchen- lit only by fitful gusts of red fire from the hissing stove. And there in the black kitchen at two of a warm summer morning, Grandma floated like an apparition, amidst bangings and clatterings, half blind once more, her fingers groping instinctively in the dimness, shaking out spice clouds over bubbling pots and simmering kettles, her face in the firelight red, magical, and enchanted as she seized and stirred and poured the sublime foods. Quiet, quiet, the boarders laid the best linens and gleaming silver and lit candles rather than switch on electric lights and snap the spell. Grandfather, arriving home from a late evening's work at the printing office, was startled to hear grace being said in the candlelit dining room. As for the food? The meats were deviled, the sauces curried, the greens mounded with sweet butter, the biscuits splashed with jeweled honey; everything toothsome, luscious, and so miraculously refreshing that a gentle lowing broke out as from a pasturage of beasts gone wild in clover. One and all cried out their gratitude for their loose-fitting night clothes.

We are the sum of all people we have ever met; you change the tribe and the tribe changes you." - Fierce People Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until… in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus "A man like to me, Thou shalt love be loved by forever. A hand like this hand shall throw open the gates of new life to thee!" Robert Browning "Courage is grace under pressure." Ernest Hemingway "For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” ― Mahatma Gandhi “Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching "Behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own." James Russel Lowell "My God, my Father, and my friend. Do not forsake me in the end." Wentworth Dillon

My dearest Lydia I do not wish to disturb your thoughts with sad tidings, and yet to do otherwise than write to you at this time with an honest heart would give cause for you to reproach me in years to come, years when you will live and breathe the warm air while I rest beneath the turf, and the very thought of such reproach grieves my heavy heart as it prepares to beat its last. For I am fading, and henceforth you will not hear word of this frail shell whom once you graced with friendship, except, perhaps, through another's report or distant memory. Whether our encounter in this life has brought me more joy than pain is a question that once I asked myself, but now see as a thing of no concern. My love for you is not to be judged by degrees of pleasure. It is not of the world of matter to be placed on the scale or weighed in the balance. Our flesh, the deeds we commit and things we created may be subject to the measure, but not a love like this. Joy and pain are but the distant resonance, while my love for you is the present song; they are but patterns of dust caught on the edge of the morning light, while my love is the blazing sun that illuminates them. My love abides, my love existed before we met, and my love will continue as the centuries roll by when we and our story are shades forgotten. But my love must perforce now return to its cave, to its sleeping state, whence it emerged that morning long ago by the water's edge, when our eyes met and the spirit took wing. And so farewell in this life, most beautiful of beings, song of my soul, my sunlight, my love. Do not judge me by the deeds of my body, which is frail, finite and blemished. Remember me instead as the soul of all that you cherish, for that I truly aspire to be, and I shall live and shine with you perpetually, in an everlasting embrace. Your devoted friend Godwin Tudor

If I flinched at every grief, I would be an intelligent idiot. If I were not the sun, I’d ebb and flow like sadness. If you were not my guide, I’d wander lost in Sanai. If there were no light, I’d keep opening and closing the door. If there were no rose garden, where would the morning breezes go? If love did not want music and laughter and poetry, what would I say? If you were not medicine, I would look sick and skinny. If there were no leafy limbs in the air, there would be no wet roots. If no gifts were given, I’d grow arrogant and cruel. If there were no way into God, I would not have lain in the grave of this body so long. If there were no way from left to right, I could not be swaying with the grasses. If there were no grace and no kindness, conversation would be useless, and nothing we do would matter. Listen to the new stories that begin every day. If light were not beginning again in the east, I would not now wake and walk out inside this dawn.

Touch the stone,' said Beliah, 'and you will touch "reality", or what the ignorant of all ages think "reality" is. That kind of truth will kill you, man. You won't see morning! I have kept you all your life from such things as remorse, terror, pity. Touch the stone, and those same angels will change you into an old poor pathetic deluded dying creature. Hubert, a nurse has to shave you, your hand shakes so much. You know that don't you? You dribble at every orifice, Hubert. You've begun to smell this past year or two...' He suddenly howled as if I had actually touched the stone,'YOU WILL BE RAVAGED IN FIRES OF GRACE!' I heard Nurse McGregor in the next ward. 'Good evening,' came her cheerful voice to the looney who had strangled his sweetheart and then buried her in his garden. 'Is it cocoa tonight, or tea, or milk?" Beliah was weeping. Outside the eaves dripped. The whole earth was drenched with the grief of Beliah. He wept inside me. I felt his marvellous tears on my face.

I was just about to get up when Dad rushed into the kitchen. He was in pajamas, which was totally bizarre. Dad never came down to breakfast until he was completely dressed. Of course, his pajamas even had a little pocket and handkerchief, so maybe he felt dressed. He had a sheet of paper in his hands and was staring at it, his eyes wide. “James,” Aislinn acknowledged. “You’re up kind of late this morning. Is Grace sleeping in, too?” Dad glanced up, and I could swear he blushed. :”Hmm? Oh. Yes. Well. In any case. Um…to the point at hand.” “Leave Dad alone,” I told Aislinn. “His Britishness is short-circuiting.” Instead of being grossed out, I was weirdly happy at the thought of my parents being all…whatever (okay, I was a little grossed out). In fact, their apparent reconciliation was maybe the one good thing to come out of this whole mess. Well, that and saving the world, obviously. Dad shook his head and held out the papers. “I didn’t come down here to discuss my personal…relations. I came here because this arrived from the Council this morning. I sat back in my chair. “The Council? Like, the Council Council? But they don’t even exist anymore. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it’s the Council For What Breakfast Cereals You Should-“ “Sophia,” Dad said, stopping me with a look. “Sorry. Freaked out.” He gave a little smile. “I know that, darling. And to be perfectly honest, perhaps you should be.” He handed the papers to me, and I saw it was some kind of official letter. It was addressed to Dad, but I saw my name in the first paragraph. I laid it on the table so no one would see my hands shake. “Did this come by owl?” I muttered. “Please tell me it came-“ “Sophie!” nearly everyone in the kitchen shouted. Even Archer was exasperated, “Come on, Mercer.” I took a deep breath and started to read. When I got about halfway down the page, I stopped, my eyes going wide, my heart racing. I looked back at Dad. “Are they serious?” “I believe that they are.” I read the words again. “Holy hell weasel.

Жираф Сегодня, я вижу, особенно грустен твой взгляд, И руки особенно тонки, колени обняв. Послушай: далёко, далёко на озере Чад Изысканный бродит жираф. Ему грациозная стройность и нега дана, И шкуру его украшает волшебный узор, С которым равняться осмелиться только Луна, Дробясь и качаясь на влаге широких озёр. Вдали он подобен цветным парусам корабля, И бег его плавен, как радостный птичий полёт. Я знаю, что много чудесного видит земля, Когда на закате он прячется в мраморный грот. Я знаю весёлые сказки таинственных стран Про чёрную деву, про страсть молодого вождя, Но ты слишком долго вдыхала тяжёлый туман, Ты верить не хочешь во что-нибудь, кроме дождя. И как я тебе расскажу про тропический сад, Про стройный пальмы, про запах немыслимых трав... Ты плачешь? Послушай... далёко, на озере Чад Изысканный бродит жираф. The Giraffe O, the look in your eyes this morning is more than usually sad, With your little arms wrapped round your knees and body bent in half. Let me tell you a story: far, far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad, There roams a most majestic giraffe Blessed with a handsome build and graceful carriage And a coat painted hypnotic, magical patterns, With which none but the moon above dare compare When her light falls down to be scattered and rocked on the waters, Passing like a blazing sail far out at sea As she runs by, nimble and carefree as a bird in flight. I hear tell the earth has seen many wonderful things When the giraffe hides herself away and the sun sets into night. I know fabulous tales of far off, alien lands, Of a dark maiden, of a young captain’s burning desire, all this I know, But you’ve breathed in the damp marsh air for so long You don’t want to believe in anything but the rain out your window. I still haven’t told you about her tropic garden, with the slenderest palm trees, The sweetest wildflowers, meadows of unbelievable grass . . . Are you crying? Let me tell you a story: far away, on the distant shores of Lake Chad, There roams a most majestic giraffe.

Obedience is freedom. Better to follow the Master’s plan than to do what you weren’t wired to do—master yourself. It is true that the thing that you and I most need to be rescued from is us! The greatest danger that we face is the danger that we are to ourselves. Who we think we are is a delusion and what we all tend to want is a disaster. Put together, they lead to only one place—death. If you’re a parent, you see it in your children. It didn’t take long for you to realize that you are parenting a little self-sovereign, who thinks at the deepest level that he needs no authority in his life but himself. Even if he cannot yet walk or speak, he rejects your wisdom and rebels against your authority. He has no idea what is good or bad to eat, but he fights your every effort to put into his mouth something that he has decided he doesn’t want. As he grows, he has little ability to comprehend the danger of the electric wall outlet, but he tries to stick his fingers in it precisely because you have instructed him not to. He wants to exercise complete control over his sleep, diet, and activities. He believes it is his right to rule his life, so he fights your attempts to bring him under submission to your loving authority. Not only does your little one resist your attempts to bring him under your authority, he tries to exercise authority over you. He is quick to tell you what to do and does not fail to let you know when you have done something that he does not like. He celebrates you when you submit to his desires and finds ways to punish you when you fail to submit to his demands. Now, here’s what you have to understand: when you’re at the end of a very long parenting day, when your children seemed to conspire together to be particularly rebellious, and you’re sitting on your bed exhausted and frustrated, you need to remember that you are more like your children than unlike them. We all want to rule our worlds. Each of us has times when we see authority as something that ends freedom rather than gives it. Each of us wants God to sign the bottom of our personal wish list, and if he does, we celebrate his goodness. But if he doesn’t, we begin to wonder if it’s worth following him at all. Like our children, each of us is on a quest to be and to do what we were not designed by our Creator to be or to do. So grace comes to decimate our delusions of self-sufficiency. Grace works to destroy our dangerous hope for autonomy. Grace helps to make us reach out for what we really need and submit to the wisdom of the Giver. Yes, it’s true, grace rescues us from us.

A paradisiacal lagoon lay below them. The water was an unbelievable, unreal turquoise, its surface so still that every feature of the bottom could be admired in magnified detail: colorful pebbles, bright red kelp, fish as pretty and colorful as the jungle birds. A waterfall on the far side fell softly from a height of at least twenty feet. A triple rainbow graced its frothy bottom. Large boulders stuck out of the water at seemingly random intervals, black and sun-warmed and extremely inviting, like they had been placed there on purpose by some ancient giant. And on these were the mermaids. Wendy gasped at their beauty. Their tails were all colors of the rainbow, somehow managing not to look tawdry or clownish. Deep royal blue, glittery emerald green, coral red, anemone purple. Slick and wet and as beautifully real as the salmon Wendy's father had once caught on holiday in Scotland. Shining and voluptuously alive. The mermaids were rather scandalously naked except for a few who wore carefully placed shells and starfish, although their hair did afford some measure of decorum as it trailed down their torsos. Their locks were long and thick and sinuous and mostly the same shades as their tails. Some had very tightly coiled curls, some had braids. Some had decorated their tresses with limpets and bright hibiscus flowers. Their "human" skins were familiar tones: dark brown to pale white, pink and beige and golden and everything in between. Their eyes were also familiar eye colors but strangely clear and flat. Either depthless or extremely shallow depending on how one stared. They sang, they brushed their hair, they played in the water. In short, they did everything mythical and magical mermaids were supposed to do, laughing and splashing as they did. "Oh!" Wendy whispered. "They're-" And then she stopped. Tinker Bell was giving her a funny look. An unhappy funny look. The mermaids were beautiful. Indescribably, perfectly beautiful. They glowed and were radiant and seemed to suck up every ray of sun and sparkle of water; Wendy found she had no interest looking anywhere else.

I MEAN not to defend the scapes of any, Or justify my vices being many; For I confess, if that might merit favour, Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour. I loathe, yet after that I loathe, I run: 5 Oh, how the burthen irks, that we should shun. I cannot rule myself but where Love please; Am driven like a ship upon rough seas. No one face likes me best, all faces move, A hundred reasons make me ever love. 10 If any eye me with a modest look, I blush, and by that blushful glance am took; And she that’s coy I like, for being no clown, Methinks she would be nimble when she’s down. Though her sour looks a Sabine’s brow resemble, 15 I think she’ll do, but deeply can dissemble. If she be learned, then for her skill I crave her; If not, because she’s simple I would have her. Before Callimachus one prefers me far; Seeing she likes my books, why should we jar? 20 Another rails at me, and that I write, Yet would I lie with her, if that I might: Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what then? She would be nimbler lying with a man. And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long, 25 To quaver on her lips even in her song; Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning, Who would not love those hands for their swift running? And her I like that with a majesty, Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy. 30 To leave myself, that am in love with all, Some one of these might make the chastest fall. If she be tall, she’s like an Amazon, And therefore fills the bed she lies upon: If short, she lies the rounder: to speak troth, 35 Both short and long please me, for I love both. I think what one undecked would be, being drest; Is she attired? then show her graces best. A white wench thralls me, so doth golden yellow: And nut-brown girls in doing have no fellow. 40 If her white neck be shadowed with brown hair, Why so was Leda’s, yet was Leda fair. Amber-tress’d is she? Then on the morn think I: My love alludes to every history: A young wench pleaseth, and an old is good, 45 This for her looks, that for her womanhood: Nay what is she, that any Roman loves, But my ambitious ranging mind approves?

My Dear Mrs Winter. (I had half a mind when I dipped my pen in the ink, to address you by your old natural Christian name.) The snow lies so deep on the Northern Railway, and the Posts have been so interrupted in consequence, that your charming note arrived here only this morning... I get the heartache again when I read your commission, written in the hand which I find now to be not in the least changed, and yet it is a great pleasure to be entrusted with it, and to have that share in your gentler remembrances which I cannot find it still my privilege to have, without a stirring of the old fancies. ... I am very very sorry you mistrusted me in not writing before your little girl was born; but I hope now you know me better you will teach her, one day, to tell her children, in times to come when they have some interest in wondering about it, that I loved her mother with the most extraordinary earnestness when I was a boy. I have always believed since, and always shall to the last, that there never was such a faithful and devoted poor fellow as I was. Whatever of fancy, romance, energy, passion, aspiration and determination belong to me, I never have separated and never shall separate from the hard hearted little woman - you - whom it is nothing to say I would have died for, with the greatest alacrity! I never can think, and I never seem to observe, that other young people are in such desperate earnest, or set so much, so long, upon one absorbing hope. It is a matter of perfect certainty to me that I began to fight my way out of poverty and obscurity, with one perpetual idea of you. This is so fixed in my knowledge that to the hour when I opened your letter last Friday night, I have never heard anybody addressed by your name or spoken of by your name, without a start. The sound of it has always filled me with a kind of pity and respect for the deep truth that I had, in my silly hobbledehoyhood, to bestow upon one creature who represented the whole world to me. I have never been so good a man since, as I was when you made me wretchedly happy. I shall never be half so good a fellow any more. This is all so strange now, both to think of, and to say, after every change that has come about; but I think, when you ask me to write to you, you are not unprepared for what it is so natural to me to recall, and will not be displeased to read it. I fancy, - though you may not have thought in the old time how manfully I loved you - that you may have seen in one of my books a faithful reflection of the passion I had for you, and may have thought that it was something to have been loved so well, and may have seen in little bits of "Dora" touches of your old self sometimes, and a grace here and there that may be revived in your little girls, years hence, for the bewilderment of some other young lover - though he will never be as terribly in earnest as I and David Copperfield were. People used to say to me how pretty all that was, and how fanciful it was, and how elevated it was above the little foolish loves of very young men and women. But they little thought what reason I had to know it was true and nothing more nor less. These are things that I have locked up in my own breast, and that I never thought to bring out any more. But when I find myself writing to you again "all to your self", how can I forbear to let as much light in upon them as will shew you that they are there still! If the most innocent, the most ardent, and the most disinterested days of my life had you for their Sun - as indeed they had - and if I know that the Dream I lived in did me good, refined my heart, and made me patient and persevering, and if the Dream were all of you - as God knows it was - how can I receive a confidence from you, and return it, and make a feint of blotting all this out! ...

It is a mistake easily made by every man, saint or scholar, Church leader or day laborer. Ultimately, we come to expect God to accept our understanding of what his will ought to be and to help us fulfill that, instead of learning to see and accept his will in the real situations in which he places us daily. The simple soul who each day makes a morning offering of "all the prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day" - and who then acts upon it by accepting unquestioningly and responding lovingly to all the situations of the day as truly sent by God - has perceived with an almost childlike faith the profound truth about the will of God. To predict what God's will is going to be, to rationalize about what his will must be, is at once a work of human folly and yet the subtlest of all temptations. The plain and simple truth is that his will is that he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that - not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God's grace, but every day.

Hope is more than wishing things will work out. It is resting in the God who holds all things in his wise and powerful hands. We use the word hope in a variety of ways. Sometimes it connotes a wish about something over which we have no control at all. We say, “I sure hope the train comes soon,” or, “I hope it doesn’t rain on the day of the picnic.” These are wishes for things, but we wouldn’t bank on them. The word hope also depicts what we think should happen. We say, “I hope he will choose to be honest this time,” or, “I hope the judge brings down a guilty verdict.” Here hope reveals an internal sense of morality or justice. We also use hope in a motivational sense. We say, “I did this in the hope that it would pay off in the end,” or, “I got married in the hope that he would treat me in marriage the way he treated me in courtship.” All of this is to say that because the word hope is used in a variety of ways, it is important for us to understand how this word is used in Scripture or in its gospel sense. Biblical hope is foundationally more than a faint wish for something. Biblical hope is deeper than moral expectation, although it includes that. Biblical hope is more than a motivation for a choice or action, although it is that as well. So what is biblical hope? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result that changes the way you live. Let’s pull this definition apart. First, biblical hope is confident. It is confident because it is not based on your wisdom, faithfulness, or power, but on the awesome power, love, faithfulness, grace, patience, and wisdom of God. Because God is who he is and will never, ever change, hope in him is hope well placed and secure. Hope is also an expectation of a guaranteed result. It is being sure that God will do all that he has planned and promised to do. You see, his promises are only as good as the extent of his rule, but since he rules everything everywhere, I know that resting in the promises of his grace will never leave me empty and embarrassed. I may not understand what is happening and I may not know what is coming around the corner, but I know that God does and that he controls it all. So even when I am confused, I can have hope, because my hope does not rest on my understanding, but on God’s goodness and his rule. Finally, true hope changes the way you live. When you have hope that is guaranteed, you live with confidence and courage that you would otherwise not have. That confidence and courage cause you to make choices of faith that would seem foolish to someone who does not have your hope. If you’re God’s child, you never have to live hopelessly, because hope has invaded your life by grace, and his name is Jesus! For further study and encouragement: Psalm 20

When Franz returned to himself, he seemed still to be in a dream. He thought himself in a sepulchre, into which a ray of sunlight in pity scarcely penetrated. He stretched forth his hand, and touched stone; he rose to his seat, and found himself lying on his bournous in a bed of dry heather, very soft and odoriferous. The vision had fled; and as if the statues had been but shadows from the tomb, they had vanished at his waking. He advanced several paces towards the point whence the light came, and to all the excitement of his dream succeeded the calmness of reality. He found that he was in a grotto, went towards the opening, and through a kind of fanlight saw a blue sea and an azure sky. The air and water were shining in the beams of the morning sun; on the shore the sailors were sitting, chatting and laughing; and at ten yards from them the boat was at anchor, undulating gracefully on the water. There for some time he enjoyed the fresh breeze which played on his brow, and listened to the dash of the waves on the beach, that left against the rocks a lace of foam as white as silver. He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory. He recalled his arrival on the island, his presentation to a smuggler chief, a subterranean palace full of splendor, an excellent supper, and a spoonful of hashish. It seemed, however, even in the very face of open day, that at least a year had elapsed since all these things had passed, so deep was the impression made in his mind by the dream, and so strong a hold had it taken of his imagination. Thus every now and then he saw in fancy amid the sailors, seated on a rock, or undulating in the vessel, one of the shadows which had shared his dream with looks and kisses. Otherwise, his head was perfectly clear, and his body refreshed; he was free from the slightest headache; on the contrary, he felt a certain degree of lightness, a faculty for absorbing the pure air, and enjoying the bright sunshine more vividly than ever.

Homer's Hymn to the Sun Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818. Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour; Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth; Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear A race of loveliest children; the young Morn, Whose arms are like twin roses newly born, The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun, Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run Unconquerably, illuming the abodes Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods. Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes, Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light; His countenance, with radiant glory bright, Beneath his graceful locks far shines around, And the light vest with which his limbs are bound, Of woof aethereal delicately twined, Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind. His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West; Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest, And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea

God showed to man that compliance with His dictates would ever mean eternal bliss and joy unspeakable and life and knowledge forevermore, but that ceasing to comply would mean loss of life with God and eternal death. That was in the world’s bright morning when the morning stars sang together and all creation leaped in joy, but the wild, wild desolation of sin, disobedience, pride, and selfish sinfulness entered and drove a great gulf between God’s children and Himself. But, as ever, love found a way. God came to us and for us, and we this day with chastened hearts, quivering lips, and glistening eyes, yet with love deep and strong in our hearts, say, afresh with deep adoration, God is love. If God exhibits such glorious love in His nature, what shall we say of the glories of the dispensation of His grace? That God would have walked this earth had sin never entered is very likely, yet sin did not refrain Him from graciously walking and revealing Himself in communion with men. No, still He came. But men were so blinded by sin that they saw Him not, they knew Him not, while He hewed a way back through the hard face of sin to the heavenly shores.

Searching for Love in Everything We are so much like these rocks I think to myself One morning While passing a sea of black, gray, and white Pebbles All different shapes, sizes, colors They drift past one another On land or in oceans All while we collide, we crash Gracefully or without the intention of even finding one another Is it messy or beautiful? Our choice or fate? We all have a home We all have a story And perhaps we are found In the waves that rush Where over time we lose our sharp edges And the water All-knowing Smooths us out Reminding us to be gentle with ourselves Perhaps the boulders basking in the light On land carry similar knowledge And, like us Maybe they love watching the clouds in the day And even more the stars at night Maybe all of life ponders the change the earth makes as we constantly gain and lose sight As we try to follow a path to love this life There must be love to go around In all places In all things Isn’t all of it a greater message for the love present in this world? They were here before us And will remain long after Perhaps one day Long after Love will exist For and within Everything

I’m so sorry to break up this cozy little gathering,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’m sure you all need your rest…but there are wedding presents stacked in my room that need sorting out and I was under the impression that you had agreed to help.” “Oh yes,” said Hermione, looking terrified as she leapt to her feet, sending books flying in every direction, “we will…we’re sorry…” With an anguished look at Harry and Ron, Hermione hurried out of the room after Mrs. Weasley. “It’s like being a house-elf,” complained Ron in an undertone, still massaging his head as he and Harry followed. “Except without the job satisfaction. The sooner this wedding’s over, the happier I’ll be.” “Yeah,” said Harry, “then we’ll have nothing to do except find Horcruxes…It’ll be like a holiday, won’t it?” Ron started to laugh, but at the sight of the enormous pile of wedding presents waiting for them in Mrs. Weasley’s room, stopped quite abruptly. The Delacours arrived the following morning at eleven o’clock. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were feeling quite resentful toward Fleur’s family by this time, and it was with ill grace that Ron stumped back upstairs to put on matching socks, and Harry attempted to flatten his hair.

I could do anything—be anything. I could be a blackberry farmer. I could worry about phone bills and nipping out to the corner shop for milk and bread of a morning. Little Declan Jr. could learn to walk and talk with his real father, alive and well, and I could teach him how to wear a waistcoat with just the right amount of tragic charm, take him to school in a few years, maybe makehim a little sister to look out for, someone to keep him on his toes. He could play a sport—tennis, maybe, or football. I’d attend parent-teacher meetings and have after-work drinks with the neighbors, talking about how well so-and-so is doing, and why yes, Declan Jr. is learning to play the piano. Top of his class, you know—he has his mother’s grace… I could see all of that, as clear in my mind as sunlight on fresh snow, and so much more. Just living day to day. One morning we could have picnics, my family and I, next to blue glacial lakes. One afternoon my son would be old enough to meet a girl, get in a fight, need to shave. One evening his sister will need help with her homework, and he’ll complain, but he’ll help. And then one day the Elder Gods would descend from a blood-red sky in chariots lashed together from bone and flame and take away all my blackberries.

April 25 MORNING “Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.” — Song of Solomon 2:10 LO, I hear the voice of my Beloved! He speaks to me! Fair weather is smiling upon the face of the earth, and He would not have me spiritually asleep while nature is all around me awaking from her winter’s rest. He bids me “Rise up,” and well He may, for I have long enough been lying among the pots of worldliness. He is risen, I am risen in Him, why then should I cleave unto the dust? From lower loves, desires, pursuits, and aspirations, I would rise towards Him. He calls me by the sweet title of “My love,” and counts me fair; this is a good argument for my rising. If He has thus exalted me, and thinks me thus comely, how can I linger in the tents of Kedar and find congenial associates among the sons of men? He bids me “Come away.” Further and further from everything selfish, grovelling, worldly, sinful, He calls me; yea, from the outwardly religious world which knows Him not, and has no sympathy with the mystery of the higher life, He calls me. “Come away” has no harsh sound in it to my ear, for what is there to hold me in this wilderness of vanity and sin? O my Lord, would that I could come away, but I am taken among the thorns, and cannot escape from them as I would. I would, if it were possible, have neither eyes, nor ears, nor heart for sin. Thou callest me to Thyself by saying “Come away,” and this is a melodious call indeed. To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes. But Lord, how can a stone rise, how can a lump of clay come away from the horrible pit? O raise me, draw me. Thy grace can do it. Send forth Thy Holy Spirit to kindle sacred flames of love in my heart, and I will continue to rise until I leave life and time behind me, and indeed come away.

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves-that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that ‘beauty born of murmuring sound’ will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.

February 12 MORNING “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” — 2 Corinthians 1:5 HERE is a blessed proportion. The Ruler of Providence bears a pair of scales — in this side He puts His people’s trials, and in that He puts their consolations. When the scale of trial is nearly empty, you will always find the scale of consolation in nearly the same condition; and when the scale of trials is full, you will find the scale of consolation just as heavy. When the black clouds gather most, the light is the more brightly revealed to us. When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to His crew. It is a blessed thing, that when we are most cast down, then it is that we are most lifted up by the consolations of the Spirit. One reason is, because trials make more room for consolation. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes more room for consolation. God comes into our heart — He finds it full — He begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it. Another reason why we are often most happy in our troubles, is this — then we have the closest dealings with God. When the barn is full, man can live without God: when the purse is bursting with gold, we try to do without so much prayer. But once take our gourds away, and we want our God; once cleanse the idols out of the house, then we are compelled to honour Jehovah. “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.” There is no cry so good as that which comes from the bottom of the mountains; no prayer half so hearty as that which comes up from the depths of the soul, through deep trials and afflictions. Hence they bring us to God, and we are happier; for nearness to God is happiness. Come, troubled believer, fret not over your heavy troubles, for they are the heralds of weighty mercies.

healthy eating go-to scripts God has given me power over my food choices. I’m supposed to consume food. Food isn’t supposed to consume me. He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10) I was made for more than to be stuck in a vicious cycle of defeat. You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north. (Deuteronomy 2:3 NASB) When I’m considering a compromise, I will think past this moment and ask myself, How will I feel about this choice tomorrow morning? Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20) When tempted, I either remove the temptation or remove myself from the situation. If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee. (1 Corinthians 10:12–14) When there’s a special event, I can find other ways to celebrate rather than blowing my healthy eating plan. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. (Revelation 3:8) Struggling with my weight isn’t God’s mean curse on me, but an outside indication that internal changes are needed for me to function and feel well. “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! . . . I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:18–19) I have these boundaries in place not for restriction but to define the parameters of my freedom. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. (Romans 6:19)

What, may I ask, does your one truck contain if not gowns?” Inspiration struck, and Elizabeth smiled radiantly. “Something of great value. Priceless value,” she confided. All faces at the table watched her with alert fascination-particularly the greedy Sir Francis. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, love. What’s in it?” “The mortal remains of Saint Jacob.” Lady Eloise and Lady Mortand screamed in unison, Sir William choked on his wine, and Sir Francis gaped at her in horror, but Elizabeth wasn’t quite finished. She saved the coup de grace until the meal was over. As soon as everyone arose she insisted they sit back down so a proper prayer of gratitude could be said. Raising her hands heavenward, Elizabeth turned a simple grace into a stinging tirade against the sins of lust and promiscuity that rose to crescendo as she called down the vengeance of doomsday on all transgressors and culminated in a terrifyingly lurid description of the terrors that awaited all who strayed down the path of lechery-terrors that combined dragon lore with mythology, a smattering of religion, and a liberal dash of her own vivid imagination. When it was done Elizabeth dropped her eyes, praying in earnest that tonight would loose her from her predicament. There was no more she could do; she’d played out her hand with all her might; she’d given it her all. It was enough. After supper Sir Francis escorted her to her chamber and, with a poor attempt at regret, announced that he greatly feared they wouldn’t suit. Not at all. Elizabeth and Berta departed at dawn the following morning, an hour before Sir Francis’s servants stirred themselves. Clad in a dressing robe, Sir Francis watched from his bedchamber window as Elizabeth’s coachman helped her into her conveyance. He was about to turn away when a sudden gust of wind caught Elizabeth’s black gown, exposing a long and exceptionally shapely leg to Sir Francis’s riveted gaze. He was still staring at the coach as it circled the drive; through its open window he saw Elizabeth laugh and reach up, unpinning her hair. Clouds of golden tresses whipped about the open window, obscuring her face, and Sir Francis thoughtfully wet his lips.

When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark

The buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes Black figments that the woods release, Obscenity in form and grace, Drifting high through the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline. (...) By the buzzard roost Big Jim Todd Listened for hoofs on the corduroy road Or for the foul and sucking sound A man's foot makes on the marshy ground. Past midnight, when the moccasin Slipped from the log and, trailing in Its obscured waters, broke The dark algae, one lean bird spoke, (...) "[Big Jim] your breed ain't metaphysical." The buzzard coughed, His words fell In the darkness, mystic and ambrosial. "But we maintain our ancient rite, Eat the gods by day and prophesy by night. We swing against the sky and wait; You seize the hour, more passionate Than strong, and strive with time to die -- With time, the beaked tribe's astute ally. "The Jew-boy died. The Syrian vulture swung Remotely above the cross whereon he hung From dinner-time to supper-time, and all The people gathered there watched him until The lean brown chest no longer stirred, Then idly watched the slow majestic bird That in the last sun above the twilit hill Gleamed for a moment at the height and slid Down the hot wind and in the darkness hid. [Big Jim], regard the circumstance of breath: Non omnis moriar, the poet sayeth." Pedantic, the bird clacked its gray beak, With a Tennessee accent to the classic phrase; Jim understood, and was about to speak, But the buzzard drooped one wing and filmed the eyes. At dawn unto the Sabbath wheat he came, That gave to the dew its faithless yellow flame From kindly loam in recollection of The fires that in the brutal rock one strove. To the ripe wheat he came at dawn. Northward the printed smoke stood quiet above The distant cabins of Squiggtown. A train's far whistle blew and drifted away Coldly; lucid and thin the morning lay Along the farms, and here no sound Touched the sweet earth miraculously stilled. Then down the damp and sudden wood there belled The musical white-throated hound. In pondy Woods in the summer's drouth Lurk fever and the cottonmouth. And buzzards over Pondy Woods Achieve the blue tense altitudes, Drifting high in the pure sunshine Till the sun in gold decline; Then golden and hieratic through The night their eyes burn two by two.

One morning he read to her at breakfast, something he had written during the night "Very rough," he said. "Half of it I've crossed out. And this was supposed to be the clean copy." He cleared his throat. "So.'Things happen for reasons that are hidden from us, utterly hidden for as long as we think they must proceed from what has come before, our guilt or our deserving, rather than coming to us from a future that God in his freedom offers to us.' My meaning here is that you really can't account for what happens by what has happened in the past, as you understand it anyway, which may be very different from the past itself. If there is such a thing. 'The only true knowledge of God is borne of obedience,' that's Calvin, 'and obedience has to be constantly attentive to the demands that are made of it, to a circumstance that is always new and particular to its moment.' Yes. 'Then the reasons that things happen are still hidden in the mystery of God.' I can't read my own writing. No matter. 'Of course misfortunes have opened the way to blessing you would never have thought to hope for, that you would not have been ready to understand as blessings if they had come to you in your youth, when you were uninjured, innocent. The future always finds us damaged.' So then it is part of the providence of God, as I see it, the blessing or happiness can have very different meanings from one time to another. 'This is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognized for what it is. Sorrow is very real, and loss feels very final to us. Life on earth is difficult and grave, and marvelous. Our experience is fragmentary. Its parts don't add up. They don't even belong in the same calculation. Sometimes it is hard to believe they are all parts of one one thing. Nothing makes sense until we understand that experience does not accumulate like money, or memory, or like years and frailties. Instead, it is presented to us by God who is not under any obligation to the past except in His eternal, freely given constancy.' Because I don't mean to suggest that experience is random or accidental, you see. 'When I say that much the greater part of our existence is unknowable by us because it rests with God, who is unknowable, I acknowledge His grace in allowing us to feel that we know any slightest part of it. Therefore we have no way to reconcile its elements, because they are what we are given out of no necessity at all except God's grace in sustaining us as creatures we can recognize as ourselves.' That's always seemed remarkable to me, that we can do that. That we can't help but do it.'So joy can be joy and sorrow can be sorrow, with neither of them casting either light or shadow on the other.

April 1 MORNING “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” — Song of Solomon 1:2 FOR several days we have been dwelling upon the Saviour’s passion, and for some little time to come we shall linger there. In beginning a new month, let us seek the same desires after our Lord as those which glowed in the heart of the elect spouse. See how she leaps at once to Him; there are no prefatory words; she does not even mention His name; she is in the heart of her theme at once, for she speaks of Him who was the only Him in the world to her. How bold is her love! it was much condescension which permitted the weeping penitent to anoint His feet with spikenard — it was rich love which allowed the gentle Mary to sit at His feet and learn of Him — but here, love, strong, fervent love, aspires to higher tokens of regard, and closer signs of fellowship. Esther trembled in the presence of Ahasuerus, but the spouse in joyful liberty of perfect love knows no fear. If we have received the same free spirit, we also may ask the like. By kisses we suppose to be intended those varied manifestations of affection by which the believer is made to enjoy the love of Jesus. The kiss of reconciliation we enjoyed at our conversion, and it was sweet as honey dropping from the comb. The kiss of acceptance is still warm on our brow, as we know that He hath accepted our persons and our works through rich grace. The kiss of daily, present communion, is that which we pant after to be repeated day after day, till it is changed into the kiss of reception, which removes the soul from earth, and the kiss of consummation which fills it with the joy of heaven. Faith is our walk, but fellowship sensibly felt is our rest. Faith is the road, but communion with Jesus is the well from which the pilgrim drinks. O lover of our souls, be not strange to us; let the lips of Thy blessing meet the lips of our asking; let the lips of Thy fulness touch the lips of our need, and straightway the kiss will be effected.

You make me afraid,” she murmured one morning when he came back to sit beside her on the bed. “The thought plagues me that I will see you slain and, like your mother, will have to flee to find a haven for our babe.” “By the grace of God, madam, I will prove wiser than my enemy.” He lay back across the bed, resting his head in her lap while he reached up a hand to caress softly her smooth, flat belly through the light fabric of her nightgown. “I have a fancy to see our offspring and plant other seeds where this one grows, so you needn’t fret that I’ll be foolhardy, my love.” Erienne ran her fingers through his hair. “I hope the hour quickly approaches when you may give up the mask and guise. I want to tell the world and all the women in it that you’re mine.” She shrugged lightly. “ ’Twould not overburden me to tell my father of our marriage, either.” Christopher chuckled. “He’ll croak.” Erienne giggled and leaned over him. “Aye, that he will. Louder than any wily toad that e’er’s been born. He’ll stamp and snort and claim injustice, but with your babe growing in me, I doubt that anyone will lend an ear to the question of annulment.” Her eyes gleamed with twinkling humor. “Besides, what suitor would look twice at me when I’ve grown fat with child?” Christopher raised up on an elbow and leered at her. “Madam, if you think your father or any suitor could get past me to try to separate us, then let me assure you that the highwaymen have not yet seen such a wrath that I would display should that happen.” His brow raised in question. “Do you doubt what I say?” Erienne gave a flirtatious shrug, then rolled to the edge of the bed and bounced to her feet with light, lilting laughter floating behind her. Before she could catch up her robe, however, Christopher swung around the end of the bed and caught her close against him, slipping his arms around her waist and holding her tightly to him. Their lips met in a long, slow kiss of love, and after he drew away it was a full moment or more before Erienne opened her eyes to find the grayish-green ones smiling into hers, and her arms tightly clasped about his neck. “I believe you,” she breathed unsteadily. -Erienne & Christopher

You’re worried about Anna?” “Anna and the baby, who, I can assure you, are not worried about me.” “Westhaven, are you pouting?” Westhaven glanced over to see his brother smiling, but it was a commiserating sort of smile. “Yes. Care to join me?” The commiserating smile became the signature St. Just Black Irish piratical grin. “Only until Valentine joins us. He’s so eager to get under way, we’ll let him break the trail when we depart in the morning.” “Where is he? I thought you were just going out to the stables to check on your babies.” “They’re horses, Westhaven. I do know the difference.” “You know it much differently than you knew it a year ago. Anna reports you sing your daughter to sleep more nights than not.” Two very large booted feet thunked onto the coffee table. “Do I take it your wife has been corresponding with my wife?” “And your daughter with my wife, and on and on.” Westhaven did not glance at his brother but, rather, kept his gaze trained on St. Just’s feet. Devlin could exude great good cheer among his familiars, but he was at heart a very private man. “The Royal Mail would go bankrupt if women were forbidden to correspond with each other.” St. Just’s tone was grumpy. “Does your wife let you read her mail in order that my personal marital business may now be known to all and sundry?” “I am not all and sundry,” Westhaven said. “I am your brother, and no, I do not read Anna’s mail. It will astound you to know this, but on occasion, say on days ending in y, I am known to talk with my very own wife. Not at all fashionable, but one must occasionally buck trends. I daresay you and Emmie indulge in the same eccentricity.” St. Just was silent for a moment while the fire hissed and popped in the hearth. “So I like to sing to my daughters. Emmie bears so much of the burden, it’s little enough I can do to look after my own children.” “You love them all more than you ever thought possible, and you’re scared witless,” Westhaven said, feeling a pang of gratitude to be able to offer the simple comfort of a shared truth. “I believe we’re just getting started on that part. With every child, we’ll fret more for our ladies, more for the children, for the ones we have, the one to come.” “You’re such a wonderful help to a man, Westhaven. Perhaps I’ll lock you in that nice cozy privy next time nature calls.” Which

The next morning I showed up at dad’s house at eight, with a hangover. All my brothers’ trucks were parked in front. What are they all doing here? When I opened the front door, Dad, Alan, Jase, and Willie looked at me. They were sitting around the living room, waiting. No one smiled, and the air felt really heavy. I looked to my left, where Mom was usually working in the kitchen, but this time she was still, leaning over the counter and looking at me too. Dad spoke first. “Son, are you ready to change?” Everything else seemed to go silent and fade away, and all I heard was my dad’s voice. “I just want you to know we’ve come to a decision as a family. You’ve got two choices. You keep doing what you’re doing--maybe you’ll live through it--but we don’t want nothin’ to do with you. Somebody can drop you off at the highway, and then you’ll be on your own. You can go live your life; we’ll pray for you and hope that you come back one day. And good luck to you in this world.” He paused for a second then went on, a little quieter. “Your other choice is that you can join this family and follow God. You know what we stand for. We’re not going to let you visit our home while you’re carrying on like this. You give it all up, give up all those friends, and those drugs, and come home. Those are your two choices.” I struggled to breathe, my head down and my chest tight. No matter what happened, I knew I would never forget this moment. My breath left me in a rush, and I fell to my knees in front of them all and started crying. “Dad, what took y’all so long?” I burst out. I felt broken, and I began to tell them about the sorry and dangerous road I’d been traveling down. I could see my brothers’ eyes starting to fill with tears too. I didn’t dare look at my mom’s face although I could feel her presence behind me. I knew she’d already been through the hell of addiction with her own mother, with my dad, with her brother-in-law Si, and with my oldest brother, Alan. And now me, her baby. I remembered the letters she’d been writing to me over the last few months, reaching out with words of love from her heart and from the heart of the Lord. Suddenly, I felt guilty. “Dad, I don’t deserve to come back. I’ve been horrible. Let me tell you some more.” “No, son,” he answered. “You’ve told me enough.” I’ve seen my dad cry maybe three times, and that was one of them. To see my dad that upset hit me right in the gut. He took me by my shoulders and said, “I want you to know that God loves you, and we love you, but you just can’t live like that anymore.” “I know. I want to come back home,” I said. I realized my dad understood. He’d been down this road before and come back home. He, too, had been lost and then found. By this time my brothers were crying, and they got around me, and we were on our knees, crying. I prayed out loud to God, “Thank You for getting me out of this because I am done living the way I’ve been living.” “My prodigal son has returned,” Dad said, with tears of joy streaming down his face. It was the best day of my life. I could finally look over at my mom, and she was hanging on to the counter for dear life, crying, and shaking with happiness. A little later I felt I had to go use the bathroom. My stomach was a mess from the stress and the emotions. But when I was in the bathroom with the door shut, my dad thought I might be in there doing one last hit of something or drinking one last drop, so he got up, came over, and started banging on the bathroom door. Before I could do anything, he kicked in the door. All he saw was me sitting on the pot and looking up at him while I about had a heart attack. It was not our finest moment. That afternoon after my brothers had left, we went into town and packed up and moved my stuff out of my apartment. “Hey bro,” I said to my roommate. “I’m changing my life. I’ll see ya later.” I meant it.

The morning after / my death” The morning after my death we will sit in cafés but I will not be there I will not be * There was the great death of birds the moon was consumed with fire the stars were visible until noon. Green was the forest drenched with shadows the roads were serpentine A redwood tree stood alone with its lean and lit body unable to follow the cars that went by with frenzy a tree is always an immutable traveller. The moon darkened at dawn the mountain quivered with anticipation and the ocean was double-shaded: the blue of its surface with the blue of flowers mingled in horizontal water trails there was a breeze to witness the hour * The sun darkened at the fifth hour of the day the beach was covered with conversations pebbles started to pour into holes and waves came in like horses. * The moon darkened on Christmas eve angels ate lemons in illuminated churches there was a blue rug planted with stars above our heads lemonade and war news competed for our attention our breath was warmer than the hills. * There was a great slaughter of rocks of spring leaves of creeks the stars showed fully the last king of the Mountain gave battle and got killed. We lay on the grass covered dried blood with our bodies green blades swayed between our teeth. * We went out to sea a bank of whales was heading South a young man among us a hero tried to straddle one of the sea creatures his body emerged as a muddy pool as mud we waved goodbye to his remnants happy not to have to bury him in the early hours of the day We got drunk in a barroom the small town of Fairfax had just gone to bed cherry trees were bending under the weight of their flowers: they were involved in a ceremonial dance to which no one had ever been invited. * I know flowers to be funeral companions they make poisons and venoms and eat abandoned stone walls I know flowers shine stronger than the sun their eclipse means the end of times but I love flowers for their treachery their fragile bodies grace my imagination’s avenues without their presence my mind would be an unmarked grave. * We met a great storm at sea looked back at the rocking cliffs the sand was going under black birds were leaving the storm ate friends and foes alike water turned into salt for my wounds. * Flowers end in frozen patterns artificial gardens cover the floors we get up close to midnight search with powerful lights the tiniest shrubs on the meadows A stream desperately is running to the ocean The Spring Flowers Own & The Manifestations of the Voyage (The Post-Apollo Press, 1990)

For many years,Rides the Wind cared only for Walks the Fire. Together they read this Book she speaks of.My daughter has told me of this.Walks the Fire would tel the words in the Book. Rides the Wind repeated them,then he would tell how the words would help him in the hunt or in the council.Walks the Fire listened as he spoke. She respected him.She did as he said." As Talks a Lot spoke,the people remembered the years since Walks the Fire had come to them.Many among them recalled kindness beyond the saving of Hears Not.Many regretted the early days, when they had laughed at the white woman.They remembered Prairie Flower and Old One teaching her,and many could recall times when some new stew was shared with their family or a deerskin brought in by Rides the Wind found its way to their tepee. Prairie Flower's voice was added to the men's. "Even when no more sons or daughters came to his tepee-even then, Rides the Wind wanted only Walks the Fire." She turned to look at Running Bear, another elder, "Even when you offered your own beautiful daugher, Rides the Wind wanted only Walks the Fire.This is true. My father told me. When he walked the earth,Rides the Wind wanted only Walks the Fire.Now that he lies upon the earth,you must know that he would say, 'Do this for her.'" Jesse had continued to dig into the earth as she listened. When Prairie Flower told of the chief's having offered his daughter,she stopped for a moment.Her hand reached out to lovingly caress the dark head that lay so still under the clear sky.Rides the Wind had never told her of this.She had been afraid that he might take another wife when it became evident they would have no children.Now she knew that he had chosen her alone-even in the face of temptation. From the women's group there was movement. Prairie Flower stepped forward, her digging tool in her hand. Defiantly she sputtered, "She is my friend..." and stalked across the short distance to the shallow grave. Dropping to her knees beside Jesse, she began attacking the earth.Ferociously she dug.Jesse followed her lead, as did Old One.They began again,three women working side by side.And then there were four women,and then five, and six, until a ring of many women dug together. The men did nothing to stop them, and Running Bear decided what was to be done. "We will camp here and wait for Walks the Fire to do what she must. Tonight we will tell the life of Rides the Wind around the fire.Tomorrow, when this is done, we will move on." And so it was.Hours later Rides the Wind, Lakota hunter, became the first of his village to be laid in a grave and mourned by a white woman. Before his body was lowered into the earth, Jesse impulsively took his hunting knife, intending to cut off the two thick, red braids that hung down her back. It seemed so long ago that Rides the Wind had braided the feathers and beads in, dusting the part.Had it really been only this morning? He had kissed her,too, grumbling about the white man's crazy ways.Jesse had laughed and returned his kiss.

Put yourself in the way of grace,' says a friend of ours, who is a monk, and a bishop; and he smiles his floating and shining smile. And truly, can there be a subject of more interest to each of us than whether or not grace exists, and the soul? And, consequent upon the existence of the soul, a whole landscape of incorruptible forces, perhaps even a source, an almost palpably suggested second universe? A world that is incomprehensible through reason? To believe in the soul---to believe in it exactly as much and as hardily as one believes in a mountain, say, or a fingernail, which is ever in view---imagine the consequences! How far-reaching, and thoroughly wonderful! For everything, by such a belief, would be charged, and changed. You wake in the morning, the soul exists, your mouth sings it, your mind accepts it. And the perceived, tactile world is, upon the instant, only half the world! How easily I travel, about halfway, through such a scenario. I believe in the soul---in mine, and yours, and the blue-jay's, and the pilot whale's. I believe each goldfinch flying away over the coarse ragweed has a soul, and the ragweed too, plant by plant, and the tiny stones in the earth below, and the grains of earth as well. Not romantically do I believe this, nor poetically, nor emotionally, nor metaphorically except as all reality is metaphor, but steadily, lumpishly, and absolutely. The wild waste spaces of the sea, and the pale dunes with one hawk hanging in the wind, they are for me the formal spaces that, in a liturgy, are taken up by prayer, song, sermon, silence, homily, scripture, the architecture of the church itself. And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light, there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself, and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life. I too dip myself toward the immeasurable. Now winter, the winter I am writing about, begins to ease. And what, if anything, has been determined, selected, nailed down? This is the lesson of age---events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different. Whereas what happens when one is twenty, as I remember it, happens forever. I have not been twenty for a long time! The sun rolls toward the north and I feel, gratefully, its brightness flaming up once more. Somewhere in the world the misery we can do nothing about yet goes on. Somewhere the words I will write down next year, and the next, are drifting into the wind, out of the ornate pods of the weeds of the Provincelands. Once I went into the woods to find an almost unfindable bird, a blue grosbeak. And I found it: a rough, deep blue, almost black, with heavy beak; it was plucking one by one the humped, pale green caterpillars from the leaves of a thick green tree. Then it vanished into the shadows of the leaves and, in the same moment, from the crown of the tree flew a western bluebird---little aqua thrush of the mountains, hundreds of miles from its home. It is a moment hard to top---but, I can. Once I came upon two angels, they were standing quietly, keeping guard beside a car. Light streamed from them, and a splash of flames lay quietly under their feet. What is one to do with such moments, such memories, but cherish them? Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap, or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure, and excitement?

Life is pretty short yet magnanimous if we know just how to live right. It isn't that easy, it takes a lot of our soul, sometimes too many broken pieces to finally come together in binding a masterpiece that smiles like a solitary star forever gazing around at the music of an eternal cosmos. The most brutal yet beautiful truth about Life is that It is marked, marked with Time where every moment takes us closer to death, it doesn't have to sound or feel bad or scary because death is the most inevitable truth in this mortal world. While the knowledge of death jolts our mind with the uncertainty of Life, clutches us in the emotion of fear to think of pain or the loss of bonds, when we acknowledge that as a part of our souls' journey and take every moment as our precious gift, a blessing to experience this Life with its beautiful garden of emotions blossoming with wonderful smiles that we can paint on others, then we make our Life magnanimous, then we make even the very face of death as that of an angel coming to take us to a different voyage, soaked in a lot of memories and experiences beautifully binding our soul. I have realised that when we live each day as if it's the last day of our life, we become more loving and gentle to everyone around and especially to our own selves. We forgive and love more openly, we grace and embrace every opportunity we get to be kind, to stay in touch with everything that truly matters. I have realised that when we rise every morning with gratitude knowing that the breath of air still passes through our body, just in the mere understanding that we have one more day to experience Life once again, we stay more compassionate towards everything and everyone around and invest more of our selves into everything and everyone that truly connect and resonate with our soul. I have realised that when we consciously try to be good and kind, no matter however bad or suffocating a situation is we always end up taking everything at its best holding on to the firm grip of goodness, accepting everything as a part of our souls' lesson or just a turn of Time or Fate and that shapes into our strength and roots our core with the truest understanding of Life, the simple act of going on and letting go. Letting go of anything and everything that chains our Soul while going on with a Heart open to Love and a Soul ready to absorb all that falls along the pathway of this adventure called Life. I have realised that when we are kind and do anything good for another person, that gives us the most special happiness, something so pure that even our hearts don't know how deep that joy permeates inside our soul. I have realised that at the end of the day we do good not because of others but because of our own selves, for if tomorrow death comes to grace me I hope to smile and say I have Lived, loved unconditionally and embraced forgiveness, kindness and goodness and all the other colours of Love with every breath I caught, I have lived a Life magnanimous. So each time someone's unkind towards you, hold back and smile, and try to give your warmth to that person. Because Kindness is not a declaration of who deserves it, it's a statement of who you are. So each time some pieces of your heart lay scattered, hold them up and embrace everyone of them with Love. Because Love is not a magic potion that is spilled from a hollow space, it's a breath of eternity that flows through the tunnel of your soul. So each time Life puts up a question of your Happiness, answer back with a Smile of Peace. Because Happiness is not what you look for in others, it's what you create in every passing moment, with the power of Life, that is pretty short when we see how counted it stands in days but actually turns out absolutely incredibly magnanimous when loved and lived in moments.