Grand Father Love Quotes

Well, sir, do you mean to remain there, commending my father’s taste in wine, or do you mean to accompany me to Ashtead?” “Set off for Ashtead at this hour, when I have been traveling for two days?” said Sir Horace. “Now, do, my boy, have a little common sense! Why should I?” “I imagine that your parental feeling, sir, must provide you with the answer! If it does not, so be it! I am leaving immediately!” “What do you mean to do when you reach Lacy Manor?” asked Sir Horace, regarding him in some amusement. “Wring Sophy’s neck!” said Mr. Rivenhall savagely. “Well, you don’t need my help for that, my dear boy!” said Sir Horace, settling himself more comfortably in his chair.

You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. Grandma Lynn died several years later, but I have yet to see her here. I imagine her tying it on in her heaven, drinking mint juleps with Tennessee Williams and Dean Martin. She'll be here in her own sweet time, I'm sure. If I'm to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can't help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can't help it.... It was a suprise to everyone when Lindsey found out she was pregnant...My father dreamed that one day he might teach another child to love ships in bottles. He knew there would be both sadness and joy in it; that it would always hold an echo of me. I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in its graciousness, it isn't about gritty reality. We have fun. We do things that leave humans stumped and grateful, like Buckley's garden coming up one year, all of its crazy jumble of plants blooming all at once. I did that for my mother who, having stayed, found herself facing the yard again. Marvel was what she did at all the flowers and herbs and budding weeds. Marveling was what she mostly did after she came back- at the twists life took. And my parents gave my leftover possessions to the Goodwill, along with Grandma Lynn's things. They kept sharing when they felt me. Being together, thinking and talking about the dead, became a perfectly normal part of their life. And I listened to my brother, Buckley, as he beat the drums. Ray became Dr. Singh... And he had more and more moments that he chose not to disbelieve. Even if surrounding him were the serious surgeons and scientists who ruled over a world of black and white, he maintained this possibility: that the ushering strangers that sometimes appeared to the dying were not the results of strokes, that he had called Ruth by my name, and that he had, indeed, made love to me. If he ever doubted, he called Ruth. Ruth, who graduated from a closet to a closet-sized studio on the Lower East Side. Ruth, who was still trying to find a way to write down whom she saw and what she had experienced. Ruth, who wanted everyone to believe what she knew: that the dead truly talk to us, that in the air between the living, spirits bob and weave and laugh with us. They are the oxygen we breathe. Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort. So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.

I grieved three thousand times. Then I grieved for myself, a lonely woman without the honor given to the wives of the fallen. The reverence for their loss, for their children's loss. It was eloquent and grand. So moving and charged with solidarity...On September eleventh, I faced the last moments of your father's life. I saw him in every person who tried to jump and every body they pulled from the rubble. And I saw myself as I was never allowed to be, consoled, understood, and loved.

This poem is very long So long, in fact, that your attention span May be stretched to its very limits But that’s okay It’s what’s so special about poetry See, poetry takes time We live in a time Call it our culture or society It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes A time where most people don’t want to listen Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire Waiting until we can speak No patience to listen But this poem is long It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things You could’ve called your father Call your father You could be writing a postcard right now Write a postcard When was the last time you wrote a postcard? You could be outside You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset Watch the sun rise Maybe you could’ve written your own poem A better poem You could have played a tune or sung a song You could have met your neighbor And memorized their name Memorize the name of your neighbor You could’ve drawn a picture (Or, at least, colored one in) You could’ve started a book Or finished a prayer You could’ve talked to God Pray When was the last time you prayed? Really prayed? This is a long poem So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute? Or told them that you love them? Tell your friends you love them …no, I mean it, tell them Say, I love you Say, you make life worth living Because that, is what friends do Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done During this very, very long poem You could have connected Maybe you are connecting Maybe we’re connecting See, I believe that the only things that really matter In the grand scheme of life are God and people And if people are made in the image of God Then when you spend your time with people It’s never wasted And in this very long poem I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does: Make things simpler We don’t need poems to make things more complicated We have each other for that We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter To take time A long time To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment Or for many moments Cause we need each other To hold the hands of a broken person All you have to do is meet a person Shake their hand Look in their eyes They are you We are all broken together But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes To sit and listen to a very long poem A story of a life The joy of a friend and the grief of friend To hold and be held And be quiet So, pray Write a postcard Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them Turn off the TV Create art as best as you can Share as much as possible, especially money Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard And how afterward it brought you to them

Father asks to...Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become stronger yet and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but love.

Elizabeth laughed and pushed her father's shoulder. "Go, Papa, and be kind to him. I love him so. And it would be to your advantage to be on his good side." Mr. Bennet raised his eyebrows. "Oh, and why is that?" Because I have seen both his libraries in London and at Pemberley, Papa." Interested and amused, Mr. Bennet said, "Ahh, and are they very grand, Lizzy?" A more exquisite sight you will not see," she assured him.

What he confessed was this. He had not been serving God, after all, when he followed Allen Dulles. He had been on a satanic quest. These were some of James Jesus Angleton’s dying words. He delivered them between fits of calamitous coughing—lung-scraping seizures that still failed to break him of his cigarette habit—and soothing sips of tea. “Fundamentally, the founding fathers of U.S. intelligence were liars,” Angleton told Trento in an emotionless voice. “The better you lied and the more you betrayed, the more likely you would be promoted. . . . Outside of their duplicity, the only thing they had in common was a desire for absolute power. I did things that, in looking back on my life, I regret. But I was part of it and loved being in it.” He invoked the names of the high eminences who had run the CIA in his day—Dulles, Helms, Wisner. These men were “the grand masters,” he said. “If you were in a room with them, you were in a room full of people that you had to believe would deservedly end up in hell.” Angleton took another slow sip from his steaming cup. “I guess I will see them there soon.

Paine was a grand fellow — high—with the most splendid sense of justice. But he was a reasoner — not warm — not letting out the natural palpitating passion... which perhaps he didn't have. But I see all that and more in Ingersoll. His imagination flames and plays up, up, up. It is a grand height! And he has so sharp a blade, too; is many-sided, gifted for great effects in different spheres. I don't suppose we ever had a man here so well adapted to that work. {Whitman's thought on Thomas Paine and his good friend, Robert Ingersoll}

I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never appreciated it. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew—two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, 'I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning,' then they put his thumb between these pieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, 'I will recant.' Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would have said: 'Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but stop.' But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing around some dried snake fetich. Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be the truth. Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love—in the name of mercy, in the name of Christ. I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured, by these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, 'I do not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men.' I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his pain. I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again. This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of Christ.

You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside.’ She held out her hand to me. ‘Give me your hand.’ I lifted my left hand and placed it in hers. She took it and pressed the flat of my palm up against my chest, over my beating heart. ‘You don’t have to put your hand on Mary’s heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other things we need to get through life,’ she said. ‘You can place it right here on your own heart. Your own heart.’ August stepped closer. She kept the pressure steady against my hand. ‘All those times your father treated you mean, Our Lady was the voice in you that said, “No, I will not bow down to this. I am Lily Melissa Owens, I will not bow down.” Whether you could hear this voice or not, she was in there saying it.’ I took my other hand and placed it on top of hers, and she moved her free hand on top of it, so we had this black-and-white stack of hands resting upon my chest. ‘When you’re unsure of yourself,’ she said, ‘when you start pulling back into doubt and small living, she’s the one inside saying, “Get up from there and live like the glorious girl you are.” She’s the power inside you, you understand?’ Her hands stayed where they were but released their pressure. ‘And whatever it is that keeps widening your heart, that’s Mary, too, not only the power inside you but the love. And when you get down to it, Lily, that’s the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love – but to persist in love.

My father called swimming “the elixir of life,” and certainly it seemed to be so for him: he swam daily, slowing down only slightly with time, until the grand age of ninety-four. I hope I can follow him, and swim till I die.

Tradition? Kadash, did I ever tell you about my first sword trainer? Back when I was young, our branch of the Kholin family didn't have grand monasteries and beautiful practice grounds. My father found a teacher for me from two towns over. His name was Harth. Young fellow, not a true swordmaster -- but good enough. He was very focused on proper procedure, and wouldn't let me train until I'd learned how to put on a takama the right way. He wouldn't have stood for me fighting like this. You put on the skirt, then the overshirt, then you wrap your cloth belt around yourself three times and tie it. I always found that annoying. The belt was too tight, wrapped three times -- you had to pull it hard to get enough slack to tie the knot. The first time I went to duels at a neighboring town, I felt like an idiot. Everyone else had long drooping belt ends at the front of their takamas. I asked Harth why we did it differently. He said it was the right way, the true way. So, when my travels took me to Harth's hometown, I searched out his master, a man who had trained with the ardents in Kholinar. He insisted that this was the right way to tie a takama, as he'd learned from his master. I found my master's master's master in Kholinar after we captured it. The ancient, wizened ardent was eating curry and flatbread, completely uncaring of who ruled the city. I asked him. Why tie your belt three times, when everyone else thinks you should do it twice? The old man laughed and stood up. I was shocked to see that he was terribly short. 'If I only tie it twice,' he exclaimed, 'the ends hang down so low, I trip!' I love tradition, I've fought for tradition. I make my men follow the codes. I uphold Vorin virtues. But merely being tradition does not make something worthy, Kadash. We can't just assume that because something is old it is right.

Ode to Joy Joy, beautiful spark of Divinity, Daughter of Elysium, We enter, drunk with fire, Heavenly one, thy sanctuary! Thy magic binds again What custom strictly divided;* All people become brothers,* Where thy gentle wing abides. Whoever has succeeded in the great attempt, To be a friend's friend, Whoever has won a lovely woman, Add his to the jubilation! Yes, and also whoever has just one soul To call his own in this world! And he who never managed it should slink Weeping from this union! All creatures drink of joy At nature's breasts. All the Just, all the Evil Follow her trail of roses. Kisses she gave us and grapevines, A friend, proven in death. Salaciousness was given to the worm And the cherub stands before God. Gladly, as His suns fly through the heavens' grand plan Go on, brothers, your way, Joyful, like a hero to victory. Be embraced, Millions! This kiss to all the world! Brothers, above the starry canopy There must dwell a loving Father. Are you collapsing, millions? Do you sense the creator, world? Seek him above the starry canopy! Above stars must He dwell.

There was a man who was in Hell and about to be re-incarnated, and he said to the King of Re-incarnation, “If you want me to return to the earth as a human being, I will go only on my own conditions.” “And what are they?” asked the King. The man replied, “I must be born the son of a cabinet minister and father of a future ‘Literary Wrangler’ (the scholar who comes out first at the national examinations). I must have ten thousand acres of land surrounding my home and fish ponds and fruits of every kind and a beautiful wife and pretty concubines, all good and loving to me, and rooms stocked to the ceiling with gold and pearls and cellars stocked full of grain and trunks chockful of money, and I myself must be a Grand Councilor or a Duke of the First Rank and enjoy honor and prosperity and live until I am a hundred years old,” And the King of Re-incarnation replied, “If there was such a lot on earth, I would go and be re-incarnated myself, and not give it to you!

Wylan—and the obliging Kuwei—will get the weevil working,” Kaz continued. “Once we have Inej, we can move on Van Eck’s silos.” Nina rolled her eyes. “Good thing this is all about getting our money and not about saving Inej. Definitely not about that.” “If you don’t care about money, Nina dear, call it by its other names.” “Kruge? Scrub? Kaz’s one true love?” “Freedom, security, retribution.” “You can’t put a price on those things.” “No? I bet Jesper can. It’s the price of the lien on his father’s farm.” The sharpshooter looked at the toes of his boots. “What about you, Wylan? Can you put a price on the chance to walk away from Ketterdam and live your own life? And Nina, I suspect you and your Fjerdan may want something more to subsist on than patriotism and longing glances. Inej might have a number in mind too. It’s the price of a future, and it’s Van Eck’s turn to pay.” Matthias was not fooled. Kaz always spoke logic, but that didn’t mean he always told truth. “The Wraith’s life is worth more than that,” said Matthias. “To all of us.” “We get Inej. We get our money. It’s as simple as that.” “Simple as that,” said Nina. “Did you know I’m next in line for the Fjerdan throne? They call me Princess Ilse of Engelsberg.” “There is no princess of Engelsberg,” said Matthias. “It’s a fishing town.” Nina shrugged. “If we’re going to lie to ourselves, we might as well be grand about it.” Kaz ignored her, spreading a map of the city over the table, and Matthias heard Wylan murmur to Jesper, “Why won’t he just say he wants her back?” “You’ve met Kaz, right?” “But she’s one of us.” Jesper’s brows rose again. “One of us? Does that mean she knows the secret handshake? Does that mean you’re ready to get a tattoo?” He ran a finger up Wylan’s forearm, and Wylan flushed a vibrant pink. Matthias couldn’t help but sympathize with the boy. He knew what it was to be out of your depth, and he sometimes suspected they could forgo all of Kaz’s planning and simply let Jesper and Nina flirt the entirety of Ketterdam into submission. Wylan pulled his sleeve down self-consciously. “Inej is part of the crew.” “Just don’t push it.” “Why not?” “Because the practical thing would be for Kaz to auction Kuwei to the highest bidder and forget about Inej entirely.” “He wouldn’t—” Wylan broke off abruptly, doubt creeping over his features. None of them really knew what Kaz would or wouldn’t do. Sometimes Matthias wondered if even Kaz was sure. “Okay, Kaz,” said Nina, slipping off her shoes and wiggling her toes. “Since this is about the almighty plan, how about you stop meditating over that map and tell us just what we’re in for.

My words to Anna, as we stood contemplating the Scuola Grande di San Marco, moments before entering Venice Hospital, came true: 'With a façade like that, I could even accept having a deformed child.' I accepted Tito's cerebral palsy. I accepted it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I accepted it with delight. I accepted it with enthusiasm. I accepted it with love.

Today I saw the most beautiful girl in the world... She is the most beautiful girl in the world, Bartolomeo Scappi thought. Never have I seen a woman so perfect, so angelic, so impossible for me to attain. "Bella," he breathed when air filled his lungs once again. Even Ippolito d'Este's presence at the dining table could not mar his giddiness. The girl was so beautiful she glowed like a painting of the Madonna, making everyone around her seem colorless in comparison. She was clearly a principessa of a grand house, sitting between Ippolito's father, the Duke of Ferrara, on one side, and a woman most likely to be her mother on the right. Bartolomeo sought to memorize every feature of this goddess with golden hair that shone with glints of red in the last rays of the day's sunlight. Her eyes were dark chestnut, rich and deep, while her lips were pink, like the inside of a seashell. Her hair was braided, but much of it flowed loose over shoulders, teasing her pale skin. She wore a dress of red, with sleeves billowing white. Rubies and pearls spilled across her delicate collarbone toward her beautiful breasts. Scappi painted her picture in his mind and stored it deep within the frame of his heart. That evening, while staring at the sky, his thoughts lost in the memory of the signorina, a shooting star passed across his vision. "Stella," he said under his breath. I will call her Stella. My shining star.

The whole house and garden is one vast obscenity. It bears a sickening resemblance to the description one human writer made of Heaven: 'the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence'. Music and silence - how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since Our Father entered Hell - though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express- no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise - Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile - Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end.

I was already an atheist, and by my senior year I had became obsessed with the question “What is the meaning of life?” I wrote my personal statement for college admissions on the meaninglessness of life. I spent the winter of my senior year in a kind of philosophical depression—not a clinical depression, just a pervasive sense that everything was pointless. In the grand scheme of things, I thought, it really didn’t matter whether I got into college, or whether the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid or by nuclear war. My despair was particularly strange because, for the first time since the age of four, my life was perfect. I had a wonderful girlfriend, great friends, and loving parents. I was captain of the track team, and, perhaps most important for a seventeen-year-old boy, I got to drive around in my father’s 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Yet I kept wondering why any of it mattered. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, I thought that “all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (ECCLESIASTES 1:14) . I finally escaped when, after a week of thinking about suicide (in the abstract, not as a plan), I turned the problem inside out. There is no God and no externally given meaning to life, I thought, so from one perspective it really wouldn’t matter if I killed myself tomorrow. Very well, then everything beyond tomorrow is a gift with no strings and no expectations. There is no test to hand in at the end of life, so there is no way to fail. If this really is all there is, why not embrace it, rather than throw it away? I don’t know whether this realization lifted my mood or whether an improving mood helped me to reframe the problem with hope; but my existential depression lifted and I enjoyed the last months of high school.

Good morning! The sun is up! Wake up! Time to eat," said the birds. "Good morning," Ashlynn said back. There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep before her Happily Ever After.

From the perspective of my old laptop, I am a numbers man, something like that every instruction he gives me is a one or a zero I remember well I have information about him before he left for his new toy thinner, younger, able to keep up with him, I have information about him may 15th 2008, he listened to a song five times in succession it was titled Everybody, open parenthesis, Backstreet's Back, close parenthesis it included the lyric 'Am I sexual, yeaaaaah' He said once, computers like a sense of finality to them when I write something I don't want to be able to run from it this was a lie he was addicted to my ability to keep his secrets I am a numbers man, every instruction he gives me is a one, or a zero I remember well January, 7th 2007 I was young just two week awake he gave me, a new series of one's and zeros the most sublime sequence I have ever seen it had curves, and shadow, it was him he gave his face in numbers and trusted me to be the artist, and I was do not laugh I have read about your God you kill each other over your grand fathers memory of him I still remember the fingertips of my God dancing across my body After I learnt to draw him he trusted with more art rubric jpeg 1063 was his favourite Him, and that woman, resting her head in the curve of his nick I read his correspondence she hasn't written him back in years but he asks for it, constantly, jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063, jpeg 1063 it was my master piece it looked so, .., life like I wanted to tell him That's not her that is me that is not her face those are my ones and zeros waltzing in space for you she is nothing more than my shadow puppet you do not miss her, you miss me, I am a numbers man, every instruction he gives is a one or a zero I remember well but he taught me to be a Da Vinci and I sit here, with his portraits waiting for him to return I do not think he will Is that what it means to be human to be all powerful, to build a temple to yourself and leave only the walls to pray

In the New Testament, God's steadfast love and faithfulness are seen, not in an act of deliverance from foreign enemies, but in sending the Son and raising Him from the dead to enact a global rescue mission (Romans 8:3.) Jesus is God's supreme, grand, climactic act of faithfulness. Not only that, but "faithful" also describes Jesus. Paul writes, "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but in faith in Jesus Christ" (Galations 2:16...). A better reading is "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" -- which is found in footnotes of many Bibles -- and the two readings couldn't be more different... Paul isn't saying, "You are not justified by your efforts but by your faith." The contrast he's making isn't between two options we have; the contrast is between your efforts and Jesus' faithfulness to you, shown in His obedient death on a Roman cross. Paul is interested in telling readers what Jesus did, Jesus' faithfulness, not what we do. God's grand act of faithfulness is giving His son for our sake. God is all in. Jesus' grand act of faithfulness is going through with it for our sake. Jesus is all in. Now it's our move, which really is the point of all this. Like God the Father and God the Son, we are also called to be faithful. On one level, we are faithful to God when we trust God, but faith (pistis) doesn't stop there. It extends, as we've seen, in faithfulness toward each other, in humility and self-sacrificial love. And here is the real kick in the pants: When we are faithful to each other like this, we are more than simply being nice and kind -- though there's that. Far more important, when we are faithful to each other, we are, at that moment, acting like the faithful God and the faithful Son. Being like God. That's the goal. And we are most like God, not when we are certain we are right about God, or when we tell others how right we are, but when we are acting toward one another like the faithful Father and Son. Humility, love, and kindness are our grand acts of faithfulness and how we show that we are all in.

And one cold Tuesday in December, when Marie-Laure has been blind for over a year, her father walks her up rue Cuvier to the edge of the Jardin des Plantes. "Here, ma chérie, is the path we take every morning. Through the cedars up ahead is the Grand Gallery." "I know, Papa." He picks her up and spins her around three times. "Now," he says, "you're going to take us home." Her mouth drops open. "I want you to think of the model, Marie." "But I can't possibly!" "I'm one step behind you. I won't let anything happen. You have your cane. You know where you are." "I do not!" "You do." Exasperation. She cannot even say if the gardens are ahead or behind. "Calm yourself, Marie. One centimeter at a time." "I'm far, Papa. Six blocks, at least." "Six blocks is exactly right. Use logic. Which way should we go first?" The world pivots and rumbles. Crows shout, brakes hiss, someone to her left bangs something metal with what might be a hammer. She shuffles forward until the tip of her cane floats in space. The edge of a curb? A pond, a staircase, a cliff? She turns ninety degrees. Three steps forward. Now her cane finds the base of a wall. "Papa?" "I'm here." Six paces seven paces eight. A roar of noise - an exterminator just leaving a house, pump bellowing - overtakes them. Twelve paces farther on, the bell tied around the handle of a shop door rings, and two women came out, jostling her as they pass. Marie-Laure drops her cane; she begins to cry. Her father lifts her, holds her to his narrow chest. "It's so big," she whispers. "You can do this, Marie." She cannot.

I don’t think you do,’ said Father Brown, with simplicity. ‘You say this thing was done by spiritual powers. What spiritual powers? You don’t think the holy angels took him and hung him on a garden tree, do you? And as for the unholy angels — no, no, no. The men who did this did a wicked thing, but they went no further than their own wickedness; they weren’t wicked enough to be dealing with spiritual powers. I know something about Satanism, for my sins; I’ve been forced to know. I know what it is, what it practically always is. It’s proud and it’s sly. It likes to be superior; it loves to horrify the innocent with things half understood, to make children’s flesh creep. That’s why it’s so fond of mysteries and initiations and secret societies and all the rest of it. Its eyes are turned inwards, and however grand and grave it may look, it’s always hiding a small, mad smile.

I prop my guitar up against the nightstand. Then I turn toward the bed and fall into it face first. The mattress is soft but firm, like a sheet of steel wrapped in a cloud. I roll around, moaning loud and long. “Oh, that’s good. Really, really good. What a grand bed!” Sarah clears her throat. “Well. We should probably get to sleep, then. Big day tomorrow.” The pillow smells sweet, like candy. I can only imagine it’s from her. I wonder if I pressed my nose to the crook of her neck, would her skin smell as delicious? I brush away the thought as I watch her stiffly gather a pillow and blanket from the other side of the bed, dragging them to . . . the nook. “What are you doing?” She looks up, her doe eyes widening. “Getting ready for bed.” “You’re going to sleep there?” “Of course. The sofa’s very uncomfortable.” “Why can’t we share the bed?” She chokes . . . stutters. “I . . . I can’t sleep with you. I don’t even know you.” I throw my arms out wide. “What do you want to know? Ask me anything—I’m an open book.” “That’s not what I mean.” “You’re being ridiculous! It’s a huge bed. You could let one rip and I wouldn’t hear it.” And the blush is back. With a vengeance. “I’m not . . . I don’t . . .” “You don’t fart?” I scoff. “Really? Are you not human?” She curses under her breath, but I’d love to hear it out loud. I bet uninhibited Sarah Von Titebottum would be a stunning sight. And very entertaining. She shakes her head, pinning me with her eyes. “There’s something wrong with you.” “No.” I explain calmly, “I’m just free. Honest with myself and others. You should try it sometime.” She folds her arms, all tight, trembling indignation. It’s adorable. “I’m sleeping in the nook, Your Highness. And that’s that.” I sit up, pinning her gaze right back at her. “Henry.” “What?” “My name is not Highness, it’s fucking Henry, and I’d prefer you use it.” And she snaps. “Fine! Fucking Henry—happy?” I smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.” I flop back on the magnificent bed. “Sleep tight, Titebottum.” I think she growls at me, but it’s muffled by the sound of rustling bed linens and pillows. And then . . . there’s silence. Beautiful, blessed silence. I wiggle around, getting comfy. I turn on my side and fluff the pillow. I squeeze my eyes tight . . . but it’s hopeless. “Fucking hell!” I sit up. And Sarah springs to her feet. “What? What’s wrong?” It’s the guilt. I’ve barged into this poor girl’s room, confiscated her bed, and have forced her to sleep in a cranny in the wall. I may not be the man my father was or the gentleman my brother is, but I’m not that much of a prick. I stand up, rip my shirt over my head. and march toward the window seat. I feel Sarah’s eyes graze my bare chest, arms. and stomach, but she circles around me, keeping her distance. “You take the bloody bed,” I tell her. “I’ll sleep in the bloody nook.” “You don’t have to do that.” I push my hand through my hair. “Yes, I do.” Then I stand up straight and proper, an impersonation of Hugh Grant in one of his classic royal roles. “Please, Lady Sarah.” She blinks, her little mouth pursed. “Okay.” Then she climbs onto the bed, under the covers. And I squeeze onto the window bench, knees bent, my elbow jammed against the icy windowpane, and my neck bent at an odd angle that I’m going to be feeling tomorrow. The light is turned down to a very low dim, and for several moments all I hear is Sarah’s soft breaths. But then, in the near darkness, her delicate voice floats out on a sigh. “All right, we can sleep in the bed together.” Music to my ears. I don’t make her tell me twice—I’ve fulfilled my noble quota for the evening. I stumble from the nook and crash onto the bed. That’s better.

From Sister by ROSAMUND LUPTON    The rain hammered down onto your coffin, pitter-patter; ‘Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, I hear raindrops’; I was five and singing it to you, just born. Your coffin reached the bottom of the monstrous hole. And a part of me went down into the muddy earth with you and lay down next to you and died with you. Then Mum stepped forwards and took a wooden spoon from her coat pocket. She loosened her fingers and it fell on top of your coffin. Your magic wand. And I threw the emails I sign ‘lol’. And the title of older sister. And the nickname Bee. Not grand or important to anyone else, I thought, this bond that we had. Small things. Tiny things. You knew that I didn’t make words out of my alphabetti spaghetti but I gave you my vowels so you could make more words out of yours. I knew that your favourite colour used to be purple but then became bright yellow; (‘Ochre’s the arty word, Bee’) and you knew mine was orange, until I discovered that taupe was more sophisticated and you teased me for that. You knew that my first whimsy china animal was a cat (you lent me 50p of your pocket money to buy it) and that I once took all my clothes out of my school trunk and hurled them around the room and that was the only time I had something close to a tantrum. I knew that when you were five you climbed into bed with me every night for a year. I threw everything we had together - the strong roots and stems and leaves and beautiful soft blossoms of sisterhood - into the earth with you. And I was left standing on the edge, so diminished by the loss, that I thought I could no longer be there. All I was allowed to keep for myself was missing you. Which is what? The tears that pricked the inside of my face, the emotion catching at the top of my throat, the cavity in my chest that was larger than I am. Was that all I had now? Nothing else from twenty-one years of loving you. Was the feeling that all is right with the world, my world, because you were its foundations, formed in childhood and with me grown into adulthood - was that to be replaced by nothing? The ghastliness of nothing. Because I was nobody’s sister now. I saw Dad had been given a handful of earth. But as he held out his hand above your coffin he couldn’t unprise his fingers. Instead, he put his hand into his pocket, letting the earth fall there and not onto you. He watched as Father Peter threw the first clod of earth instead and broke apart, splintering with the pain of it. I went to him and took his earth-stained hand in mine, the earth gritty between our soft palms. He looked at me with love. A selfish person can still love someone else, can’t they? Even when they’ve hurt them and let them down. I, of all people, should understand that. Mum was silent as they put earth over your coffin. An explosion in space makes no sound at all.

Dear father, It's been five years today, but makes no difference! Not a day goes by without me remembering your pure green eyes, the tone of your voice singing In Adighabza, or your poems scattered all around the house. Dear father, from you I have learned that being a girl doesn't mean that I can't achieve my dreams, no matter how crazy or un-urban they might seem. That you raised me with the utmost of ethics and morals and the hell with this cocooned society, if it doesn't respect the right to ask and learn and be, just because I'm a girl. Dear father, from you I have learned to respect all mankind, and just because you descend from a certain blood or ethnicity, it doesn't make you better than anybody else. It's you, and only you, your actions, your thoughts, your achievements, are what differentiates you from everybody else. At the same time, thank you for teaching me to respect and value where I came from, for actually taking me to my hometown Goboqay, for teaching me about my family tree, how my ancestors worked hard and fought for me to be where I am right now, and to continue on with the legacy and make them all proud. Dear father, from you and mom, I have learned to speak in my mother tongue. A gift so precious, that I have already made a promise to do the same for my unborn children. Dear father, from you I have learned to be content, to fear Allah, to be thankful for all that I have, and no matter what, never loose faith, as it's the only path to solace. Dear father, from you I have learned that if a person wants to love you, then let them, and if they hurt you, be strong and stand your ground. People will respect you only if you respect yourself. Dear father, I'm pretty sure that you are proud of me, my sisters and our dear dear Mom. You have a beautiful grand daughter now and a son in-law better than any brother I would have ever asked for. Till we meet again, Shu wasltha'3u. الله يرحمك يا غالي. (الفاتحة) على روحك الطاهرة.

There was a clink of glass slippers against the wood floor, and then her mother appeared in the doorway. She had the same strawberry-blond hair and green eyes as Ashlynn. Her mother was already dressed, but Ashlynn didn't notice the clothes she was wearing. As always, her eyes went right to the glass slippers. Oh, how she loved those shoes. "Chores, dear!" her mother said, leaning over to kiss the top of Ashlynn's head. "And then you should pack." "Yes, Mother!" Ashlynn washed her face, put on an apron, and then opened wide the door to her shoe closet. This princess wouldn't care if she wore a burlap sack every day, so long as she had dozens of footwear choices. Today she settled on a pair of scrappy teal wedges and went to start breakfast. Even though her father's grand house came fully stocked with servants, her mother believed in good, solid, character-forming chores. After all, Ashlynn would inherit her mother's story and become the next Cinderella someday, and there would be lots of floors to mop and hearths to sweep her Happily Ever After.

After dinner the younger daughters desired to love Leora, in swarms. Martin had to take the twins on his knees and tell them a story. They were remarkably heavy twins, but no heavier than the labor of inventing a plot. Before they went to bed, the entire Healthette Octette sang the famous Health Hymn (written by Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh) which Martin was to hear on so many bright and active public occasions in Nautilus. It was set to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but as the twins’ voices were energetic and extraordinarily shrill, it had an effect all its own: Oh, are you out for happiness or are you out for pelf? You owe it to the grand old flag to cultivate yourself, To train the mind, keep clean the streets, and ever guard your health. Then we’ll all go marching on. A healthy mind in A clean body, A healthy mind in A clean body, A healthy mind in A clean body, The slogan for one and all. As a bedtime farewell, the twins then recited, as they had recently at the Congregational Festival, one of their father’s minor lyrics: What does little birdie say On the sill at break o’ day? “Hurrah for health in Nautilus For Pa and Ma and all of us, Hurray, hurray, hurray!

The first movie star I met was Norma Shearer. I was eight years old at the time and going to school with Irving Thalberg Jr. His father, the longtime production chief at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, devoted a large part of his creative life to making Norma a star, and he succeeded splendidly. Unfortunately, Thalberg had died suddenly in 1936, and his wife's career had begun to slowly deflate. Just like kids everywhere else, Hollywood kids had playdates at each other's houses, and one day I went to the Thalberg house in Santa Monica, where Irving Sr. had died eighteen months before. Norma was in bed, where, I was given to understand, she spent quite a bit of time so that on those occasions when she worked or went out in public she would look as rested as possible. She was making Marie Antoinette at the time, and to see her in the flesh was overwhelming. She very kindly autographed a picture for me, which I still have: "To Cadet Wagner, with my very best wishes. Norma Shearer." Years later I would be with her and Martin Arrouge, her second husband, at Sun Valley. No matter who the nominal hostess was, Norma was always the queen, and no matter what time the party was to begin, Norma was always late, because she would sit for hours—hours!—to do her makeup, then make the grand entrance. She was always and forever the star. She had to be that way, really, because she became a star by force of will—hers and Thalberg's. Better-looking on the screen than in life, Norma Shearer was certainly not a beauty on the level of Paulette Goddard, who didn't need makeup, didn't need anything. Paulette could simply toss her hair and walk out the front door, and strong men grew weak in the knees. Norma found the perfect husband in Martin. He was a lovely man, a really fine athlete—Martin was a superb skier—and totally devoted to her. In the circles they moved in, there were always backbiting comments when a woman married a younger man—" the stud ski instructor," that sort of thing. But Martin, who was twelve years younger than Norma and was indeed a ski instructor, never acknowledged any of that and was a thorough gentleman all his life. He had a superficial facial resemblance to Irving Thalberg, but Thalberg had a rheumatic heart and was a thin, nonathletic kind of man—intellectually vital, but physically weak. Martin was just the opposite—strong and virile, with a high energy level. Coming after years of being married to Thalberg and having to worry about his health, Martin must have been a delicious change for Norma.

If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as “truths”—that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The concept of “the Son of God” does not connote a concrete person in history, an isolated and definite individual, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological symbol set free from the concept of time. The same thing is true, and in the highest sense, of the God of this typical symbolist, of the “kingdom of God,” and of the “sonship of God.” Nothing could be more un-Christian than the crude ecclesiastical notions of God as a person, of a “kingdom of God” that is to come, of a “kingdom of heaven” beyond, and of a “son of God” as the second person of the Trinity. All this—if I may be forgiven the phrase—is like thrusting one’s fist into the eye (and what an eye!) of the Gospels: a disrespect for symbols amounting to world-historical cynicism.... But it is nevertheless obvious enough what is meant by the symbols “Father” and “Son”— not, of course, to every one—: the word “Son” expresses entrance into the feeling that there is a general transformation of all things (beatitude), and “Father” expresses that feeling itself —the sensation of eternity and of perfection.—I am ashamed to remind you of what the church has made of this symbolism: has it not set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And a dogma of “immaculate conception” for good measure?... And thereby it has robbed conception of its immaculateness— The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something to come “beyond the world” or “after death.” The whole idea of natural death is absent from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world, useful only as a symbol. The “hour of death” is not a Christian idea —“hours,” time, the physical life and its crises have no existence for the bearer of “glad tidings.”... The “kingdom of God” is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a “millennium”—it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere.... This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught—not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the officers, before his accusers—his demeanour on the cross. He does not resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off the most extreme penalty—more, he invites it.... And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who do him evil.... Not to defend one’s self, not to show anger, not to lay blames.... On the contrary, to submit even to the Evil One—to love him.... 36. —We free spirits—we are the first to have the necessary prerequisite to understanding what nineteen centuries have misunderstood—that instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the “holy lie” even more than upon all other lies.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their own advantage therein; they created the church out of denial of the Gospels.... That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the origin, the meaning and the law of the Gospels—that in the concept of the “church” the very things should be pronounced holy that the “bearer of glad tidings” regards as beneath him and behind him—it would be impossible to surpass this as a grand example of world- historical irony—

I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster. The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters of their own lives, their own streets, and their own bodies. I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. “Keep my name out your mouth,” they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other. I felt the fear in the visits to my Nana’s home in Philadelphia. You never knew her. I barely knew her, but what I remember is her hard manner, her rough voice. And I knew that my father’s father was dead and that my uncle Oscar was dead and that my uncle David was dead and that each of these instances was unnatural. And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It was said that these lost girls were sweet as honey and would not hurt a fly. It was said that these lost boys had just received a GED and had begun to turn their lives around. And now they were gone, and their legacy was a great fear. Have they told you this story? When your grandmother was sixteen years old a young man knocked on her door. The young man was your Nana Jo’s boyfriend. No one else was home. Ma allowed this young man to sit and wait until your Nana Jo returned. But your great-grandmother got there first. She asked the young man to leave. Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body. Ma never forgot. I remember her clutching my small hand tightly as we crossed the street. She would tell me that if I ever let go and were killed by an onrushing car, she would beat me back to life. When I was six, Ma and Dad took me to a local park. I slipped from their gaze and found a playground. Your grandparents spent anxious minutes looking for me. When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done—he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. What I know is that fathers who slammed their teenage boys for sass would then release them to streets where their boys employed, and were subject to, the same justice. And I knew mothers who belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from drug dealers twice their age. We, the children, employed our darkest humor to cope. We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything—cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge.

In the very nature of being—that is, God—it must be hard—and divine history shows how hard—to create that which shall be not himself, yet like himself. The problem is, so far to separate from himself that which must yet on him be ever and always and utterly dependent, that it shall have the existence of an individual, and be able to turn and regard him—choose him, and say, 'I will arise and go to my Father,' and so develop in itself the highest Divine of which it is capable—the will for the good against the evil—the will to be one with the life whence it has come, and in which it still is—the will to close the round of its procession in its return, so working the perfection of reunion—to shape in its own life the ring of eternity—to live immediately, consciously, and active-willingly from its source, from its own very life—to restore to the beginning the end that comes of that beginning—to be the thing the maker thought of when he willed, ere he began to work its being. I imagine the difficulty of doing this thing, of effecting this creation, this separation from himself such that will in the creature shall be possible—I imagine, I say, the difficulty of such creation so great, that for it God must begin inconceivably far back in the infinitesimal regions of beginnings—not to say before anything in the least resembling man, but eternal miles beyond the last farthest-pushed discovery in protoplasm—to set in motion that division from himself which in its grand result should be individuality, consciousness, choice, and conscious choice—choice at last pure, being the choice of the right, the true, the divinely harmonious. Hence the final end of the separation is not individuality; that is but a means to it; the final end is oneness—an impossibility without it. For there can be no unity, no delight of love, no harmony, no good in being, where there is but one. Two at least are needed for oneness; and the greater the number of individuals, the greater, the lovelier, the richer, the diviner is the possible unity.

In an ideal world, a young man should not be an ironical person. At that age, irony prevents growth, stunts the imagination. It is best to start life in a cheerful and open state of mind, believing in others, being optimistic, being frank with everyone about everything. And then, as one comes to understand things and people better, to develop a sense of irony. The natural progression of human life is from optimism to pessimism; and a sense of irony helps temper pessimism, helps produce balance, harmony. But this was not an ideal world, and so irony grew in sudden and strange ways. Overnight, like a mushroom; disastrously, like a cancer. — Sarcasm was dangerous to its user, identifiable as the language of the wrecker and the saboteur. But irony—perhaps, sometimes, so he hoped—might enable you to preserve what you valued, even as the noise of time became loud enough to knock out windowpanes. What did he value? Music, his family, love. Love, his family, music. The order of importance was liable to change. Could irony protect his music? In so far as music remained a secret language which allowed you to smuggle things past the wrong ears. But it could not exist only as a code: sometimes you ached to say things straightforwardly. Could irony protect his children? Maxim, at school, aged ten, had been obliged publicly to vilify his father in the course of a music exam. In such circumstances, what use was irony to Galya and Maxim? As for love—not his own awkward, stumbling, blurting, annoying expressions of it, but love in general: he had always believed that love, as a force of nature, was indestructible; and that, when threatened, it could be protected, blanketed, swaddled in irony. Now he was less convinced. Tyranny had become so expert at destroying that why should it not destroy love as well, intentionally or not? Tyranny demanded that you love the Party, the State, the Great Leader and Helmsman, the People. But individual love—bourgeois and particularist—distracted from such grand, noble, meaningless, unthinking “loves.” And in these times, people were always in danger of becoming less than fully themselves. If you terrorised them enough, they became something else, something diminished and reduced: mere techniques for survival. And so, it was not just an anxiety, but often a brute fear that he experienced: the fear that love’s last days had come.

Children’s minds are cast in much the same mold as our own. Sternness and severity of manner chill them and set them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them and that you really desire to make them happy and do them good, so that if you punish them, they know it is intended for their well-being. As they see that you, like the pelican, would give your heart’s blood to nourish their souls, they will soon be submitted and devoted to you.[2] But they must be wooed with kindness, if their attention is ever to be won. And surely, reason itself might teach us this lesson. Children are weak and tender creatures, and they need patient and considerate treatment. We must handle them delicately, like frail machines, for fear that by rough fingering we do more harm than good. They are like young plants and need gentle watering – often, and only a little at a time. We must not expect all things at once. We must remember what children are and teach them as they are able to bear. Their minds are like a lump of metal – not to be forged and made useful all at once but only by a succession of little blows. Their understanding is like narrow-necked vessels: we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually, or much of it will be spilled and lost. Precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little must be our rule (Isaiah 28:10). The whetstone does its work slowly, but frequent rubbing will bring the scythe to a fine edge. Truly, patience is needed in training a child, but without it, nothing can be done. Nothing will compensate for the absence of this tenderness and love. A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus – clearly, forcibly, and unanswerably; but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won. Likewise, you must set before your children their duty – command, threaten, punish, and reason – but if affection is lacking in your treatment, your labor will be all in vain. Love is one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right. If he often sees you lose your temper, you will soon cease to have his respect. A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan when his anger was kindled against him and he called him the son of the perverse rebellious woman (1 Samuel 20:30), can’t expect to retain his influence over that son’s mind. Try hard to maintain your child’s affections. It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than reserve and insecurity between your child and you, but hesitancy will result from fear. Fear puts an end to openness; fear leads to secrecy; fear sows the seed of much hypocrisy and leads to many lies. There is a mine of truth in the apostle’s words to the Colossians: Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart (Colossians 3:21). Be sure not to overlook the advice this verse contains.

The tears gathered and stood without overflowing the red sockets. Ah! if I were rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not given all to them, they would be with me now; they would fawn on me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I should be living in a great mansion; I should have grand apartments and servants and a fire in my room; and they would be about me all in tears, and their husbands and their children. I should have had all that; now--I have nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh! where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me; I should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah, God! who knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much; it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought always to be rich; he ought to keep his children well in hand, like unruly horses. I have gone down on my knees to them. Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the last ten years to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just given them each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to be civil to me after that, and their husbands too were civil. I used to go to their houses: it was 'My kind father' here, 'My dear father' there. There was always a place for me at their tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they were very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they thought. How should they know? I had not said anything about my affairs. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed me every attention then--but it was all for my money. Grand people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to the theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as I cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they acknowledged me their father; publicly they owned that they were my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing was lost upon me. Everything went straight to the mark and pierced my heart. I saw quite well that it was all sham and pretence, but there is no help for such things as these. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table than I did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand folks would ask in my son-in-law's ear, 'Who may that gentleman be?'-- 'The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.'--'The devil, he is!' they would say, and look again at me with the respect due to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly --I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.

You are very precious, each of you, regardless of your circumstances. You occupy a high and sacred place in the eternal plan of God, our Father in Heaven. You are His daughters, precious to Him, loved by Him, and very important to Him. His grand design cannot succeed without you.

One day, Father Alvarez, finding himself overwhelmed with business, was anxious to get rid of it, in order to go and pray, because it seemed to him that during that time he was not with God; but our Lord then said to him: "Though I do not keep thee with Me, let it suffice thee that I make use of thee." 14 This is a profitable lesson for those who are sometimes disturbed at being obliged, by obedience or by charity, to leave their accustomed devotions; let them be assured that such disturbances on like occasions do not come from God, but either from the devil or from self-love. "Give pleasure to God, and die." This is the grand maxim of the Saints.

If your lifestyle makes you wonder if Jesus really is your King, that is actually a good thing. You are understanding the truth. But you should also be amazed that the King never stops inviting you to himself and his kingdom. That is either very weird, or it’s holy. If someone kept offering you a free invitation to a grand and expensive party, and you kept shoving it back in his face, at some point the host would stop making the offer. But God loves to invite you. He loves to invite those who can’t pay the cover charge, so that he can pay it for them. That way, you and everyone else know that God himself did it all. You added nothing to make the relationship possible. That is what people mean by grace. There is no room for boasting. If you know God as Holy Father, King, and Lord, you are moving in a direction from astonishment to devotion, devotion to reverence, and reverence to worship that delights in obeying him.

Brothers, beseech our Lord God, that he comfort Holy Christianity with His Grace, and His Peace, and protect it from all evil. Pray to Our God for our spiritual father, the Pope, and for the Empire and for all our leaders and prelates of Christianity, lay and ecclesiastical, that God use them in His service. And also for all spiritual and lay judges, that they may give Holy Christianity peace and such good justice that God’s Judgement will not come over them. Pray for our Order in which God has assembled us, that the Lord will give us Grace, Purity, a Spiritual Life, and that he take away all that is found in us or other Orders that is unworthy of praise and opposed to His Commandments. Pray for our Grand Master and all the regional commanders, who govern our lands and people, and for all the brothers who exercise office in our Order, that they act in their office of the Order in such a way as not to depart from God. Pray for the brothers who hold no office, that they may use their time purposefully and zealously in worship, so that those who hold office and they themselves may be useful and pious. Pray for those who are fallen in deadly sin, that God may help them back into his Grace and that they may escape eternal punishment. Pray for the lands that lie near the pagans, that God may come to their aid with his Counsel and Power, that belief in God and Love can be spread there, so that they can withstand all their enemies. Pray for those who are friends and associates of the Order, and also for those who do good actions or who seek to do them, that God may reward them. Pray for all those who have left us inheritances or gifts that neither in life nor in death does God allow them to depart from Him. Especially pray for Duke Friedrich of Swabia and King Heinrich his brother, who was Emperor, and for the honourable burghers of Lübeck and Bremen, who founded our Order. Remember also Duke Leopold of Austria, Duke Conrad of Masovia, and Duke Sambor of Pomerellia . . . Remember also our dead brothers and sisters . . . Let each remember the soul of his father, his mother, his brothers and sisters. Pray for all believers, that God may give them eternal peace. May they rest in peace. Amen.

And what do I care if I spend twenty years in the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that -- it's something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed of that 'babe' at such a moment? 'Why is the babe so poor?' That was a sign to me at that moment. It's for the babe I'm going. Because we are all responsible for all. For all the 'babes,' for there are big children as well as little children All are 'babes.' I go for all, because someone must go for all. I didn't kill father, but I've got to go. I accept it. It's all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's His privilege -- a grand one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground there without God? Rakitin's laughing! If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God; it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!

Truth be told, Nathaniel, I’m beginning to believe it might be better to risk returning and staying in Boston rather than making the people of Sandwich uncomfortable with my presence. Tories are not welcome in these circles. I don’t belong here.” “Don’t speak foolishness, of course you belong.” Nathaniel’s dark brow lowered and his pointed gaze softened. He stepped forward and brushed her elbow with his fingers. “Kitty, you and I were always very good friends. I have never been ignorant of your political leanings. Neither have Thomas and Eliza.” He paused. Strength and caring framed his character while the fire framed his face. “Nothing will ever change the way we feel about you. Thomas and Eliza will love you without fail—and you and I shall always be friends.”  “I’m sure we shall.” Kitty smiled and tamped her ballooning emotions down with the same force as a fist to a rising lump of dough. Friends. She drew in a long breath. “I wish you to know that even though I believe differently, I won’t go against your cause, despite my reservations about your beliefs.” “Very generous of you, milady.” Nathaniel’s mouth tilted into a droll grin. “Though I hope you know I won’t stop trying to convert you to our grand cause. That is my mission for every person whom I meet who is not yet a believer in the values of freedom.” Kitty crossed her arms. “You may try, Nathaniel, but I fear you will not succeed.” She smiled, enjoying the volley of wits. “I shall never abandon the teachings of my father. He was a true, honest man and I know—no matter what Eliza has come to believe—the way he raised us is the right way. I can never leave the safety of the king’s rule, no matter what anyone may say to persuade me otherwise.” Nathaniel stepped closer and leaned in, the reflection of the fire burning in his gaze. “Now that is a challenge I am most ready to accept.” Frozen

, Bartolomeo Scappi thought. Never have I seen a woman so perfect, so angelic, so impossible for me to attain. "Bella," he breathed when air filled his lungs once again. Even Ippolito d'Este's presence at the dining table could not mar his giddiness. The girl was so beautiful she glowed like a painting of the Madonna, making everyone around her seem colorless in comparison. She was clearly a principessa of a grand house, sitting between Ippolito's father, the Duke of Ferrara, on one side, and a woman most likely to be her mother on the right. Bartolomeo sought to memorize every feature of this goddess with golden hair that shone with glints of red in the last rays of the day's sunlight. Her eyes were dark chestnut, rich and deep, while her lips were pink, like the inside of a seashell. Her hair was braided, but much of it flowed loose over shoulders, teasing her pale skin. She wore a dress of red, with sleeves billowing white. Rubies and pearls spilled across her delicate collarbone toward her beautiful breasts. Scappi painted her picture in his mind and stored it deep within the frame of his heart. That evening, while staring at the sky, his thoughts lost in the memory of the signorina, a shooting star passed across his vision. "Stella," he said under his breath. I will call her Stella. My shining star.

This wasn't how I saw our grand rescue going," Aden whispered. His voice was rough, almost shaky, "I knew I'd never deserve you, but I'd hoped for more time to try." Him deserve me? I hadn't heard correctly. My head was too light to get a grasp on any of this. "I said I'd never send you where I didn't dare go, yet here we are." A wry chuckle. "I know it makes you uncomfortable, but I can't let you enter that room without telling you how I feel. You've changed me, Laney Garrow. You opened my eyes long before those pirates came. And then they made me a prisoner, and I thought I was alone in the world, but you jumped through that window...well, it made me decide something. If we do survive this, my first act as king will be to rescind my father's Edict. I don't know much about ruling a country, but I do refuse to become a monster. Women like you deserve as much freedom in this world as any man. I won't be the one to take it away.

In the name of him who delighted to say "My Father is greater than I," I will say that his miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of birth. But the Son of the Father be praised, who, as it were, condensed these mysteries before us, and let us see the precious gifts coming at once from gracious hands--hands that love could kiss and nails could wound.

We could sit here and get super-high and talk about the illusory nature of reality, drawing back the veil, and so on, but what I'm learning is this: that loving anything or anyone this much requires you to hold conflicting thoughts in your head and heart. I want to look at [my daughter's] dear, dear little face forever; [but] nothing lasts forever...I will die, her father will die, my little family that is the whole heart of me is the tiniest of tiny blips in the sweep of space and time. We are nothing. We are part of something so grand we cannot hope to apprehend it. We are all lost. We are all floating in space. We were never lost. We will go home.

Would you like to talk about it?” This too was met with deafening silence. Because no matter how much Susannah might like to confide in her Aunt Julia, she just couldn’t. No one could understand how she felt, deep inside. It was too powerful, too unpronounceable, too unwieldy a thing, and if she said it out loud it would just explode like a cannon. “Well,” Julia said with a sigh. “Perhaps I can guess.” She paused to think, but only for a moment. “You are sad because Sebastian has left for his Grand Tour, and you are afraid he will go away and forget you and meet some other young woman. Perhaps she’s Parisian. Or Belgian. Those Belgian girls do have forthrightness that comes with being from such a small country. But regardless of the nationality of this young lady, she is sophisticated and fashionable and she’ll have Sebastian wrapped around her finger. And he’ll never see you as anything other than a little sister.” Susannah’s head came up. She stared at her aunt, her tear-stained cheeks flushed, but her eyes unblinking and suddenly quite dry. “By the time he comes back, your young Mr. Beckett will be married to said Belgian girl, who you will be forced to smile at and visit with at Custard House, even as your heart breaks with every love-coo she sends her henpecked Sebastian.” Susannah gaped. Her mind reeled at the exposure of her deepest, darkest fears. “That was the most terrible thing you could have possibly said,” she blurted out, slapping a hand over her mouth in horror. But Julia just smiled. “It’s also the most unlikely to happen. Good English boys don’t go on their Grand Tour and come back married.” “But… it could. Belgian girls, and all.” “True, but it doesn’t happen to good English boys who rely on their good English fathers for income, at least,” her aunt said wryly.

I left the altar rail and went back to the pew where the others were kneeling like four shadows, four unrealities, and I hid my face in my hands. In the temple of God that I had just become, the once eternal and pure sacrifice was offered up to the God dwelling in me. The sacrifice of God to God. Now, Christ born in me, a new Bethlehem, and sacrificed in me his new Calvary, and risen in me: offering me to the Father, in himself, asking the Father, my Father and his, to receive me into his infinite and special love — not the love he has for all things that exist, for mere existence is a token of God’s love, but the love of those creatures who are drawn to him in and with the power of his own love for himself.3

A couple made a deal the night of their Marriage to NOT open the door of their room to anybody who comes knocking in the morning for any reason! In the morning the parents of the husband came & knocked on the door, the husband & the wife were looking at each other & as they agreed before, they didn't open the door.After a while the parents of the bride came knocking at the door to check on them, the couple were looking at each other, then the bride dropped a tear & started crying she said: "I cannot keep them knocking & not open the door, I miss them already" The husband didn't say anything & he let her open the door for her parents.Years & years passed & the couple had 5 children, the first ones were boys & the 5th was a little girl, when she was born the father was xtremely happy that Almighty blessed him with her, & he threw a Huge Party for her in Grand style, people were so amazed with his joy & his happiness that they asked him, why are you so happy with her more than you were before with her older brothers?He answered simply: "She is the one who will open the door for me"Baby girls are the comfort of the eyes of their father!They hold the key to their mothers hearts!Daughters are really unique.They care for their parents even after they are married. Its rightly said, "A son is a son till he gets a Wife, a daughter is a daughter the rest of her Life!

January 29 MORNING “The things which are not seen.” — 2 Corinthians 4:18 IN our Christian pilgrimage it is well, for the most part, to be looking forward. Forward lies the crown, and onward is the goal. Whether it be for hope, for joy, for consolation, or for the inspiring of our love, the future must, after all, be the grand object of the eye of faith. Looking into the future we see sin cast out, the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light. Looking further yet, the believer’s enlightened eye can see death’s river passed, the gloomy stream forded, and the hills of light attained on which standeth the celestial city; he seeth himself enter within the pearly gates, hailed as more than conqueror, crowned by the hand of Christ, embraced in the arms of Jesus, glorified with Him, and made to sit together with Him on His throne, even as He has overcome and has sat down with the Father on His throne. The thought of this future may well relieve the darkness of the past and the gloom of the present. The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. Hush, my fears! this world is but a narrow span, and thou shalt soon have passed it. Hush, hush, my doubts! death is but a narrow stream, and thou shalt soon have forded it. Time, how short — eternity, how long! Death, how brief — immortality, how endless! Methinks I even now eat of Eshcol’s clusters, and sip of the well which is within the gate. The road is so, so short! I shall soon be there. When the world my heart is rending     With its heaviest storm of care, My glad thoughts to heaven ascending,     Find a refuge from despair. Faith’s bright vision shall sustain me     Till life’s pilgrimage is past; Fears may vex and troubles pain me,     I shall reach my home at last.

AD 1948 Laodicea – Lukewarm Church In contrast to the Philadelphia church, Laodicea, which overlaps it in time, is the lukewarm church. Neither hot nor cold, Laodicea accepts any doctrine for the sake of compromise. This is the ecumenical spirit going too far by allowing back all those Gnostic ideas from the past. It requires, first of all, a denial of the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Otherwise, we would all have to agree exactly with what God requires of us. The Laodicean Church believes your interpretation is as good as mine. It is interesting to note that the city of Laodicea was named after Laodice, the wife of the Antiochus of Daniel 11. Antiochus replaced Laodice with Bernice, a true loving wife. Laodice then sought to kill the righteous bride with her child, poison Antiochus, and put her own child on the throne.  Laodice is a perfect picture of the apostate church.   At the end of this section we will create a grand list of the facets of the apostasy from the seven churches, other Scripture, and the ancient church fathers that will manifest in the Laodicean church

Yes," Charlie was saying now, "I get up nice and early before the sun and do the little things that need doin' around the house. And then what d'ye think I do, Father? You'd never guess. Not in a million years you wouldn't. I'll tell you what I do: I go out in the yard and have a grand look at all the birds. Ain't birds lovely, Father?" This was the softer side of Charlie: rarely visible, like the other side of the moon. I said, "Are you a bird watcher, then, Mr. Carmody? That's something I wouldn't have guessed." "Ah well, I ain't a loony about it, Father. I don't go crawlin' around on my belly through the wet grass lookin' for the golden-headed hoohoo. That's nut stuff. But the fact of the matter is that nothin' makes me feel better than comin' down and findin' the whole place littered with birds, all kinds, singin' and chirpin' away all around me. I tell you, Father, there's days I might be St. Francis himself!" I said, "Aha." It was a pale acknowledgment, unworthy of such an announcement, but the truth is that I had nothing better to offer. Thirty years as a priest and still unable to make the appropriate small talk with the living duplicates of the sanctified! Who, by the way, are more numerous than you might imagine. With Charlie, however, it seemed safe enough to stick to the birds, and so I said, "I suppose they come around because you're good to them; you probably put out a little seed for them every once in a while." There was a pause. "Ah well," he said slowly. "I don't exactly do that now, Father. No no. I'm a great man for the birds, none greater, but the way I do is this: they can damn well feed themselves. And they do! I'm here to tell you they do. On my grass seed." The old voice had suddenly become louder; there was a new note, unmistakably grim. "Grass seed is sellin' for two dollars the pound," he said, "and every robin on the place is gettin' big as a hen. Oh, I tell you, Father, a man has to look sharp or they'll eat him out of house and home. What I do, sometimes, is I sit around waitin' for them with a few little stones in my pocket." A dusty reminiscent chuckle come over the telephone. "I pegged one at this big black devil of a starlin' the other day," St. Francis said gleefully, "and damn near took his head off. Well, well, we mustn't complain, Father. That's the way life goes.

There were torments in the Himalayas, windspouts in the Grand Canyon, and Judges of the Supreme Court got into sacred rages. What could little boys do, too, about differences between their hearthstones, Mother and Father?

Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of his foolish little ones into sons and daughters. But so unlike in many cases are the immediate consequences to those desired and expected, that it is hard for not a few to believe that he is anywhere looking after their fate--caring about them at all. And the doubt would be a reasonable one, if the end of things was marriage. But the end is life--that we become the children of God; after which, all things can and will go their grand, natural course; the heart of the Father will be content for his children, and the hearts of the children will be content in their Father.

I check out another kind of book: A Year to Live. It's a Buddhist manual on preparing to die. It's written by a Buddhist chaplain who has worked with many people who know that their death is imminent. He says that most people think that if they found out they had a year to live, they'd go off on a grand adventure. But in reality, people tend to finish what they've started, to try and tie up loose ends. I am coming to terms with my own mortality at the same time as that of the planet. Someday, my father might die. My mother will die. There are people I have loved who I may never see again. And, more uncommonly, all the glaciers may melt.

According to tradition, Europa is the Great Goddess, mother of the European continent. According to mythology, Zeus, also known in Rome as Jupiter, fell in love with Europa, the beautiful daughter of a Phoenician king. He seduced her attention by assuming the form of a white bull. When she sat on his back he whisked her away, returned to his normal form, and she bore him three sons. This supreme deity of mythology also bore other names including Pater (father) and Soter (Savior). All this may be fascinating history, but why should we be concerned about mythological figures even if they have been adopted for the identity of the resurrecting Roman Empire? The reason is simple. The Bible gives specific description and warning concerning a woman sitting upon such a beast which figuratively depicts the merging of religious power and political power ushering in the grand finale of Satan’s deceptive drama of the ages. Shockingly, the final ACT of this drama is now happening before our eyes, and most, whether rich or poor, and regardless of status, race, color or religion, are predisposed to embrace the coming counterfeit salvation offered by a false “Christ” bearing false promises of security and prosperity. What, then, has God said concerning this mystery

No, her father was ashes in the wind, his existence marked only by a headstone on a hill outside the city. Or so her sisters had told her. I loved you from the first moment I held you in my arms, her father had said to her in those last moments together. Don't lay your filthy hands on my daughter. Those had been his final words, spat at the King of Hybern. Her father had squandered those final words on that worm of a king. Her father. The man who had never fought for his children, not until the end. When he had come to save them- to save the humans and the Fae, yes, but most of all, his daughters. Her. A grand, stupid waste. Unholy dark power flowed through her, and it had not been enough to stop the King of Hybern from snapping his neck. She had hated her father, hated him deeply, and yet he had loved her, for some inexplicable reason. Not enough to try to spare them from poverty or keep them from starving. But somehow it had been enough for him to raise an army on the continent. To sail a ship named for her into battle. She had still hated her father in those last moments. And then his neck had cracked, his eyes not full of fear as he died, but of that foolish love for her. That was what had lingered- the look in his eyes. The resentment in her heart as he died for her. It had festered, gnawing at her like the power she buried deep, running rampant through her head until no icy baths could numb it away. She could have saved him. It was the King of Hybern's fault. She knew that. But it was hers, too. Just as it was her fault that Elain had been captured by the Cauldron after Nesta spied on it with that scrying, her fault that Hybern had done such terrible things to hunt her and her sisters down like a deer. Some days, the sheer dread and panic locked Nesta's body up so thoroughly that nothing could get her to breathe. Nothing could stop the awful power from beginning to rise, rise, rise in her. Nothing beyond the music at those taverns, the card games with strangers, the endless bottles of wine, and the sex that made her feel nothing- but offered a moment of release amid the roaring inside her.

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He and his father were made of similar stuff: words were more often thought than spoken. And now his father was gone, his mammy was far away and his marriage might be dissolving to dust. He had no-one to talk to. He took out the phone and found Evie’s number. He could text her and ask where she was. He could ring, but she’d know right away in his voice that something was wrong. He put his fingers through his hair. What was love? Was it just physical passion or romantic sentiment, or was it just a habit to keep the loneliness away? He would walk back to the bed and breakfast, slide his cold bones next to a slumbering Maura. Tomorrow they would have to sort it all out, the Panda, Evie, their marriage. Brendan pulled himself to his feet, put his hands in his pockets and turned in the direction of the shadows.

I check out another kind of book: A Year to Live. It's a Buddhist manual on preparing to die. It's written by a Buddhist chaplain who was has worked with many people who know that their death is imminent. He says that most people think that if they found out they had a year to live, they'd go off on a grand adventure. But in reality, people tend to finish what they've started, to try and tie up loose ends. I am coming to terms with my own mortality at the same time as that of the planet. Someday, my father might die. My mother will die. There are people I have loved who I may never see again. And, more uncommonly, all the glaciers may melt.

Stormy insists I stay with her and John stay with Mr. Morales in his spare bedroom. I can tell John isn’t crazy about this idea, because he asks, “Can’t I just sleep on your floor?” I’m surprised when Stormy shakes her head. “I hardly think Lara Jean’s father would appreciate that!” “I really don’t think my dad would mind, Stormy,” I say. “I could call him if you want.” But the answer is a firm and resounding no: John must bunk with Mr. Morales. For a lady who’s always telling me to be wild and have adventures and bring the condom, she’s far more old-fashioned than I thought. Stormy hands John a face towel and a pair of foam earplugs. “Mr. Morales snores,” she tells him as she kisses him good night. John raises an eyebrow at her. “How do you know?” “Wouldn’t you like to know!” She shimmies off into the kitchen like the grand dame she truly is. In a low voice John says to me, “You know what? I really, really wouldn’t.” I bite the cushiony part of my cheek to keep from laughing. “Keep your phone on vibrate,” John says before he goes out the door. “I’ll text you.

Dad’s favorite subject was history, but he taught it with a decidedly west-of-the-Pecos point of view. As the proud son of an Irishman, he hated the English Pilgrims, whom he called “Poms,” as well as most of the founding fathers. They were a bunch of pious hypocrites, he thought, who declared all men equal but kept slaves and massacred peaceful Indians. He sided with the Mexicans in the Mexican-American war and thought the United States had stolen all the land north of the Rio Grande, but he also thought the southern states should have had as much right to leave the union as the colonies had to leave the British Empire. “Only difference between a traitor and a patriot is your perspective,” he said. * * * I loved my lessons, particularly science and geometry, loved learning that there were these invisible rules that explained the mysteries of the world we lived in. Smart as that made me feel, Mom and Dad kept saying that even though I was getting a better education at home than any of the kids in Toyah, I’d need to go to finishing school when I was thirteen, both to acquire social graces and to earn a diploma. Because in this world, Dad said, it’s not enough to have a fine education. You need a piece of paper to prove you got it. MOM DID HER BEST to keep us kids genteel.

You have such a big heart! You care so deeply for your angels and you love every single thing you create! You want to share your love, you want to be present in others' lives, you want to interact with your creation and you want to be known. You are the most compassionate being I know! You are willing to step out and do amazing things. You are giving your old and new creation a beautiful place to live, bountiful food to eat, a grand fellowship and a Father who loves them. They have every opportunity in the world to respond to you and be close to you. If they don't see that, I don't know how else you can show them!

That is most interesting,” said Hercule Poirot, cheerfully. “There are many different names for these things. Very grand names. Names rolled out happily by psychiatrists, psychologists and others. But when you say crazy, that describes very well what the general appearance may be to ordinary, everyday people. Eh bien, then, you are crazy, or you appear crazy or you think you are crazy, and possibly you may be crazy. But all the same that is not to say the condition is serious. It is a thing that people suffer from a good deal, and it is usually easily cured with the proper treatment. It comes about because people have had too much mental strain, too much worry, have studied too much for examinations, have dwelled too much perhaps on their emotions, have too much religion or have a lamentable lack of religion, or have good reasons for hating their fathers or their mothers! Or, of course, it can be as simple as having an unfortunate love affair.

He, in effect, says to us thereby: Be not afraid to regard my death as an act of the same kind as that of Mary: an act of pure, devoted love. Let the aroma of her ointment circulate about the neighborhood of my cross, and help you to discern the sweet savor of my sacrifice. Amid all your speculations and theories on the grand theme of redemption, take heed that ye fail not to see in my death my loving heart, and the loving heart of my Father, revealed..4

What is this “I” that human beings are so attached to? It’s pure romance, the greatest of fictions and confabulations. Can you hold it or taste it? Can you define it or even see it? “What am I?” asks a man. Oh, ho, a better question might be, “What am I not?” How often have you heard someone say, “I’m not myself today?” Or, “I didn’t mean to say that?” No? Ha, ha, here I am dancing, dancing—am I the movement and genius of my whole organism or merely the sense of selfness that occupies the body, like a beggar in a grand hotel room? Am I only the part of myself that is noble, kind, mindful and strong? Which disapproves and disavows the “me” that is lustful, selfish, and wild? Who am I? Ah, ah, “I am” says the man. I am despairing, I am wild, I do not accept that I am desperate and wild. Who does not accept these things? I am a boy, I am a man, I am father, hunter, hero, lover, coward, pilot, asarya and fool. Which “I” are you—Danlo the Wild? Where is your “I” that changes from mood to mood, from childhood to old age? Is there more to this “I” than continuity of memory and love of eating what you call nose ice? Does it vanish when you fall asleep? Does it multiply by two during sexual bliss? Does it die when you die—or multiply infinitely? How will you ever know? So, it’s so, you will try to watch out for yourself lest you lose your selfness. “But how do I watch?” you ask. Aha—if I am watching myself, what is the “I” that watches the watcher? Can the eye see itself? Then how can the “I” see itself? Peel away the skin of an onion and you will find only more skins. Go look for your “I”. Who will look? You will look. Oh, ho, Danlo, but who will look for you?

Work in the palace wasn't half as strenuous as it had been at home with her stepmother and stepsisters, yet Cinderella hadn't been sleeping well. There was so much she'd missed during her unhappy years with Lady Tremaine; now that she was free, there was so much she wanted to do. There was so much she could do. She wanted to see the world and to help others who might have felt as lonely and trapped as she had. She didn't want to have to force herself to smile anymore just to bear each day; she wanted to find out what truly made her laugh, what truly made her happy. She wanted to get to the heart of things- to find the truth, instead of turning a blind eye. She drew a deep breath then, wiping the tears from her cheeks, and got up from her bed. Duchess Genevieve must be wondering what had happened to her. Cinderella faced her reflection in the mirror. "I'm not alone anymore. I have Louisa, the girls from the palace, even Duchess Genevieve..." Then why am I still crying? Because every time she dared hope for something, for some glimmer of happiness, it slipped from her grasp, almost like stardust. Whenever she reveled in something of her father and mother's, Lady Tremaine sold it- or destroyed it. When the Grand Duke was searching for her to bring her to the palace, Lady Tremaine locked her in the tower. When she had finally dared hope someone might care for her, it turned out to be part of a larger ploy. Could any happiness she found actually last beyond midnight?

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