Grasp Matters Simply Quotes

Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.

The most life-changing experiences happen when I stop trying to control and simply let things unfold.

There is more to life than simply increasing its speed. Mahatma Gandhi

Nothing could be less conducive to reaching an art-work than critical remarks:it's always simply a matter of more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Everything cannot be so easily grasped and conveyed as we are generally led to believe; most events are unconveyable and come to pass in a space that no word has ever penetrated; more unconveyable than all else are art-works, whose mysterious existences, whose lives run alongside ours, which perishes, whereas theirs endure.

Tolstoy recognized this. As Ivan Ilyich’s health fades and he realizes that his time is limited, his ambition and vanity disappear. He simply wants comfort and companionship. But almost no one understands—not his family, his friends, or the stream of eminent physicians whom his wife pays to examine him. Tolstoy saw the chasm of perspective between those who have to contend with life’s fragility and those who don’t. He grasped the particular anguish of having to bear such knowledge alone. But he saw something else, as well: even when a sense of mortality reorders our desires, these desires are not impossible to satisfy. Although none of Ivan Ilyich’s family or friends or doctors grasp his needs, his servant Gerasim does. Gerasim sees that Ivan Ilyich is a suffering, frightened, and lonely man and takes pity on him, aware that someday he himself would share his master’s fate.

Like all young people, he has no idea who his parents really are; for eighteen years he has experienced their existence only insofar as it has related to his own needs. Suddenly his mind is full of questions. What do they talk about when he’s not around? What secrets do they hold from each other, what aspirations have been left to languish? What private grievances, held in check by the shared project of child rearing, will now, in his absence, lurch into the light? They love him, but do they love each other? Not as parents or even husband and wife but simply as people—as surely they must have loved each other at one time? He hasn’t the foggiest; he can no more grasp these matters than he can imagine the world before he was alive.

Simply let go of distraction for one moment. In that moment, you have the power to make a significant connection with another human being. You have the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.

The truth, as I see it, is that if black men and women, black boys and girls, mattered, if we were seen as living, we would not be dying simply because whites don't like us. Our deaths inside a system of racism existed before we were born. The legacy of black bodies as property and subsequently three-fifths human continues to pollute the white imagination. To inhabit our citizenry fully, we have to not only understand this, but also grasp it.

Ethan’s parents constantly told him how brainy he was. “You’re so smart! You can do anything, Ethan. We are so proud of you, they would say every time he sailed through a math test. Or a spelling test. Or any test. With the best of intentions, they consistently tethered Ethan’s accomplishment to some innate characteristic of his intellectual prowess. Researchers call this “appealing to fixed mindsets.” The parents had no idea that this form of praise was toxic. 　　Little Ethan quickly learned that any academic achievement that required no effort was the behavior that defined his gift. When he hit junior high school, he ran into subjects that did require effort. He could no longer sail through, and, for the first time, he started making mistakes. But he did not see these errors as opportunities for improvement. After all, he was smart because he could mysteriously grasp things quickly. And if he could no longer grasp things quickly, what did that imply? That he was no longer smart. Since he didn’t know the ingredients making him successful, he didn’t know what to do when he failed. You don’t have to hit that brick wall very often before you get discouraged, then depressed. Quite simply, Ethan quit trying. His grades collapsed. What happens when you say, ‘You’re so smart’ 　　Research shows that Ethan’s unfortunate story is typical of kids regularly praised for some fixed characteristic. If you praise your child this way, three things are statistically likely to happen: 　　First, your child will begin to perceive mistakes as failures. Because you told her that success was due to some static ability over which she had no control, she will start to think of failure (such as a bad grade) as a static thing, too—now perceived as a lack of ability. Successes are thought of as gifts rather than the governable product of effort. 　　Second, perhaps as a reaction to the first, she will become more concerned with looking smart than with actually learning something. (Though Ethan was intelligent, he was more preoccupied with breezing through and appearing smart to the people who mattered to him. He developed little regard for learning.) 　　Third, she will be less willing to confront the reasons behind any deficiencies, less willing to make an effort. Such kids have a difficult time admitting errors. There is simply too much at stake for failure. 　　  　　What to say instead: ‘You really worked hard’ 　　What should Ethan’s parents have done? Research shows a simple solution. Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test, they should not have said,“I’m so proud of you. You’re so smart. They should have said, “I’m so proud of you. You must have really studied hard”. This appeals to controllable effort rather than to unchangeable talent. It’s called “growth mindset” praise.

Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair. In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he unaccustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it. The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter’s Logic: ‘Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,’ had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but it certainly didn’t apply to himself. That Caius - man in the abstract - was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with toys, a coachman and a nanny, afterwards with Katenka and with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother’s hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle for Caius? Had he noted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at session as he did? Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but as for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it’s altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible. Such was his feeling.

A crucial point here is that understanding is not only a matter of reflection, using finitary propositions, on some preexistent, already determinate experience. Rather, understanding is the way we "have a world," the way we experience our world as a comprehensible reality. Such understanding, therefore, involves our whole being - our bodily capacities and skills, our values, our moods and attitudes, our entire cultural tradition, the way in which we are bound up with a linguistic community, our aesthetic sensibilities, and so forth. I short, our understanding is our mode of "being in the world." It is the way we are meaningfully situated in our world through our bodily interactions, our cultural institutions , our linguistic tradition, and our historical context. Our more abstract reflective acts of understanding (which may involve grasping of finitary propositions) are simply an extension of our understanding in this more basic sense of "having a world.

As I see it, poetry is not prose simply because poetry is in one way or another formalized. It is not poetry by reason of its content or ambiguity but by reason of its allowing musical elements (time, sound) to be introduced into the world of words. Thus, traditionally, information no matter how stuffy (e. g. the sutras and shastras of India) was transmitted in poetry. It was easier to grasp that way. Karl Shapiro may have been thinking along these lines when he wrote his Essay on Rime in poetry.

Yes, to do good, to be virtuous, to preserve chastity, to sacrifice oneself for the sake of duty are no easy matters. All who attempt these things must suffer to achieve them, and if we are to brave such suffering, somewhere must lurk the promise of a pleasure great enough to defeat the pain. Painting, poetry, drama—these are simply different names for the pleasure within this anguish. When we once grasp this truth, we will at last act with courage and grace; we will overcome all adversity and be in a position to satisfy the supreme aesthetic urges of our heart.

THE HANDS FREE PLEDGE I’m becoming Hands Free. I want to make memories, not to-do lists. I want to feel the squeeze of my child’s arms, not the pressure of overcommitment. I want to get lost in conversation with the people I love, not consumed by a sea of unimportant emails. I want to be overwhelmed by sunsets that give me hope, not by overloaded agendas that steal my joy. I want the noise of my life to be a mixture of laughter and gratitude, not the intrusive buzz of cell phones and text messages. I’m letting go of distraction, disconnection, and perfection to live a life that simply, so very simply, consists of what really matters. I’m becoming Hands Free.

Theory is, of course, critical to the development of specific analyses of women’s situation. Explicitly or implicitly, empirical phenomena must be organised in terms of a theoretical construct in order to be grasped conceptually. At the same time, theory is, by its very nature, severely limited. As a structure of concepts, a theoretical framework simply provides guidance for the understanding of actual societies, past and present. However indispensable this theoretical guidance may be, specific strategies, programmes, or tactics for change cannot be deduced directly from theory. Nor can the phenomenon of variation in women’s situation over time, and in different societies, be addressed solely by means of theory. These are matters for concrete analysis and historical investigation.

When you see the dawn breaking, you think back to the darkness in a new way. “Sin” is not simply the breaking of a law. It is the missing of an opportunity. Having heard the echoes of a voice, we are called to come and meet the speaker. We are invited to be transformed by the voice itself, the word of the gospel- the word which declares that evil has been judged, that the world has been put to rights, that heaven and earth are joined forever, and that new creation has begun. We are called to become people who can speak and live and paint and sing that word so that those who have heard it’s echoes can come and lend a hand in the larger project. That is the opportunity that stands before us, as a gift and a possibility. Christian holiness is not (as people often imagine) a matter of denying something good. It is about growing up and grasping something even better.

what one grasps of reality—through senses and thought—has as much to do with one’s subjective posture toward reality as it does with what is objectively there to be perceived and thought about. If we do not, by our own volition and humility, “hunger and thirst” after reality, or if we live without a love of the truth—no matter how much it challenges our prior commitments—then the truth will simply pass us by (see Mt 5:6 and 2 Thess 2:10). We will be left with our own dwindling resources, attempting to forge out an increasingly futile existence, living in denial of what we suspect might be true. You see it every day. One can avoid acknowledging reality, but one cannot avoid the consequences of refusing to acknowledge reality. Everything in Dallas Willard’s academic and personal life pointed toward (he would be the first to insist, far from perfectly) the active presence of God in the world. He thought that every single point of reality was shot through with unfathomable order and wonder, patiently waiting to be discovered.

Nothing within the cosmos contains the ground of its own being. To use an old terminology, every finite thing is the union of an essence (its “what it is”) with a unique existence (its “that it is”), each of which is utterly impotent to explain the other, or to explain itself for that matter, and neither of which can ever be wholly or permanently possessed by anything. One knows of oneself, for instance, that every instant of one’s existence is only a partial realization of what one is, achieved by surrendering the past to the future in the vanishing and infinitesimal interval of the present. Both one’s essence and one’s existence come from elsewhere—from the past and the future, from the surrounding universe and whatever it may depend upon, in a chain of causal dependencies reaching backward and forward and upward and downward—and one receives them both not as possessions secured within some absolute state of being but as evanescent gifts only briefly grasped within the ontological indigence of becoming. Everything that one is is a dynamic and perilously contingent synthesis of identity and change, wavering between existence and nonexistence. To employ another very old formula, one’s “potential” is always being reduced or collapsed into the finitely “actual” (always foreclosing forever all other possibilities for one’s existence), and only in this way can one be liberated into the living uncertainty of the future. Thus one lives and moves and has one’s being only at the sufferance of an endless number of enabling conditions, and becomes what one will be only by taking leave of what one has been. Simply said, one is contingent through and through, partaking of being rather than generating it out of some source within oneself; and the same is true of the whole intricate web of interdependencies that constitutes nature.

One can even alter, confuse, or interfere with particular conscious states by intruding upon the activities of the brain, chemically, surgically, traumatically, or otherwise; but one can never enter into, let alone measure, the persistent and irreducibly private perspective of the subject in whom these states inhere. This should be obvious, even to the most committed believer in empirical method, but its implications often prove strangely difficult to grasp (perhaps they are altogether too obvious): there is an absolute qualitative abyss between the objective facts of neurophysiology and the subjective experience of being a conscious self, and so a method capable of providing a model of only the former can never produce an adequate causal narrative of the latter. While one may choose to believe that the brain’s objectively observable electrochemical processes and the mind’s subjective, impenetrably private experiences are simply two sides of a single, wholly physical phenomenon, there is still no empirical way in which the two sides can be collapsed into a single observable datum, or even connected to one another in a clear causal sequence. The purely physical nature of those experiences remains, therefore, only a conjecture, and one that lacks even the support of a plausible analogy to some other physical process, as there is no other “mechanism” in nature remotely similar to consciousness. The difference in kind between the material structure of the brain and the subjective structure of consciousness remains fixed and inviolable, and so the precise relation between them cannot be defined, or even isolated as an object of scientific scrutiny. And this is an epistemological limit that it seems reasonable to think may never be erased, no matter how sophisticated our knowledge of the complex activities of the brain may become;

Motion in space can proceed in any direction and back again. Motion in time only proceeds in one direction in the everyday world, whatever seems to be going on at the particle level. It’s hard to visualize the four dimensions of spacetime, each at right angles to the other, but we can leave out one dimension and imagine what this strict rule would mean if it applied to one of the three dimensions we are used to. It’s as if we were allowed to move either up or down, either forward or back, but that sideways motion was restricted to shuffling to the left, say. Movement to the right is forbidden. If we made this the central rule in a children’s game, and then told a child to find a way of reaching a prize off to the right-hand side (“backward in time”) it wouldn’t take too long for the child to find a way out of the trap. Simply turn around to face the other way, swapping left for right, and then reach the prize by moving to the left. Alternatively, lie down on the floor so that the prize is in the “up” direction with reference to your head. Now you can move both “up” to grasp the prize and “down” to your original position, before standing up again and returning your personal space orientation to that of the bystanders.* The technique for time travel allowed by relativity theory is very similar. It involves distorting the fabric of space-time so that in a local region of space-time the time axis points in a direction equivalent to one of the three space directions in the undistorted region of space-time. One of the other space directions takes on the role of time, and by swapping space for time such a device would make true time travel, there and back again, possible. American mathematician Frank Tipler has made the calculations that prove such a trick is theoretically possible. Space-time can be distorted by strong gravitational fields,and Tipler’s imaginary time machine is a very massive cylinder, containing as much matter as our sun packed into a volume 100 km long and 10 km in radius, as dense as the nucleus of an atom, rotating twice every millisecond and dragging the fabric of space-time around with it. The surface of the cylinder would be moving at half the speed of light. This isn’t the sort of thing even the maddest of mad inventors is likely to build in his backyard, but the point is that it is allowed by all the laws of physics that we know. There is even an object in the universe that has the mass of our sun, the density of an atomic nucleus, and spins once every 1.5 milliseconds, only three times slower than Tipler’s time machine. This is the so-called “millisecond pulsar,” discovered in 1982. It is highly unlikely that this object is cylindrical—such extreme rotation has surely flattened it into a pancake shape. Even so, there must be some very peculiar distortions of space-time in its vicinity. “Real” time travel may not be impossible, just extremely difficult and very, very unlikely. That thin end of what might be a very large wedge may, however, make the normality of time travel at the quantum level seem a little more acceptable. Both quantum theory and relativity theory permit time travel, of one kind or another. And anything that is acceptable to both those theories, no matter how paradoxical that something may seem, has to be taken seriously. Time travel, indeed, is an integral part of some of the stranger features of the particle world, where you can even get something for nothing, if you are quick about it.

And yours? What is your opinion? Truly?” She turned to face me, her green eyes brilliant in the lamplight. “Would it matter?” “No. I love him and, damn the world, I will have him.” She grinned. “Good girl. And since my opinion doesn’t matter, I give it freely: Brisbane is worth twenty Marches and dearer to me than most of my own brothers. If you do not marry him, I will do so myself, simply to keep him in the family.” I turned away quickly. “Are you weeping?” she asked. “Don’t be absurd.” My voice was muffled and I swallowed, blinking furiously. “I have a cinder in my eye.” Portia dropped a swift kiss to my cheek. “Happiness is within your grasp now, pet. Hang onto it, and do not let it go, whatever you do.

During this Summer School, I encourage you to investigate what this personality belief is. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it ― there is nothing wrong with having a personality or an ego; it isn’t a matter of trying to get rid of it so you don’t have a personality or anything ― it is rather a matter of recognizing personality belief and realizing that it is a creation that comes and goes and changes according to conditions. You will then no longer be enslaved by the personality, by conditioning  and memories, and begin to free yourself from those kinds of limitations. If you see yourself always in that personal way, you will be bound into limited states that will cause suffering for you in your life. So, once you see the suffering of grasping the idea of ‘self’, you can let it go. That doesn’t mean the personality dissolves into nothing; it simply means that it changes according to its nature and that you are no longer ‘a person’. You then let the personality appear and disappear without binding yourself to it.

Plato argued that the material world of visible things was but a shadow of the true reality of eternal forms. He proceeds to explain the nether world of eternal blueprints most completely in the case of the elements of matter: earth, air, fire, and water. These he represents by geometrical solids: the earth by a cube, water by an icosahedron, air by an octahedron, and fire by a tetrahedron. His position is that ultimately the elements are just these solid geometrical shapes not simply that they possess geometrical shapes as one of their properties. The transmutation of elements one into the other is then explained by the merger and dissolution of triangles. This strictly mathematical description characterizes Plato's discussion of many other physical problems, For him, mathematics is a pointer to the ultimate reality of the world of forms that overshadows the visible world of sense data. The better we can grasp it, the closer we can come to true knowledge. Thus, for Plato, mathematics is more fundamental, truer, closer to the eternal forms of which the visible world is an imperfect reflection, than the objects of physical science. Because the world is mathematical at its deepest level, all visible phenomena will have mathematical aspects and be describable by mathematics to a greater or lesser extent, determined by their closeness to their underlying forms.

He felt as if he'd been connected to something he didn't understand, plugged into a universe too vast to grasp. Now he was the one who was scared. "Rex, is it true what Geith says? That we're all guilty of using you?" She was distraught. He could heat the rasping wild undertone in her voice. "That we're all following orders blindly and not asking questions?" Rex felt his world beginning to unravel. If he let Ahsoka go too far down that path—no, if he let himself go down that path, then he wouldn't be able to do the job, and if he didn't do this job, then he had no idea what his life was about. If he let that doubt take hold, he would never be able to deal with Skywalker again, or be able to lead his men. And he had to lead them because they depended on him. His whole existence depended on believing in what he was doing. The little nagging voice that he tried to ignore was actually being more constructive this time. Don't even think about it, the voice said. Because you can't change a thing. So what if it's true? Where are you going to go? What else could you do? And what would happen to your men? Some things were so overwhelming and beyond your control that simply noticing they were there would destroy you. Rex decided he could shut it out. He could shut out anything if he put his mind to it. "I don't know," he said at last. "You said orders were there for a reason. That they kept us alive." "That's true." "Jedi have orders as well. Like no attachments. And... well, you've seen Callista and Geith. Master Altis lets all his Jedi marry if they want. But they've not fallen to the dark side, so what's really true?" The best Rex could do was help her live with uncertainty. He couldn't tell her what was true. And the fact that the Seps were trying to kill them—that was true. Did the rest matter? Pull one brick out of the wall, and the whole edifice comes crashing down. For any of us. "Remember how I said that you don't always have the bigger picture, that you get your orders because someone higher up the chain of command has information that you don't, so they don't necessarily make sense? Maybe your orders are like that." It wasn't a lie. It might not of been what Rex actually wanted to say—I don't understand what's happening, I don't like what's happening, something's wrong—but if he said that, then he was adrift, too, and that didn't help anybody stay alive.

Think Phrasal. This is an area where just about every business needs more work. Words are powerful, but more words are not more powerful—they’re often just confusing. Understand that in your company’s internal business and in communications with your customers, dissertations don’t necessarily prove smarts. In fact, they tend to drive people away. Though many writers never seem to grasp the point, using intelligent words does not necessarily make you appear smarter. The best way to make yourself or your company look smart is to express an idea simply and with perfect clarity. No matter who your audience is, it’s more effective to communicate as people do naturally. In simple sentences. Using simple words. Simplicity is its own form of cleverness—saying a great deal by saying little. Apple’s website is a primer for intelligence in communications. There is a cleverness in writing that runs throughout, but much of the feeling of Apple’s “smarts” comes from its brevity and straightforwardness. In a world where too many people are trying too hard, Simplicity can be extremely refreshing. The same can be said for product naming. Simple and natural names stick with people, while jargon and model numbers do not. If you wish people to form a relationship with your product, it needs a name people can naturally associate with. Product naming is one area in which Simplicity pays immediate returns.

The flowers and the birds do not toil, they simply live. That is TAO. And for man a state of indifference and calm, the ἀταραξία not of the sceptic but of the mystic, a passive reflecting of the Eternal, is the ideal end. “The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep. And thus he can triumph over matter without injury to himself”.

But this belief demonstrated only that Lyndon Johnson simply had not grasped that there was another world, a world in which Douglas and Lehman were not crazies but heroes, in which principles mattered far more than they did in the Senate. In addition, Lyndon Johnson had not fully appreciated that it didn’t matter what he did for the liberals in Social Security and housing so long as he was not on their side on the “great issue.” He should have appreciated this.

But if there had been an earlier “victory,” when did it take place? Matthew, Mark, and Luke all supply the answer: at the beginning of Jesus’s public career, during his forty-day fast in the desert, when the satan tried to distract him, to persuade him to grasp the right goal by the wrong means, and so to bring him over to his side (Matt. 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13).

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I did this partially because Matthew is the kind of person for whom the internet is simply a utility: a font of information and nothing more. He has the supernatural ability to look at his phone only when he needs to, and the idea of posting something about his life on the internet in a way that strangers can view is a concept he cannot grasp. So yes, I was partially trying to respect his privacy, but I was mostly trying to protect myself. From the judgment of others, which was primarily just a projection of my own self-judgment. There was a version of me that thought loving another person would somehow diminish the love I still felt for Aaron. A version of me that thought that if I was happy, I must not be sad anymore, and if I wasn’t sad anymore, then I guess I didn’t love Aaron as much as I said I did. Or maybe that my new happiness was ill-gotten, a well-made fake, something I swiped off the back of a truck when nobody was looking. This is what life looks like when you water the seeds of joy with guilt and shame. It feels as good as it sounds. When bad things happen to you—a death, an illness, a divorce, a job loss—you quickly go from being a person to being just a sad story. I know from experience that nobody wants to be a sad story, and that no matter what you’ve been through, your story is always so much more than just sad. And your happy stories are more than just happy. Obviously, everything is more complicated than it appears on Instagram. But it is incredibly difficult to live with complicated. It is even more difficult for other people to deal with complicated.

What is implied by the word history? Do we mean simply everything that has ever happened? Does history include every event, no matter how small? If it does, then it is obvious that history is beyond our capacity to grasp.

Everyone had a duty to keep the rules, whether or not it suited them. And, tellingly, people often suggested, or even simply assumed, that one of the main things Jesus came to do was to tell us more clearly what the rules were and to give us a wonderful example of how to keep them… …Which then runs into difficulties, because people quickly discover that they can’t keep them, and so a different mode breaks in: Jesus came to bring forgiveness for our rule-breaking; but once we’ve grasped that, we have to go back to rule-keeping again. That is the broad framework within which many people in today’s Western world have come to think of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Church leaders often mistakenly think of church culture as primarily a combination between articulated beliefs and the expressions of those beliefs. By doing so, leaders fail to look deeper to the first layer of culture. They fail to grasp the actual beliefs and actual shared values beneath the surface. Too many church leaders are betting the farm that church culture is a simple matter of “what we say” plus “what we do.” The strategy for changing culture, if this was the case, is then quite simple: If we don’t like what people are doing, then we simply need to say something different. This tragic error assigns organizational culture (and changing it) to the power of positive thinking and some form of “name it and claim it” theology. For the observant, there is likely a nagging suspicion that church culture, and the way to change, is something more. Culture is much more than what we say and do. Culture is formed by what we truly believe and value over a sustained period of time. If the stated beliefs of a church are at odds with the actual beliefs, the actual beliefs win. The actual yet unstated beliefs speak louder than the stated ones, if the two are at odds. Some examples may be helpful. If the stated doctrine of the church is that all believers are priests and ministers because our great High Priest has made us priests through His death, yet the culture of the church values only “professional ministers”—the culture will trump the doctrinal confession. A pastor preaching Ephesians 4:11–12 one time will not automatically remove the unrealistic and unbiblical expectation that the pastor is the one who does the ministry. If a stated belief of the church is that no one has anything to offer to stand holy before God, yet the actual beliefs are that we somehow contribute to our standing with God by our religious goodness, the culture will be one that does not allow for openness and confession. And someone who admits a struggle will be unlikely to experience mercy expressed from another. A graceless culture overpowers a grace-filled confessional statement. If the stated doctrine of the church is that we are to live as missionaries because Jesus stepped into our culture to rescue us, but the culture of the church focuses almost exclusively on what programs and events the church offers, the culture will attempt to squelch and suffocate desires to serve the surrounding community. Time and time again a little digging reveals that the outcomes of the local church contradict the ambitious vision statements. Why is this so? Why don’t our campaigns, rebranding efforts, and endless streams of mission statements change our future?

Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters 1 To breed an animal with the prerogative to promise – is that not pre- cisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind? is it not the real problem of humankind? . . . The fact that this problem has been solved to a large degree must seem all the more sur- prising to the person who can fully appreciate the opposing force, forget- fulness. Forgetfulness is not just a vis inertiae, as superficial people believe, but is rather an active ability to suppress, positive in the strongest sense of the word, to which we owe the fact that what we simply live through, experience, take in, no more enters our consciousness during digestion (one could call it spiritual ingestion) than does the thousand-fold process which takes place with our physical consumption of food, our so-called ingestion. To shut the doors and windows of consciousness for a while; not to be bothered by the noise and battle with which our underworld of serviceable organs work with and against each other; a little peace, a little tabula rasa of consciousness to make room for something new, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for ruling, predicting, pre- determining (our organism runs along oligarchic lines, you see) – that, as I said, is the benefit of active forgetfulness, like a doorkeeper or guardian of mental order, rest and etiquette: from which we can immediately see how there could be no happiness, cheerfulness, hope, pride, immediacy, without forgetfulness. The person in whom this apparatus of suppression is damaged, so that it stops working, can be compared (and not just com- pared –) to a dyspeptic; he cannot ‘cope’ with anything . . . And precisely 35 On the Genealogy of Morality this necessarily forgetful animal, in whom forgetting is a strength, repre- senting a form of robust health, has bred for himself a counter-device, memory, with the help of which forgetfulness can be suspended in certain cases, – namely in those cases where a promise is to be made: conse- quently, it is by no means merely a passive inability to be rid of an impres- sion once it has made its impact, nor is it just indigestion caused by giving your word on some occasion and finding you cannot cope, instead it is an active desire not to let go, a desire to keep on desiring what has been, on some occasion, desired, really it is the will’s memory: so that a world of strange new things, circumstances and even acts of will may be placed quite safely in between the original ‘I will’, ‘I shall do’ and the actual dis- charge of the will, its act, without breaking this long chain of the will. But what a lot of preconditions there are for this! In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first have learnt to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design, to think causally, to view the future as the present and anticipate it, to grasp with certainty what is end and what is means, in all, to be able to calculate, compute – and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, necessary, even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!

I will slither from his grasp. I will be like the Caradorean mist. If someone punches me, they will hit only air. I cann’t be broken by force. I will bend and twist and float away. If he cuts me with a sword, I will laugh. If he cuts me with words, I will simply shrug. He will laugh at what happens to me at the fire pits and I will smile and shrug. It doesn’t matter.

Ah, so ye will escort me to my cousin’s then, will ye?” she said in a voice so sweet she was surprised it did not make her teeth ache. “Nay, they willnae,” drawled an all too familiar voice from behind her. Inwardly cursing, Bridget turned to face Cathal. “I have decided ’tis time for me to continue on my journey.” “And ye decided ye had to do it now? Right now? Without most of your belongings?” “Aye. I got to thinking—” “A dangerous thing for a lass to do. Ow!” Jankyn rubbed his stomach where Bridget had just hit him with her sack of belongings, and grinned at her. “Why are ye nay out with the others, howling at the moon?” “At least I am nay dancing beneath it.” He laughed when she blushed. “Ye were watching me?” “I heard ye singing.” “That was so rude.” If he had been drawn by her singing then he could not have seen her naked, Bridget mused, and relaxed. “I had left the camp to seek a few moments of privacy.” Cathal grasped Bridget by the arm, turning her attention back to him. “Why were ye leaving?” Bridget could feel the blunt truth on the tip of her tongue, but could not bring herself to speak it. It was as if she feared that, in speaking the words, the truth could no longer be ignored. That was absurd. She knew the truth. By the way the three men looked at her, they knew she had guessed all their secrets. It made no difference. She simply could not utter the dark, terrifying name aloud. In some odd, twisted way, she was actually concerned about offending them. “I decided I wasnae going to play your game any longer,” she replied. “I was going to my cousin’s.” “Alone? At night?” “Tis the best time for an escape.” But not here, she realized, and inwardly cursed her own stupidity. At Cambrun high noon on a sunny day would have been a better choice. “I have prepared for a visit with Barbara for months. I want to go to court, to see all the fine clothes, and to watch all the courtiers and their ladies. I want to sit down to a feast and listen to all the whispers about who is sinning with whom. I want to hear the minstrels sing and I want to dance with some fine, courtly gentlemon who will tell me all manner of sweet lies about how bonnie I am. I want—” A squeak of surpise and outrage escaped her when Cathal suddenly picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. The soft laughter of Jankyn and Raibeart only added to her anger over being so roughly handled. Bridget dropped her belongings and proceeded to pound her fists against his broad back. Cathal did not even flinch as he continued to take her back to her bedchamber and that, too, increased her fury. Under her breath she cursed him and his stubborness. “Tis nay just me who is blindly stubborn,” muttered Cathal as he entered the bedchamber and kicked the door shut behind him. “Tis ye who refuses to give up this plan to go to court. And for what? To hear empty flatteries and malicious tales?” He paused by the bed. “Undo your cloak.” Even as she blindly obeyed that terse command, Bridget wondered why she did so. Such quick obedience was not in her nature. She growled softly when her cloak was pulled from her and tossed to the floor. Before she could say anything, she was tossed down onto the bed. Her body was still bouncing slightly when Cathal sprawled on top of her, gently but firmly pinning her down. Bridget scowled at him, more angry than afraid, and tried not to let the beauty of his face distract her. She had a right to be angry and she would hold fast to that feeling no matter how warm and itchy he made her feel. “Ye are staying here,” Cathal said. “I am going to woo ye and then we will be married.” “Oh! What arrogance! Ye may woo me, but that doesnae necessarily mean ye will win me.” Bridget