Inconsistent Love Quotes

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...

I dearly love a laugh... I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.

She's familiar. My only familiar thing in a world of inconsistency and confusion.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection, yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that I always feel revived, as by a new conviction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and, wanting these, I relapse into doubt, and too often into despondency.

And when the Sadness catches up, tracks you down—when you return home one day, arms full of groceries, to find the Sadness sitting at the kitchen table, casually reading a paper as if it never left, eating a muffin as if this were all perfectly natural—when the Sadness looks up at you and says, “What did you think, buddy? What did you think was going to happen?”—when the Sadness smirks at you and says with a wry insistence that unravels you in an instant, “This is the real love story here, buddy, you and me”—when the Sadness reiterates that, sure, certain smaller sadnesses dull, but this Sadness, the Sadness, has seen you through it all; this Sadness, the Sadness, has never strayed from your side, not really, and why would you want it to now, this epitome of stability in an inconsistent world?—when that happens, you can put your groceries down and walk back out the door and close the door behind you.

When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.

I was born to love - but none of you wanted to believe it, and that misunderstanding was crucial in forming my character. It's true that nature was strangely inconsistent in giving me a warm heart, but also a face that was like a stone mask and a tongue that was heavy and slow. She refused me what she bestowed freely on even the most loutish of my fellow men. . . . People judged my inner character by my outer covering, and like a sterile fruit, I withered under the rough husk I couldn't slough off.

It's just the way things are. Take a moment to consider this statement. Really think about it. We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors towards animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities. It is absurd that we eat pigs and love dogs and don't even know why. Many of us spend long minutes in the aisle of the drugstore mulling over what toothpaste to buy. Yet most of don't spend any time at all thinking about what species of animal we eat and why. Our choices as consumers drive an industry that kills ten billion animals per year in the United States alone. If we choose to support this industry and the best reason we can come up with is because it's the way things are, clearly something is amiss. What could cause an entire society of people to check their thinking caps at the door--and to not even realize they're doing so? Though this question is quite complex, the answer is quite simple: carnism.

I am worth more than these excuses. I am worth more than this inconsistent, unhealthy, disappointing dynamic. I am worthy of finding someone that is never going to allow us to settle into this toxic, distorted version of love.

The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...

These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people -- amongst whom your life is passed -- that it is needful you should tolerate, pity, and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people, whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire -- for whom you should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience.

My whole life I wanted to be normal. Everybody knows there's no such thing as normal. There is no black-and-white definition of normal. Normal is subjective. There's only messy, inconsistant, silly, hopeful version of how we feel most at home in our own lives. But when I think about what I have, what I strived to reach my whole life, it's not the biggest or best or easiest or prettiest or most anything. It's not the Manor or the laundry closet. Not the multi-million dollar inheritance or the poorhouse. It's not superstardom or unemployment. It's family and love and safety. It's bravery and hope. It's work and laughter and imperfection. It's my normal.

Having a partner who is inconsistently available or supportive can be a truly demoralizing and debilitating experience that can literally stunt our growth and stymie our health.

I think, maybe, I fell in love with your patterns and inconsistencies, like the way you squeak in your sleep. And the way your heart beats. I want to be your heartbeat just to be that much closer to you, living there inside your chest, making a home under your flesh. And waking up to sunshine is nice, I guess, but waking to your smile is like having sunshine in my bed every morning, warmth radiating from your side of the mattress. And I would love to make you a regular thing; pillow talk in evenings, coffee and muffins in the morning, making everyday as stunning as this one. take me in small doses; I'll take you all at once.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control. I write to create red in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep me complacent. I write to remember. I write to forget…. I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness…. write as ritual. I write because I am not employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colors of memory. I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine…. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient we are. I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

God told us to love everyone. However, when you don’t like someone then you need to walk away and focus not on him or her, but the hatred you’re harboring. Otherwise, you will allow your piety to take over. Before you know it, you’re using the gospel as a sword to slice other religious people apart, which have offended you. From your point of helplessness, it will be is easy to recruit people that will mistake your kindness as righteousness, when in reality it is a hidden agenda to humiliate through the words of Christ. This game is so often used by women in the Christian faith, that it is the number one reason why many people become inactive. It is a silent, unspoken hypocrisy that is inconsistent with the teachings of the gospel. If you choose not to like someone, then avoid them. If you wish to love them, the only way to overcome your frustrations is through empathy, prayer, forgiveness and allowing yourself time to heal through distance. Try focusing on what you share as sisters in the gospel, rather than the negative aspects you dislike about that person.

The Old Testament is crap. It’s full of misogyny, torture and inconsistencies. Jesus preached about love. All love.

We send one species to the butcher and give our love and kindness to another apparently for no reason other than because it's the way things are. When our attitudes and behaviors toward animals are so inconsistent, and this inconsistency is so unexamined, we can safely say we have been fed absurdities.

I see protest as a genuine means of encouraging someone to feel the inconsistencies, the horror, of the lives we are living. Social protest is to say that we do not have to live this way. If we feel deeply, as we encourage ourselves and others to feel deeply, we will, within that feeling, once we recognize we can feel deeply, we can love deeply, we can feel joy, then we will demand that all parts of our lives produce that kind of joy. And when they do not, we will ask, "Why don't they?" And it is the asking that will lead us inevitably toward change.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

The God I worship is the personification of love, but not that maudlin love that oftimes blinds our eyes to facts and leads us to inconsistent actions

The inconsistencies that haunt our relationships with animals also result from the quirks of human cognition. We like to think of ourselves as the rational species. But research in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics shows that our thinking and behavior are often completely illogical. In one study, for example, groups of people were independently asked how much they would give to prevent waterfowl from being killed in polluted oil ponds. On average, the subjects said they would pay $80 to save 2,000 birds, $78 to save 20,000 birds, and $88 to save 200,000 birds. Sometimes animals act more logically than people do; a recent study found that when picking a new home, the decisions of ant colonies were more rational than those of human house-hunters. What is it about human psychology that makes it so difficult for us to think consistently about animals? The paradoxes that plague our interactions with other species are due to the fact that much of our thinking is a mire of instinct, learning, language, culture, intuition, and our reliance on mental shortcuts.

When there is inconsistency in belief and action (such as being violated by someone who is supposed to love you) our mind has to make an adjustment so that thought and action are aligned. So sometimes the adjustment that the mind makes is for the victim to bring her or his behavior in line with the violator, since the violator cannot be controlled by the victim. Our greatest source of survival is to adapt to our environment. So increasing emotional intimacy with a person who is forcing physical intimacy makes sense in our minds. It resolves cognitive dissonance.

I will never compromise on my poorly-thought-out, internally-inconsistent, quasi-irrational principles. That's just how I roll.

At the time, I was unable to understand anything.! I should have based my judgement upon deeds and not words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I should never have run away from her.! I should have guessed at the affection behind her poor little tricks. Flowers are so inconsistent.! But I was too young to know how to love her.

And I have to admit to myself that although I have plenty of sound reasons for not being a father—I know I would also be inconsistent and moody, alternately smothering and neglectful, plus I will never, ever be able to afford riding lessons or braces, let alone college—one of the reasons I don’t want children is fear. I’m afraid that if I ever did have children of my own I would love them so painfully it would rip my soul in half, that I would never again have a waking moment free from the terror that something bad might ever happen to them.

The emptiness of the narcissist often means that they are only focused on whatever is useful or interesting to them at the moment. If at that moment it is interesting for them to tell you they love you, they do. It’s not really a long game to them, and when the next interesting issue comes up, they attend to that. The objectification of others—viewing other people as objects useful to his needs—can also play a role. When you are the only thing in the room, or the most interesting thing in the room, then the narcissist’s charisma and charm can leave you convinced that you are his everything. The problem is that this is typically superficial regard, and that superficiality results in inconsistency, and emotions for the narcissistic person range from intense to detached on a regular basis. This vacillation between intensity and detachment can be observed in the narcissist’s relationships with people (acquaintances, friends, family, and partners), work, and experiences. A healthy relationship should feel like a safe harbor in your life. Life throws us enough curve balls in the shape of money problems, work issues, medical issues, household issues, and even the weather. Sadly, a relationship with a narcissist can be one more source of chaos in your life, rather than a place of comfort and consistency.

feelings are one of the most inconsistent aspects of the human person.

The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...

For if a mother unconsciously wishes to keep a baby addicted to her, there is no better strategy than being inconsistently available. Nothing makes a laboratory rat push a pedal more furiously than an inconsistent reward.

But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between the humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy. There never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained every nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to have it.

Because she is in God's hands.' But if so, she was in God's hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body and if so, why? If God's goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God: for the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then He may hurt us after death is unendurably as before it.

GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU IS THE GREAT ETERNAL CONSTANT IN THE MIDST OF ALL THE INCONSISTENCIES OF YOUR DAILY WALK.

But I just needed her so much and it never felt like enough and she wasn’t consistent and her inconsistency and my insecurity were this horrible match for each other, but I still loved her, because all of me was wrapped up in her, because I’d put all my eggs in someone else’s basket, and in the end, after 343 days, I was left with an empty basket and this gnawing endless hole in my gut, but then now I find myself deciding to remember her as a good person with whom I had some good times until we, both of us, got ourselves into an ineradicably bad situation.

Long enshrined traditions around communion aside, there are always folks who fancy themselves bouncers to the heavenly banquet, charged with keeping the wrong people away from the table and out of the church. Evangelicalism in particular has seen a resurgence in border patrol Christianity in recent years, as alliances and coalitions formed around shared theological distinctives elevate secondary issues to primary ones and declare anyone who fails to conform to their strict set of beliefs and behaviors unfit for Christian fellowship. Committed to purifying the church of every errant thought, difference of opinion, or variation in practice, these self-appointed gatekeepers tie up heavy loads of legalistic rules and place them on weary people’s shoulders. They strain out the gnats in everyone else’s theology while swallowing their own camel-sized inconsistencies. They slam the door of the kingdom in people’s faces and tell them to come back when they are sober, back on their feet, Republican, Reformed, doubtless, submissive, straight.

of women’s inborn capacity to bond with their own captors as a psycho-socially adaptive survival trait, and how this evolved into women’s pronounced facility with which they can ‘get over’ former lovers so much faster than men seem to be capable of. Women don’t like me detailing this phenomenon for obvious reasons, but I think men dislike the notion of their easy ‘disposability’ because of that same inconsistency in gender concepts of love.

Some children perceive their parents as inconsistently available. It could be because the parents are unavoidably focused on pressing life situations or on their own emotional needs. The child’s inherent sensitivity is also a factor. Whatever the reason, children who come to question whether their parents are available are extremely upset even by the thought of their parents not being there for them. This is characteristic of a preoccupied attachment style.

I once had a published written debate with a religious apologist who, after I had argued the standard line that the idea of a loving and merciful deity is inconsistent with the fact of natural evil, said this meant his god was not all-powerful, and therefore was not to blame because it could not stop natural evil from occuring. This is a different tack from the more robust one that says natural evil is a response to humanity's moral evil. What this latter view in effect argues is that because of (say) Hitler's wrongdoings, thousands of babies deserve to be drowned in tsunamis.

It has been charged that this doctrine represents the Son as winning over the incensed Father to clemency and love, a supposition wholly inconsistent with the fact that the love of God is the very fount from which the atonement springs.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not

My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God. I never thought it to be any very great crime to seem to be inconsistent with myself; for who am I that I should everlastingly be consistent? But I do think it a great crime to be so inconsistent with the word of God that I should want to lop away a bough or even a twig from so much as a single tree of the forest of Scripture. God forbid that I should cut or shape, even in the least degree, any divine expression.

A love I was in no position to receive despite desperately needing it. No. Not I with my castaway, homeless body. Where would I store it? It would fall right through me, sink into the depths of my void. I would have needed so much love, more than any one person is capable of giving, to fill that gaping hole at the center of my life. And, besides his love had been capricious, inconsistent, flighty.

He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. 18. We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself. Self-realization is not something apart. One rupee can purchase for us poison or nectar, but knowledge or devotion cannot buy us salvation or bondage. These are not media of exchange. They are themselves the thing we want. In other words, if the means and the end are not identical, they are almost so. The extreme of means is salvation. Salvation of the Gita is perfect peace.

It was odd, how many common features they all had. Most claimed ultimate authority, denouncing other faiths. Most taught of an afterlife, but could offer no proof. Most taught about a god or gods, yet—again—had little justification for their teachings. And every single one of them was riddled with inconsistencies and logical fallacies. How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn’t occur in the present day?

What I’m most deeply grateful for is that God’s love for us, approval of us, and commitment to us does not ride on our resolve but on Jesus’s resolve for us. The gospel is the good news announcing Jesus’s infallible devotion to us despite our inconsistent devotion to Him. The gospel is not a command to hang on to Jesus; it’s a promise that no matter how weak and unsuccessful our faith and efforts may be, God is always holding on to us.

The women we become after children, she typed, then stopped to adjust the angle of the paper....We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair, We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, persoective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We live, We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror. We put our dry-clean-only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above.' We give up smoking, we color our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming-pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. I

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18) I came from a family of wonderful people who nevertheless struggled with how to be happy. There were many things we didn't know about living in peace. We mixed our love with fear. What I experienced in my childhood family seemed to color my life with confusion. I joined the Church at nineteen. Though my conversion was real, many of my emotions continued to be out of harmony with gospel teachings, and I didn't know what to do about them. I was not at rest. As a young mother I felt that I was only barely keeping my distress from leaking out. But it did leak out. I struggled to be cheerful at home. I was too often tense with my children, especially as their behavior reflected negatively on me. I was perfectionistic. I was irritable and controlling. But I was also loving, patient, appreciative, happy; I frequently felt the Spirit of the Lord, and I did many parenting things well, but so inconsistently. Sooner or later the crisis comes for good people who live in ignorance and neglect of spiritual law. The old ways don't work anymore, and it may feel as though the foundations of life are giving way. If we don't learn consistent, mature love in our childhood homes we often struggle to learn it when we become marriage partners and parents.

Time is so terribly inconsistent, I find, the way it hurries on or stands still.

I write because… I write because I love the art and the magic of Literature. I write because it keeps me safe, sane, and connected to you. I write because it takes me to the places I want to go and those who wish to join me in the journey; may grasp my hand and my heart; in this stroll through this moment of time. I write because when no one was there, the word was there: The word has always been and always will be the preeminent being in my universe. I write because it allows me; to allow you to be understood and we are joined for a moment in time. I do not write because it comes from a place of grammatical perfection; free of line breaks in perfected poetry; for my history is one of line breaks and imperfections. I do not come to you from a place of polished and perfected; educated and critiqued. No! I come to you from a place of raw, real, gutsy, and riveting. What I give you is raw, real, gutsy and riveting; with all of its imperfections and inconsistencies. You have been touched, you have been curious, and you have been intrigued; you have come back looking, longing, expecting or not… But then suddenly you were surprised; surprised that you could be moved; surprised that your preconceived ideas had been shattered by one who writes because…

The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents’ failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood. It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deepseated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves. Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security. Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of “I don’t have enough” and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable. It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behavior that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve. As also indicated in the previous section, love and discipline go hand in hand, so that unloving, uncaring parents are people lacking in discipline, and when they fail to provide their children with a sense of being loved, they also fail to provide them with the capacity for self-discipline. Thus the excessive dependency of the passive dependent individuals is only the principal manifestation of their personality disorder. Passive dependent people lack self-discipline. They are unwilling or unable to delay gratification of their hunger for attention. In

The very points of my character that are most commended mark me as unfit to reign: love of retirement and of studies inconsistent with business, a passion that has become inveterate in me for peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whose meetings are but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose lives in general are spent upon their farms and their pastures.

Amid so much discordance let us constantly seek for a pure ear, which will tell us in a moment when we have spoken a single word that is inconsistent with the perfect harmonies of the nature of God, which is love.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance stating that “the intentional and repeated use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s gender

Charles Williams loved his son with reservations, complaining that "a child is a guest of a somewhat inconsistent temperament, rather difficult to get rid of, almost pushing; a poor relation rather than a pleasant kind.

The truth was overrated, she realized. Knowing that certain parts were fiction, this was what filled her body with an unexpected warmth. it was love, to recognize the inventions and inconsistencies that make a person whole.

Faith also requires “purification” in Ratzinger’s thought.  For Ratzinger, reason allows faith to discern what is superstitious from what is true and what inconsistent with truth from what is a genuine expansion of knowledge.

A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent." -Jane Bennet

The halo effect helps keep explanatory narratives simple and coherent by exaggerating the consistency of evaluations: good people do only good things and bad people are all bad. The statement “Hitler loved dogs and little children” is shocking no matter how many times you hear it, because any trace of kindness in someone so evil violates the expectations set up by the halo effect. Inconsistencies reduce the ease of our thoughts and the clarity of our feelings.

She had a beautiful perfume and lit up my life. I should never have run away from her. I should have guessed at the tenderness beneath her pathetic strategies. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her…

The truth is, love is everyone’s inconsistency. It makes all of us stupid. The dumbest and weakest things I’ve ever done all involved trying to make my life fit around someone I wanted, or trying to make someone I wanted be someone they weren’t.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence

Christianity, expecting from its adherents gentleness, meekness, peaceableness, forgiveness of injuries, turning the other cheek when one is struck, and love for enemies, is inconsistent with the use of force, which is an indispensable condition of authority.

If I closely examine what is my ultimate aim, it turns out that I am not really striving to be good and to fulfil the demands of a Supreme Judgement, but rather very much the contrary: I strive to know the whole human and animal community, to recognize their basic predilections, desires, moral ideals, to reduce these to simple rules and as quickly as possible trim my behaviour to these rules in order that I may find favour in the whole world’s eyes; and, indeed (this is the inconsistency), so much favour that in the end I could openly perpetrate the iniquities within me without alienating the universal love in which I am held –the only sinner who won’t be roasted. To sum up, then, my sole concern is the human tribunal, which I wish to deceive, moreover, though without practising any actual deception.

we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,—the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.

When you aren’t able to spend time on things you care about, you are stressed, exhausted, and frustrated because you feel the inconsistency in your life between what you care about and what you’re actually doing. Stress and anxiety are caused when there’s a disconnect between your values and your behavior.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense. I

what happens when a baby doesn’t get those positive, nurturing responses? Say, if a mom is on her own with no help, or depressed, or in a violent relationship? She may really want to be a loving, responsive parent, but is that possible under those circumstances? Dr. Perry: This is one of the central problems in our society; we have too many parents caring for children with inadequate supports. The result is what you would expect. An overwhelmed, exhausted, dysregulated parent will have a hard time regulating a child consistently and predictably. This can impact the child in two really important ways. First, it affects the development of the child’s stress-response systems (see Figure 3). If the hungry, cold, scared infant is inconsistently responded to—and regulated—by the overwhelmed caregiver, this creates an inconsistent, prolonged, and unpredictable activation of the child’s stress-response systems. The result is a sensitization of these important systems.

What you describe is parasitism, not love. When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite on that individual. There is no choice, no freedom involved in your relationship. It is a matter of necessity rather than love. Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other but choose to live with each other. We all-each and every one of us-even if we try to pretend to others and to ourselves that we don't have dependency needs and feelings, all of us have desires to be babied, to be nurtured without effort on our parts, to be cared for by persons stronger than us who have our interests truly at heart. No matter how strong we are, no matter how caring and responsible and adult, if we look clearly into ourselves we will find the wish to be taken care of for a change. Each one of us, no matter how old and mature, looks for and would like to have in his or her life a satisfying mother figure and father figure. But for most of us these desires or feelings do not rule our lives; they are not the predominant theme of our existence. When they do rule our lives and dictate the quality of our existence, then we have something more than just dependency needs or feelings; we are dependent. Specifically, one whose life is ruled and dictated by dependency needs suffers from a psychiatric disorder to which we ascribe the diagnostic name "passive dependent personality disorder." It is perhaps the most common of all psychiatric disorders. People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love…..This rapid changeability is characteristic of passive dependent individuals. It is as if it does not matter whom they are dependent upon as long as there is just someone. It does not matter what their identity is as long as there is someone to give it to them. Consequently their relationships, although seemingly dramatic in their intensity, are actually extremely shallow. Because of the strength of their sense of inner emptiness and the hunger to fill it, passive dependent people will brook no delay in gratifying their need for others. If being loved is your goal, you will fail to achieve it. The only way to be assured of being loved is to be a person worthy of love, and you cannot be a person worthy of love when your primary goal in life is to passively be loved. Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love. The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents' failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood. It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deep seated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves. Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security. Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of "I don't have enough" and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable. It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behavior that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve. In summary, dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love; it is a form of antilove. Ultimately it destroys rather than builds relationships, and it destroys rather than builds people.

At the time, I was unable to understand anything! I should have based my judgement upon deeds and not words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I should never have run away from her! I should have guessed at the affection behind her poor little tricks. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her.

Humans are sloppy creatures. Like the proverbial bull in a china shop, we are oblivious to our body language. We bump into objects. We accidentally step on our dogs’ tails. We emit a constant stream of sounds with frequently inconsistent meanings. It is a wonder that dogs can pull anything consistent out of this barrage of signals. And yet they do.

Luckily for the people she helped, my mother was gloriously inconsistent. She lived according to the more enlightened parts of the Bible and ignored the rest. For instance, no matter what she claimed the Bible taught about homosexuality, Mom acted as if being born gay was just another way to be human. She provided refuge, love and compassion to many gay

The thought of death and life after death is ambivalent. It can deflect us from this life, with its pleasures and pains. It can make life here a transition, a step on the way to another life beyond – and by doing so it can make this life empty and void. It can draw love from this life and deflect it to a life hereafter, spreading resignation in ‘this vale of tears’. The thought of death and a life after death can lead to fatalism and apathy, so that we only live life here half-heartedly, or just endure it and ‘get through’. The thought of a life after death can cheat us of the happiness and the pain of this life, so that we squander its treasures, selling them off cheap to heaven. In that respect it is better to live every day as if death didn’t exist, better to love life here and now as unreservedly as if death really were ‘the finish’. The notion that this life is no more than a preparation for a life beyond, is the theory of a refusal to live, and a religious fraud. It is inconsistent with the living God, who is ‘a lover of life’. In that sense it is religious atheism.

The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . .

Mistress mine, your unique and special quality is this: When I'm around you, I'm happy." "Richard!" "Quit blubbering. Can't stand a female who has to lick tears off her upper lip." "Brute. I'll cry if I goddam well feel like it... and I need this one. Richard, I love you." "I'm fond of you, too, monkey face. What I was saying was that, if your present pack of lies is wearing thin, don't bother to build up another structure filled with solemn assurances that this is at last the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Forget it. The old structure may be threadbare -- but I don't care. I'm not looking for holes or inconsistencies because I don't care. I just want to live with you and hold your hand and hear you snore.

As Freud noted: "A thing which has not been understood inevitably reappears; like an unlaid ghost, it cannot rest until the mystery has been resolved and the spell broken." . . . in ambivalent attachment, a mother vacillates inexplicably from being loving and tender to angry and threatening.. Faced with this unpredictable inconsistency, a child tries to appease the mother, anxious to control and monitor her shifting moods.

The halo effect helps keep explanatory narratives simple and coherent by exaggerating the consistency of evaluations: good people do only good things and bad people are all bad. The statement “Hitler loved dogs and little children” is shocking no matter how many times you hear it, because any trace of kindness in someone so evil violates the expectations set up by the halo effect. Inconsistencies reduce the ease of our thoughts and the clarity of our feelings. A compelling narrative fosters an illusion of inevitability.

For most people there is a fascinating inconsistency in the position of St. Francis. He expressed in loftier and bolder language than any earthly thinker the conception that laughter is as divine as tears. He called his monks the mountebanks of God. He never forgot to take pleasure in a bird as it flashed past him, or a drop of water as it fell from his finger; he was perhaps the happiest of the sons of men. Yet this man undoubtedly founded his whole polity on the negation of what we think of the most imperious necessities; in his three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience he denied to himself, and those he loved most, property, love, and liberty. Why was it that the most large-hearted and poetic spirits in that age found their most congenial atmosphere in these awful renunciations? Why did he who loved where all men were blind, seek to blind himself where all men loved? Why was he a monk and not a troubadour? We have a suspicion that if these questions were answered we should suddenly find that much of the enigma of this sullen time of ours was answered also.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention; the other is Charlotte’s marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is unaccountable!” “My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness.

Inconsistency and deceit were the underlying characteristics of all the actions of their leaders. Their speech was deceitful, and so was their silence. They got up with a lie, and they went to sleep with a lie. Their discipline was a lie, their code of laws a lie, their judgments a lie, their German a lie, their science a lie, their sense of justice and their faith were lies. Their nationalism, their socialism were lies, their ethical philosophy was a lie, and so was their love. Everything was a lie, only one thing about them was genuine: their hate!

I hope I have now made it clear why I thought it best, in speaking of the dissonances between fiction and reality in our own time, to concentrate on Sartre. His hesitations, retractations, inconsistencies, all proceed from his consciousness of the problems: how do novelistic differ from existential fictions? How far is it inevitable that a novel give a novel-shaped account of the world? How can one control, and how make profitable, the dissonances between that account and the account given by the mind working independently of the novel? For Sartre it was ultimately, like most or all problems, one of freedom. For Miss Murdoch it is a problem of love, the power by which we apprehend the opacity of persons to the degree that we will not limit them by forcing them into selfish patterns. Both of them are talking, when they speak of freedom and love, about the imagination. The imagination, we recall, is a form-giving power, an esemplastic power; it may require, to use Simone Weil's words, to be preceded by a 'decreative' act, but it is certainly a maker of orders and concords. We apply it to all forces which satisfy the variety of human needs that are met by apparently gratuitous forms. These forms console; if they mitigate our existential anguish it is because we weakly collaborate with them, as we collaborate with language in order to communicate. Whether or no we are predisposed towards acceptance of them, we learn them as we learn a language. On one view they are 'the heroic children whom time breeds / Against the first idea,' but on another they destroy by falsehood the heroic anguish of our present loneliness. If they appear in shapes preposterously false we will reject them; but they change with us, and every act of reading or writing a novel is a tacit acceptance of them. If they ruin our innocence, we have to remember that the innocent eye sees nothing. If they make us guilty, they enable us, in a manner nothing else can duplicate, to submit, as we must, the show of things to the desires of the mind. I shall end by saying a little more about La Nausée, the book I chose because, although it is a novel, it reflects a philosophy it must, in so far as it possesses novel form, belie. Under one aspect it is what Philip Thody calls 'an extensive illustration' of the world's contingency and the absurdity of the human situation. Mr. Thody adds that it is the novelist's task to 'overcome contingency'; so that if the illustration were too extensive the novel would be a bad one. Sartre himself provides a more inclusive formula when he says that 'the final aim of art is to reclaim the world by revealing it as it is, but as if it had its source in human liberty.' This statement does two things. First, it links the fictions of art with those of living and choosing. Secondly, it means that the humanizing of the world's contingency cannot be achieved without a representation of that contingency. This representation must be such that it induces the proper sense of horror at the utter difference, the utter shapelessness, and the utter inhumanity of what must be humanized. And it has to occur simultaneously with the as if, the act of form, of humanization, which assuages the horror. This recognition, that form must not regress into myth, and that contingency must be formalized, makes La Nausée something of a model of the conflicts in the modern theory of the novel. How to do justice to a chaotic, viscously contingent reality, and yet redeem it? How to justify the fictive beginnings, crises, ends; the atavism of character, which we cannot prevent from growing, in Yeats's figure, like ash on a burning stick? The novel will end; a full close may be avoided, but there will be a close: a fake fullstop, an 'exhaustion of aspects,' as Ford calls it, an ironic return to the origin, as in Finnegans Wake and Comment c'est. Perhaps the book will end by saying that it has provided the clues for another, in which contingency will be defeated, ...

What is love? Jane had asked Nicolas, when he had professed that emotion, unasked. It hadn’t been coyness. It had been a genuine question. She knew what the poets said of love; she knew what great men and women had sacrificed in the name of that elusive emotion. Towers had toppled; fleets had been launched. But Jane had always wondered if they had all felt a bit sheepish about it afterwards, if what they had lauded as love was merely, in fact, the grip of a strong infatuation, lust fueled by inaccessibility. The prize, when won, lost its luster; infatuation turned to indifference. The famous beauty had a shrill voice; the great lover stinted his servants. Love was a chimera, an ideal. Maybe you just aren’t capable of feeling it , Nicolas had tossed back at her, one of those golden barbs that cut deeper than she had ever allowed herself to acknowledge. But he had been wrong. And so had she. Love wasn’t an ideal; it was messy and muddy and fraught with inconsistencies. It was a hard arm around her shoulders when she slipped and might have fallen, a reluctant nod in the middle of an argument. It was the slouch of Jack’s shoulders and the crooked line of his smile. It was knowing that whatever hardships befell them, they would stumble through it together.

I want to love him but I often find myself wishing he could just be an asshole all the time. This way I wouldn't have all these inner battles with myself. I learn to navigate my way through shattered expectations and constant disappointments by putting an impenetrable wall up between us. Every time I let my guard down, I'm quickly reminded why my defenses were up in the first place. It's nearly impossible for me to flourish in an inconsistent hostile environment, especially when my own growth is so intertwined with his. I'm forced to face the unsettling reality that the people who are supposed to protect us are sometimes the same people we need protection from.

Because of the city's fragmentary, far-flung floor plan, accessible almost exclusively by car, there is no collective sense of community, no overarching sense of "we." ... It's a city of transplants ... Everyone moves to LA with plans not to stay. But then we stay. Because somewhere along the way, this Garden of Forking Freeways burrows itself inside our hardened, from-elsewhere hearts, and slowly, we begin to love the place we claimed to hate. Los Angeles is such a misunderstood city... It's a place that's impossible not to ridicule until you...fully appreciate all its endearing inconsistencies. It is ugly, and it is also beautiful. It is fast; it is slow. It is sexy, and it is also smart.

Reth reached out and took my fingers in his own, his touch light but comforting. “I’ve found that sacrifice is called that for a reason. We have all lost much of what we were or could have been because of the mistakes of my people. We’ll yet lose some things to set it right. But when you join eternity, you will not feel the sting of this life with such intensity.” “You mean I wouldn’t feel at all?” “I feel, my love. Simply not in the same way you do. And thank heavens for that, because you are quite an embarrassment at times. Your inconsistent and flailing passions will no longer be a concern.” Leave it to Reth to go from comforting me to insulting me in the course of one short conversation.

[A man] finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so much conscience as to ask himself: Is it not unlawful and inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way? Suppose, however, that he resolves to do so, then the maxim of his action would be expressed thus: When I think myself in want of money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I never can do so. Now this principle of self-love or of one's own advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare; but the question now is, Is it right? I change then the suggestion of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus: How would it be if my maxim were a universal law? Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretenses.

likely to form a secure attachment. The less secure the relationship attachments in our first two years, the harder it is to have good relationships throughout our lives. Little or no response to a distressed child from a caregiver may result in the child developing an avoidant behavior pattern, and low self-esteem. When a caregiver is inconsistent in response to the child’s needs, the child will likely form ambivalent relationship patterns, anxiously uncertain about whether they can trust people. Finally, frightening behavior, intrusiveness, withdrawal, negativity, role confusion, and maltreatment lead to a disorganized attachment, and cause a child to feel dazed and confused. This child dissociates and compartmentalizes the traumatic experiences as

The pro-life movement has not won the public argument-and, arguably, it hasn't really tried. The message of abortion as a moral evil, as an affront to the loving God who made humanity in His own image, has proven curiously ineffective. Why? For one thing, that message seems wildly inconsistent with the politics otherwise practiced by those who claim the "pro-life" mantle If one is driven to electoral advocacy by the conviction that mankind bears the image of God, why stop at opposing abortion? What about the shunning of refugees? What about the forced separation of babies from their mothers? What about the hollowing out of programs that feed hungry kids? What about the lifelong incarceration of nonviolent offenders and the wrongful execution of the innocent?

Thus they [the clients] often follow the schematic pattern, “I am thus and so, but I experience this feeling which is very inconsistent with what I am”; “I love my parents, but I experience some surprising bitterness toward them at times”; “I am really no good, but sometimes I seem to feel that I’m better than everyone else.” Thus at first the expression is that “I am a self which is different from a part of my experience.” Later this changes to the tentative pattern, “Perhaps I am several quite different selves, or perhaps my self contains more contradictions than I had dreamed.” Still later the pattern changes to some such pattern as this: “I was sure that I could not be my experience—it was too contradictory—but now I am beginning to believe that I can be all of my experience.

There is a time when the soul lives in God, and a time when God lives in the soul. What is appropriate to one state is inconsistent with the other. When God lives in the soul it ought to abandon itself entirely to his providence. When the soul lives in God it is obliged to procure for itself carefully and very regularly, every means it can devise by which to arrive at the divine union. The whole procedure is marked out; the readings, the examinations, the resolutions. The guide is always at hand and everything is by rule, even the hours for conversation. When God lives in the soul it has nothing left of self, but only that which the spirit which actuates it imparts to it at each moment. Nothing is provided for the future, no road is marked out . . . No more books with marked passages for such a soul; often enough it is even deprived of a regular directior, for God allows it no other support than that which he gives it himself. Its dwelling is in darkness, forgetfulness, abandonment, death and nothingness. . . Everything that others discover with great difficulty this soul finds in abandonment, and what they guard with care in order to be able to find it again, this soul receives at the moment there is occasion for it, and afterwards relinquishes so as to admit nothing but exactly what God desires it to have in order to live by him alone. The former soul undertakes an infinity of good works for the glory of God, the latter is often cast aside in a corner of the world like a bit of broken crockery, apparently of no use to anyone. There, this soul, forsaken by creatures but in the enjoyment of God by a very real, true, and active love (active though infused in repose), does not attempt anything by its own impulse; it only knows that it has to abandon itself and to remain in the hands of God to be used by him as he pleases. Often it is ignorant of its use, but God knows well. The world thinks it is useless, and appearances give colour to this judgment, but nevertheless it is very certain that in mysterious ways and by unknown channels, it spreads abroad an infinite amount of grace on persons who often have no idea of it, and of whom it never thinks . . . . . . Often they do not perceive the outflow of this virtue and even contribute nothing by cooperation: it is like a hidden balm, the perfume of which is exhaled without being recognized, and which knows not its own virtue.

This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise endure the sight. Nature, however, has not left this weakness, which is of so much importance, altogether without a remedy; nor has she abandoned us entirely to the delusions of self-love. Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments. We hear every body about us express the like detestation against them. This still further confirms, and even exasperates our natural sense of their deformity. It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light, when we see other people view them in the same light. We resolve never to be guilty of the like, nor ever, upon any account, to render ourselves in this manner the objects of universal disapprobation. We thus naturally lay down to ourselves a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or punishable, the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the greatest dread and aversion. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth our approbation, and we hear every body around us express the same favourable opinion concerning them. Every body is eager to honour and reward them. They excite all those sentiments for which we have by nature the strongest desire; the love, the gratitude, the admiration of mankind. We become ambitious of performing the like; and thus naturally lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind, that every opportunity of acting in this manner is carefully to be sought after. It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed, by finding from experience, that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of.

Do not worry,” the Rebbe told me, or rather I told myself using the image of that aged Jew who was dressed as a rabbi. “Loneliness means not knowing how to be with oneself.” Of course, I do not mean to imply that a child of seven years can speak in such a fashion. But I understood these things, albeit not in a rational manner. The Rebbe, being an internal image, put things into my mind that were not intellectual. He made me feel something that I swallowed, in the way that a newly hatched eaglet, its eyes still closed, swallows the worm that is placed in its beak. Much later as an adult I began to find words to translate things that were, at that young age—how can I explain it?—openings into other planes of reality. “You are not alone. Remember last week when you were surprised to see a sunflower growing in the courtyard? You concluded that the wind had blown a seed there. A seed, though it looks insignificant, contains the future flower. This seed somehow knew what plant it was going to be, and this plant was not just in the future: although immaterial, although only a design, the sunflower existed there, in that seed, blowing in the wind over hundreds of kilometers. And not only was the plant there, but also the love of light, the turning in search of the sun, the mysterious union with the pole star, and—why not?—a form of consciousness. You are not different. All that you are going to be, you are. What you will know, you already know. What you will search for, you are already seeking: it is in you. I may not be real, but the old man who you now see, although he has my inconsistent appearance, is real because he is you, which is to say, he is what you will be.

want to love him but I often find myself wishing he could just be an asshole all the time. This way I wouldn’t have all these inner battles with myself. I learn to navigate my way through shattered expectations and constant disappointments by putting an impenetrable wall up between us. Every time I let my guard down, I’m quickly reminded why my defenses were up in the first place. It’s nearly impossible for me to flourish in an inconsistent hostile environment, especially when my own growth is so intertwined with his. I’m forced to face the unsettling reality that the people who are supposed to protect us are sometimes the same people we need protection from. I slowly begin to scrub away at my femininity, which has proved to be unsustainable in this environment. “Man up! Don’t be a pussy!” my dad shouts at me as I cry. I have to be tougher. I have to be more independent. I have to be resilient. I have to be more like him.

A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty.

There's a widespread misconception that biblical literalism is facile and mindless, but the doctrine I was introduced to at Moody was every bit as complicated and arcane as Marxist theory or post-structuralism.... In many ways, Christian literalism is even more complicated than liberal brands of theology because it involves the sticky task of reconciling the overlay myth—the story of redemption—with a wildly inconsistent body of scripture. This requires consummate parsing of Old Testament commands, distinguishing between the universal (e.g., thou shalt not kill) from those particular to the Mosaic law that are no longer relevant after the death of Christ (e.g., a sexually violated woman must marry her rapist). It requires making the elaborate case that the Song of Solomon, a book of Hebrew erotica that managed to wangle its way into the canon, is a metaphor about Christ's love for the church, and that the starkly nihilistic book of Ecclesiastes is a representation of the hopelessness of life without God.

As discussed in Chapter One, the main factor in a child developing an anxious attachment pattern is inconsistent attunement from their primary caregiver—there is love, but it is unreliable. In CNM, as people begin to go on more dates, enter into additional relationships or experience new relationship energy with someone else, they can start to become less available, responsive or attuned to their pre-existing partners. The person experiencing an increase in their number of partners or a deepening in a specific relationship may not intend to give less to their other partners (often they think they can manage all their relationships to a high degree), but due to the limits of how many hours there are in a day, how many date nights there are in a week or how many people you can text with at once, splitting time among more and more people can create insecure conditions for their other partners. The person with a new partner has now become (intentionally or not) more inconsistent, unpredictable and inaccessible to their attachment-based relationships than they were previously.

Internally, I was fractured, a series of faked personalities and protective shields that kept people at a distance. I could only drop the shield when I was alone, but even in my solitude I was miserable and confused. I was all defense mechanisms, with nothing left inside worth defending. When a masked Autistic person lacks self-knowledge or any kind of broad social acceptance, they are often forced to conceive of themselves as compartmentalized, inconsistent parts. Here is the person I have to be at work, and the person I must be at home. These are the things I fantasize about doing but can’t tell anybody about. Here are the drugs that keep my energy levels up, and the lies I tell to be entertaining at parties. These are the tension-defusing distractions I’ll deploy when someone begins to suspect there’s something off about me. We don’t get the chance to come together into a unified whole that we can name or understand, or that others can see and love. Some sides of us go unacknowledged entirely, because they don’t serve our broader goal of remaining as inoffensive and safe as possible.

[T]he devotion required by the Gita is no soft-hearted effusiveness. It certainly is not blind faith. The devotion of the Gita has the least to do with the externals. A devotee may use, if he likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make offerings, but these things are no test of his devotion. He is the devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism, who is selfless, who treats alike cold and heat, happiness and misery, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow and fear, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad, who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason. Such devotion is inconsistent with the existence at the same time of strong attachments. We thus see that to be a real devotee is to realize oneself.

I thought about Caroline sometimes when I was falling asleep, trying to tease out inconsistencies. She was a low-level irritant, a gnat with inflated ideas about itself, a football team I would not wear the scarf of even if caught in a freak blizzard. The facts of her scraped against my nerves. She detested Wordsworth yet she was a terrific fan of psychoanalysis? That didn’t work. She did not believe in umbrellas – they were a suburban invention; well, she could take it from me that they existed. She thought women with a sweet tooth trivialised themselves. What, all of them? (Jean would have to curb her cake habit – why should she?) She objected to English people who hadn’t grown up in London. She despised the word ‘very’ because it de-intensified and people didn’t realise. Couldn’t countenance pelmets. She liked scuffed brogues, left-overs, pinstripes, neat whisky, old Soho, the squeak of tulip stalks, tomato sandwiches for every meal (she’d stolen that straight out of F. Scott Fitzgerald). She said a femme fatale should have a laugh that was alluring and dismissive. She loved all swear words except ‘Christ!’ – which was blasphemous.

Ah, my friends, that innocent afternoon with Larry provoked me into thought in a way my own dicelife until then never had. Larry took to following the dice with such ease and joy compared to the soul-searching gloom that I often went through before following a decision, that I had to wonder what happened to every human in the two decades between seven and twenty-seven to turn a kitten into a cow. Why did children seem to be so often spontaneous, joy-filled and concentrated while adults seemed controlled, anxiety-filled and diffused? It was the Goddam sense of having a self: that sense of self which psychologists have been proclaiming we all must have. What if - at the time it seemed like an original thought - what if the development of a sense of self is normal and natural, but is neither inevitable nor desirable? What if it represents a psychological appendix: a useless, anachronistic pain in the side? - or, like the mastodon's huge tusks: a heavy, useless and ultimately self-destructive burden? What if the sense of being some-one represents an evolutionary error as disastrous to the further development of a more complex creature as was the shell for snails or turtles? He he he. What if? indeed: men must attempt to eliminate the error and develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self. Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus. I became tremendously excited with my thoughts: 'Men must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another' - why aren't they? At the age of three or four, children were willing to be either good guys or bad guys, the Americans or the Commies, the students or the fuzz. As the culture molds them, however, each child comes to insist on playing only one set of roles: he must always be a good guy, or, for equally compulsive reasons, a bad guy or rebel. The capacity to play and feel both sets of roles is lost. He has begun to know who he is supposed to be. The sense of permanent self: ah, how psychologists and parents lust to lock their kids into some definable cage. Consistency, patterns, something we can label - that's what we want in our boy. 'Oh, our Johnny always does a beautiful bower movement every morning after breakfast.' 'Billy just loves to read all the time...' 'Isn't Joan sweet? She always likes to let the other person win.' 'Sylvia's so pretty and so grown up; she just loves all the time to dress up.' It seemed to me that a thousand oversimplifications a year betrayed the truths in the child's heart: he knew at one point that he didn't always feel like shitting after breakfast but it gave his Ma a thrill. Billy ached to be out splashing in mud puddles with the other boys, but... Joan wanted to chew the penis off her brother every time he won, but ... And Sylvia daydreamed of a land in which she wouldn’t have to worry about how she looked . . . Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. Adults rule and they reward patterns. Patterns it is. And eventual misery. What if we were to bring up our children differently? Reward them for varying their habits, tastes, roles? Reward them for being inconsistent? What then? We could discipline them to be reliably various, to be conscientiously inconsistent, determinedly habit-free - even of 'good' habits.

The experiment is called the Strange Situation, and you can see variations of it on the Internet. A mother and her toddler are in an unfamiliar room. A few minutes later, a researcher enters and the mother exits, leaving the youngster alone or with the researcher. Three minutes later, the mother comes back. Most children are initially upset at their mother’s departure; they cry, throw toys, or rock back and forth. But three distinct patterns of behavior emerge when mother and child are reunited—and these patterns are dictated by the type of emotional connection that has developed between the two. Children who are resilient, calm themselves quickly, easily reconnect with their moms, and resume exploratory play usually have warm and responsive mothers. Youngsters who stay upset and nervous and turn hostile, demanding, and clingy when their moms return tend to have mothers who are emotionally inconsistent, blowing sometimes hot, sometimes cold. A third group of children, who evince no pleasure, distress, or anger and remain distant and detached from their mothers, are apt to have moms who are cold and dismissive. Bowlby and Ainsworth labeled the children’s strategies for dealing with emotions in relationships, or attachment styles, secure, anxious, and avoidant, respectively.

The secret—to being you, to being Happy?” “Just keep on smiling. Even when you’re sad. Keep on smiling.” Not the most profound advice, admittedly. But Happy is wise, for only a fool or a philosopher would make sweeping generalizations about the nature of happiness. I am no philosopher, so here goes: Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. To venture any further, though, is to enter treacherous waters. A slippery seal, happiness is. On the road, I encountered bushels of inconsistencies. The Swiss are uptight and happy. The Thais are laid-back and happy. Icelanders find joy in their binge drinking, Moldovans only misery. Maybe an Indian mind can digest these contradictions, but mine can’t. Exasperated, I call one of the leading happiness researchers, John Helliwell. Perhaps he has some answers. “It’s simple,” he says. “There’s more than one path to happiness.” Of course. How could I have missed it? Tolstoy turned on his head. All miserable countries are alike; happy ones are happy in their own ways. It’s worth considering carbon. We wouldn’t be here without it. Carbon is the basis of all life, happy and otherwise. Carbon is also a chameleon atom. Assemble it one way—in tight, interlocking rows—and you have a diamond. Assemble it another way—a disorganized jumble—and you have a handful of soot. The arranging makes all the difference. Places are the same. It’s not the elements that matter so much as how they’re arranged and in which proportions. Arrange them one way, and you have Switzerland. Arrange them another way, and you have Moldova. Getting the balance right is important. Qatar has too much money and not enough culture. It has no way of absorbing all that cash. And then there is Iceland: a country that has no right to be happy yet is. Iceland gets the balance right. A small country but a cosmopolitan one. Dark and light. Efficient and laid-back. American gumption married to European social responsibility. A perfect, happy arrangement. The glue that holds the entire enterprise together is culture. It makes all the difference. I have some nagging doubts about my journey. I didn’t make it everywhere. Yet my doubts extend beyond matters of itinerary. I wonder if happiness is really the highest good, as Aristotle believed. Maybe Guru-ji, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, is right. Maybe love is more important than happiness. Certainly, there are times when happiness seems beside the point. Ask a single, working mother if she is happy, and she’s likely to reply, “You’re not asking the right question.” Yes, we want to be happy but for the right reasons, and,

looked at you, gave you bread, and said, “Child of  God, the body of  Christ, broken for you.” Child of  God. Child of  God. We’re all children of  God. And we’ve been given the authority, even the duty, to declare that to each other. And so I find myself on US 36, where another asshole is embodying so much that I despise, and in my mind, I bless them. I look in their eyes, hold up the bread, and say, “Child of God…” Jeff, like so many of us, is changed by the word of grace that he hears in church. He is formed by the Word of  God.*2 He is given a place where he is told by others that he is a child of  God. He is given a place where he can look other people in the eye, other annoying, inconsistent, arrogant people in the eye, hand them bread, and say, “Child of  God, the body of  Christ, given for you,” and then he, in his own arrogant inconsistencies, has a frame of grace through which to see even the people he can’t stand. I argue that this wouldn’t just happen alone. This is why we have Christian community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the gospel. A gospel that Bonhoeffer said is “frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you.” God wants you, you in your imperfect, broken, shimmering glory.

However, it is also true that sometimes people are transformed by their marriages in negative and hostile ways. I think this occurs as an attempt to resolve what Leon Festinger in 1957 referred to as cognitive dissonance. Festinger writes that we’re all powerfully driven to experience ourselves as consistent in our thought processes. As a result, if we become aware of an inconsistency in our beliefs, we’ll change one or more of the beliefs to make them more internally consistent. How might the theory of cognitive dissonance explain why Sam changed from being a kind and considerate family member to being critical and angry? Here’s how the shift in personality might work: Belief: My parents and sisters are good people who deserve my love and respect. Belief: Maria hates my family and thinks they brainwashed me into thinking that they were good to me when they really weren’t. Since Sam loves both his family and Maria, he’s in a quandary. If he remains committed to Maria, he’ll produce endless fights by disagreeing with her or pushing her into being more involved with his family; she has already said that she doesn’t like them and doesn’t feel comfortable being in their presence. He will also feel guilt toward Maria if he remains in contact with them, as she’s made it clear that he needs to choose her over him and being close to them is therefore a betrayal of her. Since Sam has to come home to Maria each night, his path of least cognitive dissonance is to accept her version of his parents as the correct one.

Yes,” her boss responded, “one for us and one for the customer.” “I’m sorry, so you are saying that the client is asking for a copy and we need a copy for internal use?” “Actually, I’ll check with the client—they haven’t asked for anything. But I definitely want a copy. That’s just how I do business.” “Absolutely,” she responded. “Thanks for checking with the customer. Where would you like to store the in-house copy? There’s no more space in the file room here.” “It’s fine. You can store it anywhere,” he said, slightly perturbed now. “Anywhere?” she mirrored again, with calm concern. When another person’s tone of voice or body language is inconsistent with his words, a good mirror can be particularly useful. In this case, it caused her boss to take a nice, long pause—something he did not often do. My student sat silent. “As a matter of fact, you can put them in my office,” he said, with more composure than he’d had the whole conversation. “I’ll get the new assistant to print it for me after the project is done. For now, just create two digital backups.” A day later her boss emailed and wrote simply, “The two digital backups will be fine.” Not long after, I received an ecstatic email from this student: “I was shocked! I love mirrors! A week of work avoided!” Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. That’s the only hard part about it; the technique takes a little practice. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’ll become a conversational Swiss Army knife valuable in just about every professional and social setting.

emotionally immature people are more like an amalgam of various borrowed parts, many of which don’t go together well. Because they had to shut down important parts of themselves out of fear of their parents’ reactions, their personalities formed in isolated clumps, like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together. This explains their inconsistent reactions, which make them so difficult to understand. Because they probably weren’t allowed to express and integrate their emotional experiences in childhood, these people grow up to be emotionally inconsistent adults. Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children. One woman described her mother’s behavior as chaotic, “flip-flopping in ways that made no sense.” This inconsistency means that, as parents, emotionally immature people may be either loving or detached, depending on their mood. Their children feel fleeting moments of connection with them but don’t know when or under what conditions their parent might be emotionally available again. This sets up what behavioral psychologists call an intermittent reward situation, meaning that getting a reward for your efforts is possible but completely unpredictable. This creates a tenacious resolve to keep trying to get the reward, because once in a while these efforts do pay off. In this way, parental inconsistency can be the quality that binds children most closely to their parent, as they keep hoping to get that infrequent and elusive positive response.

Do you ever find yourself reminiscing about the girl you used to be? I used to do it all the time, and depending on my mood – I’d either smile or cringe. I went through phases where, on the outside, I was the ‘everything’s gonna be okay’ type of girl. I comforted my friends and family. I was intelligent, confident, and strong, but in private, I hated myself. You see, I was adopted into what many consider the perfect family, and while I can say that I was raised in a loving home, there still wasn't enough love in the world that could’ve convinced me that I was enough. There wasn’t enough love in the world to make me believe I was loveable. Although my adoptive parents gave me all of their love, there wasn’t enough love in the world that could make me stop craving the love of my birth mother. It's taken me a very long time to accept myself. It’s taken years to win the war between who I am versus the crippling insecurities that made me hate myself. I’d love to be the perfect woman without flaws or insecurities, but this isn’t Barbie’s Dreamhouse. So, I apologize in advance for my inconsistency, at times. I apologize in advance for my mood swings. I apologize in advance for my immaturity. I apologize for my stupidity. I apologize for my moments of low self-esteem. I apologize for my lingering self-doubt. And I apologize for believing that I wasn’t good enough. I’m still a work in progress, and one day, I’ll even be confident enough to stop apologizing, but in the meantime, please bear with me. Growth doesn’t always happen in a straight line, nor does it happen overnight, so I thank you in advance for this difficult journey that we're about to embark on together, and I hope you can grow to love me as I’ve finally grown to love myself.

We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the "superiority" of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not: each completes the other, and is completed by the other: they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give. 68. Now their separate characters are briefly these: The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle,—and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial: to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offense, the inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled; and always hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offense. This is the true nature of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home: so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love,—so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,—shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea,—so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of home. And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her.

... the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being ... True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in Heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely: 1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage?  We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power. 2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23). 3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–14). Peter’s conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul’s conduct is irreconcilable with Peter’s alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers! 4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1–3). Love of money and love of power are twin-sisters, and either of them is "a root of all evil." It is certainly very significant that the weaknesses even more than the virtues of the natural Peter—his boldness and presumption, his dread of the cross, his love for secular glory, his carnal zeal, his use of the sword, his sleepiness in Gethsemane—are faithfully reproduced in the history of the papacy; while the addresses and epistles of the converted and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the papacy, and enjoin truly evangelical principles—the general priesthood and royalty of believers, apostolic poverty before the rich temple, obedience to God rather than man, yet with proper regard for the civil authorities, honorable marriage, condemnation of mental reservation in Ananias and Sapphira, and of simony in Simon Magus, liberal appreciation of heathen piety in Cornelius, opposition to the yoke of legal bondage, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus Christ.

Armies, like families, are institutions that create a world. Both successfully engender the new member's respect, loyalty, love, affirmation, gratitude, and obedience. I speak of armies and families as creating social power, because the hold that each of these institutions has over its members comes to greatly exceed its moment-to-moment capacity to reward or punish and usually persists long after significant practical affiliation has ended. The following features are common to both of these world-making institutions, whether the new member experiences them as benign or malevolent: Barriers to escape Control of body and bodily functions What and when to eath When, where, and how much to sleep Body form (clothing, weight, haircut) When and where to urinate and defecate Lack of privacy regarding bodily functions Prolonged daily contact with power-holder in group Power-holder as source of small rewards, comfort, approval Inconsistent, unpredictable, capricious enforcement of rules Monopolization of communication, resources, control Secrecy regarding some activities and events Lack of alternative to seeing world through power-holder's eyes Required repetition of buzz words, songs, slogans, cliches, even if inwardly disbelieved and rejected

It’s also Biblical, and consistent with Christianity as a religion & relationship with God, not as a mere program for social advancement. It’s easy to say yes to the Kingdom in the abstract when we don’t reckon with the knowledge that it means, also, having to be kind when we really don’t want to be, having to love our enemy, having to bless those who curse us, having to be generous when we’re in scarcity mode, having to give up the habits of the world that are inconsistent with the worship of God.

What has God permitted to be a part of your story that seems inconsistent with His goodness and love? Might He be allowing that “thing” He hates in order to accomplish that which He loves?

That is the ultimate alternative: is the opposition between Loveand Law to be reduced to its “truth,” the opposition, internal to theLaw itself, between the determinate positive Law and the excessivesuperego injunction, the Law beyond every measure—that is to say,is the excess of Love with regard to the Law the form of appearanceof a superego Law, of a Law beyond any determinate law; or is theexcessive superego Law the way the dimension beyond the Law ap-pears withinthe domain of the Law, so that the crucial step to be ac-complished is the step (comparable to Nietzsche’s “High Noon”)from the excessive Law to Love, from the way Love appears withinthe domain of the Law to Love beyond the Law? Lacan himselfstruggled continuously with this same deeply Pauline problem: isthere love beyond Law? Paradoxically (in view of the fact that thenotion as unsurpassable Law is usually perceived as Jewish), in thevery last page of Four Fundamental Concepts,he identifies this stance oflove beyond Law as that of Spinoza, opposing it to the Kantian no-tion of moral Law as the ultimate horizon of our experience. InEthics of Psychoanalysis,Lacan deals extensively with the Pauline di-alectic of the Law and its transgression13—perhaps what we shoulddo, therefore, is read this Pauline dialectic together with its corol-lary, Saint Paul’s other paradigmatic passage, the one on love from 1Corinthians 13. Crucial here is the clearly paradoxical place of Love with regard to All(to the completed series of knowledge or prophecies): first, SaintPaul claims that love is here even if we possess all of knowledge—then, in the second quoted paragraph, he claims that love is hereonly for incomplete beings, that is, beings who possess incompleteknowledge.When I “know fully . . . as I have been fully known,” willthere still be love? Although, in contrast to knowledge, “love neverends,” it is clearly only “now” (while I am still incomplete) that“faith, hope, and love abide.” The only way out of this deadlock isto read the two inconsistent claims according to Lacan’s feminineformulas of sexuation:14even when it is “all” (complete, with no ex-ception), the field of knowledge remains, in a way, non-all, incom-plete—love is not an exception to the All of knowledge, but preciselythat “nothing” which makes incomplete even the complete series/field of knowledge. In other words, the point of the claim that, evenif I were to possess all knowledge, without love, I would be nothing,is not simply that withlove, I am “something”—in love, I am also noth-ing,but, as it were, a Nothing humbly aware of itself, a Nothing par-adoxically made rich through the very awareness of its lack.Only a lacking, vulnerable being is capable of love: the ultimatemystery of love, therefore, is that incompleteness is, in a way, higherthan completion. On the one hand, only an imperfect, lacking beingloves: we love because we do notknow all. On the other hand, evenif we were to know everything, love would, inexplicably, still behigher than completed knowledge. Perhaps the true achievement ofChristian is to elevate a loving (imperfect) Being to the place ofGod, that is, of ultimate perfection. That is the kernel of the Chris-tian experience. In the previous pagan attitude, imperfect earthlyphenomena can serve as signs of the unattainable divine perfection.In Christianity, on the contrary, it is physical (or mental) perfectionitself that is the sign of the imperfection (finitude, vulnerability, un-certainty) of you as the absolute person. becomes a sign of this spiritual dimension—not the sign of your“higher” spiritual perfection, but the sign of youas a finite, vulner-able person. Only in this way do we really break out of idolatry. Forthis reason, the properly Christian relationship between sex and loveis not the one between body and soul, but almost the opposite...

Gorbachevian, faithfully reflecting our chairman’s inconsistency, timidity, love of half measures and semi-decisions.

...regardless of our willingness to do vulnerability, it does us. When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be. Experiencing vulnerability isn't a choice--the only choice we have is how we're going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. As a huge fan of the band Rush, this seems like the perfect place to throw in a quote from their song 'Freewill': 'If you choose not to decide, you have still made a choice.

Even a child recognizes the hypocrisy exhibited by Americans who profess to love their neighbors and worship the concept of do unto others only as we wish other people to do unto us. One of the American norms that I rejected from an early age was the proposition that an inherent trait of human nature is kindness and charity for all. I questioned the ruthlessness of the society that birthed me, a society prone to warfare and exploitation of this country’s natural resources for the benefit of the super capitalists. Incipient queries regarding morality and inconsistent criticisms of the American government and society reflected my own personal prejudices and troubling paradoxes regarding how to live and what values to endorse.

It meant I got so good at pretending I didn’t need anything that I forgot how to be myself. It also meant I mistook instability for attraction, because the scraps of affection men tossed me were more thrilling for their inconsistency: the surprise of a text message at 1.30 a.m. that said, ‘Are you out?’, or the promise of a drunken ‘I love you’ never mentioned again when sober. The men I dated never called the relationships off, but never fully committed to them either.

The dance floor of love welcomes the unquestionable, It welcomes the prepared, It welcomes the deliberate. The dance floor of love expands the ground to tear apart suspicion. The dance floor of love expands the ground to demonstrate what the absence of doubt looks like. The dance floor of love, in all its segments, never makes an opening for nervousness, mistrust, inconsistency, and hesitation. Reject the invitation to a dance floor loaded with unpreparedness and anticipation. Love is forever specific, always ready, and never at the mercy of indecision.

As the research shows, if a parent, especially a mother, is inconsistent in praise, acknowledgment, and expressions of love, the child may suffer from a lack of self-esteem and be more vulnerable to depression.

I like the flexibility of being a full-time writer I can set my own hours and be home when my kids are home. And I love being creative and getting paid for it—there is nothing more exciting (well, almost nothing) than when a new idea pops into my head, then when the details and scenes start coming together to form a story. The downside is the inconsistent money — my kids get tired of hearing me say, “I’m supposed to get a check sometime soon, then we can go shopping!” I also don’t like it when people act as if I’m not working — writing is fun but it’s also a lot of hard work. Working at home can get lonely too!

i’m afraid i won’t find the one who sees me and rushes to breathe me in i have a fear of seeming too desperate i’m scared i will be cheated on with a woman more brilliant more striking more of me in every way terrified this will confirm what i know already that i am not enough for someone to stay where is the burning match that will set me on fire what if i’ve already walked by the one on a street corner what if i’ve already been with them and ruined it who will love me enough to spend their energy getting close to someone so inconsistent what if the one i want is someone who touches me and leaves and the one who doesn’t leave is someone i can’t stand touching me will it always be bad timing will i ever be sure will i settle will i be on my own forever

Intermittent reinforcement is a conditioning behavior where CNs set the rules. Their love is inconsistent and on their terms. This leaves you feeling unstable and longing for their love and attention. The relationship becomes a mixture of subtle cruelty and periodic affection. They will woo you and withhold from you. This conditions you to keep trying to please them in order to get the reward of love. It brings you to a place where you lower your standards so much that you become grateful for mediocre treatment that you never would have tolerated when you first met them. You end up believing you don’t deserve any better and that you are not worthy of love and affection.

Having a partner who fulfills our intrinsic attachment needs and feels comfortable acting as a secure base and safe haven can help us remain emotionally and physically healthier and live longer. Having a partner who is inconsistently available or supportive can be a truly demoralizing and debilitating experience that can literally stunt our growth and stymie our health. The rest of the book is about how to go about finding a partner who can become your secure base, becoming that kind of partner yourself, and helping your existing partner take on this life-altering role.

He/She Stays Up Late A sudden shift in their bedtime routine indicates an affair. Cheating partners consider a partner’s sleeping time as the safest to text or message their new love interest. His/Her Stories Seem Inconsistent Sometimes they won’t say a word about where they were and sometimes they would give away too much. When asked if a friend was there with them too, they will not only confirm their presence but also tell you about all the other people who were there, including someone’s pets. Too much information is another sign that there is something fishy going on or else they won’t be this particular about it.

The boundaries we set for our children are in reality the boundaries we set for ourselves. The more squishy and indecisive we are about our own boundaries, the more soggy and inconsistent we are about the limits we set for our toddlers.

Fearful-Avoidant will: • Often demonstrate ongoing ambivalence in relationships—they constantly shift between being vulnerable with their partner and being distant. This behavior is consistent across all their relationships, regardless of whether they are romantic. • Generally express depth of processing—a tendency to overanalyze microexpressions, body language, and language for signs of betrayal. This occurs because they had an untrusting relationship with their caregivers in childhood. Living with a parent who is an addict or emotionally unwell are two examples of what may create this distrust. • Not trust naturally • Often feel as if betrayal is always on the horizon The core wounds for this attachment style revolve around feeling unworthy, being taken advantage of, and feeling unsafe. Why is the Fearful-Avoidant individual so unpredictable? Their core wounds and tumultuous behavior typically stem from some form of childhood abuse. However, this abuse is paired with one or both parents also being emotionally supportive at infrequent times. This combination creates an innate sense of distrust and confusion, and Fearful-Avoidants learn to expect betrayal while also craving love. It also becomes quite difficult for the Fearful-Avoidant to learn a strategy for attaching or bonding to caregivers because of the level of inconsistency. Moreover, since they perceived love as a chaotic entity from a young age, they tend to have immense internal conflict as adults. They simultaneously want to feel a sense of connection while subconsciously believing it to be a threat. This produces feelings of resentment or frustration that can be later projected onto relationships. Ultimately, the Fearful-Avoidant shows up in their relationships as a loving partner, and then will become frightened and pull away when they become vulnerable. To be in a successful relationship with a Fearful-Avoidant, the partner or friend must provide a deep connection in a consistent way. This means openness and respect for boundaries, paired with constant reassurance.

The core wounds for this attachment style revolve around feeling unworthy, being taken advantage of, and feeling unsafe. Why is the Fearful-Avoidant individual so unpredictable? Their core wounds and tumultuous behavior typically stem from some form of childhood abuse. However, this abuse is paired with one or both parents also being emotionally supportive at infrequent times. This combination creates an innate sense of distrust and confusion, and Fearful-Avoidants learn to expect betrayal while also craving love. It also becomes quite difficult for the Fearful-Avoidant to learn a strategy for attaching or bonding to caregivers because of the level of inconsistency. Moreover, since they perceived love as a chaotic entity from a young age, they tend to have immense internal conflict as adults. They simultaneously want to feel a sense of connection while subconsciously believing it to be a threat. This produces feelings of resentment or frustration that can be later projected onto relationships. Ultimately, the Fearful-Avoidant shows up in their relationships as a loving partner, and then will become frightened and pull away when they become vulnerable. To be in a successful relationship with a Fearful-Avoidant, the partner or friend must provide a deep connection in a consistent way. This means openness and respect for boundaries, paired with constant reassurance.

The child who grows into an Anxious attachment style has one or more parents who are present and loving one moment, and then absent or unavailable the next. Consequently, they can trust and deeply connect with their parents and then feel a strong emotional hunger when they disappear. As Live Science discusses, connection with caregivers releases oxytocin, among other neurochemicals, in the brain. Immediate withdrawal then creates a more significant sense of longing and a deeper dependency on their parent or parents to be soothed. However, the child will not actually have enough distance to learn how to self-soothe, so they will feel an even deeper need to rely on their caregivers. Consequently, a subconscious program that revolves around the fear of abandonment begins to be ingrained in the Anxiously attached individual. They will begin to get deeply triggered when the caregiver separates from them and will often feel lonely and unloved because they hunger for closeness. The inconsistency in parental availability for the child ultimately results in the child believing they must self-sacrifice to maintain their caregiver’s presence and be worthy of their love. If they do exactly what is demanded of them in relationships, they will subconsciously believe that people will stick around. In adulthood, this eventually creates a strong sense of resentment from the Anxious individual toward those they are sacrificing their needs and values for. Without the understanding of why they are doing this, they will continue to do so and will create turmoil in the relationships they value the most. Another scenario in which an Anxious attachment style can arise is when one caregiver is incredibly present and connected and the other is very withdrawn—again, a form of inconsistency.

The child who grows into an Anxious attachment style has one or more parents who are present and loving one moment, and then absent or unavailable the next. Consequently, they can trust and deeply connect with their parents and then feel a strong emotional hunger when they disappear. As Live Science discusses, connection with caregivers releases oxytocin, among other neurochemicals, in the brain. Immediate withdrawal then creates a more significant sense of longing and a deeper dependency on their parent or parents to be soothed. However, the child will not actually have enough distance to learn how to self-soothe, so they will feel an even deeper need to rely on their caregivers. Consequently, a subconscious program that revolves around the fear of abandonment begins to be ingrained in the Anxiously attached individual. They will begin to get deeply triggered when the caregiver separates from them and will often feel lonely and unloved because they hunger for closeness. The inconsistency in parental availability for the child ultimately results in the child believing they must self-sacrifice to maintain their caregiver’s presence and be worthy of their love. If they do exactly what is demanded of them in relationships, they will subconsciously believe that people will stick around. In adulthood, this eventually creates a strong sense of resentment from the Anxious individual toward those they are sacrificing their needs and values for. Without the understanding of why they are doing this, they will continue to do so and will create turmoil in the relationships they value the most. Another scenario in which an Anxious attachment style can arise is when one caregiver is incredibly present and connected and the other is very withdrawn—again, a form of inconsistency. This time, imagine there is a child named Parker. He has a father who is ever-present, understanding, and loving. Parker’s mother, however, is always busy at work. A constant need to be clingy will arise in him because, while positive associations are being built by his closeness to his father, they are also simultaneously being taken away by his mother. He will eventually try to use activating strategies—the process of using past knowledge to make future decisions—to keep his mother from leaving. However, his energy is invested into maintaining closeness to his mother rather than learning how to self-soothe. This is why you’ll see the Anxious Attachment in adulthood ultimately working to prevent someone from leaving by doing whatever they perceive that person needs, rather than working on the actual problem at hand.

Fearful-Avoidants learn to expect betrayal while also craving love. It also becomes quite difficult for the Fearful-Avoidant to learn a strategy for attaching or bonding to caregivers because of the level of inconsistency. Moreover, since they perceived love as a chaotic entity from a young age, they tend to have immense internal conflict as adults. They simultaneously want to feel a sense of connection while subconsciously believing it to be a threat. This produces feelings of resentment or frustration that can be later projected onto relationships. Ultimately, the Fearful-Avoidant shows up in their relationships as a loving partner, and then will become frightened and pull away when they become vulnerable. To be in a successful relationship with a Fearful-Avoidant, the partner or friend must provide a deep connection in a consistent way. This means openness and respect for boundaries, paired with constant reassurance.

The message of abortion as a moral evil, as an affront to the loving God who made humanity in His own image, has proven curiously ineffective. Why? For one thing, that message seems wildly inconsistent with the politics otherwise practiced by those who claim the “pro-life” mantle. If one is driven to electoral advocacy by the conviction that mankind bears the image of God, why stop at opposing abortion? What about the shunning of refugees? What about the forced separation of babies from their mothers? What about the hollowing out of programs that feed hungry kids? What about the lifelong incarceration of nonviolent offenders and the wrongful execution of the innocent? What about the Darwinist health-care system that prices out sick people and denies treatment to poor people and produces the developed world’s highest maternal mortality rate? What about the fact that, in 2020, guns had become the number one cause of death for children in the United States?

When you believe in something literally, through your own faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes it's sophistries seriously, but only it's practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people, who take them in earnest, sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, to much faith never brings anything good- and not only to political and religious systems but even to our own system, the one we used to convince the girl.

Thank you, and thank you for being a constant in me and my baby girl’s life. No matter how inconsistent my dating life is, or how distant my father and brother are with her, you’ve always been the one man I could count on to be there for her. I’ll forever be grateful for that.

I take it that it is normal for an adolescent to behave for a considerable length of time in an inconsistent and unpredictable manner; to fight her impulses and accept them; to love her parents and to hate them; to revolt against them and be dependent on them; to be deeply ashamed to acknowledge her mother before others and, unexpectedly, to desire heart-to-heart talks with her; to thrive on imitation of others while searching unceasingly for her own identity; to be more idealistic, artistic, generous, and unselfish than she will ever be again, but also the opposite: self-centered, egoistic, calculating. Such fluctuations and extreme opposites would be deemed highly abnormal at any other time of life. At this time they may signify no more than that an adult structure of personality takes a long time to emerge, that the individual in question does not cease to experiment and is in no hurry to close down on possibilities.

Let me say at once that I am no advocate for a foolish cosmopolitanism. I believe that a man must be a good patriot before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average man who protests that his international feeling swamps his national feeling, that he does not care for his country because he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not care to be a citizen of any one country, because he is the citizen of the world, is in fact usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, if a man can view his own country and all other countries from the same level with tepid indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his wife and mother. However broad and deep a man’s sympathies, however intense his activities, he need have no fear that they will be cramped by love of his native land. Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not wish to do good outside of his native land. On the contrary, just as I think that the man who loves his family is more apt to be a good neighbor than the man who does not, so I think that the most useful member of the family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from patriotism being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of other nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of national honor as a gentleman of his own honor, will be careful to see that the nations neither inflect nor suffer wrong, just as a gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer others to wrong him. I do not for one moment admit that a man should act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealing with other nations, any more than he should act deceitfully in his dealings as a private citizen with other private citizens. I do not for one moment admit that a nation should treat other nations in a different spirit from that in which an honorable man would treat other men.

I think Matthew wanted to protect you, even though being in a same-sex relationship is nothing to be ashamed of.” “It’s a sin.” “Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say homosexuality is a sin.” “In the Old Testament—” “The Old Testament is crap. It’s full of misogyny, torture and inconsistencies. Jesus preached about love. All love.

I loved her as the first among equals, with the same inconsistency with which I loved all the other women after the death of my bride, as a passerby who at any moment—without explanation or apology—could vanish.

Our feelings shouldn’t direct our actions and our lives. Our actions should be driven by our hopes, values, and aspirations; above all, they should be driven by our essential purpose. People who are driven by feelings are dangerous. They are undisciplined, inconsistent, and unreliable. But people who are driven by their values and a clear understanding of their essential purpose are to be treasured. They are disciplined, consistent, and reliable.

A Christian “loves” a sinner because God “loves” the sinner and one must follow suit. Love to the evangelical is simply a willingness to put up with a sinner in order to obey the commission to preach the gospel. Thus the fundamentalist can say, without noticing the inconsistency, “I love the sinner, but not the sin.” To the uninitiated, this is a strange kind of love, that tries to divorce persons from their activities and then judges those activities with amazing ferocity.

It’s Already Broken Everything in this world is subject to change and renewal. We are a flow of yin and yang, of sense experiences and dreams, an ever-changing river of feelings and thoughts. Consistency is the realm of the press release; inconsistency is the stuff of life. Relax. Hold the paradox of change and eternity with grace rather than judgment or fear. Then you will see that in this imperfect world, there is another kind of joy. We have the ability to be perfectly ourselves. We have the laughter of the wise, the freedom to choose our spirit no matter the circumstances. We have the freedom to love anyway. To love amid the glorious, terrifying, and unshakable beauty of it all. We have the wisdom and courage to care sweetly in this fleeting, evanescent play of days.

The origins of anxious attachment often trace back to early relationships. Consider a child with a parent who alternates between warmth and attentiveness and occasional distance or preoccupation. This inconsistency breeds uncertainty, prompting the child to be perpetually on alert, striving to secure consistent love and attention. As this child grows into adulthood and forms relationships, this anxiety persists, leading to a constant need to decipher their standing in relationships.

Some people are like chameleons, changing their colors to blend in with their surroundings. They shower you with love and affection when no one is watching, but as soon as their family and friends appear, they transform into strangers, leaving you feeling invisible and ignored. Remember, true love and friendship are consistent and unconditional, not situational and convenient." This quote highlights the inconsistency and hypocrisy of people who only show love and care when it's convenient for them, but abandon and ignore you when it's no longer beneficial to their social status or relationships with others.

But where do these patterns stem from? Understanding the root of codependent behaviors often requires a journey back in time. Many individuals with codependent tendencies have experienced childhood traumas or grown up in environments where their emotional needs were inconsistently met. For instance, a child with a caregiver who was sometimes loving but other times neglectful or abusive might grow up with an anxious attachment style, always on the lookout for signs of love or rejection.

Whitman’s reticence, or outright deceptiveness, later in his life on the subject was inconsistent, to say the least. It’s often been pointed out that male love, not necessarily homosexual love, was accepted during that time in a way not many decades later it wasn’t: men embracing, kissing, calling each “lover,” was apparently commonplace. In fact, when Leaves of Grass was “banned in Boston,” it was because of the passages of heterosexual eroticism, not the portions that could be construed as being homosexual. There’s no question that Whitman later on did clearly want to temper the frankness that informed so much of the passages of homosexual experience that he’d recorded during those first years of the poems, but the words are there.

This inconsistency means that, as parents, emotionally immature people may be either loving or detached, depending on their mood. Their children feel fleeting moments of connection with them but don’t know when or under what conditions their parent might be emotionally available again. This sets up what behavioral psychologists call an intermittent reward situation, meaning that getting a reward for your efforts is possible but completely unpredictable.

who will love me enough to spend their energy getting close to someone so inconsistent

When the Bible is understood in its literary and historical context; errors, contradictions, and inconsistencies pose no threat to spirituality, whether that spirituality is theistic, non-theistic, or even explicitly Jesus-centered. The graver threat to what Christians call godliness may be fundamentalism - religion that flows from literalism and fear, religion based on anachronism and law. Fundamentalism teachers, in effect, that the tattered musings of our ancestors, those human words that so poorly represent the content of human thinking, somehow adequately describe God. Fundamentalism offers identity, security, and simplicity, but at a price: by binding believers to the moral imitations and cultural trappings of the Ancients, it precludes a deeper embrace of goodness, love, and truth - in other words, of Divinity.

soul is taken as a subject matter to receive in the future life the reward or the punishment from God for our actions in this life; but the very idea of eternal punishment is inconsistent with the boundless love of God.

In the shadows, we all are the same. Dark, inconsistent and indifferent. And if someone loves you dark, he loves all of you. Because when it is dark, the shadow is within you. It is the light that differentiates us with an identity. It is the light that marks our shadows. Light never guarantees love.

Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive

Sports are among the increasingly rare moments of totally unscripted television. The human element informs everything, in confounding and inconsistent ways. And since these are only games, and since all games are ultimately exhibitions, the stakes are always low. Any opinion is viable. Any argument can be made. It’s a free, unreal reality. Yet everything about the trajectory of analytics pushes us away from this. The goal of analytics is to quantify the non-negotiable value of every player and to mathematically dictate which strategic decisions present the highest likelihood of success; the ultimate goal, it seems, would be to predict the exact score of every game before it happens and to never be surprised by anything. I don’t see this as an improvement. The problem with sports analytics is not that they are flawed; the problem is that they are accurate, to the benefit of almost no one. It’s being right for the sake of being right, in a context where there was never any downside to being wrong. The fact that my twelve-year-old self would have loved this only strengthens my point.

Man may never stop being inconsistent. For his desires and passions moult consistently Husbands, be aware that your wife will always be inconsistent. The woman should know that He will never cease to amaze her Hence, tie not your love to your characters. Let your souls cleave. Still he who has erred should be open to corrections for such things can also cleave a non-crossable path between them.

Ultimately, we have to know the heart of the Father based on what we see in the Son, not by shadowy Old Testament passages that, on the surface, seem to show us a different version. Only Christ is the “exact representation” of His Father’s nature and the “visible image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15, NLT). We have, what Paul calls “a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:24). You will fry your brain trying to patch up the apparent inconsistencies between God’s two résumés in the Old and New Testaments. So theologize all you want … at the end of the day, I would recommend you just give up and look at Jesus. All of the Father’s loving plan for humanity is wrapped up in Him – the Author and Finisher of our faith.

It’s simple: Proverbs tells us that animal cruelty is inconsistent with Christian belief.” -Shenita Etwaroo

There is a taboo in the psychology world, to ask a therapist what their cure rate is. Though the therapist knows what the person means in asking, and could give an answer, they typically dislike the question, because it is a way of measuring the psychologist on something that depends ultimately on their patients. To add to that the therapist doesn’t typically see a struggle in their patient’s life not being a struggle, but that a person gets better at not letting it get to them. I would say that our experience in life will always be in reference to our weaknesses, but that isn’t a bad thing. Our weaknesses plague us until we decide to really face them, and then they become strengths as we change them. I think it is a matter of maturing, and not curing in psychopathology, we’re naïve not broken. Alcoholism for instance, once it is overcome, the person doesn’t forget all the intricacies of the cost-benefit of alcohol once they become sober. They still know exactly what problems alcohol seemed to solve, and when faced with those problems, they cannot completely exclude it as a possible remedy. Why? For example, I personally don’t drink alcohol, but I know many people who see it as a normal part of their life, and have set what they feel are appropriate bounds for its use. It is a lot easier for me, who has not experienced any benefits, but knows several disadvantages, to not see alcohol as worth it. However, similarly in my life, fully knowing both the advantages of things like soda, fast food, sleeping in, not exercising and whatever else, in the cost benefit analysis, they sometimes still win. Every asset has associated risks, and when making a decision, while trying to optimize value, we are not picking between correct or incorrect, or right or wrong, but cost vs benefit in safe bet vs the risky bet. Whether I can study or write better while drinking a caffeinated soda has yielded inconsistent results, but sometimes the gamble seems worth it, however drinking a soda before going to the gym has yielded consistently negative results. This is the process of maturity, and the only way to help someone mature faster, is to help them remember and process the data they have already gathered or are currently gathering. One thing that slows down this process is false information. Many cases of grave disability due to psychopathology are caused because of the burden of an overwhelming amount of counterproductive information, and limited resources of productive information.

The most difficult work of leadership involves learning to experience distress without numbing yourself. The virtue of a sacred heart lies in the courage to maintain your innocence and wonder, your doubt and curiosity, and your compassion and love even through your darkest, most difficult moments. Leading with an open heart means you could be at your lowest point, abandoned by your people and entirely powerless, yet remain receptive to the full range of human emotions without going numb, striking back, or engaging in some other defense. In one moment you may experience total despair, but in the next, compassion and forgiveness. You may even experience such vicissitudes in the same moment and hold those inconsistent feelings in tension with one another. Maybe you have. A sacred heart allows you to feel, hear, and diagnose, even in the midst of your mission, so that you can accurately gauge different situations and respond appropriately. Otherwise, you simply cannot accurately assess the impact of the losses you are asking people to sustain, or comprehend the reasons behind their anger. Without keeping your heart open, it becomes difficult, perhaps impossible, to fashion the right response and to succeed or come out whole.

The unregenerate human heart is, perhaps,the most inconsistent thing in all nature; and in nothing is it more capricious than in the manifestations of its passions; and in no passion is it so fantastic as in that which it miscalls love, but which is really often only appetite.

I feel, my love. Simply not in the same way you do. And thank heavens for that, because you are quite an embarrassment at times. Your inconsistent and flailing passions will no longer be a concern.

Inconsistent Christian living leads to lack of assurance. At least, it leads to a lack of true assurance (although, alas, not necessarily to a lack of self-assurance). Where there is no actual obedience to Christ, there will be no evidence of present love for him as Savior. Where

A truly gracious, praying frame (wherein we pray always) is utterly inconsistent with the love of or reserve for any sin. To

Our approach to God is conditioned by our concept of Him, whether accurate or distorted. ~Graham Kendrick Whether we realize it or not, many of us attribute negative human characteristics to God, our Heavenly Father.  We confess 1 John 4:8 that tells us that God is Love, but do we really believe it? We know human love, and we expect it may disappoint us because it is often inconsistent and conditional.  God’s love, on the other hand, is unchanging and unconditional.  He is good all the time.  His love never changes.  He does not stop caring.  His mercies never end. He is always on our side.  There is nothing we can do that can change His love for us or make Him stop loving and caring for us. If we really believe the truth about God and renounce all the lies about Him, we will be filled with indescribable peace.  We will be aware of His abiding presence and know that He is always with us.  We will be able to trust in His faithfulness. We will feel secure in His love.  We will know that we are valuable and accepted by Him.  We will live life with purpose and true joy. 

Control is as essential to adults with Asperger syndrome as air to breathe. Keeping control is the only way they feel they can survive in a complex world full of mixed emotions and inconsistent feelings, all of which are a complete mystery to them. They have to try and interpret a language they have no knowledge of; there are no guidebooks on the unspoken word.

A Prayer about Normal Trials Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:3–7) Heavenly Father, today I need a fresh supply of persevering grace, for the “all kinds of trials” of life are sapping my spirit and weighing me down. I need to be reassured that you are refining my faith and not just ignoring me. I feel tired, weary, disillusioned, and a simmering anger is emerging in my spirit. A part of me just says, “Buck up, you woozy whiner!” But I think the gospel offers a better way. Honestly, I’m embarrassed to even speak of my trials, because I didn’t go to sleep hungry or thirsty last night, I didn’t hear gunfire echoing through my neighborhood, there’s no plague pillaging my community, I don’t live with the fear of my children being sold into slavery, and my government isn’t threatening the exercise of my faith. These are realities with which many of my brothers and sisters in Christ live on a daily basis. For me, it’s more like swimming in a pool of tiny piranha just nibbling away at my joy, energy, and peace. Please give me grace perfectly suited for the demands and the dailiness of normal life—in this body with aging joints and a leaking memory; among fellow sinner-saints who, like me, love inconsistently; in unresolved stories from the past and present of brokenness and weakness; in the face of minor injustices and a lack of common mercies; when cars, plumbing, air conditioners, and other stuff just break; when people don’t say “thank you,” people drive like maniacs, and pets pee on the carpet. Lord, in all these things, I want your hand and heart to be at work. I want to know what a man of faith looks like, not just when I am praying for daily bread or facing a firing squad but when I’m living out the implications of the gospel in the daily messiness of normal life. I pray in Jesus’ tender name. Amen.

Of course, there was more to raising a puppy than basic training. If I had learned nothing else in the Dog Project, it was how to communicate better. Dogs come ready-made to soak up the social rules of the household. It was our human inconsistencies that made it difficult for them.

The transitory and random quality of emotions (“Well, that’s just the way I feel about it”) is deeply connected to, and largely the cause of, random engagement of one’s values and priorities. This very randomness and inconsistency is actually the cause of deeper suffering, primarily through the accumulation of addictions and the indulgence in reactions that are disproportionately small in comparison to what is really being sacrificed for them. Curiously—and a major theme in my own work over decades—the casual association of emotions to love is part of the insanity in all this.

Rogers (1959) maintained that most parents provide their children with conditional positive regard—the sense that the child is valued and loved only when she behaves in a way that is acceptable to others. The problem with conditional positive regard is that it causes the child to learn to deny or distort her genuine feelings. For example, if little Amy’s parents scold and reject her when she expresses angry feelings, her strong need for positive regard will cause her to deny her anger, even when it’s justifi ed or appropriate.Eventually, Amy’s self-concept will become so distorted that genuine feelings of anger are denied because they are inconsistent with her self-concept as “a good girl who never gets angry. ” Because of the fear of losing positive regard, she cuts herself off from her true feelings

You're not here to be perfect or to set a good example or to please anyone. You were born to love & enjoy your ordinary, peculiar, inconsistent, good-enough self.

It is to be feared that there are some who profess religion with an appearance of strictness, who never separate themselves from all other occasions, to meditate on Christ and his glory; and yet, with a strange inconsistency of apprehensions, they will profess that they desire nothing more than to behold his glory in heaven for ever. But it is evident, even in the light of reason, that these things are irreconcilable. It is impossible that he who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ here in this world, who labours not to behold it by faith as it is revealed in the Scripture, should ever have any real gracious desire to behold it in heaven. They may love and desire the fruition of their own imaginations; — they cannot do so of the glory of Christ, whereof they are ignorant, and wherewith they are unacquainted. It is, therefore, to be lamented that men can find time for, and have inclinations to think and meditate on, other things, that may be earthly and vain; but have neither heart, nor inclination, nor leisure, to meditate on this glorious object. What is the faith and love which such men profess? How will they find themselves deceived in the issue!

Fight with them, humor them, call them on their inconsistencies. Love them, make mistakes, and love them again. That’s what families did.

Most people don’t really understand why live makes us vulnerable, or open. It’s because love, to be fully expressed and through your being, begins to eliminate all the fears, all the insecurities and all the anxieties that are inconsistent with itself.

Most people don’t really understand why love makes us vulnerable, or open. It’s because love, to be fully expressed and through your being, begins to eliminate all the fears, all the insecurities and all the anxieties that are inconsistent with itself.

Inconsistency isn’t the only way parents make themselves unavailable. Sometimes parents remove themselves entirely and are physically or emotionally unavailable.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

what if i’ve already been with them and ruined it who will love me enough to spend their energy getting close to someone so inconsistent

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem." Why should an all-loving father lead his child into temptation? Why must he be implored not to? At that moment in Ursula's drafty chamber, Celia renounced God. She would cease to worry about religion. She would conform to any outward acts which seemed expedient at the time, and she would guide her own life as she saw fit. Her own will and desires should be her sole criteria. All else was inconsistency or downright lies. And nothing was worth suffering for.

And when the Sadness catches up, tracks you down—when you return home one day, arms full of groceries, to find the Sadness sitting at the kitchen table, casually reading a paper as if it never left, eating a muffin as if this were all perfectly natural—when the Sadness looks up at you and says, “What did you think, buddy? What did you think was going to happen?”—when the Sadness smirks at you and says with a wry insistence that unravels you in an instant, “This is the real love story here, buddy, you and me”—when the Sadness reiterates that, sure, certain smaller sadnesses dull, but this Sadness, the Sadness, has seen you through it all; this Sadness, the Sadness, has never strayed from your side, not really, and why would you want it to now, this epitome of stability in an inconsistent world?—when that happens, you can put your groceries down and walk back out the door and close the door behind you.

He/She Gets Angry When Questioned Where you were until now just riles him/her up like the Hulk. He/she hates being questioned about their whereabouts. Their stories won’t match, their tone and pitch will change paces and they will try to avoid talking about it altogether. He/She Stays Up Late A sudden shift in their bedtime routine indicates an affair. Cheating partners consider a partner’s sleeping time as the safest to text or message their new love interest. His/Her Stories Seem Inconsistent Sometimes they won’t say a word about where they were and sometimes they would give away too much. When asked if a friend was there with them too, they will not only confirm their presence but also tell you about all the other people who were there, including someone’s pets. Too much information is another sign that there is something fishy going on or else they won’t be this particular about it. There Is No Intimacy Not just physically, but you also find them emotionally distant from you. Even when they are with you, their mind doesn’t seem to be. They have also lost interest in sex and always make excuses like being tired, not in the mood, had chili beef in the office and feeling bloated, etc. They Never Put Their Phone Down If they seem to be stuck with their phone all the time and even taking it with them when taking the trash or going for a bath, it is a sure tell sign that there is something in that phone they don’t want you to know about. He/She Pays Attention to Himself/Herself It’s always appraisable that your spouse dresses up for you, but if they are suddenly worried about how they look naked or whether they should get a bikini wax or not, it’s probably an effort to look good for someone other than you. You Only Get One-Word Answers from Them You sense a barrier in your communications because they have resorted to a yes, no, or hmm at most. When partners lose interest in their spouses or are having an affair, they fear to communicate too much. They want to play it carefully and not say or do something that would get them caught. They Are Spending Too Much If all of a sudden you notice too many credit card bills and receipts in their pockets and yet you don’t receive any supposed gifts, then someone else is on the receiving end of them. When asked, they will always have an explanation over how they had to lend some money to a friend, how they had to pitch in the last minute for an office party for a guy’s farewell or how they had to pay a medical bill of some relative. He/He’s Doing Things They Hated Before Remember the time you asked them to go golfing with you and they flat out refused and joked about how it’s an old man’s sport? Look who is all polo shirts and hats now! If their interests have changed all of a sudden and they are doing stuff they hated, know something is up.

There are some fingers in my inherited Christian liturgy and language that just don’t point, no matter how much I drench them in silence. But in these cases it’s not because they are overly anthropomorphic or suggestive of dualism. It’s because they’re wrong, or false, or inconsistent with the message of Jesus. I’m speaking especially of patriarchal language that so stresses the power of God that it puts God’s love in jeopardy. So when liturgical prayers or hymns present me with a God who has enemies whom he vanquishes, or a God who gets so angry he damns or destroys, I just clam up, both spontaneously and in protest. And as much as I can, and as sensitively as I can, I let my fellow parishioners and the pastor know of my discomfort and protest. It takes time to change the language of institutions and tradition.

Due to their history of unpredictable and inconsistent love, they can have considerable challenges with trusting that their partners truly love them. They may frequently fall into self-critical and self-doubting loops, questioning if they are truly worthy enough to receive their partner’s love.

The pragmatic mood is already visible in the Odyssey. The poem opens with Odysseus living on a remote island ruled by a nymph who offers him immortality if he will remain as her consort. A bit surprisingly to anyone steeped in the orthodox Western religio-philosophical-scientific tradition, he refuses, preferring mortality and a dangerous struggle to regain his position as the king of a small, rocky island and be reunited with his son, aging wife, and old father. He turns down what the orthodox tradition says we should desire above all else, the peace that comes from overcoming the transience and vicissitudes of mortality, whether that peace takes the form of personal immortality or of communing with eternal verities, moral or scientific—in either case ushering us to the still point of the turning world. Odysseus prefers going to arriving, struggle to rest, exploring to achieving—curiosity is one of his most marked traits—and risk to certainty. The Odyssey situates Calypso’s enchanted isle in the far west, the land of the setting sun, and describes the isle in images redolent of death. In contrast, Odysseus’s arrival at his own island, far to the east, a land of the rising sun, is depicted in imagery suggestive of rebirth. Another thing that is odd about the protagonist, and the implicit values, of the Odyssey from the orthodox standpoint is that Odysseus is not a conventional hero, the kind depicted in the Iliad. He is strong, brave, and skillful in fighting, but he is no Achilles (who had a divine mother) or even Ajax; and he relies on guile, trickery, and outright deception to a degree inconsistent with what we have come to think of as heroism or with its depiction in the Iliad. His dominant trait is skill in coping with his environment rather than ability to impose himself upon it by brute force. He is the most intelligent person in the Odyssey but his intelligence is thoroughly practical, adaptive. Unlike Achilles in the Iliad, who is given to reflection, notably about the heroic ethic itself, Odysseus is pragmatic. He is an instrumental reasoner rather than a speculative one. He is also, it is true, distinctly pious, a trait that the Odyssey harps on and modern readers tend to overlook. But piety in Homeric religion is a coping mechanism. Homeric religion is proto-scientific; it is an attempt to understand and control the natural world. The gods personify nature and men manipulate it by “using” the gods in the proper way. One sacrifices to them in order to purchase their intervention in one’s affairs—this is religion as magic, the ancestor of modern technology—and also to obtain clues to what is going to happen next; this is the predictive use of religion and corresponds to modern science. The gods’ own rivalries, mirroring (in Homeric thought, personifying or causing) the violent clash of the forces of nature, prevent human beings from perfecting their control over the environment. By the same token, these rivalries underscore the dynamic and competitive character of human existence and the unrealism of supposing that peace and permanence, a safe and static life, are man’s lot. Odysseus’s piety has nothing to do with loving God as creator or redeemer, or as the name, site, metaphysical underwriter, or repository of the eternal or the unchanging, or of absolutes (such as omniscience and omnipotence) and universals (numbers, words, concepts). Odysseus’s piety is pragmatic because his religion is naturalistic—is simply the most efficacious means known to his society for controlling the environment, just as science and technology are the most efficacious means by which modern people control their environment.

THE MULADHARA PERSONALITY Someone ruled by the Muladhara chakra is often confronted with life lessons about security—or rather, the desire to be physically and financially secure. The behavior of these people is often compared to that of ants, which ardently work for their queen. Their sense of self is often based on gaining approval or following the laws. Thus, for these people, their lessons are often about confronting and freeing themselves from greed, lust, sensuality, and anger. Like the earth element, Muladhara personalities are physically strong and productive. They often win competitively because of their drive and strength. THE SVADHISTHANA PERSONALITY A Svadhisthana individual is most likely devoted to the higher things in life—art, music, poetry, and the jewels of creativity. While beautiful, this lushness also presents temptation away from the spiritual path, with the major diversions involving sexuality, sensuality, and indulgence. A second-chakra person is likely to experience mood swings or emotional inconsistency. Desire is rooted in the second chakra, and can lead to love and the enjoyment of pleasures, but also to frivolity or just plain selfishness. The Svadhisthana path is often called the way of the butterfly, for life is full of so many joys, it can be hard to remain in one place for long. It is important to develop discipline to balance the compulsion to experience. THE MANIPURA PERSONALITY This chakra embraces the planes of karma (the past), dharma (one’s purpose), and the celestial plane. Its focus is to atone for one’s past errors. Manipura is the fire chakra, and people who dwell here tend to be fiery; the key to joy lies in the application of the heat. Is it used to avoid the past—or to work toward a positive future? Third-chakra people tend to be temperamental but are also able to commit to their goals. They are often driven by the need to be recognized and to succeed. The chief issue to confront is ego. By confronting issues of pride and control, the Manipura person is able to embrace the best features of its major animal, the ram. The ram can walk nimbly into the highest of mountaintops; so can the third-chakra individual. THE ANAHATA PERSONALITY When the lotus unfolds, the twelve petals invite the movement of energy in twelve directions. This activates twelve mental capabilities: hope, anxiety, endeavor, possessiveness, arrogance, incompetence, discrimination, egoism, lustfulness, fraudulence, indecision, and repentance (as described in the Mahanirvana Tantra, a detailing of Tantric rituals and practices, edited for Western audiences by Arthur Avalon (pen name of Sir John Woodroffe) in 1913).25 Twelve divinities in the form of sound assist with the process involved in confronting, dealing with, and healing one’s way through these twelve qualities. A heart-based person might find him- or herself greatly challenged by the so-called negative qualities that stir in the heart. However,

It’s common to experience consistent instability where we become accustomed to breaking up and getting back together again, each time restimulating our abandonment wounds and reinforcing our beliefs that love equals inconsistency and unpredictability.

Patterns thrive on your consistency, so if you want to modify an unhealthy pattern, you will need to become inconsistent, at least until you can become consistent with something that is much healthier and more aligned to you.

When Mr. Ashley Sampson suggested to me the writing of this book, I asked leave to be allowed to write it anonymously, since, if I were to say what I really thought about pain, I should be forced to make statements of such apparent fortitude that they would become ridiculous if anyone knew who made them. Anonymity was rejected as inconsistent with the series; but Mr. Sampson pointed out that I could write a preface explaining that I did not live up to my own principles! This exhilarating programme I am now carrying out. Let me confess at once, in the words of good Walter Hilton, that throughout this book “I feel myself so far from true feeling of that I speak, that I can naught else but cry mercy and desire after it as I may”.1 Yet for that very reason there is one criticism which cannot be brought against me. No one can say “He jests at scars who never felt a wound”, for I have never for one moment been in a state of mind to which even the imagination of serious pain was less than intolerable. If any man is safe from the danger of under-estimating this adversary, I am that man. I must add, too, that the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

It is said that baby busters do not want to be lectured; they expect to be entertained. They prefer videos to books; many of them have not learned to think in a linear fashion; they put more store than they recognize in mere impressions. As a result, they can live with all sorts of logical inconsistencies and be totally unaware of them. (How many times have I tried to explain to a university-age young person who has made some profession of faith that it is fundamentally inconsistent to claim to know and love the God of the Bible, while cohabiting with someone? They can see they are doing what the Bible forbids, but when you press them to articulate the contradiction they scuttle into inconsistency without embarrassment.) They are cynical, not idealistic. They vehemently deny the existence of absolutes: that is their one absolute. Many have never experienced principled morality in the home. They have been brought up without a coherent vision or value system, and they have embraced pragmatism with a vengeance.

it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate from his love. Nor is it inconsistent with his holiness and perfection, to manifest his favor to such poor defiled creatures, or to admit them to communion with himself; for they are not considered as in themselves, but as one with Jesus, to whom they have fled for refuge, and by whom they live a life of faith.28

In response, Tertullian pointed out what an emasculated, inconsistent figure Marcion’s god was. This supposed deity: plainly judges evil by not willing it, and condemns it by prohibiting it; while on the other hand, he acquits it by not avenging it, and lets it go free by not punishing it. What a prevaricator of truth is such a god! What a dissembler to his own decision! Afraid to condemn what he really condemns, afraid to hate what he does not love, permitting that to be done which he does not allow, choosing to indicate what he dislikes rather than deeply examine it!

Green Card Immigration and Nationalization by Green Card Organization One of the most highly sought-after visa programs ran anywhere in the world is the United State Green Card Lottery program, and for most people around the world, it is a symbol of their dreams come through - one day, to move to America. For this reason, the United State Green Card program is always filled with millions of applicants fighting for a Green Card. However, out of all these people, only about 50,000 people to make the cut yearly. Migration of people from one country to another is mainly for some reasons which range from economic motivations to reuniting with loved ones living abroad. Often in most scenario, for an immigrant to be a citizen of the new country, it is required for such to renounce their homeland and permanently leave their home country. Under the United States legal system, naturalization is the process through which an immigrant acquires U.S. citizenship. This is a major requirement for someone who was not born a citizen of the U.S. and or did not acquire citizenship shortly after birth but wishes to acquire citizenship of the united states. A person who becomes a U.S. citizen through naturalization enjoys all the freedoms and protections of citizenship just like every other citizens of the States, such as the right to vote and be voted for, to hold political offices and register, the right to hold and use a U.S. passport, and the right to serve as a jury in a court of law among other numerous benefits. Year in, year out, people apply from different nations of the world for the Green Card program. However, many people are disqualified from the DV lottery program, because they unsuccessfully submit their applications in a manner that does not comply with the United States governments requirements. It should be noted that The United States of America stands with a core principle of diversity and of giving every different person irrespective of background, race or color the same chances at success and equal opportunities. In order to forestall the rate at which intending immigrants were denied the Green Card, The Green Card Organization was established for the sole aim of providing help for those who desire to immigrate and provide them the best shot at success, and throughout the last 8 years of the existence of the Green Card Organization, the organization have helped countless number of people make their dream come through (their dream of being a part of our incredible country) GOD BLESS AMERICA! It is important to note that a small amount of mistake ranging from inconsistent information supplied or falsified identity in the application forms a major cause for automatic disqualification, therefore, it is crucial and important to make sure that the Green Card application is submitted correctly and timely. A notable remark that ought to be nurtured in the mind of every applicant is that the United States do not take a No for any mistake on your application. Therefore, the Green Card Organization is here to help simplify the processes involved for you and guarantee that your application will be submitted correctly and guarantee you 100% participation. A task that since the inception of the organization, has been their priority and has achieved her success in it at its apex.

The author believes that the infant’s attachment to the mother develops naturally as a result of having its need for love-food adequately met. However, to the extent that the care the child receives is inadequate or inconsistent, unnecessary anxiety and frustration are aroused. Then the anxiety that the infant experiences at the realization of separateness is compounded by the pain and anxiety of not having its basic needs satisfied. When emotional pain is very intense, the child’s attachment shifts to a powerful fantasy bond with the mother. It is important to emphasize that anxiety reactions do not necessarily diminish in intensity as the child matures. In anticipating the breaking of bonds, the adult at times still anticipates being overwhelmed by separation anxiety. At

Essayist and poets share many of the same alluring keystrokes, even if they are rather rabid about asserting their notable pedigree differences. The writer and the poet use the juxtaposition of words to create a lovely portrayal of the touches of sweetness and the bitter edges of life. By doing so, they clarify and affirm the bewildering array of inconsistencies, ironies, absurdities, delights, and enigmas that describe what it entails to be fully alive. Each artistic form serves the same essential purpose, which is to investigate, ponder, and explain the bouquets of comedy and tragedy, covenants of love and mercy, and stones of anger and hatred that compulsory merger contextualize human life. By linking words that explore the chaos and silence within all of nature, essayists and poets’ labor serves to uplift the author and inspire their brethren.

The artifacts are often what people latch on to most in a church, though they are expressions of so much beneath the surface. Imagine growing up in a healthy church. The church is generous, kind, nurturing, full of truth, and loving. You grow up loving your church. This church happens to have some programs that have deeply impacted you. Maybe it was a children’s program or a great worship ministry. In your mind, even without realizing it, your affinity for belief of the church is connected to the visible expressions of the church. Now, years long past that first church experience, artifacts that seem nearest to those original expressions will just feel right. Because of this, people are often really attached to the artifacts. While changing actual beliefs is the most difficult task, changing artifacts often creates the most pain. In order to understand culture, it is critical to recognize the differences in the layers. It is faster to correct unwanted behaviors or artifacts in a culture, but only addressing behavior is insufficient. Unless all the layers of culture are addressed, other deviant behaviors will pop up in the place of recently addressed ones. This game of behavioral whack-a-mole becomes an endless cycle of battling unnamed enemies underneath the surface. The unwanted behaviors are symptoms; an unhealthy culture is the sickness. Wherever we find stubborn sticking points in a church culture, there is always inconsistency between the actual beliefs and values and the stated ones. If there are deeply held assumptions and beliefs within the culture that are incompatible with the desired future that leaders are leading toward, then the beliefs beneath the surface must be addressed. If our churches are going to have strong cultures, there must be actual beliefs driven deeply into the church that are articulated and then expressed in artifacts. There will be harmony and congruence between all three layers of culture. The church won’t settle for mere alignment between the articulated values and the artifacts. The leaders will push for the actual beliefs to be deeply rooted in the church. The true beliefs and assumptions of a church culture are not only written on signs, posters, and e-mail footers. The truly embraced convictions of a local church are written in the lives of believers as they interact with one another and the world. Church leaders often

For churches that observe behaviors from the list on the right, this is a strong indication that the associated convictions are not consistently held within the body. Leaders are often surprised when these deviant behaviors manifest, especially in a church with strong, biblical doctrinal and mission statements. We, as leaders, often assume that the things we hold dear transfer by osmosis to our church members. Sadly, it just doesn’t work this way. For example, many evangelical churches pride themselves on having a robust theology and conviction about the immanent return of Christ. And, if a majority of members in one of these churches was asked how they should live in light of that conviction, many would say something like, “I should live ready for His return any day.” Yet the same church may demonstrate consistently a lack of urgency. How can this be? Simple. People don’t always really believe what they say they believe. There is often disparity between actual beliefs and articulated ones. These cultural inconsistencies are pervasive and no church is immune. At Austin Stone, where Kevin serves as lead pastor, there was a time at the start of the church when this truth became so clear. For years, the leadership team talked about the call of every Christian to be a part of the mission of God. Yet, when looking deeply at the church, something was not quite right. The worship services were growing, but impact in the city was not. The team knew it needed more than just a sermon, more than just a class or a strategy. The church needed a cultural change. The Austin Stone was certain that God was calling her to be a church for the city of Austin, but teaching a list of “dos and don’ts” wasn’t going to get her there.4 The seeds for a city-loving, God-honoring church were in there, but until God altered some of the fundamental beliefs as a local church, nothing would have changed. The church needed to really believe the urgency of the mission, needed to really believe that the Lord was inviting His people to join Him on mission in all spheres of life. Culture change is key.