Jacob's Ladder Quotes

Life isn't a straightforward climb up the ladder. It can take a few slips to really gain perspective.

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn 'em all away. But they're not punishing you,' he said. 'They're freeing your soul. If your frightened of dying, and your holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth.

Whether our days trip along like the angels mounting on Jacob's ladder to heaven or grind along like the wagons that Joseph sent for Jacob, they are in each case ordered by God's mercy.

I have always unswervingly held, that God, in our civilizing world, manifests Himself not in the miracles of biblical age, but in progress. It is progress that leads humanity up the ladder towards the God-head. No Jacob's ladder this, no, but rather Civilization's Ladder, if you will.

That was Genus Homo, species Whowantstofuckus, subspecies Headup Hisassia. Let us move on to the cages with the interesting animals. Jacob to Ben describing JT

And with the clumsy tools of jealousy and desire, he was trying to create the spell that is ethereal and delicate as the dust on a moth's wing

Individually the disciple and friend of Jesus who has learned to work shoulder to shoulder with his or her Lord stands in this world as a point of contact between heaven and earth, a kind of Jacob’s ladder by which the angels of God may ascend from and descend into human life. Thus the disciple stands as an envoy or a receiver by which the kingdom of God is conveyed into every quarter of human affairs.

Maybe she was a little dark but she sort of sparkled with it. Jacob about Muse

I didn't despise myself for being who I was, and I never would. I wouldn't allow anyone to make me feel bad about that. That was a line I could draw in the sand.

As soon as he had disappeared Deborah made for the trees fringing the lawn, and once in the shrouded wood felt herself safe. She walked softly along the alleyway to the pool. The late sun sent shafts of light between the trees and onto the alleyway, and a myriad insects webbed their way in the beams, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder. But were they insects, wondered Deborah, or particles of dust, or even split fragments of light itself, beaten out and scattered by the sun? It was very quiet. The woods were made for secrecy. They did not recognise her as the garden did. ("The Pool")

But so far he's stayed so deep in the closet, they're going to crown him king of Narnia.

That?" I glanced back to the door where JT had disappeared. "That was Genus Homo, species Whowantstofuckus, subspecies Closeted Headup Hisassia. Let us move on to the cages with the interesting animals." --Jacob "Yasha" Livingston

The kiss tasted of bitter sleep, the sourness of the wine. Something brought by each of them.

To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. —QUENTIN CRISP

And these are called a Jacob’s ladder,

Her neural pattern must remain intact for the time being, as it was still necessary that she stay herself. Changes to her identity would eventually become inevitable, but those would have to wait until she no longer needed the cloak of who she was.

You see, passion alone is a blind power. It’s fire without light. It just ignites whatever it touches, good or evil, truth or lies, unselfishness or selfishness, love or lust.

Jacob’s Ladder represents a bridge between Jacob’s secular mindset to make it in this world and the reality of Heavenly things.

Memory is a spiderweb. It hangs in a corner and collects dust. Until you need it to catch a fly.

If Jacob's ladder reached all the way to heaven, so, too, did ours.

His desire re-created her until she lost all vestiges of the old Jenny, even the girl who had met him at the train that morning. Silently, as the night hours went by, he molded her over into an image of love - an image that would endure as long as love itself, or even longer - not to perish till he could say, 'I never really loved her.

Jacob’s ladder could be touching the soil of this very road. Where you are walking, angels might be ascending and descending. The problem is that like Jacob, most of us spend our days not knowing. The Lord is never far. It is our blindness that makes Him seem so. The veil between heaven

Revenge is a color, a color that never fades. A beautiful color. It is the color of the sky at dawn when lovers are hauled out of their beds and garroted in the middle of the street; the color of the ancient sea when Noah’s Ark has been breached below the water line; the color of Jacob’s Ladder as it collapses while Jacob has climbed only half-way to heaven. But it is more than that, much more. It contains the pigment that colors the eyes of the lovers that betray you.

Perhaps to conduct a boots-on-the-ground search of Jacob’s Ladder

and they believe he or she might have gotten as far as Jacob’s Ladder, her island, her home.

they finished building a year before I purchased Jacob’s Ladder.

large drones gradually grows louder as they return from the far end of Jacob’s Ladder.

MY LIFE BEFORE JACOB’S LADDER, ISLAND LIFE, LITERATURE, and PARANORMAL

Even after all these uneventful years on Jacob’s Ladder, I still lock the door every night.

BEFORE JACOB’S LADDER: THE ATTORNEY

the animals on Jacob’s Ladder are likely to be sensitive

Katie is wary about returning to the southern end of Jacob’s Ladder

After twenty-six months on Jacob’s Ladder, her fear has largely faded,

But so far he’s stayed so deep in the closet, they’re going to crown him king of Narnia.

‎"If we are truly the Lord's, we all walk with a limp" ~R. Alan Woods [2012] *Note: 'Jacobs Ladder'.

The only God is in the numbers and the fire; in the equations and the furnace

The first time that Raoul saw Christine at the Opera, he was charmed by the girl's beauty and by the sweet images of the past which it evoked, but was rather surprised at the negative side of her art. He returned to listen to her. He followed her in the wings. He waited for her behind a Jacob's ladder. He tried to attract her attention. More than once, he walked after her to the door of her box, but she did not see him. She seemed, for that matter, to see nobody. She was all indifference. Raoul suffered, for she was very beautiful and he was shy and dared not to confess his love, even to himself. And then came the lightning-flash of the gala performance: the heavens torn asunder and an angel's voice heard upon earth for the delight of mankind and the utter capture of his heart.

Know this...GOD IS BIGGER, than anything you're going through, trust him...KEEP YOUR TRUST IN HIM" -Gary Linville "I don't pretend to know what love is for everyone, but I can tell you what love is for me; love is knowing all about someone, and still wanting to be with them more than any other person, love is trusting them enough to tell them everything about yourself, including the things you might be ashamed of, love is feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still getting weak knees when they walk into a room and smile at you." "Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw, Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw; Gives exercise to faith and love, Brings every blessing from above." Nahum 1:7, "The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him." "be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." ♥ Ephesians 4:2-3 “the truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. you just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” ― Bob Marley "The thing about the shadows is that they're not all darkness. You need to have light to have shadows" - A. Meredith Walters "Light in the Shadows" (Find You in the Dark #2)

In the meantime, the Bear had attained the Avenue, where blinding, brilliant traffic travelled like a line of light from north to south, as if between worlds. But it was Jacob who saw the ladder, wrestled with the angel, and obtained a birthright under false pretenses. The Bear had done none of these things. He pulled the hat brim farther down on his face and walked south beneath the vault of darkness, above him like guardians or heralds the electric signs of bars and stores- white, orange, yellow, gold, red, brilliant blue and green, occasional imperial purple - as if they were angels that had descended to earth only to hire themselves out as lures for business, possibly for reasons of pity. The Bear walked beneath them like a resolute and powerful man, the saxophone case at his side swinging like a cache of fate, love, gold or vengeance. When he realised that he could have his pick of them - that all options, attributions and possibilities actually were open to him, that he was, at the moment, exalted, liberated, free - he stopped walking for a moment, put down the saxophone case, looked gradually around him at the Avenue, raised his snout and smiled broadly, and there on the pavement stretched out his great and inevitable arms. Aah. The night entered him like honey, and he began so heartily and with such depth of pleasure that it might have been for the first time in his life, to laugh out loud.

Returning from the grotto, north to south on Jacob’s Ladder, Katie indulges in a slow burn that never escalates from mere vexation. Life has taught her that it’s mentally exhausting and spiritually depressing to waste energy and time fanning the flames of anger when the reason for her outrage is someone who can’t be affected by anything she does or some malignant force in society that, when challenged, will engulf her and dissolve her in a metastatic frenzy. Patience, steadiness, and hope are healthier than anger; therefore, in spite of evidence to the contrary, she still trusts that the world has been shapen to a purpose and that the purpose is not the triumph of evil.

But let’s begin at the beginning. Do you remember Jacob’s “ladder” reaching from earth to heaven, on which angels ministered up and down? Jacob called it the “gate of heaven,” with God visible at the top. (Genesis 28:12, 17.) Around that idea, Isaiah builds a theology—a way we define humanity’s relationship to God. In other words, What is God’s role towards us, and ours towards him? Isaiah’s theology embraces all people born on the earth, no matter how good or evil they turn out to be. In the process, Isaiah describes different ways of living that people choose for themselves, some drawing them nearer to God, others distancing them from him. Each way has a place on the ladder to heaven. Where we find ourselves in this divine scheme depends on us, on what law we live—a higher or lesser law. When we discern the different levels represented on the ladder, we can learn a great deal about ourselves by asking, How does my life fit with this picture? Probably most of us would like to know more about where we stand with God. We have questions such as, How did I get where I am, and where am I going? Or more to the point, Where do I want to go? In addressing such questions, Isaiah eliminates the need for a lot of speculation about ourselves. He shows us the ladder to heaven, and we answer our own questions. Most importantly, Isaiah teaches us how to get through heaven’s “gate.

How quickly the years fall away and the passage of time ceases meaning. We have each a purpose: we are bred to it, engineered for it, or we are drawn to it out of some fathomless innate longing that we cannot explain. Some unlucky few must discover—or create—it on their own, but those are rarer in these days, when by the grace of the forebears we are manufactured to our place in the order of the world. We have our destinies. We race for them, fight for them, fulfill them. Or we fail them. Listen, Perceval. Do you hear your long immortal life stretched out before you, before the stars? I have so much to teach you, my dear. The young do not believe in endings. They do not believe in death. They do not believe in time. Everything takes forever to happen, and twenty years is a long time. Under those circumstances, the apocalypse can seem sexy. Death is a fetish, a taste of the edge. It is not real. And so the days are long, and though time holds us green and dying, we cannot yet feel the drag of our chains hauling us forward to the end. But the old, Perceval. The old have forgiven time. Whatever time you may have is too little. If you live a thousand years—as I nearly have, and you surely will—it does not matter. Unless you have given up, laid down your tools, and folded idle hands to wait, beloved, you will still be in the middle of something when you die. The world is a wheel, and we are all broken on it. And that is fine and just. For there is never any hurry, until there is no time.

April 20 MORNING “That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death.” — Hebrews 2:14 O child of God, death hath lost its sting, because the devil’s power over it is destroyed. Then cease to fear dying. Ask grace from God the Holy Ghost, that by an intimate knowledge and a firm belief of thy Redeemer’s death, thou mayst be strengthened for that dread hour. Living near the cross of Calvary thou mayst think of death with pleasure, and welcome it when it comes with intense delight. It is sweet to die in the Lord: it is a covenant-blessing to sleep in Jesus. Death is no longer banishment, it is a return from exile, a going home to the many mansions where the loved ones already dwell. The distance between glorified spirits in heaven and militant saints on earth seems great; but it is not so. We are not far from home — a moment will bring us there. The sail is spread; the soul is launched upon the deep. How long will be its voyage? How many wearying winds must beat upon the sail ere it shall be reefed in the port of peace? How long shall that soul be tossed upon the waves before it comes to that sea which knows no storm? Listen to the answer, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” Yon ship has just departed, but it is already at its haven. It did but spread its sail and it was there. Like that ship of old, upon the Lake of Galilee, a storm had tossed it, but Jesus said, “Peace, be still,” and immediately it came to land. Think not that a long period intervenes between the instant of death and the eternity of glory. When the eyes close on earth they open in heaven. The horses of fire are not an instant on the road. Then, O child of God, what is there for thee to fear in death, seeing that through the death of thy Lord its curse and sting are destroyed? and now it is but a Jacob’s ladder whose foot is in the dark grave, but its top reaches to glory everlasting.

is it i, who have dragged the latter of linger from the shadows the smell of death from the pits; the footprints where no one steps the pitiful thoughts of nostalgia, hate? the love for another, hate for myself, of human feeling? is it i? falling from the skies was the son of God, or his enemy? constantly torn between sun and shade, the good and not weighing scales of justice, the path to good grace living a lie for a heaven only dreamed; the preacher man's belly sweet wine and sour, deceit before the holy bible, of the preacher man's tongue testaments of old and new, what to follow for truth, what is new to old laws laws of the land, of the people, laws broken, held against ourselves is it i? to think of Christ Jesus, or His Father in Heaven, or the holy spirit solemn: my thoughts running wild, the second coming of who we love who we do not; who we believe in; who we want to follow; or not is it i? who is afraid, or the voices in my head? of Jacob's ladder? buried in myself; afraid of the light, afraid of change. is it i? in low, bottomless pits,holds the crucifix in high esteem; soar lips preaching testaments in disbelief? of what we have become, what we are, what we live to not see is it i? who have dragged myself to this? or this bottomless thoughts?

We travel through many wildernesses in life, be they real like Jacob’s Bethel, or wildernesses of the soul. Broken dreams, loss, grief. Sometimes there is nothing to comfort us but the hard stones of a lonely path. In those places, God seems so far away and distant. The way He does to Naomi right now. Yet, there is a ladder that touches down into the soil of our loneliest wilderness. The angels of the Lord ascend and descend upon it, and He is Himself watchful to give us aid.

Hence it appears, that the spiritual understanding of the Scripture, does not consist in opening to the mind the mystical meaning of the Scripture, in its parables, types, and allegories; for this is only a doctrinal explication of the Scripture. He that explains what is meant by the stony ground, and the seed's springing up suddenly, and quickly withering away, only explains what propositions or doctrines are taught in it. So he that explains what is typified by Jacob's ladder, and the angels of God ascending and descending on it, or what was typified by Joshua's leading Israel through Jordan , only shows what propositions are hid in these passages. And many men can explain these types who have no spiritual knowledge. It is possible that a man might know how to interpret all the types, parables, enigmas, and allegories in the Bible, and not have one beam of spiritual light in his mind; because he may not have the least degree of that spiritual sense of the holy beauty of divine things which has been spoken of, and may see nothing of this kind of glory in anything contained in any of these mysteries, or any other part of the Scripture. It is plain, by what the apostle says, that a man might understand all such mysteries, and have no saving grace, 1 Cor. 13:2: "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." They therefore are very foolish, who are exalted in an opinion of their own spiritual attainments, from notions that come into their minds, of the mystical meaning of these and those passages of Scripture, as though it was a spiritual understanding of these passages, immediately given them by the Spirit of God, and hence have their affections highly raised; and what has been said shows the vanity of such affections.

However, to arrive at a place of contemplation requires that one practice ways of reading that also align well with the senses of a text. You cannot simply become a contemplative without doing some work. A twelfth-century Carthusian monk named Guigo II (his name literally means “Guy #2”) imagines contemplation as the top run of a ladder with three preceding rungs: lectio, the reading of the Word; then meditatio, the interpretation of the meaning; and oratio, prayer. By these three steps we ascend toward contemplation. Guigo’s ladder is drawn from Jacob’s vision in Genesis 28:10-17. Jacob dreams about a ladder established one earth, with the top reaching to heaven. “And behold,” the text demands, “the angels of God ascending and descending.” Notice that the angels move up and down the ladder, for readers do not climb the rungs of Guigo’s ladder to contemplation and remain up there. Rather, the movement toward contemplation—while we remain on earth—requires continuous ascent and descent. We read, meditate, pray, contemplate, and start over again. The practices of reading that Guigo outlines correspond with the four senses of Scripture and help us understand how to move toward contemplative reading. (pp. 104-105)

Her fingertips brushed the cool nanomesh of Perceval’s parasite wing, and she jerked it back with a gasp, sucking her fingertips as if she’d burned them.

She was not accustomed to finding someone with such obvious male attributes attractive. But the eyes and the throat and the breasts were all woman, if the long hands and torso and crotch were all wrong.

It had been impressed on Rien all through her childhood how fragile the habitable sphere was, and how much functionality had been lost through accident, negligence, malice, and the simple gnawing of entropy.

The necromancer’s eyebrows were very expressive, especially when the rest of the face was pretending blandness. It was a lovely face, oval and more angelic than Perceval’s own.

Mallory reached across Perceval’s lap and stroked Rien’s sweat-cold cheek. This touch, Rien did not flinch from. Perceval swallowed, an acrid pain of jealousy.

Mountains, even when they are hidden in darkness, are as real as in the daylight. God’s love is as true now as it has been in our brightest times. We will yet climb Jacob’s ladder with angels, and behold the one who sits enthroned above it - our covenant God – our advocate with the Father – our dearest friend! “Believe me when I say that the indescribable splendors of eternity will make us forget the trials of time, or only remember them enough to bless God for leading us through them and for using them for our lasting good. “It’s because of this that we can sing amid our deepest trouble and rejoice even while passing through the furnace. We see the day coming when He will again make our wilderness blossom like the rose! He will cause the desert to ring with our exulting joys because this earthly pain will soon be over, and then ‘together forever with the Lord,’ our joy will never end!2

The ladder these angels must climb was the double helix. And then they would be God. They, who were splinters of God.

A shape was only a mask, to be discarded upon an instant.

If beaks could smirk, she would have sworn him to be smirking.

28:10And Jacob went out from Beer- sheba, and went toward Haran. 28:11And he lighted upon the place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took one of the stones of the place, and put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep. 28:12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. 28:13And, behold, the LORD stood beside him, and said: ‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

Is that why they’re squabbling over her? They’re trying to marry an heir to the throne? I’m sorry, Tristen, but that’s like some medieval play.

The world is a wheel, and we are all broken on it.

They met where their edges brushed in one of the voids in the world’s great Tinkertoy structure.

He seemed far too small to be the source of the air of wicked malice that surrounded him, but Dust knew better.

Mallory,” Dust hissed. “And the familiar basilisk. You sent my maidens for them.” “My maidens? The world’s maidens, surely. Do you begrudge them a little assistance, a little education?” “That is no Ben Kenobi. More une belle quelquesomething sans merci.” “The question stands, my dearest Dust.

Even if Rien awoke sore and sticky, it was a better awakening than the last.

She could already imagine the dexterity with which Mallory’s arched dark eyebrows would rise, and the answer which didn’t need saying.

Rien sat transfixed by the music, old and alien and like nothing she'd heard before. She felt her symbiont accepting the new information, integrating it. Making it part of her flesh and bone. It immersed and surrounded her, but even as she heard it performed, she sensed it as gestalt, knew the notes and chords. She could have played it, if her hands were sufficiently trained to the task. She could have seeing it, if her voice was adequate. She could have rearranged it, resurrected it, reinvented it, if she had been a composer.

Footsteps approached, soft and sure. They were not Perceval’s, and Rien was surprised to find she knew her sister’s tread already.

Mallory’s face went briefly vague, as those of Exalts could do when they consulted their internal worlds.

She didn’t know how close to the heresy of the Go-Backs she trod.

Your brain is optimized for pattern-sensing,” Gavin commented. “And chatter.

He just wanted to die and now he’s in me, and Mallory won’t let him die.

Orphans. Dream of being secret princesses.” Perceval’s thumbs made firm circles in Rien’s muscles. “And so?” she said. “You are.

I’m not dragging my tail through that.” Primly, with a flip of his long, crossed primary feathers. “You wanted to go this way. We’re going this way. And you can carry me.

Dust amused himself with knife and fork, a self-conscious burlesque of a dining man.

Really, he mused, chasing green peas up the back slope of his fork with the edge of the butter knife, all a smirk was, was what a smile turned into when you fought with it.

No peacocks were harmed in the making of all this dinner. And how could I have misdirected our gallant maidens, when your agents guided them? Agents whose introduction to the game I protested?

You’ve infested the whole ship with your medieval madness.” Dust smiled. “Not mine. Conn’s. The Captain’s word is Law.

Silence is as good as an answer, angel.

Tarot readings are like stories, you see-they have characters, conflict, action, climax, theme, and denouement.

Memory is a spiderweb. It hangs in a corner and collects dust. Unless you need it to catch a fly.

Sometimes, even he found his program overly Gothic.

The six suits are Cups, Stars, Stones, Blacks, Wires, and Voids.

You know, on Earth, the cards had only four suits and each suit has only four face cards. But there are six important directions here in space.

Dust caught himself smirking again. How hard could it be, to let the smile happen?

Blue-skinned in the fettered light through the overhead, his hair sculptured from ice-white curls, his beard still long but washed now.

There was something tremendously comforting in having an adult appear and take care of things, Perceval admittd, watching the tall white man stir dinner with curious focus.

Like queen bees awakened in the hive, one of them would consume the rest. It all came down to who was going to be the last demiurge standing.

A song, and she’d swallowed it.

Her eyes stung with the beauty.

A warm hand rested on Rien’s nape. It was comforting, and it sent a shiver between her shoulders. She swallowed and licked salt from her lip and tried to think of what to say.

She was not prepared for Mallory to pull away before Rien thought the kiss was half finished, quickly nipping at Rien’s lower lip and then pressing a finger against it. And then it was dark eyes, brown and transparent as coffee, with green and amber flecks swimming under the surface of Mallory’s breath across her mouth.

Benedick’s domaine was a heaven, bigger than Mallory’s, full of stark black-limbed trees, twig-rimmed in ice. They came on a high ledge overlooking a valley of sorts, the whole thing dark with true night and frozen cold.

This time, there had been no evident danger, but nevertheless she was carried helplessly into the air and away.

Such a strange being. Such a strange thing, having a sister. Being a sister. And even stranger to be a sister to such a sister as this.

For now, Rien could distract herself with the texture of an alien night and the cold trees, ice and snow and the stars smeared behind a frosty sky.

If she were to be Exalt, one of these arrogant cryptic beings, it semed unfair that she did not have wings.

Rien noticed the sameness in the shape of their features. Though Percival’s face was squarer, and Tristen’s was long, they were both thin and tall, with deep-set eyes. His nose wandered, hers was incongruously pert. Nevertheless, Rien thought the resemblance would have been striking if Perceval still had her hair, and if Tristen’s was pigmented rather than wooly and white and if the line of his jaw wasn’t concealed by his beard.

He glanced down, his lashes thick and ivory against his blue-tinged cheek, and draw the dead man’s sheath and knife from his boot.

Somehow she managed to enter the corridor, third in line, but dripping all the dignity she could master, and perversely glad she’d smoothed her hair.

Arms folded across her rib cage, chin drifted, Perceval could have been a statue labeled defiance.

The heavy lines from his nose to his mouth-corners made it looked like he never smiled.