Languages For Peace Quotes

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.

Language is the key to the heart of people.

The universe and the law of attraction speak a language that knows no words, only discerning your intent through sacrifice and what you are willing to give up.

Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through you. Always be kinder than necessary.

Whether between man and women, man and man, or woman and woman; look not towards any system that binds society created by man for guidance, but be guided by the principles of love. Love is the only law that commands this universe, and is the only language that is understood universally.

Understanding languages and other cultures builds bridges. It is the fastest way to bring the world closer together and to Truth. Through understanding, people will be able to see their similarities before differences.

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence and start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.

No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is and they would put an end to it.

There was nothing ordinary about Ossie May. She was tall, sexy, smart, and pretty. Her looks and personality were her drawing cards. The flip side was her temperament. She was beauty and rage sandwiched together, and she must have invented cussing. She would unload swear word after swear word in rapid succession. There had to be a law against such offensive language.

...I want first of all - in fact, as an end to these other desires - to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central cor to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints -to live 'in grace' as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony...

To really change the world, we have to help people change the way they see things. Global betterment is a mental process, not one that requires huge sums of money or a high level of authority. Change has to be psychological. So if you want to see real change, stay persistent in educating humanity on how similar we all are than different. Don't only strive to be the change you want to see in the world, but also help all those around you see the world through commonalities of the heart so that they would want to change with you. This is how humanity will evolve to become better. This is how you can change the world. The language of the heart is mankind's main common language.

peace cannot be built on the foundations of fear.

The most attractive thing about you should have less to do with your face or body and more to do with your attitude and how you treat people.

To Alef, the letter that begins the alphabets of both Arabic and Hebrew- two Semitic languages, sisters for centuries. May we find the language that takes us to the only home there is - one another's hearts. ... Alef knows That a thread Of a story Stitches together A wound.

Once upon a time there were two countries, at war with each other. In order to make peace after many years of conflict, they decided to build a bridge across the ocean. But because they never learned each other’s language properly, they could never agree on the details, so the two halves of the bridge they started to build never met. To this day the bridge extends far into the ocean from both sides, and simply ends half way, miles in the wrong direction from the meeting point. And the two countries are still at war.

Fuck,” he muttered. … “Language in front of the girls,” I snapped. “Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront. Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?” “No,” Kate answered immediately. “No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly. Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.

The au pair was bug-eyed. "What happened back there?" "It's not our fault!" Dan babbled. "Those guys are crazy! They're like mini-Darth Vaders without the mask!" "They're Benedictine monks!" Nellie exclaimed. "They're men of peace! Most of them are under vows of silence!" "Yeah, well, not anymore," Dan told her. "They cursed us out pretty good. I don't know the language, but some things you don't have to translate.

I pray for faith that my future will be good if I live today well, and in peace. I will remember that staying in the present is the best thing I can do for my future. I will focus on what’s happening now instead of what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Language is the crowning achievement of human beings, and that is something Muslims have always known and revered. We are a literate people whose miracle is a Book from an unlettered man, peace and blessings be upon him, who was the most articulate and eloquent human being who ever lived. We honor our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in honoring language that he loved so much and used so well.

It's a lot to ask of one creature, it's a lot to ask, that he should first behave as if he were not, then as if he were, before being admitted to that peace where he neither is, nor is not, and where the language dies that permits of such expressions.

Edward spoke in a voice so peaceful and gentle that it made the words strangely more threatening. "I'm not going to kill you now, because it would upset Bella." "Hmph," I grumbled. Edward turned slightly to throw me a quick smile. His face was still calm. "It would bother you in the morning," he said, brushing his fingers across my cheek. The he turned back to Jacob. "But if you ever bring her back damaged again--and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head--if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs. Do you understand that, mongrel?" Jacob rolled his eyes. "who's going back?" I muttered Edward continued as if he hadn't heard me. "And if you ever kiss her again, I wiil break your jaw for her," he promised, his voice still gentle and velvet deadly. "What if she wants me to?" Jacob drawled, arrogant. "Hah!" I snorted. "If that's what she wants, then I won't object." Edward shrugged, untroubled. "You might want to wait for her to say it, rather than trust your interpretation of body language-but it's your face." Jacob grinned. "You wish," I grumbled. "Yes, he does," Edward murmured. "Well, if you're done rummaging through my head," Jacob said with a think edge of annoyance, "why don't you go take care of her hand?" "One more thing," Edward said slowly. "I'll be fighting for her, too. You should know that. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I'll be fighting twice as hard as you will." "Good," Jacob growled. "it's no fun beating someone who forfeits." She is mine." Edward's low voice was suddenly dark, not as composed as before, "i did't say I would fight fair." "Neither did I." "Best of luck." Jacob nodded. "Yes, may the best man win." "That sounds about right...pup.

I want first of all... to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact--to borrow from the language of the saints--to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said, "May the outward and inward man be one." I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

A certain peace had come to me and I wondered if it was God’s doing after all. Not that God existed in any material way but as a shared cultural practice so widespread that it came to seem materially real, like language or gender.

We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.

The images of peace are ephemeral. The language of peace is subtle. The reasons for peace, the definitions of peace, the very idea of peace have to be invented, and invented again

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. (On the manipulation of language for political ends.) We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

Acts of Kindness Transcends All Languages - Kailin Gow, Amazon Lee Adventures

Languages connect us and break down barriers when we unite to nurture the best in us and help each other succeed. Happy International Mother Language Day!

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth let's not speak in any language, let's stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines, we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands. Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. Now I'll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.

I used to know how the mind handled language, and I could communicate what I knew. I used to be someone who knew a lot. No one asks for my opinion or advice anymore. I miss that. I used to be curious and independent and confident. I miss being sure of things. There's no peace in being unsure of everything all the time. I miss doing everything easily. I miss being a part of what's happening. I miss feeling wanted. I miss my life and my family. I loved my life and family.

Mrs. Bittarcy rustled ominously, holding her peace meanwhile. She feared long words she did not understand. Beelzebub lay hid among too many syllables. ("The Man Whom The Trees Loved")

The Balti had as many names for rock as the Inuit have for snow.

But it is imperative, for our own survival, that we avoiid one another, and what more successful means of avoidance are there than words? Language will keep us safe from human onslaught, will express for us our regret at being unable to supply groceries or love or peace.

There is no religion better than love, no color better than the color of happiness and no language better than the language of compassion.

No matter where we come from, there is one language we can all speak and understand from birth, the language of the heart, love.

Quantum artificial intelligence put greater importance to human peace, economic, social, political and cultural rights. It focuses on fundamental freedoms and well-being for all without distinction to race, color, sex, country, language, or religion.

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.

No matter how broken we may seem to be, we are never too shattered to put our peace back together.

Poems, even when narrative, do not resemble stories. All stories are about battles, of one kind or another, which end in victory or defeat. Everything moves towards the end, when the outcome will be known. Poems, regardless of any outcome, cross the battlefields, tending the wounded, listening to the wild monologues of the triumphant or the fearful. They bring a kind of peace. Not by anaesthesia or easy reassurance, but by recognition and the promise that what has been experienced cannot disappear as if it had never been. Yet the promise is not of a monument. (Who, still on a battlefield, wants monuments?) The promise is that language has acknowledged, has given shelter, to the experience which demanded, which cried out.

Scripture scholars contend that the original language of the Beatitudes should not be rendered as "Blessed are the single-hearted" or "Blessed are the peacemakers" or "Blessed are those who struggle for justice." Greater precision in translation would say, "You're in the right place if...you are single-hearted or work for peace." The Beatitudes is not a spirituality, after all. It's a geography. It tells us where to stand.

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses. Flood waters await us in our avenues. Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche Over unprotected villages. The sky slips low and grey and threatening. We question ourselves. What have we done to so affront nature? We worry God. Are you there? Are you there really? Does the covenant you made with us still hold? Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship. It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Flood waters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us As we make our way to higher ground. Hope is born again in the faces of children It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets. Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things, Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors. In our joy, we think we hear a whisper. At first it is too soft. Then only half heard. We listen carefully as it gathers strength. We hear a sweetness. The word is Peace. It is loud now. It is louder. Louder than the explosion of bombs. We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence. It is what we have hungered for. Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace. A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies. Security for our beloveds and their beloveds. We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas. We beckon this good season to wait a while with us. We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace. Come and fill us and our world with your majesty. We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian, Implore you, to stay a while with us. So we may learn by your shimmering light How to look beyond complexion and see community. It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time. On this platform of peace, we can create a language To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ Into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope. All the earth's tribes loosen their voices To celebrate the promise of Peace. We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers, Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation. Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel – or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel – is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become… A person who had never listened to nor read a tale or myth or parable or story, would remain ignorant of his own emotional and spiritual heights and depths, would not know quite fully what it is to be human. For the story – from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace – is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

During the meeting in Delhi with Dirac on 12 January 1955, Nehru asked him if he had any recommendations for the future of the new republic of India. After his usual reflective pause, Dirac replied: ‘A common language, preferably English. Peace with Pakistan. The metric system.

It does not take long. Soon the fine galloping language, the gutless swooning full of sapless trees and dehydrated lusts begins to swim smooth and swift and peaceful. It is better than praying without having to bother to think aloud. It is like listening in a cathedral to a eunuch chanting in a language which he does not even need to not understand.

Eye contact is the language that no one can speak, but chemistry is fluent with; it’s the language of fate. It’s two souls catching on fire without a single word being spoken.

Go easy. You may have to push forward, but you don’t have to push so hard. Go in gentleness, go in peace. Do not be in so much of a hurry. At no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace.

Let us dedicate this new era to mothers around the world, and also to the mother of all mothers -- Mother Earth. It is up to us to keep building bridges to bring the world closer together, and not destroy them to divide us further apart. We can pave new roads towards peace simply by understanding other cultures. This can be achieved through traveling, learning other languages, and interacting with others from outside our borders. Only then will one truly discover how we are more alike than different. Never allow language or cultural traditions to come between brothers and sisters. The same way one brother may not like his sister's choice of fashion or hairstyle, he will never hate her for her personal style or music preference. If you judge a man, judge only his heart. And if you should do so, make sure you use the truth in your conscience when weighing one's character. Do not measure anybody strictly based on the bad you see in them and ignore all the good.

The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts…. If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better. —GEORGE ORWELL, “POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,” 1946

Life is incomplete without understanding the language of the beauty of the flowers, rocks, fine mountain lines, autumn leaves, clouds, stars and galaxies in the deep sky, music of the early birds, sunshine into the trees, and movements of the butterflies. The extravaganza of nature ignites the light that you have inside.

WONDERLAND It is a person's unquenchable thirst for wonder That sets them on their initial quest for truth. The more doors you open, the smaller you become. The more places you see and the more people you meet, The greater your curiosity grows. The greater your curiosity, the more you will wander. The more you wander, the greater the wonder. The more you quench your thirst for wonder, The more you drink from the cup of life. The more you see and experience, the closer to truth you become. The more languages you learn, the more truths you can unravel. And the more countries you travel, the greater your understanding. And the greater your understanding, the less you see differences. And the more knowledge you gain, the wider your perspective, And the wider your perspective, the lesser your ignorance. Hence, the more wisdom you gain, the smaller you feel. And the smaller you feel, the greater you become. The more you see, the more you love -- The more you love, the less walls you see. The more doors you are willing to open, The less close-minded you will be. The more open-minded you are, The more open your heart. And the more open your heart, The more you will be able to Send and receive -- Truth and TRUE Unconditional LOVE.

I'd rather you came out with your filthy, unfitting language for the rest of your life than for you to turn out one of them cowardly people who can't speak their minds but won't hold their peace and instead mumble behind hands and get their fights out in sneakery and in whispers.

This is the ongoing debate of our field...He argued there were two options: either the translator leaves the author in peace and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace and moves the author towards him.... Which seems right to you? Do we try our hardest, as translators, to render ourselves invisible? Or do we remind our reader that what they are reading was not written in their native language?

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism—the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it—is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.

And the continuity of endocrine response worked for everyone, Stationer or Teixcalaanlitzlim or something else: endocrine response said, in that brutal language of the flesh, This person has had their hands inside you, and you welcomed them in. Let’s do it again. Here are nice chemicals to help.

I look out on my language, two days later A short absence is enough for Aeschylus to open the door to peace a short speech is enough for Antonio to incite war A hand of a woman in my hand is enough to embrace my freedom and for the ebb and flow to begin anew in my body (I See my Ghost Coming from a Distance)

My mom and dad refused to believe that people who had grown up together in peace and friendship, had gone to the same schools, spoken the same language, and listened to the same music, could overnight be blinded by ethnic hatred and start to brutally kill one another. They simply didn't accept as true that less than two years of a multiparty system and competition for power could poison people's brains so much.

When I meet a cat, I say, “Poor Pussy!” and stop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace.  When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.

You don't need to be deep in order to be called intellectual. You need to create connectivity with the people by using the language that they can understand. You don't need to be an artist, because it comes out naturally. You don't need to be critic and poet, because what matters is that you believe in yourself. You just don't need to be envious for the happiness of other people. Throw all your bitterness away. Peace be with you!

Mister Rob Anybody and sundry others?" said one of the figures in a dreadful voice. "There's naebody here o' that name!" shouted Rob Anybody. "We dinna know anythin'!" "We have here a list of criminal and civil charges totaling nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-three separate offenses-" "We wasna there!" yelled Rob Anybody desperately. "Isn't that right, lads?" "-including more than two thousand cases of Making an Affray, Causing a Public Nuisance, Being Found Drunk, Being Found Very Drunk, Using Offensive Language (taking into account ninety-seven cases of Using Language That Was Probably Offensive If Anyone Else Could Understand It), Committing a Breach of the Peace, Malicious Lingering-" "It's mistaken identity!" shouted Rob Anybody. "It's no' oour fault! We wuz only standing there an' someone else did it and ran awa'!" "-Grand Theft, Petty Theft, Burglary, Housebreaking, Loitering with Intent to Commit a Felony-" "We wuz misunderstood when we was wee bairns!" yelled Rob Anybody. "Ye're only picking on us 'cause we're blue! We always get blamed for everythin'! The polis hate us! We wasna even in the country!

The principles of Islam teach us to be messengers of peace—to be like water, gentle enough to wash away tears and strong enough to drown hatred. To be Muslim is to protect the weak, the orphan, the beggar, the disabled of all races and cultures. To be Muslim is not to be color-blind, but to see the differences between people and to celebrate that diversity as a product of the free will that God chose to give us. As the Qur’an says, “And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed, in that are signs for those of knowledge” (30:22)

When we hear that "war" is made for "peace", or that "pain" is sought for "pleasure" or that "brutality" helps one "feel", in our minds, language ceases to describe reality. Words lose their direct relationship with actuality. And thus language and culture begin to exist entirely independently of nature.

One day, it will all make sense, it will all be revealed. Until then, we learn to live and accept our shadows, our Déjà vu's, our dreams, our intuition that takes us to places that our minds never conceived, our bodies only perceived and our souls gladly remembered. Conversations and experiences amuse me, for I am experimenting with my feelings in ways that I can only do down here. Language makes up for a very interesting, yet bizarre way of putting thoughts into spoken form for the sound to move on in other peoples' ears, but every language, every sound, every word carries with it a long history, a deep culture and the souls of the many people who have previously used it throughout the centuries. Our hearts give us direction, hope and the passion to keep moving forward.. But what we do when they're frozen, broken, torn apart by an unhealthy way of living is what gives us new strength to push forward or kills us completely. Deep inside, we feed the entities that empower the fight between our internal demons and angels. We feed them with our thoughts, our emotions, our self-talk and the external talk that we lower our shields to at times. Whether good or bad, this brings about a change internally and at times there isn't much we can do to protect ourselves. At times, we need to let things be and go along with it. Of course, we're all worried, stressed, confused and lacking direction at times and we're in the same way at peace, stable and walking in the right direction once we get things sorted. Give it some time, give it some light, give it some love. You're not very far away.

When the ancient Romans would conquer a new place or a new people, they would leave the language and the customs in tact – they would even let the conquered people rule themselves in most cases, appointing a governor to maintain a foothold in the region.” Wilson leaned against the whiteboard as he spoke, his posture relaxed, his hands clasped loosely.“This was part of what made Rome so successful. They didn't try to make everyone Romans in the process of conquering them. When I went to Africa with the Peace Corp, a woman who worked with the Corp said something to me that I have often thought about since. She told me 'Africa is not going to adapt to you. You are going to have to adapt to Africa.' That is true of wherever you go, whether it's school or whether it's in the broader world.

And what she understood - what none of the ones who came to touch Simon's forehead understood - was that the misery of war represented the world's only truly universal language. Its native speakers occupied different ends of the world, and the prayers they recited were not the same and the empty superstitions to which they clung so dearly were not the same - and yet they were. War broke them the same way, made them scared and angry and vengeful the same way. In times of peace and good fortune they were nothing alike, but stripped of these things they were kin. The universal slogan of war, she'd learned, was simple: If it had been you, you'd have done no different.

The person senses what it feels like to be free from inhibitions. At the same time he feels connected and integrated – with his body and, through his body, with his environment. He has a sense of well-being and inner peace. He gains the knowledge that the life of the body resides in its involuntary aspect. […] Unfortunately these beautiful feelings do not always hold up under the stress of daily living in our modern culture. The pace, the pressure and the philosophy of our times are antithetical to life.

Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.

The day will come … when people will once more be called to speak the word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. It will be in a new language, perhaps quite nonreligious language, but liberating and redeeming like Jesus’s language, so that people will be alarmed, and yet overcome by its power—the language of a new righteousness and truth, a language proclaiming that God makes peace with humankind and that God’s kingdom is drawing near.”[56]

And now, from beneath the audible, came a low reverberation. It came up through the soles of my feet. I stood still while it hummed upward bone by bone. There is no adequate simile. The pulse of the country worked through my body until I recognized it as music. As language. And the language ran everywhere inside me, like blood; and for feeling, it was as if through time I had been made of earth or mud or other insensate matter. Like a rhyme learned in antiquity a verse blazed to mind: O be quick, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet! And sure enough my soul leapt dancing inside my chest, and my feet sprang up and sped me forward, and the sense came to me of undergoing creation, as the land and the trees and the beasts of the orchard had done some long time before. And the pulse of the country came around me, as of voices lifted at great distance, and moved through me as I ran until the words came clear, and I sang with them a beautiful and curious chant.

The philosopher Odo Marquard has noted a correlation in the German language between the word zwei, which means 'two,' and the word zweifel, which means 'doubt' - suggesting that two of anything brings the automatic possibility of uncertainty to our lives. Now imagine a life in which every day a person is presented with not two or even three but dozens of choices, and you can begin to grasp why the modern world has become, even with all its advantages, a neurosis-generating machine of the highest order. In a world of such abundant possibility, many of us simply go limp from indecision. Or we derail our life's journey again and again, backing up to try the doors we neglected on the first round, desperate to get it right this time. Or we become compulsive comparers - always measuring our lives against some other person's life, secretly wondering if we should have taken her path instead.

As he once wrote of Kipling, his own enduring influence can be measured by a number of terms and phrases—doublethink, thought police, 'Some animals are more equal than others'—that he embedded in our language and in our minds. In Orwell's own mind there was an inextricable connection between language and truth, a conviction that by using plain and unambiguous words one could forbid oneself the comfort of certain falsehoods and delusions. Every time you hear a piece of psychobabble or propaganda—'people's princess,' say, or 'collateral damage,' or 'peace initiative'—it is good to have a well-thumbed collection of his essays nearby. His main enemy in discourse was euphemism, just as his main enemy in practice was the abuse of power, and (more important) the slavish willingness of people to submit to it.

I am not better than you because of my religion, color, culture, education, status, wealth, etc. I am not, and neither are you, I must accept, and so should you, that there are differences between us that we were born into. Why do we focus on these differences? Put your hand in mine and let us accept that our differences should not come in the way of us uniting for the basic human values that we share: compassion, peacefulness, respect, honesty, innocence, humbleness and sympathy. Does a baby born here smile differently from a baby born anywhere in the world? Do they cry any differently? We may not speak the same language and we may not live the same lifestyle, but a smile I put on my face when I see you puts a smile on your face before you can even think of it. Now, THAT is powerful. I hope that every sense of arrogance or greed in my heart is deviated to a sense of humility, so the wall of ignorance to the real issues in the world can be shattered by the common rights that I share with all of my brothers and sisters in humanity.

In his book Peace, Walter Brueggemann writes about this contrast between a theology of the “have-nots” versus a theology of the “haves.” The “have-nots” develop a theology of suffering and survival. The “haves” develop a theology of celebration. Those who live under suffering live “their lives aware of the acute precariousness of their situation.” Worship that arises out of suffering cries out for deliverance. “Their notion of themselves is that of a dependent people crying out for a vision of survival and salvation.” Lament is the language of suffering.

Extremism stifles true progression in all fields of human advancement; it is a detriment to everything but war, tribalism and the personal power of Nietzschean entities, striving only for the narcissistic vindication of their ego and will. The enlightened mind knows that all is challengeable, ergo questions all and thus, learns and grows; progression. The weak and narrow mind makes its beliefs sacrosanct; fearful of challenge, their creed becomes unalterable, defended with violence. Political extremists, much like religious zealots, are the latter. They destroy what they cannot convert. They annihilate those they cannot control, or force to conform. They have found no peace in life, no love, and so promote war and division, as emotional cripples – inflicting their own pain and misery and malignant stupidity on the world. Their language binds people together, but only by stirring the darkest excesses of the soul; language of hate, and intolerance, fear and conspiracy, and the need for vengeance. In war-scarred Europe, these cripples direct mass-psychology, and would make the world in their own likeness; mutilated by violence and tribalism and hate.

The most powerful anti-Christian movement is the one that takes over and "radicalizes" the concern for victims in order to paganize it. The powers and principalities want to be “revolutionary” now, and they reproach Christianity for not defending victims with enough ardor. In Christian history they see nothing but persecutions, acts of oppression, inquisitions. This other totalitarianism presents itself as the liberator of humanity. In trying to usurp the place of Christ, the powers imitate him in the way a mimetic rival imitates his model in order to defeat him. They denounce the Christian concern for victims as hypocritical and a pale imitation of the authentic crusade against oppression and persecution for which they would carry the banner themselves. In the symbolic language of the New Testament, we would say that in our world Satan, trying to make a new start and gain new triumphs, borrows the language of victims. ... The Antichrist boasts of bringing to human beings the peace and tolerance that Christianity promised but has failed to deliver. Actually, what the radicalization of contemporary victimology produces is a return to all sorts of pagan practices: abortion, euthanasia, sexual undifferentiation, Roman circus games galore but without real victims, etc. Neo-paganism would like to turn the Ten Commandments and all of Judeo-Christian morality into some alleged intolerable violence, and indeed its primary objective is their complete abolition. Faithful observance of the moral law is perceived as complicity with the forces of persecution that are essentially religious... Neo-paganism locates happiness in the unlimited satisfaction of desires, which means the suppression of all prohibitions. This idea acquires a semblance of credibility in the limited domain of consumer goods, whose prodigious multiplication, thanks to technological progress, weakens certain mimetic rivalries. The weakening of mimetic rivalries confers an appearance of plausibility, but only that, on the stance that turns the moral law into an instrument of repression and persecution.

Another explanation for the failure of logic and observation alone to advance medicine is that unlike, say, physics, which uses a form of logic - mathematics - as its natural language, biology does not lend itself to logic. Leo Szilard, a prominent physicist, made this point when he complained that after switching from physics to biology he never had a peaceful bath again. As a physicist he would soak in the warmth of a bathtub and contemplate a problem, turn it in his mind, reason his way through it. But once he became a biologist, he constantly had to climb out of the bathtub to look up a fact.

Once we can get all of mankind to see and promote our commonalities over differences, then we can also collectively and passionately enforce equality, truth and justice as the laws of every land. Then there will be stability, prosperity and true peace for all. If we do not, then language, religious, and cultural barriers will continue to prevent us from seeing that we are all one. Does a pineapple have to be called a pineapple in English in another country for an English-speaking person to know what it is? No. A pineapple has a different name in every country, but even a child can still tell its a pineapple. So why can’t we judge mankind the same way? No matter how you dress a human, a human is still a human. And all humans grieve, love, and bleed the same way. How hard is it to see that we are all more similar than different? God did not disconnect mankind, man did.

All stories are about battles, of one kind or another, which end in victory and defeat. Everything moves toward the end, when the outcome will be known. Poems, regardless of any outcome, cross the battlefields, tending the wounded, listening to the wild monologues of the triumphant or the fearful. They bring a kind of peace. Not by anaesthesia or easy reassurance, but by the promise that what has been experienced cannot disappear as if it had never been. Yet the promise is not of a monument. (Who, still on a battlefield, wants monuments?) The promise is that language has acknowledged, has given shelter, to the experience which demanded, which cried out

I do not write every day. I write to the questions and issues before me. I write to deadlines. I write out of my passions. And I write to make peace with my own contradictory nature. For me, writing is a spiritual practice. A small bowl of water sits on my desk, a reminder that even if nothing is happening on the page, something is happening in the room--evaporation. And I always light a candle when I begin to write, a reminder that I have now entered another realm, call it the realm of the Spirit. I am mindful that when one writes, one leaves this world and enters another. My books are collages made from journals, research, and personal experience. I love the images rendered in journal entries, the immediacy that is captured on the page, the handwritten notes. I love the depth of ideas and perspective that research brings to a story, be it biological or anthropological studies or the insights brought to the page by the scholarly work of art historians. When I go into a library, I feel like I am a sleuth looking to solve a mystery. I am completely inspired by the pursuit of knowledge through various references. I read newpapers voraciously. I love what newspapers say about contemporary culture. And then you go back to your own perceptions, your own words, and weigh them against all you have brought together. I am interested in the kaleidoscope of ideas, how you bring many strands of thought into a book and weave them together as one piece of coherent fabric, while at the same time trying to create beautiful language in the service of the story. This is the blood work of the writer. Writing is also about a life engaged. And so, for me, community work, working in the schools or with grassroots conservation organizations is another critical component of my life as a writer. I cannot separate the writing life from a spiritual life, from a life as a teacher or activist or my life intertwined with family and the responsibilities we carry within our own homes. Writing is daring to feel what nurtures and breaks our hearts. Bearing witness is its own form of advocacy. It is a dance with pain and beauty.

[Immigrants] who come from anywhere there is hunger, unemployment, oppression, and violence and who clandestinely cross the borders of countries that are prosperous, peaceful, and rich in opportunity, are certainly breaking the law, but they are exercising a natural and moral right which no legal norm or regulation should try to eliminate: the right to life, to survival, to escape the infernal existence they are condemned to by barbarous regimes entrenched on half the earth's surface. If ethical considerations had any pervasive effect at all, the women and men who brave the Straits of Gibraltar or the Florida Keys or the electric fences of Tijuana or the docks of Marseilles in search of work, freedom, and a future should be received with open arms.

An old man emerged from the ditch, a creature Of mud and wild autumn winds capering Like a hare across a bouldered field, across And through the stillness of time unhinged That sprawls patient and unexpected in the Place where battle lies spent, unmoving and Never again moving bodies strewn and Death-twisted like lost languages tracking Contorted glyphs on a barrow door, and he read well the aftermath, the disarticulated script Rent and dissolute the pillars of self toppled Like termite towers all spilled out round his Dancing feet, and he shouted in gleeful Revelation the truth he'd found, in these Red-fleshed pronouncements - “There is peace!” He shrieked. “There is peace!” and it was No difficult thing, where I sat in the saddle Above salt-rimed horseflesh to lift my crossbow Aim and loose the quarrel, skewering the madman To his proclamation. “Now,” said I, in the Silence that followed, “Now, there is peace.

But I want first of all—in fact, as an end to these other desires—to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from the Phaedrus when he said, “May the outward and inward man be at one.” I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

The Onondaga Nation schools recite the Thanksgiving Address, a river of words as old as the people themselves, known in Onondaga language as the Words That Come Before All Else. This ancient order of protocol sets gratitude as the highest priority. The gratitude is directed straight to the ones who share their gifts with the world. (excerpt) ‘Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one. We are thankful to our Mother the Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect. Now our minds are one. We give thanks to all of the waters of the world for quenching our thirst, for providing strength and nurturing life for all beings. We know its power in many forms—waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans, snow and ice. We are grateful that the waters are still here and meeting their responsibility to the rest of Creation. Can we agree that water is important to our lives and bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to the Water? Now our minds are one. Standing around us we see all the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who each have their own instructions and uses. Some provide shelter and shade, others fruit and beauty and many useful gifts. The Maple is the leader of the trees, to recognize its gift of sugar when the People need it most. Many peoples of the world recognize a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind we greet and thank the Tree life. Now our minds are one.

The busybody (banned as sexist, demeaning to older women) who lives next door called my daughter a tomboy (banned as sexist) when she climbed the jungle (banned; replaced with "rain forest") gym. Then she had the nerve to call her an egghead and a bookworm (both banned as offensive; replaced with "intellectual") because she read fairy (banned because suggests homosexuality; replace with "elf") tales. I'm tired of the Language Police turning a deaf ear (banned as handicapism) to my complaints. I'm no Pollyanna (banned as sexist) and will not accept any lame (banned as offensive; replace with "walks with a cane") excuses at this time. If Alanis Morrissette can play God (banned) in Dogma (banned as ethnocentric; replace with "Doctrine" or "Belief"), why can't my daughter play stickball (banned as regional or ethnic bias) on boy's night out (banned as sexist)? Why can't she build a snowman (banned, replace with "snow person") without that fanatic (banned as ethnocentric; replace with "believer," "follower," or "adherent") next door telling her she's going to hell (banned; replaced with "heck" or "darn")? Do you really think this is what the Founding Fathers (banned as sexist; replace with "the Founders" or "the Framers") had in mind? That we can't even enjoy our Devil (banned)-ed ham sandwiches in peace? I say put a stop to this cult (banned as ethnocentric) of PC old wives' tales (banned as sexist; replace with "folk wisdom") and extremist (banned as ethnocentric; replace with "believer," "follower," or "adherent") conservative duffers (banned as demeaning to older men). As an heiress (banned as sexist; replace with "heir") to the first amendment, I feel that only a heretic (use with caution when comparing religions) would try to stop American vernacular from flourishing in all its inspirational (banned as patronizing when referring to a person with disabilities) splendor.

It seemed necessary just then to touch base with the Lord. Shutting my eyes, I leaned into the horse. I prayed in words for a little while . . . and then language went away and I prayed in a soft high-pitched lament any human listener would’ve termed a whine. We serve a patient God. . . . Andreeson, who I’d despised, now appeared to my mind as he might’ve to a worried brother. Talk about an unwelcome change. There in the cold, curled against Mr. Ford’s sighing horse, I repented of hatred in general and especially that cultivated against the putrid fed. A pain started up, as of live coals inside, and like that I knew where he was. Knew, with certainty, why he hadn’t come back out of the blizzard. I began to weep. Not only for Andreeson—weeping seems to accompany repentance most times. No wonder. Could you reach deep in yourself to locate that organ containing delusions about your general size in the world—could you lay hold of this and dredge it from your chest and look it over in daylight—well, it’s no wonder people would rather not.

You’re a product of our language”, Brandy says, “and how our laws are and how we believe our God wants us. Every bitty molecule about you has already been thought out by some million people before you” she says. “Anything you can do is boring and old and perfectly okay. You're safe because you're so trapped inside your culture. Anything you can conceive of is fine because you can conceive of it. You can’t imagine any way to escape. There’s no way you can get out […] And if you can find any way out of our culture, then that’s a trap, too. Just wanting to get out of the trap reinforces the trap”. The books on plastic surgery, the pamphlets and brochures all promised to help me live a more normal, happy life; but less and less, this looked like what I'd want. What I wanted looked more and more like what I'd always been trained to want. What everybody wants. Give me attention. Flash. Give me beauty. Flash. Give me peace and happiness, a loving relationship, and a perfect home. Flash. Brandy says, "The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger." She says, "Don't do what you want." She says, "Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want." It's the opposite of following your bliss. Brandy tells me, "Do the things that scare you the most”.

Now tell me, but briefly, without wearying me, why you have come." "He sent me." "What did he bid you tell me, slave?" "I am not a slave," Matthu Levi answered with growing rage, "I am his disciple." "We speak different languages, as usual," responded Woland, "but this does not change the things we speak about. Well?..." "He read the Master's work," said Matthu Levi, "and he asks you to take the Master with you and reward him with peace. Is that so difficult for you, spirit of evil?" "Nothing is difficult for me," answered Woland, "and you know it very well." He was silent a while, and added: "and why don't you take him with you, into the light?" "He has not earned light, he earned peace," Levi answered sadly.

The fact that political efforts of dissent and critique are often labeled as “violent” by the very state authorities that are threatened by those efforts is not a reason to despair of language use. It means only that we have to expand and refine the political vocabulary for thinking about violence and the resistance to violence, taking account of how that vocabulary is twisted and used to shield violent authorities against critique and opposition. When the critique of continuing colonial violence is deemed violent (Palestine), when a petition for peace is recast as an act of war (Turkey), when struggles for equality and freedom are construed as violent threats to state security (Black Lives Matter), or when “gender” is portrayed as a nuclear arsenal directed against the family (anti-gender ideology), then we are operating in the midst of politically consequential forms of phantasmagoria.

Occasionally people make the mistake of asking me where a word comes from. They never make this mistake twice. I am naturally a stern and silent fellow; even forbidding. But there’s something about etymology and where words come from that overcomes my inbuilt taciturnity. A chap once asked me where the word biscuit came from. He was eating one at the time and had been struck by curiosity. I explained to him that a biscuit is cooked twice, or in French bi-cuit, and he thanked me for that. So I added that the bi in biscuit is the same bi that you get in bicycle and bisexual, to which he nodded. And then, just because it occurred to me, I told him that the word bisexual wasn’t invented until the 1890s and that it was coined by a psychiatrist called Richard von Krafft-Ebing and did he know that Ebing also invented the word masochism? He told me firmly that he didn’t. Did he know about Mr. Masoch, after whom masochism was named? He was a novelist and… The fellow told me that he didn’t know about Mr. Masoch, that he didn’t want to know about Mr. Masoch, and that his one ambition in life was to eat his biscuit in peace.

America, you whitewash history, literally, and leave out much of its meaning and discovery. And, as we try to get better at uncovering these truths, so many who want to pretend otherwise fight and legislate to push them back underground, to once again bury them. There are so many discoveries that have been found and made, and then buried and left for us to re-find (or not)--discoveries about autonomy and equality and peace and compromise and respect for all the creatures who inhabit the planet and the planet itself. Our written history has destroyed the voices of the people from whom we stole this land and the voices of those whose lives we stole to build it, the voices of women and children and people whose skin color or language or belief system did not fit the status quo of the time and place where they lived. All were destroyed because it did not serve some lust for power or control or just because the people in charge of such things really did not believe they were very important, or refused to believe that they should be.

On a journey the face of reality changes with the mountains and rivers, with the architecture of the buildings, the layout of the gardens, with the language, the skin colour. And yesterday’s reality burns on in the pain of parting; the day before yesterday’s is a finished episode, never to return; what happened a month ago is a dream, a past life. And at last you realize that the course of a life contains nothing but a limited number of such ‘episodes’, that a thousand and one accidents determine where we can build our house at last – but the peace of our poor minds is a precious good freedom that you should not chase, not haggle over, nor should you bargain for it with the dictators who can set fire to our houses, trample our fields and spread cholera overnight. Appalling uncertainty…? Appalling only when we fail to look it in the eyes. But the journey that many may take for an airy dream, an enticing game, liberation from daily routine, freedom as such, is in reality merciless, a school that accustoms us to the inevitable course of events, to encounters and losses, blow upon blow.

Blasphemy is more complicated than the simple act of cursing God. It is an attempt to remove our cultural eyeglasses, or at least grind the lenses to make our focus broader, clearer. There are deep strictures against removing these eyeglasses, for without them our culture would fall apart. Question Christianity, damned heathen. Question capitalism, pinko liberal. Question democracy, ungrateful wretch. Question science, just plain stupid. These epithets—blasphemer, commie, ingrate, stupid—need not be spoken aloud. Their invocation actually implies an incomplete enculturation of the subject. Proper enculturation causes the eyeglasses to be undetectable. People believe they are perceiving the world as it is, without the distorting lens of culture: God (with a capital G) does sit upon a heavenly throne; heaven is located beyond the stars that make up Orion’s belt (and, so I was told, you can just see heavens brilliance if you look closely enough); a collection of humans, each acting selfishly, will bring peace, justice, and affluence to all; the United States is the world’s greatest democracy; humans are the apex of creation.

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.

It is a curious fate to write for a people other than one’s own, and it is even stranger to write to the conquerors of one’s people. Wonder was expressed at the acrimony of the first colonized writers. Do they forget that they are addressing the same public whose tongue they have borrowed? However, the writer is neither unconscious, nor ungrateful, nor insolent. As soon as they dare speak, what will they tell just those people, other than of their malaise and revolt? Could words of peace or thoughts of gratitude be expected from those who have been suffering from a loan that compounds so much interest? For a loan which, besides, will never be anything but a loan. We are here, it is true, putting aside fact for conjecture. But it is so easy to read, so obvious. The emergence of a literature of a colonized people, the development of consciousness by North African writers for example, is not an isolated occurrence. It is part of the development of the self-consciousness of an entire human group. The fruit is not an accident or miracle of a plant but a sign of its maturity. At most, the surging of the colonized artist is slightly ahead of the development of collective consciousness in which he participates and which he hastens by participating in it. And the most urgent claim of a group about to revive is certainly the liberation and restoration of its language.

Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in the story he tells, that’s what he has the Father say. “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” ... Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that if they accept and believe in Jesus, then they’ll be able to have a relationship with God... But there’s more. Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God will have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell... A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony... if your God is loving one second and cruel the next, if your God will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, acceptable, awful reality... sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting “the gospel” is that they sense that the God lurking behind Jesus isn’t safe, loving, or good. It doesn’t make sense it can’t be reconciled, and so they say no... God create, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this God knows no other way. Jesus invites us into THAT relationship, the one at the center of the universe... so when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will “get into heaven,” that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club. The good news is better than that.

You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in "spiritual direction". Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense of knowledge of the church's traditions in these matters. If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like "spiritual direction"? Why not just "friend"? Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand. The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life. Or maybe the right label for my fear is "functionalism". The moment an aspect of Christian living (human life, for that matter) is defined as a role, it is distorted, debased - and eventually destroyed. We are brothers and sisters with one another, friends and lovers, saints and sinners. The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction. But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing. Instead, why don't you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so - you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn't have to say anything "wise". You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. After three or four such meetings, write to me what has transpired, and we'll discuss it further. I've had a number of men and women who have served me in this way over the years - none carried the title "spiritual director", although that is what they have been. Some had never heard of such a term. When I moved to Canada a few years ago and had to leave a long-term relationship of this sort, I looked around for someone whom I could be with in this way. I picked a man whom I knew to be a person of integrity and prayer, with seasoned Christian wisdom in his bones. I anticipated that he would disqualify himself. So I pre-composed my rebuttal: "All I want you to do is two things: show up and shut up. Can you do that? Meet with me every six weeks or so, and just be there - an honest, prayerful presence with no responsibility to be anything other than what you have become in your obedient lifetime." And it worked. If that is what you mean by "spiritual director," okay. But I still prefer "friend". You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise. The peace of the Lord, Eugene

Read. You should read Bukowski and Ferlinghetti, read Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and listen to Coltrane, Nina Simone, Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Son House, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Nick Drake, Bobbie Gentry, George Jones, Jimmy Reed, Odetta, Funkadelic, and Woody Guthrie. Drive across America. Ride trains. Fly to countries beyond your comfort zone. Try different things. Join hands across the water. Different foods. New tasks. Different menus and tastes. Talk with the guy who’s working in construction on your block, who’s working on the highway you’re traveling on. Speak with your neighbors. Get to know them. Practice civil disobedience. Try new resistance. Be part of the solution, not the problem. Don’t litter the earth, it’s the only one you have, learn to love her. Care for her. Learn another language. Trust your friends with kindness. You will need them one day. You will need earth one day. Do not fear death. There are worse things than death. Do not fear the reaper. Lie in the sunshine but from time to time let the neon light your way. ZZ Top, Jefferson Airplane, Spirit. Get a haircut. Dye your hair pink or blue. Do it for you. Wear eyeliner. Your eyes are the windows to your soul. Show them off. Wear a feather in your cap. Run around like the Mad Hatter. Perhaps he had the answer. Visit the desert. Go to the zoo. Go to a county fair. Ride the Ferris wheel. Ride a horse. Pet a pig. Ride a donkey. Protest against war. Put a peace symbol on your automobile. Drive a Volkswagen. Slow down for skateboarders. They might have the answers. Eat gingerbread men. Pray to the moon and the stars. God is out there somewhere. Don’t worry. You’ll find out where soon enough. Dance. Even if you don’t know how to dance. Read The Four Agreements. Read the Bible. Read the Bhagavad Gita. Join nothing. It won’t help. No games, no church, no religion, no yellow-brick road, no way to Oz. Wear beads. Watch a caterpillar in the sun.

Born in the East, and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet, and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. It comes into the palace to tell the monarch that he is the servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he is the son of God. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wisemen ponder them as parables of life. It has a word of peace for the time of peril, the hour of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely. The wise and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother's voice. The wilderness and the solitary place have been made glad by it, and the fire on the hearth has lighted the reading of its well-worn pages. It has woven itself into our deepest affections, and colored our dearest dreams; so that love and friendship, sympathy and devotion, memory and hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured speech, breathing of frankincense and myrrh. Above the cradle and beside the grave its great words come to us uncalled. They fill our prayers with power larger than we know, and the beauty of them lingers in our ear long after the sermons which they have adorned have been forgotten. They return to us swiftly and quietly, like birds flying from far away. They surprise us with new meanings, like springs of water breaking forth from the mountain beside a long-forgotten path. They grow richer, as pearls do when they are worn near the heart. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the valley named the shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend and comrade, "Good-by, we shall meet again"; and comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who climbs through darkness into light.

Girls, I was dead and down in the Underworld, a shade, a shadow of my former self, nowhen. It was a place where language stopped, a black full stop, a black hole Where the words had to come to an end. And end they did there, last words, famous or not. It suited me down to the ground. So imagine me there, unavailable, out of this world, then picture my face in that place of Eternal Repose, in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe from the kind of a man who follows her round writing poems, hovers about while she reads them, calls her His Muse, and once sulked for a night and a day because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns. Just picture my face when I heard - Ye Gods - a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door. Him. Big O. Larger than life. With his lyre and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize. Things were different back then. For the men, verse-wise, Big O was the boy. Legendary. The blurb on the back of his books claimed that animals, aardvark to zebra, flocked to his side when he sang, fish leapt in their shoals at the sound of his voice, even the mute, sullen stones at his feet wept wee, silver tears. Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself, I should know.) And given my time all over again, rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc. In fact girls, I’d rather be dead. But the Gods are like publishers, usually male, and what you doubtless know of my tale is the deal. Orpheus strutted his stuff. The bloodless ghosts were in tears. Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years. Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers. The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears. Like it or not, I must follow him back to our life - Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife - to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes, octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets, elegies, limericks, villanelles, histories, myths… He’d been told that he mustn’t look back or turn round, but walk steadily upwards, myself right behind him, out of the Underworld into the upper air that for me was the past. He’d been warned that one look would lose me for ever and ever. So we walked, we walked. Nobody talked. Girls, forget what you’ve read. It happened like this - I did everything in my power to make him look back. What did I have to do, I said, to make him see we were through? I was dead. Deceased. I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late. Past my sell-by date… I stretched out my hand to touch him once on the back of the neck. Please let me stay. But already the light had saddened from purple to grey. It was an uphill schlep from death to life and with every step I willed him to turn. I was thinking of filching the poem out of his cloak, when inspiration finally struck. I stopped, thrilled. He was a yard in front. My voice shook when I spoke - Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece. I’d love to hear it again… He was smiling modestly, when he turned, when he turned and he looked at me. What else? I noticed he hadn’t shaved. I waved once and was gone. The dead are so talented. The living walk by the edge of a vast lake near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.

Sisyphus cheated death,” Nico explained. “First he chained up Thanatos, the reaper of souls, so no one could die. Then when Thanatos got free and was about to kill him, Sisyphus told his wife to do incorrect funeral rites so he wouldn’t rest in peace. Sisy here—May I call you Sisy?” “No!” “Sisy tricked Persephone into letting him go back to the world to haunt his wife. And he didn’t come back.” The old man cackled. “I stayed alive another thirty years before they finally tracked me down!” Thalia was halfway up the hill now. She gritted her teeth, pushing the boulder with her back. Her expression said Hurry up! “So that was your punishment,” I said to Sisyphus. “Rolling a boulder up a hill forever. Was it worth it?” “A temporary setback!” Sisyphus cried. “I’ll bust out of here soon, and when I do, they’ll all be sorry!” “How would you get out of the Underworld?” Nico asked. “It’s locked down, you know.” Sisyphus grinned wickedly. “That’s what the other one asked.” My stomach tightened. “Someone else asked your advice?” “An angry young man,” Sisyphus recalled. “Not very polite. Held a sword to my throat. Didn’t offer to roll my boulder at all.” “What did you tell him?” Nico said. “Who was he?” Sisyphus massaged his shoulders. He glanced up at Thalia, who was almost to the top of the hill. Her face was bright red and drenched in sweat. “Oh . . . it’s hard to say,” Sisyphus said. “Never seen him before. He carried a long package all wrapped up in black cloth. Skis, maybe? A shovel? Maybe if you wait here, I could go look for him. . . .” “What did you tell him?” I demanded. “Can’t remember.” Nico drew his sword. The Stygian iron was so cold it steamed in the hot dry air of Punishment. “Try harder.” The old man winced. “What kind of person carries a sword like that?” “A son of Hades,” Nico said. “Now answer me!” The color drained from Sisyphus’s face. “I told him to talk to Melinoe! She always has a way out!” Nico lowered his sword. I could tell the name Melinoe bothered him. “Are you crazy?” he said. “That’s suicide!” The old man shrugged. “I’ve cheated death before. I could do it again.” “What did this demigod look like?” “Um . . . he had a nose,” Sisyphus said. “A mouth. And one eye and—” “One eye?” I interrupted. “Did he have an eye patch?” “Oh . . . maybe,” Sisyphus said. “He had hair on his head. And—” He gasped and looked over my shoulder. “There he is!” We fell for it. As soon as we turned, Sisyphus took off down the hill. “I’m free! I’m free! I’m—ACK!” Ten feet from the hill, he hit the end of his invisible leash and fell on his back. Nico and I grabbed his arms and hauled him up the hill. “Curse you!” He let loose with bad words in Ancient Greek, Latin, English, French, and several other languages I didn’t recognize. “I’ll never help you! Go to Hades!” “Already there,” Nico muttered. “Incoming!” Thalia shouted. I looked up and might have used a few cuss words myself. The boulder was bouncing straight toward us. Nico jumped one way. I jumped the other. Sisyphus yelled, “NOOOOOOO!” as the thing plowed into him. Somehow he braced himself and stopped it before it could run him over. I guess he’d had a lot of practice. “Take it again!” he wailed. “Please. I can’t hold it.” “Not again,” Thalia gasped. “You’re on your own.” He treated us to a lot more colorful language. It was clear he wasn’t going to help us any further, so we left him to his punishment.