Lent Days Quotes

From the onset of polio in 1921 until his death, Franklin, his family, his inner circle of advisers, and teams of physicians assiduously disguised the state of his health, promoting the fantasy of a robust leader who was always in excel- lent physical condition for a man his age. Severe heart disease was not admit- ted until twenty-five years after his death, and then only as part of a new and larger cover-up to conceal other severe medical problems. These deceptions still dominate the present-day narrative of Franklin’s health, especially so in his later years.

A lost person or article is still what it is, still valuable in itself, but in the wrong place, disconnected from its purpose and unable to be or do whatever it is intended to be or do.

Gundar, seeing Halt upright for the first time in two days, stumped up the deck to join them. 'Back on your feet then?' he boomed cheerfully, with typical Skandian tact. 'By Gorlag's toenails, with all the heaving abd puking you've been doing, I thought you'd turn yourself inside out and puke yourself over the rail!'... 'You do paint a pretty picture, Gundar,' Will said... 'Thank you for your concern,' Halt said icily... 'So, did you find Albert?' Gundar went on, unabashed. Even Halt was puzzled by this sudden apparent change of subject. 'Albert?' he asked. Too late, he saw Gundar's grin widening and knew he'd stepped into a trap. 'You seemed to be looking for him. You'd lean over the rail and call, 'Al-b-e-e-e-e-e-r-t!' I thought he might be some Araluen sea god.' 'No, I didn't find him. Maybe I could look for him in your helmet.' He reached out a hand. But Gundar had heard what happened when Skandians lent their helmets to the grim-faced Ranger while onboard ship... 'No, I'm pretty sure he's not there,' he said hurriedly.

In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silence, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.

A guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.' - Bread & Wine (day 5)

She lived among us for a while And brought joy where she went. We thought she was a gift of God But learned she was but lent.

This night felt like a last hurrah, like we could blaze our brightest, at the apex of our insane adolescence. This was our Mardi Gras before the dark days of Lent.

I recall that I have received most light during adoration which I made lying prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour every day throughout Lent. During that time I came to know myself and God more profoundly.

Yawn... I believe that I love sleep much more than anybody I’ve ever met. I have the ability to sleep for 2 or 3 days and nights. I will go to bed at any given moment. I often confused my girlfriends this way— say it would be about onethirty in the afternoon: “well, I’m going to bed now, I’m going to sleep…” most of them wouldn’t mind, they would go to bed with me thinking I was hinting for sex but I would just turn my back and snore off. this, of course, could explain why so many of my girlfriends left me. as for doctors, they were never any help: “listen, I have this desire to go to bed and sleep, almost all the time. what is wrong with me?” “do you get enough exercise?” “yes…” “are you getting enough nourishment?” “yes…” they always handed me a prescription which I threw away between the office and the parking lot. it’s a curious malady because I can’t sleep between 6 p.m. and midnight. it must occur after midnight and when I arise it can never be before noon. and should the phone ring say at 10:30 a.m. I go into a mad rage don’t even ask who the caller is scream into the phone: “WHAT ARE YOU CALLING ME FOR AT THIS HOUR!” hang up… every person, I suppose, has their eccentricities but in an effort to be normal in the world’s eye they overcome them and therefore destroy their special calling. I’ve kept mine and do believe that they have lent generously to my existence. I think it’s the main reason I decided to become a writer: I can type anytime and sleep when I damn well please.

I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me I do not see it going its way but I never saw how it came to me it extends beyond whatever I may think I know and all that is real to me it is the present that it bears away where has it gone when it has gone from me there is no place I know outside today except for the unknown all around me the only presence that appears to stay everything that I call mine it lent me even the way that I believe the day for as long as it is here and is me

My mother taught me to knit when I was seven. I forgot about knitting until one day I saw Marion at the counter with hers and confessed that I knew how. Confessed is the right word. In those days, in the early 1980s, knitting was not a hobby a preteen would readily admit to. But Marion, every enthusiastic, pounced upon me and insisted that I show her something I'd made. I did -- a misshapen scarf -- which she priased exravagantly. she lent me a raspberry-colored wool for another project, a hat for myself. Since then I've been knitting pretty continuously. It's addictive and it's soothing, and fora a few minutes anyway, it makes me feel closer to my mother.

She thought she loved him. What do you have in your pocket?” He smiled, drew out the gray button that had fallen off her very ugly suit the first day they’d met. “See?” She couldn’t say why that stupid button moved her so damn much. “People in love keep things. Sentimental things.” “What do you have?” She pulled the chain, and the tear-shaped diamond from under her shirt. “I wouldn’t wear this for anybody but you. It’s embarrassing. And—” “Ah, something else.” “Shit. I’m tired. It makes me gabby. I have one of your shirts.” His brow creased in absolute bafflement. “My shirts?” “In my drawer, under a bunch of stuff. You lent it to me the morning after our first night together. It still sort of smells like you.” For a moment, the worry on his face simply dissolved. “I believe that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me in all our time together.” “Well, I owed you. Besides, you have enough shirts to outfit a Broadway troupe. So, help me toss the room?” “Absolutely.

Dim as the borrowed beams of moons and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travelers, Is Reason to the soul; and, as on high Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here, so Reason's glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upward to a better day.

The purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to ‘soften’ our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden ‘thirst and hunger’ for communion with God.

That particular April day was strange and foggy, blurring spaces between the trees and blanketing all of Ellingham in a milky mist. Dottie decided that the weather lent itself to a mystery. Sherlock Holmes would be perfect.

The Taking Of Turns Monday, June 14, 2010 You are in some songs that still get played on the radio when the DJ is feeling nostalgic. You are in a book you once lent me (never returned) with yellowed pages. You are in trees when I touch them, even ones without names carved into them. You are in the way someone on the street laughs as I pass them. You are in a box I keep filled with letters. You are in a ring I no longer wear. And, every day, you each get a moment to haunt me.

The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie-- Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear. When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find--it's your own affair-- But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear. When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!). When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone--wherever it goes--for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart to a dog to tear. We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long-- So why in--Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

I had a mother who read to me Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea. Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth; "Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath. I had a Mother who read me lays Of ancient and gallant and golden days; Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe, Which every boy has a right to know. I had a Mother who read me tales Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales, True to his trust till his tragic death, Faithfulness lent with his final breath. I had a Mother who read me the things That wholesome life to the boy heart brings- Stories that stir with an upward touch. Oh, that each mother of boys were such! You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be -- I had a Mother who read to me.

Shrove Tuesday is the very last day, allowed by our Holy Mother the Church for revelry, before the long austere forty days of Lent, and if we do not make use of her full permission to enjoy ourselves, to the full extent of out capacity, we shall have nothing left to atone for to-morrow, when the good fathers place the cross of ashes on our foreheads, and bid us remember that dust we are, to dust return.

God is not merely at your fingertips but within your grasp. Live each day like a child digging through a treasure chest, rifling for the next discovery. Open your arms and your eyes to the God who stands in plain sight and works miracles in your midst. Look for him in your workdays and weekends, in your meeting-filled Mondays and your lazy Saturdays. Search for him in the snowy sunsets and Sabbaths, seasons of Lent and sitting at your table. Pray for—and expect—wonder. For when you search for God, you will discover him.

A husband or wife did not have the right either to demand sex from his or her spouse or to refuse it, and there was a catalogue of forbidden sexual practices, notably homosexuality, bestiality, certain sexual positions, masturbation, the use of aphrodisiacs, and oral sex, which could incur a penance of three years’ duration. Nor were people to make love on Sundays, holy days, or feast days, or during Lent, pregnancy, or menstruation. People believed that if these rules were disobeyed, deformed children or lepers might result.

If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'.

We suffer these things and they fade form memory. But daily, hourly, to give up our own possessions and especially to subordinate our own impulses and wishes to to others - these are hard, hard things; and I don't think they ever get any easier. You can strip yourself, you can be stripped, but still you will reach out like an octopus to seek your own comfort, your untroubled time, your ease, your refreshment. It may mean books or music - the gratification of the inner sense - or it may mean food and drink, coffee and cigarettes. The one kind of giving up is no easier than the other.

FAUSTUS. Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente,172 lente currite, noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. O, I'll leap up to my God!—Who pulls me down?— See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!— Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!— Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows! Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God! No, no! Then will I headlong run into the earth: Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me! You stars that reign'd at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist. Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud[s], That, when you173 vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven! [The clock strikes the half-hour.] Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon O God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me, Impose some end to my incessant pain; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd! O, no end is limited to damned souls! Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true, This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd Unto some brutish beast!174 all beasts are happy, For, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. [The clock strikes twelve.] O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell! [Thunder and lightning.] O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found! Enter DEVILS. My God, my god, look not so fierce on me! Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer! I'll burn my books!—Ah, Mephistophilis! [Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.]

These special holidays give rise to various liturgical calendars that suggest we should mark our days not only with the cycles of the moon and seasons, but also with occasions to tell our children the stories of our faith community's past so that this past will have a future, and so that our ancient way and its practices will be rediscovered and renewed every year.

We need to take time to connect with the poor, resist our unceasing cravings, and pray. But we also need to gather with friends and family, share in God's good provision, eat delicious food, tell stories that encourage us all, and celebrate the risen Lord.

It is often much harder to get rid of books than it is to acquire them. They stick to us in that pact of need and oblivion we make with them, witnesses to a moment in our lives we will never see again. While they are still there, it is a part of us. I have noticed that many people make a note of the day, month, and year that they read a book; they build up a secret calendar. Others, before lending one, write their name on the flyleaf, note whom they lent it to in an address book, and add the date. I have known some book owners who stamp them or slip a card between their pages the way they do in public libraries. Nobody wants to mislay a book. We prefer to lose a ring, a watch, our umbrella, rather than a book whose pages we will never read again, but which retains, just in the sound of its title, a remote and perhaps long-lost emotion.

Twitter was only the gateway, the portal into the endless city of the internet. Whole days went by on clicking, my attention snared over and over by pockets and ladders of information; an absent, ardent witness to the world, the Lady of Shalott with her back to the window, watching the shadows of the real appear in the lent blue glass of her magic mirror. I used to read like that, back in the age of paper, the finished century, to bury myself in a book, and now I gazed at the screen, my cathected silver lover.

Deserts unclutter the soul. The hot desert sun vaporizes all manner of luxuries. Then the cold, shelterless nights expose the essential guts of life. I needed to eat, to sleep, to be protected, and to not be alone. Lent had come half a year early. God asked me to fast mental and physical strength. He invited me into holy weakness. I found Jesus there.

What a glorious day !

Lent begins with a challenge to clear out the mental and spiritual clutter and so discover how to live life to the full.

There is no defeat in the cross. Only triumph is to be found there.

The past and the future were the same thing to him, one forgotten and the other not remembered; he had no more notion of dying than a cat. Every year on Confederate Memorial Day, he was bundled up and lent to the Capitol City Museum where he was displayed from one to four in a musty room full of old photographs, old uniforms, old artillery, and historic documents.

Lent is a much-needed mentor in an age obsessed with visible, measurable, manageable, and tweetable increase, for it invites us to walk with Jesus and His disciples through darker seasons that we would rather avoid: grief, conflict, misunderstanding, betrayal, restriction, rejection, and pain. Then Easter leads us in celebration of salvation as the stunningly satisfying fruit of Jesus’ sacred decrease.

A farm is a peculiar problem for a man who likes animals, because the fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors. The creatures may live serenely but they end violently, and the odor of doom hangs about them always. I have kept several pigs, starting them in spring as weanlings and carrying trays to them all through summer and fall. The relationship bothered me. Day by day I became better acquainted with my pig, and he with me, and the fact that the whole adventure pointed toward an eventual piece of double-dealing on my part lent an eerie quality to the thing. I do not like to betray a person or a creature, and I tend to agree with Mr. E.M. Forster that in these times the duty of a man, above all else, is to be reliable. It used to be clear to me, slopping a pig, that as far as the pig was concerned I could not be counted on, and this, as I say, troubled me. Anyway, the theme of "Charlotte's Web" is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.

It was the same book, every day. The pages of said book were rounded and soft where Young Sam had chewed them, but to one person in this nursery this was the book of books, the greatest story ever told. Vimes didn't need to read it any more. He knew it by heart. It was called Where's My Cow? The unidentified complainant had lost their cow. That was the story, really. Page one started promisingly: Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Baa!" It is a sheep! That's not my cow! Then the author began to get to grips with their material: Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Neigh!" It is a horse! That's not my cow! At this point the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul. Where's my cow? Is that my cow? It goes, "Hruuugh!" It is a hippopotamus! That's not my cow! This was a good evening. Young Sam was already grinning widely and crowing along with the plot. Eventually, the cow would be found. It was that much of a pageturner. Of course, some suspense was lent by the fact that all other animals were presented in some way that could have confused a kitten, who perhaps had been raised in a darkened room. The horse was standing in front of a hatstand, as they so often did, and the hippo was eating at a trough against which was an upturned pitchfork. Seen from the wrong direction, the tableau might look for just one second like a cow ... Young Sam loved it, anyway. It must have been the most cuddled book in the world. Nevertheless, it bothered Vimes, even though he'd got really good at the noises and would go up against any man in his rendition of the "Hruuugh!" But was this a book for a city kid? When would he ever hear these noises? In the city the only sound those animals would make was "sizzle" But the nursery was full of the conspiracy, with baa-lambs and teddy bears and fluffy ducklings everywhere he looked.

The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts. The neglected life will soon become a moral chaos. The church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.

When we entered the material world, God lent us a body to act as a vessel and encase our souls. Our body is our temple and, miraculously, it is in a state of constant renewal. Fat cells are replaced at the rate of 10% each year. Skin cells are renewed every two to four weeks. Our 9,000 taste buds are renewed every 10-14 days. Our skeleton is renewed every two years. Every day billions of cells replace the ones that came before them. We are in this miracle of creation and renewal every second of our lives… unless we mess up that renewal. God not only gave us a constantly renewing body, but he also provided a profoundly rich, diverse and constantly-renewing food supply.

In the eighth century, the Catholic Church created a huge market for salted cod and herring by allowing the devout to consume fish on Fridays, the day of Christ's crucifixion, during the forty days of Lent and on major feast days.

Grant, I beseech Thee, O Lord, that by the observance of this Lent I may advance in the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, and show forth His mind in conduct worthy of my calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. —GELASIAN SACRAMENTARY

God is forgotten, the mighty dollar has taken his place and the mechanic cannot ease the troubled soul. The road is closed. Under circumstances such as these America only increases speed. America will not stop for anything, it wants to get on, go on, forge a way ahead. Should America turn back? Absolutely not! It simply increases the pace a hundredfold, acts the hurricane and whips life up to a white heat. In Europe nowadays we have the word Americanism, the old days had festina lente.

While that may be true, we really should be on our way. We've got that experiment we need to check on in the laboratory. Remember?' 'Actually, you're wrong again, my dear.' I was so mad I could scream some of the worst obscenities I'd heard at the docks at him. He was ruining our exit strategy, and I was most certainly not his dear. When I thought all hope was lost, Thomas checked his watch. 'We should've left precisely three minutes and twenty-three seconds ago. If we don't run now, our experiment will be destroyed.' He turned to the editor and superintendent. 'It's been as pleasant as a fast day in Lent, gentlemen.' By the time they figured out his parting was, in fact, an insult, we were already rushing out through the bustling newsroom.

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

The four-week period of Advent before Christmas—and the six-week period of Lent before Easter—are times of penance and life change for Christians. In our book The Last Week, we suggested that Lent was a penance time for having been in the wrong procession and a preparation time for moving over to the right one by Palm Sunday. That day’s violent procession of the horse-mounted Pilate and his soldiers was contrasted with the nonviolent procession of the donkey-mounted Jesus and his companions. We asked: in which procession would we have walked then and in which do we walk now?

It was now light twenty-four hours a day; the sun disappeared only briefly near midnight, leaving prolonged, magnificent twilight. Often during this period, the phenomenon of an “ice shower,” caused by the moisture in the air freezing and settling to earth, lent a fairyland atmosphere to the scene.

Wake not the Dead: - they bring but gloomy night And cheerless desolation into day For in the grave who mouldering lay, No more can feel the influence of light, Or yield them to the sun's prolific might; Let them repose within their house of clay - Corruption, wilt thou vainly e'er essay To quicken: - it sends forth a prest'lent blight; And neither fiery sun, nor bathing dew, Nor breath of Spring the dead can e'er renew. That which from life is pluck'd, becomes the foe Of life, and whoso wakes it waketh woe. Seek not the dead to waken from that sleep In which from mortal eye they lie enshrouded deep.

Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails, and then the materialistic side—in wave-like motions following each other. ...At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails, and everything in this life—prosperity, the education which procures more pleasures, more food—will become glorious at first and then that will degrade and degenerate. Along with the prosperity will rise to white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race. Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day. To quote a very commonplace and not very elegant English proverb, "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost", becomes the motto of the day. Then people think that the whole scheme of life is a failure. And the world would be destroyed had not spirituality come to the rescue and lent a helping hand to the sinking world. Then the world gets new hope and finds a new basis for a new building, and another wave of spirituality comes, which in time again declines. As a rule, spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to the special powers of the world. The immediate effect of this is a reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are centered in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them. Then society has to help itself, and materialism comes to the rescue.

No other person should ever get credit for being the best part of who you are. They may have helped shape you, lent you ides, shown you other possibilities, but you are you. Simple as that. Know your worth, girl. Because the world you're going to will make you feel small if you let it. Don't let it. Don't let them.

I have some misgivings about the popular question, "What would Jesus do?" It seems to me slightly presumptuous to imagine we know what Jesus would do on any occasion, given the startling ways he turned the law to his own profound purposes, violated conventional expectations, reframed the commandments, and upended class-based notions of human worth. "What did Jesus do?" on the other hand, seems like a useful question to keep raising ... And perhaps even more pertinent might be "What is Jesus doing?" How is the one who promised to be with us always in the Holy Spirit - blowing where it will , poured out on all humankind - moving among us and within us?

Wedding Superstitions The Bridal Gown White - You have chosen right. Grey - You'll go far away. Black - You'll wish yourself back. Red - You'll wish yourself dead. Green - Ashamed to be seen. Blue - You'll always be true. Pearl - You'll live in a whirl. Peach - A love out of reach. Yellow - Ashamed of your fellow. Pink - Your Spirits will sink. The Wedding Day Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday best of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, Saturday for no luck at all. The Wedding Month Marry in May, and you'll rue the day, Marry in Lent, you'll live to repent. Married when the year is new, He'll be loving, kind and true. When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate. If you wed when March winds blow, Joy and sorrow both you'll know. Marry in April when you can, Joy for maiden and the man. Marry in the month of May, And you'll surely rue the day. Marry when the June roses grow, Over land and sea you'll go. Those who in July do wed, Must labour for their daily bread. Whoever wed in August be, Many a change is sure to see. Marry in September's shine, Your living will be rich and fine. If in October you do marry, Love will come, but riches tarry. If you wed in bleak November, Only joys will come, remember, When December's snows fall fast, Marry and true love will last. Married in January's roar and rime, Widowed you'll be before your prime. Married in February's sleepy weather, Life you'll tread in time together. Married when March winds shrill and roar, Your home will lie on a distant shore. Married 'neath April's changeful skies, A checkered path before you lies. Married when bees o'er May blossoms flit, Strangers around your board will sit. Married in month of roses June, Life will be one long honeymoon. Married in July with flowers ablaze, Bitter-sweet memories in after days. Married in August's heat and drowse, Lover and friend in your chosen spouse. Married in September's golden glow, Smooth and serene your life will go. Married when leaves in October thin, Toil and hardships for you begin. Married in veils of November mist, Fortune your wedding ring has kissed. Married in days of December's cheer, Love's star shines brighter from year to year

Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do, and say on that last day, 'I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I have lived all my life in the best society, and, thank Heaven, come of a most respectable family. I have served my King and country with honour. I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my speeches were listened to, and pretty well received. I don't owe any man a shilling: on the contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which my executors will not press him. I leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds a piece--very good portions for girls: I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my landed property, besides money in the Funds, and my cellar of well-selected wine in Baker Street, to my son. I leave twenty pound a year to my valet; and I defy any man after I am gone to find anything against my character.' Or suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a different sort of dirge, and you say, 'I am a poor, blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure through life. I was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune: and confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders. I own to having forgotten my duty many a time. I can't pay what I owe. On my last bed I lie utterly helpless and humble: and I pray forgiveness for my weakness, and throw myself with a contrite heart at the feet of the Divine Mercy.' Which of these two speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral? Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and vanity sank away from under him.

For a long time after that, I believed my grandfather had it right: God was in the details. But that was before I learned that the requirements of a true believer included Mass every Sunday and holy day of obligation, receiving the Eucharist, reconciliation once a year, giving money to the poor, observing Lent. Or in other words—just because you say you’re Catholic, if you don’t walk the walk, you’re not.

Logan felt it, even if he wanted to deny it. His pupils were dilated and he stared at her like she was chocolate and tomorrow was the first day of Lent. Sure, she might be forbidden, but no one could withstand temptation forever. Not when it was so close. The car roared to life as Logan started it back onto the road. So he thought to ignore the attraction? Good luck. He might be a rule follower, but Sofia wasn’t. He didn’t stand a chance in hell.

The truth is that frightened people will never turn the world, because they use too much energy on protection of self. It is the vocation of the baptized, the known and named and unafraid, to make the world whole: •The unafraid are open to the neighbor, while the frightened are defending themselves from the neighbor. •The unafraid are generous in the community, while the frightened, in their anxiety, must keep and store and accumulate, to make themselves safe. •The unafraid commit acts of compassion and mercy, while the frightened do not notice those in need. •The unafraid are committed to justice for the weak and the poor, while the frightened see them only as threats. •The unafraid pray in the morning, care through the day, and rejoice at night in thanks and praise, while the frightened are endlessly restless and dissatisfied. So dear people, each of you: Do not fear! I have called you by name; you are mine!

One may be part of a community. One is an individual. They are not mutually exclusive. It is only that the soul, the self, should lead, and our allegiances follow. To do otherwise—to be otherwise—is to make oneself a slave. Often when we speak, it is with the breath of dead men. Yet we build ourselves on such tradition. We tell only the one story after all, over and over. Through us that dead air is lent new life, and we remember, that we might one day understand.

While he turned and twisted the strips, the thin outer bark fell off in flakes, leaving the soft, white, inside bark. The whip would have been white, except that Almanzo’s hands left a few smudges. He could not finish it before chore-time, and the next day he had to go to school. But he braided his whip every evening by the heater, till the lash was five feet long. Then Father lent him his jack-knife, and Almanzo whittled a wooden handle, and bound the lash to it with strips of moosewood bark. The whip was done. It would be a perfectly good whip until it dried brittle in the hot summer. Almanzo could crack it almost as loudly as Father cracked a blacksnake whip. And he did not finish it a minute too soon, for already he needed it to give the calves their next lesson. Now he had to teach them to turn to the left when he shouted, “Haw!” and to turn to the right when he shouted “Gee!” As soon as the whip was ready, he began. Every Saturday morning he spent in the barnyard, teaching Star and Bright. He never whipped them; he only cracked the whip.

Easter was late in April that year; my first three tours of trenches occupied me during the last thirty days of Lent. This essential season in the Church calendar was not, as far as I remember, remarked upon by anyone in my company, although the name of Christ was often on our lips, and Mansfield (when a canister made a mess of the trench not many yards away from him) was even heard to refer to our Saviour as ‘murry old Jesus!’ These innocuous blasphemings of the holy name were a peculiar feature of the War, in which the principles of Christianity were either obliterated or falsified for the convenience of all who were engaged in it. Up in the trenches every man bore his own burden; the Sabbath was not made for man; and if a man laid down his life for his friends it was no part of his military duties. To kill an enemy was an effective action; to bring in one of our own wounded was praiseworthy, but unrelated to our war-aims. The Brigade chaplain did not exhort us to love our enemies. He was content to lead off with the hymn ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds’!

The season of Lent is the time for us to take a journey; an inward journey. The season of Lent is as the prophet Joel writes, “a time for us to rend our hearts and not our clothing.” It is a time for self-examination; a time to get to know ourselves a little better. Often times for Lent people will give up a favorite food, or some other form of self-sacrifice. These things are all well and good IF they come from the heart, IF they are a true attempt to re-connect with the Spirit inside us. Otherwise, we are simply “rending” our clothes.

At the crest of the hill outside Agor, Henry pulled the car to the side of the road and we got out to take in the view. In the falling shadows, the little Arab village at the foot of the Jewish settlement looked nothing like so grim and barren as it had a few minutes before when we’d driven down its deserted main street. A desert sunset lent a little picturesqueness even to that cluster of faceless hovels. As for the larger landscape, you could see, particularly in this light, how someone might get the impression that it had been created in only seven days, unlike England, say, whose countryside appeared to be the creation of a God who’d had four or five chances to come back to perfect it and smooth it out, to tame and retame it until it was utterly habitable by every last man and beast. Judea was something that had been left just as it had been made; this could have passed for a piece of the moon to which the Jews had been sadistically exiled by their worst enemies rather than the place they passionately maintained was theirs and no one else’s from time immemorial. What he finds in this landscape, I thought, is a correlative for the sense of himself he would now prefer to effect, the harsh and rugged pioneer with that pistol in his pocket.

Some bears are sold for amazing sums at auction. An example is a very old stuffed individual named Mabel that had belonged to Elvis Presley (as a child or an adult?) and had been sold at auction several times after the King's death; it was made in the Steiff workshop in 1909. Its end was exceedingly sinister. Lent by its owner for an exhibition of stuffed bears in Wells, England, in which it was to be the star attraction, it provoked a hatred or jealousy of a young Doberman accompanying the night watchman after the first day of the exhibition. The dog seized the precious relic and furiously bit and clawed it to pieces. (252)

It’s a Japanese flute called a shakuhachi. Mr. Kangana lent it to me from his collection. The first graders are going to sing for the parents on World Celebration Day and I’m going to accompany them. Last week, I went to rehearse, and they were just standing there singing. It was my idea they should do a little elephant dance, so I get to choreograph it.” “I didn’t know you’re choreographing a dance for the first graders,” Mom said. “That’s a huge deal, Bee.” “Not really.” “You need to tell me these things. Can I come?” “I’m not sure when it is.” I knew she didn’t like coming to school, and probably wouldn’t, so why pretend.

Finally, the survey findings also lent a helping hand to those men who wanted to engage in some heartfelt wooing, by identifying the gestures that women view as most, and least, romantic. The top-ten list of gestures is shown below, along with the percentage of women who assigned each gesture maximum marks on the “how romantic is this” scale. Cover her eyes and lead her to a lovely surprise—40 percent Whisk her away somewhere exciting for the weekend—40 percent Write a song or poem about her—28 percent Tell her that she is the most wonderful woman that you have ever met—25 percent Run her a relaxing bath after she has had a bad day at work—22 percent Send her a romantic text or e-mail, or leave a note around the house—22 percent Wake her up with breakfast in bed—22 percent Offer her a coat when she is cold—18 percent Send her a large bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates at her workplace—16 percent Make her a mix CD of her favorite music—12 percent Interestingly, it seems that gestures that reflect a form of escapism and surprise top the list, followed by those that reflect thoughtfulness, with blatant acts of materialism trailing in last place—scientific evidence, perhaps, that when it comes to romance, it really is the thought that counts.

Lord, you remained in constant communion with God in prayer. Spending time with God is not something I am in the habit of doing every day. My life is too busy. When I list all of the things I need to do, prayer is not at the top of the list. I make time to shop, to work out, to go out to eat, to be with friends and to watch my favorite television program. I know it is impossible to be a loving, kind, forgiving and merciful person without a strong prayer life. Lord, slow me down so that I will take time to be with you in prayer. Help me to experience the joy and peace that come from a closer relationship with you. Nourish me with your daily bread of love and compassion. Amen. Read

Fishing has never lent itself to the kind of satisfaction on demand that technology has trained us to expect for the simple reason that fish don’t want to be caught and go to great lengths to avoid it. That’s why it doesn’t make sense to take up fly-fishing for the bragging rights alone; it’s better to see it as an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives. Fishermen who care too much about the size and numbers of fish they catch are insufferable on good days and as harried as overworked executives on slow ones. On the other hand, it’s possible to be a happy angler who doesn’t catch many fish; it’s just that no one will ever say you’re good at it.

Our inner lives must be lent a structure and our best thoughts reinforced to counter the continuous pull of distraction and disintegration. Religions have been wise enough to establish elaborate calendars and schedules. How free secular society leaves us by contrast. Secular life is not, of course, unacquainted with calendars and schedules. We know them well in relation to work, and accept the virtues of reminders of lunch meetings, cash-flow projections and tax deadlines. But it expects that we will spontaneously find our way to the ideas that matter to us and gives us weekends off for consumption and recreation. It privileges discovery, presenting us with an incessant stream of new information – and therefore it prompts us to forget everything. We are enticed to go to the cinema to see a newly released film, which ends up moving us to an exquisite pitch of sensitivity, sorrow and excitement. We leave the theatre vowing to reconsider our entire existence in light of the values shown on screen, and to purge ourselves of our decadence and haste. And yet by the following evening, after a day of meetings and aggravations, our cinematic experience is well on its way towards obliteration. We honour the power of culture but rarely admit with what scandalous ease we forget its individual monuments. We somehow feel, however, that it would be a violation of our spontaneity to be presented with rotas for rereading Walt Whitman.

The habit of examining her conscience, instilled by the nuns when she was a child, hadn’t left her. Matelda reflected on past hurts done to her and took stock of those she had perpetrated on others. Tuscans might live in the moment, but the past lived in them. Even if that weren’t true, there were reminders tucked in every corner of her hometown. She knew Viareggio and its people as well as she knew her own body; in a sense, they were one. The mood turned grim in the village as the revelry of Carnevale ended and Lent began. The next forty days would be a somber time of reflection, fasting, and penance. Lent had felt like it lasted an eternity when she was a girl. Easter Sunday could not come soon enough. The day of relief. “You cannot have the joy of Easter Sunday without the agony of Good Friday,” her mother reminded them. “No cross, no crown,” she’d say in a dialect only her children understood. The resurrection of the Lord redeemed the village and set the children free. Black sacks were pulled off the statues of the saints. The bare altar was decorated anew with myrtle and daisies. Plain broth for sustenance during the fast was replaced with sweet bread. The scents of butter, orange zest, and honey as Mama kneaded the dough for Easter bread during Holy Week lifted their spirits. The taste of the soft egg bread, braided into loaves served hot from the oven and drenched in honey, meant the sacrifice was over, at least until

This observation, then, holds universally: But still one may be at some loss to account for it. It is not sufficient to observe, that the people, everywhere, degrade their deities into a similitude with themselves, and consider them merely as a species of human creatures, somewhat more potent and intelligent. This will not remove the difficulty. For there is no man so stupid, as that, judging by his natural reason, he would not esteem virtue and honesty the most valuable qualities, which any person could possess. Why not ascribe the same sentiment to his deity? Why not make all religion, or the chief part of it, to consist in these attainments? Nor is it satisfactory to say, that the practice of morality is more difficult than that of superstition; and is therefore rejected. For, not to mention the excessive penances of the Brachmans and Talapoins5; it is certain, that the Rhamadan6 of the Turks, during which the poor wretches, for many days, often in the hottest months of the year, and in some of the hottest climates of the world, remain without eating or drinking from the rising to the setting sun; this Rhamadan, I say, must be more severe than the practice of any moral duty, even to the most vicious and depraved of mankind. The four Lents of the Muscovites, and the austerities of some Roman Catholics, appear more disagreeable than meekness and benevolence. In short, all virtue, when men are reconciled to it by ever so little practice, is agreeable: All superstition is forever odious and burthensome.

As human beings, we tend to look at things through the lenses of cultural standards. Much like the Israelites, we view success in the human terms of material wealth. By those standards, it’s okay to hoard goods because if we can hoard goods it means we have the means to do so and so we are successful. During this time of Lent, we are asked to look at ourselves through a different lens. We are to look at our selves through God’s lens. The idea of any spiritual practice is to help us see our own flaws through the light of God, not humanity. The idea of the spiritual practice is not so much to point the flaws as it is to see the goodness, the Godness, which is in each of us. All of us are flawed and God loves us anyway. It is only in acknowledging and accepting these flaws that we can begin to see the Godliness that is in each of us.

She gives just enough hints about him to make you wonder why he became so villainous. And if he dies, I’ll never learnt the answer.” Oliver eyes her closely. “Perhaps he was born villainous.” “No one is born villainous.” “Oh?” he said with raised eyebrow. “So we’re all born good?” “Neither. We start as animals, with an animal’s needs and desires. It takes parents and teachers and other good examples to show us how to restrain those needs and desires, when necessary, for the greater good. But it’s still our choice whether to heed that education or to do as we please.” “For a woman who loves murder and mayhem, you’re quite the philosopher.” “I like to understand how things work. Why people behave as they do.” He digested that for a moment. “I happen to think that some of us, like Rockton, are born with a wicked bent.” She chose her words carefully. “That certainly provides Rockton with a convenient excuse for his behavior.” His features turned stony. “What do you mean?” “Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all-one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral. By claiming to be born wicked, Rockton ensures that he doesn’t have to struggle to be god. He can just protest that he can’t help himself.” “Perhaps he can’t,” he clipped out. “Or maybe he’s simply unwilling to fight his impulses. And I want to know the reason for that. That’s why I keep reading Minerva’s books.” Did Oliver actually believe he’d been born irredeemably wicked? How tragic! It lent a hopelessness to his life that helped to explain his mindless pursuit of pleasure. “I can tell you the reason for Rockton’s villainy.” Oliver rose to round the desk. Propping his hip on the edge near her, he reached out to tuck a tendril of hair behind her ear. A sweet shudder swept over her. Why must he have this effect on her? It simply wasn’t fair. “Oh?” she managed. “Rockton knows he can’t have everything he wants,” he said hoarsely, his hand drifting to her cheek. “He can’t have the heroine, for example. She would never tolerate his…wicked impulses. Yet he still wants her. And his wanting consumes him.” Her breath lodged in her throat. It had been days since he’d touched her, and she hadn’t forgotten what it was like for one minute. To have him this near, saying such things… She fought for control over her volatile emotions. “His wanting consumes him precisely because he can’t have her. If he thought he could, he wouldn’t want her after all.” “Not true.” His voice deepening, he stroked the line of her jaw with a tenderness that roused an ache in her chest. “Even Rockton recognizes when a woman is unlike any other. Her very goodness in the face of his villainy bewitches him. He thinks if he can just possess that goodness, then the dark cloud lying on his soul will lift, and he’ll have something other than villainy to sustain him.” “Then he’s mistaken.” Her pulse trebled as his finger swept the hollow of her throat. “The only person who can lift the dark cloud on his soul is himself.” He paused in his caress. “So he’s doomed, then?” “No!” Her gaze flew to his. “No one is doomed, and certainly not Rockton. There’s still hope for him. There is always hope.” His eyes burned with a feverish light, and before she could look away, he bent to kiss her. It was soft, tender…delicious. Someone moaned, she wasn’t sure who. All she knew was that his mouth was on hers again, molding it, tasting it, making her hungry in the way that only he seemed able to do. “Maria…” he breathed. Seizing her by the arms, he drew her up into his embrace. “My God, I’ve thought of nothing but you since that day in the carriage.

Christmas In India Dim dawn behind the tamerisks -- the sky is saffron-yellow -- As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born. Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the clammy fog that hovers And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry -- What part have India's exiles in their mirth? Full day begind the tamarisks -- the sky is blue and staring -- As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke, And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring, To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke. Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly -- Call on Rama -- he may hear, perhaps, your voice! With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars, And to-day we bid "good Christian men rejoice!" High noon behind the tamarisks -- the sun is hot above us -- As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan. They will drink our healths at dinner -- those who tell us how they love us, And forget us till another year be gone! Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching! Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain! Youth was cheap -- wherefore we sold it. Gold was good -- we hoped to hold it, And to-day we know the fulness of our gain. Grey dusk behind the tamarisks -- the parrots fly together -- As the sun is sinking slowly over Home; And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether. That drags us back how'er so far we roam. Hard her service, poor her payment -- she is ancient, tattered raiment -- India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind. If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter, The door is hut -- we may not look behind. Black night behind the tamarisks -- the owls begin their chorus -- As the conches from the temple scream and bray. With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us, Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day! Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, And be merry as the custom of our caste; For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after, We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.

Dame Aline, somewhat younger than her husband, was a short, sturdily built woman with fair hair beneath a white lace coif, small square hands, a merry giggle. She had a mask of light freckles across her face that on feast days she hid beneath a powder of rice mixed with dried white rose-petal: a faint scent of rose hung about her even tonight, when she wore no powder. Her cheeks were full, making Hob think at first of a squirrel with acorns in its cheeks. He thought her plain, especially next to the ivory perfection of Lady Isabeau. As the evening wore on, though, she seemed more appealing to him, by reason of her blithe chatter, her delight in each jest, and above all the contrast she made with the dire ominous bulk of her husband. He sat beside her and cut her meat, as was polite: men cut for women, the younger for the elder, the lesser for the greater. When he had done, she placed her hand on his arm affectionately; she smiled in his face. Her rounded cheek, her easy laugh, lent her a childlike prettiness, and Hob wondered that she had no fear of the sinister castellan, who made even the tough-as-gristle sergeant Ranulf uneasy.

(from Lady of the Lake) The western waves of ebbing day Rolled o’er the glen their level way; Each purple peak, each flinty spire, Was bathed in floods of living fire. But not a setting beam could glow Within the dark ravines below, Where twined the path in shadow hid, Round many a rocky pyramid, Shooting abruptly from the dell Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; Round many an insulated mass, The native bulwarks of the pass, Huge as the tower which builders vain Presumptuous piled on Shinar’s plain. The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret, Wild crests as pagod ever decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The brier-rose fell in streamers green, And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes, Waved in the west-wind’s summer sighs. Boon nature scattered, free and wild, Each plant or flower, the mountain’s child. Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and night-shade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain. With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft, the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And, higher yet, the pine-tree hung His shattered trunk, and frequent flung, Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high, His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glist’ning streamers waved and danced, The wanderer’s eye could barely view The summer heaven’s delicious blue; So wondrous wild, the whole might seem The scenery of a fairy dream. Onward, amid the copse ’gan peep A narrow inlet, still and deep, Affording scarce such breadth of brim As served the wild duck’s brood to swim. Lost for a space, through thickets veering, But broader when again appearing, Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face Could on the dark-blue mirror trace; And farther as the hunter strayed, Still broader sweep its channels made. The shaggy mounds no longer stood, Emerging from entangled wood, But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, Like castle girdled with its moat; Yet broader floods extending still Divide them from their parent hill, Till each, retiring, claims to be An islet in an inland sea. And now, to issue from the glen, No pathway meets the wanderer’s ken, Unless he climb, with footing nice A far projecting precipice. The broom’s tough roots his ladder made, The hazel saplings lent their aid; And thus an airy point he won, Where, gleaming with the setting sun, One burnished sheet of living gold, Loch Katrine lay beneath him rolled, In all her length far winding lay, With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that, empurpled bright, Floated amid the livelier light, And mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land. High on the south, huge Benvenue Down to the lake in masses threw Crags, knolls, and mountains, confusedly hurled, The fragments of an earlier world; A wildering forest feathered o’er His ruined sides and summit hoar, While on the north, through middle air, Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

The Calf Path One day, through the primeval wood, A calf walked home, as good calves should; But made a trail all bent askew, A crooked trail as all calves do. Since then three hundred years have fled, And, I infer, the calf is dead. But still he left behind his trail, And thereby hangs my moral tale. The trail was taken up next day By a lone dog that passed that way; And then a wise bell-wether sheep Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep, And drew the flock behind him, too, As good bell-wethers always do. And from that day, o’er hill and glade, Through those old woods a path was made. And many men wound in and out, And dodged, and turned, and bent about And uttered words of righteous wrath Because ’twas such a crooked path.15 But still they followed—do not laugh— The first migrations of that calf, And through this winding wood-way stalked, Because he wobbled when he walked. This forest path became a lane, That bent, and turned, and turned again; This crooked lane became a road, Where many a poor horse with his load Toiled on beneath the burning sun, And traveled some three miles in one. And thus a century and a half They trod the footsteps of that calf. The years passed on in swiftness fleet, The road became a village street; And this, before men were aware, A city’s crowded thoroughfare; And soon the central street was this Of a renowned metropolis; And men two centuries and a half Trod in the footsteps of that calf. Each day a hundred thousand rout Followed the zigzag calf about; And o’er his crooked journey went The traffic of a continent. A hundred thousand men were led By one calf near three centuries dead. They followed still his crooked way, And lost one hundred years a day; For thus such reverence is lent To well-established precedent. A moral lesson this might teach, Were I ordained and called to preach; For men are prone to go it blind Along the calf-paths of the mind, And work away from sun to sun To do what other men have done. They follow in the beaten track, And out and in, and forth and back, And still their devious course pursue, To keep the path that others do. They keep the path a sacred groove, Along which all their lives they move. But how the wise old wood-gods laugh, Who saw the first primeval calf! Ah! Many things this tale might teach— But I am not ordained to preach. —Sam Walter Foss

Prayer was the rhythm of the Holy Father’s life. He made time to pray before and after his meals, and interspersed his Breviary prayers (the Liturgy of the Hours) throughout the day and night, calling it: “very important, very important.” At six in the morning, at noon, and again at six in the evening, he would stop whatever he was doing to pray the Angelus, just as he had done while working in the chemical plant in Poland. He prayed several Rosaries each day, went to confession every week, and did not let a day pass without receiving Holy Communion. Each Friday (and every day in Lent), he prayed the Stations of the Cross, and preferred to do this in the garden on the roof of the Papal Apartments. During Lent, he would eat one complete meal a day, and always fasted on the eve of our Lady’s feast days. He remarked, “If the bishop doesn’t set an example by fasting, then who will?” The Holy Father knew that his first duty to the Church was his interior life. He declared, “the shepherd should walk at the head and lay down his life for his sheep. He should be the first when it comes to sacrifice and devotion.” Each night, he looked out his window to Saint Peter’s Square and to the whole world, and made the sign of the cross over it, blessing the world goodnight.

Liturgy gathers the holy community as it reads the Holy Scriptures into the sweeping tidal rhythms of the church year in which the story of Jesus and the Christian makes its rounds century after century, the large and easy interior rhythms of a year that moves from birth, life, death, resurrection, on to spirit, obedience, faith, and blessing. Without liturgy we lose the rhythms and end up tangled in the jerky, ill-timed, and insensitive interruptions of public-relations campaigns, school openings and closings, sales days, tax deadlines, inventory and elections. Advent is buried under 'shopping days before Christmas.' The joyful disciplines of Lent are exchanged for the anxious penitentials of filling out income tax forms. Liturgy keeps us in touch with the story as it defines and shapes our beginnings and ends our living and dying, our rebirths and blessing in this Holy Spirit, text-formed community visible and invisible. When Holy Scripture is embraced liturgically, we become aware that a lot is going on all at once, a lot of different people are doing a lot of different things. The community is on its feet, at work for God, listening and responding to the Holy Scriptures. The holy community, in the process of being formed by the Holy Scriptures, is watching, listening to God's revelation taking shape before an din them as they follow Jesus, each person playing his or her part in the Spirit.

A pool game mixes ritual with geometry. The slow spaciousness of the green felt mirrors some internal state you get to after a few beers. Back at school, I’d been trying to read the philosophy of art, which I was grotesquely unequipped to do but nonetheless stuck on. I loved the idea that looking at a painting or listening to a concerto could make you somehow “transcend” the day-in, day-out bullshit that grinds you down; how in one instant of pure attention you could draw something inside that made you forever larger. In those days the drug culture was pimping “expanded consciousness,” a lie that partly descended from the old postindustrial lie of progress: any change in how your head normally worked must count as an improvement. Maybe my faith in that lie slid me toward an altered state that day. Or maybe it was just the beer, which I rarely drank. In any case, walking around the pool table, I felt borne forward by some internal force or fire. My first shot sank a ball. Then I made the most unlikely bank shot in history to drop two balls at once after a wild V trajectory. Daddy whistled. The sky through the window had gone the exact blue of the chalk I was digging my cue stick in, a shade solid and luminous at once, like the sheer turquoise used for the Madonna’s robe in Renaissance paintings. Slides from art history class flashed through my head. For a second, I lent that color some credit, as if it meant something that made my mind more buoyant. But that was crazy.

Beauty Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed, Without a trace of light or life revealed, Save one existence which second knew- Unknown the pleasant words of We and You. Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free, Seen of herself, with naught beside to see, With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower. No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress, No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known, To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown. No heightening hand had decked the rose with green, No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen. No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair, No eye in thought had seen the splendour there. Her witching snares in solitude she laid, And love's sweet game without a partner played. But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power She springs indignant from her curtained bower. She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard, And from the window looks if doors be barred. See how the tulip on the mountain grown Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown, Bursts from the rock, impatient to display Her nascent beauty to the eye of day. When sudden to thy soul reflection brings The precious meaning of mysterious things, Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain; Speak, hear thou must, for silence is such pain. So beauty ne'er will quit the urgent claim Whose motive first from heavenly beauty came When from her blessed bower she fondly strayed, And to the world and man her charms displayed. In every mirror then her face was shown, Her praise in every place was heard and known. Touched by her light, the hearts of angels burned, And, like the circling spheres, their heads were turned, While saintly bands, whom purest at the sight of her, And those who bathe them in the ocean sky Cries out enraptured, "Laud to God on high!" Rays of her splendour lit the rose's breast And stirred the bulbul's heart with sweet unrest. From her bright glow its cheek the flambeau fired, And myriad moths around the flame expired. Her glory lent the very sun the ray Which wakes the lotus on the flood to-day. Her loveliness made Laila's face look fair To Majnún, fettered by her every hair. She opened Shírín's sugared lips, and stole From Parvíz' breast and brave Farhád's the soul. Through her his head the Moon of Canaan raised, And fond Zulaikha perished as she gazed. Yes, though she shrinks from earthly lovers' call, Eternal Beauty is the queen of all; In every curtained bower the screen she holds, About each captured heart her bonds enfolds. Through her sweet love the heart its life retains, The soul through love of her its object gains. The heart which maidens' gentle witcheries stir Is, though unconscious, fired with love of her. Refrain from idle speech; mistake no more: She brings her chains and we, her slaves, adore. Fair and approved of Love, thou still must own That gift of beauty comes from her alone. Thou art concealed: she meets all lifted eyes; Thou art the mirror which she beautifies. She is that mirror, if we closely view The truth- the treasure and the treasury too. But thou and I- our serious work is naught; We waste our days unmoved by earnest thought. Cease, or my task will never end, for her Sweet beauties lack a meet interpreter. Then let us still the slaves of love remain For without love we live in vain, in vain. Jámí, "Yúsuf and Zulaikha". trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith. Ballantyne Press 1882. London. p.19-22

London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith... Lodging off the Euston Road, there were experiences, again experiences, such as change a face in two years from a pink innocent oval to a face lean, contracted, hostile. But of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: — It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare. Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books; wrote him scraps of letters; and lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime, without heat, flickering a red gold flame infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole; Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road. He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink; he saw her, one summer evening, walking in a green dress in a in a green dress in a square. ‘It has flowered,’ the gardener might have said, had he opened the door; had he come in, that is to say, any night about this time, and found him writing; found him tearing up his writing; found him finishing a masterpiece at three o'clock in the morning and running out to pace the streets, and visiting churches, and fasting one day, drinking another, devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilisation, and Bernard Shaw.

Spring was a long time unfolding. During the last weeks of Lent the weather was clear and frosty. In the daytime it thawed in the sun, but at night it went down to seven below; there was such a crust that carts could go over it where there was no road. There was still snow at Easter. Then suddenly, on Easter Monday, a warm wind began to blow, dark clouds gathered, and for three days and nights warm, heavy rain poured down. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a thick grey mist gathered, as if concealing the mysteries of the changes taking place in nature. Under the mist waters flowed, ice blocks cracked and moved off, the muddy, foaming streams ran quicker, and on the eve of Krasnaya Gorka the mist scattered, the dark clouds broke up into fleecy white ones, the sky cleared, and real spring unfolded. In the morning the bright sun rose and quickly ate up the thin ice covering the water, and the warm air was all atremble, filled with the vapours of the reviving earth. The old grass and the sprouting needles of new grass greened, the buds on the guelder-rose, the currants and the sticky, spiritous birches swelled, and on the willow, all sprinkled with golden catkins, the flitting, newly hatched bee buzzed. Invisible larks poured trills over the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble, the peewit wept over the hollows and marshes still filled with brown water; high up the cranes and geese flew with their spring honking. Cattle, patchy, moulted in all but a few places, lowed in the meadows, bow-legged lambs played around their bleating, shedding mothers, fleet-footed children ran over the drying paths covered with the prints of bare feet, the merry voices of women with their linen chattered by the pond, and from the yards came the knock of the peasants’ axes, repairing ploughs and harrows. The real spring had come.

What a difference there is between possessing a woman with one’s body alone, because she is no more than a piece of flesh, and possessing the girl one used to see on the beach with her friends on certain days, without even knowing why it was on those days and not on others, so that one trembled to think one might not see her again. Life had been so kind as to reveal the whole extent of this young girl’s life, had lent first one optical instrument, then another, to see her with, and then added to carnal desire the accompaniment, multiplying and diversifying it, of other desires, more spiritual and less easily satisfied, which lie inert and unaffected when it is merely a question of the conquest of a piece of flesh, but which, when they want to gain possession of a whole field of memories from which they have felt nostalgically exiled, surge up wildly around carnal desire, extend it, are unable to follow it to the fulfillment, the assimilation, impossible in the form in which it is sought, of an immaterial reality, but wait for this desire halfway and, the moment the memory of it returns, are there to escort it once more; to kiss, not the cheeks of the first woman who comes along—anonymous, devoid of mystery and glamour, however cool and fresh those cheeks may be—but those of which I had so long been dreaming, would be to know the taste, the savor, of a color I had so often contemplated. One sees a woman, a mere image in life’s scene, like Albertine silhouetted against the sea, and then it becomes possible to detach that image, bring it close, and gradually observe its volume, its colors, as though it had been placed behind the lenses of a stereoscope. For this reason, women who tend to be resistant and cannot be possessed at once, of whom indeed it is not immediately clear that they can ever be possessed at all, are the only interesting ones.

According to his closest disciple who served him while patriarch, Fr Raphael Ava Mina, Kyrillos' diet was meager and austere. When he broke his fast around midday—having started the day with psalmody at three in the morning—it would inevitably be with a piece of bread (qorban) and dukkah. With much pleading, he could occasionally be convinced to add a few small spoons of beans. Often Kyrillos would be delayed by meetings and then he would have his breakfast only after three in the afternoon. For lunch, he would usually have some dried bread with a small number of cooked vegetables—but, Fr Raphael recalls, he would never actually eat the vegetables, but only dip his bread in their sauce. Before he slept, he would usually be satisfied with some fruit or bread at most. "I never saw him touch a piece of chicken or meat, or even have a sip of milk." That was during the non-fasting days. In fasting times, especially that of Lent and the Theotokos fast, even though he had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, he would eat only once later in the evening. At one point during the fifty days of Resurrection, Kyrillos gave his regular cook a few days of leave, upon which Fr Raphael, who in his own words "did not know how to cook," thought to take care of the kitchen. Each evening he would lay out roasted chicken, a few small pieces of meat, rice, bread and cheese; only to find the chicken and meat untouched, with the bread and cheese eaten. Given the poor refrigeration of the day, each evening would see a new meal largely wasted. "I need to tell you something...I don't think he likes chicken," the disciple recalls telling the cook when he returned. Confused, the cook rebuked Fr Raphael, saying, "He would never eat it like that....You need to cut chicken so fine and mix it with the rice so that he cannot see it!" A man of sixty, physically large and athletic, and yet they had to trick him, lest he eat only bread and cumin.

What a difference there is between possessing a woman with one’s body alone, because she is no more than a piece of flesh, and possessing the girl one used to see on the beach with her friends on certain days, without even knowing why it was on those days and not on others, so that one trembled to think one might not see her again. Life had been so kind as to reveal the whole extent of this young girl’s life, had lent first one optical instrument, then another, to see her with, and then added to carnal desire the accompaniment, multiplying and diversifying it, of other desires, more spiritual and less easily satisfied, which lie inert and unaffected when it is merely a question of the conquest of a piece of flesh, but which, when they want to gain possession of a whole field of memories from which they have felt nostalgically exiled, surge up wildly around carnal desire, extend it, are unable to follow it to the fulfillment, the assimilation, impossible in the form in which it is sought, of an immaterial reality, but wait for this desire halfway and, the moment the memory of it returns, are there to escort it once more; to kiss, not the cheeks of the first woman who comes along—anonymous, devoid of mystery and glamour, however cool and fresh those cheeks may be—but those of which I had so long been dreaming, would be to know the taste, the savor, of a color I had so often contemplated. One sees a woman, a mere image in life’s scene, like Albertine silhouetted against the sea, and then it becomes possible to detach that image, bring it close, and gradually observe its volume, its colors, as though it had been placed behind the lenses of a stereoscope. For this reason, women who tend to be resistant and cannot be possessed at once, of whom indeed it is not immediately clear that they can ever be possessed at all, are the only interesting ones. For to know them, to approach them, to conquer them is to make the human image vary in shape, in size, in relief, a lesson in relativity in the appreciation of a woman’s body, a joy to see anew when it has regained its slender outline against the backdrop of reality. Women who are first encountered in a brothel are of no interest, because they remain static.

And justice is on the side of those nations that fight for their threatened existence. And this struggle for existence will spur these nations on to the most tremendous accomplishments in world history. If profit is the driving force for production in the democracies-a profit that industrialists, bankers, and corrupt politicians pocket-then the driving force in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy is the realization by millions of laborers that, in this war, it is they who are being fought against. They realize that the democracies, if they should ever win, would rage with the full capitalist cruelty, that cruelty of which only those are capable whose only god is gold, who know no human sentiments other than their obsession with profit, and who are ready to sacrifice all noble thought to this profit instinct without hesitation. National Socialist Germany, Fascist Italy, and allied Japan know that what is at stake in this war is not a form of government. It is not a question of some type of international structure for the future, but it is a question of whether this world belongs only to certain people and not also to others. An American politician coined the clever saying that, basically, this struggle is nothing other than an attempt by the have-nots to obtain something. That’s all right with us. While the outside world is setting about to steal from the have-nots the little that they possess, we confront the world of ownership with the decision to fight for the human rights of the have-nots and to secure for them that share in life to which these rights entitle them. This struggle is not an attack on the rights of other nations, but on the arrogance and avarice of a narrow capitalist upper class, one which refuses to acknowledge that the days are over when gold ruled the world, and that, by contrast, a future is dawning when the people will be the determining force in the life of a nation. It was this realization that lent wings to the National Socialist armies last year. And it will also help them triumph in the coming year. By fighting for the happiness of all people, we believe we most deserve the blessings of Providence. Until now, the Lord God has approved our struggle. If we perform our duties loyally and bravely, then He will not forsake us in the future either! New Year’s Proclamation to the National Socialists and Party Comrades January 1, 1941

The Comte de Chagny was right; no gala performance ever equalled this one. All the great composers of the day had conducted their own works in turns. Faure and Krauss had sung; and on that evening, Christine Daaé had revealed her true self, for the first time, to the astonished and and enthusiastic audience. Gounod had conducted the Funeral March of a Marionette; Reyer, his beautiful overture to Siguar; Saint Saëns, the Danse Macabre and a Rêverie Orientale, Massenet, an unpublished Hungarian march; Guiraud, his Carnaval; Delibes, the Valse lente from Sylvia and the Pizzicati from Coppelia. Mlle. Krauss had sung the bolero in the Vespri Siciliani; and Mlle. Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia. But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daaé, who had begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet. It was the first time that the young artist sang in this work of Gounod, which had not been transferred to the Opera and which was revived at the the old Theatre Lyrique by Mme. Carvalho. Those who heard her say that her voice, in these passages, was seraphic; but this was nothing to the superhuman notes that she gave forth in the prison scene and the final trio in Faust, which she sang in the place of La Carlotta, who was ill. No one had ever heard or seen anything like it. Daaé revealed a new Margarita that night, a Margarita of a splendor, a radiance hitherto unsuspected. The whole house went mad, rising to it its feet, shouting, cheering, clapping, while Christine sobbed and fainted in the arms of her fellow-singers and had to be carried to her dressing-room. A few subscribers, however, protested. Why had so great a treasure been kept from them all that time? Till then, Christine Daaé had played a good Siebel to Carlotta's rather too splendidly material Margarita. And it had needed Carlotta's incomprehensible and inexcusable absence from this gala night for the little Daaé, at a moment's warning, to show all that she could do in a part of the programme reserved for the Spanish diva! Well, what the subscribers wanted to know was, why had Debienne and Poligny applied to Daaé, when Carlotta was taken ill? Did they know of her hidden genius? And, if they knew of it, why had they kept it hidden? And why had she kept it hidden? Oddly enough, she was not known to have a professor of singing at that moment. She had often said she meant to practice alone for the future. The whole thing was a mystery.

As for the other experiences, the solitary ones, which people go through alone, in their bedrooms, in their offices, walking the fields and the streets of London, he had them; had left home, a mere boy, because of his mother; she lied; because he came down to tea for the fiftieth time with his hands unwashed; because he could see no future for a poet in Stroud; and so, making a confidant of his little sister, had gone to London leaving an absurd note behind him, such as great men have written, and the world has read later when the story of their struggles has become famous. London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith; thought nothing of fantastic Christian names like Septimus with which their parents have thought to distinguish them. Lodging off the Euston Road, there were experiences, again experiences, such as change a face in two years from a pink innocent oval to a face lean, contracted, hostile. But of all this what could the most observant of friends have said except what a gardener says when he opens the conservatory door in the morning and finds a new blossom on his plant: — It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds, which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve himself, made him fall in love with Miss Isabel Pole, lecturing in the Waterloo Road upon Shakespeare. Was he not like Keats? she asked; and reflected how she might give him a taste of Antony and Cleopatra and the rest; lent him books; wrote him scraps of letters; and lit in him such a fire as burns only once in a lifetime, without heat, flickering a red gold flame infinitely ethereal and insubstantial over Miss Pole; Antony and Cleopatra; and the Waterloo Road. He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink; he saw her, one summer evening, walking in a green dress in a square. “It has flowered,” the gardener might have said, had he opened the door; had he come in, that is to say, any night about this time, and found him writing; found him tearing up his writing; found him finishing a masterpiece at three o’clock in the morning and running out to pace the streets, and visiting churches, and fasting one day, drinking another, devouring Shakespeare, Darwin, The History of Civilisation, and Bernard Shaw.

Reflection A child needs the affirmation of their father. But many times that affirmation is not there. The father may be absent or it may be that their father never told them how proud he was of them. He was quick to criticize, but slow to affirm. When that child grows older, they will continue to search for the blessing of their father. They may become a work-a-holic, believing that through accomplishment they can finally find the fulfillment they are looking for. But they continue to live with a void. In another scenario, it might happen that feelings of unworthiness and self-doubt would be so pervasive that they never pursue God’s calling on their life and settle for less. Maybe you can relate. You desire love, respect, acceptance, or approval. But you don’t feel worthy. You believe you are not accomplished enough. You believe you are not beautiful enough. You believe you are not able enough. You believe you are not __________ (You fill in the blank). But these are lies that come straight out of the pit of hell. You are worthy enough because Jesus died for you. He accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished. He makes you beautiful. His Holy Spirit gives you the ability to accomplish all things (see Philippians 4:13). Before Jesus began his ministry, he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. And when Jesus was baptized, the voice of the Heavenly Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 5:17 ESV The ministry of Jesus had yet to begin. He had not yet healed anyone. He had not yet preached any sermons of note. He had not accomplished anything worthy to be recorded in the Scriptures. But still the Father expresses his approval. Why? It was because of the relationship of the Father to the Son. The Father’s love and approval of the Son was not based on accomplishment. He loved the Son for no other reason than the fact that he was his son. You are so important to your Heavenly Father that he sent Jesus for you. The Heavenly Father made you and created you. He gave you your life and your being. He loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for you. It is not about anything you have accomplished. You need to know that you are the most beautiful, the most precious, and the most prized part of his creation. Your Heavenly Father is proud of you. More than you realize! You are worthy because you are his precious child, redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o'clock in the afternoon of a cloudy day. MARINA, a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, is sitting at the table knitting a stocking. ASTROFF is walking up and down near her. MARINA. [Pouring some tea into a glass] Take a little tea, my son. ASTROFF. [Takes the glass from her unwillingly] Somehow, I don't seem to want any. MARINA. Then will you have a little vodka instead? ASTROFF. No, I don't drink vodka every day, and besides, it is too hot now. [A pause] Tell me, nurse, how long have we known each other? MARINA. [Thoughtfully] Let me see, how long is it? Lord—help me to remember. You first came here, into our parts—let me think—when was it? Sonia's mother was still alive—it was two winters before she died; that was eleven years ago—[thoughtfully] perhaps more. ASTROFF. Have I changed much since then? MARINA. Oh, yes. You were handsome and young then, and now you are an old man and not handsome any more. You drink, too. ASTROFF. Yes, ten years have made me another man. And why? Because I am overworked. Nurse, I am on my feet from dawn till dusk. I know no rest; at night I tremble under my blankets for fear of being dragged out to visit some one who is sick; I have toiled without repose or a day's freedom since I have known you; could I help growing old? And then, existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life, and goes heavily. Every one about here is silly, and after living with them for two or three years one grows silly oneself. It is inevitable. [Twisting his moustache] See what a long moustache I have grown. A foolish, long moustache. Yes, I am as silly as the rest, nurse, but not as stupid; no, I have not grown stupid. Thank God, my brain is not addled yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I need nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her head] I had a nurse just like you when I was a child. MARINA. Don't you want a bite of something to eat? ASTROFF. No. During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from the railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been deadened awoke

Marx discovered the significance of economic power; and it is understandable that he exaggerated its status. He and the Marxists see economic power everywhere. Their argument runs: he who has the money has the power; for if necessary, he can buy guns and even gangsters. But this is a roundabout argument. In fact, it contains an admission that the man who has the gun has the power. And if he who has the gun becomes aware of this, then it may not be long until he has both the gun and the money. But under an unrestrained capitalism, Marx’s argument applies, to some extent; for a rule which develops institutions for the control of guns and gangsters but not of the power of money is liable to come under the influence of this power. In such a state, an uncontrolled gangsterism of wealth may rule. But Marx himself, I think, would have been the first to admit that this is not true of all states; that there have been times in history when, for example, all exploitation was looting, directly based upon the power of the mailed fist. And to-day there will be few to support the naïve view that the ‘progress of history’ has once and for all put an end to these more direct ways of exploiting men, and that, once formal freedom has been achieved, it is impossible for us to fall again under the sway of such primitive forms of exploitation. These considerations would be sufficient for refuting the dogmatic doctrine that economic power is more fundamental than physical power, or the power of the state. But there are other considerations as well. As has been rightly emphasized by various writers (among them Bertrand Russell and Walter Lippmann25), it is only the active intervention of the state—the protection of property by laws backed by physical sanctions—which makes of wealth a potential source of power; for without this intervention, a man would soon be without his wealth. Economic power is therefore entirely dependent on political and physical power. Russell gives historical examples which illustrate this dependence, and sometimes even helplessness, of wealth: ‘Economic power within the state,’ he writes26, ‘although ultimately derived from law and public opinion, easily acquires a certain independence. It can influence law by corruption and public opinion by propaganda. It can put politicians under obligations which interfere with their freedom. It can threaten to cause a financial crisis. But there are very definite limits to what it can achieve. Cæsar was helped to power by his creditors, who saw no hope of repayment except through his success; but when he had succeeded he was powerful enough to defy them. Charles V borrowed from the Fuggers the money required to buy the position of Emperor, but when he had become Emperor he snapped his fingers at them and they lost what they had lent.’ The dogma that economic power is at the root of all evil must be discarded. Its place must be taken by an understanding of the dangers of any form of uncontrolled power. Money as such is not particularly dangerous. It becomes dangerous only if it can buy power, either directly, or by enslaving the economically weak who must sell themselves in order to live.

22. Giving up Distraction Week #4 Saturday Scripture Verses •Hebrews 12:1–2 •Mark 1:35 •John 1:14–18 Questions to Consider •What distracts you from being present with other people around you? •What distracts you from living out God’s agenda for your life? •What helps you to focus and be the most productive? •How does Jesus help us focus on what is most important in any given moment? Plan of Action •At your next lunch, have everyone set their phone facing down at the middle of the table. The first person who picks up their phone pays for the meal. •Challenge yourself that the first thing you watch, read, or listen to in the morning when you wake up is God’s Word (not email or Facebook). •Do a digital detox. Turn off everything with a screen for 24 hours. Tomorrow would be a great day to do it, since there is no “40 Things Devotion” on Sunday. Reflection We live in an ever connected world. With smart phones at the tip of our fingers, we can instantly communicate with people on the other side of the world. It is an amazing time to live in. I love the possibilities and the opportunities. With the rise of social media, we not only connect with our current circle of friends and family, but we are also able to connect with circles from the past. We can build new communities in the virtual world to find like-minded people we cannot find in our physical world. Services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram all have tremendous power. They have a way of connecting us with others to shine the light of Jesus. While all of these wonderful things open up incredible possibilities, there are also many dangers that lurk. One of the biggest dangers is distraction. They keep us from living in the moment and they keep us from enjoying the people sitting right across the room from us. We’ve all seen that picture where the family is texting one another from across the table. They are not looking at each other. They are looking at the tablet or the phone in front of them. They are distracted in the moment. Today we are giving up distraction and we are going to live in the moment. Distraction doesn’t just come from modern technology. We are distracted by our work. We are distracted by hobbies. We are distracted by entertainment. We are distracted by busyness. The opposite of distraction is focus. It is setting our hearts and our minds on Jesus. It’s not just putting him first. It’s about him being a part of everything. It is about making our choices to be God’s choices. It is about letting him determine how we use our time and focus our attention. He is the one setting our agenda. I saw a statistic that 80% of smartphone users will check their phone within the first 15 minutes of waking up. Many of those are checking their phones before they even get out of bed. What are they checking? Social media? Email? The news of the day? Think about that for a moment. My personal challenge is the first thing I open up every day is God’s word. I might open up the Bible on my phone, but I want to make sure the first thing I am looking at is God’s agenda. When I open up my email, my mind is quickly set to the tasks those emails generate rather than the tasks God would put before me. Who do I want to set my agenda? For me personally, I know that if God is going to set the agenda, I need to hear from him before I hear from anyone else. There is a myth called multitasking. We talk about doing it, but it is something impossible to do. We are very good at switching back and forth from different tasks very quickly, but we are never truly doing two things at once. So the challenge is to be present where God has planted you. In any given moment, know what is the one most important thing. Be present in that one thing. Be present here and now.

Although I do not consider myself a religious person, I recently found that Lent satisfies my spiritual needs and presents an opportunity. It sets aside a forty-day period to test a sustainable idea, or to evaluate a personal attachment to a habit.

BECKONED to the square to listen to a representative of the Virginia Company of London. He seemed an unpretentious man, a clerk, if you will, who had some important points to make before the Jamestown colonists started mingling with the new members. The man stepped up on a makeshift wooden box and spoke to the good people gathered for the day’s celebration. As he looked out at the more delicate gender, he released a sigh of satisfaction. The bride ship had come through, and it was hoped these ninety women would secure the colony’s growth. The clerk waved a document in the air and the crowd hushed, anxious to hear what he would say. “Each woman,” he called out, to reach the hearing of those standing furthest away. “Each woman, upon entering into marriage with a man of Jamestown, will receive as promised, one new apron, two new pairs of shoes, six pairs of sheets…” He droned on, reciting the promises made by the Virginia Company of London. As each new item was listed, gasps of delight flickered in the air. The gifting lent the day even more enjoyment for these items were needed to set up a good home and many of the women were arriving with few possessions. The representative talked at length about marriage licenses and how each couple would be married, one after the other, until all were satisfied. When all was said, and done, there would be a lot of paperwork, but these contracts were the foundation of the colony, the building blocks that would ensure the birth of children on this new soil. It wasn’t just the Virginia Company of London who wanted the population to grow in the colony, it was also the wish of Scarlett. These people who would be her neighbours, these men who would make business deals with her husband, these children who would grow by her child’s side, were the herd. From these people, would she harvest, and as they prospered, so would she.

The moral bent of the fallen world is not toward godliness, but definitely away from it.

God, the heavens declare your glory as each day you renew the face of the earth with the light of your presence: Grant that as the darkness of this life seeks to envelop us, that in your light we may see Light, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

O God, the heavens declare your glory as each day you renew the face of the earth with the light of your presence: Grant that as the darkness of this life seeks to envelop us, that in your light we may see Light, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, now and for ever. Amen.

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Most of us will fail to meet our personal expectations for a "Holy Lent." But that's okay. A human Lent is a holy Lent. We don't need to save ourselves. We can let go of that. That is God's job, not ours. We just need to put one foot in front of the other, take life one step, one minute, one day at a time and do the best we can, trusting that God will provide for our needs. We are simply human. God doesn't want us to be anything more than that—or anything less. God loves us exactly as we are.

Even Jesus knows what it means to cry out. He groans with the weight of the world's sins, which we seem eager to pile on him day after day. His pilgrimage is one of incarnation, of movement through his life—and of gathering a community who will face rejection for following him and suffer for proclaiming his good news. Yet the pilgrim road Jesus walks—and that we walk as his disciples—always leads to resurrection.

Lord my heart rests in you at day's end quiet comes to my room and I bow my head in silent appreciation for all that filled my day love, friends, warmth, possibilities and terrors alike. may I not forget those for whom this day was more difficult and trying, lonely and hurtful we are all in your hands.

May we find God mighty to save by viewing and understanding the everyday parts of our lives as sacramental doorways to the holy. May we truly believe that "your presence is what truly feeds us each day." Let us pray this with all our hearts: May it be so.