Love Beyond Borders Quotes

here she is, all mine, trying her best to give me all she can. How could I ever hurt her? But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.

It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life -- and herein lies its secret -- takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch.

I love forms beyond my own, and regret the borders between us

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun warmed, flower bordered path.

My love for you reaches beyond the borders of continents, so vast in scope that I would cross oceans to be with you. Yes, but does that same love penetrate so deep as to dare thee to sink to the oceans' depths to find me?" -from "My Aquarius

To live is also to think, and sometimes to cross that border beyond which feeling and thinking become one: poetry. Meanwhile,

I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, "Kill them all, and let God sort them out." A bumper sticker read, "God will judge evildoers; we just have to get them to him." I saw a T-shirt on a soldier that said, "US Air Force... we don't die; we just go to hell to regroup." Others were less dramatic- red, white, and blue billboards saying, "God bless our troops." "God Bless America" became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, "God bless America--$1 burgers." Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles. This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy... September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community- for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear. But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallies around the drums of war. Liberal Christian took to the streets. The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound. A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God. ...The tragedy of the church's reaction to September 11th is not that we rallied around the families in New York and D.C. but that our love simply reflected the borders and allegiances of the world. We mourned the deaths of each soldier, as we should, but we did not feel the same anger and pain for each Iraqi death, or for the folks abused in the Abu Ghraib prison incident. We got farther and farther from Jesus' vision, which extends beyond our rational love and the boundaries we have established. There is no doubt that we must mourn those lives on September 11th. We must mourn the lives of the soldiers. But with the same passion and outrage, we must mourn the lives of every Iraqi who is lost. They are just as precious, no more, no less. In our rebirth, every life lost in Iraq is just as tragic as a life lost in New York or D.C. And the lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like six September 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week.

Corus lay on the southern bank of the Oloron River, towers glinting in the sun. The homes of wealthy men lined the river to the north; tanners, smiths, wainwrights, carpenters, and the poor clustered on the bank to the south. The city was a richly colored tapestry: the Great Gate on Kings-bridge, the maze of the Lower City, the marketplace, the tall houses in the Merchants' and the Gentry's quarters, the gardens of the Temple district, the palace. This last was the city's crown and southern border. Beyond it, the royal forest stretched for leagues. It was not as lovely as Berat nor as colorful as Udayapur, but it was Alanna's place.

Where the Divine and the Human Meet" shows how important it is to meet the world with the creativity of an artist, particularly in these uncertain times: "What do we do with chaos? Creativity has an answer. We are told by those who have studied the processes of nature that creativity happens at the border between chaos and order. Chaos is a prelude to creativity. We need to learn, as every artist needs to learn, to live with chaos and indeed to dance with it as we listen to it and attempt some ordering. Artists wrestle with chaos, take it apart, deconstruct and reconstruct from it. Accept the challenge to convert chaos into some kind of order, respecting the timing of it all, not pushing beyond what is possible—combining holy patience with holy impatience--that is the role of the artist. It is each of our roles as we launch the twenty-first century because we are all called to be artists in our own way. We were all artists as children. We need to study the chaos around us in order to turn it into something beautiful. Something sustainable. Something that remains".

As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about. But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself? Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own stomach during a moment of love; betraying, yet lacking the will to abandon the glamorous path of betrayal; raising one's fist with the crowds in the Grand March; displaying one's wit before hidden microphones—I have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own "I" ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become.

I am not a man who often expresses is emotions, Miss Linton." "You don't say?" "But I must admit I was... somewhat concerned for you." I had to work hard to keep a smile from my face." "Somewhat concerned? Dear God, really?" Abruptly, he turned to me, his eyes blazing with cold fire. "Dammit! Do not joke, Miss Linton!" I looked up at him, the picture of innocence drawn by a five-year-old with absolutely no artistic talent. "I wouldn't dare!" Stepping towards me, he reached out, until one of his hands gently touched my cheek. "I..." He swallowed, and tried again. "I might be slightly... irrationally infatuated with you." Warmth spread deep inside me. And on my face, a grin did. "Irrationally infatuated? Dear me!" His jaw clenched. "All right, all right! I may even have certain... impulses towards you that border on caring about you." "You don't say?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, I am so glad to hear that you feel a certain amount of friendship towards me." His dark gaze pierced me accusingly. But I was enjoying this far too much to stop. I wouldn't make it easy for him. "Friendship is not the right word, Miss Linton," he bit out between clenched teeth, every word like a shard of burning ice. "My impulses towards you... they might go slightly beyond the platonic." "Oh, so they are Aristotelian?" "Mr Lin-" He swallowed, hard. "I mean Miss Linton, we are not discussing philosophy here!" I batted my eyelashes at him. "Indeed? Then pray tell, what are we discussing?" "I... I..." "You can say it, you know," I told him. "The word isn't poisonous." "I... have feelings towards you." "Clearly. I knew that from the first day from the way you shouted at me and pelted me with threats." "Not those kinds of feelings!" "What kind, then?" "I feel... affection towards you." "You're nearly there," I encouraged him, my smile widening. "Just four little letters. The word starts with L. Go on. You can do it." "You're enjoying this, Miss Linton, aren't you?" "Very much so." "Oh, to hell with it!"... His mouth took mine in a fast, fierce, bruising kiss... Finally he broke away, and with the remnants of his breath whispered: "I love you!

There’s the appeal of the young thief who robs you, and climbs back down off your cloud. It’s possible to love that boy, in a wistful and hopeless way. It’s possible to love his greed and narcissism, to grant him that which is beyond your own capacities: heedlessness, cockiness, a self-devotion so pure it borders on the divine.

And then Carlos thought, You left me. You left me in the end. Why? He hugged his dog close, burying his nose in her fur. He knew there was no answer beyond the obvious, constant imbalance in any transaction of the heart. You don’t love me the way I love you.

A hush fell over them. For a long moment, while she was leaning her chin on her hand atop the piano lid, and his hands rested lightly on the keys, they stared at each other. The stage, the wings, the maw of the theater and its rows of seats and ornamental moldings, all receded. The air about them shimmered, drew in, coalesced into a bubble. They looked at each other, breathing together, long past a socially acceptable interval. It was far beyond the border where Erik normally would have dropped his gaze, cracked a joke or at least a smile. She’s peaceful, he thought, and her eyes widened slightly, as if she had heard him.

It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life -- and herein lies its secret -- takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch

They did not strive to gain knowledge of life as we strive to understand it, because their lives were full. But their knowledge was higher and deeper than the knowledge we derive from our science; for our science seeks to explain what life is and strives to understand it in order to teach others how to live, while they knew how to live without science... Oh, these people were not concerned whether I understood them or not; they loved me without it. But I knew too that they would never be able to understand me, and for that reason I hardly ever spoke to them of it. It remained somehow beyond the grasp of my reason, and yet it sank unconsciously deeper and deeper into my heart. I often told them that I had had a presentiment of it years ago and that all that joy and glory has been perceived by me while I was still back there as a nostalgic yearning, bordering at times on unendurably poignant sorrow; that I had had a presentiment of all of them and of their glory in the dreams of my heart and the reveries of my soul; and that I could often not look at the setting sun without tears. I was overpowered by the mere sensation of that dream and it alone survived in my sorely wounded heart.

How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession...Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.

The masses live their lives as defined by terms given by society. For example: this is what it means to be married, this is what it means to be in a relationship, this is what it means to be dating, this is what it means to have a mutual understanding, sighs, this is what it means to be serious, this is what it means to be casual, this is what it means to be complicated, this is what it means to be Facebook official. These are all terms given by society. These are all invisible (and not so invisible) lines, drawn by society. These are are not God-lines. These are not borders created by highly enlightened individuals. These are not terms defined by you during moments of highly elevated consciousness. No. These are only shits. A pure soul, completely whole and void of constriction, will look out into the world with untainted eyes and say: "Where is the one whom my soul recognizes?" And you look for the one whom your soul is sired to, whom your soul recognizes, whom your soul loves. There are no laws, there are no lines, there are no borders. There is no shit. You are committed to the call of your soul, to the power that calls you beyond all the cloaks and the traps and the smallness created by small hands.

I had no particular problem about getting divorced. For all intents and purposes we already were divorced. And I had no emotional hang up about signing and sealing the official documents. If that's what she wanted, fine. It was a legal formality, nothing more. But when it came to why, and how, things had turned out this way, the sequence of events was beyond me. I understood, of course, that over time, and as circumstances changed, a couple could grow closer, or move apart. Changes in a person's feelings aren't regulated by custom, logic, or the law. They're fluid, unstable, free to spread their wings and fly away. Like migratory birds have no concept of borders between countries. But these were all just generalizations, and I couldn't easily grasp the individual case here-that this woman, Yuzu, refused to love this man, me, and chose instead to be loved by someone else. It felt terribly absurd, a horribly ugly way to be treated. There wasn't any anger involved (I think). I mean, what was I supposed to be angry with? What I was feeling was a fundamental numbness. The numbness your heart automatically activates to lessen the awful pain when you want some-body desperately and they reject you. A kind of emotional morphine.

He had seen so many deaths. But there was something about the quietness of this one: as though, in the absence of the gunfire and the shouting, he were observing it unobscured for the first time. The men he had accompanied to the border of life would be mourned by a mother, but on the battlefield, the loved ones were far away and beyond imagining. To see a child torn away from his mother at the very moment of birth—torn away from the only woman in the world Tom cared about—was a more dreadful kind of pain.

Relationships will push you beyond the limits of your ability to love, serve, and forgive. They will push you beyond you. At times they will beat at the borders of your faith. At times they will exhaust you. In certain situations, your relationships will leave you disappointed and discouraged. They will require what you do not seem to have, but that is exactly as God intended it. That is precisely why he placed these demanding relationships in the middle of the process of sanctification, where God progressively molds us into the likeness of Jesus.

Flambeau, once the most famous criminal in France and later a very private detective in England, had long retired from both professions. Some say a career of crime had left him with too many scruples for a career of detection. Anyhow, after a life of romantic escapes and tricks of evasion, he had ended at what some might consider an appropriate address; a castle in Spain. [...] Flambeau had casually and almost abruptly fallen in love with a Spanish lady, married and brought up a large family on a Spanish estate, without displaying any apparent desire to stray again beyond its borders.

Architecture without pain, art looked at in undiluted pleasure, enjoyment without anxiety, compunction, heartache: there is no beggar woman in the church door, no ragged child or sore animal in the square. The water is safe and the wallet is inside the pocket. There will be no missed plane connection. We are in a country where the curable ills are taken care of. We are in a country where the mechanics of living from transport to domestic heating (alack, poor Britain!) function imaginatively and well; where it goes without saying that the sick are looked after and secure and the young well educated and well trained; where ingenuity is used to heal delinquents and to mitigate at least the physical dependence of old age; where there is work for all and some individual seizure, and men and women have not been entirely alienated yet from their natural environment; where there is care for freedom and where the country as a whole has rounded the drive to power and prestige beyond its borders and where the will to peace is not eroded by doctrine, national self-love, and unmanageable fears; where people are kindly, honest, helpful, sane, reliable, resourceful, and cool-headed; where stranger–shyly–smiles to stranger. "Portrait Sketch of a Country: Denmark 1962

You've given me everything I need of you-thanks to you I have all my heart desires, all I thought I might never have. All I need for a wonderful, fulfilling future. And I nearly lost it all." She held his gaze but was wise enough not to interrupt. If she had... He drew breath and forged on, "Nearly dying clarified things. When you stand on the border between life and death, the truly important things are easy to discern. One of the things I saw and finally understood was that only fools and cowards leave the truth of love unsaid. Only the weak leave love unacknowledged." Holding her gaze, all but lost in the shimmery blue of her eyes, he raised her hand to his lips, gently kissed. "So, my darling Heather, even though you already know it, let me put the truth-my truth-into words. I love you. With all my heart, to the depths of my soul. And I will love you forever, until the day I die." Her smile lit his world. "Just as well." Happiness shone in her eyes. She pressed his fingers. "Because I plan to be with you, by your side, every day for the rest of your life, and in spirit far beyond. I'm yours for all eternity." Smiling, he closed his hand about hers. "Mine to protect for our eternity." Yes. Neither said the word, yet the sense of it vibrated in the air all around them. A high-pitched giggle broke the spell, had them both looking along the path. TO Lucilla and Marcus, who slipped out from behind a raised bed and raced toward them. Reaching them, laughing with delight, the pair whooped and circled. Heather glanced to left and right, trying to keep the twins in sight, uncertain of what had them so excited. So exhilarated. Almost as if they were reacting to the emotions coursing through her, and presumably Breckenridge. Her husband-to-be. "You're getting married!" Lucilla crowed. Catching Lucilla's eyes as the pair slowed their circling dance, Heather nodded. "Yes, we are. And I rather think you two will have to come down in London to be flower girl and page boy." Absolute delight broke across Lucilla's face. She looked at her brother. "See? I told you-the Lady never makes a mistake, and if you do what shetells you, you get a reward." "I suppose." Marcus looked up at Breckenridge. "London will be fun." He switched his gaze to Lucilla. "Come on! Let's go and tell Mama and Papa.

There is only one power which can from within undermine egoism at the root, and really does undermine it, namely love, and chiefly sexual love. The falsehood and evil of egoism consists in the exclusive acknowledgement of absolute significance for oneself and in the denial of it for others. Reason shows us that this is unfounded and unjust, but simply by the facts love directly abrogates such an unjust relation, compelling us not by abstract consciousness, but by an internal emotion and the will of life to recognize for ourselves the absolute significance of another. Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the centre of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another.

He brushed past us, and did not interrupt what he was saying to her, but gave us, out of the corner of his blue eye, a little sign, which began and ended, so to speak, inside his eyelids, and as it did not involve the least movement of his facial muscles, managed to pass quite unperceived by the lady; but, striving to compensate by the intensity of his feelings for the somewhat restricted field in which they had to find expression, he made that blue chink, which was set apart for us, sparkle with all the animation of cordiality, which went far beyond mere playfulness, and almost touched the border-line of roguery; he subtilised the refinements of good-fellowship into a wink of connivance, a hint, a hidden meaning, a secret understanding, all the mysteries of complicity in a plot, and finally exalted his assurances of friendship to the level of protestations of affection, even of a declaration of love, lighting up for us, and for us alone, with a secret and languid flame invisible by the great lady upon his other side, an enamoured pupil in a countenance of ice.

You have no idea where Anne’s office is?” I asked, grouchy and beyond footsore, seriously envying Jack’s completely healed feet. We’d already been here for an hour and had nothing to show for it other than a few close calls with security patrols. I’d figured since I couldn’t check every room for Raquel, searching Anne-Whatever Whatever’s office for records was my next best bet. “Surprisingly enough, I do not make a habit of concerning myself with the locations of offices of people I neither know nor care anything for.” “I thought you had some big vendetta against IPCA for controlling you.” “Have you seen anyone who ever once used my name against me? Present company excepted.” I frowned, checking around a corner to a hall that was, as usual, empty. This was so much less exciting than I had been afraid it would be. Reth walked calmly forward, never pausing, never frantically checking over his shoulder. I wondered what he did to those poor suckers who had trapped him with his true name. I almost asked, but honestly, I didn’t really want to know. “Wait—you didn’t do anything to Raquel.” I inwardly cringed. Raquel had used his name against him, and there I went reminding him. “Hmm. An uncharacteristic oversight.” I snorted. “Yeah, mister always has a plan, you’re constantly missing details.” I shouldn’t push the issue lest I convince him that he still had some vengeance waiting, but I couldn’t help it. It was so unlike him. He waved an elegant hand through the air as though brushing off my observation. “Some things are beneath my attention.” “Liar.” He stopped short, and I walked a few paces before realizing he wasn’t beside me anymore. I turned and found myself sucked into his golden gaze. “You are quite blind sometimes, my love.” “What do you mean by that?” I snapped. Then my jaw dropped as he actually rolled his perfect, gigantic-bordering-on-anime golden eyes. That was so not a faerie gesture. “You just rolled your eyes!” “It would appear you are a negative influence after all.

I, Prayer (A Poem of Magnitudes and Vectors) I, Prayer, know no hour. No season, no day, no month nor year. No boundary, no barrier or limitation–no blockade hinders Me. There is no border or wall I cannot breach. I move inexorably forward; distance holds Me not. I span the cosmos in the twinkling of an eye. I knowest it all. I am the most powerful force in the Universe. Who then is My equal? Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? None is so fierce that dare stir him up. Surely, I may’st with but a Word. Who then is able to stand before Me? I am the wind, the earth, the metal. I am the very empyrean vault of Heaven Herself. I span the known and the unknown beyond Eternity’s farthest of edges. And whatsoever under Her wings is Mine. I am a gentle stream, a fiery wrath penetrating; wearing down mountains –the hardest and softest of substances. I am a trickling brook to fools of want lost in the deserts of their own desires. I am a Niagara to those who drink in well. I seep through cracks. I inundate. I level forests kindleth unto a single burning bush. My hand moves the Universe by the mind of a child. I withhold treasures solid from the secret stores to they who would wrench at nothing. I do not sleep or eat, feel not fatigue, nor hunger. I do not feel the cold, nor rain or wind. I transcend the heat of the summer’s day. I commune. I petition. I intercede. My time is impeccable, by it worlds and destinies turn. I direct the fates of nations and humankind. My Words are Iron eternaled—rust not they away. No castle keep, nor towers of beaten brass, Nor the dankest of dungeon helks, Nor adamantine links of hand-wrought steel Can contain My Spirit–I shan’t turn back. The race is ne’er to the swift, nor battle to the strong, nor wisdom to the wise or wealth to the rich. For skills and wisdom, I give to the sons of man. I take wisdom and skills from the sons of man for they are ever Mine. Blessed is the one who finds it so, for in humility comes honor, For those who have fallen on the battlefield for My Name’s sake, I reach down to lift them up from On High. I am a rose with the thorn. I am the clawing Lion that pads her children. My kisses wound those whom I Love. My kisses are faithful. No occasion, moment in time, instances, epochs, ages or eras hold Me back. Time–past, present and future is to Me irrelevant. I span the millennia. I am the ever-present Now. My foolishness is wiser than man’s My weakness stronger than man’s. I am subtle to the point of formlessness yet formed. I have no discernible shape, no place into which the enemy may sink their claws. I AM wisdom and in length of days knowledge. Strength is Mine and counsel, and understanding. I break. I build. By Me, kings rise and fall. The weak are given strength; wisdom to those who seek and foolishness to both fooler and fool alike. I lead the crafty through their deceit. I set straight paths for those who will walk them. I am He who gives speech and sight - and confounds and removes them. When I cut, straight and true is my cut. I strike without fault. I am the razored edge of high destiny. I have no enemy, nor friend. My Zeal and Love and Mercy will not relent to track you down until you are spent– even unto the uttermost parts of the earth. I cull the proud and the weak out of the common herd. I hunt them in battles royale until their cries unto Heaven are heard. I break hearts–those whose are harder than granite. Beyond their atomic cores, I strike their atomic clock. Elect motions; not one more or less electron beyond electron’s orbit that has been ordained for you do I give–for His grace is sufficient for thee until He desires enough. Then I, Prayer, move on as a comet, Striking out of the black. I, His sword, kills to give Life. I am Living and Active, the Divider asunder of thoughts and intents. I Am the Light of Eternal Mind. And I, Prayer, AM Prayer Almighty.

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Theology is not an excursion into the stratosphere that lies beyond scriptural sppech in time: it may not travel beyond the borders of faith's perspective. Beyond the word of Scripture we dare not go, in speech or theological reflection; for it is in this word that God's love in Jesus Christ is revealed. There is nothing beyond that.

They came to a tall juniper hedge beyond which extended a flagstoned walkway that bordered the side of the manor. As they made their way to an opening of the hedge, they heard a pair of masculine voices engaged in conversation. The voices were not loud. In fact, the strictly moderated volume of the conversation betrayed that something secret— and therefore intriguing— was being discussed. Pausing behind the hedge, Daisy motioned for Evie to be still and quiet. “… doesn’t promise to be much of a breeder…” one of them was saying. The comment was met with a low but indignant objection. “Timid? Holy hell, the woman has enough spirit to climb Mont-Blanc with a pen-knife and a ball of twine. Her children will be perfect hellions.” Daisy and Evie stared at each other with mutual astonishment. Both voices were easily recognizable as those belonging to Lord Llandrindon and Matthew Swift. “Really,” Llandrindon said skeptically. “My impression is that she is a literary-minded girl. Rather a bluestocking.” “Yes, she loves books. She also happens to love adventure. She has a remarkable imagination accompanied by a passionate enthusiasm for life and an iron constitution. You’re not going to find a girl her equal on your side of the Atlantic or mine.” “I had no intention of looking on your side,” Llandrindon said dryly. “English girls possess all the traits I would desire in a wife.” They were talking about her, Daisy realized, her mouth dropping open. She was torn between delight at Matthew Swift’s description of her, and indignation that he was trying to sell her to Llandrindon as if she were a bottle of patent medicine from a street vendor’s cart. “I require a wife who is poised,” Llandrindon continued, “sheltered, restful…” “Restful? What about natural and intelligent? What about a girl with the confidence to be herself rather than trying to imitate some pallid ideal of subservient womanhood?” “I have a question,” Llandrindon said. “Yes?” “If she’s so bloody remarkable, why don’t you marry her?” Daisy held her breath, straining to hear Swift’s reply. To her supreme frustration his voice was muffled by the filter of the hedges. “Drat,” she muttered and made to follow them. Evie yanked her back behind the hedge. “No,” she whispered sharply. “Don’t test our luck, Daisy. It was a miracle they didn’t realize we were here.” “But I wanted to hear the rest of it!” “So did I.” They stared at each other with round eyes. “Daisy…” Evie said in wonder, “… I think Matthew Swift is in love with you.

A SIMPLE BEAUTY The Border Collie is the epitome of all we may ever desire in a dog, a friend and a partner. Honesty, integrity and loyalty are second nature to a collie and they will work until they can go no further. Yet for all their willingness to give they are not submissive, they are proud of their heritage and they do not suffer fools gladly. Look beyond the colour of the coat and the cloak they wear labelled ‘dog’, search inside and reach its soul, for once there you will be trapped in a world of unbelievable love and honesty. You will have found true beauty, for the wonderful qualities within this breed are always there waiting to be unlocked and are what make it truly beautiful. Drink in its grace, speed and stamina, for rarely has so much come together so perfectly in so small a package.

Lilian?” Kevin needed a moment to register that, indeed, Lilian was standing before him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were taking a bath with the others.” “I was going to,” Lilian admitted, “but then I realized that my mate and I haven’t been able to spend much time alone together because my family kept getting in the way, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for us to bond.” “Bond?” He studied the girl, and eventually realized that she wasn’t looking at his face. Feeling a sense of unease growing in the pit of his stomach, Kevin looked down. His face grew red. He let out a loud “eep!” and tried to cover himself with his hands. “Ufufufu,” Lilian chuckled. “You’re still too cute when you get embarrassed like that.” Kevin tried to glare at her, but the blush on his face lessened the effect. “It’s got nothing to do with being embarrassed and everything to do with common decency,” he insisted, lying through his teeth. “Most people don’t stand around in the nude while someone else is present, not even if they’re dating that person.” “Most people aren’t mated to a kitsune.” “Ugh…” She had him there. “Kevin” Lilian’s eyes were warm and so incredibly earnest that Kevin was unable to look away, “you are my mate; the person I love more than anyone else in this world.” Delicate hands reached up and cupped his face. “This isn’t some random person wanting to see you naked. This is me, your mate, who wants to become more intimate with you. If it helps, I promise not to touch anything below the belt.” Staring at the girl with an uncomprehending gaze, Kevin’s mind became a warzone, a battle the likes of which no one had ever seen before—mostly because it was all happening in his mind. *** The desolate wasteland spread out for miles, its borders traveling far beyond the distant horizon. Cracks traversed the ground like a myriad system of interconnecting spiderwebs. There was no flora or fauna in this wasteland. It was the perfect place… for war. Two forces stood on opposite ends of each other, armies of nearly equal might. Multi-segmented plates clicked together as figures moved and jostled each other. Horned helms adorned the many heads, their faceplates masking their identities. Hands gripped massive halberds with leaf-shaped blades that gleamed like a thousand suns. The army on the northern border wore white armor, while those in the southern quadrant wore red. A moment of silence swept through the clearing. A tumbleweed rolled across the ground. It was the unspoken signal for the battle to start, and the two forces rushed in toward the center, yelling out their battle cries. “For Lilian!!” “For chastity!!” Thunder struck the earth as these two titanic armies fought. Bodies were thrown into the air with impunity. Halberds clashed, the sound of metal on metal, steel ringing against steel, rang out in a symphony of chaos. Sparks flew and shouts accompanied the maelstrom of combat. It was, indeed, a battle worthy of being placed within the annals of history. A third party soon entered the fray. From one of the many cliffs surrounding the battlefield, an army appeared. Unlike the two forces duking it out down below, this army was bereft of nearly all their clothes. Wearing nothing but simple loincloths and bandoleers similar to Tarzan’s, the group of individuals looked identical. Messy blond hair framed bright blue eyes that glared down at the battlefield. With nary a thought, this force surged down the cliff, their own battle cry echoing across the land. “DEATH TO THE CHERRY!!” And so more chaos was unleashed upon the battlefield. ***

The anti-Trump movement is a conspiracy by the powerful and connected to overturn the will of the American people. Among the co-conspirators are FBI officials illegally exonerating their favorite candidate of violating well-defined federal criminal statutes, first to help her get elected and then to frame Donald J. Trump for “Russia collusion” that never happened. It all began when members of the Obama administration, seeking a Hillary Clinton presidency and continuation of Obama’s platform, used the intelligence community to spy on the campaign of the Republican candidate for president. But once the unelected Deep State got on board, the anti-Trump conspiracy grew from mere dirty politics to an assault on our republic itself. Continuing beyond Election Day and throughout President Trump’s term to date, the LYING, LEAKING, LIBERAL Establishment has sought to nullify the decision of the American people and continue the globalist, open-border oligarchy that the people voted to dismantle in 2016. The perpetrators of this anti-American plot include, but are not limited to, the leadership at the FBI, the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies, the Democrat Party, and perhaps even the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts. And let’s not forget the media and entertainment industries that are waging a nonstop propaganda campaign that would render envious their counterparts in the worst totalitarian states of history. Yes, this is a conspiracy, and you and anyone who loves the America described in our founding documents, are among its victims. The rule of law has become irrelevant and politically motivated fiction has become truth.

everyone has a capacity for evil. And we’ve all seen it, and done it, even if we think we haven’t—there’s the slight in conversation that wounds another person, the words we know will cause pain to a loved one but we utter them anyway, and the unkindness that could have been avoided. But then there are people in another league, if you will, people who are capable of so much more, who harbor an evil so deep it scars all our souls. That kind of darkness can lie dormant, as if in a barren desert, but then . . . but then circumstances change to allow their evil to become truly, truly terrible, a boiling storm that encompasses all in its wake.” She pressed her hand to her eyes and fought to stop her voice cracking. “And though I knew what I was walking into, it seems that in coming here I fear that I have seen the tip of an iceberg, a mountain of opportunity for evil to envelop the people not only in this country but far beyond her borders.

After the CCP gained power, it sealed China off from information beyond its borders, and imposed a wholesale negation of China’s traditional moral standards. The government’s monopoly on information gave it a monopoly on truth. As the center of power, the party Center was also the heart of truth and information. All social science research organs endorsed the validity of the Communist regime; every cultural and arts group lavished praise on the CCP, while news organs daily verified its wisdom and might. From nursery school to university, the chief mission was to inculcate a Communist worldview in the minds of all students. The social science research institutes, cultural groups, news organs, and schools all became tools for the party’s monopoly on thought, spirit, and opinion, and were continuously engaged in molding China’s youth. People employed in this work were proud to be considered “engineers of the human soul.” In this thought and information vacuum, the central government used its monopoly apparatus to instill Communist values while criticizing and eradicating all other values. In this way, young people developed distinct and intense feelings of right and wrong, love and hate, which took the shape of a violent longing to realize Communist ideals. Any words or deeds that diverged from these ideals would be met with a concerted attack. The party organization was even more effective at instilling values than the social science research institutes, news and cultural organs, and schools. Each level of the party had a core surrounded by a group of stalwarts, with each layer controlling the one below it and loyal to the one above. Successive political movements, hundreds and thousands of large and small group meetings, commendation ceremonies and struggle sessions, rewards and penalties, all served to draw young people onto a single trajectory. All views diverging from those of the party were nipped in the bud.

The First Water is the Body (excerpt) The Colorado River is the most endangered river in the United States—also, it is a part of my body. I carry a river. It is who I am: ‘Aha Makav. This is not metaphor. When a Mojave says, Inyech ‘Aha Makavch ithuum, we are saying our name. We are telling a story of our existence. The river runs through the middle of my body. --- What threatens white people is often dismissed as myth. I have never been true in America. America is my myth. --- When Mojaves say the word for tears, we return to our word for river, as if our river were flowing from our eyes. A great weeping is how you might translate it. Or a river of grief. --- I mean river as a verb. A happening. It is moving within me right now. --- The body is beyond six senses. Is sensual. An ecstatic state of energy, always on the verge of praying, or entering any river of movement. Energy is a moving river moving my moving body. In Mojave thinking, body and land are the same. The words are separated only by the letters ‘ii and ‘a: ‘iimat for body, ‘amat for land. In conversation, we often use a shortened form for each: mat-. Unless you know the context of a conversation, you might not know if we are speaking about our body or our land. You might not know which has been injured, which is remembering, which is alive, which was dreamed, which needs care. You might not know we mean both. --- What is this third point, this place that breaks a surface, if not the deep-cut and crooked bone bed where the Colorado River runs—a one-thousand-four-hundred-and-fifty-mile thirst—into and through a body? Berger called it the pre-verbal. Pre-verbal as in the body when the body was more than body. Before it could name itself body and be limited, bordered by the space body indicated. Pre-verbal is the place where the body was yet a green-blue energy greening, greened and bluing the stone, red and floodwater, the razorback fish, the beetle, and the cottonwoods’ and willows’ shaded shadows. Pre-verbal was when the body was more than a body and possible. One of its possibilities was to hold a river within it. --- If I was created to hold the Colorado River, to carry its rushing inside me, if the very shape of my throat, of my thighs is for wetness, how can I say who I am if the river is gone? --- Where I come from we cleanse ourselves in the river. I mean: The water makes us strong and able to move forward into what is set before us to do with good energy. We cannot live good, we cannot live at all, without water. If your builder could place a small red bird in your chest to beat as your heart, is it so hard for you to picture the blue river hurtling inside the slow muscled curves of my long body? Is it too difficult to believe it is as sacred as a breath or a star or a sidewinder or your own mother or your beloveds? If I could convince you, would our brown bodies and our blue rivers be more loved and less ruined? The Whanganui River in New Zealand now has the same legal rights of a human being. In India, the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers now have the same legal status of a human being. Slovenia’s constitution now declares access to clean drinking water to be a national human right. While in the United States, we are teargassing and rubber-bulleting and kenneling Natives trying to protect their water from pollution and contamination at Standing Rock in North Dakota. We have yet to discover what the effects of lead-contaminated water will be on the children of Flint, Michigan, who have been drinking it for years. America is a land of bad math and science. The Right believes Rapture will save them from the violence they are delivering upon the earth and water; the Left believes technology, the same technology wrecking the earth and water, will save them from the wreckage or help them build a new world on Mars. ---

Bristol has always watched me. I know because I was watching her, too. I observed her for years like an anthropologist untangling the mysteries of a new tribe. There’s something in her eyes when she watches me that isn’t there for anyone else. I was never sure what it was. Now I know. It’s a passion so wild there are no borders. A limit- less, loving fealty beyond what I could deserve. Not my music, not my money, not fame, or anything I dreamed would satisfy comes close to what I feel when she looks at me like that. She feathers kisses over my lips, down my neck. We start slow and tender, but every touch, every long, lush stroke of our tongues together tosses kindling on this kiss until we’re grunting and hungry.

As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about. But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself? Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own stomach during a moment of love; betraying, yet lacking the will to abandon the glamorous path of betrayal; raising one's fist with the crowds in the Grand March; displaying one's wit before hidden microphones—I have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own ‘I’ ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become.

Though this was only our second time to visit this place, I was already thinking about becoming a Christian. It was not because of any sense of guilt about my sin or understanding that Jesus died on the cross for me, but because I saw the love and warmth of these people and thought maybe they had something I didn’t. I thought that maybe it would be a good thing to be a part of that. It was so different from anything I had ever seen before, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, or Turkey.

What times of faith trial we are all in together...Orwell understood it better then - than many do today. Humanitarian unity that is demonstrated in a spirit saturated in love actions, can transcend seasonal cultures and cross border customs...and become the greater force of all other forces; complicated to measure...and beyond human understanding, in its beautiful power.

What times of faith trial we are all in together...Orwell understood it better then than many do today. Humanitarian unity that is demonstrated in a spirit saturated in love actions, can that transcend seasonal cultures and cross border customs - can become the greater force of all other forces; complicated to measure and beyond human understanding in its beautiful power.

Once the fire has leapt upon its fuel and we are sitting round it with our marshmallows skewered on sharpened sticks and out beyond the veil of the border of glimmer and darkness among the marsh mallows at the swamp’s edge some frogs boom a humble love made solemnly and briefly in cold and darkness, the fire will not die.

Our dead are lost, aren't they? There is always some mistake: lost down a well, lost in the woods. Lost for words, lost to the world, we'll never make up for lost time. The sheep, the baby, the prodigal son, wandering beyond our imaginings, along the border of our grief and need.

And once more I see him the way he appeared to me at the very beginning of the novel: standing at the window and staring across the courtyard at the walls opposite. This is the image from which he was born. As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about. But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself? Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own stomach during a moment of love; betraying, yet lacking the will to abandon the glamorous path of betrayal; raising one's fist with the crowds in the Grand March; displaying one's wit before hidden microphones—I have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own I ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become.

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation – none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. Who will say it? Will America say, We have stolen it, or France step down? Will Russia confess, or Poland say, We have sinned? All bloated on their scraps of destiny, all swaggering in the immunity of superstition. Ishmael, who was saved in the wilderness, and given shade in the desert, and a deadly treasure under you: has Mercy made you wise? Will Ishmael declare, We are in debt forever? Therefore the lands belong to none of you, the borders do not hold, the Law will never serve the lawless. To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation’s sweetest dreams of itself. The Covenant is broken, the condition is dishonoured, have you not noticed that the world has been taken away? You have no place, you will wander through yourselves from generation to generation without a thread. Therefore you rule over chaos, you hoist your flags with no authority, and the heart that is still alive hates you, and the remnant of Mercy is ashamed to look at you. You decompose behind your flimsy armour, your stench alarms you, your panic strikes at love. The land is not yours, the land has been taken back, your shrines fall through empty air, your tablets are quickly revised, and you bow down in hell beside your hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthem full of blood and vanity, and your children singing to themselves. He has overturned the vehicle of nationhood, he has spilled the precious cargo, and every nation he has taken back. Because you are swollen with your little time. Because you do not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live without God. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.

Family isn’t defined by a number of people or the social construct. It’s defined by the number of heartbeats, shared laughs, and a love that goes beyond borders or restrictions.

Dropout Scientist (The Sonnet) I am a scientist who doesn't have a degree, I am a poet who has no control over words. I am a philosopher who has no intellect whatsoever, I am a monk with no idea, what it means to be religious. If I am being honest, I have no clue what I am, And I know quite well that you do not know either. But believe you me my friend, one day in sheer awe, Your descendants will come up with the rightful answer. In my 30 years of life, I've traveled quite a distance, Which will take the world at least a millennium to cover. That's why archaic designations fall short to define life, No designation is qualified to define a being beyond border. My faith is humanity, my reason is humanity, my love is humanity. I am but a glimpse of the future, without coldness and rigidity.

But my bucket list had only three items. Become financially independent. Be known for my work. Find true love.

I go home, open a beer and try to get my mind off this suddenly complicated situation. A few hours ago, I thought maybe I was falling in love with Aisha. But just knowing her nationality has me questioning my feelings and the possibility of forming a deeper bond with her. But then again, how can I ignore the connection that has already been established? How can I erase feelings that have already developed in the brief time we spent together? It was like pieces of a puzzle coming together to create a beautiful picture. How can I not credit my songs to the inspiration of her presence? But at the same time, I cannot be in love with an Indian girl, it would never work out.