Love Needs To Be Shown Quotes

To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

He kissed the palm of her hand. "It means, you stupid woman, that I am learning too. Now you listen to me. I never stop thinking about you. You're with me everywhere I go but I miss you when we're apart. I've already shown that I will kill for you. I would also die for you. You make me laugh. You make me happy. You're my miracle and my home...I will always come for you, always want you, and always need you. We clear?" She had begun to glow. "Sounds a lot love love to me.

So tonight I reach for my journal again. This is the first time I’ve done this since I came to Italy. What I write in my journal is that I am weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I’m scared they will never leave. I say that I don’t want to take the drugs anymore, but I’m frightened I will have to. I am terrified that I will never really pull my life together. In response, somewhere from within me, rises a now-familiar presence, offering me all the certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was troubled. This is what I find myself writing on the page: I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long. I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and Braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me. Tonight, this strange interior gesture of friendship—the lending of a hand from me to myself when nobody else is around to offer solace—reminds me of something that happened to me once in New York City. I walked into an office building one afternoon in a hurry, dashed into the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glance of myself in a security mirror’s reflection. In that moment, my brain did an odd thing—it fired off this split-second message: “Hey! You know her! That’s a friend of yours!” And I actually ran forward toward my own reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was so familiar. In a flash instant of course, I realized my mistake and laughed in embarrassment at my almost doglike confusion over how a mirror works. But for some reason that incident comes to mind again tonight during my sadness in Rome, and I find myself writing this comforting reminder at the bottom of the page. Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a FRIEND… I fell asleep holding my notebook pressed against my chest, open to this most recent assurance. In the morning when I wake up, I can still smell a faint trace of depression’s lingering smoke, but he himself is nowhere to be seen. Somewhere during the night, he got up and left. And his buddy loneliness beat it, too.

If what's always distinguished bad writing--flat characters, a narrative world that's clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.--is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony's gone from liberating to enslaving. There's some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who's come to love his cage… The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years. We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we’ve hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it’s stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent. You burn with hunger for food that does not exist. A U. S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness.

Love does not to be understood. It needs only to be shown.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.

Our higher needs include making full use of our gifts, finding and fulfilling our calling, being loved and cherished just for ourselves, and being in relationships that honor all of these. Such needs are fulfilled in an atmosphere of the five A’s by which love is shown: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.

I think humans might be like butterflies; people die every day without many other people knowing about them, seeing their colors, hearing their stories... and when humans are broken, they're like broken butterfly wings; suddenly there are so many beauties that are seen in different ways, so many thoughts and visions and possibilities that form, which couldn't form when the person wasn't broken! So it is not a very sad thing to be broken, after all! It's during the times of being broken, that you have all the opportunities to become things unforgettable! Just like the broken butterfly wing that I found, which has given me so many thoughts, in so many ways, has shown me so many words, and imaginations! But butterflies need to know, that it doesn't matter at all if the whole world saw their colors or not! But what matters is that they flew, they glided, they hovered, they saw, they felt, and they knew! And they loved the ones whom they flew with! And that is an existence worthwhile!

Daylight fades away as I watch you. Darkness claims the sky and I wish you knew that nothing you can do can keep me from you. But I stay out of sight and only whisper to you. Words I can’t say. Words you don’t need to hear. Words I can’t keep from tangling my way. Now, I can’t stand alone. Now, I am under your influence. You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.” “You stand wanting more than you could ever understand. I stand helpless needing to give in to your every command. Wanting to see you smile has consumed me and tied both my hands. Nothing I offer could ever be worthy of your love. It’s a miracle that you saw me and never ran. I will spend my whole life trying to be the man you think I am.   Now, I can’t stand alone. Now, I am under your influence. You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.” “You hold fire within your gaze. It mesmerizes everyone you allow into your maze. I know nothing of your thoughts but I need to bask within the warmth of your rays. Nothing you do could ever be wrong. You’re forever perfect in every way.   Now, I can’t stand alone. Now, I am under your influence. You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.” ~ Dank

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

A few years ago I heard Jerome Kagan, a distinguished emeritus professor of child psychology at Harvard, say to the Dalai Lama that for every act of cruelty in this world there are hundreds of small acts of kindness and connection. His conclusion: "To be benevolent rather than malevolent is probably a true feature of our species." Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else's mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You don't need a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with strangers - but trauma can turn the whole world into a gathering of aliens.

Typically, the daughter of a narcissistic mother will choose a spouse who cannot meet her emotional needs. Even though our intuition will tell us in some way when something is not right for us, we tend to block it out if it isn’t saying what we want to hear. When the hope for love blossoms, we override the intuitive inner voice or gut feeling. Years of treating and interviewing daughters with maternal deprivation have shown me that we have a deep sense of intelligent intuition, but it seems to be accompanied by a special brand of “deafness.” In the desperate search for love that did not exist in her childhood, the daughter chooses not to pay attention to the red flags that may be waving. We do know. We just don’t listen. In

I stay out of sight and only whisper to you. Words I can’t say. Words you don’t need to hear. Words I can’t keep from tangling my way. Now, I can’t stand alone. I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close. You stand wanting more than you could ever understand. I stand helpless, needing to give in to your every command. Wanting to see you smile has consumed me and tied both my hands. Nothing I offer could ever be worthy of your love. It’s a miracle that you saw me and never ran. I will spend my whole life trying to be the man you think I am. Now, I can’t stand-alone. Now, I am under your influence. I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.” “You hold fire within your gaze. It mesmerizes everyone you allow into your maze. I know nothing of your thoughts but I need to bask within the warmth of your rays. Nothing you do could ever be wrong. You’re forever perfect in every way. Now, I can’t stand-alone. Now, I am under your influence. You’ve taken over me and now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.” ~ Dank Walker

..we need more love than we deserve...has God not indeed shown us his greatest love precisely when we deserved it least from the tree of Eden to the tree of Calvary and beyond?

The heart is a map of the world, did you know that?” “I don’t even know what it means,” he said. “I saw a medieval map once. It showed the earth as a flat disc with Jerusalem in the center. Rome was bigger than Africa, and America was not even shown, of course. The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it’s impossible to rescale them when other more important people need to be added. Anyone who has done you wrong is shown too big, and so is anyone you loved.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.

I once wrote you a letter and you never replied, which makes me wonder if you ever received it. This time it's a more personal delivery - and I need a reply, even if it's not the one I want. I'm listening to you - I can hear every word, however softly you speak - and I'm half-agony, half-hope. You're saying that men are realists - that, when the woman they love is no longer available, they move on. Well, believe me, I tried - and I thought I had. But seeing you again, after so many years, just proved how little I knew... You told me to trust myself. So here I am back in Bath, putting everything on the line for a second chance with you. Is that what you want, too? Whatever your answer, remember this: I may not deserve you - when I think of how I've behaved, I know I've shown little self-control and even less forgiveness - but I've never stopped loving you. You're talking about heartless men... But I have a heart, and it's the same one you almost broke ten years ago, and it belongs to you, and only you, even more than it did then. And yes, I'm a realist: if you no longer love me, I will accept it. But don't say that only a woman can keep on loving someone who's no longer part of her life! Because I will keep on loving you until there are no stars in the sky. Tell me tonight how you feel. If there's any chance of you loving me back, then I'll wait for you as I should have waited before. If not, say the word and I'll leave you in peace. But I'll never forget you, or what we had, or what might have been. Rick

As I discussed in the previous chapter, attachment researchers have shown that our earliest caregivers don't only feed us, dress us, and comfort us when we are upset; they shape the way our rapidly growing brain perceives reality. Our interactions with our caregivers convey what is safe and what is dangerous: whom we can count on and who will let us down; what we need to do to get our needs met. This information is embodied in the warp and woof of our brain circuitry and forms the template of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. These inner maps are remarkably stable across time. This doesn‘t mean, however, that our maps can‘t be modified by experience. A deep love relationship, particularly during adolescence, when the brain once again goes through a period of exponential change, truly can transform us. So can the birth of a child, as our babies often teach us how to love. Adults who were abused or neglected as children can still learn the beauty of intimacy and mutual trust or have a deep spiritual experience that opens them to a larger universe. In contrast, previously uncontaminated childhood maps can become so distorted by an adult rape or assault that all roads are rerouted into terror or despair. These responses are not reasonable and therefore cannot be changed simply by reframing irrational beliefs.

Instead, we try to give them affection, confidence and guidance, more or less in that order, because experience has shown us that those are their most immediate needs.

If you can’t do it for yourself, you do it for all the other young souls who need to be shown that things are possible. That they too can do that thing they dream of.

I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life’s course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it’s you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me.

We love them those who shown their care to us, We Love them who respect us. We Love them, who help us. But if we don't give all these to them how will they love us, how will they care us. Lets start loving people, respect people, protect them. Help people if need

When I am gone, release me, let me go. I have so many things to see and do, You mustn't tie yourself to me with too many tears, But be thankful we had so many good years. I gave you my love, and you can only guess How much you've given me in happiness. I thank you for the love that you have shown, But now it is time I traveled on alone. So grieve for me a while, if grieve you must, Then let your grief be comforted by trust. It is only for a while we must part, So treasure the memories within your heart. I won't be far away for life goes on. And if you need me, call and I will come. Though you can't see or touch me, I will be near. And if you listen with your heart, you'll hear, All my love around you soft and clear. And then, when you come this way alone, I'll great you with a smile and a "Welcome Home.

He had flipped a switch in me. A switch that changed me from a woman who saw making love as a tool into a woman who knew that making love was a need. I needed him. I needed to be seen. I came alive under his gaze. Being married to Don had shown me another side of myself, a side I was just getting to know. A side I liked.

She let the relaxing song waft over and through her as she lost herself in everything around her: the millions of stars glittering above, the soft quilt beneath her, the man whose hand slipped warmly into hers. And she began to understand something she hadn't only a few short minutes before; she began to feel a certain, undeniable truth seeping into her skin, her muscles, her very bones. And when the song came to its sweet, peaceful conclusion, she continued peering up at the sky even as she leaned her head over to rest it on Lucky's shoulder. And she whispered, "You love me." He kept gazing upward, too, his answer coming softly. "Yeah, I do." And it sounded ... like it wasn't a surprise to him at all. The new knowledge made Tessa's skin tingle even as her body filled with warmth. And she pulled back just slightly to peer over at him, this man who loved her. He hadn't put it into words, but he hadn't needed to---because he'd shown her, in so many sweet ways.

I was that stupid, I realized. I was also stupid enough not to realize that sometimes even the most beautiful souls need to be shown love once in a while.

Remember, Caleb, words are weak instruments of love. They can do many things, but they do not carry the truth like your hands do. People need to be shown, not told.

I hear Your voice inside me, calling me home. Who will believe in me? Those who know My voice. I am not channeling. The word of God is upon my heart. You have all you need. Stop looking to another. My Word is written within you. Ask and you shall receive. No Voice speaks clearer. Surrender to Me. Do not think what is next. It shall be shown for what it is. Listen to Me. Lest you forget, true wisdom comes only from Source. Don’t be afraid to be alone with yourself. I am here. Listen to Me as I speak clearly your name. Must you always seek to drown Me out? I am here. Hear Me now. I give you rest. Rest in Me, not in what you think. You are more than that. Oh, so much more you are. Listen to Me, listen up My dear. Hear Me clear. My words ring true like a bell. Yes, clear as a bell I speak unto you. Give Me room. Move over. Get out of your way, I say. I speak peace and love unto your heart.

I'll be right here. Good luck, or break a leg, or something.” As Jay and Gregory turned and headed into the crowd, my traitorous eyes returned to the corner and found another pair or eyes staring darkly back. I dropped my gaze for three full seconds, and then lifted my eyes again, hesitant. The drummer was still staring at me, oblivious to the three girls trying to win back his attention. He put up one finger at the girls and said something that looked like, “Excuse me.” Oh, my goodness. Was he...? Oh, no. Yes, he was walking this way. My nerves shot into high alert. I looked around, but nobody else was near. When I looked back up, there he was, standing right in front of me. Good gracious, he was sexy-a word that had not existed in my personal vocabulary until that moment. This guy was sexy like it was his job or something. He looked straight into my eyes, which threw me off guard, because nobody ever looked me in the eye like that. Maybe Patti and Jay, but they didn't hold my stare like he was doing now. He didn't look away, and I found that I couldn't take my gaze off those blue eyes. “Who are you?” he asked in a blunt, almost confrontational way. I blinked. It was the strangest greeting I'd ever received. “I'm...Anna.” “Right. Anna. How very nice.” I tried to focus on his words and not his luxuriously accented voice, which made everything sound lovely. He leaned in closer. “But who are you?” What did that mean? Did I need to have some sort of title or social standing to enter his presence? “I just came with my friend Jay?” Oh, I hated when I got nervous and started talking in questions. I pointed in the general direction of the guys, but he didn't take his eyes off me. I began rambling. “They just wrote some songs. Jay and Gregory. That they wanted you to hear. Your band, I mean. They're really...good?” His eyes roamed all around my body, stopping to evaluate my sad, meager chest. I crossed my arms. When his gaze landed on that stupid freckle above my lip, I was hit by the scent of oranges and limes and something earthy, like the forest floor. It was pleasant in a masculine way. “Uh-huh.” He was closer to my face now, growling in that deep voice, but looking into my eyes again. “Very cute. And where is your angel?” My what? Was that some kind of British slang for boyfriend? I didn't know how to answer without continuing to sound pitiful. He lifted his dark eyebrows, waiting. “If you mean Jay, he's over there talking to some man in a suit. But he's not my boyfriend or my angel or whatever.” My face flushed with heat and I tightened my arms over my chest. I'd never met anyone with an accent like his, and I was ashamed of the effect it had on me. He was obviously rude, and yet I wanted him to keep talking to me. It didn't make any sense. His stance softened and he took a step back, seeming confused, although I still couldn't read his emotions. Why didn't he show any colors? He didn't seem drunk or high. And that red thing...what was that? It was hard not to stare at it. He finally looked over at Jay, who was deep in conversation with the manager-type man. “Not your boyfriend, eh?” He was smirking at me now. I looked away, refusing to answer. “Are you certain he doesn't fancy you?” Kaidan asked. I looked at him again. His smirk was now a naughty smile. “Yes,” I assured him with confidence. “I am.” “How do you know?” I couldn't very well tell him that the only time Jay's color had shown mild attraction to me was when I accidentally flashed him one day as I was taking off my sweatshirt, and my undershirt got pulled up too high. And even then it lasted only a few seconds before our embarrassment set in.

Lord, You have told me who You are, You have in mercy revealed Yourself to me, I know You to be that blessed 'gift of God' which alone can save and satisfy my soul. The depth and compass of heavenly love are manifested in You, and You have shown me, not my need only, but the sufficiency of Your grace and power to meet it. I am an empty sinner, You are a full Christ!

If there is anything I can do about the future, right now, I shall do it. Then I’m going to just leave it alone and settle down to enjoy the present moment, because all the experience of my life has shown me that I can only cope with things when they are present, not before they occur. And that the present always gives me the resources and the energy I need to deal with them.

Generalized Stockholm Syndrome results from having one’s physical and/or psychological survival threatened by one or more individuals and then being shown kindness by other individuals who are perceived as similar to the threatening individuals in some ways. Generalized Stockholm Syndrome is explained in its simplest form by two psychological concepts: Graham’s Stockholm Syndrome theory and stimulus generalization. Graham’s theory predicts that, because the victim is suffering despair and needs nurturance as a result of terror created by the threat to survival, he or she bonds to the first person who provides emotional relief. The bond is particularly likely to develop if the person who provides emotional relief is the abuser, because kindness by the abuser creates hope that the abuse will stop.

I just want, she said when he’d finally broken down her defenses. And so had he. He’d wanted her to desire him, but truthfully, whether she knew it or not, any man’s tender arms would do. The woman was wounded and aching for love, and it didn’t matter who Adrian was, or that he was the one who held her. But it had mattered to him. His eyelids slid closed as he envisioned all the pleasure he could have shown her, if she hadn’t had the decency to decline. No toys or tricks needed for this one; just deep, primal fucking. Stripping away her inhibitions alone would have been erotic enough to test his endurance.

I am not saying these things because I am naive or foolish,' said Christopher. 'Only because I do see things that are not in beakers and test tubes, you know. I see how hatred poisons the person who hates, not the person who is hated. If we treat Grace with the mercy she did not show James, and that was never shown to her, then what she did will have no power over us.' He looked at James. 'You have been terribly strong,' he said, 'enduring this, all alone, for so long. Let us help you leave anger and bitterness in the past. For if we don't do that, if we are consumed by the need to pay Grace back for what she has done, then how are we any different from Tatiana?

Everyone needs to be shown a little love. Even those we throw away and treat like garbage are most often jewels in the rough that simply need a bit of shining up to sparkle. In that respect, animals are no different than people.

What if it turns out there really are witches and vampires and werewolves living right here alongside us? After all, what better disguise could there be than to get your image enshrined in the culture of the mass media? Anything that's described in artistic terms and shown in the movies stops being frightening and mysterious. For real horror you need the spoken word, you need an old grandpa sitting on a bench, scaring the grandkids in the evening: 'And then the Master of the house came to him and said: "I won't let you go, I'll tie you up and bind you tight and you'll rot under the fallen branches!"' That's the way to make people wary of anomalous phenomena! Kids sense that, you know–it's no wonder they love telling stories about the Black Han and the Coffin on Wheels. But modern literature, and especially the movies, it all just dilutes that instinctive horror. How can you feel afraid of Dracula, if he's been killed a hundred times? How can you be afraid of aliens, if our guys always squelch them? Yes, Hollywood is the great luller of human vigilance. A toast–to the death of Hollywood, for depriving us of a healthy fear of the unknown!

Sentimental, overly “spiritualized” love is not capable of the sustained, unconditional agape of Christ shown on the cross. Only from the perspective of the crucifixion can the true nature of Christian love be seen, over against all that the world calls “love.” The one thing needful, according to Paul, is that the Christian community should position itself rightly, at the juncture where the cross calls all present arrangements into question with a corresponding call for endurance and faith.

In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow. In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.

THE SHEEPDOGS Most humans truly are like sheep Wanting nothing more than peace to keep To graze, grow fat and raise their young, Sweet taste of clover on the tongue. Their lives serene upon Life’s farm, They sense no threat nor fear no harm. On verdant meadows, they forage free With naught to fear, with naught to flee. They pay their sheepdogs little heed For there is no threat; there is no need. To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries, Roaming watchful round the peripheries. These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar With the fetid reek of the carnivore, Too like the wolf of legends told, To be amongst our docile fold. Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they? They have no use, not in this day. Lock them away, out of our sight We have no need of their fierce might. But sudden in their midst a beast Has come to kill, has come to feast The wolves attack; they give no warning Upon that calm September morning They slash and kill with frenzied glee Their passive helpless enemy Who had no clue the wolves were there Far roaming from their Eastern lair. Then from the carnage, from the rout, Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!” Thus is our nature but too our plight To keep our dogs on leashes tight And live a life of illusive bliss Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss. Until he has us by the throat, We pay no heed; we take no note. Not until he strikes us at our core Will we unleash the Dogs of War Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path. And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before; We love our sheep, we Dogs of War. Russ Vaughn 2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division Vietnam 65-66

The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it’s impossible to rescale them when other more important people need to be added. Anyone who has done you wrong is shown too big, and so is anyone you loved.

DEAR MAMA, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write to you and Papa I realize I’m not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be O.K., if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child. I have friends who think I’m foolish to write this letter. I hope they’re wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who loved and trusted them less than mine do. I hope especially that you’ll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn’t have written, I guess, if you hadn’t told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant. I’m sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief—rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes. No, Mama, I wasn’t “recruited.” No seasoned homosexual ever served as my mentor. But you know what? I wish someone had. I wish someone older than me and wiser than the people in Orlando had taken me aside and said, “You’re all right, kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You’re not crazy or sick or evil. You can succeed and be happy and find peace with friends—all kinds of friends—who don’t give a damn who you go to bed with. Most of all, though, you can love and be loved, without hating yourself for it.” But no one ever said that to me, Mama. I had to find it out on my own, with the help of the city that has become my home. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but San Francisco is full of men and women, both straight and gay, who don’t consider sexuality in measuring the worth of another human being. These aren’t radicals or weirdos, Mama. They are shop clerks and bankers and little old ladies and people who nod and smile to you when you meet them on the bus. Their attitude is neither patronizing nor pitying. And their message is so simple: Yes, you are a person. Yes, I like you. Yes, it’s all right for you to like me too. I know what you must be thinking now. You’re asking yourself: What did we do wrong? How did we let this happen? Which one of us made him that way? I can’t answer that, Mama. In the long run, I guess I really don’t care. All I know is this: If you and Papa are responsible for the way I am, then I thank you with all my heart, for it’s the light and the joy of my life. I know I can’t tell you what it is to be gay. But I can tell you what it’s not. It’s not hiding behind words, Mama. Like family and decency and Christianity. It’s not fearing your body, or the pleasures that God made for it. It’s not judging your neighbor, except when he’s crass or unkind. Being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion and humility. It has shown me the limitless possibilities of living. It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength. It has brought me into the family of man, Mama, and I like it here. I like it. There’s not much else I can say, except that I’m the same Michael you’ve always known. You just know me better now. I have never consciously done anything to hurt you. I never will. Please don’t feel you have to answer this right away. It’s enough for me to know that I no longer have to lie to the people who taught me to value the truth. Mary Ann sends her love. Everything is fine at 28 Barbary Lane. Your loving son, MICHAEL

I now understand that all the people I have ever known have come into my life to teach me about love. I am coming to trust that every moment of affection I received has been carefully recorded in me, ready for playback. The love I received from others shows me how to love those who need it from me. This is how the people who loved me have helped write this book. Specific memories also come through about how much people have had to put up with from me. What did they see in me that made them stick with me when I was so damned afraid to return their love? Maybe they saw something lovable in me that I need to see in myself. Their uninterrupted love also helps me trust that I must have shown more love than I give myself credit for.

I’m saying this because it’s said breaths are stolen during a passionate kiss. That’s not true, Gavin, because I literally can’t breathe before your lips even touch mine. I try, but I’m unable to. I can’t think when you look at me. You strip my mind bare. You always have, and it’s beautiful and consuming. It’s magical and everything a girl is supposed to feel. It’s said you’re truly in love with someone if your skin tingles from their touch. Mine tingles when I hear your voice; I don’t need you to touch me. I can feel you when you’re not near me. I feel you in my dreams. I felt you when you were a thousand miles away. “You scared me the moment I saw you, and I think it’s because I knew, I just knew, I was going to fall in love you. I didn’t know our worlds were already intertwined, but my heart somehow knew it belonged to you from the start. I didn’t believe a pain so deep existed while we were apart, but I also didn’t believe a love like ours existed. You’ve shown me it does. You’ve shown me good when there was bad. You’ve given me pleasure above all of my pain. You’ve given me life when I thought I was dead.

When I am gone, release me, let me go. I have so many things to see and do, You mustn't tie yourself to me with too many tears, But be thankful we had so many good years. I gave you my love, and you can only guess How much you've given me in happiness. I thank you for the love that you have shown, But now it is time I travelled on alone. So grieve for me a while, if grieve you must, Then let your grief be comforted by trust. It is only for a while that we must part, So treasure the memories within your heart. I won't be far away for life goes on. And if you need me, call and I will come. Though you can't see or touch me, I will be near. And if you listen with your heart, you'll hear, All my love around you soft and clear. And then, when you come this way alone, I'll greet you with a smile and a “Welcome Home”.

The ending is brilliant and satisfying. It’s satisfying because we don’t need to wonder whether Jonah repented and saw the light. He must have. How do we know? Well, how else would we know this story, unless Jonah told it to someone? And who would ever tell a story in which he is seen as an evil fool on every page, except a man in whom God’s grace had reached the center of his heart? Why, though, are we not shown Jonah’s response in the book? It is as if God aimed an arrow of loving rebuke at Jonah’s heart, set it a-fly, and suddenly Jonah vanishes, leaving us in its path. The question is coming right at us, because you are Jonah and I am Jonah. We are so enslaved to our idols that we don’t care about people who are Different, who live in the big cities, or who are just in our own families but very hard to love. Are we, like Jonah, willing to change? If we are, then we must look to the Ultimate Jonah, and to his sign, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

believe we’ve already established that you’re very busy and important,” I say mildly. In this, I know I have failed him. I love him more than anyone on earth, but time has shown me that I made a mistake in letting him learn his priorities from his father while I lost myself in books. Where was I when he needed to learn about courage and faith and bravery? He’s a good man—I know he is—but he cares too much about success and too little about the things we can find in our hearts, and that is never who I was.

...it takes great humility to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord Who set us free from all our sins. ... The truly humble person will have a genuine desire to be thought little of, and persecuted, and condemned unjustly, even in serious matters. ... It is a great help to meditate upon the great gain which in any case this is bound to bring us, and to realize how, properly speaking, we can never be blamed unjustly, since we are always full of faults, and a just man falls seven times a day, so that it would be a falsehood for us to say we have no sin. If, then, we are not to blame for the thing that we are accused of, we are never wholly without blame in the way that our good Jesus was. ... Thou knowest, my Good, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. For what is it to Thee, Lord, to give much instead of little? True, I do not deserve it, but neither have I deserved the favors which Thou hast shown me already. Can it be that I should wish a thing so evil as myself to be thought well of by anyone, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, Who art good above all other good? ... Do Thou give me light and make me truly to desire that all should hate me, since I have so often let Thee, Who hast loved me with such faithfulness. ... What does it matter to us if we are blamed by them all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord? ...meditate upon what is real and upon what is not. ... Do you suppose, ... that, if you do not make excuses for yourself, there will not be someone else who will defend you? Remember how the Lord took the Magdalen's part in the Pharisee's house and also when her sister blamed her. He will not treat you as rigorously as He treated Himself: it was not until He was on the Cross that He had even a thief to defend Him. His Majesty, then, will put it into somebody's mind to defend you; if He does not, it will be because there is no need. ...be glad when you are blamed, and in due time you will see what profit you experience in your souls. For it is in this way that you will begin to gain freedom; soon you will not care if they speak ill or well of you; it will seem like someone else's business. ... So here: it becomes such a habit with us not to reply that it seems as if they are not addressing us at all. This may seem impossible to those of us who are very sensitive and not capable of great mortification. It is indeed difficult at first, but I know that, with the Lord's help, the gradual attainment of this freedom, and of renunciation and self-detachment, is quite possible.

I believe in God with all my heart, mind and soul, so I will Be-Live-In-It and chose faith over fear. I will live in faith so my fears will flee. I know that God has shown me perfect love by sending His Son to redeem me, so I will cast out fear. I will use my energy to believe rather than to worry. I know that fear pulls me away from You Lord, so I will choose faith that I am taken care of by Your Almighty Hand. I know that I can trust You to provide for all of my needs. I declare this with faith and my actions will follow the words from my lips.

Ananda, an attendant of the Buddha, passed by a well near a village. A young low-caste woman, Pakati, was fetching water. He asked her for a drink. Pakati said: “I am low caste and therefore may not give you water. Please ask nothing from me in case I contaminate your holy state with my low-caste status.” Ananda said, “I am not interested in caste. It is water I am after.” Pakati’s heart leaped joyfully. She gave him water to drink, and when he left she followed him at a discrete distance. Finding out that he was a disciple of the Buddha, she went to the Buddha and said, “Please accept me and let me live in this place where your disciple Ananda dwells, so that I may see him and supply him with what he needs. For I find that I love Ananda.” The Buddha understood what was going on in her feelings and he said gently, “Pakati, your heart if full of love but you don’t understand your own emotions. It is not Ananda that you love, but his kindness. Accept the kindness that he has shown to you and in your turn practice it toward other. You have been born low caste, but in time you will outshine the glory of kings and queens.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on Remembrance Day: "Today, we pause to remember and honour the Canadian women and men who have served our country and stood on guard for us and the values we hold dear. "Every generation of Canadians has answered the call to serve. From Ypres to Dieppe to Korea to Afghanistan, our servicemen and women have shown courage as a matter of course, and stood resilient in the face of great adversity. "This year, in marking the 150th anniversary of Confederation, we have paused and reflected on some of our most important military milestones. In keeping alive the memory of battles like Passchendaele, Hill 70, Vimy, and Dieppe, we remind this generation, and future generations, where their freedom comes from. "We owe an immeasurable debt to our veterans, to the fallen, and to the families who love them. Just as our servicemen and women have taken care of us, we must also take care of them. It is our sacred duty as a country to be there for our heroes when they need us most. "At 11:00 am, I encourage all Canadians – no matter where you are – to observe the two minutes of silence. We remember those who stepped forward to serve, who endured horror and hell, and made extraordinary sacrifices for our freedom. "We stand together, a grateful country, with poppies close to our hearts. "Lest we forget.

1:261-262 THROW IT TO THE THIEVES The fear of the Lord is different from other trepidation. You need a healthy fear of what is dangerous before you can reach to the fear of the Lord. Many never reach. You may be like a very slight, limber branch. You look weak, but the wet center connects with a taproot. Hold there and fear not (20:21). Moses trembled, but he was sound to the core. They said to the people, A great army has gathered against you. You should be afraid. But that increased their faith. They repied, God is our sufficient guardian (3:173). Overly cautious merchants do not prosper because of their fear of loss. Brave merchants get broken ten times in a row, then rise at the end. Whatever you fear losing, throw it to the thieves following your caravan, especially if it's your faith. Whatever you deeply love, give time to that, and if you're drawn away, come back as soon as you can. There may even be a conflict sometime between what you love, your faith, and protecting your children. Stay with what is most in harmony with the love, and the other will fade. Fear has two forms. One is a worry about whether the effort is worth it. People caught in this bottleneck between yes and no stay tortured and confused. The second form of fear is for whether you will ever be able to make it to what you love. Let that one dissolve. Keep moving in the adored direction, and unless you're shown it is absolutely impossible, continue going there.

Fear. Alex knew he was a fine one to pontificate about fear. He'd issued the world's most tepid, careful marriage proposal. Because he'd been afraid to tell Genevieve he loved her. Not that it would have made much of a difference. She loved Harry. Harry in his youthful innocence had put his finger right on it. And Moncrieffe pushed the realization away. He took in a sharp breath. Harry took Moncrieffe's silence as a reason to go on. "God help me, it was only because I was afraid of losing her. And I honestly didn't feel I deserved her, for I had nothing to give her. I simply needed to know whether she loved me. I'm not proud of it, but I have never loved anyone more." Moncrieffe could still scarcely get the words out. "I just can't believe you would 'do' such a thing to someone you... loved." Osborne was very, very drunk, but he wasn't stupid. "But I couldn't hurt her, could I, if she didn't love me?" And now Harry's blue eyes fixed on him almost searchingly. Moncrieffe couldn't believe he had almost shown his hand. "You just said you weren't certain whether she did love you. And if she does love you anywhere as much as you claim to love her, imagine the pain you may have caused her with your whole charade." Harry looked up at him and blinked. And as he thought about it, his face slowly went white. After a moment he swallowed. "'Gallant' of you," Moncrieffe drawled, twisting the knife. Moncrieffe knew a surge of hatred for himself for saying it. But he wanted Harry to feel what he'd done to Genevieve.

If at all possible, a boy should stay home with one of his parents or a close relative until about age three. Daycare of the institutional kind does not suit boys’ nature during these very early years. Many studies have shown that boys are more prone than girls to separation anxiety and to becoming emotionally shut down as a result of feeling abandoned. Also, a boy of this age may cope with his anxiety by becoming restless or aggressive. Experienced caregivers talk about the “sad/angry boy syndrome”—a little boy who feels abandoned and anxious and converts that into hitting and hurting behavior. He may carry this behavior into school and later life. Care by a loving relative is far better than an institutional situation for toddlers under three. Children under three need to spend the long days of childhood with people to whom they are very special.

For I had no illusions left now, I no longer made any effort to pretend. Last night had shown me too well. My marriage was a failure. All the things that people would say about it if they knew, were true. We did not get on. We were not companions. We were not suited to one another. I was too young for Maxim, too inexperienced, and, more important still, I was not of his world. The fact that I loved him in a sick, hurt, desperate way, like a child or a dog, did not matter. It was not the sort of love he needed. He wanted something else that I could not give him, something he had had before. I thought of the youthful almost hysterical excitement and conceit with which I had gone into this marriage, imagining I would bring happiness before. Even Mrs van Hopper, with her cheap views and common outlook, had known I was making a mistake. 'I'm afraid you will regret it', she said. 'I believe you are making a big mistake'.

The "I" principle has reached the "Does not matter- need not be" state, and is not related to form. Save and beyond it, there is no other, therefore it alone is complete and eternal. Indestructible, it has power to destroy- therefore it alone is true freedom and existence. Through it comes immunity from all sorrow, therefore the spirit is ecstasy. Renouncing everything by the means shown, take shelter in it. Surely it is the abode of Kia? This having once been (even Symbolically) reached, is our unconditional release from duality and time- believe this to be true. The belief free from all ideas but pleasure, the Karma through law (displeasure) speedily exhausts itself. In that moment beyond time, a new law can become incarnate, without the payment of sorow, every wish gratified, he[9] having become the gratifier by his law. The new law shall be the arcana of the mystic unbalanced "Does not mattter- need not be," there is no necessitation, "please yourself" is its creed.[10]

Can I make you a cup of tea?” He says that would be wonderful, and she smiles handsomely; then her face darkens in terrible sorrow. “And I am so sorry, Mr. Arthur,” she says, as if imparting the death of a loved one. “You are too early to see the cherry blossoms.” After the tea (which she makes by hand, whisking it into a bitter green foam—“Please eat the sugar cookie before the tea”) he is shown to his room and told it was, in fact, the novelist Kawabata Yasunari’s favorite. A low lacquered table is set on the tatami floor, and the woman slides back paper walls to reveal a moonlit corner garden dripping from a recent rain; Kawabata wrote of this garden in the rain that it was the heart of Kyoto. “Not any garden,” she says pointedly, “but this very garden.” She informs him that the tub in the bathroom is already warm and that an attendant will keep it warm, always, for whenever he needs it. Always. There is a yukata in the closet for him to wear. Would he like dinner in the room? She will bring it personally for him: the first of the four kaiseki meals he will be writing about. The kaiseki meal, he has learned, is an ancient formal meal drawn from both monasteries and the royal court. It is typically seven courses, each course composed of a particular type of food (grilled, simmered, raw) and seasonal ingredients. Tonight, it is butter bean, mugwort, and sea bream. Less is humbled both by the exquisite food and by the graciousness with which she presents it. “I most sincerely apologize I cannot be here tomorrow to see you; I must go to Tokyo.” She says this as if she were missing the most extraordinary of wonders: another day with Arthur Less. He sees, in the lines around her mouth, the shadow of the smile all widows wear in private. She bows and exits, returning with a sake sampler. He tries all three, and when asked which is his favorite, he says the Tonni, though he cannot tell the difference. He asks which is her favorite. She blinks and says: “The Tonni.” If only he could learn to lie so compassionately.

ACEs are traumatic childhood events, and their consequences reach far into adulthood. The trauma need not be physical. The following events or feelings are some of the most common ACEs: • being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by parents • being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you • feeling that your family didn’t support each other • having parents who were separated or divorced • living with an alcoholic or a drug user • living with someone who was depressed or attempted suicide • watching a loved one be physically abused. ACEs happen everywhere, in every community. But studies have shown that ACEs are far more common in my corner of the demographic world. A report by the Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund showed that among those with a college degree or more (the non–working class), fewer than half had experienced an ACE. Among the working class, well over half had at least one ACE, while about 40 percent had multiple ACEs. This is really striking—four in every ten working-class people had faced multiple instances of childhood trauma. For the non–working class, that number was 29 percent.

tried to go to a counselor, but it was just too weird. Talking to some stranger about my feelings made me want to vomit. I did go to the library, and I learned that behavior I considered commonplace was the subject of pretty intense academic study. Psychologists call the everyday occurrences of my and Lindsay’s life “adverse childhood experiences,” or ACEs. ACEs are traumatic childhood events, and their consequences reach far into adulthood. The trauma need not be physical. The following events or feelings are some of the most common ACEs: •​being sworn at, insulted, or humiliated by parents •​being pushed, grabbed, or having something thrown at you •​feeling that your family didn’t support each other •​having parents who were separated or divorced •​living with an alcoholic or a drug user •​living with someone who was depressed or attempted suicide •​watching a loved one be physically abused. ACEs happen everywhere, in every community. But studies have shown that ACEs are far more common in my corner of the demographic world. A report by the Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund showed that among those with a college degree or more (the non–working class), fewer than half had experienced an ACE. Among the working class, well over half had at least one ACE, while about 40 percent had multiple ACEs. This is really striking—four in every ten working-class people had faced multiple instances of childhood trauma. For the non–working class, that number was 29 percent. I gave a quiz to Aunt Wee, Uncle Dan, Lindsay, and Usha that psychologists use to measure the number of ACEs a person has faced. Aunt Wee scored a seven—higher even than Lindsay and me, who each scored a six. Dan and Usha—the two people whose families seemed nice to the point of oddity—each scored a zero. The weird people were the ones who hadn’t faced any childhood trauma. Children with multiple ACEs are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression, to suffer from heart disease and obesity, and to contract certain types of cancers. They’re also more likely to underperform in school and suffer from relationship instability as adults. Even excessive shouting can damage a kid’s sense of security and contribute to mental health and behavioral issues down the road. Harvard pediatricians have studied the effect that childhood trauma has on the mind. In addition to later negative

The boy shows talent. The overheard words still rankled. Boy! At twenty-four! He’d like to see that banker do a man’s work around a ranch. He’d have blisters on those smooth hands inside of two hours. Not to mention how he’d feel after a long day in the saddle. Elizabeth wouldn’t be happy with Livingston. He knew it. True, the man had money, a large house, and a purebred pedigree—all the things she probably wanted in a man. But it wouldn’t be enough. He had instincts about her in the same way he knew horses—what they needed, how to touch them. In the last week, there’d been times when she’d thawed and shown her feelings. He’d bet anything a special woman lurked beneath her proper Boston exterior. With Livingston, that woman would never emerge. He straightened and ground a fist into his palm. He couldn’t step back and let Livingston waltz away with her. It wouldn’t be right. He’d have to change. Force himself past his shyness. Force himself to open up. Nick wasn’t sure how he’d do it. Aside from what he’d learned from Miz Carter, he’d not had any training in proper society manners. Now, he’d seen for himself how different things were in the East. But something in Elizabeth had touched him, something that went beyond social barriers, and he knew she’d sensed it too. He might not have much wealth to offer, but there were other things he could do to make her happy, and he’d love her with all his heart.

Matthew closed the door and turned toward her. He seemed very large in the small room, his broad frame dwarfing their civilized surroundings. Daisy’s mouth went dry as she stared at him. She wanted to be close to him… she wanted to feel all his skin against hers. “What is there between you and Llandrindon?” he demanded. “Nothing. Only friendship. On my side, that is.” “And on his side?” “I suspect— well, he seemed to indicate that he would not be averse to— you know.” “Yes, I know,” he said thickly. “And even though I can’t stand the bastard, I also can’t blame him for wanting you. Not after the way you’ve teased and tempted him all week.” “If you’re trying to imply that I’ve been acting like some femme fatale—” “Don’t try to deny it. I saw the way you flirted with him. The way you leaned close when you talked… the smiles, the provocative dresses…” “Provocative dresses?” Daisy asked in bemusement. “Like that one.” Daisy looked down at her demure white gown, which covered her entire chest and most of her arms. A nun couldn’t have found fault with it. She glanced at him sardonically. “I’ve been trying for days to make you jealous. You would have saved me a lot of effort if you’d just admitted it straight off.” “You were deliberately trying to make me jealous?” he exploded. “What in God’s name did you think that would accomplish? Or is turning me inside out your latest idea of an entertaining hobby?” A sudden blush covered her face. “I thought you might feel something for me… and I hoped to make you admit it.” Matthew’s mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t seem to speak. Daisy wondered uneasily what emotion was working on him. After a few moments he shook his head and leaned against the dresser as if he needed physical support. “Are you angry?” she asked apprehensively. His voice sounded odd and ragged. “Ten percent of me is angry.” “What about the other ninety percent?” “That part is just a hairsbreadth away from throwing you on that bed and—” Matthew broke off and swallowed hard. “Daisy, you’re too damned innocent to understand the danger you’re in. It’s taking all the self-control I’ve got to keep my hands off you. Don’t play games with me, sweetheart. It’s too easy for you to torture me, and I’m at my limit. To put to rest any doubts you might have… I’m jealous of every man who comes within ten feet of you. I’m jealous of the clothes on your skin and the air you breathe. I’m jealous of every moment you spend out of my sight.” Stunned, Daisy whispered, “You… you certainly haven’t shown any sign of it.” “Over the years I’ve collected a thousand memories of you, every glimpse, every word you’ve ever said to me. All those visits to your family’s home, those dinners and holidays— I could hardly wait to walk through the front door and see you.” The corners of his mouth quirked with reminiscent amusement. “You, in the middle of that brash, bull-headed lot… I love watching you deal with your family. You’ve always been everything I thought a woman should be. And I have wanted you every second of my life since we first met.

We are more than simple people - we are the creators of this world. We are here to live, to exist, to learn. So, live the pain. . live the pleasure, live. Be alive in this life. . be who you want to be! Be aware and live this. . the attitude of others, it has nothing to affect you, it has nothing to do with you, it is not part of you, it is part of them. The only ones affected are themselves. Be aware that the true treasures of life are within you. Be aware that the mind is a great friend, but also a terrible enemy [for fools]. Be aware that everything is interconnected, you are a co-creator! .. and if you want to be happy, all you have to do is think positive! Acts! give what you want to receive, love and you will be loved. . smile at life and life will smile to you. Be aware that everything, everything - every gesture, word, thought, smile. . everything creates energy and therefore moves. Anticipate events! Recognize your role in this world too big, among millions of possibilities, among countless squinting eyes. Be aware that no matter what you experience. . everything remains a part of you and turns you into what you are today. . get rich though. Be aware that to change your life, you don't need charms or spells, you don't need books or psychologists. You need the strength and courage to do this ... Put down the "how to ..." books, get close to you again and if you want to take off your shoes and walk barefoot through the grass, Do it ! Prove that you have imagination and show your strength, overcome the rules that make you not take life seriously. Unfortunately, these rules have not improved your mental state, and medical research in recent years has clearly shown that "rules" do not have the power to reduce depression and stress. Of course, we need rules, as long as they do not lead to dictatorship, but not from the existing ones: how you should have the body or what measure to wear. Rules about how to dress, how to raise your children, how to socialize, how to behave with your girlfriend / boyfriend. Be aware that the Book of your life is fascinating if you know how to write it yourself, especially since you never know what the end will be like. You are the main character and no one is allowed to take away your right to be happy. . Yes ! Her joy and normalcy are part of your life, and if you wait to do only things that seem to follow the rules, you may wake up later because you have not lived too many moments that will make you happy. .you don't know how to really enjoy your moments of happiness - when they appear, you think scared "it's too easy, is it okay?" Be aware that self-knowledge goes much deeper than adopting a system of ideas or beliefs; because ideas and beliefs can at best function as useful indicators 3-4 times out of a thousand, but "to know yourself means to be rooted in the Being, not lost in the mind". Eckhart Tolle When you do these things, you begin to become aware that you want to be a detail, which improves another detail. You realize that you don't want to be the essence - essential, because there is nothing that can't be replaced!

So okay. C-section in the morning? Why not? Chris still hadn’t shown up when I felt the examining room. Nor had he answered my call asking him what was up. I got in my car to drive to the hospital, then did what a lot of women do in that situation: I called my mom. “Hey, honey, are you okay?” she asked. “Yes.” I burst into tears. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how close to panicking I really was. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I…don’t know where Chris is. I have to go to the hospital to have the baby-“ “It’ll be OK,” she said quickly. “I’m going to the airport. I’ll be there.” I didn’t even get to explain the full situation. Then Chris called. “Where are you?” I asked. I was somewhere between relieved and angry-or maybe I was both angry and relieved. “I just had some stuff happen,” he said. “I’m okay. I’ll tell you when I see you.” “I need you now,” I said, telling him about the baby. If you’ve read American Sniper, you know what had happened to him: he passed out during what should have been a very routine procedure to remove a cyst in his neck. It was a freak thing that led to what we think was a temporary seizure. Some “thing.” But being a SEAL and being Chris, he completely minimized it. In fact, I didn’t know what had happened until later. All I knew was that he met me at the hospital and was by my side when I needed him. There is a bit of a funny story attached to the incident. A friend of Chris’s happened to be with him when he passed out. “Stand back,” his friend told the corpsman. “What? Why?” the corpsman asked. “Because when he comes to, he’s going to come up swinging.” “No.” The corpsman leaned down. Just then, Chris came to and, as his friend had warned, started swinging. Fortunately, the corpsman jerked out of the way just in time.

But I am pondering over the skill with which you have presented the whole argument in support of your proposition, Ischomachus. For you stated that husbandry is the easiest of all arts to learn, and after hearing all that you have said, I am quite convinced that this is so. Of course it is, cried Ischomachus; but I grant you, Socrates, that in respect of aptitude for command, which is common to all forms of business alike—agriculture, politics, estate-management, warfare—in that respect the intelligence shown by different classes of men varies greatly. [...]Just as a love of work may spring up in the mind of a private soldier here and there, so a whole army under the influence of a good leader is inspired with love of work and ambition to distinguish itself under the commander’s eye. Let this be the feeling of the rank and file for their commander; and I tell you, he is the strong leader, he, and not the sturdiest soldier, not the best with bow and javelin, not the man who rides the best horse and is foremost in facing danger, not the ideal of knight or targeteer, but he who can make his soldiers feel that they are bound to follow him through fire and in any adventure. [...]And this, in my judgment, is the greatest thing in every operation that makes any demand on the labour of men, and therefore in agriculture. Mind you, I do not go so far as to say that this can be learnt at sight or at a single hearing. On the contrary, to acquire these powers a man needs education; he must be possessed of great natural gifts; above all, he must be a genius. For I reckon this gift is not altogether human, but divine—this power to win willing obedience: it is manifestly a gift of the gods to the true votaries of prudence. Despotic rule over unwilling subjects they give, I fancy, to those whom they judge worthy to live the life of Tantalus, of whom it is said that in hell he spends eternity, dreading a second death.

Right about here will do,” I decided.  I cast a magelight to illuminate the place.  The first faint glow of dawn was arising along the horizon in the east, but it was still as dark as a miner’s butt.  “When my father heard that I was having a girl, he gave me some advice,” I said, stripping off my mantle.  “As the father of five daughter’s himself, he was full of sage wisdom on the subject of raising girls.” “Are they any different than raising boys?” “Worlds apart,” I nodded.  “But he said there are some things that you can count on with girls,” I continued, philosophically.  “When a young father has a girl, he’s strong.  By the time she grows into a lovely young woman, age takes a toll on a man.  He’s not as strong.  “So . . . when a young woman enters courting age, you might not be as hale as you are now, my friend.  And you will find the nights colder in your bones.” “You . . . you fear I won’t have the strength to show him the door?”  He still looked confused.  And a little drunk.  As big as he is, Arborn is a lightweight when it comes to his cups.   “Oh, no.  When the wrong sort of suitor shows interest in your daughter,” I explained, as I took out the hoxter wand, “then passion can provide the strength you need to contend with the situation.  “But passion fades, when the deed is done.  And then you are left with but your decrepit strength, and a long night of work ahead.”  I manifested two shovels from the hoxter.  “My father told me that the wise father of any daughter has the foresight to dig the hole while he’s still young and strong.  It saves the trouble of a long night, when you are old and weary.” “A hole?  For . . .?” “My father assures me this is effective: for someone who is not impressed by being shown a hole an attentive father dug before he was born and intended for him, at need,” I supplied.  “Mine is behind the stable at the castle.  If a young man is worrisome, I’ll show him the hole, and explain the purpose.  You have three daughters.  That’s three holes.  I’ll help you dig.

You may find this hard to believe, Mr. Pinter," she went on defensively, "but some men enjoy my company. They consider me easy to talk to." A ghost of a smile touched his handsome face. "You're right. I do find that hard to believe." Arrogant wretch. "All the same, there are three men who might consider marrying me, and I could use your help in securing them." She hated having to ask him for that, but he was necessary to her plan. She just needed one good offer of marriage, one impressive offer that would show Gran she was capable of gaining a decent husband. Gran didn't believe she could, or she wouldn't be holding to that blasted ultimatum. If Celia could prove her wrong, Gran might allow her to choose a husband in her own good time. And if that plan didn't work, Celia would at least have a man she could marry to fulfill Gran's terms. "So you've finally decided to meet Mrs. Plumtree's demands," he said, his expression unreadable. She wasn't about to let him in on her secret plan. Oliver might have employed him, but she was sure Mr. Pinter also spied for Gran. He would run right off and tell her. "It's not as if I have a choice." Bitterness crept into her tone. "In less than two months, if I remain unmarried, my siblings will be cut off. I can't do that to them, no matter how much I resent Gran's meddling." Something that looked oddly like sympathy flickered in his gaze. "Don't you want to marry?" "Of course I want to marry. Doesn't every woman?" "You've shown little interest in it before," he said skeptically. That's because men had shown little interest in her. Oh, Gab's friends loved to stand about with her at balls and discuss the latest developments in cartridges, but they rarely asked her to dance, and if they did, it was only to consult her on rifles. She'd tried flirting, but she was terrible at it. It seemed so...false. So did men's compliments, the few that there were. It was easier to laugh them off than to figure out which ones were genuine, easier to pretend to be one of the lads. She secretly wished she could find a man she could love, who would ignore the scandals attached to he family's name and indulge her hobby of target shooting. One who could shoot as well as she, since she could never respect a man who couldn't hit what he aimed at. I'll bet Mr. Pinter knows his way around a rifle.

As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn’t; but what did I know? I was only eight. So I embarked on this mission called boarding school. And how do you prepare for that one? In truth, I found it really hard; there were some great moments like building dens in the snow in winter, or getting chosen for the tennis team, or earning a naval button, but on the whole it was a survival exercise in learning to cope. Coping with fear was the big one. The fear of being left and the fear of being bullied--both of which were very real. What I learned was that I couldn’t manage either of those things very well on my own. It wasn’t anything to do with the school itself, in fact the headmaster and teachers were almost invariably kind, well-meaning and good people, but that sadly didn’t make surviving it much easier. I was learning very young that if I were to survive this place then I had to find some coping mechanisms. My way was to behave badly, and learn to scrap, as a way to avoid bullies wanting to target me. It was also a way to avoid thinking about home. But not thinking about home is hard when all you want is to be at home. I missed my mum and dad terribly, and on the occasional night where I felt this worst, I remember trying to muffle my tears in my pillow while the rest of the dormitory slept. In fact I was not alone in doing this. Almost everyone cried, but we all learned to hide it, and those who didn’t were the ones who got bullied. As a kid, you can only cry so much before you run out of tears and learn to get tough. I meet lots of folks nowadays who say how great boarding school is as a way of toughening kids up. That feels a bit back-to-front to me. I was much tougher before school. I had learned to love the outdoors and to understand the wild, and how to push myself. When I hit school, suddenly all I felt was fear. Fear forces you to look tough on the outside but makes you weak on the inside. This was the opposite of all I had ever known as a kid growing up. I had been shown by my dad that it was good to be fun, cozy, homely--but then as tough as boots when needed. At prep school I was unlearning this lesson and adopting new ways to survive. And age eight, I didn’t always pick them so well.

We have traded our intimacy for social media, our romantic bonds for dating matches on apps, our societal truth for the propaganda of corporate interests, our spiritual questioning for dogmatism, our intellectual curiosity for standardized tests and grading, our inner voices for the opinions of celebrities and hustler gurus and politicians, our mindfulness for algorithmic distractions and outrage, our inborn need to belong to communities for ideological bubbles, our trust in scientific evidence for the attractive lies of false leaders, our solitude for public exhibitionism. We have ignored the hunter-gatherer wisdom of our past, obedient now to the myth of progress. But we must remember who we are and where we came from. We are animals born into mystery, looking up at the stars. Uncertain in ourselves, not knowing where we are heading. We exist with the same bodies, the same brains, as Homo sapiens from thousands of years past, roaming on the plains, hunting in forests and by the sea, foraging together in small bands. Except now, our technology is exponentially increasing at a scale that we cannot predict. We are overwhelmed with information; lost in a matrix that we do not understand. Our civilizational “progress” is built on the bones of the indigenous and the poor and the powerless. Our “progress” comes at the expense of our land, and oceans, and air. We are reaching beyond what we can globally sustain. Former empires have perished from their unrestrained greed for more resources. They were limited in past ages by geography and capacity, collapsing in regions, and not over the entire planet. What will be the cost of our progress? We have grown arrogant in our comfort, hardened away from our compassion, believing that our reality is the only reality. Yet even at our most uncertain, there are still those saints who are unknown and nameless, who help even when they do not need to help. They often are not rich, don’t have their profiles written up in magazines, and will never win any prestigious awards. They may have shared their last bit of food while already surviving on so little. They may have cherished the disheartened, shown warmth to the neglected, tended to the diseased and dying, spoken kindly to the hopeless. They do not tremble in silence while the wheels of prejudice crush over their land. Withering what was once fertile into pale death and smoke. They tend to what they love, to what they serve. They help, even when they could fall back into ignorance, even when they could prosper through easy greed, even when they could compromise their values, conforming into groupthink for the illusion of security. They help.

Iofur had noticed. He began to taunt Iorek, calling him broken-hand, whimpering cub, rust-eaten, soon-to-die, and other names, all the while swinging blows at him from right and left which Iorek could no longer parry. Iorek had to move backward, a step at a time, and to crouch low under the rain of blows from the jeering bear-king. Lyra was in tears. Her dear, her brave one, her fearless defender, was going to die, and she would not do him the treachery of looking away, for if he looked at her he must see her shining eyes and their love and belief, not a face hidden in cowardice or a shoulder fearfully turned away. So she looked, but her tears kept her from seeing what was really happening, and perhaps it would not have been visible to her anyway. It certainly was not seen by Iofur. Because Iorek was moving backward only to find clean dry footing and a firm rock to leap up from, and the useless left arm was really fresh and strong. You could not trick a bear, but, as Lyra had shown him, Iofur did not want to be a bear, he wanted to be a man; and Iorek was tricking him. At last he found what he wanted: a firm rock deep-anchored in the permafrost. He backed against it, tensing his legs and choosing his moment. It came when Iofur reared high above, bellowing his triumph, and turning his head tauntingly toward Iorek’s apparently weak left side. That was when Iorek moved. Like a wave that has been building its strength over a thousand miles of ocean, and which makes little stir in the deep water, but which when it reaches the shallows rears itself up high into the sky, terrifying the shore dwellers, before crashing down on the land with irresistible power—so Iorek Byrnison rose up against Iofur, exploding upward from his firm footing on the dry rock and slashing with a ferocious left hand at the exposed jaw of Iofur Raknison. It was a horrifying blow. It tore the lower part of his jaw clean off, so that it flew through the air scattering blood drops in the snow many yards away. Iofur’s red tongue lolled down, dripping over his open throat. The bear-king was suddenly voiceless, biteless, helpless. Iorek needed nothing more. He lunged, and then his teeth were in Iofur’s throat, and he shook and shook this way, that way, lifting the huge body off the ground and battering it down as if Iofur were no more than a seal at the water’s edge. Then he ripped upward, and Iofur Raknison’s life came away in his teeth. There was one ritual yet to perform. Iorek sliced open the dead king’s unprotected chest, peeling the fur back to expose the narrow white and red ribs like the timbers of an upturned boat. Into the rib cage Iorek reached, and he plucked out Iofur’s heart, red and steaming, and ate it there in front of Iofur’s subjects.

Breanne, I'm asking you nicely to please reconsider. Mom and Dad are coming to the game. They have a suite reserved and Mom is expecting you." Jayson almost sounded as if he were begging. I wasn't buying it. "Take Belinda or one of those other women," I huffed. "I don't do much in the leather department. I'm a vegetarian, remember?" "Mom loves that about you." "I'm sure she does. Her son, however, finds me grossly inadequate and walks away whenever he gets a chance. As much as I like your mother, I don't feel good about stringing her along. I'm just a front for you—admit it." "Bree, I'll invite Hank to come, too. I promise one of us will be with you." "Sure. That sounds so comfortable," I said. "Your mother will wonder what the hell is going on when Hank pays more attention than you do. Frankly, I don't want anything from either of you." Jayson was still trying to convince me to go to the basketball game the following evening, and he'd shown up at my front door to do it. I'd been grumpy ever since I'd come back after saving Teeg San Gerxon's ass. Sure, it would put the Campiaan Alliance in chaos, but for a blink, or maybe half a blink—I'd considered saving Stellan and his brothers and leaving Teeg behind to be flayed and swallowed by a sandstorm that had destroyed most of Thelik. "What can I possible do to convince you to come? Donate to Mercy Crossings or some other charity? What?" He'd arrived at my front door as if he'd been invited. I made him stand at the door instead of inviting him in. "Give Trina a raise. That car she's driving really needs to be retired." "What?" Jayson almost shouted. "Okay, the price just went up. Buy her a new car." Did I realize he'd take the bait? No. "All right. I agree, that piece of crap needs to go to the salvage yard. I'll buy her a new car." "A good one. She doesn't want a TinyCar, I know that much." "You think I'd let anybody out of the driveway in one of those things? I saw yours and almost gagged." "But since I'm nobody important to you, I can drive whatever the hell I want," I pointed out. "Besides, I got my car from a vending machine. Put in a dollar and it dropped out. It was too bad, too—I wanted a soda." The corners of Jayson's mouth threatened to turn up. Schooling his face, he said, "I never pegged you for an extortionist," instead. "I never pegged you for an asshole, either, but disappointment abounds. Sell that Mercedes you have and buy four decent cars with the proceeds. See? Everybody's happy." "That's a Mercedes McLaren," Jayson howled. "Then buy eight decent cars." "If you weren't so smart and my mother didn't like you so much," Jayson threatened. "You'd what? Have one of those bigger, taller, better-endowed women beat me up? Jayson Rome, feel free to bring anybody you want against me. They won't last ten seconds." "You'll come to the game? I still plan to invite Hank. I usually sit courtside, but since Dad's coming and bringing Mom," Jayson didn't finish. "Just don't make an ass out of yourself this time." I shut the door in his face before he could sputter a reply.

Under these circumstances the most anodyne book was a source of danger from the simple fact that love was alluded to, and woman depicted as an attractive creature; and this was enough to account for all—for the inherent ignorance of Catholics, since it was proclaimed as the preventive cure for temptations—for the instinctive horror of art, since to these craven souls every written and studied work was in its nature a vehicle of sin and an incitement to fall. Would it not really be far more sensible and judicious to open the windows, to air the rooms, to treat these souls as manly beings, to teach them not to be so much afraid of their own flesh, to inculcate the firmness and courage needed for resistance? For really it is rather like a dog which barks at your heels and snaps at your legs if you are afraid of him, but who beats a retreat if you turn on him boldly and drive him off. The fact remains that these schemes of education have resulted, on the one hand, in the triumph of the flesh in the greater number of men who have been thus brought up and then thrown into a worldly life, and on the other, in a wide diffusion of folly and fear, an abandonment of the possessions of the intellect and the capitulation of the Catholic army surrendering without a blow to the inroads of profane literature, which takes possession of territory that it has not even had the trouble of conquering. This really was madness! The Church had created art, had cherished it for centuries; and now by the effeteness of her sons she was cast into a corner. All the great movements of our day, one after the other—romanticism, naturalism—had been effected independently of her, or even against her will. If a book were not restricted to the simplest tales, or pleasing fiction ending in virtue rewarded and vice punished, that was enough; the propriety of beadledom was at once ready to bray. As soon as the most modern form of art, the most malleable and the broadest—the Novel—touched on scenes of real life, depicted passion, became a psychological study, an effort of analysis, the army of bigots fell back all along the line. The Catholic force, which might have been thought better prepared than any others to contest the ground which theology had long since explored, retired in good order, satisfied to cover its retreat by firing from a safe distance, with its old-fashioned match-lock blunderbusses, on works it had neither inspired nor written. The Church party, centuries behind the time, and having made no attempt to follow the evolution of style in the course of ages, now turned to the rustic who can scarcely read; it did not understand more than half of the words used by modern writers, and had become, it must be said, a camp of the illiterate. Incapable of distinguishing the good from the bad, it included in one condemnation the filth of pornography and real works of art; in short, it ended by emitting such folly and talking such preposterous nonsense, that it fell into utter discredit and ceased to count at all. And it would have been so easy for it to work on a little way, to try to keep up with the times, and to understand, to convince itself whether in any given work the author was writing up the Flesh, glorifying it, praising it, and nothing more, or whether, on the contrary, he depicted it merely to buffet it—hating it. And, again, it would have done well to convince itself that there is a chaste as well as a prurient nude, and that it should not cry shame on every picture in which the nude is shown. Above all, it ought to have recognized that vices may well be depicted and studied with a view to exciting disgust of them and showing their horrors.

ONCE YOU’VE HOOKED readers, your next task is to put your early chapters to work introducing your characters, settings, and stakes. The first 20-25% of the book comprises your setup. At first glance, this can seem like a tremendous chunk of story to devote to introductions. But if you expect readers to stick with you throughout the story, you first have to give them a reason to care. This important stretch is where you accomplish just that. Mere curiosity can only carry readers so far. Once you’ve hooked that sense of curiosity, you then have to deepen the pull by creating an emotional connection between them and your characters. These “introductions” include far more than just the actual moment of introducing the characters and settings or explaining the stakes. In themselves, the presentations of the characters probably won’t take more than a few scenes. After the introduction is when your task of deepening the characters and establishing the stakes really begins. The first quarter of the book is the place to compile all the necessary components of your story. Anton Chekhov’s famous advice that “if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired” is just as important in reverse: if you’re going to have a character fire a gun later in the book, that gun should be introduced in the First Act. The story you create in the following acts can only be assembled from the parts you’ve shown readers in this First Act. That’s your first duty in this section. Your second duty is to allow readers the opportunity to learn about your characters. Who are these people? What is the essence of their personalities? What are their core beliefs (even more particularly, what are the beliefs that will be challenged or strengthened throughout the book)? If you can introduce a character in a “characteristic moment,” as we talked about earlier, you’ll be able to immediately show readers who this person is. From there, the plot builds as you deepen the stakes and set up the conflict that will eventually explode in the Inciting and Key Events. Authors sometimes feel pressured to dive right into the action of their stories, at the expense of important character development. Because none of us wants to write a boring story, we can overreact by piling on the explosions, fight sequences, and high-speed car chases to the point we’re unable to spend important time developing our characters. Character development is especially important in this first part of the story, since readers need to understand and sympathize with the characters before they’re hit with the major plot revelations at the quarter mark, halfway mark, and three-quarters mark. Summer blockbusters are often guilty of neglecting character development, but one enduring exception worth considering is Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. No one would claim the film is a leisurely character study, but it rises far above the monster movie genre through its expert use of pacing and its loving attention to character, especially in its First Act. It may surprise some viewers to realize the action in this movie doesn’t heat up until a quarter of the way into the film—and even then we have no scream-worthy moments, no adrenaline, and no extended action scenes until halfway through the Second Act. Spielberg used the First Act to build suspense and encourage viewer loyalty to the characters. By the time the main characters arrive at the park, we care about them, and our fear for their safety is beginning to manifest thanks to a magnificent use of foreshadowing. We understand that what is at stake for these characters is their very lives. Spielberg knew if he could hook viewers with his characters, he could take his time building his story to an artful Climax.

PROLOGUE Some years ago in the Planet Orfheus ... It was dark when Lucius reached the rendezvous which had been chosen to be the new hideout. The latter had been used for several months and they were concerned that they were being followed and were close to being discovered. "I thought you were not coming. I've been waiting for you for almost an hour. I was getting anxious," Sofia said, relieved. "Sorry, love. It is becoming increasingly difficult. I almost didn't make it today. The troops were ambushed in the last invasion. Igor and many warriors returned seriously injured," Lucius replied. He looked worried. Why this sudden encounter? They had agreed that the next would be the following week. Lucius gave her a big hug, pulled her close to him, and remained silent for a few moments. His longing and desire consumed him. She meant the world to him. Without Sofia, his life would never make sense. He would never forget those eyes, serene and sincere, with a blue so bright and clear that were able to see the soul of the tormented warrior that was he. With her golden hair, Sofia looked like an angel. "Is there a problem? You're so quiet and deep in thought," she asked, puzzled. He answered, "I'm thinking about us. How long are we keeping it secret?" He walked away from her, sighing. "We can't keep lying and pretending that all is well. You have no idea how much I have to endure when you are away from me, or when I see you with him." "Love, not now. We have already discussed this subject several times. You know that our only alternative would be to flee and pray they will never find us," she replied. Sofia knew very well that the laws of the kingdom could not be disregarded. Love, respect, and loyalty were key factors that were part of the hierarchy of Orfheus. Although she had always been in love with Lucius who had never shown any interest in her, Sofia was bound to his brother Alex as a result of a pact. Over the centuries, Lucius began to change and express loving feelings for her. She never ceased to love him and both succumbed to the temptation and passion of it. Inevitably, a love affair developed between the two. Interrupting her thoughts, Lucius grabbed her by the hand and led her into the hut. This hut was located inside a vast and beautiful forest. He pulled her by the waist, gave her a passionate kiss, stroked her hair, and said softly, "Love, I missed you so much." "I also felt homesick but the real reason I came here today is to tell you something very important. I need you to listen carefully and keep calm," she said as she ran her hands through her hair which contrasted with her pale skin. Sofia did not want to scare him. However, she imagined that he would be upset and angry with the news. Unfortunately, the revelation was inevitable and sooner or later, everything would come out. "I'm pregnant," she said unceremoniously. For a brief moment, Lucius said nothing. He just stared at her without any reaction. He seemed to be in a silent battle with his own thoughts. "But how?" he babbled, not believing what he had just heard. It was surely a bombshell revelation. That would be the end for them. Sofia said, "Stay calm, love. I know this changes everything. What we were planning for months is no longer possible." She sat on a makeshift stool and continued with tears in her eyes. "With the baby coming, I cannot simply go through the portal. The baby and I would die during the crossing." Lucius replied, "Could we ask for help from Aunt Wilda? She is very powerful. Probably she would be able to break through the magic of the portals." Sofia had already thought of that. She was well aware that it was the only choice left. Aunt Wilda had always been like a mother to her. The sorceress adopted her when she was a girl, soon after her family had died in combat.

In families in which parents are overbearing, rigid, and strict, children grow up with fear and anxiety. The threat of guilt, punishment, the withdrawal of love and approval, and, in some cases, abandonment, force children to suppress their own needs to try things out and to make their own mistakes. Instead, they are left with constant doubts about themselves, insecurities, and unwillingness to trust their own feelings. They feel they have no choice and as we have shown, for many, they incorporate the standards and values of their parents and become little parental copies. They follow the prescribed behavior suppressing their individuality and their own creative potentials. After all, criticism is the enemy of creativity. It is a long, hard road away from such repressive and repetitive behavior. The problem is that many of us obtain more gains out of main- taining the status quo than out of changing. We know, we feel, we want to change. We don’t like the way things are, but the prospect of upsetting the stable and the familiar is too frightening. We ob- tain “secondary gains” to our pain and we cannot risk giving them up. I am reminded of a conference I attended on hypnosis. An el- derly couple was presented. The woman walked with a walker and her husband of many years held her arm as she walked. There was nothing physically wrong with her legs or her body to explain her in- ability to walk. The teacher, an experienced expert in psychiatry and hypnosis, attempted to hypnotize her. She entered a trance state and he offered his suggestions that she would be able to walk. But to no avail. When she emerged from the trance, she still could not, would not, walk. The explanation was that there were too many gains to be had by having her husband cater to her, take care of her, do her bidding. Many people use infirmities to perpetuate relationships even at the expense of freedom and autonomy. Satisfactions are derived by being limited and crippled physically or psychologically. This is often one of the greatest deterrents to progress in psychotherapy. It is unconscious, but more gratification is derived by perpetuating this state of affairs than by giving them up. Beatrice, for all of her unhappiness, was fearful of relinquishing her place in the family. She felt needed, and she felt threatened by the thought of achieving anything 30 The Self-Sabotage Cycle that would have contributed to a greater sense of independence and self. The risks were too great, the loss of the known and familiar was too frightening. Residing in all of us is a child who wants to experiment with the new and the different, a child who has a healthy curiosity about the world around him, who wants to learn and to create. In all of us are needs for security, certainty, and stability. Ideally, there develops a balance between the two types of needs. The base of security is present and serves as a foundation which allows the exploration of new ideas and new learning and experimenting. But all too often, the security and dependency needs outweigh the freedom to explore and we stifle, even snuff out, the creative urges, the fantasy, the child in us. We seek the sources that fill our dependency and security needs at the expense of the curious, imaginative child. There are those who take too many risks, who take too many chances and lose, to the detriment of all concerned. But there are others who are risk-averse and do little with their talents and abilities for fear of having to change their view of themselves as being the child, the dependent one, the protected one. Autonomy, independence, success are scary because they mean we can no longer justify our needs to be protected. Success to these people does not breed success. Suc- cess breeds more work, more dependence, more reason to give up the rationales for moving on, away from, and exploring the new and the different.

Dear God, thank You for providing for all of my earthly needs. I ask that You continue to guide me clearly to everything that I need to fulfill my mission and to be able to provide a safe and healthful life for myself and my loved ones. Amen.” As you say this prayer, notice any thoughts, feelings, or visions … even if they’re subtle. These impressions are answers to your prayer, in which you’re shown and guided to what you need.

Nearly every shift, I’m asking myself, What do I do with this patient now that he has shown up here in my ER? What does he need from us right now? Unfortunately, the most common answer is: He needs a childhood transplant, he needs to start over—with loving parents this time, in a caring, nurturing environment.

to faith, but when it comes to the cost, the truth of their focus will be shown. “You have to be practical,” they will say. Most people trust God up to the point where they recognize they are becoming truly dependent upon Him. Once someone realizes that God is leading them into a life where they cannot meet their own needs and cannot protect themselves should God fail them, most will turn back. When the way of the

January 21 RECALL WHAT GOD REMEMBERS “Thus says the Lord: ‘I remember . . . the kindness of your youth . . . .’” Jeremiah 2:2     Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Does everything in my life fill His heart with gladness, or do I constantly complain because things don’t seem to be going my way? A person who has forgotten what God treasures will not be filled with joy. It is wonderful to remember that Jesus Christ has needs which we can meet—“Give Me a drink” (John 4:7). How much kindness have I shown Him in the past week? Has my life been a good reflection on His reputation?     God is saying to His people, “You are not in love with Me now, but I remember a time when you were.” He says, “I remember . . . the love of your betrothal . . .” (Jeremiah 2:2). Am I as filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man’s wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him?     As I recall what God remembers about me, I may also begin to realize that He is not what He used to be to me. When this happens, I should allow the shame and humiliation it creates in my life, because it will bring godly sorrow, and “godly sorrow produces repentance . . .” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Because when you have been shown mercy by your Father in Heaven, you cannot keep it in inside. People who have been given mercy want to hand it out freely and generously. Once you have known the indescribable joy of receiving love when you had expected judgment, there is no containing the lengths you will go to give it away. And so the life inclined toward mercy becomes a beautiful offering to God. In your great need, you can turn your aching heart toward the Father and ask for His mercy. From the riches of His lavish love, He will tenderly give all that you need. Humbled by such a gracious gift, your heart will long to share with others who need mercy too. And when the one who gives mercy remains in the presence of God, all the mercy required is continually being provided.

Have you ever struggled through a fight but kept pushing on? Kara Tippetts, who is a mother of four had died of breast cancer. She had written The Hardest Peace to show how she was living the best way she could in her situation. She had never expressed any sort emotion that was never any positive feeling. Starting chapter one Tippetts combines both the mind and the heart in her writing. She does not give the reader any way of comparing their life to her story, having to look back on their own. Her book distinguishes many of her hardships that she had before her passing. Abuse, drugs, and broken relationships all lead up to her talk of cancer. Throughout this whole story Tippetts calls her cancer “hard”. She describes her fight with each hard, while demonstrating her feelings of grace. She had never once let her children or husband see her as unhappy. She wanted them to remember her as being this loving wife and mother that cared deeply for them. I feel that this books stands out before all other when speaking of the fight against cancer. Having to always look in the positives shows that you accept what you have. Kara Tippetts has shown that living with happiness, means to enjoy life. When always focusing on the negatives you always feel like you need to please others rather than yourself. Her life, I feel resembles the Catholic Social teaching, “Call to family, community, and participations.” This teaching, I feel resembles her because it shows that marriage and family must be supported and strengthened. Tippetts wanted to show her happiness to her family, wanting to show that she is not in any case, worried. She wanted them to know that she was going to be home soon, meaning with God in Heaven. So what I have taken out of her story is this one thing, “Always keep a positive mind and never show that you are unhappy, for at the end of life there is always a silver lining.

My heart had started thumping with anticipation. So much had changed in Diana’s life. This would be our first meeting since she had become the Princess of Wales and a celebrity. Would she still be the same Diana underneath? Based on her letters, I thought so. Next Patrick and I were shown into the library, a warmer room with high ceilings and sunlight flooding in from tall windows. Carved wooden bookcases, glowing with a centuries-old patina, lined the walls and held leather-bound, gilt-edged volumes. I loved this room. I wished I could have leafed through a few of those beautiful old books. I was calmer now, prepared for a cozy mother-to-mother visit with Diana. Patrick and I stood expectantly in the center of the elegant room. I rested my right arm around his little shoulders. I needed the support more than he did. Then the door opened and Diana entered…with Prince Charles. I held my breath as she gave us a brilliant smile and briskly crossed the floor. The new Diana was truly breathtaking--beautiful, self-assured, polished, and stunning in her scarlet suit. She looked even more radiant in person than in her best pictures. She was absolute perfection, with her flawless complexion, starry blue eyes, and confident carriage. A remarkable and complete transformation from young nanny to global sensation--and she was only twenty-four!

He extended his hands, his brow smoothing and his lips curving into a smile when Abigail placed her hands in his. His hands were warm and comforting, his smile the one she had dreamt of so often. If dreams came true, soon he would say the words she longed to hear: I love you. Ethan’s smile faded slightly as he said, “I know you dislike the West and Army life, but there’s no way around it. I owe the Army another year. Will you wait for me?” Those weren’t the words she had expected. “Wait for what?” Abigail wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming she knew what Ethan meant. Though the look in his eyes, a look that mirrored her own, spoke of love, she needed the words. Why wouldn’t he say them? Ethan rolled his eyes. “There I go again, putting the cart before the horse. It’s your fault, you know. I was never this way before I met you.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “I love you, Abigail. I love your smile, your kind heart, your impulsive nature. I love everything about you.” Ethan paused, and she sensed that the man who had faced death without flinching was afraid of her reaction. “Is it possible that you love me?” Her dream had come true. Her heart overflowing with happiness, Abigail smiled at the man she loved so dearly. She had longed for three special words, and Ethan had given them to her. Not once but three times. And if that weren’t enough, the momentary fear she’d seen had shown her the depth of his love. Ethan loved her. He loved her, and now she could tell him of her own love. “Of course I love you.” Abigail infused her words with every ounce of sincerity she possessed. Ethan must never, ever doubt how much she loved him. “I think I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you, although I didn’t recognize it at the time. I thought God brought me to Wyoming to help Charlotte, but as the weeks passed, it seemed that he had more in store for me. Now I know what it was. He brought me to you.” “And used you to show me what love is.” Ethan rose, tugging Abigail to her feet. “Will you make my life complete? Will you marry me when my time with the Army is ended?” There was only one possible answer. “No.” As Ethan’s eyes widened, Abigail saw disbelief on his face. “You won’t? I don’t understand. If you love me, why won’t you marry me? Don’t you want to?” Again, there was only one answer. “I do want to marry you, Ethan. More than anything else.” His confusion was endearing, and Abigail knew they’d speak of this moment for years to come. “Then why did you refuse me?” “It wasn’t your proposal I refused; it was the timing. Why should we wait a year?” “Because you hate Army life. I don’t want to start our marriage knowing you’re miserable.” “Oh, you silly man.” Abigail smiled to take the sting from her words. “How could I be miserable if I’m with you? The only thing that would make me miserable is being apart. I love you, Ethan. I want to spend the rest of my life as your wife . . . starting now.” Ethan’s smile threatened to split his face. “That’s the Abigail I love: headstrong and impulsive, with a heart that’s bigger than all of Wyoming. I wouldn’t have you any other way.

You have so many relationship-worthy qualities. Either the guys around here are complete idiots or you’ve never shown them the real you.

He had decided to give up his trip to see Thompson, and instead to arrange with Bottweill to attend the Christmas party disguised as Santa Claus, because the idea of a woman living in his house—or of the only alternative, my leaving—had made him absolutely desperate, and he had to see for himself. He had to see Margot and me together, and to talk with her if possible. If he found out that the marriage license was a hoax he would have me by the tail; he could tell me he would be delighted to welcome my bride and watch me wriggle out. If he found that I really meant it he would know what he was up against and go on from there. The point was this, that he had shown what he really thought of me. He had shown that rather than lose me he would do something that he wouldn’t have done for any fee anybody could name. He would rather have gone without beer for a week than admit it, but now he was a fugitive from justice in a murder case and needed me. So he had to let me know, but he wanted it understood that that aspect of the matter was not to be mentioned. The assumption would be that he had gone to Bottweill’s instead of Long Island because he loved to dress up like Santa Claus and tend bar.

Young and old dropped. Someone laughed. “Useless animals. Now they will not eat the grass my cows need.” The rumbling sounds of big creatures came to a stop before the once-beautiful animals that now lie mangled in blood. “Dog food factory, here we come!” A scream tore from Shining Light’s mouth. “No! What is this horrible thing you show me? This is not right. What is this, I ask? What are cows? What is dog food factory? Why can they not share the land? Is this the future, or some nightmare I cannot push away? Blue Night Sky, why do you do this?” His body shook violently. He lost the food his belly held. “Sandstone. Where is Sandstone? She has taught me how smart her kind is, how much they understand humans and can love us, guide us. Sandstone!” ‘Be at peace, little one. This has not happened... yet. You think your destiny only lies in saving people? Telling stories of the grey dust that will choke future humans? You will tell the Peoples you go to meet of what I have shown you. This is their destiny... and your daughter’s. Yours... is what you choose it to be. Your daughter’s children’s children will have children who will become guardians of the Mustang Peoples, of the young four-leggeds yet unborn. ‘There will be a future where humans only think of themselves, what they can gain by having more things than others have. Some of these people may be our own. Some of these future humans will kill for what they can gain from it. Animals will be pounded into the grey dust because of human greed. Humans will even kill their own kind and take what they wish from them. Entire Peoples will vanish from our Mother. ‘Many animals will be thought of as wasting the land that humans could have. They will be killed. If our own people think of the mustang this way, they will lose their way. ‘The stories of our mustang relatives must be told. If the stories are lost, our people will forget the gifts the Mustang People give to them. As many times as Father Sun rises the stories must be told. Shining Light, you must help save the mustangs. You must help save

The new basis for care is shown by the interest of psychologists and philosophers in emphasizing feeling as the basis of human existence. We now need to establish feeling as a legitimate aspect of our way of relating to reality. When William James says, “Feeling is everything,” he means not that there is nothing more than feeling, but that everything starts there. Feeling commits one, ties one to the object, and ensures action. But in the decades after James made this "existentialist" statement, feeling became demoted and was disparaged as merely subjective. Reason or, more accurately, technical reason was the guide to the way issues were to be settled. We said “I feel” as a synonym for “I vaguely believe” when we didn't know—little realizing that we cannot know except as we feel.

He sat down on the bed and explained to me that there had been some investigations into my private life. It had been learned that my mother had died recently at the home. Inquiries had then been made in Marengo. The investigators had learned that I had “shown insensitivity” the day of Maman’s funeral. “You understand,” my lawyer said, “it’s a little embarrassing for me to have to ask you this. But it’s very important. And it will be a strong argument for the prosecution if I can’t come up with some answers.” He wanted me to help him. He asked if I had felt any sadness that day. The question caught me by surprise and it seemed to me that I would have been very embarrassed if I’d had to ask it. Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he seemed very upset. He made me promise I wouldn’t say that at my hearing or in front of the examining magistrate. I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings. The day I buried Maman, I was very tired and sleepy, so much so that I wasn’t really aware of what was going on. What I can say for certain is that I would rather Maman hadn’t died. But my lawyer didn’t seem satisfied. He said, “That’s not enough.

Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger purpose. And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn’t teach in a relationship, things that not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I’d ever need to know about the kind of life partner he’d be.

To understand this, you need frist to Know some words which are formed from Arabic to English by me : 1- farcashize (V) : يُفركش 2- farcashization (N) : الفركشة 3- farcashized/farcashizational (Adj) : مُفركش 4- farcashizationally (Adv) : مُفركشآ The logic of the dating does not express the relationship, it is the relationship, otherwise the time that I spend with special someone is a neutral phenomenon and the observation of the neutral phenomenon in the term of the relationships changes its nature. Like every single Sudanese man, I know that I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon but to be described as farcashizational man by some students is something I don't expect it at all. The phenomenon of farcashization becomes a part of Sudanese girl's speech, unfortunately it is like gossiping, I was chicken-hearted when my closed friend told me that many female students at EDC said that we were in love together and then you were farcashized by me. At that time we were laughing but deeply inside myself, an idea was rambling which was "maybe I am one of their desires" because when one has achieved the object of one's desires, it is evident that one's real desire was not the ignorant possession of the desired object but to know it as possessed as actually contemplated as within one, so maybe I was farcashizationally farcashized by my friend in thier mind as a wish that the same thing to be done with me by them and that leads to say "girls are dangerous creatures especially when they are your students". When there is both love and friendship, we dwell in the realm of the relationship and when there is neither love nor friendship, we exist in a vacuity of relationships, we can feel and we can express feelings but the more we feel, the further off we are, so what is not yet felt can't be shown and what is already desired can't be hidden so farcashization and desire are not distant, it's their principle that can't be seen. It would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that every beautiful girl is an impossible creature to be got or to accept the man as he is and she is always going to embarrass and farcashize him, as if she is an indocile black wild cat, the beautiful girl is not a unique and homogeneous but she is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and patterns as there are different ways of beauty, so the phenomenons which we find in our certain relationships such as farcashization are not transferable with all people but the attitude of the relationship, therefore the dating of two people is like the contact of two chemical substances, if there is any reaction between them depending on that attitude, both are transformed. Finally there is no relationship between any two partners looks like what we really see, yours doesn't, mine doesn't and people are much more complicated than what we imagine, then their relationships are more perplexing too, so you can't judge any relationship according the actions of the relationship's partners, it is true of every relation.

Not Being Loved for Who You Are If one was to boil down the root cause of codependency into one phrase it could be said to be “not being loved for who you are”. A child needs to love more than any other thing.  Studies have shown that babies born without mothers who do not receive the loving touch and attention of nurses in the hospital will die because they do not receive the most important nourishment of all - love.

Maria said: “The heart is a map of the world, did you know that?” “I don’t even know what it means,” he said. “I saw a medieval map once. It showed the earth as a flat disc with Jerusalem in the center. Rome was bigger than Africa, and America was not even shown, of course. The heart is that kind of map. The self is in the middle and everything else is out of proportion. You draw the friends of your youth large, then later it’s impossible to rescale them when other more important people need to be added. Anyone who has done you wrong is shown too big, and so is anyone you loved.

This city by the fearsome river Was my crib blessed and dear And a solemn wedding bed Which the garlands for the head Your young cherubs held above - A city loved with bitter love. The subject of my prayers Were you, moody, calm, and austere. There first the groom came to me Having shown me the pathway holy, And that sad muse of mine Led me like one blind. * II * December 9, 1913 The darkest days of the year Must become the most clear. I can't find words to compare - Your lips are so tender and dear. Only to raise your eyes do not dare, Keeping the life of me. They're lighter than vials premier, And deadlier for me. I understand now, that we need no words, The snowed branches are light, and more, The birdcatcher, to catch birds, Has laid nets on the rivershore.

But Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger purpose. And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways. His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect for women and their independence. Without needing to discuss it outright, I knew he could handle a partner who had her own passions and voice. These were things you couldn’t teach in a relationship, things that not even love could really build or change. In opening up his world to me, Barack was showing me everything I’d ever need to know about the kind of life partner he’d be.

Assertion and recognition constitute the poles of a delicate balance. This balance is integral to what is called “differentiation”: the individual’s development as a self that is aware of its distinctness from others. Yet this balance, and with it the differentiation of self and other, is difficult to sustain.2 In particular, the need for recognition gives rise to a paradox. Recognition is that response from the other which makes meaningful the feelings, intentions, and actions of the self. It allows the self to realize its agency and authorship in a tangible way. But such recognition can only come from an other whom we, in turn, recognize as a person in his or her own right. This struggle to be recognized by an other, and thus confirm our selves, was shown by Hegel to form the core of relationships of domination.

How do we stay connected? How do we abide with Jesus, the Vine (John 15:5)? How do we keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25)? That’s what we will be talking about in this book. My prayer is that God moves in your heart about your own need, not just to sit down on the outside but on the inside. And may He show you exactly how to stay seated with Him in a world that stands—a world that busies itself at every waking moment, tirelessly trying to produce the fruit that would easily flow from a seated relationship with Him. I’m not a fan of abstract things. I would rather someone just tell me the three things I need to do to maintain this kind of relationship. I’m sorry, but I don’t have that for you. However, what I do have for you is something much better—the opportunity to discover in a real relationship with God how you specifically hear from Him, worship Him, converse with Him, and feel His love, joy, and pleasure over you. Since God is real, Jesus is alive, and He desires a two-way relationship with you—and since there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5)—all you need to do is ask Him (James 1:5), and I’m confident He will show you. This is what I think John wrote about in 1 John 2:27: “But the anointing that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in Him” (1 John 2:27 ESV). In the context of this verse, there were people going around claiming to have a special knowledge that everyone else had missed, but John said it was foolishness! They didn’t need anyone to teach them some huge thing they had missed. They needed to keep growing in that same relationship with Jesus and keep receiving revelation from Him. The same is true for you. You don’t need anyone to teach you because you have revelation, and revelation is always found in relationship—just press into God and He will confirm all He has shown to you. So, John wasn’t saying that we don’t need someone to instruct us, encourage us, or exhort us. He was saying that if you have Jesus, you have everything you need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). You don’t need special knowledge, you just need to abide with Jesus. He has already seated you with Himself in heavenly places—it is up to you to stay seated!

But angels aren’t just around us when we need them; they’re with us all the time. I’ve also never seen angels use wings to fly to a person’s rescue, or for any other reason; this doesn’t mean that it can’t happen, I’ve just never witnessed it myself. I’ve only seen angels drift through a space as energy, like clouds moving across the sky. Archangels, however, have shown themselves with wings. I’m told there are also guardian angels assigned to every soul and they are with you throughout your many lifetimes. Even though I’m told that guides have walked in this world and angels haven’t, I’ve often wondered if guardian angels and guides are the same thing, since not all angels have wings and guardian angels sound like a religious interpretation of the same role that guides play in generally spiritual beliefs. I’m not too sure, to be honest. What I do know is that they love being acknowledged as part of your life. Guardian angels are always trying to help you out and guide you on your spiritual path with great love. They also provide protection by prompting your intuition, creating coincidences, and intervening in your world in times of need or danger.

She needed to be loved and cherished and shown that how he felt had nothing to do with controlling her decisions and everything to do with keeping her safe. “I

When someone loves you, they don't need to tell you every minute of the day, Shown that you meant it is more important, a bird in the hand is so much better than a thousand in the bushes.

You have to believe that your voice can mean something. You have to believe that what you do matters. And you have to keep going even on days you can't find that belief. If you can't do it for yourself, you do it for all the other young souls who need to be shown that things are possible. That they too can do that thing they dream of. You do it despite the doubts and the struggles. You do it because it's what you came here to do.
 That's what makes an artist.

As Flannery O’Connor and Alice Munro have shown, it’s one thing to teach yourself to write and another to train your editors to read you. Both these regional writers – each stubbornly invested in particularity – educated their publishers and their readers with sheer persistence, by holding their nerve. Every Australian reader is forced to accommodate the strangeness of overseas – usually American or British – fictional settings. To keep up you need to adapt to new and weird idioms and soon these become normative. This provincial form of cosmopolitanism isn’t optional. Similarly, a reader from some no-account place like Perth is expected to adjust their senses eastward with no reciprocity. At nineteen and twenty it was a nasty surprise to realize just how resistant a Sydney or Melbourne editor could be to the appearance on the page of Australian places and species with which they were unfamiliar. It may be hard to believe at this distance, but in my early days it wasn’t just the foreign publishers suggesting I append a glossary to the end of a novel. As I recall, the pesky dugite (Pseudonaja affinis) caused the most editorial grief at home and abroad, and I was tempted to follow St Patrick’s lead and ban elapid snakes entirely. But I kept coming back to Flannery O’Connor. Not only was she misunderstood in New York, she was a problem for folks at home in Georgia, too. I loved her craft and the singularity of her world. But I also admired O’Connor’s cussedness, her refusal to come to heel. She was an important influence.

But my mother knew her mother’s gratitude, because she heard it herself. This lifelong soldier had dropped the reins and allowed herself to be fully in the hands of someone else. It was a show of strength, in her moment of weakness, to surrender herself to someone she knew would not let her fall. If love is a verb, is there a greater show of love than to abdicate your very being to the person you raised well enough to hold you up? What is pride when we can have love shown to us instead? I hope that one day we are surrounded by people who we trust enough that we can let go of our control. I pray that I’ll have lived a life that’s so good, I’ll be blessed with people who are a reflection of it. And those people, if needed, can be entrusted with my very life. I aspire to live in a way that I attract that favor.