Nightly Bible Quotes

I am a nice young girl here to pick up your granddaughter for the weekend... We're going to a Bible retreat to scare the devil out of her. - Bones to Cat's grandparents

Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

It was sometime in October, she had long ago lost track of all the days and it really didn’t matter because one was like another and there were no nights to separate them because she never slept any more.

On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion.

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobbledstreets silent and the hunched courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

Women have more to offer the church than mad decorating skills or craft nights.

Don't fret, Grannie. We're going to a Bible retreat to scare the devil out of her

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2)But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.

I was asked by a concerned church-goer: "Is your relationship with God okay?" and I answered "My relationship with God is far better than yours. You have to be in a certain place, with a certain group of people, pray at certain days of the week, read the Bible at certain times of the day; all in order to have a relationship with God. But I am with God from the moment I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep at night, I am with God wherever on this earth that I wander to, and whosoever I may be with! I may be sitting on the subway, and I am with God. I can assure you that I am closer to God than you are.

At night I sit in my room and read the Bible. In the distance, the sea roars. Then I lay awake for a long time and think of the quiet, pale man from Nazareth.

But it's daylight," she said at last. "Vampires can't go out in the sun, everyone knows that!" Bones chuckled. "Right And we shrink back from crosses, can't travel over water, and always get staked in the end by the righteous slayer. Really, who'd be afraid of a creature like that? All you'd need is a Bible, a tanning bed, and some holy water to send us shivering to our dooms.

But you'd get arguments from all kinds of people that the Bible has got to be perfect. That God would not permit such errors to be made in the Holy Word." "I thought God gave everyone free will. Which would presumably - and evidently - include the freedom to be incorrect when translating one language into another." "Stop making me think. I'm believing over here.

There is no such things as God's word on earth. Or if there is it is not to be found in books. -Then where is it to be found?- In love. In the laughter of children. In a gift given. In a life saved. In the quiet of morning. In the dead of night. In the sound of the ocean, or the sound of a car. It can be found in anything, anywhere. It is the fabric of our lives, our feelings, the people we live with, things we know to be real.

Predator and prey move in silent gestures, on the seductive dance of death, in the shadows cast by the vultures of the night. ☥

It's not the things I don't understand about the Bible that bother me; it's the things I understand with perfect clarity and don't comply with that keep me up at night.

I had a book of Bible stories when I was a kid. There was a picture I'd look at twenty times every day: Jacob wrestles with the angel. I don't really remember the story, or why the wrestling --just the picture. Jacob is young and very strong. The angel is...a beautiful man, with golden hair and wings, of course. I still dream about it. Many nights. I'm...It's me. In that struggle. Fierce, and unfair. The angel is not human, and it holds nothing back, so how could anyone human win, what kind of a fight is that? It's not just. Losing means your soul thrown down in the dust, your heart torn out from God's. But you can't not lose.

I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat So this is my wheat field you can have every acre, Love this is my garden song this is my fist fight with that bitter frost tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek as i sang maybe i need you off key but in tune maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me give me one room to come home to give me the palm of your hand every strand of my hair is a kite string and I have been blue in the face with your sky crying a flood over Iowa so you mother will wake to Venice Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible it is the one verse you can trust so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate I am setting the table with bread and grace my knees are bent like the corner of a page I am saving your place

I remembered a scripture they read us from the Bible about God not putting more on us than we could bear. I was beginning to wonder if that was just for those people who went to church every Sunday and prayed before they went to bed at night. Because he wasn’t holding back any punches with me.

We aimed for no more than to have dominion over every creature that moved upon the earth. And so it came to pass that we stepped down there on a place we believed unformed, where only darkness moved on the face of the waters. Now you laugh, day and night, while you gnaw on my bones. But what else could we have thought? Only that it began and ended with us. What do we know, even now? Ask the children. Look at what they grew up to be. We can only speak of the things we carried with us, and the things we took away.

No parent should have to bury a child ... No mother should have to bury a son. Mothers are not meant to bury sons. It is not in the natural order of things. I buried my son. In a potter's field. In a field of Blood. In empty, acrid silence. There was no funeral. There were no mourners. His friends all absent. His father dead. His sisters refusing to attend. I discovered his body alone, I dug his grave alone, I placed him in a hole, and covered him with dirt and rock alone. I was not able to finish burying him before sundown, and I'm not sure if that affected his fate ... I begrudge God none of this. I do not curse him or bemoan my lot. And though my heart keeps beating only to keep breaking--I do not question why. I remember the morning my son was born as if it was yesterday. The moment the midwife placed him in my arms, I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding. I remember holding my son, and looking over at my own mother and saying, "Now I understand why the sun comes up at day and the stars come out at night. I understand why rain falls gently. Now I understand you, Mother" ... I loved my son every day of his life, and I will love him ferociously long after I've stopped breathing. I am a simple woman. I am not bright or learn-ed. I do not read. I do not write. My opinions are not solicited. My voice is not important ... On the day of my son's birth I was infused with a love beyond all measure and understanding ... The world tells me that God is in Heaven and that my son is in Hell. I tell the world the one true thing I know: If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven--because if my son sits in Hell, there is no God.

The night is Ours. Rejoicing in the ethereal realms where We are kings. Blessed souls of forgotten immortality. They fear Us in every grasp.

Ain’t none of you ever been stuck in the mud and needed a push? I won’t ask you how you can be for this and still call yourselves Christians, because one of you would have some kind of answer out of what I call the Holy-Joe-Do-It-My-Way Bible. But, Jeezly-Crow! How can you read the parable of the Good Samaritan on Sunday and then say you’re for a thing like this on Monday night?

Time,' the Captain said, 'is not what you think.' He sat down next to Eddie. 'Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning... I figure it's like in the Bible, the Adam and Eve deal...Adam's first night on earth? When he lays down to sleep? He thinks it's all over, right? He doesn't know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks he's leaving this world, right? Only he isn't. He wakes up the next morning and he has a fresh new world to work with, but he has something else, too. He has his yesterday...That's the way I see it, that's what we're getting here, soldier. That's what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterday.' ~The Captain on heaven, pgs 91-92

No matter how hard you try, after the Day there will always be a Night...

One more, final question came from the audience on my last night in Newtown, and it was the one I most did not want to hear: “Will God protect my child?” I stayed silent for what seemed like minutes. More than anything I wanted to answer with authority, “Yes! Of course God will protect you. Let me read you some promises from the Bible.” I knew, though, that behind me on the same platform twenty-six candles were flickering in memory of victims, proof that we have no immunity from the effects of a broken planet. My mind raced back to Japan, where I heard from parents who had lost their children to a tsunami in a middle school, and forward to that very morning when I heard from parents who had lost theirs to a shooter in an elementary school. At last I said, “No, I’m sorry, I can’t promise that.” None of us is exempt. We all die, some old, some tragically young. God provides support and solidarity, yes, but not protection—at least not the kind of protection we desperately long for. On this cursed planet, even God suffered the loss of a Son.

We are going as fast as we can, living life at a dizzying speed, and God is nowhere to be found. We're not rejecting God; we just don't have time for him. We've lost him in the blurred landscape as we rush to church. We don't struggle with the Bible, but with the clock. It's not that we're too decadent; we're too busy. We don't feel guilty because of sin, but because we have no time for our spouses, our children, or our God. It's not sinning too much that's killing our souls, it's our schedule that's annihilating us. Most of us don't come home at night staggering drunk. Instead, we come home staggering tired, worn out, exhausted and drained because we live too fast.

Oh, well, isn't that nice. You are a nice young girl. Be a good friend to her and set her straight. She has love bruises on her neck and didn't come home until this afternoon." Sweet Holy Jesus, why couldn't the ground just swallow me whole? Bones stifled a laugh and nodded solemnly. "Don't fret, Grannie. We're going to a Bible retreat to scare the devil out of her.

The funny thing is, I’m actually quite interested in the Bible, and I’ve tried to read it several times. But I’ve only ever got as far as the bit about Moses being 720 years old, and I’m like, `What were these people smoking back then?’ The bottom line is I don’t believe in a bloke called God in a white suit who sits on a fluffy cloud any more than I believe in a bloke called the Devil with a three-pronged fork and a couple of horns. But I believe that there’s day, there’s night, there’s good, there’s bad, there’s black, there’s white. If there is a God, it’s nature. If there’s a Devil, it’s nature.

When I have doubts about my faith, or deep nagging questions that keep me up at night, I don’t have the luxury of finding “my truth” because I am committed to the truth. I want to know what is real. I want my worldview (the lens through which I see the world) to line up with reality. God either exists, or he doesn’t. The Bible is his Word, or it’s not. Jesus was raised from the dead, or he wasn’t. Christianity is true, or it isn’t. There is no “my truth” when it comes to God.

For six years, from age nineteen until I turned twenty-five, I did not sleep uninterrupted through a single night. . . . I felt lucky to get my shoes on the right feet. . . . I moved forward only, thinking each morning anew that we were leaving the worst behind.

From the pastor who has an affair with his secretary, to the jerk at the office who happens to be a deacon, to the overbearing boss who can’t miss his Monday night Bible study, Christians today cause more problems for the gospel than all the devil’s demons put together.

The consequences of our foolish decisions are always made clearer when we look backward on the path we've traveled.

I was over in Australia during Easter, which was really interesting. You know, they celebrate Easter the exact same way we do, commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children that a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now … I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book.

When the gap between the world of the city and the world my grandfather had presented to me as right and good became too wide and depressing to tolerate, I'd turn to my other great love, which was pulp adventure fiction. Despite the fact that [he] would have had nothing but scorn and loathing for all of those violent and garish magazines, there was a sort of prevailing morality in them that I'm sure he would have responded to. The world of Doc Savage and The Shadow was one of absolute values, where what was good was never in the slightest doubt and where what was evil inevitably suffered some fitting punishment. The notion of good and justice espoused by Lamont Cranston with his slouch hat and blazing automatics seemed a long way from that of the fierce and taciturn old man I remembered sitting up alone into the Montana night with no company save his bible, but I can't help feeling that if the two had ever met they'd have found something to talk about. For my part, all those brilliant and resourceful sleuths and heroes offered a glimpse of a perfect world where morality worked the way it was meant to. Nobody in Doc Savage's world ever killed themselves except thwarted kamikaze assassins or enemy spies with cyanide capsules. Which world would you rather live in, if you had the choice?

Oh, mansion shmansion. Did Gandhi's house have the largest outdoor trampoline in the tristate area? Did Jesus have a two-acre remote-controlled car track, with mountains to scale and a little village that lit up at night? Not in his Bible.

Why had I ever felt the need to strive for worthiness when my abba's love was so plainly unconditional and boundless?

There's something not quite Christian about it," Tony said. He sat back in his chair and looked up to where his Bible sat on the shelf. "I can't put my finger on why exactly, but it doesn't seem right for a couple of young ladies to be out there in the middle of the night, obsessing over their telescopes.

What if we take away the cool music and the cushioned chairs? What if the screens are gone and the stage is no longer decorated? What if the air conditioning is off and the comforts are removed? Would his Word still be enough for his people to come together? At Brook Hills we decided to try to answer this question. We actually stripped away the entertainment value and invited people to come together simply to study God’s Word for hours at a time. We called it Secret Church. We set a date—one Friday night—when we would gather from six o’clock in the evening until midnight, and for six hours we would do nothing but study the Word and pray. We would interrupt the six-hour Bible study periodically to pray for our brothers and sisters around the world who are forced to gather secretly. We would also pray for ourselves, that we would learn to love the Word as they do.

It isn’t Easter,” he said, “but this week has caused me to think a lot about the Easter story. Not the glorious resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday but the darkness that came before. I know of no darker moment in the Bible than the moment Jesus in his agony on the cross cries out, ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’ Darker even than his death not long after because in death Jesus at last gave himself over fully to the divine will of God. But in that moment of his bitter railing he must have felt betrayed and completely abandoned by his father, a father he’d always believed loved him deeply and absolutely. How terrible that must have been and how alone he must have felt. In dying all was revealed to him, but alive Jesus like us saw with mortal eyes, felt the pain of mortal flesh, and knew the confusion of imperfect mortal understanding. “I see with mortal eyes. My mortal heart this morning is breaking. And I do not understand. “I confess that I have cried out to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ ” Here my father paused and I thought he could not continue. But after a long moment he seemed to gather himself and went on. “When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken? “I will tell you what’s left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. “In your dark night, I urge you to hold to your faith, to embrace hope, and to bear your love before you like a burning candle, for I promise that it will light your way. “And whether you believe in miracles or not, I can guarantee that you will experience one. It may not be the miracle you’ve prayed for. God probably won’t undo what’s been done. The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. “Jesus suffered the dark night and death and on the third day he rose again through the grace of his loving father. For each of us, the sun sets and the sun also rises and through the grace of our Lord we can endure our own dark night and rise to the dawning of a new day and rejoice. “I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to rejoice with me in the divine grace of the Lord and in the beauty of this morning, which he has given us.

That night marks my life's dark center, the moment when growing up ended and the long downward slope toward death began. The wonder to me now is that I thought myself worth saving...I reached out and clung for life with my good left hand like a claw, grasping at moving legs to raise myself from the dirt. Desperate to save myself in a river of people saving themselves. And if they chanced to look down and see me struggling underneath them, they saw that even the crooked girl believed her own life was precious. That is what it means to be a beast in the kingdom.

Where are you going?" "To get my Bible." "Right now? You can't get your Bible out right now! I'm, I'm, we're just about to..." She'd never be able to go through with this if he got out his Bible. She wiped all humor from her face. "I believe you. Proverbs 5:18. Rejoice, relish, and romp with your husband." He chuckled. "I'm serious, Connie, and I won't have you feeling ashamed or unclean over anything we do in that bed, tonight or any other night." "I won't. I feel unashamed and very clean. I promise. But please don't get out that Bible." "What? Think you that God can't see us right now?" Groaning, she slid off his lap and covered her face with her hands. He sunk to his knees in front of her, drawing her hands down. "I love you. You love me. We are man and wife. God is watching, Connie, and He is very, very pleased.

That night, I continued my on-going chat with God. “Did Pam’s prayer count? I love her. And I understand her wanting a ticket to heaven, but her prayer seemed more like fire insurance against hell than a heartfelt desire to hang out with You.”    “Don’t worry.” God smiled. “No one comes to me with pure motives.”    Wow! I thought for a minute. “You really do love us, don’t You?”    “I do.

I have established my throne in heaven, and my kingdom rules over all. The day is mine, and mine also the night; I established the sun and moon. I set all the boundaries of the earth; I made both summer and winter. The earth is mine, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. All things are from me and through me and to me.

The sky over New England was crow black, pitch-black, Bible black, so black it could be difficult at night to keep to the path, so black that a line of trees might freely migrate to another location or that you might find yourself pursued after nightfall by a rabid black hog, leaving you to crawl home, bloody and disoriented, on all fours.

Dear God. Mommy is going through a really hard time. I see the way she's given up. I know you can change everything around for her. I just know it.

It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy. Will You carry this too, Lord Jesus? But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

If she studied world literature for the majority of the day’s hours, how could a few hours at night in Ellrick’s Book counterbalance that intake? ... No longer were free hours spent in the BookHall or reading in her corner. Ellrick’s Book found its way to her hand more and more often—while eating her midday meal, while waiting for the next class, even while walking to and from Academy on occasion. This was war, and she couldn’t be found compromising with the enemy.

If death comes to you this night, are you prepared to give up your account? What would your record of this last day be? A blank? What! Have you done nothing for the Master? Then what have you done against Him? Nothing? Nay, verily! Is not the Bible doctrine, 'He that is not for me is against me?

Eventually, he looks up at me. I’m not sure how I can tell—the hood only moves a few inches. “Do you believe in God?” My night could seriously not be more surreal. I wet my lips and answer honestly. “I don’t know.” He doesn’t challenge me, which I was worried about. “There’s this verse I like,” he says. “ ‘The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.’ ” My eyes narrow. “Are you quoting the Bible?” “Yes.” He says this like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “You know what I like about it? I like how it makes doubt seem inevitable. It’s okay to be unsure.

I was fairly sure Lara buying me a present was listed as an end of times sign in the Bible, between false prophets and stars falling from the sky. Which was terrible news for humanity, but it did brighten my night up a little. “You did? Oh … I didn’t get you anything.” “We’re playing swapsies with oppressive gender roles tonight. That’s the theme of this stupid dance, right?” she asked. “Anyway. Here.

I figure it’s like in the Bible, the Adam and Eve deal?” the Captain said. “Adam’s first night on earth? When he lays down to sleep? He thinks it’s all over, right? He doesn’t know what sleep is. His eyes are closing and he thinks he’s leaving this world, right? “Only he isn’t. He wakes up the next morning and he has a fresh new world to work with, but he has something else, too. He has his yesterday.” The Captain grinned. “The way I see it, that’s what we’re getting here, soldier. That’s what heaven is. You get to make sense of your yesterdays.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

When reading the history of the Jewish people, of their flight from slavery to death, of their exchange of tyrants, I must confess that my sympathies are all aroused in their behalf. They were cheated, deceived and abused. Their god was quick-tempered unreasonable, cruel, revengeful and dishonest. He was always promising but never performed. He wasted time in ceremony and childish detail, and in the exaggeration of what he had done. It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god. He had solemnly promised the Jews that he would take them from Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. He had led them to believe that in a little while their troubles would be over, and that they would soon in the land of Canaan, surrounded by their wives and little ones, forget the stripes and tears of Egypt. After promising the poor wanderers again and again that he would lead them in safety to the promised land of joy and plenty, this God, forgetting every promise, said to the wretches in his power:—'Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander until your carcasses be wasted.' This curse was the conclusion of the whole matter. Into this dust of death and night faded all the promises of God. Into this rottenness of wandering despair fell all the dreams of liberty and home. Millions of corpses were left to rot in the desert, and each one certified to the dishonesty of Jehovah. I cannot believe these things. They are so cruel and heartless, that my blood is chilled and my sense of justice shocked. A book that is equally abhorrent to my head and heart, cannot be accepted as a revelation from God. When we think of the poor Jews, destroyed, murdered, bitten by serpents, visited by plagues, decimated by famine, butchered by each, other, swallowed by the earth, frightened, cursed, starved, deceived, robbed and outraged, how thankful we should be that we are not the chosen people of God. No wonder that they longed for the slavery of Egypt, and remembered with sorrow the unhappy day when they exchanged masters. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God. While reading the Pentateuch, I am filled with indignation, pity and horror. Nothing can be sadder than the history of the starved and frightened wretches who wandered over the desolate crags and sands of wilderness and desert, the prey of famine, sword, and plague. Ignorant and superstitious to the last degree, governed by falsehood, plundered by hypocrisy, they were the sport of priests, and the food of fear. God was their greatest enemy, and death their only friend. It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain, and revengeful, false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, and changeable, infamous and hideous:—such is the God of the Pentateuch.

2PE3.10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Death moved in the night, in search for blood, and when it found Life, it passed on by, like a cloud that moves by the face of the moon. When he found those dead without the red, he took the life before them born first, and the mourning emptied itself till the morning.

Because—all the way driving here, driving all night, Christmas lights on the motorway and I’m not ashamed to tell you, I got choked up—because I was thinking, couldn’t help it, about the Bible story—? you know, where the steward steals the widow’s mite, but then the steward flees to far country and invests the mite wisely and brings back thousandfold cash to widow he stole from? And with joy she forgave him, and they killed the fatted calf, and made merry?” “I think that’s maybe not all the same story.” “Well—Bible school, Poland, it was a long time ago.

And although it was in a hospital that she lay and I sat next to her—it is always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the infant in the stable, as the old Dutch painters conceived it and MIllet and Breton—a light in the darkness, the brightness in the middle of a dark night. And so I hung a large etching after Rembrandt over it, the two women by the cradle, one of them reading from the Bible by candlelight, while the great shadows cast a deep chiaroscuro over the whole room.

We're your guardians until my uncle tracks down your cousin and arrests him." Tammy's face was almost comical in its incredulity. "But it's daylight," she said at last. "Vampires can't go out in the sun, everyone knows that!" Bones chuckled. "Right. And we shrink back from crosses, can't travel over water, can't enter a home unless invited, and always get staked in the end by the righteous slayer. Really, who'd be afraid of a creature like that? All you'd need is a Bible, a tanning bed, and some holy water to send us shivering to our dooms.

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;         you hold my lot.     The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;         indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.      I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;         in the night also my heart instructs me.     I have set the LORD always before me;         because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Our restaurant fostered a sense of camaraderie in a number of ways besides sharing the same nickname of 'chef.' Initially, we bonded through training. Once we opened, we worked in teams each night, meaning that we not only knew our colleagues well, we depended on them. Most importantly, we all had 'family meal' together every night, just like President Bush recommended to all families so that their children would have good values and grow up to be gun-toting, pro-life, pro-death, gas-guzzling, warmongering, monolingual, homophobic, wiretapped, Bible-thumping, genetically engineered, stem-cell harboring, abstinent creationists. Oops, I think I just lost all of my red state readers. To make up for it, I'll let you lose my ballot.

The trouble is, we have up-close access to women who excel in each individual sphere. With social media and its carefully selected messaging, we see career women killing it, craft moms slaying it, chef moms nailing it, Christian leaders working it. We register their beautiful yards, homemade green chile enchiladas, themed birthday parties, eight-week Bible study series, chore charts, ab routines, “10 Tips for a Happy Marriage,” career best practices, volunteer work, and Family Fun Night ideas. We make note of their achievements, cataloging their successes and observing their talents. Then we combine the best of everything we see, every woman we admire in every genre, and conclude: I should be all of that. It is certifiably insane.

Notice also that there is a tie between Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible. Genesis presents the beginning, and Revelation presents the end. Note the contrasts between the two books: In Genesis the earth was created; in Revelation the earth passes away. In Genesis was Satan’s first rebellion; in Revelation is Satan’s last rebellion. In Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were for earth’s government; in Revelation these same heavenly bodies are for earth’s judgment. In Genesis the sun was to govern the day; in Revelation there is no need of the sun. In Genesis darkness was called night; in Revelation there is “no night there” (see Rev. 21:25; 22:5). In Genesis the waters were called seas; in Revelation there is no more sea. In Genesis was the entrance of sin; in Revelation is the exodus of sin. In Genesis the curse was pronounced; in Revelation the curse is removed. In Genesis death entered; in Revelation there is no more death. In Genesis was the beginning of sorrow and suffering; in Revelation there will be no more sorrow and no more tears. In Genesis was the marriage of the first Adam; in Revelation is the marriage of the Last Adam. In Genesis we saw man’s city, Babylon, being built; in Revelation we see man’s city, Babylon, destroyed and God’s city, the New Jerusalem, brought into view. In Genesis Satan’s doom was pronounced; in Revelation Satan’s doom is executed. It is interesting that Genesis opens the Bible not only with a global view but also with a universal view—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). And the Bible closes with another global and universal book. The Revelation shows what God is going to do with His universe and with His creatures. There is no other book quite like this.

I remembered Robyn telling me the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they'd survived: when the King chucked them in the furnace and an angel or someone went in with them. The furnace blazed all around them but they didn't burn. And it did calm me. I don't know if it was Robyn or an angel or even God himself was in the boot, but I was starting to suspect that whenever I wanted God, he was there. Only not necessarily in the form I wanted, or doing what I wanted...In the pitch of the black boot I clung to the image of a fiery furnace, and it wasn't the furnace or Hell either.

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: “It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost.” Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, “What have you done?” He said: “I handed over the fugitive to the enemy.” Then the angel said: “But don’t you know that you have handed over the Messiah?” “How could I know?” the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: “If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his eyes, you would have known.” While versions of this story are very old, it seems the most modern of tales. Like that minister, who might have recognized the Messiah if he had raised his eyes from his Bible to look into the youth’s eyes, we are challenged to look into the eyes of the young men and women of today, who are running away from our cruel ways. Perhaps that will be enough to prevent us from handing them over to the enemy and enable us to lead them out of their hidden places into the middle of their people where they can redeem us from our fears.

At Camp Don Bosco, there were Bibles all over the place, mostly 1970s hippie versions like Good News for Modern Man. They had groovy titles like The Word or The Way, and translated the Bible into “contemporary English,” which meant Saul yelling at Jonathan, “You son of a bitch!” (I Samuel 20:30). Awesome! The King James version gave this verse as “Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman,” which was bogus in comparison. Maybe these translations went a bit far. I recall one of the Bibles translating the inscription over the cross, “INRI” (Iesus Nazaremus Rex Iudaeorum), as “SSDD” (Same Shit Different Day), and another describing the Last Supper — the night before Jesus’ death, a death he freely accepted — where Jesus breaks the bread, gives it to his disciples, and says, “It’s better to burn out than fade away,” but these memories could be deceptive.

Everything was changing. Francie was in a panic. Her world was slipping away from her and what would take its place? Still, what was different anyhow? She read a page from the Bible and Shakespeare every night the same as always. She practiced the piano every day for an hour. She put pennies in the tin-can bank. The junk shop was still there; the stores were all the same. Nothing was changing. She was the one who was changing. She

PSALM 1 Blessed is the man [1]         who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,     nor stands in the way of sinners,         nor sits in the seat of scoffers;     2 but his delight is in the law [2] of the LORD,         and on his law he meditates day and night.     3 He is like a tree         planted by streams of water     that yields its fruit in its season,         and its leaf does not wither.     In all that he does, he prospers.

Saturday, May 22d.---It is now Saturday night, and I must prepare for the holy Sabbath. My Bible and Confession of Faith are my traveling companions, and precious friends have they been to me. I bless God for that glorious summary of Christian doctrine contained in our noble standards. It has cheered my soul in many a dark hour, and sustained me in many a desponding moment. I love to read it, and ponder carefully each proof text as I pass along.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

There is a book of Revelation in every one’s life, as there is in the Bible. Anne read hers that bitter night, as she kept her agonized vigil through the hours of storm and darkness. She loved Gilbert – had always loved him! She knew that now. She knew that she could no more cast him out of her life without agony than she could have cut off her right hand and cast it from her. And the knowledge had come too late – too late even for the bitter solace of being with him at the last. If she had not been so blind – so foolish – she would have had the right to go to him now. But he would never know that she loved him – he would go away from this life thinking that she did not care. Oh, the black years of emptiness stretching before her! She could not live through them – she could not! She cowered down by her window and wished, for the first time in her gay young life, that she could die, too. If Gilbert went away from her, without one word or sign or message, she could not live. Nothing was of any value without him. She belonged to him and he to her. In her hour of supreme agony she had no doubt of that. He did not love Christine Stuart – never had loved Christine Stuart. Oh, what a fool she had been not to realize what the bond was that had held her to Gilbert – to think that the flattered fancy she had felt for Roy Gardner had been love. And now she must pay for her folly as for a crime.

During all those years of struggle and heartache, my mother never worried. She took all her troubles to God in prayer. Every night before we went to bed, Mother would read a chapter from the Bible; frequently Mother or Father would read these comforting words of Jesus: “In my Father’s house are many mansions…. I go to prepare a place for you … that where I am, there ye may be also.” Then we all knelt down before our chairs in that lonely Missouri farmhouse and prayed for God’s love and protection. When William James was professor of philosophy at Harvard, he said, “Of course, the sovereign cure for worry is religious faith.” You don’t have to go to Harvard to discover that. My mother found that out on a Missouri farm.

When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.

With the best of intentions, the generation before mine worked diligently to prepare their children to make an intelligent case for Christianity. We were constantly reminded of the superiority of our own worldview and the shortcomings of all others. We learned that as Christians, we alone had access to absolute truth and could win any argument. The appropriate Bible verses were picked out for us, the opposing positions summarized for us, and the best responses articulated for us, so that we wouldn’t have to struggle through two thousand years of theological deliberations and debates but could get right to the bottom line on the important stuff: the deity of Christ, the nature of the Trinity, the role and interpretation of Scripture, and the fundamentals of Christianity. As a result, many of us entered the world with both an unparalleled level of conviction and a crippling lack of curiosity. So ready with the answers, we didn’t know what the questions were anymore. So prepared to defend the faith, we missed the thrill of discovering it for ourselves. So convinced we had God right, it never occurred to us that we might be wrong. In short, we never learned to doubt. Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue. Where would we be if the apostle Peter had not doubted the necessity of food laws, or if Martin Luther had not doubted the notion that salvation can be purchased? What if Galileo had simply accepted church-instituted cosmology paradigms, or William Wilberforce the condition of slavery? We do an injustice to the intricacies and shadings of Christian history when we gloss over the struggles, when we read Paul’s epistles or Saint Augustine’s Confessions without acknowledging the difficult questions that these believers asked and the agony with which they often asked them. If I’ve learned anything over the past five years, it’s that doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves. It helps us cast off false fundamentals so that we can recover what has been lost or embrace what is new. It is a refining fire, a hot flame that keeps our faith alive and moving and bubbling about, where certainty would only freeze it on the spot. I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one’s beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged. When we recognize that our theology is not the moon but rather a finger pointing at the moon, we enjoy the freedom of questioning it from time to time. We can say, as Tennyson said, Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.15 I sometimes wonder if I might have spent fewer nights in angry, resentful prayer if only I’d known that my little systems — my theology, my presuppositions, my beliefs, even my fundamentals — were but broken lights of a holy, transcendent God. I wish I had known to question them, not him. What my generation is learning the hard way is that faith is not about defending conquered ground but about discovering new territory. Faith isn’t about being right, or settling down, or refusing to change. Faith is a journey, and every generation contributes its own sketches to the map. I’ve got miles and miles to go on this journey, but I think I can see Jesus up ahead.

I had never before spent a night with a woman, had someone lying by my side in the quietness of the dark, hearing her breath and feeling her warmth beside me. It is a sin, and it is a crime. I say it frankly, for I have been taught so all my life, and only madmen have said otherwise. The Bible says it, the fathers of the church have said it, the prelates now repeat it without end, and all the statues of the land prescribe punishment for what we did that night. Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. It must be so, for the Bible speaks only God’s truth. I sinned against the law, against God’s word reported, I abused my family and exposed them even more to risk of public shame, I again risked permanent exclusion from those rooms and books which were my delight and my whole occupation; yet in all the years that have passed since I have regretted only one thing: that it was but a passing moment, never repeated, for I have never been closer to God, nor felt His love and goodness more.

Van Gogh's view of the world becomes a lamp that reveals corners of my heart that I didn't know were there- and all of this happens immediately, even though he died 88 years before I was born. So ask yourself this: Is The Starry Night infallible? The questions doesn't make sense. Though grammatically sound, it is a query with no meaning. I could just as easily ask "How much does a sunset weigh?" The beauty of The Starry Night isn't in it being fallible or infallible. It's a window into another person's soul. Let's try another question: Is The Starry Night true? If we're talking logic or math, this question is as nonsensical as the first. But if we ask with the perspective of an artist or philosopher, we might find that, yes, The Starry Night is very true- it tells us truths about the human experience. It's a testament to how grief feels and the numinous quality we often experience when we peer deeply into the night sky... It is somehow more true than facts- it resonates in some deeper chamber of the human heart. So let me ask you two more questions: Is the Bible infallible? Is it true?

Simple remedies for dire situations, that’s the lesson. In a falling elevator, try to climb up on the person nearby so their body will cushion your landing. Or in a crowded theater when everybody’s hightailing it for the fire exit, stick your elbows hard into the ribs of your neighbors to wedge yourself in, then pick up your feet so you won’t get trampled. That is how people frequently lose their lives in a riot: somebody steps on your heel, then walks right up till you’re flat and they’re standing on you. That’s what you get for trying to stand on your own two feet—you end up getting crushed! So that’s my advice. Let others do the pushing and shoving, and you just ride along. In the end, the neck you save will be your own. Perhaps I sound un-Christian, but let’s face it, when I step outside my own little world at night and listen to the sounds out there in the dark, what I feel down in my bones is that this is not a Christian kind of place. This is darkest Africa, where life roars by you like a flood and you grab whatever looks like it will hold you up. If you ask me, that’s how it is and ever shall be. You stick out your elbows, and hold yourself up.

Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.” “It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

There is probably something good in every religion, the important thing is how you practice it. And this is when I found out that the most beautiful thing is to be able to live with a religion. Not just by displaying it and going to church and all, but by really being able to live some of these thoughts in your everyday life. This is a good thought. My problem right now is—and I just went to a Catholic service in connection with my daughter's something-or-another—and I got so damn annoyed by the fact that every text was about humility in relation to God. That's annoying, and I keep on being annoyed by it. Granted, the texts were written by people and not by God, but it's still so annoying. I don't see the meaning of you being humble just because you've been created by God and He has created all this. You can be humble toward life and toward other human beings and toward creativity and everything—and you are—but being humble toward the man who has created the whole circus? Of course, but you shouldn't have to prostrate yourself, and you do that in many religions—you crawl in the dust before these gods. Why? I can see why some king down here on earth might enjoy seeing people crawling before him, but if this guy is that great, then he shouldn't care whether I bow down before him or whether I play around with my dick at night—he shouldn't care a bit about anything like that. As long as I don't do anything that will harm his creation, as long as I don't kill, say, too many fish—well, he's OK with fish, they eat them in the Bible. But this thing about throwing yourself on the floor and exclaiming, "You're so great! You're so great!"—that's completely illogical. If you believe in him, then he's the greatest anyhow. You look at a tiny leaf and you'll get humble—everyone will—even some stupid redneck in an ugly car. You really have to be stupid not to be able to appreciate a thing like that—a little leaf is like looking into eternity. It's totally amazing! And you don't have to stand around in church every day proclaiming that you're a little sinner and worth nothing and he is everything. That's annoying. Sorry, I must have made my point by now.

But soon the poltergeist ran out of ideas in connection with Aunt Maud and became, as it were, more eclectic. All the banal motions that objects are limited to in such cases, were gone through in this one. Saucepans crashed in the kitchen; a snowball was found (perhaps, prematurely) in the icebox; once or twice Sybil saw a plate sail by like a discus and land safely on the sofa; lamps kept lighting up in various parts of the house; chairs waddled away to assemble in the impassable pantry; mysterious bits of string were found on the floor; invisible revelers staggered down the staircase in the middle of the night; and one winter morning Shade, upon rising and taking a look at the weather, saw that the little table from his study upon which he kept Bible-like Webster open at M was standing in a state of shock outdoors, on the snow (subliminally this may have participated in the making of lines 5-12). I imagine, that during the period the Shades, or at least John Shade, experienced a sensation of odd instability as if parts of the everyday, smoothly running world had got unscrewed, and you became aware that one of your tires was rolling beside you, or that your steering wheel had come off.

the world is much stranger than we know or can say. And I know how you think, or how you like to think, but maybe this is one instance where you can’t boil down to pure ‘good’ or pure ‘bad’ like you always want to do—? Like, your two different piles? Bad over here, good over here? Maybe not quite so simple. Because—all the way driving here, driving all night, Christmas lights on the motorway and I’m not ashamed to tell you, I got choked up—because I was thinking, couldn’t help it, about the Bible story—? you know, where the steward steals the widow’s mite, but then the steward flees to far country and invests the mite wisely and brings back thousandfold cash to widow he stole from? And with joy she forgave him, and they killed the fatted calf, and made merry?” “I think that’s maybe not all the same story.

Christ is all in the entire work of salvation. Let me just take you back to the period before this world was made. There was a time when this great world, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all which now exist throughout the whole of the vast universe, lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup. There was a time when the Great Creator lived alone, and yet he could foresee that he would make a world, and that men would be born to people it; and in that vast eternity a great scheme was devised, whereby he might save a fallen race. Do you know who devised it? God planned it from first to last. Neither Gabriel nor any of the holy angels had anything to do with it. I question whether they were even told how God might be just, and yet save the transgressors. God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out. There was a dark and doleful night! Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him. An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence. The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?" and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs. No man helped him. And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when: "From his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flowed mingled down," there was nobody to help him. He was "all" in the work of salvation. And, my friends, if any of you shall be saved, it must be by Christ alone. There must be no patchwork; Christ did it all, and will not be helped in the matter. Christ will not allow you, as some say, to do what you can, and leave him to make up the rest. What can you do that is not sinful? Christ has done all for us; the work of redemption is all finished. Christ planned it all, and worked out all; and we, therefore, preach a full salvation through Jesus Christ.

Ode to the Beloved’s Hips" Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.

We Let the Boat Drift I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine. The grass in the field would make a second crop if early autumn rains hadn't washed the goodness out. After the night's hard frost it makes a brittle rustling as I walk. The water is utterly still. Here and there a black twig sticks up. It's five years today, and even now I can't accept what cancer did to him -- not death so much as the annihilation of the whole man, sense by sense, thought by thought, hope by hope. Once we talked about the life to come. I took the Bible from the nightstand and offered John 14: "I go to prepare a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said. "But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" And he wept. My neighbor honks and waves driving by. She counsels troubled students; keeps bees; her goats follow her to the mailbox. Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles rested across our laps; glittering drops fell randomly from their tips. The light around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant- let us get quite close before it dove, coming up after a long time, and well away from humankind

The glare of human joy hides from our sight ten thousand blessings which we cannot see until it grows dark about us. And it would be a dire loss to live through all our days and never see these blessings. There are hundreds of Bible words which seem pale and without meaning in the time of earthly gladness, but which come out bright and shining like stars when the darkness comes on. You have no need for divine comfort when you had no sorrow; and a great part of the Bible was as yet an unopened book to you, for a large portion of it consists of comfort for those in trouble. But when the sorrow came, the words flashed out like stars at night, unseen by day. Thus we learn the meaning of the beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” We lose some joys, but we find others that were hidden in the light of those we lost. Where earth’s tapers burned with only flickering light, heaven’s lamps now shine. Where the human face shone in its gentle grace, the face of Christ now looks upon us in its divine yearning. Where we leaned upon a human arm, often trembling, at last broken, we find now, instead, the everlasting arm. Thus when we abide in Christ the light of his love is revealed as human joys pale. The deeper the earthly darkness, the richer are the divine comforts which are given to us, enabling us to be of good cheer whatever the tribulation.

Which got Thomas thinking. What religious book was any better? The Holy Bible, full of power and poetry, was also filled with tall tales. Thomas had found them enthralling, but in the end they were all just stories, less important than the Sky Woman story, the manidoog at creation, the Nanabozho stories. To them all, especially the humorless book Elnath and Vernon had left, Thomas preferred their supernatural figure Nanabozho, who fooled ducks, got angry at his own butt and burnt it off, created a shit mountain to climb down when stuck high in a tree, had a wolf for his nephew, and no conscience at any time, who painted the kingfisher lovely colors and by trickery fed his children when they starved, who threw his penis over his shoulder and his balls to the west, who changed himself to a stump and made his penis look like a branch where the kingfisher perched, who killed a god by shooting its shadow, and created everything useful and much that was essential, like laughter.

There were days, weeks, and months when I hated politics. And there were moments when the beauty of this country and its people so overwhelmed me that I couldn’t speak. Then it was over. Even if you see it coming, even as your final weeks are filled with emotional good-byes, the day itself is still a blur. A hand goes on a Bible; an oath gets repeated. One president’s furniture gets carried out while another’s comes in. Closets are emptied and refilled in the span of a few hours. Just like that, there are new heads on new pillows—new temperaments, new dreams. And when it ends, when you walk out the door that last time from the world’s most famous address, you’re left in many ways to find yourself again. So let me start here, with a small thing that happened not long ago. I was at home in the redbrick house that my family recently moved into. Our new house sits about two miles from our old house, on a quiet neighborhood street. We’re still settling in. In the family room, our furniture is arranged the same way it was in the White House. We’ve got mementos around the house that remind us it was all real—photos of our family time at Camp David, handmade pots given to me by Native American students, a book signed by Nelson Mandela. What was strange about this night was that everyone was gone. Barack was traveling. Sasha was out with friends. Malia’s been living and working in New York, finishing out her gap year before college. It was just me, our two dogs, and a silent, empty house like I haven’t known in eight years.

PSALM 91 He who dwells in  a the shelter of the Most High         will abide in  b the shadow of the Almighty. 2    I will say [1] to the LORD, “My  c refuge and my  d fortress,         my God, in whom I  e trust.”     3 For he will deliver you from  f the snare of the fowler         and from the deadly pestilence. 4    He will  g cover you with his pinions,         and under his  h wings you will  i find refuge;         his  j faithfulness is  k a shield and buckler. 5     l You will not fear  m the terror of the night,         nor the arrow that flies by day, 6    nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,         nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.     7 A thousand may fall at your side,         ten thousand at your right hand,         but it will not come near you. 8    You will only look with your eyes         and  n see the recompense of the wicked.     9 Because you have made the LORD your  o dwelling place—         the Most High, who is my  c refuge [2]— 10     p no evil shall be allowed to befall you,          q no plague come near your tent.     11  r For he will command his  s angels concerning you         to  t guard you in all your ways. 12    On their hands they will bear you up,         lest you  u strike your foot against a stone. 13    You will tread on  v the lion and the  w adder;         the young lion and  x the serpent you will  y trample underfoot.     14 “Because he  z holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;         I will protect him, because he  a knows my name. 15    When he  b calls to me, I will answer him;         I will be with him in trouble;         I will rescue him and  c honor him. 16    With  d long life I will satisfy him         and  e show him my salvation.

She went around reading everything- the directions on the grits bag, Tate's notes, and the stories from her fairy-tale books she had pretended to read for years. Then one night she made a little oh sound, and took the old Bible from the shelf. Sitting at the table, she turned the thin pages carefully to the one with the family names. She found her own at the very bottom: There it was, her birthday: Miss Catherine Danielle Clark, October 10, 1945. Then, going back up the list, she read the real names of her brothers and sisters: Master Jeremy Andrew Clark, January 2, 1939. "Jeremy," she said out loud. "Jodie, I sure never thought a' you as Master Jeremy." Miss Amanda Margaret Clark, May 17, 1937. Kya touched the name with her fingers. Repeated it several times. She read on. Master Napier Murphy Clark, April 14, 1936. Kya spoke softly, "Murph, ya name was Napier." At the top, the oldest, Miss Mary Helen Clark, September 19, 1934. She rubbed her fingers over the names again, which brought faces before her eyes. They blurred, but she could see them all squeezed around the table eating stew, passing cornbread, even laughing some. She was ashamed that she had forgotten their names, but now that she'd found them, she would never let them go again. Above the list of children she read: Mister Jackson Henry Clark married Miss Julienne Maria Jacques, June 12, 1933. Not until that moment had she known her parents' proper names. She sat there for a few minutes with the Bible open on the table. Her family before her. Time ensures children never know their parents young. Kya would never see the handsome Jake swagger into an Asheville soda fountain in early 1930, where he spotted Maria Jacques, a beauty with black curls and red lips, visiting from New Orleans.

We decided to attend to our community instead of asking our community to attend the church.” His staff started showing up at local community events such as sports contests and town hall meetings. They entered a float in the local Christmas parade. They rented a football field and inaugurated a Free Movie Night on summer Fridays, complete with popcorn machines and a giant screen. They opened a burger joint, which soon became a hangout for local youth; it gives free meals to those who can’t afford to pay. When they found out how difficult it was for immigrants to get a driver’s license, they formed a drivers school and set their fees at half the going rate. My own church in Colorado started a ministry called Hands of the Carpenter, recruiting volunteers to do painting, carpentry, and house repairs for widows and single mothers. Soon they learned of another need and opened Hands Automotive to offer free oil changes, inspections, and car washes to the same constituency. They fund the work by charging normal rates to those who can afford it. I heard from a church in Minneapolis that monitors parking meters. Volunteers patrol the streets, add money to the meters with expired time, and put cards on the windshields that read, “Your meter looked hungry so we fed it. If we can help you in any other way, please give us a call.” In Cincinnati, college students sign up every Christmas to wrap presents at a local mall — ​no charge. “People just could not understand why I would want to wrap their presents,” one wrote me. “I tell them, ‘We just want to show God’s love in a practical way.’ ” In one of the boldest ventures in creative grace, a pastor started a community called Miracle Village in which half the residents are registered sex offenders. Florida’s state laws require sex offenders to live more than a thousand feet from a school, day care center, park, or playground, and some municipalities have lengthened the distance to half a mile and added swimming pools, bus stops, and libraries to the list. As a result, sex offenders, one of the most despised categories of criminals, are pushed out of cities and have few places to live. A pastor named Dick Witherow opened Miracle Village as part of his Matthew 25 Ministries. Staff members closely supervise the residents, many of them on parole, and conduct services in the church at the heart of Miracle Village. The ministry also provides anger-management and Bible study classes.

May the day of my birth perish. May it turn to darkness. May God above not care about it. May no light shine on it. May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more. May a cloud settle over it. May blackness overwhelm it. May thick darkness seize it. May it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months. May that night be barren. May no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day. May its morning stars become dark. May it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes. Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest. Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.

The Gospels are the canon within the canon. The Bible, as martin Luther said, is the cradle that holds Christ. The point of gravity is the story of Jesus, the Gospel. The closer a text of the Bible is to that story or to the heart of that story's message, the more authority it has. The father away it is, the less its authority. It's a story of how the God who spoke through prophets and poets was the same God who showed up later in a human body and walked around like he didn't understand the rules. Jesus said God's would is like a father running into the road to meet his no-good child as if the child's no-goodness was no matter. Jesus' stories seemed like nonsense, but then they also seemed like absolute truth at the same time. He just kept saying that the things we think are so important rarely are: things like holding grudges and making judgments and hoarding wealth and being first. Then one night, this Jesus got all weird at dinner and said a loaf of bread was his body and a cup of wine was his blood, and all of it is for forgiveness. All of it means our no-goodness is no matter. Then he went and got himself killed in a totally preventable way. Three days later he blew his friends' minds by showing back up and being all like, "You guys have any snacks? I'm starving.

My mother was in charge of language. My father had never really learned to read - he could manage slowly, with his fingers on the line, but he had left school at twelve and gone to work at the Liverpool docks. Before he was twelve, no one had bothered to read to him. His own father had been a drunk who often took his small son to the pub with him, left him outside, staggered out hours later and walked home, and forgot my dad, asleep in a doorway. Dad loved Mrs Winterson reading out loud - and I did too. She always stood up while we two sat down, and it was intimate and impressive all at the same time. She read the Bible every night for half an hour, starting at the beginning, and making her way through all sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. When she got to her favourite bit, the Book of Revelation, and the Apocalypse, and everyone being exploded and the Devil in the bottomless pit, she gave us all a week off to think about things. Then she started again, Genesis Chapter One. 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...' It seemed to me to be a lot of work to make a whole planet, a whole universe, and blow it up, but that is one of the problems with the literal-minded versions of Christianity; why look after the planet when you know it is all going to end in pieces?

Dear Friend: Are you a Christian? What have you done to-day for Christ? Are the friends with whom you have been talking traveling toward the New Jerusalem? Did you compare notes with them as to how you were all prospering on the way? Is that stranger by your side a fellow-pilgrim? Did you ask him if he would be? Have you been careful to recommend the religion of Jesus Christ by your words, by your acts, by your looks, this day? If danger comes to you, have you this day asked Christ to be your helper? If death comes to you this night, are you prepared to give up your account? What would your record of this last day be? A blank? What! Have you done nothing for the Master? Then what have you done against Him? Nothing? Nay, verily! Is not the Bible doctrine, 'He that is not for me is against me?'  "Remember that every neglected opportunity, every idle word, every wrong thought of yours has been written down this day. You can not take back the thoughts or words; you can not recall the opportunity. This day, with all its mistakes, and blots, and mars, you can never live over again. It must go up to the judgment just as it is. Have you begged the blood of Jesus to be spread over it all? Have you resolved that no other day shall witness a repeatal of the same mistakes? Have you resolved in your own strength or in His?

The Bible is full of evidence that God’s attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a Great Cosmic Cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us—loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here—and—now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew—laden grass that is “renewed in the morning” (Ps 90:5), or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, “our inner nature is being renewed every day” (2 Cor 4:16). Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous attention to detail in the book of Leviticus, involving God in the minutiae of daily life—all the cooking and cleaning of a people’s domestic life—might be revisioned as the very love of God. A God who cares so much as to desire to be present to us in everything we do. It is this God who speaks to us through the psalmist as he wakes from sleep, amazed, to declare, “I will bless you, Lord, you give me counsel, and even at night direct my heart” (Ps 16:7, GR). It is this God who speaks to us through the prophets, reminding us that by meeting the daily needs of the poor and vulnerable, characterized in the scriptures as the widows and orphans, we prepare the way of the Lord and make our own hearts ready for the day of salvation. When it comes to the nitty—gritty, what ties these threads of biblical narrative together into a revelation of God’s love is that God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise. The rhythm of sunrise and sunset marks a passage of time that makes each day rich with the possibility of salvation, a concept that is beautifully summed up in an ancient saying from the monastic tradition: “Abba Poeman said concerning Abba Pior that every day he made a new beginning.

Does Jesus Care? In a fit of despondency, the psalmist once bemoaned, “No one cares for my soul” (Ps. 142:4). But in the next verse he turned his gloom into a prayer, declaring to God, “You are my refuge.” The word care occurs eighty-two times in the Bible, which frequently reminds us that when “the days are weary, the long nights dreary,” our Savior cares. Frank Graeff wrote “Does Jesus Care?” in 1901, and it was set to music by the noted conductor and composer, Dr. J. Lincoln Hall (born November 4, 1866), who later called it his most inspired piece of music. The form of the hymn is unusual. Each stanza asks questions about God’s care for us in various situations, and the chorus resounds with the bolstering answer: “Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares!” NOVEMBER 4 Does Jesus care when my heart is pained Too deeply for mirth or song, As the burdens press, and the cares distress And the way grows weary and long? Does Jesus care when I’ve tried and failed To resist some temptation strong; When for my deep grief there is no relief, Though my tears flow all the night long? Does Jesus care when I’ve said “good-bye” To the dearest on earth to me, And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks, Is it aught to Him? Does He see? Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief; When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares. . . . casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. – 1 Peter 5:7

Any Justification that does not lead to Biblical sanctification and mortification of sinful desires is a false justification no matter how many Solas you attach to it”. “See that your chief study be about the heart, that there God’s image may be planted, and his interest advanced, and the interest of the world and flesh subdued, and the love of every sin cast out, and the love of holiness succeed; and that you content not yourselves with seeming to do good in outward acts, when you are bad yourselves, and strangers to the great internal duties. The first and great work of a Christian is about his heart.” ~ Richard Baxter Never forget that truth is more important to the church than peace ~ JC Ryle "Truth demands confrontation. It must be loving confrontation, but there must be confrontation nonetheless.” ~ Francis Schaeffer I am not permitted to let my love be so merciful as to tolerate and endure false doctrine. When faith and doctrine are concerned and endangered, neither love nor patience are in order...when these are concerned, (neither toleration nor mercy are in order, but only anger, dispute, and destruction - to be sure, only with the Word of God as our weapon. ~ Martin Luther “Truth must be spoken, however it be taken.” ~ John Trapp “Hard words, if they be true, are better than soft words if they be false.” – C.H. Spurgeon “Oh my brethren, Bold hearted men are always called mean-spirited by cowards” – CH Spurgeon “The Bible says Iron sharpens Iron, But if your words don't have any iron in them, you ain't sharpening anyone”. “Peace often comes as a result of conflict!” ~ Don P Mt 18:15-17 Rom 12:18 “Peace if possible, truth at all costs.” ~ Martin Luther “The Scriptures argue and debate and dispute; they are full of polemics… We should always regret the necessity; but though we regret it and bemoan it, when we feel that a vital matter is at stake we must engage in argument. We must earnestly contend for the truth, and we are all called upon to do that by the New Testament.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Romans – Atonement and Justification) “It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friend his faults. So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher “Truth bites and it stings and it has a blade on it.” ~ Paul Washer Soft words produce hard hearts. Show me a church where soft words are preached and I will show you a church of hard hearts. Jeremiah said that the word of God is a hammer that shatters. Hard Preaching produces soft hearts. ~ J. MacArthur Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified, prepare the soul for glory. ~ Richard Sibbes “Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by this heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils.” ~ William Gurnall

PSALM 139 O LORD, you have  p searched me and known me! 2    You  q know when I sit down and when I rise up;         you  r discern my thoughts from afar. 3    You search out my path and my lying down         and are acquainted with all my ways. 4    Even before a word is on my tongue,         behold, O LORD,  s you know it altogether. 5    You  t hem me in, behind and before,         and  u lay your hand upon me. 6     v Such knowledge is  w too wonderful for me;         it is high; I cannot attain it.     7  x Where shall I go from your Spirit?         Or where  y shall I flee from your presence? 8     z If I ascend to heaven, you are there!          a If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9    If I take the wings of the morning         and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10    even there your hand shall  b lead me,         and your right hand shall hold me. 11    If I say,  c “Surely the darkness shall cover me,         and the light about me be night,” 12     d even the darkness is not dark to you;         the night is bright as the day,         for darkness is as light with you.     13 For you  e formed my inward parts;         you  f knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14    I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. [1]      g Wonderful are your works;         my soul knows it very well. 15     h My frame was not hidden from you,     when I was being made in secret,         intricately woven in  i the depths of the earth. 16    Your eyes saw my unformed substance;     in your  j book were written, every one of them,         the days that were formed for me,         when as yet there was none of them.

MT: The arrival of Christ disturbs the sacrificial order, the cycle of little false periods of temporary peace following sacrifices? RG: The story of the “demons of Gerasa” in the synoptic Gospels, and notably in Mark, shows this well. To free himself from the crowd that surrounds him, Christ gets on a boat, crosses Lake Tiberias, and comes to shore in non-Jewish territory, in the land of the Gerasenes. It's the only time the Gospels venture among a people who don't read the Bible or acknowledge Mosaic law. As Jesus is getting off the boat, a possessed man blocks his way, like the Sphinx blocking Oedipus. “The man lived in the tombs and no one could secure him anymore, even with a chain. All night and all day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he would howl and gash himself with stones.” Christ asks him his name, and he replies: “My name is Legion, for there are many of us.” The man then asks, or rather the demons who speak through him ask Christ not to send them out of the area—a telling detail—and to let them enter a herd of swine that happen to be passing by. And the swine hurl themselves off the edge of the cliff into the lake. It's not the victim who throws himself off the cliff, it's the crowd. The expulsion of the violent crowd is substituted for the expulsion of the single victim. The possessed man is healed and wants to follow Christ, but Christ tells him to stay put. And the Gerasenes come en masse to beg Jesus to leave immediately. They're pagans who function thanks to their expelled victims, and Christ is subverting their system, spreading confusion that recalls the unrest in today's world. They're basically telling him: “We'd rather continue with our exorcists, because you, you're obviously a true revolutionary. Instead of reorganizing the demoniac, rearranging it a bit, like a psychoanalyst, you do away with it entirely. If you stayed, you would deprive us of the sacrificial crutches that make it possible for us to get around.” That's when Jesus says to the man he's just liberated from his demons: “You're going to explain it to them.” It's actually quite a bit like the conversion of Paul. Who's to say that historical Christianity isn't a system that, for a long time, has tempered the message and made it possible to wait for two thousand years? Of course this text is dated because of its primitive demonological framework, but it contains the capital idea that, in the sacrificial universe that is the norm for mankind, Christ always comes too early. More precisely, Christ must come when it's time, and not before. In Cana he says: “My hour has not come yet.” This theme is linked to the sacrificial crisis: Christ intervenes at the moment the sacrificial system is complete. This possessed man who keeps gashing himself with stones, as Jean Starobinski has revealed, is a victim of “auto-lapidation.” It's the crowd's role to throw stones. So, it's the demons of the crowd that are in him. That's why he's called Legion—in a way he's the embodiment of the crowd. It's the crowd that comes out of him and goes and throws itself off of the cliff. We're witnessing the birth of an individual capable of escaping the fatal destiny of collective violence. MT

THE OBEDIENCE GAME DUGGAR KIDS GROW UP playing the Obedience Game. It’s sort of like Mother May I? except it has a few extra twists—and there’s no need to double-check with “Mother” because she (or Dad) is the one giving the orders. It’s one way Mom and Dad help the little kids in the family burn off extra energy some nights before we all put on our pajamas and gather for Bible time (more about that in chapter 8). To play the Obedience Game, the little kids all gather in the living room. After listening carefully to Mom’s or Dad’s instructions, they respond with “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” then run and quickly accomplish the tasks. For example, Mom might say, “Jennifer, go upstairs to the girls’ room, touch the foot of your bed, then come back downstairs and give Mom a high-five.” Jennifer answers with an energetic “Yes, ma’am, I’d be happy to!” and off she goes. Dad might say, “Johannah, run around the kitchen table three times, then touch the front doorknob and come back.” As Johannah stands up she says, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” “Jackson, go touch the front door, then touch the back door, then touch the side door, and then come back.” Jackson, who loves to play army, stands at attention, then salutes and replies, “Yes, sir, I’d be happy to!” as he goes to complete his assignment at lightning speed. Sometimes spotters are sent along with the game player to make sure the directions are followed exactly. And of course, the faster the orders can be followed, the more applause the contestant gets when he or she slides back into the living room, out of breath and pleased with himself or herself for having complied flawlessly. All the younger Duggar kids love to play this game; it’s a way to make practicing obedience fun! THE FOUR POINTS OF OBEDIENCE THE GAME’S RULES (MADE up by our family) stem from our study of the four points of obedience, which Mom taught us when we were young. As a matter of fact, as we are writing this book she is currently teaching these points to our youngest siblings. Obedience must be: 1. Instant. We answer with an immediate, prompt “Yes ma’am!” or “Yes sir!” as we set out to obey. (This response is important to let the authority know you heard what he or she asked you to do and that you are going to get it done as soon as possible.) Delayed obedience is really disobedience. 2. Cheerful. No grumbling or complaining. Instead, we respond with a cheerful “I’d be happy to!” 3. Thorough. We do our best, complete the task as explained, and leave nothing out. No lazy shortcuts! 4. Unconditional. No excuses. No, “That’s not my job!” or “Can’t someone else do it? or “But . . .” THE HIDDEN GOAL WITH this fun, fast-paced game is that kids won’t need to be told more than once to do something. Mom would explain the deeper reason behind why she and Daddy desired for us to learn obedience. “Mom and Daddy won’t always be with you, but God will,” she says. “As we teach you to hear and obey our voice now, our prayer is that ultimately you will learn to hear and obey what God’s tells you to do through His Word.” In many families it seems that many of the goals of child training have been lost. Parents often expect their children to know what they should say and do, and then they’re shocked and react harshly when their sweet little two-year-old throws a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store. This parental attitude probably stems from the belief that we are all born basically good deep down inside, but the truth is, we are all born with a sin nature. Think about it: You don’t have to teach a child to hit, scream, whine, disobey, or be selfish. It comes naturally. The Bible says that parents are to “train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).