Pillars Of Our Family Quotes

I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first Jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today's world. Libraries are everyman's free university.

I've come to appreciate that our elders- our grandmothers- are not only the pillars of our families, the charms in our lives, but also the bridges to our past and the steppingstones to our future.

Our house was made of stone, stucco, and clapboard; the newer wings, designed by a big-city architect, had a good deal of glass, and looked out into the Valley, where on good days we could see for many miles while on humid hazy days we could see barely beyond the fence that marked the edge of our property. Father, however, preferred the roof: In his white, light-woolen three-piece suit, white fedora cocked back on his head, for luck, he spent many of his waking hours on the highest peak of the highest roof of the house, observing, through binoculars, the amazing progress of construction in the Valley - for overnight, it seemed, there appeared roads, expressways, sewers, drainage pipes, "planned" communities with such names as Whispering Glades, Murmuring Oaks, Pheasant Run, Deer Willow, all of them walled to keep out intruders, and, yet more astonishing, towerlike buildings of aluminum and glass and steel and brick, buildings whose windows shone and winked like mirrors, splendid in sunshine like pillars of flame; such beauty where once there had been mere earth and sky, it caught at your throat like a great bird's talons, taking your breath away. 'The ways of beauty are as a honeycomb,' Father told us, and none of us could determine, staring at his slow moving lips, whether the truth he spoke was a happy truth or not, whether even it was truth. ("Family")

We must become what we wish to teach. As an aside to parents, teachers, psychotherapists, and managers who may be reading this book to gain insight on how to support the self-esteem of others, I want to say that the place to begin is still with oneself. If one does not understand how the dynamics of self-esteem work internally—if one does not know by direct experience what lowers or raises one’s own self-esteem—one will not have that intimate understanding of the subject necessary to make an optimal contribution to others. Also, the unresolved issues within oneself set the limits of one’s effectiveness in helping others. It may be tempting, but it is self-deceiving to believe that what one says can communicate more powerfully than what one manifests in one’s person. We must become what we wish to teach. There is a story I like to tell psychotherapy students. In India, when a family encounters a problem, they are not likely to consult a psychotherapist (hardly any are available); they consult the local guru. In one village there was a wise man who had helped this family more than once. One day the father and mother came to him, bringing their nine-year-old son, and the father said, “Master, our son is a wonderful boy and we love him very much. But he has a terrible problem, a weakness for sweets that is ruining his teeth and health. We have reasoned with him, argued with him, pleaded with him, chastised him—nothing works. He goes on consuming ungodly quantities of sweets. Can you help us?” To the father’s surprise, the guru answered, “Go away and come back in two weeks.” One does not argue with a guru, so the family obeyed. Two weeks later they faced him again, and the guru said, “Good. Now we can proceed.” The father asked, “Won’t you tell us, please, why you sent us away for two weeks. You have never done that before.” And the guru answered, “I needed the two weeks because I, too, have had a lifelong weakness for sweets. Until I had confronted and resolved that issue within myself, I was not ready to deal with your son.” Not all psychotherapists like this story.

We are building our daily lives, and our families, on the four pillars of too much: too much stuff, too many choices, too much information, and too much speed.

There’s a general sense now that children’s rights, children’s needs, children’s wants and desires have taken on too prominent a place in our family lives. That we’ve over indulged them and now have to tighten the reins. The backlash is, at base, against ourselves — against a form of boomer and postboomer parenting that many agree has gone off the rails. But the targets of that backlash — its victims — are children. 'People as individuals and in societies mistreat children in order to fulfill certain needs through them, to project internal conflicts and self-hatreds outward, or to assert themselves when they feel their authority has been questioned,' Young-Bruehl wrote. We often use children as pillars for our narcissism, she said, and, in particular, tend to use them to provide salve for our narcissistic wounds. The more that we’re wounded — and, I think it’s fair to argue that almost all of us have been wounded in the devastating economic downturn of the past several years — the more angrily we make our demands. The more adults feel 'beleaguered and without power,' she noted, the more rage they vent at their kids for not making them feel valued, respected, even loved. Young-Bruehl noted that the concept of childism can — and should — force us to think differently about the whole range of parent behavior ranging from spanking to child abuse, just like the acknowledgment of sexism in society led us decades ago to think differently about rape. With a heightened understanding of prejudice against women, rape came to be seen less as an outgrowth of unrestrained male libido and more as a perverse manifestation of the abuse of male power: incest too, soon afterward, came to be seen in that light. Her extrapolation from sexism to childism teaches, then, that we can’t simply think of freakish acts of child abuse — like the case of the 9-year-old Alabama girl run to death by her stepmother and grandmother as punishment for eating a candy bar — as entirely isolated crimes. We have to think of them in a context of prejudice against children — and of diffuse adult feelings of impotence and rage — that is widespread enough that it’s all too easy for an unbalanced parent to cross the line between discipline and abuse.

Our life is standing on six pillars and our goals should be based on these 6 pillars ✓Personal ✓Family ✓Financial ✓Professional ✓Social ✓Spiritual

George Washington so liked Edward Savage’s painting of “The President and His Family, the full size of life,” that he ordered “four stipple engravings” in “handsome, but not costly, gilt frames, with glasses,” and hung one of his purchases over the fireplace mantel in the small dining room at Mount Vernon. As the Washington family—George and Martha, and two of Martha’s orphaned grandchildren, George Washington (“Washy”) and Eleanor (“Nelly”) Custis—took their daily repast, Edward Savage’s tableau of “The President and His Family” looked down upon them. It is likely that Washington favored the portrait above many others because of its intimacy and its affirmation of the future. The family gathers about a table at Mount Vernon, George seated at the left, opposite his wife, Martha. Washy, the younger of the two grandchildren, stands in the left foreground, while Nelly stands at the right in the middle ground. Washington rests his right hand upon the boy’s shoulder; Washy, in turn, holds a compass in his right hand, which he rests upon a globe, in a stance suggesting that succeeding generations of the family were destined to spread the ideals of liberty and democracy around the world. In the background, framed by large pillars and a swagged curtain, Savage presents a glimpse, as he said in a note, of “a view of thirty miles down the Potomac River.” On the table at the portrait’s center rests Andrew Ellicott’s map of the new federal seat of government. The family appears to be unrolling the document; Washington holds it flat with his left arm and sword, while Nelly and Martha steady it on the right. With her folded fan, Martha gestures to “the grand avenue,” as Savage called it, that connects the Capitol with the White House. In the right middle ground stands one of the chief contradictions of the new democracy, a nameless black male servant, part of the retinue of more than three hundred slaves the Washingtons depended upon for their comfort, security, and prosperity. Dressed in the colors of Mount Vernon livery, a gray coat over a salmon red waistcoat, he possesses an almost princely quality. His black, combed-back hair frames his dark face with its prominent nose. His unknowable eye impassively takes in the scene. He keeps his left hand enigmatically concealed in his waistcoat; his collar flamboyantly mirrors Washington’s across from him. The slave must remain a shadow, unobtrusive, unassuming, unremarkable, almost a part of the frame for the Potomac. Only the slave’s destiny seems apart from those gathered about the table examining the plans, yet from the beginning the fates of both slavery and the new city were inextricably intertwined. The nameless man’s story, along with the stories of tens of thousands of others, was very much a part of the plot unfolding on the Potomac in the 1790s. The consequences of involuntary servitude would affect and effect Washington’s development to the present day.

Let there be light. Gen. 1:3 Let there be enlightenment; let there be understanding. Darkness. Gen. 1:4 Ignorance; lack of enlightenment and understanding. Eden. Gen. 2:8 A delightful place; temporal life. Garden. Gen. 2:8 Metaphorically—a wife; a family. Tree of life in the midst of the garden. Gen. 2:9 Sex; posterity, progeny. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9 Moral law; the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. Gen. 2:9 Eternal life. The tree of good and evil. Gen. 2:17 Metaphorically—sexual relationship. Good. Gen. 2:17 Anything perfect. Evil. Gen. 2:17 Anything imperfect; contrary to good; immature. Naked. Gen. 2:25 Exposed; ashamed. Serpent. Gen. 3:1 An enemy; deception. Thorns and thistles. Gen. 3:18 Grievances and difficulties. Sent forth from the garden. Gen. 3:23 A loss of harmony; a lost paradise. God took him away. Gen. 5:24 He died painlessly. He had a heart attack. Sons of God. Gen. 6:2 Good men; the descendants of Seth. My spirit shall not dwell in man forever. Gen. 6:3 I have become weary and impatient. (A scribal note.) The Lord was sorry that He made man. Gen. 6:6 (A scribal note. See Old Testament Light—Lamsa.) I set my bow in the clouds. Gen. 9:13 I set the rainbow in the sky. I have lifted up my hands. Gen. 14:22 I am taking a solemn oath. Thy seed. Gen. 17:7 Your offspring; your teaching. Angels. Gen. 19:1 God’s counsel; spirits; God’s thoughts. Looking behind. Gen. 19:17 Regretting; wasting time. A pillar of salt. Gen. 19:26 Lifeless; stricken dead. As the stars of heaven. Gen. 22:17 Many in number; a great multitude. Went in at the gate. Gen. 23:18 Mature men who sat at the counsel. Hand under thigh. Gen. 24:2 Hand under girdle; a solemn oath. Tender eyed. Gen. 29:17 Attractive eyes. He hath sold us. Gen. 31:15 He has devoured our dowry. Wrestling with an angel. Gen. 32:24 Being suspicious of a pious man. Coat of many colors. Gen. 37:23 A coat with long sleeves meaning learning, honor and a high position. Spilling seed on the ground. Gen. 38:9 Spilling semen on the ground. (An ancient practice of birth control.) No man shall lift up his hand or foot. Gen. 41:44 No man shall do anything without your approval. Put his hand upon thine eyes. Gen. 46:4 Shall close your eyes upon your death bed. Laying on of hands. Gen. 48:14 Blessing and approving a person. His right hand upon the head. Gen. 48:17 A sincere blessing. Unstable as water. Gen. 49:4 Undecided; in a dilemma. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah. Gen. 49:10 There shall always be a king from the lineage of Judah. Washed his garments in wine. Gen. 49:11 He will become an owner of many vineyards. His teeth white with milk. Gen. 49:12 He will have abundant flocks of sheep. His bow abode in strength. Gen. 49:24 He will become a valiant warrior. The stone of Israel. Gen. 49:24 The strong race of Israel. He gathered up his feet. Gen. 49:33 He stretched out his feet—He breathed his last breathe; he died.

Many promised to sail with us today but did not come. Some, by circumstance could not. Do not hold their absence against them. Others who spoke bravely are absent but without cause. They are cowards and hypocrites and we are better off without them. We, however, are here. We stand together of our own free will. We were neither bribed nor pressed into service. We are a free people defending our freedom and the freedom of our families. That is the source of our authority and strength.

I also wondered if this plateau high above the Great American Desert wasn’t more than just the earth, in the same way you wonder sometimes if we are not already inside eternity. I wondered if the columns of sunlight spearing through the clouds on the hillsides and the meadows and the dairy barns and the freshly plowed acreage and the cottonwood trees along the stream were not indeed the pillars of heaven, rising into a kingdom where our predecessors were at work and play in the fields of the Lord.

Grayden and I, along with Dahnath, Drael and countless others, stayed to keep vigil, sitting on the hillside until the funeral blaze consumed itself, settling into cinders. In the early hours of the morning, a light, almost magical snow began to fall, and the moon’s glow as it reflected off the ground brightened the scenery, making everything seem new. My uncle’s death had again set my family reeling. While we were accustomed to picking up pieces, sorting through rubble and holding on to memories, the brothers who had died had been the pillars of our family, strong leaders in Hytanica’s military, and shining examples of all that was good and honorable within our kingdom. But this time, beneath the grieving, there was hope--hope that glowed like the remaining embers. This land was again our own, the Province Wall would be torn down, and we citizens would once more walk through the city gates without fear or suspicion. I shivered, and Grayden put his arm around me, snuggling me close to him, and a melancholy smile played across my face. My uncle had promised he would find a husband for me who would meet my father’s standards. And at what did the Captain of the Guard fail?

Education established the backbone for America’s great experiment in civilization; it enabled American industry, commerce, and military to thrive and supplied the intellectual reagent to spur the growth of the American social consciousness that paved the road to eliminate the vestiges of discrimination that tainted this hallowed ground. Education bridges communities together and provides reinforcement to generations of families. Formal edification is worthless unless we also develop our spiritual pillars in a manner that enables a great civilization to deploy its enhancement in technology to improve the health and general welfare of all people.

We have elected someone as president of the United States whose first instincts are to twist and distort truth to his advantage, to generate financial benefit to himself and his family, and, in so doing, to demean the values this country has traditionally stood for. He has set a new low bar for ethics and morality. He has caused damage to our societal and political fabric that will be difficult and will require time to repair. And, close to my heart, he has besmirched the Intelligence Community and the FBI—pillars of our country—and deliberately incited many Americans to lose faith and confidence in them. While he does this, he pointedly refuses to acknowledge the profound threat posed by Russia,

The Nilambur Promise: Why a Teak Wood Sofa Set is the Ultimate Sustainable Investment In a world increasingly concerned with fast furniture and disposable goods, the choices we make for our homes carry more weight than ever. We're not just looking for comfort and style; we're seeking longevity, value, and a reduced ecological footprint. Enter the teak wood sofa set, and specifically, the legacy of Nilambur Teak. More than just a piece of furniture, a Nilambur teak wood sofa is an investment that keeps a powerful promise: the promise of ultimate sustainability. Nilambur: The Heartland of Teak Quality The story of your sofa begins in Nilambur, a region in Kerala, India, often called the "Teak Heartland." What makes this teak variety so superior? A Storied Legacy: Nilambur holds the distinction of having the world's first organized teak plantation, established by the British in 1842. This history underpins a tradition of carefully managed forestry. The GI Tag: Nilambur Teak is one of the few forest products to be granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, legally recognizing its unique quality, which is attributed to the region's rich alluvial soil, tropical climate, and heavy rainfall. Unrivaled Density and Oils: This environment fosters trees that produce dense, high-quality wood, rich in natural oils and silica. This unique composition is the secret to teak's legendary resilience. Choosing a sofa made from responsibly sourced Nilambur teak isn't just buying luxury; it's buying into a heritage of quality and sustainable forestry. The Four Pillars of Teak Sustainability A teak wood sofa set stands out from all other materials—even other hardwoods—due to four fundamental characteristics that make it a truly sustainable choice: 1. Unmatched Longevity (The Generational Investment) Forget the 5 to 10-year lifespan of most furniture. High-quality teak wood furniture is known to last for 30 to 50 years, often becoming a family heirloom passed down through generations. Comparison: Compared to common outdoor woods like cedar (3-5 years) or acacia (10-15 years), teak is in a league of its own. Its decades-long lifespan drastically reduces the need for frequent replacements, saving resources, energy, and minimizing landfill waste. This single factor makes teak inherently eco-friendly. 2. Natural Resistance (No Chemicals Needed) Teak's natural oils and tight grain structure act as a built-in protective barrier. This means your furniture has a natural defense against: Water and Decay: The oils repel moisture, preventing the wood from warping, rotting, or cracking, even when exposed to humidity and spills. Pests and Termites: Teak contains natural substances that are toxic or unappealing to wood-boring insects, effectively eliminating the need for chemical-based treatments or preservatives common with other woods. This low-maintenance, chemical-free existence reduces environmental impact both during production and throughout the product's life. 3. Low Maintenance, Zero Stress The true cost of furniture includes the effort and expense of maintenance. With teak, the effort is minimal: Simple Care: A quick wipe-down with mild soap and water is often all that is required. A Gracious Aging Process: Teak requires no special finish to maintain its durability. If left untreated, it naturally weathers to a sophisticated, silvery-grey patina over a few years. This desired change is purely aesthetic and does not affect the wood's structural integrity. 4. Responsible Sourcing (FSC and Plantation Teak) While illegal logging has historically been an issue, the modern teak industry, particularly for high-end furniture, is increasingly focused on certified plantation teak.

The Nilambur Promise: Why a Teak Wood Sofa Set is the Ultimate Sustainable Investment In a world increasingly concerned with fast furniture and disposable goods, the choices we make for our homes carry more weight than ever. We're not just looking for comfort and style; we're seeking longevity, value, and a reduced ecological footprint. Enter the teak wood sofa set, and specifically, the legacy of Nilambur Teak. More than just a piece of furniture, a Nilambur teak wood sofa is an investment that keeps a powerful promise: the promise of ultimate sustainability. Visit us – shop.nilamburfurniture Nilambur: The Heartland of Teak Quality The story of your sofa begins in Nilambur, a region in Kerala, India, often called the “Teak Heartland.” What makes this teak variety so superior? A Storied Legacy: Nilambur holds the distinction of having the world's first organized teak plantation, established by the British in 1842. This history underpins a tradition of carefully managed forestry. The GI Tag: Nilambur Teak is one of the few forest products to be granted a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, legally recognizing its unique quality, which is attributed to the region's rich alluvial soil, tropical climate, and heavy rainfall. Unrivaled Density and Oils: This environment fosters trees that produce dense, high-quality wood, rich in natural oils and silica. This unique composition is the secret to teak's legendary resilience. Choosing a sofa made from responsibly sourced Nilambur teak isn't just buying luxury; it's buying into a heritage of quality and sustainable forestry. The Four Pillars of Teak Sustainability A teak wood sofa set stands out from all other materials—even other hardwoods—due to four fundamental characteristics that make it a truly sustainable choice: Unmatched Longevity (The Generational Investment) Forget the 5 to 10-year lifespan of most furniture. High-quality teak wood furniture is known to last for 30 to 50 years, often becoming a family heirloom passed down through generations. Comparison: Compared to common outdoor woods like cedar (3-5 years) or acacia (10-15 years), teak is in a league of its own. Its decades-long lifespan drastically reduces the need for frequent replacements, saving resources, energy, and minimizing landfill waste. This single factor makes teak inherently eco-friendly. Natural Resistance (No Chemicals Needed) Teak's natural oils and tight grain structure act as a built-in protective barrier. This means your furniture has a natural defense against: Water and Decay: The oils repel moisture, preventing the wood from warping, rotting, or cracking, even when exposed to humidity and spills. Pests and Termites: Teak contains natural substances that are toxic or unappealing to wood-boring insects, effectively eliminating the need for chemical-based treatments or preservatives common with other woods. This low-maintenance, chemical-free existence reduces environmental impact both during production and throughout the product's life.

I picture a grand church, lined with large pillars with high arches hovering above. White roses showing little greenery everywhere. Everything white. All of my family and friends gathered. The perfect music.” She wasn’t planning her funeral that night. She saw the end, or rather our beginning. Even when we were unsure of every move we were making, her faith was unshakable.