Place Where I Can Find Peace Quotes

I have rooted myself into this quiet place where I don’t need much to get by. I need my visions. I need my books. I need new thoughts and lessons, from older souls, bars, whisky, libraries; different ones in different towns. I need my music. I need my songs. I need the safety of somewhere to rest my head at night, when my eyes get heavy. And I need space. Lots of space. To run, and sing, and change around in any way I please—outer or inner—and I need to love. I need the space to love ideas and thoughts; creations and people—anywhere I can find—and I need the peace of mind to understand it.

I didn't think it was possible to love him more than I already did, but i was wrong. His arms are the only place where I find peace and comfort. I feel safe when they're around me, like nothing can get to me.

Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the circle of actual experience is my creed made perfect and complete: too complete, it may be, for like many or all of those who have placed their heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of heaven, but the horror of hell also. When I think about religion at all, I feel as if I would like to found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless, one might call it, where on an altar, on which no taper burned, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling, might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice empty of wine. Every thing to be true must become a religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith. It has sown its martyrs, it should reap its saints, and praise God daily for having hidden Himself from man. But whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my own creating. Only that is spiritual which makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within myself, I shall never find it: if I have not got it already, it will never come to me.

Being the highly trained investment mogul that I am, I could certainly find places to put that money where it would earn more. Or would it? Remember, personal finance is personal. I have come to realize that Sharon’s peace of mind bought with the oversized emergency fund is a great return on investment. Guys, this can be a wonderful gift to your wife. An Emergency Fund Can

I've learned that turning inward is where you develop emotional awareness. This is the place where you connect with your soul, to God and nothing (no thing) can come between you and your source.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters Chapter I: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. . . . I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. Chapter II: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in this same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. Chapter III: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in . . . it’s a habit . . . but, my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. Chapter IV: I walk down the same street There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter V: I walk down another street.

Connection terminated. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Elizabeth. If you still even remember that name. But I'm afraid you've been misinformed. You are not here to receive a gift. Nor, have you been called here by the individual you assume. Although, you have indeed been called. You have all been called here. Into a labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune. A labyrinth with no exit. A maze with no prize. You don't even realize that you are trapped. Your lust of blood has driven you in endless circles. Chasing the cries of children in some unseen chamber, always seeming so near. Yet somehow out of reach. But, you will never find them. None of you will. This is where your story ends. And to you, my brave volunteer, who somehow found this job listing not intended for you. Although, there was a way out planned for you, I have a feeling that's not what you want. I have a feeling that you are right where you want to be. I am remaining as well. I am nearby. This place will not be remembered and the memory of everything that started this, can finally begin to fade away. As the agony of every tragedy should. And to you monsters trapped in the corridors. Be still. And give up your spirits. They don't belong to you. As for most of you, I believe there is peace and perhaps, warm, waiting for you after the smoke clears. Although, for one of you, the darkest pit of Hell has opened to swallow you whole. So, don't keep the Devil waiting, friend. My daughter, if you can hear me, I knew you would return as well. It's in your nature to protect the innocent. I'm sorry that on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up in their arms, the way you lifted others into yours. And then, what became of you, I should have known, you wouldn't be content to disappear. Not my daughter. I couldn't save you then. So, let me save you now. It's time to rest, for you, and for those you have carried in your arms... This ends. For all of us. End communication.

I will arise and go now, to a place called Innisfree, And I can find some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings.

It’s an heirloom, isn’t it?” ... “I got it from my father.” The tutor ran his hand along the sheathed blade. “This is a remarkable weapon—a knight’s sword—tarnished with time and travel. You don’t use it as often as the others. The bastard and short sword are tools to you, but this—ah—this is something else—something revered. It lays concealed in a paltry sheath, covered in clothes not its own. It doesn’t belong there. This sword belongs to another time and place. It is part of a grand and glorious world where knights were different, loftier—virtuous. It rests in this false scabbard because the proper one has been lost, or perhaps, it waits for a quest yet to be finished. It longs for that single moment when it can shine forth in all its brilliance. When dream and destiny meet on a clear field, then and only then will it find its purpose. When it faces that honorable cause—that one worthy and desperate challenge for which it was forged and on which so much depends—it will find peace in the crucible of struggle. For good or ill, it will ring true or break. But the wandering, the waiting, the hiding will at last be over. This sword waits for the day when it can save the kingdom and win the lady.

But what if I don't believe in God? It's like they've sat me in front of a mannequin and said, Fall in love with him. You can't will feeling. What Jack says issues from some still, true place that could not be extinguished by all the schizophrenia his genetic code could muster. It sounds something like this. Get on your knees and find some quiet space inside yourself, a little sunshine right about here. Jack holds his hands in a ball shape about midchest, saying, Let go. Surrender, Dorothy, the witch wrote in the sky. Surrender, Mary. I want to surrender but have no idea what that means. He goes on with a level gaze and a steady tone: Yield up what scares you. Yield up what makes you want to scream and cry. Enter into that quiet. It's a cathedral. It's an empty football stadium with all the lights on. And pray to be an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is conflict, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair hope... What if I get no answer there? If God hasn't spoken, do nothing. Fulfill the contract you entered into at the box factory, amen. Make the containers you promised to tape and staple. Go quietly and shine. Wait. Those not impelled to act must remain in the cathedral. Don't be lonely. I get so lonely sometimes, I could put a box on my head and mail myself to a stranger ...

Retreat is a form of pause—it is a time apart in solitude, a precious space in which we can see our world in a different light—acknowledge the grief, celebrate the gifts, and honor our own unique spirit without worrying about how others see us or what jobs still have to be done. For me, retreat is a time to endure suspense; find, not seek; relish what comes by chance; repair body and soul; wait patiently; and live into the questions. It is a time to get acquainted with silence—that friend we’ve kept at a distance; a time to be open to the spaciousness of a day; a time to live on the other side, in another world, where spirit, deep thought, and a new kind of wonder can flourish. Above all, retreat is a time to honor all that we have experienced and the way it affects our hearts. Webster’s dictionary defines “retreat” as the “act or process of withdrawal . . . a receding from a position” to a place that affords peace, privacy, and security. But I prefer Jennifer Louden’s assertion that retreat is “an act of self-nurturing, a radical leap into the hallowed halls of selfhood.

Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: 'But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders. ...All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in 'Al- Mughni,' Imam al-Kisa'i in 'Al-Bada'i,' al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: 'As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.' On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.' ...We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson. ...Almighty Allah also says: 'O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.' Almighty Allah also says: 'So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith.' [World Islamic Front Statement, 23 February 1998]

and then there are days when the simple act of breathing leaves you exhausted. it seems easier to give up on this life. the thought of disappearing brings you peace. for so long i was lost in a place where there was no sun. where there grew no flowers. but every once in a while out of the darkness something i loved would emerge and bring me to life again. witnessing a starry sky. the lightness of laughing with old friends. a reader who told me the poems had saved their life. yet there i was struggling to save my own. my darlings. living is difficult. it is difficult for everybody. and it is at that moment when living feels like crawling through a pin-sized hole. that we must resist the urge of succumbing to bad memories. refuse to bow before bad months or bad years. cause our eyes are starving to feast on this world. there are so many turquoise bodies of water left for us to dive in. there is family. blood or chosen. the possibility of falling in love. with people and places. hills high as the moon. valleys that roll into new worlds. and road trips. i find it deeply important to accept that we are not the masters of this place. we are her visitors. and like guests let’s enjoy this place like a garden. let us treat it with a gentle hand. so the ones after us can experience it too. let’s find our own sun. grow our own flowers. the universe delivered us with the light and the seeds. we might not hear it at times but the music is always on. it just needs to be turned louder. for as long as there is breath in our lungs—we must keep dancing.

I remember arriving by train in a small Swiss town. I had walked up a steep, cobblestoned street that offered a sweeping view of the village below and a lake, which, in the late afternoon light, was like a great cloudy opal. And I remember thinking, with a sense of mounting joy, that not a single soul knew where I was at that moment. No one could find me. No one could phone me. No one could see me who knew me by name. For someone whose childhood experiences had pounded home the Sartrian concept that hell, truly, is other people, that was an awesome moment. I knew, at least for an instant, that I was free. That feeling is one I've sought to find again and again. Often I've succeeded, other times, for no reason I can figure out, the feeling of elation and freedom degenerates into a profound loneliness and sense of bitter isolation. But there is still something about arriving in a strange or unexplored city, in Hong Kong or Paris or Sydney, wandering streets one has never walked before, in a place where, only against the most astronomical odds, would one encounter a familiar face. It's that desire for peace coupled with anonymity, for that strange serenity that sometimes comes with immersing oneself in the utterly foreign and exotic, that I suppose was at the heart of my idea for Cities.

I see you with that shell Held to your sensitive abstracted ear, Hunting the ocean’s rumor till you hear it well, Until you can set down the sound you hear:— Fixed to a shell like that you made immortal, This heart listens, this fragile auricle Holds rumor like your ocean’s, is a portal That sometimes opens to contain the miracle. If there are miracles we can record They happen in the places that you curse. Blessèd the pure in heart and the enduring word Sings of that love that spins the universe. My honor (and I cherish it for it is hardly won) Is to be pure in this: is to believe That to write down these perishable songs for one, For one alone, and out of love, is not to grieve But to build on the quicksand of despair A house where every man may take his ease, May come to shelter from the outer air, A little house where he may find his peace.

I find myself acting differently with God. Often, when I pray, I will phrase my sentences in a way that makes me sound better. I will try to soften my sins, or touch up my true feelings before laying them before God. How foolish it is for me to be completely honest with my wife about my shortcomings, but try to fool God! God wants us to be open with Him. He definitely doesn't want us to 'season our wretchedness' as we would raw meat. He knows what we are, that we are disgusting, that all we are doing is trying to make ourselves feel better. God desires a true intimacy with each of us, and that comes only when we trust Him enough to be truly transparent and vulnerable. People who are obsessed are raw with God; they do not attempt to mask the ugliness of their sins or their failures. Obsessed people don't put it on for God; He is their safe place, where they can be at peace.

So, for example, if I had been raised in a critical or demanding environment, it might have been easier for me, relatively speaking, to find refuge in worse-than or need-to-be-seen-as justifications. Those who were raised in affluent or sanctimonious environments, on the other hand, may naturally gravitate to better-than and I-deserve justifications, and so on. Need-to-be-seen-as boxes might easily arise in such circumstances as well. “But the key point, and the point that is the same for all of us, is that we all grab for justification, however we can get it. Because grabbing for justification is something we do, we can undo it. Whether we find justification in how we are worse or in how we are better, we can each find our way to a place where we have no need for justification at all. We can find our way to peace—deep, lasting, authentic peace—even when war is breaking out around us.

Drift me away along with the dust traveling to infinity. To another world where it feels more at home. To another world where I don’t feel alone. Trapped in the angst of my soul. Not being embraced as a whole. A state of nothingness creeps upon me. Disappearing in the darkness of the shadows. How it has clocked my life. Because that is the only place where I find peace. I call it nyctophilia. And what am I when the day turns into the night, listening to the nocturnal and the howling wind? My soul leaving my body, To be at rest. Tears strain down my cheeks, Enough for my lungs to fight for air in the peaks. The atmosphere seems to be held in place by a certain silence, waiting for a sign to move. Even the earth forgot its behoove. Taken over by this silence that I yet do not understand myself. It seems that things don’t have a meaning, At least not anymore. The demons and darkness have taken over. Making me believe that it knows better. These demons can’t be seen, But they’re far from imaginary. They live inside my mind. Their evilness prevails, About to end the fight. Then I stop and think: This is a melancholy I’ll fight one more night.

lure of reinvention. Lately, though, I find myself thinking about the war and my past, about the people I lost. Lost. It makes it sound as if I misplaced my loved ones; perhaps I left them where they don’t belong and then turned away, too confused to retrace my steps. They are not lost. Nor are they in a better place. They are gone. As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us. I have aged in the months since my husband’s death and my diagnosis. My skin has the crinkled appearance of wax paper that someone has tried to flatten and reuse. My eyes fail me often—in the darkness, when headlights flash, when rain falls. It is unnerving, this new unreliability in my vision. Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present. I want to imagine there will be peace when I am gone, that I will see all of the people I have loved and lost. At least that I will be forgiven. I know better, though, don’t I? *   *   * My house, named The Peaks by the lumber baron who built it more than a hundred years ago, is for sale, and I am preparing to move because my son thinks I should. He is trying to take care of

Peace within leads to peace in your home, your community, and your country. When I was growing up, my father never let us belong to the country club near our home because, the club didn’t accept African Americans or Jews. He told us we couldn’t belong to a place that didn’t accept everyone. That has stuck with me my entire life. America’s story has been a place where people felt they could come and find belonging and acceptance. I’m a descendant of immigrants, and my children’s father is a first-generation immigrant. We all want to belong. We all want to be accepted. Recognizing that we share this desire can help us see our shared humanity.

I . . . hurried to the city library to find out the true age of Chicago. City library! After all, it cannot be anything but Chicagoesque. His is the richest library, no doubt, as everything in Chicago is great in size and wealth. Its million books are filling all the shelves, as the dry goods fill the big stores. Oh, librarian, you furnished me a very good dinner, even ice cream, but—where is the table? The Chicago city library has no solemnly quiet, softly peaceful reading-room; you are like a god who made a perfect man and forgot to put in the soul; the books are worth nothing without having a sweet corner and plenty of time, as the man is nothing without soul. Throw those books away, if you don't have a perfect reading-room! Dinner is useless without a table. I want to read a book as a scholar, as I want to eat dinner as a gentleman. What difference is there, my dearest Chicago, between your honourable library and the great department store, an emporium where people buy things without a moment of selection, like a busy honey bee? The library is situated in the most annoyingly noisy business quarter, under the overhanging smoke, in the nearest reach of the engine bells of the lakeside. One can hardly spend an hour in it if he be not a Chicagoan who was born without taste of the fresh air and blue sky. The heavy, oppressive, ill-smelling air of Chicago almost kills me sometimes. What a foolishness and absurdity of the city administrators to build the office of learning in such place of restaurants and barber shops! Look at that edifice of the city library! Look at that white marble! That's great, admirable; that means tremendous power of money. But what a vulgarity, stupid taste, outward display, what an entire lacking of fine sentiment and artistic love! Ah, those decorations with gold and green on the marble stone spoil the beauty! What a shame! That is exactly Chicagoesque. O Chicago, you have fine taste, haven't you?

Personally, I wouldn't want a life of total neutral inner peace. I'd want to occasionally experience some wild intensity and exhilaration. That is part of me. But I crave that peace and acceptance more than ever. To be comfortable with yourself, requires creating some inner space where you can find yourself, away from a world that often encourages you to lose yourself. We need to carve out a place in time for ourselves, whether it is via books or meditation or appreciating the view out of a window. A place where we are not craving, or yearning, or working, or worrying, or overthinking. A place were we might not even be hoping. A place where we are set to neutral. Where we can just breathe, just be, just bathe in the simple animal contentment of being, not crave anything except what we already have: life itself.

When you are rebuilding your life, remember to push forward no matter what. Accept where you are, take responsibility for your actions, and don't let your past decisions keep you from moving forward. Keep yourself focused on your goals, write them down, reflect back, but don't lose sight of where you are going. Avoid gossip, learn to love yourself, work to uncover your character defects, and keep a positive mental attitude. Learn to have discernment when letting people into your life. If anyone keeps you from becoming the best you, then you need to realize that they are not healthy for you in your life. Surround yourself with people, places, and things that are going to help you get better, not drag you down. The people in your life will ultimately affect the direction of your life. Put your trust in God so he can open the doors that you have been closing. Remember that without faith, with your own will, you will never become the person who God has always intended you to be! I can tell you from personal experience that without God, you will never have peace, and without faith, life is unmanageable. There is a better life waiting for you, I encourage you to find it!

Why are you here? Where am I? You have come to this place… to lie in the ground? The derision in the question was clear. I have come to this place to find peace. And what is peace? Laughter in the recesses of his mind. This is peace. Perhaps it is. I don’t know. A pause. Talking to yourself, eh? There is no one else around. That is the beginning of wisdom. And what of it? Who are you? I am Peter. What are you? I… I am that which says I. Clever. Sometimes. He sparked a cigarette, nicotine bringing a touch of stability to his otherwise entirely too excited cognitions. What is I? I am. That is all? I don’t know. Where is I? Where am I? I am between this and that. This is again wisdom. He laughed aloud now, pulling deeply on his smoke, exhaling through clenched teeth. I am space. Of a sort. I am a character in a story. Sometimes. Nothing more? A page of your life turns. Do you see it? Sometimes. The blank of the page, the openness of its margins, do you see? Yes. This is the void of your unfolding imagination. Indeed. Would you fill it with your own story? I am void. I am between. I am neither this nor that. I am an idea of a between. What story would you have? Whatever I can. I am nothing. That is enough? No. What would you be? A man. This is also wisdom.

In the chapter entitled “You Can’t Pray a Lie” in Twain’s beloved novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn has helped hide Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. But Huck thought he was committing a sin in helping a runaway slave. Huck had learned in Sunday school “that people that acts as I’d been acting … goes to everlasting fire.” So in an act of repentance in order to save his soul, Huck wrote a note to Miss Watson and told her where she could find her runaway slave. Now Huck was ready to pray his “sinner’s prayer” and “get saved.” I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world and the only he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see the paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.1 Huck Finn had been shaped by the Christianity he’d found in his Missouri Sunday school—a Christianity focused on heaven in the afterlife while preserving the status quo of the here and now. Huck thought that helping Jim escape from slavery was a sin, because that’s what he had been taught. He knew he couldn’t ask God to forgive him until he was ready to “repent” and betray Jim. Huck didn’t want to go to hell; he wanted to be saved. But Huck loved his friend more, so he was willing to go to hell in order to save his friend from slavery.

In Amsterdam, I took a room in a small hotel located in the Jordann District and after lunch in a café went for a walk in the western parts of the city. In Flaubert’s Alexandria, the exotic had collected around camels, Arabs peacefully fishing and guttural cries. Modern Amsterdam provided different but analogous examples: buildings with elongated pale-pink bricks stuck together with curiously white mortar, long rows of narrow apartment blocks from the early twentieth century, with large ground-floor windows, bicycles parked outside every house, street furniture displaying a certain demographic scruffiness, an absence of ostentatious buildings, straight streets interspersed with small parks…..In one street lines with uniform apartment buildings, I stopped by a red front door and felt an intense longing to spend the rest of my life there. Above me, on the second floor, I could see an apartment with three large windows and no curtains. The walls were painted white and decorated with a single large painting covered with small blue and red dots. There was an oaken desk against a wall, a large bookshelf and an armchair. I wanted the life that this space implied. I wanted a bicycle; I wanted to put my key in that red front door every evening. Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? Why fall in love with a place because it has trams and its people seldom have curtains in their homes? However absurd the intense reactions provoked by such small (and mute) foreign elements my seem, the pattern is at least familiar from our personal lives. My love for the apartment building was based on what I perceived to be its modesty. The building was comfortable but not grand. It suggested a society attracted to the financial mean. There was an honesty in its design. Whereas front doorways in London are prone to ape the look of classical temples, in Amsterdam they accept their status, avoiding pillars and plaster in favor of neat, undecorated brick. The building was modern in the best sense, speaking of order, cleanliness, and light. In the more fugitive, trivial associations of the word exotic, the charm of a foreign place arises from the simple idea of novelty and change-from finding camels where at home there are horses, for example, or unadorned apartment buildings where at home there are pillared ones. But there may be a more profound pleasure as well: we may value foreign elements not only because they are new but because they seem to accord more faithfully with our identity and commitments than anything our homeland can provide. And so it was with my enthusiasms in Amsterdam, which were connected to my dissatisfactions with my own country, including its lack of modernity and aesthetic simplicity, its resistance to urban life and its net-curtained mentality. What we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home.

I saw… …Amar slumped onto his throne, refusing to look at the empty seat on his left. Gupta was at his side, his face pinched, skin sallow. “Go over every birth record, every horoscope until we find her again. I want--” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I need her back. I made a mistake.” “How will I know it’s her?” “The stars will not lie,” said Amar. “A girl partnered with Death, a marriage that puts her on the brink of destruction and peace, horror and happiness, dark and light. Find her.” “But even if you bring her back, how will she know--” “I have taken care of that,” he said sharply. In his hand was a small branch and a fledgling candle. “I have preserved every memory in the heart of Naraka.” “A fitting place,” said Gupta in a small voice, but he frowned. “But then what? Mortals cannot receive such divine information. It destroys them. Not even you can break those sacred boundaries.” “There is a way,” said Amar, breathing deeply. “I cannot tell them to a mortal. But if she becomes immortal…” “Ah…clever,” said Gupta. “The Otherworld may stop you from divulging those secrets, but a mortal that does not pass through the halls of the dead would eventually be deathless.” Amar nodded. “Sixty turns of the moon. A handful of weeks in our halls. And then I can reveal the memories of her past life. Her powers will be restored. She will be a queen once more. But until then, she needs protection. Nritti will no doubt try to find her. She knows she has gone missing. She can feel it, and it fuels her destructiveness. Nritti can never know where she is. Or who she was.

This section of our study is a most solemn one. So many disciples in name have ceased to be taught of Jesus, and we are all in such perpetual danger of slipping out of the real circle of discipleship, that we ought to ask ourselves the questions suggested by these three points on the subject of advancement. These questions should be asked regularly and always in the hour of loneliness with the Master. I. Am I in right relationship with the Teacher today? Do I still live at the Cross and know the power of its cleansing moment by moment, and so am I walking in the light, without which all the words of Jesus are dark sayings, and His testings crosses, burdens out of which I can only gather reasons for murmuring? II. If I am not in this place of maintained fellowship, where did I depart therefrom? What word of His have I disobeyed? To that point let me return, whether it be but an hour ago, or years, and there let me absolutely surrender, at whatever cost, and do what He requires, however small, or however irksome it appears to be. III. Am I content to wait when His voice does not speak—and I cannot find the reason in myself—until He has accomplished His present purpose in me, even though I understand it not just now? With matchless patience and pity, and tender love beyond all attempts at explanation, this Teacher waits, and stoops, and woos us, and ever for our highest good and deepest peace. Let us then, by consecrated watching, maintain the attitude of advancement, and so, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, as we are able to bear, He will lead us on, until we come to the perfect light and life and love of God.

Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he’d used on our first date when he’d kept me from biting the dust. “No, c’mon,” he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, “What’s wrong?” What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it’s just that I’ve been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother’s wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn’t anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he’s at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn’t want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you’re playing out in Marlboro Man’s kitchen right now?) and I’m finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love. “I ran over my dog today!” I blubbered and collapsed into another heap of impossible-to-corral tears. Marlboro Man was embracing me tightly now, knowing full well that his arms were the only offering he had for me at that moment. My face was buried in his neck and I continued to laugh, belting out an occasional “I’m sorry” between my sobs, hoping in vain that the laughter would eventually prevail. I wanted to continue, to tell him about J, to give him the complete story behind my unexpected outburst. But “I ran over my dog” was all I could muster. It was the easiest thing to explain. Marlboro Man could understand that, wrap his brain around it. But the uninvited surfer newly-ex-boyfriend dangling at the airport? It was a little more information than I had the strength to share that night. He continued holding me in his kitchen until my chest stopped heaving and the wellspring of snot began to dry. I opened my eyes and found I was in a different country altogether, The Land of His Embrace. It was a peaceful, restful, safe place. Marlboro Man gave me one last comforting hug before our bodies finally separated, and he casually leaned against the counter. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, “I’ve run over so many damn dogs out here, I can’t even begin to count them.” It was a much-needed--if unlikely--moment of perspective for me.

One letter was addressed to me personally in large, shaky handwriting with little circles over the i's instead of dots. [...] It was from Sid. Dear Debbie [Nancy's mother], Thank you for phoning me the other night. It was so comforting to hear your voice. You are the only person who really understands how much Nancy and I love each other. Every day without Nancy gets worse and worse. I just hope that when I die I go the same place as her. Otherwise I will never find peace. Frank [Nancy's father] said in the paper that Nancy was born in pain and lived in pain all her life. When I first met her, and for about six months after that, I spent practically the whole time in tears. Her pain was just too much to bear. Because, you see, I felt Nancy's pain as though it were my own, worse even. But she said that I must be strong for her or otherwise she would have to leave me. So I became strong for her, and she began to stop having asthma attacks and seemed to be going through a lot less pain. [Nancy had had asthma since she was a child.] I realized that she had never known love and was desperately searching for someone to love her. It was the only thing she really needed. I gave her the love that she needed so badly and it comforts me to know that I made her very happy during the time we were together, where she had only known unhappiness before. Oh Debbie, I love her with such passion. Every day is agony without her. I know now that it is possible to die from a broken heart. Because when you love someone as much as we love each other, they become fundamental to your existence. So I will die soon, even if I don't kill myself. I guess you could say that I'm pining for her. I could live without food or .water longer than I'm going to survive without Nancy. Thank you so much for understanding us, Debbie. It means so much to me, and I know it meant a lot to Nancy. She really loves you, and so do I. How did she know when she was going to die? I always prayed that she was wrong, but deep inside I knew she was right. Nancy was a very special person, too beautiful for this world. I feel so privileged to have loved her and been loved by her. Oh Debbie, it was such a beautiful love. I can't go on without it. When we first met, we knew we were made for each other, and fell in love with each other immediately. We were totally inseparable and were never apart. We had certain telepathic abilities, too. I remember about nine months after we met, I left Nancy for a while. After a couple of weeks of being apart, I had a strange feeling that Nancy was dying. I went straight to the place she was staying and when I saw her, I knew it was true. I took her home with me and nursed her back to health, but I knew that if I hadn't bothered she would have died. Nancy was just a poor baby, desperate for love. It made me so happy to give her love, and believe me, no man ever loved a woman with such burning passion as I love Nancy. I never even looked at others. No one was as beautiful as my Nancy. Enclosed is a poem I wrote for her. It kind of sums up how much I love her. If possible, I would love to see you before I die. You are the only one who understood. Love, Sid XXX.

The Raisin meditation2 Set aside five to ten minutes when you can be alone, in a place, and at a time, when you will not be disturbed by the phone, family or friends. Switch off your cell phone, so it doesn’t play on your mind. You will need a few raisins (or other dried fruit or small nuts). You’ll also need a piece of paper and a pen to record your reactions afterward. Your task will be to eat the fruit or nuts in a mindful way, much as you ate the chocolate earlier (see p. 55). Read the instructions below to get an idea of what’s required, and only reread them if you really need to. The spirit in which you do the meditation is more important than covering every instruction in minute detail. You should spend about twenty to thirty seconds on each of the following eight stages: 1. Holding Take one of the raisins (or your choice of dried fruit or nuts) and hold it in the palm of your hand, or between your fingers and thumb. Focusing on it, approach it as if you have never seen anything like it before. Can you feel the weight of it in your hand? Is it casting a shadow on your palm? 2. Seeing Take the time really to see the raisin. Imagine you have never seen one before. Look at it with great care and full attention. Let your eyes explore every part of it. Examine the highlights where the light shines; the darker hollows, the folds and ridges. 3. Touching Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring its texture. How does it feel between the forefinger and thumb of the other hand? 4. Smelling Now, holding it beneath your nose, see what you notice with each in-breath. Does it have a scent? Let it fill your awareness. And if there is no scent, or very little, notice this as well. 5. Placing Slowly take the object to your mouth and notice how your hand and arm know exactly where to put it. And then gently place it in your mouth, noticing what the tongue does to “receive” it. Without chewing, simply explore the sensations of having it on your tongue. Gradually begin to explore the object with your tongue, continuing for thirty seconds or more if you choose. 6. Chewing When you’re ready, consciously take a bite into the raisin and notice the effects on the object, and in your mouth. Notice any tastes that it releases. Feel the texture as your teeth bite into it. Continue slowly chewing it, but do not swallow it just yet. Notice what is happening in the mouth. 7. Swallowing See if you can detect the first intention to swallow as it arises in your mind, experiencing it with full awareness before you actually swallow. Notice what the tongue does to prepare it for swallowing. See if you can follow the sensations of swallowing the raisin. If you can, consciously sense it as it moves down into your stomach. And if you don’t swallow it all at one time, consciously notice a second or even a third swallow, until it has all gone. Notice what the tongue does after you have swallowed. 8. Aftereffects Finally, spend a few moments registering the aftermath of this eating. Is there an aftertaste? What does the absence of the raisin feel like? Is there an automatic tendency to look for another? Now take a moment to write down anything that you noticed when you were doing the practice. Here’s what some people who’ve attended our courses said: “The smell for me was amazing; I’d never noticed that before.” “I felt pretty stupid, like I was in art school or something.” “I thought how ugly they looked … small and wrinkled, but the taste was very different from what I would normally have thought it tasted like. It was quite nice actually.” “I tasted this one raisin more than the twenty or so I usually stuff into my mouth without thinking.

She says, enough, enough, just enough. It's too much already, I've never-- thank God-- had a problem with any of my children, but now all of a sudden it's like you are three different people and I don't ever know which one I'm going to get. It's exhausting, you hear me, you are exhausting me. Can we not just have some real, genuine peace in this house? Between you and your father everyone here is always walking around like someone has died or is about to die. Or people are shouting or sulking or whatever it is you men do. You see my hair. You people are making me old! For once can someone not fucking shout at me for something, I say, I can't wait until I'm out of this stupid fucking place and no one can yell at me. My mother's mouth falls open and her eyes lock on my face. She has heard me swear before. on the phone when joking with some friends but never have I said any such thing to either one of my parents. Never. I have always assumed that such an event would result in my being beaten within an inch of my unborn grandchild's life, but she just stands there like a malfunctioning robot. Is anyone keeping you here, she says finally. If you are unhappy, please go. Go and find the place where you feel happy. I'm sorry, I say, but it's too late. I've fucked up. The less I've said the better things have been, the less likely my father has seemed ready to pounce on me for the smallest mistake. If she tells him what has happened, this might be the end. I'm really sorry. My hands smell of cucumber as I wipe my nose. She tosses the vegetable peeler in her hand to the counter between us. Its protected blades glint in the sunlight streaming through the large bay windows. Do what you like, she says. Mommy, wait please, I say. Get out of here, I don't want to talk to you. Not like this, in my house, my mother says. Her voice is flat and hard, her eyes fixed directly to mine. Ypu should go and find whatever it is you want to find. Me, sef, I'm tired, I'm going upstairs, she says. I listen to her reach the top stair, enter her bedroom, and shut the door. It's just me now.

She says, enough, enough, just enough. It's too much already, I've never-- thank God-- had a problem with any of my children, but now all of a sudden it's like you are three different people and I don't ever know which one I'm going to get. It's exhausting, you hear me, you are exhausting me. Can we not just have some real, genuine peace in this house? Between you and your father everyone here is always walking around like someone has died or is about to die. Or people are shouting or sulking or whatever it is you men do. You see my hair. You people are making me old! For once can someone not fucking shout at me for something, I say, I can't wait until I'm out of this stupid fucking place and no one can yell at me. My mother's mouth falls open and her eyes lock on my face. She has heard me swear before, on the phone when joking with some friends but never have I said any such thing to either one of my parents. Never. I have always assumed that such an event would result in my being beaten within an inch of my unborn grandchild's life, but she just stands there like a malfunctioning robot. Is anyone keeping you here, she says finally. If you are unhappy, please go. Go and find the place where you feel happy. I'm sorry, I say, but it's too late. I've fucked up. The less I've said the better things have been, the less likely my father has seemed ready to pounce on me for the smallest mistake. If she tells him what has happened, this might be the end. I'm really sorry. My hands smell of cucumber as I wipe my nose. She tosses the vegetable peeler in her hand to the counter between us. Its protected blades glint in the sunlight streaming through the large bay windows. Do what you like, she says. Mommy, wait please, I say. Get out of here, I don't want to talk to you. Not like this, in my house, my mother says. Her voice is flat and hard, her eyes fixed directly to mine. Ypu should go and find whatever it is you want to find. Me, sef, I'm tired, I'm going upstairs, she says. I listen to her reach the top stair, enter her bedroom, and shut the door. It's just me now.

Kimbanguism is an extremely peace-loving religion, yet brimming with military allusions. Those symbols were not originally part of the religion, but were copied in the 1930s from the Salvation Army, a Christian denomination that, unlike theirs, was not banned at that time. The faithful believed that the S on the Christian soldiers’ uniform stood not for “Salvation” but for “Simon,” and became enamored of the army’s military liturgy. Today, green is still the color of Kimbanguism, and the hours of prayer are brightened up several times a day by military brass bands. Those bands, by the way, are truly impressive. It is a quiet Monday evening when I find myself on the square. While the martial music rolls on and on, played first by the brass section, then by flutes, the faithful shuffle forward to be blessed by the spiritual leader. In groups of four or five, they kneel before the throne. The spiritual leader himself is standing. He wears a gray, short-sleeved suit and gray socks. He is not wearing shoes. In his hand he holds a plastic bottle filled with holy water from the “Jordan,” a local stream. The believers kneel and let themselves be anointed by the Holy Spirit. Children open their mouths to catch a spurt of holy water. A young deaf man asks for water to be splashed on his ears. And old woman who can hardly see has her eyes sprinkled. The crippled display their aching ankles. Fathers come by with pieces of clothing belonging to their sick children. Mothers show pictures of their family, so the leader can brush them with his fingers. The line goes on and on. Nkamba has an average population of two to three thousand, plus a great many pilgrims and believers on retreat. People come from Kinshasa and Brazzaville, as well as from Brussels or London. Thousands of people come pouring in, each evening anew. For an outsider this may seem like a bizarre ceremony, but in essence it is no different from the long procession of believers who have been filing past a cave at Lourdes in the French Pyrenees for more than a century. There too, people come from far and near to a spot where tradition says unique events took place, there too people long for healing and for miracles, there too people place all their hope in a bottle of spring water. This is about mass devotion and that usually says more about the despair of the masses than about the mercy of the divine. After the ceremony, during a simple meal, I talk to an extremely dignified woman who once fled Congo as a refugee and has been working for years as a psychiatric nurse in Sweden. She loves Sweden, but she also loves her faith. If at all possible, she comes to Nkamba each year on retreat, especially now that she is having problems with her adolescent son. She has brought him along. “I always return to Sweden feeling renewed,” she says.

What's this?" I asked, putting her cup on the counter next to the plate. "Rocky Road Bars," she supplied with a shrug. "Is that some kind of message?" I asked, head dipped. "Message?" she asked, her brows drawing together and proving that it wasn't. "Never mind," I said, shaking my head, feeling a small wave of relief even if she was standing there wound like a clock for some untold reason. Maybe that was the reason that when she shrugged at me and went to reach for her coffee, I reached over the counter, snagged her chin in my thumb and forefinger and leaned in to lick a small bit of chocolate from beside her lips from where she had smudged it. Her entire body stiffened then trembled at the contact. It was all the encouragement I needed. So right there, a dozen eyes no doubt on us, I framed her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers. There was nothing sweet or chaste about it. I fucking devoured her mouth, my tongue moving to invade, drawing a quiet whimper from her as her hands slammed down on the counter. The sound was enough to remind me that I couldn't take it any further right then and there and better stop before either of us got too worked up. But as I pulled away and her eyes fluttered open and all I could see was a deep desire there, I knew she was a little bit more worked up than I intended. There were a couple chuckles and one brave soul let out a loud whistle as we pulled apart, making my smile tip up slightly, knowing I had just, whether I truly intended it or not, staked a claim. I let the whole town know that I was messing around with one of their favorite daughters. "I hate you right now," she said, her voice airy, her cheeks pink, her lips swollen. "No you don't," I countered, shaking my head. "You just hate that you can't climb over this counter and let me fuck you right here and now. Don't worry, you can have me all to yourself in just a couple of hours. If you can control yourself until then..." "Control myself," she hissed, both looking slightly outraged and equally amused. "I believe you were the one half-mauling me in public." "And I'm pretty sure it was your tongue moving over mine and your whimper I heard, right? Or was that Old Mildred. Hey, Milly..." I started to call, making Maddy's eyes bulge comically as she slammed her hand into my shoulder hard enough to send me back a foot. "Shut up!" she hissed, making me let out a chuckle. "Alright fine. You made your point," she said, shaking her head as she reached for her coffee. "What was my point, exactly?" I asked, curious. "You just like... marked your territory or whatever," she said, rolling her eyes at the very idea, but a small smile pulled at her lips. "So, what, you're mine now?" "Oh, I, well... I thought..." she fumbled, shaking her head at her lack of explanations. "Relax, sweetheart," I said, saving her from her misery. "Like I said last night, I'm in. You were the one who came in all anti-social this morning." "That had nothing to do with you," she informed me, looking almost pained. "Alice?" "My mom needs to find some friends to talk to about sex, Brant. I can't take it. I can't," she said, looking horrified. "I thought I was a cool, mature, experienced, metropolitan woman. But when your mom starts talking about blowjobs, it makes you really, really want to stick your fingers in your ears and scream 'I'm not hearing this, I'm not hearing this' until she shuts up." "Traumatized for life, huh?" "He's coming over tonight. Did I mention that part? He's coming to dinner and then, ah, staying the night. Because apparently it's... serious. Do they still sell earplugs at the pharmacy? I think I might actually die if I have to listen to them doing it.'' I laughed at that, finding myself charmed by her embarrassment. "Tell you what, why don't you come to my place for dinner.

Perhaps all Creation as we know it is an extraction from a totality, which I have chosen to call the ‘Source'. Three psychics have told me the same thing: ‘You’ve touched Source energy.’ Though I don’t know what that means, sometimes I do have an experience of traveling to a place in which everything I need for healing is in infinite supply. My mind moves into super-consciousness and a sense of higher intelligence, then past that into peace, and past that into Nothingness – a place of pure potential where all possibilities exist at the same time. The higher I go, the less I feel. The Source doesn’t do anything, it just is. The best way I can describe the Nothing that contains Everything is through the metaphor of white light. Physicists tell us it contains all other colors: when we see red or green or yellow, that’s a subtraction from white. Perhaps by touching the Source I can give my patients what they need to heal, because the Source offers an infinite number of simultaneous existences transcending time and space. Just as I speculate that Creation may be a subtraction from the perfection of Nothingness, I see disease as a subtraction from perfect health. I find that I am unconsciously drawn to physical need in others, and that somehow I’m able to offer a patient what he or she requires. Instead of time travel backward or forward perhaps I’m able to access some kind of universal energy, intelligence, awareness, or information beyond my perception. I can’t describe any of this more clearly – that’s why we have poets!

Cowboy's Dream [Verse] On this lonely road I walk alone Searching for a place to call my own In the silence I hear my heart's cry Chasing shadows in the fading sky [Verse 2] Stars above me guide my way Through the night into the day I'm a cowboy with a restless soul Dancing through life just to feel whole [Chorus] Dancing through life chasing the dream Holding on to hope as the world screams I can hear the whispers of the wind Telling me where I've been and where I'll begin [Bridge] Night turns to dawn and I'm still here Facing my doubts and facing my fears The road is long but my heart beats true With every step I find something new [Chorus] Dancing through life chasing the dream Holding on to hope as the world screams I can hear the whispers of the wind Telling me where I've been and where I'll begin [Outro] Under the stars I find my peace My soul at ease my worries cease A cowboy's dream to carry me through The lonely road brings me back to you

You are two minds, two hearts, two souls. But this day you begin a journey of one. Where it will lead, I cannot tell you. Only the Creator knows. But I can tell you this. On your journey, you will never be alone. In the cold, you will have another body for warmth. In times of uncertainty, you will have a hand to hold for comfort. In the dark, you will have the whisper of love to assure you that the light will return.” He took their hands and placed them between his own. “Go in peace, Grandchildren. May you find the way to bimaadiziwin, the good life. And know that the love of all the hearts here today goes with you.

•Let us keep Christmas beautiful Without a thought of greed, That it might live forevermore To fill our every need, That it shall not be just a day, But last a lifetime through, The miracle of Christmastime That brings God close to you. •May Christmas bring you happiness, A song to fill your heart With all the blessings large and small The season doth impart. ("My Christmas Wish") •May Christmas lend a special charm To all you chance to do. And may the season light your way To hopes and dreams anew. ("My Christmas Wish") •There's a beauty when it's Christmas, All the world is different then; There's no place for petty hatred In the hearts and minds of men. That is why my heart is happy And my mind can hold a dream, For I keep a part of Christmas With its peace and joy supreme- ("I Keep a Part of Christmas") •You will find the road to Christmas Where your hopes and dreams come true, And your heart will know the magic That the season brings to you., ("The Road to Christmas")

Richard Kay Richard Kay became friends with Diana, Princess of Wales, through his job as royal correspondent for London’s Daily Mail. After her separation in 1992, he used his knowledge to give a penetrating and unique insight into Diana’s troubled life, and they remained friends until the end. Richard is now diary editor or the Daily Mail and lives in London with his wife and three children. Over the years, I saw her at her happiest and in her darkest moments. There were moments of confusion and despair when I believed Diana was being driven by the incredible pressures made on her almost to the point of destruction. She talked of being strengthened by events, and anyone could see how the bride of twenty had grown into a mature woman, but I never found her strong. She was as unsure of herself at her death as when I first talked to her on that airplane, and she wanted reassurance about the role she was creating for herself. In private, she was a completely different person form the manicured clotheshorse that the public’s insatiable demand for icons had created. She was natural and witty and did a wonderful impression of the Queen. This was the person, she told me, that she would have been all the time if she hadn’t married into the world’s most famous family. What she hated most of all was being called “manipulative” and privately railed against those who used the word to describe her. “They don’t even know me,” she would say bitterly, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in Kensington Palace and pouring tea from a china pot. It was this blindness, as she saw it, to what she really was that led her seriously to consider living in another country where she hoped she would be understood. The idea first emerged in her mind about three years before her death. “I’ve got to find a place where I can have peace of mind,” she said to me. She considered France, because I was near enough to stay in close touch with William and Harry. She thought of America because she--naively, it must be said--saw it as a country so brimming over with glittery people and celebrities that she would be able to “disappear.” She also thought of South Africa, where her brother, Charles, made a home, and even Australia, because it was the farthest place she could think of from the seat of her unhappiness. But that would have separated her form her sons. Everyone said she would go anywhere, do anything, to have her picture taken, but in my view the truth was completely different. A good day for her was one where her picture was not taken and the paparazzi photographers did not pursue her and clamber over her car. “Why are they so obsessed with me?” she would ask me. I would try to explain, but I never felt she fully understood. Millions of women dreamed of changing places with her, but the Princess that I knew yearned for the ordinary humdrum routine of their lives. “They don’t know how lucky they are,” she would say. On Saturday, just before she was joined by Dodi Al Fayed for their last fateful dinner at the Ritz in Pairs, she told me how fed up she was being compared with Camilla. “It’s all so meaningless,” she said. She didn’t say--she never said--whether she thought Charles and Camilla should marry. Then, knowing that as a journalist I often work at weekends, she said to me, “Unplug your phone and get a good night’s sleep.

Tonight she'll be with Jeremy, her lieutenant, but she wants to be with Roger. Except that, really, she doesn't. Does she? She can't remember being so confused. When she is with Roger it's all love, but at any distance- any at all, Jack- she finds that he depresses and even frightens her. Why? On top of him in the wild nights riding up and down his cock her axis, trying herself to stay rigid enough not to turn to cream taper-wax and fall away melting to the coverlet coming there's only room for Roger, Roger, oh love to the end of breath. But out of bed, walking talking, his bitterness, his darkness, run deeper than the War, the winter: he hates England so, hates "the System," gripes endlessly, says he'll emigrate when the War's over, stays inside his paper cynic's cave hating himself... and does she want to bring him out, really? Isn't it safer with Jeremy? She tried not to allow this question to often, but it's there. Three years with Jeremy. They might as well be married. Three years ought to count for something. Daily, small stitches and easings. She's worn old Beaver's bathrobes, brewed his tea and coffee, sought his eye across lorry-parks, day rooms and rainy mud fields when all the day's mean, dismal losses could be rescued in the one look- familiar, full of trust, in a season where the word is invoked for quaintness or a minor laugh. And to rip it all out? three years? for this erratic, self-centered- boy, really. Weepers, he supposed to be pas thirty, he's years older than she. He ought to've learned something, surely? A man of experience? /// If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy IS the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made- that we are meant work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the sense and the second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day... Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane. Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she did not make... Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on- how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskins to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. /// Jessica steps away from Roger to blow her nose. The sound is as familiar to him as a bird's song, ip-ip-ip-ip NGUNNGG as the hankerchief comes away..."Oh sooper dooper," she says, "think I'm catching a cold." You're catching the War. It's infecting you and I don't know how to keep it away. Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me,,,,

Tonight she'll be with Jeremy, her lieutenant, but she wants to be with Roger. Except that, really, she doesn't. Does she? She can't remember being so confused. When she is with Roger it's all love, but at any distance- any at all, Jack- she finds that he depresses and even frightens her. Why? On top of him in the wild nights riding up and down his cock her axis, trying herself to stay rigid enough not to turn to cream taper-wax and fall away melting to the coverlet coming there's only room for Roger, Roger, oh love to the end of breath. But out of bed, walking talking, his bitterness, his darkness, run deeper than the War, the winter: he hates England so, hates "the System," gripes endlessly, says he'll emigrate when the War's over, stays inside his paper cynic's cave hating himself... and does she want to bring him out, really? Isn't it safer with Jeremy? She tried not to allow this question to often, but it's there. Three years with Jeremy. They might as well be married. Three years ought to count for something. Daily, small stitches and easings. She's worn old Beaver's bathrobes, brewed his tea and coffee, sought his eye across lorry-parks, day rooms and rainy mud fields when all the day's mean, dismal losses could be rescued in the one look- familiar, full of trust, in a season where the word is invoked for quaintness or a minor laugh. And to rip it all out? three years? for this erratic, self-centered- boy, really. Weepers, he supposed to be past thirty, he's years older than she. He ought to've learned something, surely? A man of experience? /// If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy IS the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made- that we are meant work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day... Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane. Jeremy will take her like the Angel itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized power-ritual that will be the coming peace. She will take her husband's orders, she will become a domestic bureaucrat, a junior partner, and remember Roger, if at all, as a mistake thank God she did not make... Oh, he feels a raving fit coming on- how the bloody hell can he survive without her? She is the British warm that protects his stooping shoulders, and the wintering sparrow he holds inside his hands. She is his deepest innocence in spaces of bough and hay before wishes were given a separate name to warn they might not come true, and his lithe Parisian daughter of joy, beneath the eternal mirror, forswearing perfumes, capeskins to the armpits, all that is too easy, for his impoverishment and more worthy love. /// Jessica steps away from Roger to blow her nose. The sound is as familiar to him as a bird's song, ip-ip-ip-ip NGUNNGG as the hankerchief comes away..."Oh sooper dooper," she says, "think I'm catching a cold." You're catching the War. It's infecting you and I don't know how to keep it away. Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me....

2012 Continuation of Andy’s Correspondence   Since I’m on the topic of Oneness, I had many heated debates on this subject with your ex-tutor, Alain Dubois. Unlike our material world, which is dependent on pairs of opposites, I believe that the place we originated from is devoid of dichotomies. In this other world, the concepts of up and down are void. The same applies to death and life. There is no north or south, no male or female, no right or wrong. In our current existence, we think in dichotomies and identify ourselves using opposites; we are opinionated about what we like, what tastes good, what feels good, and so on. These polar opposites express what we have liked and disliked among our experiences. Since we reside in a world of contrasts and contrast requires more than one element, the idea of Oneness is almost impossible to grasp. Therefore, we are constantly dwelling in a world of twoness. How then is it possible for humans to grasp the idea of oneness in the realm of nonbeing we occupied before we came into beingness? A fine example would be this: we don’t think of our fingers, legs, arms, toes, and eyes as separate entities from our person. Even though they have their unique qualities and character, we don’t refer to our fingers as being separate from ourselves. All these seemingly separate parts are a part of the whole, or oneness, we refer to as ‘self.’ We, the Source or God, were one before we manifested in this world. Therefore, the concept of Oneness means discarding all ideas of separation from anything and anyone. One of the ways we can simulate Oneness is through silence - where there are no names and no things. In the silence, we can feel our connection to everyone and everything: to the Tao, the Oneness that keeps universal order, where form is created from nothingness and vice versa. Young, take a moment to imagine that you are free of all labels, separation, and judgments about our world and the life inhabiting it; you’ll then begin to understand Oneness. The Source of being is an energy field where anger or resentment toward anyone or anything are obsolete, since everyone and everything is Spirit. You are this Spirit: the Source/the God. The meaning of life will be revealed to you by easing into the silence, and you can find it without having to leave your body through death. You will be able to return to the Oneness and Nothingness while in physical form. Peace and your life’s purpose will flow easily through you when you are close to your original nature. I’m sure you are already aware of this without me carrying on about the Oneness of Being. I’ll rest at this juncture and I look forward to your response. Yours truly, Andy

But what if I don’t believe in God? It’s like they’ve sat me in front of a mannequin and said, Fall in love with him. You can’t will feeling. What Jack says issues from some still, true place that could not be extinguished by all the schizophrenia his genetic code could muster. It sounds something like this: Get on your knees and find some quiet space inside yourself, a little sunshine right about here. Jack holds his hands in a ball about midchest, saying, Let go. Surrender, Dorothy, the witch wrote in the sky. Surrender, Mary. I want to surrender but have no idea what that means. He goes on with a level gaze and a steady tone: Yield up what scares you. Yield up what makes you want to scream and cry. Enter into that quiet. It’s a cathedral. It’s an empty football stadium with all the lights on. And pray to be an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is conflict, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope… What if I get no answer there? If god hasn’t spoken, do nothing. Fulfill the contract you entered into at the box factory, amen. Make the containers you promised to tape and staple. Go quietly and shine. Wait. Those not impelled to act must remain in the cathedral. Don’t be lonely. I get so lonely sometimes, I could put a box on my head and mail myself to a stranger. But I have to go to a meeting and make the chairs circle perfect. He kisses his index finger and plants it in the middle of my forehead, and I swear it burns like it had eucalyptus on it. Like a coal from the archangel onto the mouth of Isaiah.

TRUTH -“Truth is unbelievable- it cannot be believed it must factual and be known. To believe is to accept without proof, but to know is to have proven knowledge and that is the truth.” -“Not everyone is equipped to handle the truth. Of what benefit it is to tell someone the truth, if he/she is not ready to accept it…. only causes pain.” -“Truth is a two edged sword. If you are matured or can handle it, truth is liberating. However if you are not matured or is not ready to handle it, Truth can be a source of hurt and pain.” - Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims -“Having a conversation with someone who is not ready for the truth, serves only to encourage him or her to be defensive”. Malcolm-Jamal Warner -“The scripture declares that it is unwise to have a conversation with a fool. It also say; “Try all spirits…..“ -“No one person has knowledge or knows the truth about everything. Truth is relative to most, for some, their truth is relevant for them to have others believe, in order to gain control.” -“The clearest path I have found to the truth is: to have an open mind to all people and on all subjects. to develop a thirst for knowledge. to be willing to go wherever the truth leads or calls.” -“In pursuit of the truth, many will encounter difficulties finding it. Simply because: People often use their obligations as excuses or obstacles which prevents them from going where truth leads them. 2) People usually feel the need to be validated by others -what others may think or say.” - Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims WISDOM -“If you embrace the principle that man and his environment are one, and need each other, you will find the need to protect the environment and seek peace.” -“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.’’ Proverbs 4:7 -“As you seek wisdom and understanding (attain to wise counsel; place your trust in God and the higher powers that guides you; do not be wise in your own eyes) you will find peace with both God and man.” - Sekou Obadias – Author of “SOGANUTU” – A book of life’s Maxims

I won’t wax poetic about the land in a perfectionist sense: we work hard out here, and things constantly threaten the tiny equilibrium we’ve established in the market garden. Whatever peace we find is often hard won. But I stand firmly with Berry and Kingsolver and so many other writers who possess a deep need to step outside the city to find a place of calm. I don’t like the word “authentic”; at best, it’s divisive and antagonistic, implying one way of being is intrinsically better than another. But I do very much favour the notion of alignment. I’m convinced that at the heart of the matter lies a desire to draw what we do into alignment with how we live. Some of us aren’t in a place where we can live consistently on the land that holds our hearts, but come mishaps or miracles, we’re bound and determined to make that land as much a part of who we are as humanly possible.

Resting in Him MY PRESENCE WILL GO WITH YOU, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. Sometimes when you are quite weary, all you can think about is finding rest. As a result, your awareness of My Presence grows dim. I assure you, though, that even when your attention falters, Mine remains steadfast. Rejoice that the One who always takes care of you has an infinite attention span! Even the most devoted parents cannot be constantly attentive to their children: They have to sleep some of the time. Also, they can be distracted by other demands on their attention. Many deeply loved children have drowned when their devoted parents took their eyes off them ever so briefly. Only I have the capability of watching over My beloved children continually—without the least interruption. Instead of worrying about where and when you will find rest, remember that I have promised to provide it for you. Worrying wastes vast quantities of energy—the very thing you need most to help you reach a resting place. If you were driving a car with little gas in the tank and the nearest service station was far away, you would drive carefully and steadily—so as to minimize gas consumption. Similarly, when you are low on energy you need to minimize consumption of this precious commodity. Go gently and steadily through your day, looking to Me for help. Rest in the knowledge that My watch-care over you is perfect. Thus, you make the most of your limited energy. Whenever you are struggling with weariness, come to Me and I will give you rest. See also Exodus 33:14; Psalm 121:2, 3; Matthew 11:28 (From Jesus Lives by Sarah Young)

DECEMBER 1 You have one place of hope, security, and rest. It is found in these words: “God is love.” It is something every human being does. It separates us from the rest of creation. It causes us much anxiety and much joy. It shapes the decisions and investments that we make. It calms our fears or leaves us scared and feeling alone. It turns all of us into theologians and philosophers. Where we land in this pursuit shapes the way we look at life and interpret the things that happen to us. It proves that we don’t live by instinct or by impersonal determinative forces. It exposes the fact that we are deeply spiritual beings. It is one of our most foundational quests. As different as we are one from another, in this way we are all the same. We all are looking for something in which to place our hope. We’re all in search of security. I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but there are only two places to look for hope. You can search for it horizontally, thinking that something in creation will give you the security, peace, and inner sense of well-being that you seek, or you can seek it vertically, entrusting your life into the loving hands of your Creator. People put their hope in the creation all the time. They seek satisfaction of heart in the love of other human beings or in the success of their careers. They think their hearts will be satisfied by a certain set of achievements or by a certain catalog of possessions. But none of these things has the power to satisfy your heart. They are all meant to point you to the one place where you heart will find secure rest. You and I need to face this reality—creation will never be our savior! So where is hope to be found, hope that will never disappoint or shame you? It really is found in three of the most glorious words ever penned in human language. These words have the power to transform you and everything about you. These words can end your frantic search and give your weary heart rest. These words describe the One who alone is capable of carrying your hope: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Because he is love and because he has placed his love on you, you have security and hope even in those scary moments when it feels as if you have neither. The One who is love sent his Son of love to be a sacrifice of love so you and I could be rescued by his love and rest in that love forever and ever. For further study and encouragement: 1 John 1:1–4

I am firmly of the view that this societal fixation on forgiving others is just another way that we bypass our own rightful anger, confusion, sense of loss. It is also a way that victims end up feeling blamed for their experience. I do agree that we can’t forgive another until we self-honor, and that forgiveness is welcome if it's organic, but I also believe that forgiveness may have no place in certain dynamics. And that’s entirely okay. Forgiveness is not a measure of our emotional health and well-being. Resolution is. That is, how we come to a relatively resolved understanding of what we went through, how we come to terms with what it was, in a way that brings us to a deeper understanding and peace…Resolution of process, is where it’s at. And there is no reason to feel guilty if forgiveness does not arise within it. It’s enough to find peace in the aftermath.

The Force isn't something I consume and burn up. It's so much more than just power. It's life. It's connection. It's--it's this." Obi-Wan gestured around the clearing. "It's trying to find the balance, that place between life and death where peace can exist. Being a small part of a great whole.

The Weight" I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead I just need some place where I can lay my head "Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?" He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said Take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me (You put the load right on me) I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on let's go downtown." She said, "I gotta go but my friend can stick around." Take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me (You put the load right on me) Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say It's just old Luke and Luke's waitin' on the Judgment Day "Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?" He said, "Do me a favor, son, won't you stay and keep Anna Lee company?" Take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me (You put the load right on me) Crazy Chester followed me and he caught me in the fog He said, "I will fix your rack if you take Jack, my dog." I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man." He said, "That's OK, boy, won't you feed him when you can?" Yeah, take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me (You put the load right on me) Catch a cannon ball now to take me down the line My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one Who sent me here with her regards for everyone Take a load off Fanny Take a load for free Take a load off Fanny And (and, and) you put the load right on me (You put the load right on me) The Band, Big Pink (1968)

Let Let us go somewhere far, Let us be there where there is no war, Let us seek what peace seeks from all, Let us be there, if we try, there we can be afterall, Let us give life a chance, Let us allow innocent hearts to feel their moments of romance, Let us be there where you can be you and I can be who I am, Let us not worry about who he/she is, but only focus on who we are and who I am, Let us go there where seasons end and reappear in their cyclic recurrences, Let us collect their beautiful impressions, their essences and their fragrances, Let us follow no guiding star, but just our inner guidance, Let us only follow our heart’s native radiance, Let us believe in ourselves with firmness, Let us believe that before seeking anything outside us we should seek it within us, that true feeling of happiness, Let us harvest feelings true under this sky blue, Let you be you, let me be who I am, but always be true, Let us fill all emotional voids with moments of genuine adulations, Let us indulge in these acts and end all our tribulations, Let us wait for nothing, because time waits for nobody, Let us try, and I am sure we shall succeed if we truly love somebody, Let us let the sun set, because only then the moon will rise, Let us for someone’s sake stand and witness our own rise, Let us not flee when we should be participating in life’s dealings, Let us believe and we shall witness divine joys and healings, Let us give before we can take, Let us take only what we can recreate or make, Let us not fear repudiation of any sort, Let us know we shall always be the masters of the thing called “the last resort!” Let us not believe in aspersions because they might hurt someone, Let us before dying, love that special someone, Let us only deal with evinced hearts, for they know how heart breaks feel, Let us, before we deal with others, with our own hearts’ deal, Let me find this place for you and me, Let me lead you there, and let us forever then there be, Let me love you in the lap of time in that region, Let your feelings and you, then be my heart’s only succession, Let us then watch the setting sun and the rising moon, Let me then disappear in the horizon of your beauty before the sunset and before the rising moon, Let it be so then forever, Let love and time seek us then Irma, in this landscape called “your and my everywhere!

The rocks are a little gauche, but they are sympathetic. They crowd attentively around me, heads cocked to listen. There’s a gentleness to this place, a sense of peace. I brought nothing but doubt and cynicism and faithlessness here, but I found something that I didn’t expect. The stones gave out grace in return for my doubt. They had no answers, and certainly no age-old wisdom that could infuse into me like medicine. As I sit, I find they offer an exchange of gifts, a place where I can bring my troubled self and turn its turmoil into an offering that will pattern the stones, wear them smooth, start to charge them with the life they have yet to fully attain. Stone remembers just like clay, but it is we, the humans, who often split at the seams.

I’ve come to a place where I embrace everything that happens to me. I’ve been practicing being thankful for whatever comes my way for so long that I have confidence that this experience will have meaning in my life too. It took me a bit of work to get here, but it sure makes things more fun and less frightening.” He just nodded and smiled and started the machine. That’s what I’m talking about when I mention peace of mind. Yes, I was worried, but I knew that I had the tools to handle the next thing that came, and to make something meaningful out of it. I knew I could find a place of contentment anywhere.

The twanging of life Thirteenth part : The essence of the beauty is unity in variety We are only able to contempt and treat people in a bad way, when we forget that the other person belongs to us and to the society as well as we too, when we only forget that in the form of doing the action, there is a strong relationship between the subject and the object so avarice, violence, egoism, sadness and looking at others as pawns of market's chess to get money arise from losing their unity, from forgetting their spirit of cooperation and collaboration and then starting perceiving others in terms of their individual differences. A humanitarian action that isn't intended to be done can make a huge storm of humanity, a single word can give people the feeling of unity, just like every time when a person passes by you and you say for him "السلام عليكم" both of you start to feel like there is a candle within both of you turning into clemency, the more love, the more mercy and the more salaam you show on your face the more light is reflected form that candle, you should start thinking that, greeting the people is proclamations of peace, every time you say "السلام عليكم" to a stranger your heart admits over and over again that we are all united, what I am trying to say is, in your heart's deepest place where the onus of your ego are fallen to pieces and the enigma of your soul is infiltrated, you find the awareness isn't different in any way from what all others may find, the mutuality of Sudanese people is appeared as the sun in the morning but only when our own humanness is surpassed our own dishumanness by accepting that we are all one in the fact that we are all made of diversified differences. We are all equal in the fact that our own society is made by different tribes, we are all the same in the fact that we will never have the same colour, life, thinking, dreams, feelings and luxury, we are united by the reality that Sudan is able to combine all colours, all cultures, all tribes and all of us in the fact that every one believes his tribe and culture are distinguished and individual, we are compatible in the reality that we are all recaptured to this country by the same history, the same conditions of living and the longest river in the world that all of them together give us a light to shine the darkness that covers the sky to allow for us to walk as one hand in the right direction, we don't share the colours but we share the blood, we aren't equal in existence of happiness but we drink River Nile's water that keeps us alive, we are different in existence of tribes but we share the same air that is blended by our breath, so I am you as much as I am me and you are me as much as I am you. Finally swingeing internal ructions and overmuch narcissism of a society devastate the tissue of its unity, not the differences of that society, Lord Robin said that unity begins at home within family is the strength to survive and win the fight of life.

So I start whispering my tale of marital woe to Jack, who sits in the hunched posture of somebody tensing against a blow. Occasionally, he’ll tug a red curl over the crease in his forehead. Eventually, I wind down and ask, what should I do? And I wait for the word salad of his scrambled cortex to spew forth. Instead, his eyes meet mine evenly, and he says—as it seems everybody says—You should pray about it. But what if I don’t believe in God? It’s like they’ve sat me in front of a mannequin and said, Fall in love with him. You can’t will feeling. What Jack says issues from some still, true place that could not be extinguished by all the schizophrenia his genetic code could muster. It sounds something like this: Get on your knees and find some quiet space inside yourself, a little sunshine right about here. Jack holds his hands in a ball shape about midchest, saying, Let go. Surrender, Dorothy, the witch wrote in the sky. Surrender, Mary. I want to surrender but have no idea what that means. He goes on with a level gaze and a steady tone: Yield up what scares you. Yield up what makes you want to scream and cry. Enter into that quiet. It’s a cathedral. It’s an empty football stadium with all the lights on. And pray to be an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is conflict, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope… What if I get no answer there? If God hasn’t spoken, do nothing. Fulfill the contract you entered into at the box factory, amen. Make the containers you promised to tape and staple. Go quietly and shine. Wait. Those not impelled to act must remain in the cathedral. Don’t be lonely. I get so lonely sometimes, I could put a box on my head and mail myself to a stranger. But I have to go to a meeting and make the chairs circle perfect. He kisses his index finger and plants it in the middle of my forehead, and I swear it burns like it had eucalyptus on it. Like a coal from the archangel onto the mouth of Moses.

Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters 1 To breed an animal with the prerogative to promise – is that not pre- cisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind? is it not the real problem of humankind? . . . The fact that this problem has been solved to a large degree must seem all the more sur- prising to the person who can fully appreciate the opposing force, forget- fulness. Forgetfulness is not just a vis inertiae, as superficial people believe, but is rather an active ability to suppress, positive in the strongest sense of the word, to which we owe the fact that what we simply live through, experience, take in, no more enters our consciousness during digestion (one could call it spiritual ingestion) than does the thousand-fold process which takes place with our physical consumption of food, our so-called ingestion. To shut the doors and windows of consciousness for a while; not to be bothered by the noise and battle with which our underworld of serviceable organs work with and against each other; a little peace, a little tabula rasa of consciousness to make room for something new, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for ruling, predicting, pre- determining (our organism runs along oligarchic lines, you see) – that, as I said, is the benefit of active forgetfulness, like a doorkeeper or guardian of mental order, rest and etiquette: from which we can immediately see how there could be no happiness, cheerfulness, hope, pride, immediacy, without forgetfulness. The person in whom this apparatus of suppression is damaged, so that it stops working, can be compared (and not just com- pared –) to a dyspeptic; he cannot ‘cope’ with anything . . . And precisely 35 On the Genealogy of Morality this necessarily forgetful animal, in whom forgetting is a strength, repre- senting a form of robust health, has bred for himself a counter-device, memory, with the help of which forgetfulness can be suspended in certain cases, – namely in those cases where a promise is to be made: conse- quently, it is by no means merely a passive inability to be rid of an impres- sion once it has made its impact, nor is it just indigestion caused by giving your word on some occasion and finding you cannot cope, instead it is an active desire not to let go, a desire to keep on desiring what has been, on some occasion, desired, really it is the will’s memory: so that a world of strange new things, circumstances and even acts of will may be placed quite safely in between the original ‘I will’, ‘I shall do’ and the actual dis- charge of the will, its act, without breaking this long chain of the will. But what a lot of preconditions there are for this! In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first have learnt to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design, to think causally, to view the future as the present and anticipate it, to grasp with certainty what is end and what is means, in all, to be able to calculate, compute – and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, necessary, even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!

In the fringes of our yard, daffodils await their triumphant chorus. The golden bells have just opened on our forsythia, and clusters of hyacinth flowers await flourish in purple blooms. By aesthetic standards, any of these blossoms would have outshone the fistful of yellow spikes my little boy offered. In the coming months, dozens of its cousins, cast away as weeds, will meet an untimely end beneath the blades of a lawnmower. Their brazen head will be lopped off, their awkward petals demolished and scattered. They will be declared a nuisance, expendable. Yet when gripped within Pip's fingers, how perfect, how precious became this paltry bloom. He had put aside the torrent of irritability and overwhelm that trouble him hourly, and found grace in a spiral of petals. Through a humble weed, love had broken through. God works this way. He does great things with the meager, and beautiful things with the misshapen. He chooses the smallest, the humblest, the most broken as his servants. (1 Sam 16:10-12, Numbers 12:3, 1 Tim 1:15) He works for good through the greatest calamity. (Gen 50:20) With his most beloved broken and crushed, he reaches through the firmament, and in love makes things new. (Rev 21:5) Where we see weakness, he offers grace. (2 Cor 12:9) He shatters pride, so new blossoms can burst forth. I've spent the past few months wrestling with God. After Pip's evaluation, as we clumsily felt out life with special needs, the questions of why wrapped around my heart, infusing me with daily bitterness. Resentment broiled to the surface. I'd left medicine to follow God's call, but a large part of me, in shocking arrogance, wanted to comply on my terms. Over the past two years, God has compelled me to confront my idols. I thrived on productivity. But now I inevitably find grime in corners I have just cleaned. I prized efficiency. But it now takes 30 minutes of wrangling over potty... I'm an introvert, who needs alone time to rejuvenate. But is anyone less alone than a mom with young kids? A "save the world" mentality drives me. But my daily life fodder is now the mundane. I relish instant gratification. But this business of shepherding hearts is long, with few immediate rewards. I relished accolades... I consider God's graciousness to us, and in the stillness of a springtime morning, I struggle for breath. His mercy toward us in this season -- in the face of my arrogance, despite the brokenness to which I've so stalwartly clung -- is stunning. During all the years of my training and career, homeschooling was never the plan. God inexplicably placed the idea in my heart, like a shadow that deepened daily. But now, I see how perfect were his methods. I shudder to think of how our family would struggle if I was still barreling ahead at the hospital, subsumed with my own self importance, while Pip fought daily to deal with every crowd... Homeschooling was never the plan. . . but oh, what a plan! That he called us this way, was mercy manifest. That he has equipped us to continue, is the greatest gift. Even on the hard days, I count it all joy. On the days when Pip, after a week of handling things so well, has a meltdown in the grocery store, complete with screaming and a blow to my chin -- there is joy there. God can work even with our ugliness. Through Christ, God redeems even the most corrupt. He assembles the stray petals, the unseemly stems, and makes things new. He strips away the idolatry of a surgeon desperate to prove her own worth, and points her toward the fount of all worth -- Christ Jesus. There is a deep well of peace in serving God where he has placed you. There is a refining grace, in realizing his work even in the hard moments. There is a profound beauty in redemption -- in the love that breaks forth through brokenness -- if we can only put away our preoccupations, and embrace his will. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." -- 2 Cor 12:9

Valley of the Damned. Valkyrie Kari tells of the great warrior Crazy Horse (abridged) ’Twas written of those of long ago, That honor should be “as long as grass shall grow.” In battle honor is a fearsome beast, none can contain, In the strength of heart, it brings only shame. A mighty warrior of the plains was he, Crazy Horse of Sioux battle creed. Given to the ravages of noble, savage war, Against his enemies, he vaulted fore. Peering down from lofty mountain hold, The Horse in dream; the warrior was of olde. The promises they were broken one by one, Until only war unbridled could be hardtily done. Understanding and honor was not for those weak, Only the evil Long-knives now he eagerly did seek. The Knives came to steal, to plunder their land, To kill sacred mother with marauding, guilty hands. They had no regard for their own swelling words, With lust in their eyes, their greed greatly stirred. From southern lands came noise that Longhair did kill, Black Kettle’s camp, their blood he had spilled. Longhair destroyed all; dastard agent of evil strife, Deprived them of children and their bountiful life. Yet this lone, brave holy man stood in Longhair’s way, Crazy Horse, vision man, his plans were well framed. His command rode north hard to that destined battle, To meet wicked Longhair—to dash him from the saddle. Fate led him on to Little Bighorn, Where warriors of the sun met with sacred horn. A hellish dry place of calamitous battle, Found many a soul hearing death’s final rattle. The Long-snakes scouted for the great camp, That morn’ they set their fateful, forked-tongue attack. They raised their sabers, waved them strong, Entered eternity, their deaths foresaw. A sea of pilfered blue engulfed in crimson red, Amidst swirls of feathers sacred of the motherland. Through carnage, The Horse did lead his men, Beyond the battle, to the place where legend began. Up hill rode the bold Crazy Horse, With a thousand others to show determined force. To engage Long-knives at their last stand, Striking them down until dead was every man. Great Gall and Crazy Horse led that righteous attack, Against forceful Custer, whose plans did not lack, For ’twas he himself who boasted, wantonly said, “I will become a great chief, if my enemies I fill with lead.” With righteous honor as their sacred ally, Holy arrows that day swiftly let fly. Horse met Longhair in battle forever stayed, Defeated mighty Custer; his corpse on the field in state. Upon that fateful day, on sage choked sandy plain, Spirits clashed with spirits, for the sacred domain. Unconquerable, indomitable this sacred warrior heart, Leads many against the evil now, for this righteous court. Thus, Horse brought the valiants into stark raved battle, Battle scarred by holy wounds delivered by blue devils. Yet he would not relent, this honorable man of gifted vision, But peace came through the lie; his life ended by steel incision. Breathing his last, quiet honor came his way, “Bring my heart home, the Great Spirit will find my way.” Thus ˊtis with all whose understanding shows what may, Honor leads righteousness to death, ask they of that claim. War spirit vigilant with mighty spear and bow in hand, Leads Great Plains spirits, under his gallant command. His spirit never conquered lives it to this good day, Among the heroic mighty, let us his spirit proclaim. In the hour of travail, honor can be finely seen, Leading multitudes unto battle, their hearts boundlessly free. Cowards can never know the freedom of the plains and wind, Or how she musters a soul and the courage found within. Born in deep commune of Earth and Great Spirit above, Understanding and honor flow from hearts of great love. One without understanding is a fool at best, One without honor is a spirit that ne’er rests. O’ majestic One of the relentless plain, The mountains ring joyous with thy name.

A Community in Conversation Last week I went to the Chill Out and Proud festival to sell my books of poetry. It was not my first gay pride festival, but it was Somerset’s. There are a few observations that I had this particular day. My observations have very little to do with morality and more to do with wanting to live in a community that can communicate. My first observation was that my family and I were on high alert and felt a sense of fear for the first time in my life in the town of Somerset. It was not the people attending the festival that left us feeling uneasy, but rather the protestors. My second observation is that there were two groups of what would seem to be opposites, Christians and Neo Nazi white supremacists, standing side by side holding signs and yelling into an otherwise quiet and peaceful group of citizens. I understand everyone’s right to protest and be heard but the method of communicating our differences should be a checkpoint of self reflection. I had a calm conversation with one of the protesters who approached me. I asked him to consider that yelling at people might result in them putting their guards up, increasing the tension, and in turn, people yelling back. It’s a cyclical deterioration where no one hears or understands one another. Anger and fear are the brothers that are born of this kind of relationship. I would say the same to those who yell back at the protesters. We are going to be a community of diverse people who do not think the same or live the same lifestyle, but if we are going to live together peaceably, we need to find a better way to disagree. My last observation is that the protestor also asked me why I was there, did I have a family member who is gay? He stated, “You don’t just come to these things for no reason”. I replied, “Honestly, I did start going and taking my family to gay pride festivals just to be amongst other cultures. It’s good to get to know people who are different from yourself.” The world’s a big place and you may find that you have more in common with people than you think or, in this case, that you know more gay people than you think. I would like to say the same to you. Somerset is a lot more diverse than you think and we have a lot more in common than you think. The only way we will love our neighbor as ourselves is by getting to know our neighbors, even in the midst of our differences. Protesting often times takes a stance of offense; a form of violence that may not always be physical but is a form of violence all the same. Everyone has the right to be heard, but only if they are willing to really listen to others in an attempt to understand. As an atheist, I have never stood outside a church and disrupted their gathering, although I am willing to have a conversation about how my journey brought me here and how you have come to this point. For me to enter a gathering and protest is an offensive move that would cause the people involved to put up walls. It would not be welcomed and I would not do it. It would be a hindrance to us actually knowing and understanding each other. The only way to truly know someone is by being with them, by conversation. We will not agree. There are too many of us and if we agreed on every point of life then that would be another checkpoint for self reflection. I am just asking us to practice a certain amount of hospitality no matter your beliefs about each other, whether gay or straight; whether Christian, Agnostic, or Atheist; whether Democrat, Republican, or Democratic Socialist; whether you’re the protestor or the protested against; in person or on Facebook, let us contemplate mindful listening, empathy, patience, kindness, and the well-being of people who are different than yourself. Eric Overby Eric_o_84@hotmail.com

In an essay summarizing the results of this research, Baumeister captured what I am trying to convey about the purpose of life, the laws of nature, and the cosmos as it relates to finding meaning, particularly in the context of our search for immortality, the afterlife, and utopia: Meaning is a powerful tool in human life. To understand what that tool is used for, it helps to appreciate something else about life as a process of ongoing change. A living thing might always be in flux, but life cannot be at peace with endless change. Living things yearn for stability, seeking to establish harmonious relationships with their environment. They want to know how to get food, water, shelter and the like. They find or create places where they can rest and be safe … Life, in other words, is change accompanied by a constant striving to slow or stop the process of change, which leads ultimately to death. If only change could stop, especially at some perfect point: that was the theme of the profound story of Faust’s bet with the devil. Faust lost his soul because he could not resist the wish that a wonderful moment would last forever. Such dreams are futile. Life cannot stop changing until it ends.14 That a meaningful, purposeful life comes from struggle and challenge against the vicissitudes of nature more than it does a homeostatic balance of extropic pushback against entropy reinforces the point that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the First Law of Life. We must act in the world. The thermostat is always being adjusted, balance sought but never achieved. There is no Faustian bargain to be made in life. We may strive for immortality while never reaching it, as we may seek utopian bliss while never finding it, for it is the striving and the seeking that matter, not the attainment of the unattainable. We are volitional beings, so the choice to act is ours, and our sense of purpose is defined by reaching for the upper limits of our natural abilities and learned skills, and by facing challenges with courage and conviction.

Only those who have had to leave home know the unspeakable pain involved. No words can describe it. Much as the situation was ugly in South Africa, and still ugly today, South Africa is my home. I love it. No place in the world is like that country to me. For all its ugliness, it is my home, the place where my roots are, and I love it. This is what is so painful. Even now it is still my hope that I'll go back to live there. It is the only place where my soul can find rest and peace.

There is no kingdom without a king. When any king comes in, he brings his kingdom with him. Every true believer who makes Jesus King of his life, therefore, can have an individual experience of the Kingdom. That means displacing “self” from the throne of one’s heart and placing Jesus on that throne. Anyone who does that finds that the Kingdom of God sets in with righteousness, peace and joy. But I believe there is also a corporate expression of the Kingdom. It is in the true community of believers, which is called the Church. This is the fellowship of those who have made Jesus King in their own hearts and lives and relate to one another on that basis. It is the responsibility of the Church in any place to model the Kingdom of God, that by our attitudes and our relationships and the way we live we challenge the world with a glimpse of the Kingdom. People should be able to look at the Church and say, “So that’s what the Kingdom of God is like.” They should see in her righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. I tell you that where the Church demonstrates these things, the hearts of men and women are nearly always open to the truth of the Gospel. If the world does not see the Kingdom in the Church, it will probably not believe our message.

In his excellent book on classical music practice, The Perfect Wrong Note, pianist and teacher William Westney describes the need for privacy like this: The reason so many of us lose our bearings about practising early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot—and healthy practice would simply sound too obnoxious, intrusive, repetitious and unmusical for others to hear without annoyance.[1] There are two kinds of privacy that a practice room of your own will give you: one is inward, and the other is outward. The inward privacy is the knowledge that nobody can hear you, allowing you the freedom to experiment with any sound you want without fear of being judged. But it’s the long hours and the repetition that gets to others. In a private space, you can repeat something over and over and over again without fear of annoying anybody. Don’t assume the need for practice privacy will go away the better you get. Consider what the great composer Igor Stravinsky wrote in his autobiography: My family and I were quartered in a hotel in which it was impossible for me to compose. I was anxious, therefore, to find a piano some place where I could work in peace. I have never been able to compose unless sure that no one could hear me. A music dealer...provided me with a sort of lumber room full of empty Chocolat Suchard packing cases, which opened on to a chicken run.[2] That practice room wasn’t quite what Stravinsky was looking for, and he soon found another that suited him. Keep looking for a practice space that works for you.