Plans Are Made To Be Broken Quotes

Why Dream? Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity as well as love, hope, ecstasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees. The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage fully, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.

It's the broken plans you have made that are the hardest to get over.

Losing him made me realize that we can’t control everything that happens in life. The universe has its own plans and we don’t get a vote.

Such an awful fragility of love he thought that plans are made and broken and remade in these gaps between rational behavior.

Motherlands are castles made of glass. In order to leave them, you have to break something – a wall, a social convention, a cultural norm, a psychological barrier, a heart. What you have broken will haunt you. To be an emigré, therefore, means to forever bear shards of glass in your pockets. It is easy to forget they are there, light and minuscule as they are, and go on with your life, your little ambitions and important plans, but at the slightest contact the shards will remind you of their presence. They will cut you deep.

They can take tomorrow and the plans we made They can take the music that we'll never play All the broken dreams, take everything Just take it away but they can never have yesterday They can take the future that we'll never know They can take the places that we said we would go All the broken dreams, take everything Just take it away but they can never have yesterday

Imagine how differently you might approach each day by simply stating: God is good. God is good to me. God is good at being God. And today is yet another page in our great love story. Nothing that happens to you today will change that or even alter it in the slightest way. Lift your hands, heart, and soul, and receive that truth as you pray this prayer: My whole life I’ve searched for a love to satisfy the deepest longings within me to be known, treasured, and wholly accepted. When You created me, Lord, Your very first thought of me made Your heart explode with a love that set You in pursuit of me. Your love for me was so great that You, the God of the whole universe, went on a personal quest to woo me, adore me, and finally grab hold of me with the whisper, “I will never let you go.” Lord, I release my grip on all the things I was holding on to, preventing me from returning Your passionate embrace. I want nothing to hold me but You. So, with breathless wonder, I give You all my faith, all my hope, and all my love. I picture myself carrying the old, torn-out boards that inadequately propped me up and placing them in a pile. This pile contains other things I can remove from me now that my new intimacy-based identity is established. I lay down my need to understand why things happen the way they do. I lay down my fears about others walking away and taking their love with them. I lay down my desire to prove my worth. I lay down my resistance to fully trust Your thoughts, Your ways, and Your plans, Lord. I lay down being so self-consumed in an attempt to protect myself. I lay down my anger, unforgiveness, and stubborn ways that beg me to build walls when I sense hints of rejection. I lay all these things down with my broken boards and ask that Your holy fire consume them until they become weightless ashes. And as I walk away, my soul feels safe. Held. And truly free to finally be me.

Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes- in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions.

I know where I have to go. I’ve known for a long time. I made a promise. The kind of promise you don’t break because, if you break it, you’ve broken part of yourself, maybe the most important part. But you tell yourself things. Things like, I need to come up with something first. I can’t just walk into the lion’s den without a plan. Or, It’s hopeless, there’s no point anymore. You’ve waited too long.

Dear comrade in arms, after 15 years of battles, persecutions and sacrifices, Romania's youth must know that the hour of the Legionaire victory isn't far. All of our enemies attempts will be crushed. All plans of tempting us, All attempts at buying our souls, All attempts of seperating us, and all treasons will fall to the ground. Look at them, at your tyrants, straight in their eyes. Endure with submission all blows, endure all pains, whatever they may be, because our sacrifices will be the iron foundation made from broken bodies and from tortured souls, of our Victory. Those, among us, who will fall will have names and tombs of heroes, and those who will kill us will bear the names of traitors and will be cursed from generation to generation. From the depths the Legionnaire rises victorious with his rock-like soul. Those who think they can defeat him... as well as those who think they can buy him... will soon, but too late... Come to the conclusion... that they were wrong.

So you made some bad choices. Some of God's best players were His imperfect, broken prodigals. In fact, iffy players are God's best picks. He specializes in short-tempered, reckless, flawed people to accomplish his plans.

What is Destiny? Is it a doctrine formulated by aristocrats and philosophers arguing that there is some unseen driving force predicting the outcomes of every minuscule and life altering moment in one's life? Or is it the artistry illustrated by those under-qualifed and over-eager to give their future meaning and their ambitions hope? Is it a declaration by those who refuse to accept that we are alone in this universe, spinning randomly through a matrix of accidental coincidences? Or is it the assumptions made by those who concede that there is a divine plan or pre-ordained path for each human being,regardless of their current station? I think destiny is a bit of a tease.... It's syndical taunts and teases mock those naive enough to believe in its black jack dealing of inevitable futures. Its evolution from puppy dogs and ice cream to razor blades and broken mirrors characterizes the fickle nature of its sordid underbelly. Those relying on its decisive measures will fracture under its harsh rules. Those embracing the fact that life happens at a million miles a minute will flourish in its random grace. Destiny has afforded me the most magical memories and unbelievably tragic experiences that have molded and shaped my life into what it is today...beautiful. I fully accept the mirage that destiny promises and the reality it can produce. Without the invisible momentum carried with its sincere fabrication of coming attraction, destiny is the covenant we rely on to get ourselves through the day. To the destiny I know awaits me, I thank you in advance. Don't cry because it's over....smile because it happened.

But the main reason was that waking her would’ve meant telling her good-bye, and telling someone good-bye when you’re planning on walking into hell would’ve felt kind of…final. It was the same reason I hadn’t gone into the hut to find Mom, and why I’d skirted around Archer’s tent. I’d been nearly to the shore when I’d heard him softly call, “Mercer.” Kneeling in the doorway of his tent, his hair a mess, his Hex Hall uniform ridiculously wrinkled, he’d nearly broken my heart. And when I ran to him as soundlessly as I could and practically dove on top of him, I’d told myself that our kiss was just your normal boyfriend/girlfriend saying good morning thing. Even when he pulled me inside, the tent warm and cozy and smelling like him, I hadn’t let myself think that might be the last time I’d see him. And when he’d pulled me closer and murmured, “Mercer, I love-“ I had covered his mouth with my hand. “Don’t say that. Not now. Say it sometime when there is absolutely no chance of death on the horizon, okay?” He mumbled something beneath my palm, and I rolled my eyes as I pulled it away from his mouth. He dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose. “All I was going to say was that I love this tent you made for me. But I guess I can tell you again later. When you get back.” Curling my hand around the back of his neck, I’d pulled him down to me. “You better.” A blush creeping up my neck from the memory, I swung my gaze away from his tent and back toward the lake. I was coming back. I was going to be fine, and getting down into the Underworld to collect demonglass wouldn’t be hard at all. Maybe I’d make it back before lunch. Of course, I couldn’t make it back if I never left.

We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.

When you make a mistake with metal, you can melt things down and start afresh. It is irritating, and it costs in time and soot and sweat, but it can be done. There is a comfort in iron, knowing that a fresh start is always possible. But a city is not a sword. It is a living thing, and living things defy simple fixing. Roots cannot be reforged. They scar, and broken branches must be cut and sealed with tar, and this makes me angry, as it always has, and my anger has no place to go. It was easier when I was young. I could use my anger like a hammer against the world. I was so sure of myself and my friends and my rightness. I would hammer at the world, and breaking felt like making to me, and I was good at it. And while I was not wrong, neither was I entirely right. Nothing is simple. I do not work in wood. I am not brave enough for that. There is a comfort in iron, a promise of safety, a second chance if mistakes are made. But a city is more a forest than a sword. No, it needs more tending than that. Perhaps a city is like a garden, then. So these days, it seems I have become a gardener. I dig foundations in the earth. I sow rows of houses. I plan and plant. I watch the skies for rain and ruin. I cannot help but think that you would be better at this, but circumstance has put both of us in our own odd place. You are forced to be a hammer in the world, and my ungentle hands are learning how to tend a plot of land. We must do what we can do. Did you know that there are some seeds that cannot sprout unless they are first burned? A friend once told me that. She was– she was a bookish sort. I think of gardening constantly these days. I wear your gift, and I think of you, and I think it is interesting that there are some living things that need to pass through fire before they flourish. I ramble. You have the heart of a gardener, and because of this, you think of consequence, and your current path pains you. I am not wise, and I do not give advice, but I have come to know a few things: sometimes breaking is making, even iron can start again, and there are many things that move through fire and find themselves much better for it afterward.

In a real road-construction situation, I would never get out of my car when traffic is backed up, walk over to the foreman of the crew, and ask if I can help make the road so that it all moves more quickly. Yet I found myself doing just that with God in my past when He was trying to repair me. Construction sites have caution cones and broken pavement and heavy equipment I'm not qualified to operate. I must have looked just as out of place trying to make repairs on myself all those years. When I put my trust in Him and have patience in Him as the foreman of my life--the One who is repairing a broken relationship with my mom, building me a stronger and healthier body and assembling healthier friendships and a marriage with a solid foundation--I live a life with much fewer obstructions on my ultimate commute to becoming fearless. And I trust that God has made the plans to finish the good work He has already begun. He will continue constructing the life He knows I'm meant to lead as I travel freely in my journey of "becoming.

May you, son, daughter, image of the very Creator God, fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in your mother’s womb, fully seen, fully known, and fully loved, see with eyes that are open wide. Hear the Voice that speaks from inside of you with ears attuned and mind unshackled. Taste and see the goodness of the One who shall be all and in all. May your heart be opened to the love that formed you and everything else, the love that holds all things together and shall make all things new in the end, and may that love that was broken and poured out for you impel you into the world to break your own self open to be poured out for the world that God so loves. Poured out in acts of justice and mercy, poured out in good and hard work that brings order rather than disorder. Poured out in songs and liturgies, business plans and water colors, child-rearing and policy-making. May your life be a brush in the very hand of God—painting new creation into every nook and cranny of reality that your shadow graces. Be courageous. Be free. Prune that which needs pruning, and water that which thirsts for righteousness. You are the body of Christ, the light of the world. Pick up your hammer. Your brush. Your trumpet. Your skillet. Your pen. Lift up your head. And walk. Run. Dance. Fly. The great Artist, the future God, calls you into being. So go into your world, your valley, your garden, and create with His grace and in His peace. Amen. ________________________

He works fast," Alan commented as he lifted his wine. "David?" Shelby sent him a puzzled look. "Actually his fastest sped is crawl unless he's got a guitar in his hands." "Really?" Alan's eyes met hers as he sipped, but she didn't understand the amusement in them. "You only stood him up tonight, and already he's planning his wedding to someone else." "Stood him-" she began on a laugh, then remembered. "Oh." Torn between annoyance and her own sense of te ridiculous, Shelby toyed with the stem of her glass. "Men are fickle creatures," she decided. "Apparently." Reaching over, he lifted her chin with a fingertip. "You're holding up well." "I don't like to wear my heart on my sleeve" Exasperated, amused, she muffled a laugh. "Dammit, he would have to pick tonight to show up here." "Of all the gin joints in all the towns..." This time the laugh escaped fully. "Well done," Shelby told him. "I should've thought of that line myself; I heard the movie not long ago." "Heard it?" "Mmm-hmmm. Well..." She lifted her glass in a toast. "To broken hearts?" "Or foolish lies?" Alan countered. Shelby wrinkled her nose as she tapped her glass against his. "I usually tell very good ones. Besides, I did date David.Once.Tree years ago." She finished off her wine. "Maybe four.You can stop grinning in that smug, masculine way any time, Senator." "Was I?" Rising, he offered Shelby her damp jacket. "How rude of me." "It would've been more polite not to acknowledge that you'd caught me in a lie," she commented as they worked their way through the crowd and back into the rain. "Which you wouldn't have done if you hadn't made me so mad that I couldn't think of a handier name to give you in the first place." "If I work my way through the morass of that sentence it seems to be my fault." Alan slipped an arm around her shoulders in so casually friendly a manner she didn't protest. "Suppose I apologize for not giving you time to think of a lie that would hold up?" "It seems fair.

For this boy destined to be the world’s greatest heir, money was so omnipresent as to be invisible—something “there, like air or food or any other element,” he later said—yet it was never easily attainable.11 As if he were a poor, rural boy, he earned pocket change by mending vases and broken fountain pens or by sharpening pencils. Aware of the rich children spoiled by their parents, Senior seized every opportunity to teach his son the value of money. Once, while Rockefeller was being shaved at Forest Hill, Junior entered with a plan to give away his Sunday-school money in one lump sum, for a fixed period, and be done with it. “Let’s figure it out first,” Rockefeller advised and made Junior run through calculations that showed he would lose eleven cents interest while the Sunday school gained nothing in return. Afterward, Rockefeller told his barber, “I don’t care about the boy giving his money in that way. I want him to give it. But I also want him to learn the lesson of being careful of the little things.

Where is everybody?” “Hiding,” she said. “Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He’s napping now like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door.” “Give.” She shot me a sly smile. “First, I got to listen to Jim’s ‘it’s all my fault; I did it all by myself’ speech. Then I got to listen to Derek’s ‘it’s all my fault and I did it all by myself’ speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it.” I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat. “Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass.” That would do him in. “So what did he say?” “He didn’t say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he’d been irresponsible with Livie’s life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one’s toughness. Apparently he didn’t think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he’s not inclined to tolerate it now that she’s twenty-eight.” I was cracking up. “He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done.” Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. “Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire.” “He sentenced himself?” “He’s broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently.” That’s Beast Lord for you. “And Jim?” “Oh, he got a special chewing-out after everybody else was dismissed. It was a very quiet and angry conversation, and I didn’t hear most of it. I heard the end, though—he got three months of Keep building. Also, when he opened the door to leave, Curran told him very casually that if Jim wanted to pick fights with his future mate, he was welcome to do so, but he should keep in mind that Curran wouldn’t come and rescue him when you beat his ass. You should’ve seen Jim’s face.” “His what?” “His mate. M-A-T-E.” I cursed. Andrea grinned. “I thought that would make your day. And now you’re stuck with him in here for three days and you get to fight together in the Arena. It’s so romantic. Like a honeymoon.” Once again my mental conditioning came in handy. I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

I got up to get another glass of water when Zac asked from his spot still at the stove, breaking up the two pounds of ground beef he’d added to the vegetables. “Vanny, were you gonna want me to help you with your draft list again this year?” I groaned. “I forgot. My brother just messaged me about it. I can’t let him win again this year, Zac. I can’t put up with his crap.” He raised his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got you. Don’t worry about it.” “Thank—what?” Aiden had his glass halfway to his mouth and was frowning. “You play fantasy football?” he asked, referring to the online role-playing game that millions of people participated in. Participants got to build imaginary teams during a mock draft, made up of players throughout the league. I’d been wrangled into playing against my brother and some of our mutual friends about three years ago and had joined in ever since. Back then, I had no idea what the hell a cornerback was, much less a bye week, but I’d learned a lot since then. I nodded slowly at him, feeling like I’d done something wrong. The big guy’s brow furrowed. “Who was on your team last year?” I named the players I could remember, wondering where this was going and not having a good feeling about it. “What was your defensive team?” There it went. I slipped my hands under the counter and averted my eyes to the man at the stove, cursing him silently. “So you see…” The noise Zac tried to muffle was the most obvious snicker in the world. Asshole. “Was I not on your team?” I gulped. “So you see—” “Dallas wasn’t your team?” he accused me, sounding… well, I didn’t know if it was hurt or outraged, but it was definitely something. “Ahh…” I slid a look at the traitor who was by that point trying to muffle his laugh. “Zac helped me with it.” It was the thump that said Zac’s knees hit the floor. “Look, it isn’t that I didn’t choose you specifically. I would choose you if I could, but Zac said Minnesota—” “Minne-sota.” Jesus, he’d broken the state in two. The big guy, honest to God, shook his head. His eyes went from me to Zac in… yep, that was outrage. Aiden held out his hand, wiggling those incredibly long fingers. “Let me see it.” “See what?” “Your roster from last year.” I sighed and pulled my phone out of the fanny pack I still had around my waist, unlocking the screen and opening the app. Handing it over, I watched his face as he looked through my roster and felt guilty as hell. I’d been planning on choosing Dallas just because Aiden was on the team, but I really had let Zac steer me elsewhere. Apparently, just because you had the best defensive end in the country on your team, didn’t mean everyone else held up their end of the bargain. Plus, he’d missed almost the entire season. He didn’t have to take it so personally.

He smiled, and some of the knots in my stomach loosened. He would keep my secret. Devon hesitated, then reached over and put his hand on top of mine. His skin was warm, as though the sun had soaked into his body. I breathed in, and the crisp, clean scent of him filled my nose, the one that made me want to bury my face in his neck and inhale the essence of him over and over again. But I forced myself to exhale and step back, putting some distance between us, even though our hands were still touching. “Look,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “You’re a nice guy, a great guy. But I’m going to . . . be here for a while. You’re an important member of the Family, and I’m your bodyguard, so it’s my job to protect you, and we’re going to have to work together. But I don’t think there should be anything . . . else.” “Because of your mom, right?” he asked in a low voice. “Because you blame me for her death?” I sucked in a breath, so rattled that I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. First, my magic, and now this. Somehow, Devon knew all my secrets. “How do you know about my mom?” I croaked out. “I remember everything about that day in the park,” he said. “Including the girl with the blue eyes who helped save me.” I didn’t say anything. I could barely even hear him over the roar of my own heartbeat in my ears. “It took me a while to figure out why you seemed so familiar. When I realized you reminded me of the girl in the park, I knew it had to be you. Mom would never have brought you here otherwise. Plus, there are several photos of your mother in the library. You look just like her. I know what happened to her. I’m sorry that she died because of me—so sorry.” His green gaze locked with mine, that old, familiar guilt flaring to life in his eyes and punching me in the gut. And once again, I found myself wanting to comfort him. “I don’t blame you for her death,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. It was all the Draconis.” “Do you really mean that?” he whispered. “I do.” Devon closed the distance between us and stared down at me. I let myself look into his eyes for another heartbeat. Then I pulled my hand out from under his and stepped away. Hurt flashed in his gaze before he could hide it. I wanted to stop. I wanted to tell him that I felt this thing, this attraction, this heat between us just as much as he did. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck, pull his lips down to mine, and lose myself in him. But I couldn’t. Not when I was planning on leaving the mansion, the Family, and him, the second I thought it was safe. I already cared about Devon way too much. And Felix and Oscar and even Claudia. I didn’t need to fall any farther down that rabbit hole, especially where Devon was concerned, because I knew exactly where I would end up—with my heart broken.

My whole life I’ve searched for a love to satisfy the deepest longings within me to be known, treasured, and wholly accepted. When You created me, Lord, Your very first thought of me made Your heart explode with a love that set You in pursuit of me. Your love for me was so great that You, the God of the whole universe, went on a personal quest to woo me, adore me, and finally grab hold of me with the whisper, “I will never let you go.” Lord, I release my grip on all the things I was holding on to, preventing me from returning Your passionate embrace. I want nothing to hold me but You. So, with breathless wonder, I give You all my faith, all my hope, and all my love. I picture myself carrying the old, torn-out boards that inadequately propped me up and placing them in a pile. This pile contains other things I can remove from me now that my new intimacy-based identity is established. I lay down my need to understand why things happen the way they do. I lay down my fears about others walking away and taking their love with them. I lay down my desire to prove my worth. I lay down my resistance to fully trust Your thoughts, Your ways, and Your plans, Lord. I lay down being so self-consumed in an attempt to protect myself. I lay down my anger, unforgiveness, and stubborn ways that beg me to build walls when I sense hints of rejection. I lay all these things down with my broken boards and ask that Your holy fire consume them until they become weightless ashes. And as I walk away, my soul feels safe. Held. And truly free to finally be me.

Life on a floating city must have been really dull if the idea of war sounded intriguing. Trollbella squinted and crossed her arms as she thought about it. “But still, an army in exchange for a broken heart seems like a pretty steep deal,” she said. Without missing a beat, Conner clutched his chest and fell to the deck in pain. “Oh my broken heart! It hurts so much! Oh the pain, the miserable pain!” he screamed. “Your heart is on the other side of your chest, Conner,” Alex whispered down at him and he quickly made the correction. Tears formed in Trollbella’s eyes at the sight of her Butterboy in pain she had caused him. “Oh no, Butterboy!” she said, and rushed to his side. “If my army will help ease your pain, then my army you shall have!” Conner quickly sat up, completely fine. “Thank goodness,” he said. “I really appreciate it! Now we need to gather up your army and fill them in on our plan as soon as possible.” Queen Trollbella got to her feet to address the rowers aboard her boat. “Take us to the army fort at once, troblins!” she ordered. “My Butterboy needs to speak with our army and start his healing process.” The troll and goblin rowers turned the boat completely around and headed in the direction of the army float. Alex gestured for Lester to follow the boat, and helped Conner to his feet. “Nice going,” she whispered in his ear. “Thanks,” Conner said, but his face fell into a pout. “What’s wrong?” she said. “We recruited the troblin army and it was easier than either of us expected!” “I know,” Conner said sadly. “I just can’t believe Trollbella picked that troll over me.

And then I saw it. My father's wood: thick by then with twenty years' growth, but still not fully mature. A half-grown wood of oak trees around that little clearing, which, with my new perspective, I could see made the shape of a heart. I stared down at the clearing. The heart was unmistakable; tapered at the base with the strawberry field in the centre; a stand of trees to form the cleft. How long had it taken my father, I thought, to plan the formation, to plant out the trees? How many calculations had he made to create this God's-eye view? I thought of the years I had been at school; the years I had felt his absence. I remembered the contempt I'd felt at his little hobby. And finally I understood what he'd tried to say to me on the night of my wedding. 'Love is the thing that only God sees.' I'd wondered at the time what he meant. My father seldom spoke of love; rarely showed affection. Perhaps that was Tante Anna's influence, or maybe the few words he'd had were all spent on Naomi. But here it was at last, I saw: the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, a silent testament to grief; a last, enduring promise. Love is the thing that only God sees. I supposeyou'dsay that's because he sees into our hearts. Well, if he ever looks in mine, he'll see no more than I've told you. Confession may be good for the soul. But love is even better. Love redeems us even when we think ourselves irredeemable. I never really loved my wife- not in the way that she deserved. My children and I were never close. Perhaps that was my fault, after all. But Mimi- yes, I loved Mimi. And I loved Rosette Rocher, who was so very like her. One day I hope Rosette will see the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, and know that love surrounds her, whether see can see it or not. And you, Reynaud. I hope one day you can feel what only God sees, but which grows from the hearts of people like us: the flawed; the scarred; the broken. I hope you find it one day, Reynaud. Till then, look after Rosette for me. Make sure she knows my story. Tell her to take care of my wood. And keep picking the strawberries.

And then I saw it. My father's wood: thick by then with twenty years' growth, but still not fully mature. A half-grown wood of oak trees around that little clearing, which, with my new perspective, I could see made the shape of a heart. I stared down at the clearing. The heart was unmistakable; tapered at the base with the strawberry field in the centre; a stand of trees to form the cleft. How long had it taken my father, I thought, to plan the formation, to plant out the trees? How many calculations had he made to create this God's-eye view? I thought of the years I had been at school; the years I had felt his absence. I remembered the contempt I'd felt at his little hobby. And finally I understood what he'd tried to say to me on the night of my wedding. 'Love is the thing that only God sees.' I'd wondered at the time what he meant. My father seldom spoke of love; rarely showed affection. Perhaps that was Tante Anna's influence, or maybe the few words he'd had were all spent on Naomi. But here it was at last, I saw: the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, a silent testament to grief; a last, enduring promise. Love is the thing that only God sees. I suppose you'd say that's because he sees into our hearts. Well, if he ever looks in mine, he'll see no more than I've told you. Confession may be good for the soul. But love is even better. Love redeems us even when we think ourselves irredeemable. I never really loved my wife- not in the way that she deserved. My children and I were never close. Perhaps that was my fault, after all. But Mimi- yes, I loved Mimi. And I loved Rosette Rocher, who was so very like her. One day I hope Rosette will see the heart-shaped meadow in the wood, and know that love surrounds her, whether see can see it or not. And you, Reynaud. I hope one day you can feel what only God sees, but which grows from the hearts of people like us: the flawed; the scarred; the broken. I hope you find it one day, Reynaud. Till then, look after Rosette for me. Make sure she knows my story. Tell her to take care of my wood. And keep picking the strawberries.

One has to imagine the impact of Paddy on an old count from eastern Europe, barely able to live off his much-diminished lands and keep the roof on a house stocked with paintings and furniture that harked back to better days. His children might take a certain pride in their ancient lineage, but they also made it clear that the world had moved on and they planned to move with it. Then a scruffy young Englishman with a rucksack turns up on the doorstep, recommended by a friend. he is polite, cheerful, and cannot hear enough about the family history. He pores over the books and albums in the library, and asks a thousand questions about the princely rulers, dynastic marriages, wars and revolts and waves of migration that shaped this part of the world. He wants to hear about the family portraits too, and begs the Count to remember the songs the peasants used to sing when he was a child. Instead of feeling like a useless fragment of a broken empire, the Count is transformed. This young Englishman has made him realize that he is part of living history, a link in an unbroken chain going back to Charlemagne and beyond.

THAT WAS THE LAST PERSON I’ve seen. The leaves are falling heavy now, and the nights have turned cold. I can’t stay in these woods. No leaves for cover from the drones, can’t risk a campfire—I gotta get out of here. I know where I have to go. I’ve known for a long time. I made a promise. The kind of promise you don’t break because, if you break it, you’ve broken part of yourself, maybe the most important part. But you tell yourself things. Things like, I need to come up with something first. I can’t just walk into the lion’s den without a plan. Or, It’s hopeless, there’s no point anymore. You’ve waited too long. Whatever the reason I didn’t leave before, I should have left the night I killed him. I don’t know how he was wounded; I didn’t examine his body or anything, and I should have, no matter how freaked out I was. I guess he could have gotten hurt in an accident, but the odds were better that someone—or something—had shot him. And if someone or something had shot him, that someone or something was still out there…unless the Crucifix Soldier had offed her/him/them/it. Or he was one of them and the crucifix was a trick…

He curled his arms, popped his biceps. "The Hulk is no match for the power of these pythons." "I see another python is also proud of the fact that my room is destroyed." Liam cupped his semi-erect length and gave a manly tug. "The desk is next. Or should we do it on your dresser? You've got a weapon of mass destruction at your beck and call. Just point me in the right direction." Laughter bubbled up in her chest. She loved this playful, joyful side of Liam. Maybe he'd never really had a chance to embrace that part of his personality when he was growing up, but he was definitely making up for it now. "Are you seriously comparing yourself to a weapon of mass destruction?" "Look at this room." He opened his arms wide. "We rocked the fucking world." Daisy made her way across the broken shambles of the bed. It didn't look girlie anymore. They'd managed to knock off the pink duvet, and all the fluffy pillows, and tangle the delicately flowered sheets in a heap. Definitely time for a change. "Where are you going"----he growled----"wiggling that sexy little ass at me?" Daisy looked back over her shoulder and smiled. "You said something about a desk?

INTERNATIONAL LAW WAS CREATED DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION BECAUSE a group of Mexicans—and one African American—gang-raped and murdered two teenaged girls in Houston, Texas.1 The crime made history in another way: It led to the most death sentences handed out for a single crime in Texas since 1949.2 Do you even know about this case? The only reason the media eventually admitted that the lead rapist, Jose Ernesto Medellin, was an illegal alien from Mexico was to try to overturn his conviction on the grounds that he had not been informed of his right, as a Mexican citizen, to confer with the Mexican consulate. Journalists have an irritating tendency to skimp on detail when reporting crimes by immigrants, a practice that will not be followed here. One summer night in June 1993, fourteen-year-old Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Peña, who had just turned sixteen, were returning from a pool party, and decided to take a shortcut through a park to make their 11:30 p.m. curfew. They encountered a group of Hispanic men, who were in the process of discussing “gang etiquette,” such as not complaining if other members talked about having sex with your mother.3 The girls ran away, but Medellin grabbed Jennifer and began ripping her clothes off. Hearing her screams, Elizabeth came back to help her friend. For more than an hour, the five Hispanics and one black man raped the teens, vaginally, anally, and orally—“every way you can assault a human being,” as the prosecutor put it.4 The girls were beaten, kicked, and stomped, their teeth knocked out and their ribs broken. One of the Hispanic men told Medellin’s fourteen-year-old brother to “get some,” so he raped one of the girls, too. But when it was time to kill the girls, Medellin said his brother was “too small to watch” and dragged the girls into the woods.5 There, the girls were forced to kneel on the ground and a belt or shoelace was looped around their necks. Then a man on each side pulled on the cord as hard as he could. The men strangling Jennifer pulled so hard they broke the belt. Medellin later complained that “the bitch wouldn’t die.” When it was done, he repeatedly stomped on the girls’ necks, to make sure they were dead.6 At trial, Medellin’s sister-in-law testified that shortly after the gruesome murders, Medellin was laughing about it, saying they’d “had some fun with some girls” and boasting that he had “virgin blood” on his underpants.7 It’s difficult to understand a culture where such an orgy of cruelty is bragged about at all, but especially in front of women.

On many occasions in our nearly thirty years of marriage my wife and I have had a disagreement—sometimes a deep disagreement. Our unity appeared to be broken, at some unknowably profound level, and we were not able to easily resolve the rupture by talking. We became trapped, instead, in emotional, angry and anxious argument. We agreed that when such circumstances arose we would separate, briefly: she to one room, me to another. This was often quite difficult, because it is hard to disengage in the heat of an argument, when anger generates the desire to defeat and win. But it seemed better than risking the consequences of a dispute that threatened to spiral out of control. Alone, trying to calm down, we would each ask ourselves the same single question: What had we each done to contribute to the situation we were arguing about? However small, however distant…we had each made some error. Then we would reunite, and share the results of our questioning: Here’s how I was wrong…. The problem with asking yourself such a question is that you must truly want the answer. And the problem with doing that is that you won’t like the answer. When you are arguing with someone, you want to be right, and you want the other person to be wrong. Then it’s them that has to sacrifice something and change, not you, and that’s much preferable. If it’s you that’s wrong and you that must change, then you have to reconsider yourself—your memories of the past, your manner of being in the present, and your plans for the future. Then you must resolve to improve and figure out how to do that. Then you actually have to do it. That’s exhausting. It takes repeated practice, to instantiate the new perceptions and make the new actions habitual. It’s much easier just not to realize, admit and engage. It’s much easier to turn your attention away from the truth and remain wilfully blind. But it’s at such a point that you must decide whether you want to be right or you want to have peace.216 You must decide whether to insist upon the absolute correctness of your view, or to listen and negotiate. You don’t get peace by being right. You just get to be right, while your partner gets to be wrong—defeated and wrong. Do that ten thousand times and your marriage will be over (or you will wish it was). To choose the alternative—to seek peace—you have to decide that you want the answer, more than you want to be right. That’s the way out of the prison of your stubborn preconceptions. That’s the prerequisite for negotiation. That’s to truly abide by the principle of Rule 2 (Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping).

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans-the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins. Let us consider a few examples of bad plans belonging to these two classes. In the first class we must place all Fascist and all specifically militaristic plans. Fascism, in the words of Mussolini, believes that "war alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it." Again, "a doctrine which is founded upon the harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism." The Fascist, then, is one who believes that the bombardment of open towns with fire, poison and explosives (in other words, modern war) is intrinsically good. He is one who rejects the teaching of the prophets and believes that the best society is a national society living in a state of chronic hostility towards other national societies and preoccupied with ideas of rapine and slaughter. He is one who despises the non-attached individual and holds up for admiration the person who, in obedience to the boss who happens at the moment to have grabbed political power, systematically cultivates all the passions (pride, anger, envy, hatred) which the philosophers and the founders of religions have unanimously condemned as the most maleficent, the least worthy of human beings. All fascist planning has one ultimate aim: to make the national society more efficient as a war machine. Industry, commerce and finance are controlled for this purpose. The manufacture of substitutes is encouraged in order that the country may be self-sufficient in time of war. Tariffs and quotas are imposed, export bounties distributed, exchanges depreciated for the sake of gaining a momentary advantage or inflicting loss upon some rival. Foreign policy is conducted on avowedly Machiavellian principles; solemn engagements are entered into with the knowledge that they will be broken the moment it seems advantageous to do so; international law is invoked when it happens to be convenient, repudiated when it imposes the least restraint on the nation's imperialistic designs. Meanwhile the dictator's subjects are systematically educated to be good citizens of the Fascist state. Children are subjected to authoritarian discipline that they may grow up to be simultaneously obedient to superiors and brutal to those below them. On leaving the kindergarten, they begin that military training which culminates in the years of conscription and continues until the individual is too decrepit to be an efficient soldier. In school they are taught extravagant lies about the achievements of their ancestors, while the truth about other peoples is either distorted or completely suppressed. the press is controlled, so that adults may learn only what it suits the dictator that they should learn. Any one expressing un-orthodox opinions is ruthlessly persecuted. Elaborate systems of police espionage are organized to investigate the private life and opinions of even the humblest individual. Delation is encouraged, tale-telling rewarded. Terrorism is legalized. Justice is administered in secret; the procedure is unfair, the penalties barbarously cruel. Brutality and torture are regularly employed.

Her enormous eyes were staring straight into his silver ones. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. He was lost in those blue-violet eyes, somewhere in their mysterious, haunting, sexy depths. What was it he had decided? Decreed? He was not going to allow her anywhere near Peter’s funeral. Why was his resolve fading away to nothing? He had reasons, good reasons. He was certain of it. Yet now, drowning in her huge eyes, his thoughts on the length of her lashes, the curve of her cheek, the feel of her skin, he couldn’t think of denying her. After all, she hadn’t tried to defy him; she didn’t know he had made the decision to keep her away from Peter’s funeral. She was including him in the plans, as if they were a unit, a team. She was asking his advice. Would it be so terrible to please her over this? It was important to her. He blinked to keep from falling into her gaze and found himself staring at the perfection of her mouth. The way her lips parted so expectantly. The way the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her full lower lip. Almost a caress. He groaned. An invitation. He braced himself to keep from leaning over and tracing the exact path with his own tongue. He was being tortured. Tormented. Her perfect lips formed a slight frown. He wanted to kiss it right off her mouth. “What is it, Gregori?” She reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He caught her wrist and clamped it against his pumping heart. “Savannah,” he whispered. An ache. It came out that way. An ache. He knew it. She knew it. God, he wanted her with every cell in his body. Untamed. Wild. Crazy. He wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that she would never get him out. Her hand trembled in answer, a slight movement rather like the flutter of butterfly wings. He felt it all the way through his body. “It is all right, mon amour,” he said softly. “I am not asking for anything.” “I know you’re not. I’m not denying you anything. I know we need to have time to become friends, but I’m not going to deny what I feel already. When you’re close to me, my body temperature jumps about a thousand degrees.” Her blue eyes were dark and beckoning, steady on his. He touched her mind very gently, almost tenderly, slipped past her guard and knew what courage it took for her to make the admission. She was nervous, even afraid, but willing to meet him halfway. The realization nearly brought him to his knees. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the silver eyes heated to molten mercury, but his face was as impassive as ever. “I think you are a witch, Savannah, casting a spell over me.” His hand cupped her face, his thumb sliding over her delicate cheekbone. She moved closer, and he felt her need for comfort, for reassurance. Her arms slid tentatively around his waist. Her head rested on his sternum. Gregori held her tightly, simply held her, waiting for her trembling to cease. Waiting for the warmth of his body to seep into hers. Gregori’s hand came up to stroke the thick length of silken, ebony hair, taking pleasure in the simple act. It brought a measure of peace to both of them. He would never have believed what a small thing like holding a woman could do to a man. She was turning his heart inside out; unfamiliar emotions surged wildly through him and wreaked havoc with his well-ordered life. In his arms, next to his hard strength, she felt fragile, delicate, like an exotic flower that could be easily broken. “Do not worry about Peter, ma petite,” he whispered into the silken strands of her hair. “We will see to his resting place tomorrow.” “Thank you, Gregori,” Savannah said. “It matters a lot to me.” He lifted her easily into his arms. “I know. It would be simpler if I did not. Come to my bed, chérie, where you belong.

Indian Express (Indian Express) - Clip This Article at Location 721 | Added on Sunday, 30 November 2014 20:28:42 Fifth column: Hope and audacity Ministers, high officials, clerks and peons now report for duty on time and are no longer to be seen taking long lunch breaks to soak in winter sunshine in Delhi’s parks. Reform is needed not just in economic matters but in every area of governance. Does the Prime Minister know how hard it is to get a passport? Tavleen Singh | 807 words At the end of six months of the Modi sarkar are we seeing signs that it is confusing efficiency with reform? I ask the question because so far there is no sign of real reform in any area of governance. And, because some of Narendra Modi’s most ardent supporters are now beginning to get worried. Last week I met a man who dedicated a whole year to helping Modi become Prime Minister and he seemed despondent. When I asked how he thought the government was doing, he said he would answer in the words of the management guru Peter Drucker, “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.” We can certainly not fault this government on efficiency. Ministers, high officials, clerks and peons now report for duty on time and are no longer to be seen taking long lunch breaks to soak in winter sunshine in Delhi’s parks. The Prime Minister’s Office hums with more noise and activity than we have seen in a decade but, despite this, there are no signs of the policy changes that are vital if we are to see real reform. The Planning Commission has been abolished but there are many, many other leftovers from socialist times that must go. Do we need a Ministry of Information & Broadcasting in an age when the Internet has made propaganda futile? Do we need a meddlesome University Grants Commission? Do we need the government to continue wasting our money on a hopeless airline and badly run hotels? We do not. What we do need is for the government to make policies that will convince investors that India is a safe bet once more. We do not need a new government that simply implements more efficiently bad policies that it inherited from the last government. It was because of those policies that investors fled and the economy stopped growing. Unless this changes through better policies, the jobs that the Prime Minister promises young people at election rallies will not come. So far signals are so mixed that investors continue to shy away. The Finance Minister promises to end tax terrorism but in the next breath orders tax inspectors to go forth in search of black money. Vodafone has been given temporary relief by the courts but the retroactive tax remains valid. And, although we hear that the government has grandiose plans to improve the decrepit transport systems, power stations and ports it inherited, it continues to refuse to pay those who have to build them. The infrastructure industry is owed more than Rs 1.5 lakh continued... crore in government dues and this has crippled major companies. No amount of efficiency in announcing new projects will make a difference unless old dues are cleared. Reform is needed not just in economic matters but in every area of governance. Does the Prime Minister know how hard it is to get a passport? Does he know that a police check is required even if you just want to get a few pages added to your passport? Does he know how hard it is to do routine things like registering property? Does he know that no amount of efficiency will improve healthcare services that are broken? No amount of efficiency will improve educational services that have long been in terminal decline because of bad policies and interfering officials. At the same time, the licence raj that strangles private investment in schools and colleges remains in place. Modi’s popularity with ordinary people has increased since he became Prime Minister, as we saw from his rallies in Kashmir last week, but it will not la

Roger realized that he was looking for a way to be human again.   The bible fell open to the book of Ecclesiastes, and he drank in the words he found on the page.   “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”   That passage was the closest he’d had to comfort yet. Strange — it didn’t mention anything about comfort and healing. The only thing it mentioned was that man wasn’t supposed to have the answers.   Roger supposed that on some level he realized that he would never know God’s plan, the reasoning behind the Lord taking his family from him.   But this was the bible telling him that it was all right, that it was perfectly natural that he didn’t understand why these tragic things had taken place.

February 17 Broken Pieces I am forgotten by them as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery. But I trust in You, O lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hands.—Psalm 31:12, 14-15a I have a friend who does beautiful work with pieces of broken china and pottery. She gave me a lovely blue and white frame as a gift. She took the china and broke it into small enough pieces to fit the frame. She covered a plain frame with a white mortar and fit the broken pieces of blue and white china around the frame in a way that covered most of the area and filled in the spaces in between with more of the mortar. What a work of art! Not only is it beautiful, but it is custom made to fit my taste and home. But even more beautiful is the note that came with the gift. She wrote: my life has been full of broken pieces. Some of them are a result of my own manipulation and control and some are through no one’s fault, but a result of living in a fallen world. Regardless of what I give the Lord, He takes those pieces and adds them to a beautiful work of art. I hope this constantly reminds you of the Great Planner and Master Creator. We surely can make a mess of our lives, can’t we? But regardless of the mess we’ve made, no matter how fragmented we become, if we offer ourselves to God and trust in Him, He can take all the broken pieces of our life and make them into his work of art. And His work is so beautiful! His plan is custom made for each individual. Our times are in His Hands.

Well, well, if it isn’t the little spitfire herself.” Lily glanced up with a start and found Jimmy Neil standing two steps above her. A slow grin spread across his face, and the black gaps where he was missing parts of his top teeth seemed to stare at her. He’d leered at her several times that past week during the meals he’d taken in the dining room. But she’d made a point of ignoring him. And that’s exactly what she planned to do this time too. He moved one step closer, and the stench of the alcohol on his breath filled the space between them. He’d likely already been out at the taverns long enough to drink too much but would continue with the drinking as long as he was conscious. So why was he back at the hotel? “Ran out of money,” he said too softly, as if he’d seen the direction of her thoughts. “The night’s still young, and I aim to get my fill of women.” His eyes glistened with brittle lust. A man like Jimmy Neil didn’t deserve a response, not even the briefest acknowledgment that she’d heard his lurid words. She turned her head and pushed past him in the narrow stairwell. But before she could get by, his arm shot out and blocked her path. “Where you goin’ so fast?” “Get out of my way.” She shoved his arm, but it didn’t budge. She tried to duck under it, but he stuck out his knee. He leaned into her. The sickly heat and sourness of his breath fanned her neck. “Maybe I don’t need to go back out, not when I can have a little spitfire right here, right now.” She stifled a shudder and the shiver of fear that accompanied it. She might have broken free of him last time, but he was drunk now, and there was no telling what he was capable of doing. Better for her to play it safe. She spun and tried to retreat the way she’d come, but his other hand slapped against the wall, trapping her into an awkward prison within the confines of his arms. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere except up to my room with me.” He pushed himself against her in such a carnal way that she couldn’t keep from crying out in alarm. His hand cut off her cry, covering her mouth and smothering any chance she had at calling for help. A rush of fear turned her blood to ice. For an instant Daisy’s sweet face flitted into her mind. Was this the way men treated her sister? How could she possibly withstand such abuse day after day? As if seeing the fright in Lily’s eyes, his gap-toothed smile widened. “It’s always more fun when there’s some scratchin’ and clawin’.” His hand against her mouth and nose was beginning to suffocate her. She swung her head, struggling to break free and jerked up her knee, trying to connect it with his tender spot. But he was pressed too close, and he only strengthened his grip. She tried to scream and then bite him. But she was quickly losing strength in the dizzying wave that rushed over her. Suddenly his smile froze and fear flitted across his face. “Let go of her. Now. Or I’ll shove this knife in all the way.” Connell’s voice was low and menacing. Slowly Jimmy’s grip loosened. She caught a glimpse of Connell, one step down, his face a mask of calm fury.

It’s over between them.” “Seriously?” Jake shrugged. “She didn’t give me the details, but the ring’s gone, and she said it was over.” “Is she upset?” “Doesn’t seem to be.” That was good, right? “Hmm.” Wyatt handed him a plate. “You gonna make your move now?” Jake elbowed Wyatt in the ribs. “She just broke her engagement.” “Or he did.” Jake frowned. “I prefer to think of it the other way.” Wyatt shrugged. “Just saying. She doesn’t sound too distressed. Hey, maybe she broke up because she has the hots for you.” “Shut up.” The thought was too ludicrous to entertain. Meridith might be attracted to him, but that was a far cry from what Wyatt suggested. “It’s about the kids,” Jake said. “I’m sure of it. They spent the day together yesterday, and Max told me that Ben puked on Stephen.” Wyatt laughed. “Classic!” “Yeah, I enjoyed that little tidbit.” He was surprised the man hadn’t gone running home the day before. From what Max said, Stephen hadn’t been very friendly. They washed and dried in silence for a minute, and Jake’s thoughts turned to Meridith. She’d told him the engagement was broken so matter-of-factly. How could she love the guy and react so calmly? “You know,” Wyatt said, pulling him from his thoughts. “It’s pretty remarkable, what she’s doing. Not every chick would take on three kids at the expense of her engagement.” Wyatt was right, and it only deepened his feelings for Meridith. He hated that she was planning to take the children away, but there was no doubt she cared about them. And his suspicions about the bipolar illness had all but disappeared. He’d found no medications, seen no symptoms. “You guys would make a cute couple,” Wyatt said. “You could get married and have a ready-made family.” “You’re forgetting one little detail.” “Ah, yeah. You’re the uncle she called—what was it—self-absorbed and irresponsible?” Jake scowled and grabbed the plate from Wyatt. “So tell her the truth.” “Yeah, right. That’ll go over well.” She’d be furious. She’d kick him from Summer Place and might not let him see the kids anymore. His gut clenched. “Gotta tell her eventually.” “When the house is finished.” “The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be.” “Maybe not.” Maybe he could change her mind about staying. Maybe he could make her see that he cared for her. Maybe they really could be a family.

I’m sure you will be pleased to learn that I have heeded your advice and finally chosen a bride,” he said smoothly. “Although I have not yet made a formal proposal to her, I have good reason to believe that she will accept when I do.” The countess blinked in surprise, her composure faltering. Livia stared at him with a wondering smile. There was a sudden wicked enjoyment in her eyes that inclined Marcus to think she had guessed at the identity of the unnamed bride. “How lovely,” she said. “Have you finally found someone who will tolerate you, Marcus?” He grinned back at her. “It would seem so. Though I suspect it would behoove me to hasten the wedding plans before she comes to her senses and flees.” “Nonsense,” the countess said sharply. “No woman would flee from the prospect of marrying the Earl of Westcliff. You possess the most ancient title in England. On the day you marry, you will bestow on your wife more peerage dignities than any uncrowned head on the face of the earth. Now, tell me whom you have decided on.” “Miss Lillian Bowman.” The countess made a disgusted sound. “Enough of this witless humor, Westcliff. Tell me the girl’s name.” Livia fairly wriggled with delight. Beaming at Marcus, she leaned closer to her mother and said in a loud stage whisper, “I think he’s serious, Mother. It really is Miss Bowman.” “It cannot be!” The countess looked aghast. One could practically see the capillaries bursting in her cheeks. “I demand that you renounce this piece of insanity, Westcliff, and come to your senses. I will not have that atrocious creature as my daughter-in-law!” “But you will,” Marcus said inexorably. “You could have your pick of any girl here or on the continent… girls of acceptable lineage and bearing…” “Miss Bowman is the one I want.” “She could never fit into the mold of a Marsden wife.” “Then the mold will have to be broken.” -Marcus, Livia, & their mother

Why did you get me drunk?” I asked. “I’m no rival of yours.” She made a quick, sharp gesture of negation. A diamond on her finger sparkled like spilled tears, and I realized her fingers were trembling. “It’s true,” I said, watching her bury her hands in the folds of her skirts. “What little you know of me ought to make one thing plain: I don’t lie. That is, I don’t do it very well. I don’t fault you for ambition. That would be mighty two-faced when my brother and I plotted half our lives to take the crown from Galdran. Our reasons might be different, but who’s to fault that? Not me. I gave that over last year. As for Savona--” “Don’t,” she said. “Why?” I demanded. “Can’t you see he’s just flirting with me? I don’t know much of romance--well, nothing, if you only count experience--but I have noticed certain things, and one is that in a real courtship, the two people endeavor to get to know one another.” Again I had that sensation of something important hovering just out of my awareness, but when I paused, frowning--trying to perceive it--my thoughts just scattered. “I think,” she said, “you are being a trifle too disingenuous.” I sighed. “Humor me by pretending I am sincere. You know Savona. Can’t you see him making me popular just to…well, prove a point?” I faltered at the words pay you back for going after Shevraeth and a crown? Not that the meaning escaped her, for I saw its impact in the sudden color ridging her lovely cheeks. Her lips were pressed in a thin line. “I could…almost…believe you had I not had your name dinned in my ear through a succession of seasons. Your gallantry in facing Galdran before the Court. The Astiar bravery in taking on Galdran’s army with nothing but a rabble of half-trained villagers on behalf of the rest of the kingdom. Your running almost the length of the kingdom with a broken foot and successfully evading Debegri’s and Vidanric’s warriors. The duel-to-the-death with Galdran.” I had to laugh, which I saw at once was a mistake. But I couldn’t stop, not until I saw the common omission in all of this: my disastrous encounters with Shevraeth. Had he spoken about my defeats, surely this angry young lady would have nosed it all out--and it was apparent she’d have no compunction about flinging it in my teeth. No. For some incomprehensible reason, he hadn’t talked about any of it. This realization sobered me, and I gulped in a deep, shaky breath. Tamara’s grimness had given way to an odd expression, part anger, part puzzlement. “You will tell me that your heroism if all lies?” she asked. “No,” I said. “But it’s--well, different. Look, if you really want to hear my story, we can sit down and I’ll tell you everything, from how I ran about barefoot and illiterate in the mountains joyfully planning our easy takeover, right down to how Galdran knocked me clean out of my saddle after I warded a single blow and nearly lost my arm in doing it. I think he attacked me because I was the weakest--it’s the only reason that makes sense to me. As for the rest--” I shrugged. “Some of it was wrong decisions made for the right reasons, and a little of it was right decisions made for the wrong reasons; but most of what I did was wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. That’s the plain truth.

The crew headed to Tequila Jodi’s for a celebration. Raven and Vaughn arrived an hour after everyone. They made up for their tardiness by binge drinking a bottle of tequila. Well, Vaughn did. Raven binged on a pitcher of Diet Coke. “I might be binging for two!” she announced then sat down to look over the pictures of her niece and nephew. Harlow showed up with Toni. While her mom joined Jodi at a back table, Harlow made a beeline for Winnie. “Are you okay?” she asked, studying Winnie’s face. “Yes. Are you?” Harlow rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.” Winnie glanced at me and I saw such peace in her eyes. When she looked back at Harlow, her smile brightened. “Lark and the babies are okay. Today is a good day.” Hugging her sister, Winnie couldn’t stop smiling. “Are you drunk?” Harlow asked. “I’m happy.” Harlow studied her sister again and checked her hands for new bruises. “Do you plan to sleep at home tonight?” “No, I’m staying with Dylan.” “Any bad memories about the baby?” “Only hopeful thoughts about the future.” Harlow frowned at me then shrugged. “I can imagine you two making a decent looking kid. Your pretty eyes and hair and his… well shaped head. Yeah, it’ll work.” Running a hand over my head, I laughed. “My head shape is helluva sexy.” Winnie’s calm infected Harlow who laughed and ordered a soda. The sisters danced with Bailey and Sawyer to Amos Moses. I knew Winnie wasn’t comfortable showing off in front of people. Whenever she got nervous, she glanced at me and relaxed. “Wedding bells,” Nick said from beside me. “You didn’t waste any time.” “She calms the asshole in me and I calm the broken girl in her. What’s there to wait for?” Giving me a grin, Nick shrugged. “When you know, you know.

Then it came to him. This was not the diversion, the battle of Gibeah was the diversion. The real goal was to capture Mikael himself, the prince of Israel. Well, he thought, they picked the wrong archangel to mess with. I have a chosen nation to protect. He pulled out his horn to call for help, but Ba’alzebul’s mace smashed it out of his hands. Dagon assaulted him with a barrage of sword slashes and strikes. Mikael kept him at bay, but almost got stung by Asherah’s javelin from the other side. He dodged and kept moving. His Karabu training was his only hope. It was the heavenly battle technique of Yahweh’s archangels developed to protect the Garden of Eden in primordial days. They had taught the human giant killers Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Caleb the Way of Karabu, but now he would need to call upon his training to survive this ordeal. He flipped, spun, and danced around the four attacking gods and their weapons. It frustrated the malevolent beings, which was to Mikael’s advantage. But archangels were still created beings. He began to grow tired. They were wearing him down. Dagon’s sword grazed Mikael’s arm, cutting through his tunic. He was not going to be able to keep it up. He would have to do something drastic. Ba’alzebul moved in on Mikael. The biggest, meanest, mightiest of the gods had been waiting for his opportune moment when Mikael was just weary enough, just worn enough, to be incapable of expecting the unexpected. Ba’alzebul took the lead and pounded Mikael’s sword with his mace and backed him up against the ledge. Mikael looked down to the chasm floor. Saul and his forces made their way through the chasm below after slaughtering the priests of Molech. It wasn’t a fair fight. And neither was this fight. But Saul was safe. He had made it through and went north toward Gibeah. But the gods were not here for Saul. They were here for Mikael. Ba’alzebul suddenly threw down his mace and rushed Mikael like a bull goring its prey. Mikael didn’t register why, until Ba’alzebul hit him. The two of them launched off into space, plummeting toward the chasm floor two hundred feet below. Angels and gods could not die. But they were not mere spirits. They were enfleshed spirits. While it was unique flesh that would heal miraculously, it was still flesh that could be hurt — as Ba’alzebul knew all too well from his own painful experience in the molten earth. They hit the ground with a powerful thud and sank several feet into the dirt. Every bone in Mikael’s body was broken in the fall. He was paralyzed in excruciating pain. Ba’alzebul had been on top of Mikael, so while he too would be somewhat incapacitated, it would not be as bad for him, having used Mikael’s body as a cushion in the fall. As Mikael slipped into a state of delirious pain, he knew that their goal had been to capture him this way. To ambush him and therefore make both Saul and David more vulnerable to human attack. But what did they plan for Mikael? He could not begin to imagine.

This is what he felt. How about you? What has caused you pain? What has made you want to end your life? What has so completely broken your soul that you wonder if you’ll ever be able to recover? Tell that to God. Dispense with the polite, positive self-talk and ask God directly, Where were you when this happened? Were you sleeping? Are you lazy? Are you too chicken and you’re hiding? Take the psalms of lament as your permission slip to be honest with God.

The Border: A Double Sonnet The border is a line that birds cannot see. The border is a beautiful piece of paper folded carelessly in half. The border is where flint first met steel, starting a century of fires. The border is a belt that is too tight, holding things up but making it hard to breathe. The border is a rusted hinge that does not bend. The border is the blood clot in the river’s vein. The border says Stop to the wind, but the wind speaks another language, and keeps going. The border is a brand, the “Double-X” of barbed wire scarred into the skin of so many. The border has always been a welcome stopping place but is now a Stop sign, always red. The border is a jump rope still there even after the game is finished. The border is a real crack in an imaginary dam. The border used to be an actual place but now it is the act of a thousand imaginations. The border, the word border, sounds like order, but in this place they do not rhyme. The border is a handshake that becomes a squeezing contest. The border smells like cars at noon and woodsmoke in the evening. The border is the place between the two pages in a book where the spine is bent too far. The border is two men in love with the same woman. The border is an equation in search of an equals sign. The border is the location of the factory where lightning and thunder are made. The border is “NoNo” the Clown, who can’t make anyone laugh. The border is a locked door that has been promoted. The border is a moat but without a castle on either side. The border has become Checkpoint Chale. The border is a place of plans constantly broken and repaired and broken. The border is mighty, but even the parting of the seas created a path, not a barrier. The border is a big, neat, clean, clear black line on a map that does not exist. The border is the line in new bifocals: below, small things get bigger; above, nothing changes. The border is a skunk with a white line down its back.

Faith is one of the most important elements of human life. It is with faith that you operate your imagination, then gaining upper control over the physical universe around you. It is with faith that you make plans for the future, endure the pains of seeing them fail, and then regain hope again, by replanning, readjusting towards your goals, in order to finally succeed. It is because of your faith that your life gains a higher meaning, enabling you to endure the most profound of chaos, at a mental, physical, and spiritual level. It is due to faith, that we love. And it is because of faith that we keep our relationships. No relationship was ever made possible without faith. That was not, at the very least, a relationship that could be labeled as a loving one. Because we only associate with those who can become recipients of our faith. That faith then assumes different ramifications, in the form of trust, commitment, realistic expectations, and understanding. Whenever these fundamental branches get broken, faith is lost, and so is the relationship or its meaning. Nothing ever ends before ending faith first. Suicide, depression, despair, and anxiety, among many other forms of mental illnesses and emotional challenges in general, cannot emerge without breaking faith first. And that faith is broken first in our social interactions before being broken within us. We do that by violating our own ethical code. Ultimately, faith connects us as a collective and connects the essence of our soul to the meaning of life. Without faith, nothing makes any sense. But the deepest challenge of faith, is always a karmic one, for the heavier your karma, the more faith you will need to overcome it. The worse the actions of the past — the more against your spiritual integrity and the spiritual integrity of others they are — the thicker will be the layers of your karma. And those layers will manifest too in the physical world, leading into the greatest trap of all, which is the idea that your surroundings and those who compose them make you. They do not. And every glimpse of light in the horizon, in the form of an illusion, shows you that. Because that is what pleasant illusions are for, to give you hope. Because it is thanks to hoping that you rediscover your faith and it is with this renewed faith that you rediscover love. Happiness then could be considered a process, but no process is joyful until you look back at the memories that led you towards success, and no success is meaningful except the one that can be shared. Recognition and admiration are then not a goal in itself, but part of such illusion in which we find ourselves, for it either sink us deeper into thicker layers of karma or propels us outwards, and towards love. The difference is as clear as in seeing with whom we associate ourselves with, for we may be too immersed in a karmic fog to realize that the ones who help us the most are not our enemies, and our enemies may be the ones we consider friends. Upon contemplating these different stages of karmic manifestation, one then understands the need to repent, and becomes humble, and focused on his spiritual freedom before even considering a spiritual growth. When this is consciously seen and accepted, he will feel blessed for the glimpses of light, no matter how delusional, and the ones who despite the inner conflicts caused can lead then to the spiritual freedom they seek. As a man in the dark, those who are blinded by their karma, won’t be able to discern their angels from their demons, but faith in oneself is a good start in that direction.

The Mortuary Committee would be burdened with many unenviable tasks, but the first was straightforward: instead of storing the corpses at a half dozen locations around town, which made it more difficult for soldiers to transport the bodies and record-keepers and families to find them, they needed to select a single building to house an official, temporary morgue. They quickly settled on the Chebucto Road School, which, despite its broken windows, had a lot to recommend it: it was large, it could be quickly cleared out and converted to its new purpose, and it was close to Pier 6, minimizing the transport of corpses and travel for their relatives. The committee also needed a place that could keep bodies for as long as possible, giving them the best chance of being identified. They designated the upper floors for offices and the wide-open, cooler basement for the bodies, which they planned to lay in rows and cover with sheets. The Royal Engineers quickly fixed up the damaged school, covered its windows, and cleaned the space. As soon as people learned of the location, bodies began to pile up outside the building, stacked two and three high until morgue workers could retrieve them. The Relief Committee also dispatched crews of volunteers to put out fires and turn off water mains, faucets, and spigots, and to pick up the dead—tagging their names, when they knew them, to the victims’ wrists, or simply attaching a number when they didn’t—loading them onto rudimentary flat wagons dozens at a time. They soon learned to conduct this dispiriting job late at night so as not to offend the friends and relatives of the deceased. But because everyone could hear the horses’ hooves each night, the rolling midnight morgue was a poorly kept secret, one that woke many Haligonians whose homes still lacked windows.

Now look,” he said. He felt the back collar of his shirt and jacket clutched in an iron grip and he whirled on the giant, hitting him square in the jaw with his fist. He suspected he’d broken his hand, but no way was he letting on. He did wince in pain, however, while the very large man merely turned his brick of a face to the side. “You shouldn’t’a done that, little man,” the guy said. It took him roughly one second to draw back his fist and plaster Sean in the face hard enough to send him reeling into the melons. Then to the floor. Sean saw a lot of stars and was aware of the melons as they began to bounce around the produce section. And there was blood—he wasn’t sure where from since his entire face felt as if it had been through a meat grinder. “Hey!” Franci shouted. “What’s the matter with you? I told you to leave it alone, he’s harmless!” “No good deed goes unpunished, I guess,” the big man said. “It looked like you needed help. Maybe you like being grabbed like that in the grocery store, huh, babe?” Sean muttered something about not being harmless and tried to get to his feet, without success. The big man said, “Just stay down where you are, buster.” But Sean was intent on getting up and he’d just about made it to his feet when the man took two giant steps in his direction. That was all it took for Franci to launch herself on the lumberjack with a cry of outrage. She had her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist and screamed bloody murder while pummeling him on the back. “I. Told. You. To. Leave. Him. Alone!” she shrieked. Paul Bunyan whirled around and around, trying to shake her loose, but she was on him like a tick on a hound. Then the scene got a lot more interesting. “No! No! No! No! No!” screamed a store manager, running up to them, followed closely by another man and a couple of young bag boys. A crowd gathered and the grocery employees peeled Franci off the lumberjack, but she was kicking her heart out the whole time. “The police are coming!” the store manager yelled. “Stop this at once! Stop!” And Sean absently thought, This really isn’t going how I planned. Right

While I thought my vengeful thoughts and made my plans to ruin her life when I could, Chris was tenderly kissing me. I hadn’t even noticed. “Stop!” I cried when I felt his lips pressing down on mine. “Leave me alone! You don’t love me like I want to be loved, for what I am. You love me because my face is like hers! Sometimes I hate my face!” He looked terribly wounded as he backed toward the door. “I was only trying to comfort you,” he said in a broken voice. “Don’t turn it into something ugly.

Here and now I must settle and plan the issues which project themselves on into eternity. Christ knew that, and in His teaching concerning the deeper and fuller life, He let His followers know it was no easy matter. He did not say, "Now just confess your sins and accept Christ and all things are yours." Instead He made very stringent and searching demands of those who wish to enter fully into all that He has for us. We must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him (Luke 9: 23). Instead of loving our life we must lose it for His sake (Matthew 10: 39). We must love Him more than we love our father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters (Luke 14: 26).

God has given me power over my food choices. I hold the power—not the food. If I’m not supposed to eat it, I won’t put it in my mouth. I was made for more than being stuck in a vicious cycle of defeat. I was not made to be a victim of my poor choices. I was made to be a victorious child of God. When I am struggling and considering a compromise, I will force myself to think past this moment and ask myself, How will I feel about this choice tomorrow morning? If I’m in a situation where the temptation is overwhelming, I will have to choose to either remove the temptation or remove myself from the situation. When a special occasion rolls around, I can find ways to celebrate that don’t involve blowing my healthy eating plan. Struggling with my weight isn’t God’s mean curse on me. Being overweight is an outside indication that internal changes are needed for my body to function properly and for me to feel well. I have these boundaries in place not for restriction but to define the parameters of my freedom. My brokenness can’t handle more freedom than this right now. And I’m good with that.

Things I know about Project Moonlark I’m the moonlark—which means I get to have lots of people trying to kill me. Calla came up with the name for the project because of the way moonlarks treat their eggs. She also helped the Black Swan figure out my genetics, which are mostly based off alicorn DNA. That’s why I have brown eyes and can teleport. (And yeah, it’s hard not to feel like “the horse girl.”) They chose a lot of the abilities they gave me because they were hoping I’d be able to use them to heal broken minds (since the Black Swan knew some of their members might endure memory breaks—like poor Prentice). I grew up with humans, partly to make sure no one found me. But mostly so I’d understand humans differently from how other elves understand them. And I guess I do, but… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that information. It’s possible I may end up manifesting another special ability (or more than one—anything’s possible at this point). But I hope not. Five is seriously enough! My biological mother is Councillor Oralie, which means she lied to me every time she saw me for years (and signed me up for a genetic experiment and then totally abandoned me). I also can’t tell anyone who she is, because then she’d have to resign from the Council, and that would create so much chaos that it could give the Neverseen the opportunity to take control. So, lucky me—I get to be unmatchable! The Black Swan loves to tell me I have a choice in all of this, and I guess I do for certain things. But it’s not like I can change my genetics. Or everything I’ve gone through. Or the fact that everyone’s expecting me to be this big important THING, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to do it. Sometimes I wonder if the real reason the Black Swan won’t tell me what they’re planning is because they don’t actually have a PLAN. They just made their little moonlark and are expecting me to figure out the rest. Which, you know, would be pretty terrifying if I’m right. But at the same time… I kinda think it might be better—because if they do have a PLAN, then wouldn’t that mean they also knew exactly what the Neverseen were going to do and could’ve prevented it all from happening in the first place?

Last night was moonless, and we took a boat out onto Scapa Flow. There was broken light all across the sky, and columns of cloud twisting and turning through the pieces. Dust and dragon fire. Professor Semyonov said: 'That's the Milky Way. As much of it as we can see, anyway.' It was so beautiful I kept my eyes on it in case it suddenly disappeared, or turned out to be some gigantic illusion. Maybe it was the rocking of the deck, or maybe I stared for too long, but after a while I felt it all moving against me, the light and the clouds and the darkness, countless stars and planets flying like arrows from a bow hidden further back. Not that we three on the boat were the target; that was just an accident of scale. We crush ants all the time just walking through the park. I thought the best plan was to leave before the sky arrived, just jump into the sea and drown directly. The second-best plan was to close my eyes, but Myrna made me keep looking up. She said her own fear had been that those pinpricks of light were growing and that as they did, she shrank. She made me keep looking up until the panic was singed away. All I knew how to do with puppets, all I used to want to do, was play unsettling tricks. That's not enough any more. I want to put on stubborn little shows, find places here and there where we get to see what we'd be like if we were actually in control of anything. Cruel fantasies, maybe, but they can't hurt any more than glimpsing a galaxy does.

We made a plan to meet there the next morning for breakfast before heading out on our first shore excursion. I hoped exploring St. Kitts would rouse Helen’s interest. Mourning a spouse was one thing, but Helen seemed broken, as if her spirit had died right along with Kenneth.

But I—” My mind works furiously to understand how this situation has changed so dramatically from what I’d planned. They’re fixing me up, it’s dawning on me. They expect me to stay in the race! I wince as someone swabs my shoulder. This isn’t how it was going to be! I’d made up my mind: I’m hurt, the bike is broken; it’s over, isn’t it? Julie, kneeling and bandaging my knee, glances up. She smiles. “I think it’s going to be okay,” she says. Peter McIntosh rises from where he’s been adjusting the pedal into place. Staring directly into my eyes and sounding like a five-star general, he says, “This is not over. Now, get back on your bike and get it done.

Everything was going well in my life. My career was spit-shined and gleaming, I’d made a name for myself in the sports world, and I had plans to get back onto the battlefield like a Navy SEAL should. But sometimes, even when you are doing everything right in life, shit storms appear and multiply. Chaos can and will descend without warning, and when (not if) that happens, there won’t be anything you can do to stop it. If you’re fortunate, the issues or injuries are relatively minor, and when those incidents crop up it’s on you to adjust and stay after it. If you get injured or other complications arise that prevent you from working on your primary passion, refocus your energy elsewhere. The activities we pursue tend to be our strengths because it’s fun to do what we’re great at. Very few people enjoy working on their weaknesses, so if you’re a terrific runner with a knee injury that will prevent you from running for twelve weeks, that is a great time to get into yoga, increasing your flexibility and your overall strength, which will make you a better and less injury-prone athlete. If you’re a guitar player with a broken hand, sit down at the keys

Out of New York came a governor from the moneyed class, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and he drove Murray to fits—being from that hated family. (FDR’s cousin, Teddy, had forced Murray to remove a white supremacist plank from the Oklahoma constitution before he would allow it to join the union.) At first, Franklin Roosevelt was dismissed as a man without heft, a dilettante running on one of the nation’s great names. Then he took up the cause of the “forgotten man”—the broken farmer on the plains, the apple vendor in the city, the factory hand now hitting the rails. And though he spoke with an accent that sounded funny to anyone outside the mid-Atlantic states, and he seemed a bit jaunty with that cigarette holder, Roosevelt roused people with a blend of hope and outrage. He knew hardship and the kind of emotional panic that comes when your world collapses. He had been felled by double pneumonia in 1918, which nearly killed him, and polio in 1921, which left him partially paralyzed. He had been told time and again in the prime of his young adulthood that he had no future, that he would not walk again, that he might not live much longer. “If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your toe, after that anything would seem easy,” he said. Hoover believed the cure for the Depression was to prime the pump at the producer end, helping factories and business owners get up and running again. Goods would roll off the lines, prosperity would follow. Roosevelt said it made no sense to gin up the machines of production if people could not afford to buy what came out the factory door. “These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized, the indispensable units of economic powers,” FDR said on April 7, 1932, in a radio speech that defined the central theme of his campaign. He called for faith “in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” That forgotten man was likely to be a person with prairie dirt under the fingernails. “How much do the shallow thinkers realize that approximately one half of our population, fifty or sixty million people, earn their living by farming or in small towns where existence immediately depends on farms?

Emotions had been the primary factor in my planning and decision-making. Most of the time, they made my life feel like a roller coaster ride that ended abruptly with a broken piece of track.

I smiled and we both just stood there. Neither one of us made a move to go, even though it was late. A mischievous grin crept across her face. “Are you tired?” I liked the glint in her eye and I had no intention of ending this night if she didn’t want to, no matter how tired I was. “No.” “Do you want to go TP Sloan and Brandon’s house?” My laugh made her eyes dance. “I know it’s a little tenth-grade retro,” she said. “But I’ve always wanted to do it. And you can’t TP a house alone—it’s a rule.” “We’ll have to show up there tomorrow and help them clean it up. Pretend it’s just a lucky coincidence,” I said. “Can you borrow a tool from Brandon? I can text Sloan in the morning to tell her we’re going to pick it up. She’ll cook if she knows we’re coming. Then we’ll get breakfast and atone for our sins.” She grinned. A half an hour later I was crouched behind my truck two houses down from Brandon’s, game-planning with Kristen. She still hadn’t taken out her curlers. “If they wake up,” she whispered, “we scatter and reconvene at the donut place on Vanowen.” “Got it. If you’re captured, no matter what they do to you, don’t break under interrogation.” She scoffed quietly. “As if. I can’t be broken.” She snatched her roll and darted from behind the truck. We made short work of it. Operation TP Sloan and Brandon’s was completed in less than five minutes. No casualties. We got back into the truck laughing so hard it took me three tries to get the key in the ignition. Then I noticed she’d lost a curler. I got unbuckled. “No curlers left behind. It’s Marine Corps policy.” We got out for a recon mission on Brandon’s lawn. I located the fallen curler under a pile of TP by the mailbox. “Hey,” I whispered, holding it up. “Found it.” She beamed and jogged across the toilet-papered grass, but when she reached for the curler, I palmed it. “You’re injured,” I whispered. “You’ve lost a curler. The medics can reattach it, but I’ll need to carry you out. Get on my back.” I was only about 50 percent sure she would go for this. I banked on her not wanting to break character. She didn’t skip a beat. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Man down. Good call.” She jumped up and I piggybacked her to the truck, laughing the whole way. Those thirty seconds of her arms around my neck made my entire night.

I quit my high paying job in a Fortune 100 company to pursue my dream of helping people realise their dreams. I don’t make a lot of money now but I am happy. To whomever on the internet is selling people the dream that if you do what you love and work really hard you will make lots of money, please stop. Your passion is not a guarantee towards income. Your hard work is not a guarantee towards income. Here’s the deal: there’s no guarantee. Even if you choose the safer route of employment, layoffs happen, recession, contracts get broken, and industries shift. But when you choose social entrepreneurship, by definition, you are choosing risk. Yes, I have made some stupid money mistakes, mostly while I was pursuing my old dream career as a writer and trainer. It’s easy to be blinded by passion. When you decide to go for it, go with open eyes. And do it so that your dreams have better shot at actually coming true. “Impractical” dreams LOVE practical plans.

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

Mortarion was still the greater of them. He was still the stronger, the more steeped in preternatural gifts, but now all that he felt was doubt, rocked by the remorseless fury of one who had never been anything more than flighty, self-regarding and unreliable. All Mortarion could see just then was one who wished to kill him - who would do anything, sacrifice anything, fight himself beyond physical limits, destroy his own body, his own heart, his own soul, just for the satisfaction of the oaths he had made in the void. 'If you know what I did,' Mortarion cried out, fighting on now through that cold fog of indecision, 'then you know the truth of it, brother - I can no longer die.' It was as if a signal had been given. The Khan's bloodied head lifted, the remnants of his long hair hanging in matted clumps. 'Oh, I know that,' he murmured, with the most perfect contempt he had ever mustered. 'But I can.' Then he leapt. His broken legs still propelled him, his fractured arms still bore his blade, his blood-filled lungs and perforated heart still gave him just enough power, and he swept in close. If he had been in the prime of condition, the move might have been hard to counter, but he was already little more than a corpse held together by force of will, and so Silence interposed itself, catching the Khan under his armour-stripped shoulder and impaling him deep. But that didn't stop him. The parry had been seen, planned for, and so he just kept coming, dragging himself up the length of the blade until the scythe jutted out of his ruptured back and the White Tiger was in tight against Mortarion's neck. For an instant, their two faces were right up against one another - both cadaverous now, drained of blood, drained of life, existing only as masks onto pure vengeance. All their majesty was stripped away, scraped out across the utilitarian rockcrete, leaving just the desire, the violence, the brute mechanics of despite. It only took a split second. Mortarion's eyes went wide, realising that he couldn't wrench his brother away in time. The Khan's narrowed. 'And that makes the difference,' Jaghatai spat. He snapped his dao across, severing Mortarion's neck cleanly in an explosion of black bile, before collapsing down into the warp explosion that turned the landing stage, briefly, into the brightest object on the planet after the Emperor's tormented soul itself.

they make a lovely couple.” Lucinda’s father beamed. “What are you two doing tomorrow?” Hello… Now was the time for Bryce to jump in and explain that he had a girlfriend. His dad knew I was here with him… What kind of crap was he trying to pull? “Bryce,” I tried to keep an even tone to my voice, “tell your father why you can’t show Lucinda around.” “We haven’t made any firm plans yet.” Bryce said. “Lucinda, I’ll call you. Haley, we should go before the Cupcakery closes.” Hell no. “Bryce?” “Could we not do this here?” Bryce sounded annoyed. Too bad. “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but I need to know where I stand.” He looked as frustrated as I felt. “What do you want me to do?” “Man up and make a choice.” I was tired of second-guessing our relationship. Either he wanted to be my boyfriend or he didn’t. Either way, I’d live. I might eat a dozen cupcakes by myself, but I’d survive. “Consider our deal over, and make a choice.” He didn’t say he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He didn’t say he wanted to continue dating me, but see other people. He didn’t say a word. He blinked and stared. And there was my answer. Fighting the urge to tell him what a wuss he was, I nodded. “Fine. It’s over. Have a nice life.” With that parting shot, I stomped out the door and wove through the crowd of people waiting for the valet. Slow, even breaths, that was the key. I could do this, even though it felt like I was inhaling broken glass. I would not cry in public. If people were going to gossip about me breaking up with Bryce, which they would, at least they’d say I made a dignified exit. Now what? I needed an escape route. Jane. I needed Jane. All I had to do was find her, because her real boyfriend would give me a ride home.

After the Resurrection, there will be a Day of Judgment. While all will eventually be saved and inherit a kingdom of glory, those who trust in God and seek to follow His laws and ordinances will inherit lives in the eternities that are unimaginable in glory and overwhelming in majesty. That Day of Judgment will be a day of mercy and love—a day when broken hearts are healed, when tears of grief are replaced with tears of gratitude, when all will be made right.

What I know in my soul is that the prejudice, inequality, and broken systems that do exist are wrong and dangerous. As Americans, they anger and shame so many of us. Personally, I can’t just sit on a couch and watch the news, or run a company, while society erupts, or walk into some form of retirement and be still. On the sidelines is not where most of us want to be. We must see beyond what’s in front of us. We must reimagine the promise of America. How? By using empathy to try to understand, raising our voices to condemn darkness, and casting our votes to choose the kind of leadership we want our grandchildren to grow up with. But we must also use our hard skills and resources to craft a better reality for ourselves, our neighbors and those with whom we share this land. We can protest but also plan. Search for the truth and share it broadly. Listen to others, and blend ideas. Criticize, but also create. It’s time to commit to a deeper level of shared accountability—to neighbor as well as to stranger, and to self. Americans will always have differences, because that is the nature of the republic we have created. But we owe our children a less divisive America, just as many of our parents fought for a less divided country than the one they inherited. It is time for all of us to elevate the best of ourselves. It is time to climb, and to reclaim the high ground. To do so we must make a choice, one that we have made before. It is a choice between renewal or decline. Our country has a history of renewal at moments when we’ve faced decline, but we also know that renewing our nation’s honor is not a forgone conclusion. The future is not going to bend toward America because we’re American. We’re going to have to bend it ourselves, nudge it, move it. At every turn, let us choose to replace meanness with kindness; pettiness with significance; hate with love; gridlock with compromise; complaints with creative solutions. As a nation, we must be tough but not at the expense of one another. So let us also champion and celebrate those with strength of character—the upstanders among us—because there are so many whose daily intentions and actions echo the heroism of the past, who strive for honesty in the present, and who are already reimagining the promise of America, and will do so for years to come. Above all, let us choose to believe in each other because now and always—we are in this together.

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: 2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels[a] shouted for joy? 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? 12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? 14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. 15 The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken. 16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. 19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! 22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? 24 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 25 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, 26 to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, 27 to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? 28 Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens 30 when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? 31 “Can you bind the chains[b] of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons[c] or lead out the Bear[d] with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s[e] dominion over the earth? 34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? 35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who gives the ibis wisdom[f] or gives the rooster understanding?[g] 37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens 38 when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? 39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? 41 Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

After only eight months in office, Meadows made national headlines by sending an open letter to the Republican leaders of the House demanding they use the “power of the purse” to kill the Affordable Care Act. By then, the law had been upheld by the Supreme Court and affirmed when voters reelected Obama in 2012. But Meadows argued that Republicans should sabotage it by refusing to appropriate any funds for its implementation. And, if they didn’t get their way, they would shut down the government. By fall, Meadows had succeeded in getting more than seventy-nine Republican congressmen to sign on to this plan, forcing Speaker of the House John Boehner, who had opposed the radical measure, to accede to their demands. Meadows later blamed the media for exaggerating his role, but he was hailed by his local Tea Party group as “our poster boy” and by CNN as the “architect” of the 2013 shutdown. The fanfare grew less positive when the radicals in Congress refused to back down, bringing virtually the entire federal government to a halt for sixteen days in October, leaving the country struggling to function without all but the most vital federal services. In Meadows’s district, day-care centers that were reliant on federal aid reportedly turned distraught families away, and nearby national parks were closed, bringing the tourist trade to a sputtering standstill. National polls showed public opinion was overwhelmingly against the shutdown. Even the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a conservative, called the renegades “the Suicide Caucus.” But the gerrymandering of 2010 had created what Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker called a “historical oddity.” Political extremists now had no incentive to compromise, even with their own party’s leadership. To the contrary, the only threats faced by Republican members from the new, ultraconservative districts were primary challenges from even more conservative candidates. Statistics showed that the eighty members of the so-called Suicide Caucus were a strikingly unrepresentative minority. They represented only 18 percent of the country’s population and just a third of the overall Republican caucus in the House. Gerrymandering had made their districts far less ethnically diverse and further to the right than the country as a whole. They were anomalies, yet because of radicalization of the party’s donor base they wielded disproportionate power. “In previous eras,” Lizza noted, “ideologically extreme minorities could be controlled by party leadership. What’s new about the current House of Representatives is that party discipline has broken down on the Republican side.” Party bosses no longer ruled. Big outside money had failed to buy the 2012 presidential election, but it had nonetheless succeeded in paralyzing the U.S. government. Meadows of course was not able to engineer the government shutdown by himself. Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas, whose 2012 victory had also been fueled by right-wing outside money, orchestrated much of the congressional strategy.

Thinking of our lives as a system that can be organized and broken down and analyzed into smaller concepts helps us to improve upon them. This analytical approach is helpful in understanding how everything in our lives is interconnected — how one event influences another, and simultaneously, what impact it has on the system as a whole.

Ever wonder what happens to those final girls? After all their plans go belly up and all their weapons fail? After their defenses crumble and they’ve been shot in the head? After they’ve trusted the wrong people, made the wrong choices, and opened themselves up at the worst possible moments? After their lives are ruined, and they’re left at thirty-eight years old with nothing in the bank, no kids, no lover, and nothing to their name but a couple of ghosts and a handful of broken-down friends? I know what happens to those girls. They turn into women. And they live.

But Rhys interlocked his fingers in the space between his knees before he said, “Five hundred years ago, in the years leading up to the War, there was a Fae kingdom in the southern part of the continent. It was a realm of sand surrounding a lush river delta. The Black Land. There was no crueler place to be born a human—for no humans were born free. They were all of them slaves, forced to build great temples and palaces for the High Fae who ruled. There was no escape; no chance of having their freedom purchased. And the queen of the Black Land … ” Memory stirred in his face. “She made Amarantha seem as sweet as Elain,” Mor explained with soft venom. “Miryam,” Rhys continued, “was a half-Fae female born of a human mother. And as her mother was a slave, as the conception was … against her mother’s will, so, too, was Miryam born in shackles, and deemed human—denied any rights to her Fae heritage.” “Tell the full story another time,” Amren cut in. “The gist of it, girl,” she said to me, “is that Miryam was given as a wedding gift by the queen to her betrothed, a foreign Fae prince named Drakon. He was horrified, and let Miryam escape. Fearing the queen’s wrath, she fled through the desert, across the sea, into more desert … and was found by Jurian. She fell in with his rebel armies, became his lover, and was a healer amongst the warriors. Until a devastating battle found her tending to Jurian’s new Fae allies—including Prince Drakon. Turns out, Miryam had opened his eyes to the monster he planned to wed. He’d broken the engagement, allied his armies with the humans, and had been looking for the beautiful slave-girl for three years. Jurian had no idea that his new ally coveted his lover. He was too focused on winning the War, on destroying Amarantha in the North. As his obsession took over, he was blind to witnessing Miryam and Drakon falling in love behind his back.