Pockets Of Peace Quotes

You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.

Don't believe everything you think. Thoughts are just that - thoughts.

Suffering usually relates to wanting things to be different from the way they are.

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.

Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

Do not speak about anyone who is not physically present.

The same hot lightning that burns your blood with passion–– cools your fears with peace.

When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.

You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.

[H]ere was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a pint bottle, and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach.

In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn't translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.

Rat #1 got you through the gates, didn't it?" said Anadil, stroking the still-pooped pet in her pocket. "Rat #2 gets you to the tower." "And Rat #3 negotiates world peace?

Support the type of thinking that leads you to feeling good, peaceful & happy.

Patience is the direct antithesis of anger.

For now, for one night, the pressures of the job were light-years away. He could do that to her, and for her, she realized. He could open little pockets of peace.

A modern definition of equanimity: cool. This refers to one whose mind remains stable & calm in all situations.

One doesn't have to be religious to lead a moral life or attain wisdom.

What do you think would happen if we kissed right here, right now?" he asks, digging his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, grinning right back at me. "I think it would cause a riot." "Well, you know me," he says, lowering his head towards me. "Causing a riot is what I do best." Santangelo approaches before Griggs gets any closer and pulls him away. "Are you guys insane?" he says, irritated. "It's called peaceful coexistence, Santangelo. You should try it and if it works we may sell the idea to the Israelis and Palestinians," I say, throwing his own words back at him.

We need never be bound by the limitations of our previous or current thinking, nor are we ever locked into being the person we used to be, or think we are.

The more we genuinely care about others the greater our own happiness & inner peace.

Loving others is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Altruism that rewards one's self.

On rainy afternoons, embroidering with a group of friends on the begonia porch, she would lose the thread of the conversation and a tear of nostalgia would salt her palate when she saw the strips of damp earth and the piles of mud that the earthworms had pushed up in the garden. Those secret tastes, defeated in the past by oranges and rhubarb, broke out into an irrepressible urge when she began to weep. She went back to eating earth. The first time she did it almost out of curiosity, sure that the bad taste would be the best cure for the temptation. And, in fact, she could not bear the earth in her mouth. But she persevered, overcome by the growing anxiety, and little by little she was getting back her ancestral appetite, the taste of primary minerals, the unbridled satisfaction of what was the original food. She would put handfuls of earth in her pockets, and ate them in small bits without being seen, with a confused feeling of pleasure and rage, as she instructed her girl friends in the most difficult needlepoint and spoke about other men, who did not deserve the sacrifice of having one eat the whitewash on the walls because of them. The handfuls of earth made the only man who deserved that show of degradation less remote and more certain, as if the ground that he walked on with his fine patent leather boots in another part of the world were transmitting to her the weight and the temperature of his blood in a mineral savor that left a harsh aftertaste in her mouth and a sediment of peace in her heart.

Thoughts, words, emotions & deeds not coming from love are likely coming from fear.

The venerable teachers, philosophers & spiritual practitioners throughout history have concluded that the greatest happiness we can experience comes from the development of an open, loving heart.

The practice of lovingkindness can uplift us & relieve sorrow & unhappiness.

Time passed. Like flakes shaken in a snow globe, the lives of those involved in the tragedy settled slowly to the ground, not in the same spots but in new pockets of peace.

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.

Emma rose to her feet, facing the faerie across the fleeing crowd. Gleaming from his weathered, barklike face, his eyes were yellow as a cat's. "Shadowhunter," he hissed. Emma reached back over her shoulder and closed her hand around the hilt of her sword, Cortana. The blade made a golden blur in the air as she drew it and pointed the tip at the fey. "No," she said. "I'm a candygram. This is my costume." The faerie looked puzzled. Emma sighed. "It's so hard to be sassy to the Fair Folk. You people never get jokes." "We are well known for our jests, japes, and ballads," the faerie said, clearly offended. "Some of our ballads last for weeks." "I don't have that kind of time," Emma said. "I'm a Shadowhunter. Quip fast, die young." She wiggled Cortana's tip impatiently. "Now turn out your pockets." "I have done nothing to break the Cold Peace," said the fey. "Technically true, but we do frown on stealing from mundanes," Emma said. "Turn out your pockets or I'll rip off one of your horns and shove it where the sun doesn't shine." The fey looked puzzled. "Where does the sun not shine? Is this a riddle?" Emma gave a martyred sigh and raised Cortana. "Turn them out, or I'll start peeling your bark off. My boyfriend and I just broke up, and I'm not in the best mood." The faerie began slowly to empty his pockets onto the ground, glaring at her all the while. "So you're single," he said. "I never would have guessed.

So, like I said, these are a bunch of really sweet guys, but you wouldn't want to share a Galaxy with them, not if they're just gonna keep at it, not if they're not gonna learn to relax a little. I mean it's just gonna be continual nervous time, isn't it, right? Pow, pow, pow, when are they next coming at us? Peaceful coexistence is just right out, right? Get me some water somebody, thank you." He sat back and sipped reflectively. OK," he said, "hear me, hear me. It's, like, these guys, you know, are entitled to their own view of the Universe. And according to their view, which the Universe forced on them, right, they did right. Sounds crazy, but I think you'll agree. They believe in ..." He consulted a piece of paper which he found in the back pocket of his Judicial jeans. They believe in `peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms'.

We train the mind so that we can enjoy greater peace, happiness, wisdom & equanimity.

Our greatest happiness comes from the experience of love & compassion.

A cowardly man thinks he will ever live, if warfare he avoids; but old age will give him no peace, though spears may spare him.

Accepting the reality of change gives rise to equanimity.

To advance spiritually requires a method of practice & determination to carry it out.

Being a senior doesn't automatically make one wise but the wise & foolish alike have things to teach us.

The essence of the Dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) is about identifying the cause of our suffering & alleviating it.

That was it. Shogo stopped breathing. The dim yellow light falling from the ceiling of the pilothouse shone on his pale face. He seemed at ease. "Shogo!" Shuya yelled. He still had more to say. "You'll see Keiko! You'll be happy with her! You're--" It was too late. Shogo couldn't hear anything anymore. But his face just looked so damned peaceful. "Damn it." Shuya's lips trembled along with his words. "Damn it." Holding Shogo's hands, Noriko was crying. Shuya also put his hand on Shogo's thick hand. A thought occured to him. He searched through Shogo's pockets and found the red bird call. He pressed it into Shogo's right hand and closed his hands over it so he could hold it. Shuya then finally burst into tears.

The erruption of feelings & emotions that follows a near-death exerience, or any event that causes us to stop & look deeply at the reality of our lives, is ripe with the potential for insight & clarity.

You want it your own way. You’d just like to have a little peace; you’d like to have a little happiness, you know, just “gimme a break!” But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what’s outside your room grows.

A year later we were in a coffee shop, the kind taking a last stand against Starbucks with its thrift-store chairs, vegan cookies, and over-promising teas with names like Serenity and Inner Peace. I was curled up with a stack of causes, trying to get in a few extra hours of work over the weekend, and Andrew sat with one hand gripping his mug, his nose in The New York Times; the two of us a parody of the yuppie couple of the new millennium. We sat silently that way, though there wasn't silence at all. On top of the typical coffee-shop sounds - the whir of an expresso machine, the click of the cash register, the bell above the door - Andrew was making his noises, an occasional snort at something he read in the paper, the jangle of his keys in his pocket, a sniffle since he was getting over a cold, a clearing of his throat. And as we sat there, all I could do was listen to those Andrew-specific noises, the rhythm of his breath, the in-out in-out, its low whistle. Snort. Jangle. Sniffle. Clear. Hypnotized. I wanted to buy his soundtrack. This must be what love is, I thought. Not wanting his noises to ever stop.

The more you manifest a servant’s heart in all you do, the more of an impact you’ll have on people’s lives.

Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse. Many people genuinely feel pain at the thought of the death of whole cultures. I see this all the time. They ask, “Is there nothing beautiful in these cultures? Is there nothing beautiful in Islam?” There is beautiful architecture, yes, and encouragement of charity, yes, but Islam is built on sexual inequality and on the surrender of individual responsibility and choice. This is not just ugly; it is monstrous.

Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 29:11

Time is redeemed when you make the most of your life by fulfilling God's purposes.

WHEN we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.

Nothing is constructed, made or invented, except in relative peace, in a small, rare pocket of local peace maintained in the middle of the universal devastation produced by perpetual war.

But on this particular morning, weary of books and birdsong and country peace, Edward took his rickety childhood bike from the shed, raised the saddle, pumped up the tired and set off with no particular plan. He had a pound note and two half crowns in his pocket and all he wanted was forward movement.

Cole Danzer.”  His voice.  God!  It makes me want to groan.  It’s like a silk sheet draped over jagged gravel.  It belongs in a bedroom.  A dark, warm bedroom.  Where pleasure and pain peacefully coexist,

When you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union - each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an air-liner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you tread lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to really know another.

Look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying -- yet in all the houses and on the streets there is peace and quiet; of the fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one who would cry out, who would vent his indignation aloud. We see the people who go to market, eat by day, sleep by night, who babble nonsense, marry, grow old, good-naturedly drag their feet to the cemetery, but we do not see or hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is peaceful and quiet and only mute statistics protest.

The Reason for Skylarks It was nearly morning when the giant Reached the tree of children. Their faces shone like white apples On the cold dark branches And their dresses and little coats Made sodden gestures in the wind. He did not laugh or weep or stamp His heavy feet. He set to work at once Lifting them tenderly down Into a straw basket which was fixed By a golden strap to his shoulder. Only one did he drop - a soft pretty child Whose hair was the color of watered milk. She fell into the long grass And he could not find her Though he searched until his fingers Bled and the full light came. He shook his fist at the sky and called God a bitter name. But no answer was made and the giant Got down on his knees before the tree And putting his hands about the trunk Shook Until all the children had fallen Into the grass. Then he pranced and stamped Them to jelly. And still he felt no peace. He took his half-full basket and set it afire, Holding it by the handle until Everything had been burned. He saw now Two men on steaming horses approaching From the direction of the world And taking a little silver flute Out of his pocket he played tune After tune until they came up to him.

Anger, hate, jealousy, envy, fear. Fill your pockets with these heavy stones and you spend your life trying not to drown. Throw them away and you float. The great current of life simply sweeps you up and carries you joyously to the place you were always meant to come to. Make no mistake, you will arrive there either way, through struggle or surrender. But one is the way of pain, the other of peace.

Louis stared at her, nonplussed. He more than half suspected that one of the things which had kept their marriage together when it seemed as if each year brought the news that two or three of their friends' marriages had collapsed was their respect of the mystery--the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another.

In this moment, however you are searching, stop. Whether you are searching for peace and happiness in a relationship, in a better job, or even in world peace, just for one moment stop absolutely. There is nothing wrong with these pursuits, but if you are engaging in them to get peace or to get happiness, you are overlooking the ground of peace that is already here. Once you discover this ground of peace, then whatever pursuits you engage in will be informed by your discovery. Then you will naturally bring what you have discovered to the world, to politics, to all your relationships. This discovery has infinite, complex ramifications, but the essence of it is very simple. If you will stop all activity, just for one instant, even for one-tenth of a second, and simply be utterly still, you will recognize the inherent spaciousness of your being that is already happy and at peace with itself. Because of our conditioning, we normally dismiss this ground of peace with an immediate, “Yes, but what about my life? I have responsibilities. I need to keep busy. The absolute doesn’t relate to my world, my existence.” These conditioned thoughts just reinforce further conditioning. But if you will take a moment to recognize the peace that is already alive within you, you then actually have the choice to trust it in all your endeavors, in all your relationships, in every circumstance of your life. It doesn’t mean that your life will be swept clean of conflicts, challenges, pain, or suffering. It means that you will have recognized a sanctuary where the truth of yourself is present, where the truth of God is present, regardless of the physical, mental, or emotional circumstances of your life.

Struggles come, for sure. But so does God.

We yearn for there to be meaning to our lives, balanced with a sense of inner peace & joy.

Sky aflame With vermillion passion Adrift Empty streets Silently serenade Silken Within my pocket Hemingway hums Static.

Peace. Just one peaceful moment. I’m not broken. I’m not beyond hope. I’m worthy; I’m so worthy of this moment. Of this precious pocket of peace. It’s here. It’s mine. I found it.

Stress, peace, pain, happiness, sorrow, greed, gratitude, harmony, conflict, love, hate, positivity, negativity - we are surrounded by these feelings every moment. What we gather and keep in our pocket is our choice.

Many people have the desire to let go, but they’re not able to do so because they don’t yet have enough insight; they haven’t seen other alternatives, other doorways to peace and happiness. Fear is an element that prevents us from letting go. We’re fearful that if we let go we’ll have nothing else to cling to. Letting go is a practice; it’s an art. One day, when you’re strong enough and determined enough, you’ll let go of the afflictions that make you suffer.

But Brinker came in. I think he made a point of visiting all the rooms near him the first day. “Well, Gene,” his beaming face appeared around the door. Brinker looked the standard preparatory school article in his gray gabardine suit with square, hand-sewn-looking jacket pockets, a conservative necktie, and dark brown cordovan shoes. His face was all straight lines— eyebrows, mouth, nose, everything—and he carried his six feet of height straight as well. He looked but happened not to be athletic, being too busy with politics, arrangements, and offices. There was nothing idiosyncratic about Brinker unless you saw him from behind; I did as he turned to close the door after him. The flaps of his gabardine jacket parted slightly over his healthy rump, and it is that, without any sense of derision at all, that I recall as Brinker’s salient characteristic, those healthy, determined, not over-exaggerated but definite and substantial buttocks.

Her mother was peaceful. She was calm. The sight filled Alice with the kind of green hope she found at the bottom of rock pools at low tide but never managed to cup in her hands. The more time she spent with her mother in the garden, the more deeply Alice understood- from the tilt of Agnes's wrist when she inspected a new bud, to the light that reached her eyes when she lifted her chin, and the thin rings of dirt that encircled her fingers as she coaxed new fern fronds from the soil- the truest parts of her mother bloomed among her plants. Especially when she talked to the flowers. Her eyes glazed over and she mumbled in a secret language, a word here, a phrase there as she snapped flowers off their stems and tucked into her pockets. Sorrowful remembrance, she'd say as she plucked a bindweed flower from its vine. Love, returned. The citrusy scent of lemon myrtle would fill the air as she tore it from a branch. Pleasures of memory. Her mother pocketed a scarlet palm of kangaroo paw.

I passed burnt-out stores with walls like broken teeth. ... I passed a woman with a shopping cart full of children. . . . Pockets of peace, then full-out soldiers in battle gear. ... I passed a popcorn store that was open and I stopped to buy popcorn. The popcorn smell modified the smell of spent tear gas — sour, musky chalk. ... I got stopped by a cloud when I was nearly home. It was a cloud of emotion. I came to a halt and tried to breathe my way through the mist. It was cleared by the loud curfew alert on my phone.

When I first met you, I knew, somehow, that you were going to change my life. I just didn’t know in what way. I didn’t know that you’d make me love you. And most importantly, I didn’t know that you’d make me love me. Baby, you make me see the good in myself and the good in everything on this damn earth. You chase my ghosts away, and…” He cleared his throat, and to my surprise, I saw his eyes were watering. Oh fuck. Please don’t cry, Dex, cuz I will fucking lose it. He swallowed hard, blinking tears back. “And you bring me peace. I can’t thank you enough for being in my life. And I want you there for the whole journey. Through everything—the good and the bad, the batshit crazy and the sane, the scary and the sexy. Especially the sexy. Just you and me, baby, until death do us part.” Somehow I found my voice. “Even though we’ve only known each other for eight months?” I asked quietly, afraid of his answer. But he just smiled up at me. “Time has no bearing on the truth. And what we have, that’s true as fucking anything.” He gave my hand a squeeze and reached into his pocket. I sucked in my breath, feeling all my emotions flood me at once, and watched as he took out a beautiful, sparkling ring, and held it poised at my finger. He gazed at me, and it was like I saw every moment we had with each other captured in his eyes. “Perry Palomino, kiddo, baby—will you be my wife?” I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes!” I blurted out in a sob as the tears started

Mr Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus’s peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, 'Too proud to fight, you nigger ­lovin‘ bastard?' Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, 'No, too old,' put his hands in his pockets and strolled on. Miss Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be right dry sometimes.

Daily life in 1960 would be unrecognizable to anyone transported from the year 1930. From 1960 to 1990, a Cold War nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union threatens the survival of civilization. Though begun in the 1950s, the US stockpile of nuclear warheads peaks in the 1960s, with the Soviets’ stockpile peaking in the 1980s.11 The Berlin Wall, erected in 1962, becomes the greatest symbol of Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain,” separating Eastern from Western Europe. Yet it’s dismantled by 1989, as peace breaks out in Europe. The commercialization of the transistor allows consumer electronics to miniaturize, transforming audiovisual equipment from heavy, floor-mounted living room furniture to what you carry in your pocket.

Near Taksim he suddenly found himself inside a crowd of people leaving a movie theater. They were staring straight ahead, as if in a trance, walking down the stairs arm in arm or with their hands plunged in their pockets, and Galip was so overwhelmed by what he read in their faces and that his own nightmare faded into the background. What he read in their faces was peace: these people had been able to forget their own sadness by immersing themselves in a story. They were here, on this wretched street, but at the same time they were there, inside the story to which they'd so eagerly given themselves over. They had gone into theater with minds sucked dry by pain and defeat,but now their minds were full again with rich story that gave meaning to their memories and their melancholy. They can believe they're someone else! thought Galip longingly. For a moment he was tempted to go in to watch the film they'd just seen,to lose himself in the same story and become someone else. As they wandered down the street, stopping now and again to gaze into boring shop windows, Galip watched the return to the dull and dreary world they knew so well. They don't make much effort! Thought Galip.

Architecture without pain, art looked at in undiluted pleasure, enjoyment without anxiety, compunction, heartache: there is no beggar woman in the church door, no ragged child or sore animal in the square. The water is safe and the wallet is inside the pocket. There will be no missed plane connection. We are in a country where the curable ills are taken care of. We are in a country where the mechanics of living from transport to domestic heating (alack, poor Britain!) function imaginatively and well; where it goes without saying that the sick are looked after and secure and the young well educated and well trained; where ingenuity is used to heal delinquents and to mitigate at least the physical dependence of old age; where there is work for all and some individual seizure, and men and women have not been entirely alienated yet from their natural environment; where there is care for freedom and where the country as a whole has rounded the drive to power and prestige beyond its borders and where the will to peace is not eroded by doctrine, national self-love, and unmanageable fears; where people are kindly, honest, helpful, sane, reliable, resourceful, and cool-headed; where stranger–shyly–smiles to stranger. "Portrait Sketch of a Country: Denmark 1962

I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco,” was all Atticus said about it. According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him. Miss Stephanie (who, by the time she had told it twice was there and had seen it all—passing by from the Jitney Jungle, she was)—Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn’t bat an eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to repeat. Mr. Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus’s peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, “Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin‘ bastard?” Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, “No, too old,” put his hands in his pockets and strolled on. Miss Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be right dry sometimes. Jem and I didn’t think it entertaining.

There was a time when I'd have killed Gmok without thinking. His pocket-sized goblin heart would have been exploded, his speckled green skin scorched with fire, or his mustard-yellow blood boiled with Black Magic until he was in a coma or dead. Maybe I would've also constructed another piece of furniture using his miniature skull as I'd once done with a thousand corpses of his kind. I'd slept so peacefully for decades on that glorious bed frame made of their tiny but sturdy bones.

During his time at VGIK, Tarkovsky and his fellow students studied all aspects of filmmaking, watching the classics of Soviet cinema and taking part in workshops in which they would demonstrate their technical ability. This even included acting; Tarkovsky’s fellow student and friend, Alexander Gordon, remembers him giving a superb performance as the aging Prince Bolkonsky when Romm got the students to perform scenes from War and Peace during their third year at VGIK. Tarkovsky saw many classics from outside the Soviet Union, including Citizen Kane, the films of John Ford and William Wyler, and the works of the fathers of the French New Wave, Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo. Tarkovsky developed a personal pantheon that included Bergman, Bunuel, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Fellini and Antonioni. The only Soviet director who made it into his pantheon was Dovzhenko, although he was good friends with the Georgian director Sergei Parajanov, whom he regarded as ‘a genius in everything’. He also spoke highly of Iosseliani, and, on occasion, of Boris Barnet. But above them all was the towering figure of Robert Bresson, whom Tarkovsky regarded as the ultimate film artist.

From a minaret, the khoja called the faithful to aksham, the evening prayer. It was a sound I associated with hot places—Cairo, Damascus—not a place where frost crunched underfoot and pockets of unmelted snow gathered in the crotch between the mosque’s dome and its stone palisade. I had to remind myself that Islam had once swept north as far as the gates of Vienna; that when the haggadah had been made, the Muslims’ vast empire was the bright light of the Dark Ages, the one place where science and poetry still flourished, where Jews, tortured and killed by Christians, could find a measure of peace.

There’s a particular grubbiness that comes with travel. You start showered and fresh in clean and comfortable clothes, upbeat and hopeful that this will be like travel in the movies; sunlight flaring on the windows, heads resting on shoulders, laughter and smiles with a lightly jazzy soundtrack. But in reality the grubbiness has set in before you’ve even cleared security; grime on your collar and cuffs, coffee breath, perspiration running down your back, the luggage too heavy, the distances too far, muddled currency in your pocket, the conversation self-conscious and abrupt, no stillness, no peace.

He says to the king, in the north they have contempt for the king’s peace, they want to administer their own murders. If Norfolk cannot subdue them they will fall into their old savagery, where each eye or limb or life itself is costed out, and all flesh has a price. In our forefathers’ time a nobleman’s life was worth six times that of a man who followed the plough. The rich man can slaughter as he pleases, if his pocket can bear the fines, but the poor man cannot afford one murder across his lifetime. We repudiate this, he tells the king: we say a man of violence cannot go free because his cousin is the judge, no more than a wealthy sinner can make up for his sins by founding a monastery. Before God and the law, all men are equal. It takes a generation, he says, to reconcile heads and hearts. Englishmen of every shire are wedded to what their nurses told them. They do not like to think too hard, or disturb the plan of the world that exists inside their heads, and they will not accept change unless it puts them in better ease. But new times are coming. Gregory’s children—and, he adds quickly, your Majesty’s children yet to be born—will never have known their country in thrall to an old fraud in Rome. They will not put their faith in the teeth and bones of the dead, or in holy water, ashes and wax. When they can read the Bible for themselves, they will be closer to God than to their own skin. They will speak His language, and He theirs. They will see that a prince exists not to sit a horse in a plumed helmet, but—as your Majesty always says—to care for his subjects, body and soul. The scriptures enjoin obedience to earthly powers, and so we stick by our prince through thick and thin. We do not reject part of his polity. We take him as a whole, consider him God’s anointed, and suppose God is keeping an eye on him.

Violet didn’t realize that she’d pressed herself so tightly against the door until it opened from the inside and she stumbled backward. She fell awkwardly, trying to catch herself as her feet slipped and first she banged her elbow, and then her shoulder-hard-against the doorjamb. She heard her can of pepper spray hit the concrete step at her feet as she flailed to find something to grab hold of. Her back crashed into something solid. Or rather, someone. And from behind, she felt strong, unseen arms catch her before she hit the ground. But she was too stunned to react right away. “You think I can let you go now?” A low voice chuckled in her ear. Violet was mortified as she glanced clumsily over her shoulder to see who had just saved her from falling. “Rafe!” she gasped, when she realized she was face-to-face with his deep blue eyes. She jumped up, feeling unexpectedly light-headed as she shrugged out of his grip. Without thinking, and with his name still burning on her lips, she added, “Umm, thanks, I guess.” And then, considering that he had just stopped her from landing flat on her butt, she gave it another try. “No…yeah, thanks, I mean.” Flustered, she bent down, trying to avoid his eyes as she grabbed the paper spray that had slipped from her fingers. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and wondered why she cared that he had been the one to catch her. Or why she cared that he was here at all. She stood up to face him, feeling more composed again, and quickly hid the evidence of her paranoia-the tiny canister-in her purse. She hoped he hadn’t noticed it. He watched her silently, and she saw the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. Violet waited for him to say something or to move aside to let her in. His gaze stripped away her defenses, making her feel even more exposed than when she had been standing alone in the empty street. She shifted restlessly and finally sighed impatiently. “I have an appointment,” she announced, lifting her eyebrows. “With Sara.” Her words had the desired effect, and Rafe shrugged, still studying her as he stepped out of her way. But he held the door so she could enter. She brushed past him, stepping into the hallway, as she tried to ignore the fact that she was suddenly sweltering inside her own coat. She told herself it was just the furnace, though, and had nothing to do with her humiliation over falling. Or with the presence of the brooding dark-haired boy. When they reached the end of the long hallway, Rafe pulled out a thick plastic card from his back pocket. As he held it in front of the black pad mounted on the wall beside a door, a small red light flickered to green and the door clicked. He pushed it open and led the way through. Security, Violet thought. Whatever it is they do here, they need security. Violet glanced up and saw a small camera mounted in the corner above the door. If she were Chelsea, she would have flashed the peace sign-or worse-a message for whoever was watching on the other end. But she was Violet, so instead she hurried after Rafe before the door closed and she was locked out.

widespread. Some states go so far as to forcibly sterilize people with certain disabilities. Some prohibit marriage for the genetically disabled, for fear of procreating hereditary conditions like mine. Visibly disabled people are actually barred from appearing in public in cities such as Columbus, Ohio—Dad’s hometown—until 1972, and Chicago until 1974, under what are collectively called the “ugly” laws because they target anyone perceived as unattractive, for being a disturbance of the peace. The movement to change all this and more is rising in discrete pockets all over, inspired by Black civil rights. Closer to

Your mouth can correct what is wrong. Your eyes can see evil and your mouth can speak righteousness. Your body can say I am sick while your mouth can say I am healed. Your eyes can say I am blind but your mouth can say I can see, Your pocket can say I am empty while your mouth can say I am swimming in abundance. Your Doctor can say that you are HIV Postive and Cancer but your mouth can say my body is a holy temple of God and by His stripes I am healed. Your womb can say that you are barren while your mouth can say "Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward." Don´t live by sight, live by faith. Put it in practice.

After we eat of the Apple of Knowledge, however, all of us start to be aware of ourselves, and our consciousness starts to be divided from our being. We start to have an image of ourselves which blocks our true expression. How do we go from there? There are two ways of dealing with this situation. The first is to find a self-image one is comfortable with. This is what most people do. It has some advantages since it causes the mind to operate reasonably undisturbed and it brings some peace to most people. People who find and maintain a self-image they are comfortable with are generally known as ‘happy people’. It doesn’t mean a whole lot, because in fact this image they are comfortable with is completely fake. There is another road, the road of learning to get rid of all self-imagery. This is a hard road however and requires one to pretty much battle for the rest of ones life (which isn’t a bad thing at all since the sense and meaning of life are essentially to put up a good battle). One develops techniques to stop identifying with ones self-image. The more these mechanisms behind self-imagery are mastered the more easy it becomes to switch and correct ones identities. At some point we can simply get rid of the self-image and be reborn as the child we once were, but a different child who has the triumph of knowledge in his pocket.

The things money can’t buy, goes the famous quote, you don’t want anyway. Which is bullshit, because in truth there is nothing money can’t buy. Not really. Love, happiness, peace of mind. It’s all available for a price. The fact is, there’s enough money on earth to make everyone whole, if we could just learn to do what any toddler knows—share. But money, like gravity, is a force that clumps, drawing in more and more of itself, eventually creating the black hole that we know as wealth. This is not simply the fault of humans. Ask any dollar bill and it will tell you it prefers the company of hundreds to the company of ones. Better to be a sawbuck in a billionaire’s account than a dirty single in the torn pocket of an addict.

homeowner, and come away with $20,000 or $30,000 cash in pocket. Success in real estate required skills that Rob believed were some of his strongest: the work ethic to locate those homes, the social skills to negotiate with people ranging from rich lenders to working-class contractors to poor renters, and the desire to make money in crafty but fundamentally honest ways. And, at least in Rob’s idealized vision, he would be making a positive mark in the world. Because a house meant shelter. It meant heat. It meant security. Above all, it meant family. Some friends who knew about Skeet’s passing felt that something equally powerful drove him: Rob had lost not only his father but also the goal of releasing his father in which he’d invested so much work since high school. He’d achieved almost every objective he’d ever laid out

when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another.

Have you ever been in a place where history becomes tangible? Where you stand motionless, feeling time and importance press around you, press into you? That was how I felt the first time I stood in the astronaut garden at OCA PNW. Is it still there? Do you know it? Every OCA campus had – has, please let it be has – one: a circular enclave, walled by smooth white stone that towered up and up until it abruptly cut off, definitive as the end of an atmosphere, making room for the sky above. Stretching up from the ground, standing in neat rows and with an equally neat carpet of microclover in between, were trees, one for every person who’d taken a trip off Earth on an OCA rocket. It didn’t matter where you from, where you trained, where your spacecraft launched. When someone went up, every OCA campus planted a sapling. The trees are an awesome sight, but bear in mind: the forest above is not the garden’s entry point. You enter from underground. I remember walking through a short tunnel and into a low-lit domed chamber that possessed nothing but a spiral staircase leading upward. The walls were made of thick glass, and behind it was the dense network you find below every forest. Roots interlocking like fingers, with gossamer fungus sprawled symbiotically between, allowing for the peaceful exchange of carbon and nutrients. Worms traversed roads of their own making. Pockets of water and pebbles decorated the scene. This is what a forest is, after all. Don’t believe the lie of individual trees, each a monument to its own self-made success. A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence. As I stood contemplating the roots, a hidden timer triggered, and the lights faded out. My breath went with it. The glass was etched with some kind of luminescent colourant, invisible when the lights were on, but glowing boldly in the dark. I moved closer, and I saw names – thousands upon thousands of names, printed as small as possible. I understood what I was seeing without being told. The idea behind Open Cluster Astronautics was simple: citizen-funded spaceflight. Exploration for exploration’s sake. Apolitical, international, non-profit. Donations accepted from anyone, with no kickbacks or concessions or promises of anything beyond a fervent attempt to bring astronauts back from extinction. It began in a post thread kicked off in 2052, a literal moonshot by a collective of frustrated friends from all corners – former thinkers for big names gone bankrupt, starry-eyed academics who wanted to do more than teach the past, government bureau members whose governments no longer existed. If you want to do good science with clean money and clean hands, they argued, if you want to keep the fire burning even as flags and logos came down, if you understand that space exploration is best when it’s done in the name of the people, then the people are the ones who have to make it happen.

He more than half suspected that one of the things which had kept their marriage together when it seemed as if each year brought the news that two or three of their friends’ marriages had collapsed was their respect of the mystery—the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another.

We are here today to raise the flag of victory over the capital of our greatest adversary . . . we must remember that . . . we are raising it in the name of the people of the United States, who are looking forward to a better world, a peaceful world, a world in which all the people will have an opportunity to enjoy the good things of life, and not just a few at the top. Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. There is not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole. [Here the thumbs came out of the coat pockets, his freed hands chopped the air in unison, the familiar gesture, as he stressed each word, “peace and prosperity for the world as a whole.”] We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war. If we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made victory possible, to work for peace, we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind. That is what we propose to do.

When I came here, Porcupine was the first to treat me to ice water. To be treated by such a fellow, even if it is so trifling a thing as ice water, affects my honor. I had only one glass then and had him pay only one sen and a half. But one sen or half sen, I shall not die in peace if I accept a favor from a swindler. I will pay it back tomorrow when I go to the school. I borrowed three yen from Kiyo. That three yen is not paid yet to-day, though it is five years since. Not that I could not pay, but that I did not want to. Kiyo never looks to my pocket thinking I shall pay it back by-the-bye. Not by any means. I myself do not expect to fulfill cold obligation like a stranger by meditating on returning it. The more I worry about paying it back, the more I may be doubting the honest heart of Kiyo. It would be the same as traducing her pure mind. I have not paid her back that three yen not because I regard her lightly, but because I regard her as part of myself. Kiyo and Porcupine cannot be compared, of course, but whether it be ice water or tea, the fact that I accept another’s favor without saying anything is an act of good-will, taking the other on his par value, as a decent fellow. Instead of chipping in my share, and settling each account, to receive munificence with grateful mind is an acknowledgment which no amount of money can purchase

The ion and dust tails seemed to be pointing away from the crackling fire of the sun. Looking more closely, one tail was gray mixed with yellow and white and the second was blue fading into teal. The color change was softer than melting wax. A bright green coma glowed around the center. I felt as though I was seeing magic for the first time as the warmth from our great star heated up the comet, causing it to spew dust and gasses into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. The comet’s magnificence and grandeur stirred me, much like a transcendent piece of music that envelops one’s soul. “I’ve never seen a comet before,” I confessed, my voice filled with a mix of wonder and emotion. I could feel a tear form in my eye. I blinked it away. Bello, pulchram, bela, hermoso, yafah, ómorfi, Meilì. I could express the concept of beauty in numerous languages, but none of them truly captured the essence of my feelings as I gazed at the comet. It was a sight of indescribable beauty, as if musical notes had been sketched across the canvas of the night sky. I would never forget the comet—similar to Xuan, exciting, rare, and stunning. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Xuan whispered. I looked at Xuan, but instead of looking at the sky, Xuan was staring at me. He stood, his hands jammed into his pockets, as he quickly turned his gaze to wander over the peaceful metropolis.

A strange structure untangled itself out of the background like a hallucination, not part of the natural landscape. It was a funny-shaped, almost spherical, green podlike thing woven from living branches of trees and vines. A trellis of vines hung down over the opening that served as a door. Wendy was so delighted tears sprang to her eyes. It was her Imaginary House! They all had them. Michael wanted his to be like a ship with views of the sea. John had wanted to live like a nomad on the steppes. And Wendy... Wendy had wanted something that was part of the natural world itself. She tentatively stepped forward, almost swooning at the heavy scent of the door flowers. Languorously lighting on them were a few scissorflies, silver and almost perfectly translucent in the glittery sunlight. Their sharp wings made little snickety noises as they fluttered off. Her shadow made a few half-hearted attempts to drag back, pointing to the jungle. But Wendy ignored her, stepping into the hut. She was immediately knocked over by a mad, barking thing that leapt at her from the darkness of the shelter. "Luna!" Wendy cried in joy. The wolf pup, which she had rescued in one of her earliest stories, stood triumphantly on her chest, drooling very visceral, very stinky dog spit onto her face. "Oh, Luna! You're real!" Wendy hugged the gray-and-white pup as tightly as she could, and it didn't let out a single protest yelp. Although... "You're a bit bigger than I imagined," Wendy said thoughtfully, sitting up. "I thought you were a puppy." Indeed, the wolf was approaching formidable size, although she was obviously not yet quite full-grown and still had large puppy paws. She was at least four stone and her coat was thick and fluffy. Yet she pranced back and forth like a child, not circling with the sly lope Wendy imagined adult wolves used. You're not a stupid little lapdog, are you?" Wendy whispered, nuzzling her face into the wolf's fur. Luna chuffed happily and gave her a big wet sloppy lick across the cheek. "Let's see what's inside the house!" As the cool interior embraced her, she felt a strange shudder of relief and... welcome was the only way she could describe it. She was home. The interior was small and cozy; plaited sweet-smelling rush mats softened the floor. The rounded walls made shelves difficult, so macramé ropes hung from the ceiling, cradling halved logs or flat stones that displayed pretty pebbles, several beautiful eggs, and what looked like a teacup made from a coconut. A lantern assembled from translucent pearly shells sat atop a real cherry writing desk, intricately carved and entirely out of place with the rest of the interior. Wendy picked up one of the pretty pebbles in wonder, turning it this way and that before putting it into her pocket. "This is... me..." she breathed. She had never been there before, but it felt so secure and so right that it couldn't have been anything but her home. Her real home. Here there was no slight tension on her back as she waited for footsteps to intrude, for reality to wake her from her dreams; there was nothing here to remind her of previous days, sad or happy ones. There were no windows looking out at the gray world of London. There was just peace, and the scent of the mats, and the quiet droning of insects and waves outside. "Never Land is a... mishmash of us. Of me," she said slowly. "It's what we imagine and dream of- including the dreams we can't quite remember.

There is also another political party, who desire, through the influence of legislation and coercion, to level the world. To say the least, it is a species of robbery; to some it may appear an honorable one, but, nevertheless, it is robbery. What right has any private man to take by force the property of another? The laws of all nations would punish such a man as a thief. Would thousands of men engaged in the same business make it more honorable? . . . I shall not, here, enter into the various manners of obtaining wealth; but would merely state, that any unjust acquisition of it ought to be punished by law. Wealth is generally the representation of labour, industry, and talent. If one man is industrious, enterprising, diligent, careful, and saves property, and his children follow in his steps, and accumulate wealth; and another man is careless, prodigal, and lazy, and his children inherit his poverty, I cannot conceive upon what principles of justice, the children of the idle and profligate have a right to put their hands into the pockets of those who are diligent and careful, and rob them of their purse. Let this principle exist, and all energy and enterprise would be crushed. Men would be afraid of again accumulating, lest they should again be robbed. Industry and talent would have no stimulant, and confusion and ruin would inevitably follow. Again, if you took men's property without their consent, the natural consequence would be that they would seek to retake it the first opportunity; and this state of things would only deluge the world in blood. So that let any of these measures be carried out, even according to the most sanguine hopes of the parties, they would not only bring distress upon others, but also upon themselves; certainly they would not bring about the peace of the world.

Non-Tenure Writing Jobs The MLA session on the adjunct crisis indicates where higher education has come to in the Brave New World of the 21st century. Research by the MLA itself, by Gloria McMillan, by Eileen Schell and other colleagues, already confirm the deep replacement of tenure-track faculty with contingent adjuncts and others. This crisis is deepest in composition and in community colleges. Doug Hesse’s program at Denver Univ. is no solution; it will extend the subordination of composition through sub-faculty lines while rationalizing it as “good for students"(before research has even proved it so). But, sub-faculty writing lecturers will never be treated as “real” professors by their institutions and will never be accepted as colleagues by their tenure-track peers. Such sub-faculty plans will weaken the faculty as a whole in the academy by further dividing it into competing sub-groups. Neither will a sub-faculty plan benefit the 14 million undergraduates on campus, most who attend under-funded public colleges with no billion-dollar endowments or corporate angels to turn to. Community colleges, in particular, where about 6 million students are enrolled, can have up to 65% of classes taught by adjuncts. The sub-faculty plan is thus really a management tool available in the short-term to those colleges with deep pockets and deep readiness to entrench a lesser sub-faculty in their writing programs. Doug Hesse acknowledges such an outcome as a possibility. He is quoted in the IHE report saying he was disturbed by the degree of interest other WPAs took in DU’s new sub-faculty writing program, fearing that DU was installing a “Vichy"-type model(collaborating with the authorities desire to de-tenure faculty generally and to subordinate writing instructors particularly). But, Hesse is quoted as making peace with this because he feels that sub-faculty lines for writing teachers are at least good for writing students. Even if we knew for sure this was true, why must writing teachers be the only professionals in higher education called upon to make such sacrifices? A large private grant to finance Denver University’s program($10 million for Hesse’s project)is good fortune for one campus, but it offers no model for how we can solve the national disgrace of exploited adjuncts.

I still remember a small story from the Pañca Tantra which I was told as a small child. One rainy day, a monkey was sitting on a tree branch getting completely drenched. Right opposite on another branch of the same tree there was a small sparrow sitting in its hanging nest. Normally a sparrow builds its nest on the edge of a branch so it can hang down and swing around gently in the breeze. It has a nice cabin inside with an upper chamber, a reception room, a bedroom down below and even a delivery room if it is going to give birth to little ones. Oh yes, you should see and admire a sparrow’s nest sometime. It was warm and cozy inside its nest and the sparrow peeped out and, seeing the poor monkey, said, “Oh, my dear friend, I am so small; I don’t even have hands like you, only a small beak. But with only that I built a nice house, expecting this rainy day. Even if the rain continues for days, I will be warm inside. I heard Darwin saying that you are the forefather of human beings, so why don’t you use your brain? Build a nice, small hut somewhere to protect yourself during the rain.” You should have seen the face of that monkey. It was terrible! “Oh, you little devil! How dare you try to advise me? Because you are warm and cozy in your nest you are teasing me. Wait, you will see where you are!” The monkey proceeded to tear the nest to pieces, and the poor bird had to fly out and get drenched like the monkey. This is a story I was told when I was quite young and I still remember it. Sometimes we come across such monkeys, and if you advise them they take it as an insult. They think you are proud of your position. If you sense even a little of that tendency in somebody, stay away. He or she will have to learn by experience. By giving advice to such people, you will only lose your peace of mind. Is there any other category you can think of? Patañjali groups all individuals in these four ways: the happy, the unhappy, the virtuous and the wicked. So have these four attitudes: friendliness, compassion, gladness and indifference. These four keys should always be with you in your pocket. If you use the right key with the right person you will retain your peace. Nothing in the world can upset you then. Remember, our goal is to keep a serene mind. From the very beginning of Patañjali’s Sūtras we are reminded of that. And this sūtra will help us a lot.

Glass" In every bar there’s someone sitting alone and absolutely absorbed by whatever he’s seeing in the glass in front of him, a glass that looks ordinary, with something clear or dark inside it, something partially drunk but never completely gone. Everything’s there: all the plans that came to nothing, the stupid love affairs, and the terrifying ones, the ones where actual happiness opened like a hole beneath his feet and he fell in, then lay helpless while the dirt rained down a little at a time to bury him. And his friends are there, cracking open six-packs, raising the bottles, the click of their meeting like the sound of a pool cue nicking a ball, the wrong ball, that now edges, black and shining, toward the waiting pocket. But it stops short, and at the bar the lone drinker signals for another. Now the relatives are floating up with their failures, with cancer, with plateloads of guilt and a little laughter, too, and even beauty—some afternoon from childhood, a lake, a ball game, a book of stories, a few flurries of snow that thicken and gradually cover the earth until the whole world’s gone white and quiet, until there’s hardly a world at all, no traffic, no money or butchery or sex, just a blessed peace that seems final but isn’t. And finally the glass that contains and spills this stuff continually while the drinker hunches before it, while the bartender gathers up empties, gives back the drinker’s own face. Who knows what it looks like; who cares whether or not it was young once, or ever lovely, who gives a shit about some drunk rising to stagger toward the bathroom, some man or woman or even lost angel who recklessly threw it all over—heaven, the ether, the celestial works—and said, Fuck it, I want to be human? Who believes in angels, anyway? Who has time for anything but their own pleasures and sorrows, for the few good people they’ve managed to gather around them against the uncertainty, against afternoons of sitting alone in some bar with a name like the Embers or the Ninth Inning or the Wishing Well? Forget that loser. Just tell me who’s buying, who’s paying; Christ but I’m thirsty, and I want to tell you something, come close I want to whisper it, to pour the words burning into you, the same words for each one of you, listen, it’s simple, I’m saying it now, while I’m still sober, while I’m not about to weep bitterly into my own glass, while you’re still here—don’t go yet, stay, stay, give me your shoulder to lean against, steady me, don’t let me drop, I’m so in love with you I can’t stand up. Kim Addonizio, Tell Me (BOA Editions Ltd.; First Edition (July 1, 2000)

WILL WORK FOR FOOD © 2013 Lyrics & Music by Michele Jennae There he was with a cardboard sign, Will Work For Food Saw him on the roadside, As I took my kids to school I really didn’t have time to stop, Already running late Found myself pulling over, Into the hands of fate The look in his eyes was empty, But he held out his hand I knew my kids were watching, As I gave him all I had My heart in my throat I had to ask, “What brought you here?” He looked up and straight into my eyes, I wanted to disappear. CHORUS He said… Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO v. 2 He put the money in his pocket, Then he took me by the hand Thank you dear for stopping by, I am sure that you have plans He nodded toward my children, Watching from afar It’s time they were off to school, You should get in the car My eyes welled up and tears fell down, I couldn’t say a word Here this man with nothing to his name, Showing me his concern I knew then that the lesson, That today must be taught Wouldn’t come from textbooks, And it could not be bought CHORUS He said… Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO v. 3 I told him then that I had a job, That I could give him work And in return he’d have a meal, And something to quench his thirst He looked at me and shrugged a bit, And followed me to the car We went right over to a little café, Just up the road not too far After I ordered our food he looked at me, And asked about the kids “Shouldn’t these tykes be in school, And about that job you said.” “Your job,” I said, “is to school my girls, In the ways of the world Explain to them your service, And how your life unfurled.” He said… Do you think I really saw myself, Standing in this light Forgotten by society, After fighting for your rights WILL WORK FOR FOOD, WILL DIE FOR YOU I AM JUST A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO v. 4He wasn’t sure quite what to do, As he ate his food And began to tell us all about his life… the bad… the good. He wiped his own tears from his eyes, His story all but done My girls and I all choked up, Hugged him one by one Understanding his sacrifice, But not his current plight We resolved then and there that day, That for him, we would fight. We offered him our friendship, And anything else we had He wasn’t sure how to accept it, But we made him understand LAST CHORUS That we had not really seen before, Him standing in the light No longer forgotten by us, We are now fighting for his rights He had… WORKED FOR FOOD HE HAD ALL BUT DIED FOR ME AND YOU NOT FORGOTTEN ANYMORE BUT STILL A SOLDIER IN TRUST

My best friend looks at me and downs the shot of bourbon in his glass. His eyes are red and rheumy, a look of misery etched upon his face. Trey sniffs loudly and slams his glass down on the bar, drawing the attention of a few of the people sitting around us. “I loved her, man,”he says. I nod and pat him on the shoulder. “I know you did, man.”We're sitting at the bar in the Yellow Rose Lounge, a quiet place where people can go to have a drink and conversation. Furnished in dark woods, with soft, dim lighting, it's more peaceful than your average watering hole. The music is kept low enough that you don't have to shout to be heard, and the flat panel televisions showing highlights from various games are kept on mute. The Yellow Rose is a lounge that caters to business professionals and people who want to have a quiet drink, a mellow conversation, or be alone with their thoughts. There are plenty of bars in Austin that cater to the hellraisers and I've been known to patronize those places now and then. But, it's also nice to have a place like the Yellow Rose for times when I need some quiet solitude. Or, when I need help nursing a friend through a bad, bitter breakup. The bartender pours Trey another shot –which he immediately downs. “Might as well leave the bottle,”I say. The bartender pauses and gives me a considering look, knowing he shouldn't leave a bottle with customers. I think it's a law or something. Reaching into my pocket, I drop a couple of hundreds down on the bar, which seems to relieve him of his inner-conflict. He quickly scoops up the cash, sets the bottle down, and strolls down to the other end of the bar. I pour Trey another shot, which he downs almost instantly and then holds his glass up for another. Not wanting to see him pass out or die from alcohol poisoning, I know I need to pace him. I set the bottle back down on the bar in front of me and turn to my friend.

My best friend looks at me and downs the shot of bourbon in his glass. His eyes are red and rheumy, a look of misery etched upon his face. Trey sniffs loudly and slams his glass down on the bar, drawing the attention of a few of the people sitting around us. “I loved her, man,” he says. I nod and pat him on the shoulder. “I know you did, man.” We're sitting at the bar in the Yellow Rose Lounge , a quiet place where people can go to have a drink and conversation. Furnished in dark woods, with soft, dim lighting, it's more peaceful than your average watering hole. The music is kept low enough that you don't have to shout to be heard, and the flat panel televisions showing highlights from various games are kept on mute. The Yellow Rose is a lounge that caters to business professionals and people who want to have a quiet drink, a mellow conversation, or be alone with their thoughts. There are plenty of bars in Austin that cater to the hellraisers and I've been known to patronize those places now and then. But, it's also nice to have a place like the Yellow Rose for times when I need some quiet solitude. Or, when I need help nursing a friend through a bad, bitter breakup. The bartender pours Trey another shot –which he immediately downs. “Might as well leave the bottle,” I say. The bartender pauses and gives me a considering look, knowing he shouldn't leave a bottle with customers. I think it's a law or something. Reaching into my pocket, I drop a couple of hundreds down on the bar, which seems to relieve him of his inner-conflict. He quickly scoops up the cash, sets the bottle down, and strolls down to the other end of the bar. I pour Trey another shot, which he downs almost instantly and then holds his glass up for another. Not wanting to see him pass out or die from alcohol poisoning, I know I need to pace him. I set the bottle back down on the bar in front of me and turn to my friend.

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok you would never see him doing such a thing, tossing the dry snow over the mountain of his bare, round shoulder, his hair tied in a knot, a model of concentration. Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word for what he does, or does not do. Even the season is wrong for him. In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid? Is this not implied by his serene expression, that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe? But here we are, working our way down the driveway. one shovelful at a time. We toss the light powder into the clean air. We feel the cold most on our faces. And with every heave we disappear and become lost to each other in these sudden clouds of our own making, these fountain-bursts of snow. This is so much better than a sermon in church, I say out loud, bud Buddha keeps on shoveling. This is the true religion, the religion of snow, and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky, I say, but he is too busy to hear me He has thrown himself into shoveling snow as if it were the purpose of existence, as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway you could back the car down easily and drive off into the vanities of the world with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio. All morning long we work side by side, me with my commentary and he is inside the generous pocket of his silence, until the house is nearly noon and the snow is piled high all around us; then, I hear him speak. After this, he asks, can we go inside and play cards? Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk and bring cups of hot chlorate to the table while you shuffle the deck, and our boots stand dripping by the door. Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes and leaning for a moment on his shovel before he drives the fun blade again deep into the glittering white snow.

If you spread the hate and the lies, you get the money in your pocket. If you spread peace, love, harmony and the truth, you get the bullet to your thoughts.

5.5 Specific Signs You Should Avoid A Van Rental Supplier! Here are 5.5 specific sign that you should avoid a van rental supplier: 1. Automated answering services: If you cannot get access to a human on the phone when you call to make a van reservation, where are they going to be when you have a mechanical breakdown? If the company cannot afford to provide a live person to receive your call, how will they afford to take care of your group when you have broken down on the side of the road or have been in an accident! 2. Rude or incompetent rental agents: If the rental company’s agents do not answer the phone cheerfully and sound like they are less than ecstatic to hear from you, they have set a negative tone for the entire van rental experience. If they place you on hold until you grow old, or refuse to acknowledge you immediately when you walk through the door of their office, get out of there! 3. Charging for mileage: Any van rental firm worth doing business with will offer you unlimited miles going anywhere in the USA. Anything else does not allow you the peace of mind needed when you are required to maximize your budget and do not need any unaccounted variables. 4. Encouraging drop-offs after business hours: This practice gives the rental company an unwritten power of attorney to charge you for any damages they find until the next business day! This leaves you or your organization wide open to paying for damages you did not cause or create! 5. Yield management systems: When a van rental firm employs this system, it skyrockets the van rental rates through the roof as demand gets tight and supply gets low. This system has been designed to squeeze every last dollar out of the client’s pocket and takes serious advantage of those groups that are forced to reserve later due to budget constraints or lack of commitments! 5.5 Accidents handled by a third party vendor: If you have an accident in a van, and the rental firm outsources this function to an outside agency, you will lose all power of negotiation and pay much more on the damage claim because the rental firm has to give that agency a substantial percentage. In addition, the agency employees have nothing to lose by treating you horribly.

People, says Tarantoga, believe what they want to believe. Take astrology for instance. Astronomers, who after all should know more than anyone about the stars, tell us that they are giant balls of incandescent gas spinning since the world began and that their influence on our fate is considerably less than the influence of a banana peel, on which you can slip and break your leg. But there is no interest in banana peels, whereas serious periodicals include horoscopes and there are even pocket computers you can consult before you invest in the stock market to find out if the stars are favorable. Anyone who says that the skin of a fruit can have more effect on a person’s future than all the planets and stars combined won’t be listened to. An individual comes into the world because his father, say, didn’t withdraw in time, thereby becoming a father. The mother-to-be, seeing what happened, took quinine and jumped from the top of the dresser to the floor but that didn’t help. So the individual is born and he finishes school and works in a store selling suspenders, or in a post office. Then suddenly he learns that that’s not the way it was at all. The planets came into conjunction, the signs of the zodiac arranged themselves carefully into a special pattern, half the sky cooperated with the other half so that he could come into being and stand behind this counter or sit behind this desk. It lifts his spirits. The whole universe revolves around him, and even if things aren’t going well, even if the stars are lined up in such a way that the suspenders manufacturer loses his shirt and the individual consequently loses his job, it’s still more comforting than to know that the stars don’t really give a damn. Knock astrology out of his head, and the belief too that the cactus on his windowsill cares about him, and what is left? Barefoot, naked despair. So says Professor Tarantoga, but I see I am digressing.

Have you ever reached to a point where you asked God if the assignment is really from Him. In your account you have just 100 dollars and He is asking you to execute a 400 million dollar project. Have you reached to the point that you consider going further will make no sense? Have you reached the point where you asked God are you sure you are still with me? I just found myself in that Junction now. Turning back ....to realise I have gone too far for Him to forsake me. Moving forward I heard the voice saying ...be still and know that I am your God. Giving up.....Couldn't find it in my dictionary. Moral of the lesson. God cannot give you an assignment that is equal to your pocket. If it suits your pocket it is definitely not from God. Remember God will not take glory where nothing happen.

It was right about then that a drink dropped down in front of me on the table, Brant sliding into the open chair to my side. "You know I can't have..." I started, big-eying him so I didn't have to say it. "Raspberry mocha shake with skim milk but full fat whipped cream," he explained, popping the little piece of paper topper off the straw. "Not a damn bit of actual coffee in it," he said, looking disgusted at the very prospect. "Oh, and here," he said, pulling my phone out of his pocket. "You know, you can't pull the 'pregnancy' card every time your phone has an issue and you don't want to go to Verizon." "True," I agreed, taking a long sip of the shake he made and closing my eyes on a sigh. "But I can for the next eight or so months," I concluded, giving him a saucy smile. He chuckled at that, reaching for the piece of paper I had in front of me with the design for the macaron wedding cake. "Macarons, huh?" he asked, looking excited. It didn't matter how many different recipes I came up with, he never seemed to get sick of them. "It's not too soon," he informed me, reading my thoughts as I looked down at the perfect princess cut ring. "It hasn't even been a year," I had insisted, shaking my head. "Sweetheart, I knew this was where we were heading that first time you moaned like a porn star over your break-up frappe." I looked around my mother's and mine and Brant's little shop, feeling it down to my soul: peace. Then I looked over at Brant, feeling it down to my bones: love. And finally, to the plate at the center of the table where Brant and I reached toward simultaneously and grabbed one each: macarons. It was all I would ever need.