Positive Day Of The Dead Quotes

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Carpe Diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain. And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.

The enemy fights the hardest when you are closest to your breakthrough. Know that your best days are ahead and no weapon formed will prosper.

Each day is a new chance to improve your life, and that of your family, friends and colleagues. Be positive in your outlook, honest in your dealing and determined in your efforts. You will succeed

Every bad situation will have something positive. Even a dead clock shows correct time twice a day. Stay positive in life. God knows what’s best for you….!’- Anonymous

It is a strange thing that the human species can only go three days without water and three weeks without food, before the body dies. Yet, so many people can go years hanging onto pain and feeling emotionally dead inside. I suppose if it was the other way around more people would go to school to be morticians because of the booming business, or pastors would have to hand out Valium with the sacrament, just to keep the census high.

In Plaster I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now: This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one, And the white person is certainly the superior one. She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints. 
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality -- She lay in bed with me like a dead body 
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was 
 Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints. I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold. I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer. 
I couldn't understand her stupid behavior! 
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist. 
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her: She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages. 

Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful. 
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose 
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain, And it was I who attracted everybody's attention, 
Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed. 
I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up -- 
You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality. 

I didn't mind her waiting on me, and she adored it. 
In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun 
From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn't help but notice 
Her tidiness and her calmness and her patience: She humored my weakness like the best of nurses, 
Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly. In time our relationship grew more intense. 

She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish. 
I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself, 
As if my habits offended her in some way. She let in the drafts and became more and more absent-minded. 
And my skin itched and flaked away in soft pieces 
Simply because she looked after me so badly. Then I saw what the trouble was: she thought she was immortal. She wanted to leave me, she thought she was superior, 
And I'd been keeping her in the dark, and she was resentful -- Wasting her days waiting on a half-corpse! 
And secretly she began to hope I'd die. Then she could cover my mouth and eyes, cover me entirely, 
And wear my painted face the way a mummy-case Wears the face of a pharaoh, though it's made of mud and water. 

I wasn't in any position to get rid of her. She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp -- I had forgotten how to walk or sit, So I was careful not to upset her in any way 
Or brag ahead of time how I'd avenge myself. Living with her was like living with my own coffin: Yet I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully. I used to think we might make a go of it together -- 
After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close. 
Now I see it must be one or the other of us. She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy, 
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit. I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her, 
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me. --written 26 Feburary 1961

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

It occurs to me that I might be in the unprecedented position of being able to glean some intelligence on them. Despite what the gang leaders would have the rest of us believe, angel parts are always taken from dead or dying angels, I’m sure of it. What I would do with angel intel, I don’t know. But it can’t hurt to gain a little knowledge. Tell that to Adam and Eve.

Like the weather or bonds between lovers, transformations can never be predicted. All energy transmutes one day or another, in one way or another. Either in its form or composition, or in its position or disposition.

How does paying people more money make you more money? It works like this. The more you pay your workers, the more they spend. Remember, they're not just your workers- they're your consumers, too. The more they spend their extra cash on your products, the more your profits go up. Also, when employees have enough money that they don't have to live in constant fear of bankruptcy, they're able to focus more on their work- and be more productive. With fewer personal problems and less stress hanging over them, they'll lose less time at work, meaning more profits for you. Pay them enough to afford a late model car (i.e. one that works), and they'll rarely be late for work. And knowing that they'll be able to provide a better life for their children will not only give them a more positive attitude, it'll give them hope- and an incentive to do well for the company because the better the company does, the better they'll do. Of course, if you're like most corporations these days- announcing mass layoffs right after posting record profits- then you're already hemorrhaging the trust and confidence of your remaining workforce, and your employees are doing their jobs in a state of fear. Productivity will drop. That will hurt sales. You will suffer. Ask the people at Firestone: Ford has alleged that the tire company fired its longtime union employees, then brought in untrained scab workers who ended up making thousands of defective tires- and 203 dead customers later, Firestone is in the toilet.

once you’ve been in a position to watch everyone you’ve ever known die, the light go slowly out of their eyes, transforming them from this magic assemblage of quirks, habits, preferences, and dreams to an inert pile of spent flesh and bone, you realize not only that life is precious but also that death is absolutely inevitable. No matter what you do. The people you love will die one day, and sometimes it happens sooner and faster and more horribly than

Man when living is soft and tender; when dead he is hard and tough. All animals and plants are tender and fragile; when dead they become withered and dry. Therefore it is said: the hard and the tough are parts of death; the soft and tender are parts of life. This is the reason why the soldiers when they are too tough cannot carry the day; the tree when it is too tough will break. The position of the strong and great is low, and the position of the weak and tender is high.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Some day the piercing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our terrifying position therein, that we shall either go bad from the revelation or flee from the deadly age into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.

Ow!” I yelp. My eyes pop open and I jerk up into a sitting position, automatically reaching for my now injured leg. “You kicked me!” I accuse as I glare angrily at my attacker. I still in disbelief as I find myself once again face to face with the same boy I had encountered only days before. “I had to make sure you were alive,” he states simply, an edge of amusement coloring his words, as he shrugs unapologetically. “It’s not like I find a lot of girls playing dead in the woods.

but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

One soldier in the Ypres Salient, at Messines, Belgium, wrote of the frustration of the trench stalemate. “We are still in our old positions, and keep annoying the English and French. The weather is miserable and we often spend days on end knee-deep in water and, what is more, under heavy fire. We are greatly looking forward to a brief respite. Let’s hope that soon afterwards the whole front will start moving forward. Things can’t go on like this for ever.” The author was a German infantryman of Austrian descent named Adolf Hitler.

H appears no different from the corpses already here. But H is different. She has made three sick people well. She has brought them extra time on Earth. To be able as a dead person to make a gift of this magnitude is phenomenal. Most people don't manage this sort of thing while they're alive. Cadavers like H are the dead's heroes. It is astounding to me and achingly sad that with 80,000 people on the waiting list for donated hearts and livers and kidneys, with sixteen a day dying there on that list, that more than half the people in the position H's family was in will say no, will choose to burn those organs or let them rot. We abide the surgeon's scalpel to save our own lives, our loved one's lives, but not to save a stranger's life. H has no heart but heartless is the last thing you'd call her.

The child was left alone to die in the hallway. Here, in the dawn, was mortality itself. In the city were places to fall from which one could never emerge -- dark dreams and slow death, the death of children, suffering without grace or redemption, ultimate and eternal loss. The memory of the child stayed with Peter. But that was not to be the end of it, for reality went around in a twisting ring. Even the irredeemable would be redeemed, and there was a balance for everything. There had to be. The old man said, "Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, or the position of the electron. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain. And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is. Everything that ever will be, is. In all possible combinations. Though we imagine that it is in motion and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. So any event is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible. And, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.

Wild Wish was trying to count the positives of this day, though. Most of them had survived. They’d won the battle. And she’d found a comfortable mound of broken earth to rest on and reflect, while everyone else was busy. But there were dead men as far as she could see. Or at least bits of them.

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of disassociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

A rich man may be free on an income of a million net. A poor man may be free because nobody cares what he does. But a fellow in my position has to sweat it out until he drops dead.

Children lose contact with their parents, and vice versa, when there is no present living moment in the family. You change careers, go traveling, play extreme sports, get plastic surgery, drive fast cars, take exotic holidays, or redecorate the house, constantly seeking presence. These strategies might work for an hour, a day, or a year, but they will not solve your inner deadness.

had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position

It ended by my almost believing (perhaps actually believing) that this was perhaps my normal condition. But at first, in the beginning, what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and all my life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I was ashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one’s own degradation; it was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into. And the worst of it was, and the root of it all, that it was all in accord with the normal fundamental laws of over-acute consciousness, and with the inertia that was the direct result of those laws, and that consequently one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. Thus it would follow, as the result of acute consciousness, that one is not to blame in being a scoundrel; as though that were any consolation to the scoundrel once he has come to realise that he actually is a scoundrel.

Under cover of darkness, not a hundred men but three times that number slipped away from Hawkforte. Saxon and Norse alike, led by the Wolf and the Hawk, they took up position along the road that passed the lodge. By dawn they had so blended into the surrounding forest that as day came, the birds,deer, rabbits,foxes,and all the other denizens of the wood behaved just as they always did, with no awareness of the deadly presence come among them. Not long after, Dragon and Rycca rode out of Hawkforte.They made no secret of their departure or where they were bound. A spy would have had to be deaf and blind to miss what they were about.

Then they had grown. Edging into life from the back door. Becoming. Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, "Do this." White children said, "Give me that." White men said. "Come here." Black men said, "Lay down." The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other. But they took all of that and re-created it in their own image. They ran the houses of white people, and knew it. When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the book and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hangs that felled trees also cut umbilical cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and sacks rocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky ovals of innocence--and shrouded the dead. They plowed all day and came home to nestle like plums under the limbs of their men, The legs that straddled a mule's back were the same ones that straddled their men's hips. And the difference was all the difference there was.

some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.3

I had heard the Sergeant’s words and understood them thoroughly but they were no more significant than the clear sounds that infest the air at all times — the far cry of gulls, the disturbance a breeze will make in its blowing and water falling headlong down a hill. Down into the earth where dead men go I would go soon and maybe come out of it again in some healthy way, free and innocent of all human perplexity. I would perhaps be the chill of an April wind, an essential part of some indomitable river or be personally concerned in the ageless perfection of some rank mountain bearing down upon the mind by occupying forever a position in the blue easy distance. Or perhaps a smaller thing like movement in the grass on an unbearable breathless yellow day, some hidden creature going about its business — I might well be responsible for that or for some important part of it. Or even those unaccountable distinctions that make an evening recognisable from its own morning, the smells and sounds and sights of the perfected and matured essences of the day, these might not be innocent of my meddling and my abiding presence.

...some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. (Call of Cthulhu)

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its content. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into peace and safety of a new dark age.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." The Call Of Cthulhu, incipit.

Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go So make the best of this test, and don't ask why It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life. So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial For what it's worth, it was worth all the while It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life. It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life. It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right, I hope you had the time of your life.

I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, suspicious manner - then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows - 'The deficiency is there, sir-there; and here,' he added, touching the upper sides of my head, 'here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep.' I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred - hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. ("The Lifted Veil")

Dung beetles follow the Milky Way; the Cataglyphis desert ant dead-reckons by counting its paces; monarch butterflies, on their thousand-mile, multigenerational flight from Mexico to the Rocky Mountains, calculate due north using the position of the sun, which requires accounting for the time of day, the day of the year, and latitude; honeybees, newts, spiny lobsters, sea turtles, and many others read magnetic fields. - Kim Tingley, The Secrets of the Wave Pilots

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

I haven’t slept in two days so I feel tired now, lying on my sleeping bag. My feet are very cold but I am ok. In the long transition to sleep I entertain a complex paranoia about a group of people who will be assigned to review each action I have taken throughout my life. And once dead, I’ll meet them in council. There will be a group assigned to review my “thank-yous said” to “those not said.” There will be a group assigned to review every face I’ve made just after waking up. There will be a group assigned to review how I treated people who asked me for help. And a group assigned to review the times I felt bad but didn’t tell anyone. A group assigned to review the times I deliberately threw crayons into the small fan my third grade bus driver positioned by his face. And a group assigned to review bugs I needlessly stepped on. A group for this nap I’m taking too. And in the paranoia, I see myself getting dressed-up to go before them and answer questions. I’m very nervous before each council but I try to be brave. “This nap you took—” someone says. “Yes?” A mean-looking woman in the middle of the panel, she clasps her hands together and she says, “Tell us about this nap.” When I wake up, one of my legs is numb. And I remain awake in my sleeping bag, staring at the blinds until the black behind gets more blue, then lighter blue, then white. Sometimes I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment but it’s never after accomplishing something.

But I will say this: once you’ve been in a position to watch everyone you’ve ever known die, the light go slowly out of their eyes, transforming them from this magic assemblage of quirks, habits, preferences, and dreams to an inert pile of spent flesh and bone, you realize not only that life is precious but also that death is absolutely inevitable. No matter what you do. The people you love will die one day, and sometimes it happens sooner and faster and more horribly than you could imagine. Sometimes it’s even your fault.

float before I could swim. Ellis never believed it was called Dead-Man’s Float, thought I’d made it up. I told him it was a survival position after a long exhausting journey. How apt. All I see below is blue light. Peaceful and eternal. I’m holding my breath until my body throbs as one pulse. I roll over and suck in a deep lungful of warm air. I look up at the starry starry night. The sound of water in and out of my ears, and beyond this human shell, the sound of cicadas fills the night. I dreamt of my mother. It was an image, that’s all, and a fleeting one, at that. She was faded with age, like a discarded offcut on the studio floor. In this dream, she didn’t speak, just stepped out of the shadows, a reminder that we are the same, her and me, cut from the same bruised cloth. I understand how she got up one day and left, how instinctively she trusted the compulsion to flee. The rightness of that action. We are the same, her and me. She walked out when I was eight. Never came back. I remember being collected from school by our neighbour Mrs Deakin, who bought me sweets on the way home and let me play with a dog for as long as I wanted. Inside the house, my father was sitting at the table, drinking. He was holding a sheet of blue writing paper covered in black words, and he said, Your mother’s gone. She said she’s sorry. A sheet of writing paper covered in words and just two for me. How was that possible? Her remnant life was put in bags and stored in the spare room at the earliest opportunity. Stuffed in, not folded – clothes brushes, cosmetics all thrown in together, awaiting collection from the Church. My mother had taken only what she could carry. One rainy afternoon, when my father had gone next door to fix a pipe, I emptied the bags on to the floor and saw my mother in every jumper and blouse and skirt I held up. I used to watch her dress and she let me. Sometimes, she asked my opinion about colours or what suited her more, this blouse or that blouse? And she’d follow my advice and tell me how right I was. I took off my clothes and put on a skirt first, then a blouse, a cardigan, and slowly I became her in miniature. She’d taken her good shoes, so I slipped on a pair of mid-height heels many sizes too big, of course, and placed a handbag on my arm. I stood in front of the mirror, and saw the infinite possibilities of play. I strutted, I

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of a black sea of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of disassociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. —HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT, The

If our eyebrows are too bushy, or if our pores are too large, or if our under-eye bags are too noticeable, or if our teeth are too yellow, or too crooked, or if our wrinkles are too deep, or if our body parts are too large, or too soft, or too ripply, or vein-y, we're essentially supposed to go in for a day procedure before leaving the house. Or, at the very least, we're expected to become masters at hiding such unfortunate "humanities" behind all manner of makeup, clothing, falsely confident body language, hyaluronic acids, glycolic acids, virtual filters, collagen fillers, witty one-liners, blinding smiles, and carefully selected accessories, because these aren't seen as positive indicators of the fact of being alive, rather than dead.

Humanism has dominated the world for 300 years, which is not such a long time. The pharaohs ruled Egypt for 3,000 years, and the popes dominated Europe for a millennium. If you told an Egyptian in the time of Ramses II that one day the pharaohs will be gone, he would probably have been aghast. ‘How can we live without a pharaoh? Who will ensure order, peace and justice?’ If you told people in the Middle Ages that within a few centuries God will be dead, they would have been horrified. ‘How can we live without God? Who will give life meaning and protect us from chaos?’ Looking back, many think that the downfall of the pharaohs and the death of God were both positive developments. Maybe the collapse of humanism will also be beneficial. People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.

Yet there is dynamism in our house. Day to day, week to week, Cady blossoms: a first grasp, a first smile, a first laugh. Her pediatrician regularly records her growth on charts, tick marks indicating her progress over time. A brightening newness surrounds her. As she sits in my lap smiling, enthralled by my tuneless singing, an incandescence lights the room. Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence—and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to its fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time; it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. And even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder. Some days, I simply persist. If time dilates when one moves at high speeds, does it contract when one moves barely at all? It must: the days have shortened considerably. With little to distinguish one day from the next, time has begun to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways: “The time is two forty-five” versus “I’m going through a tough time.” These days, time feels less like the ticking clock and more like a state of being. Languor settles in. There’s a feeling of openness. As a surgeon, focused on a patient in the OR, I might have found the position of the clock’s hands arbitrary, but I never thought them meaningless. Now the time of day means nothing, the day of the week scarcely more. Medical training is relentlessly future-oriented, all about delayed gratification; you’re always thinking about what you’ll be doing five years down the line. But now I don’t know what I’ll be doing five years down the line. I may be dead. I may not be. I may be healthy. I may be writing. I don't know. And so it's not all that useful to spend time thinking about the future - that is, beyond lunch.

Everybody in the world was in a position to give them orders. White women said, “Do this.” White children said, “Give me that.” White men said, “Come here.” Black men said, “Lay down.” The only people they need not take orders from were black children and each other. But they took all of that and re-created it in their own image. They ran the houses of white people, and knew it. When white men beat their men, they cleaned up the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hands that felled trees also cut umbilical cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and sacks rocked babies into sleep. They patted biscuits into flaky ovals of innocence—and shrouded the dead. They plowed all day and came home to nestle like plums under the limbs of their men. The legs that straddled a mule’s back were the same ones that straddled their men’s hips. And the difference was all the difference there was. Then they were old.

As the Christian faith grew, more and more members of the congregation insisted on being buried in and around the church to reap the benefits of saint proximity. This burial practice spread throughout the empire, from Rome to Byzantium and to what is now present-day England and France. Entire towns grew up around these corpse churches. Demand rose and the churches supplied it—for a fee, of course. The wealthiest church patrons wanted the best spots, nearest the saints. If there was a nook in the church big enough for a corpse, you were sure to find a body in it. There were, without hyperbole, dead bodies everywhere. The preferred locations were the half circle around the apse and the vestibule at the entrance. Beyond those key positions, it was a free-for-all: corpses were placed under the slabs on the floor, in the roof, under the eaves, even piled into the walls themselves. Going to church meant the corpses in the walls outnumbered the living parishioners. Without refrigeration, in the heat of the summer months, the noxious smell of human decomposition in these churches must have been unimaginable. Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini complained that “there are so many tombs in the church, and they are so often opened that this abominable smell is too often unmistakable. However much they fumigate the sacred edifices with incense, myrrh, and other aromatic odors, it is obviously very injurious to those present.

Bharata, do not think that I have no sympathy for you in this your predicament. I understand it fully. But, then, my child, no man is allowed to do as he pleases. Man has no freedom. Fate tosses him about in all directions. The game which Fate plays is unpredictable. Nothing lasts in this world. What has been gathered is scattered about. What was once at the top soon reaches the lowest position. Meetings only end in separations and, as for life, it only ends in death. Ripe fruits have but one fear, that of falling down. And even so, man has no fear other than death. Think of a house built sturdily with strong pillars. Even that, in course of time, becomes weak and ancient. Men too become old, lose their power of thinking and death claims them. The night which passes will never come back and the waters of the Yamuna which flow fast, when in flood, towards the sea, will never return. In this world, Bharata, just as the waters on the surface of the earth get less and less, dried constantly by the rays of the sun, man’s life also gets lessened day by day. Your life and mine are fast ebbing away. Think on the Lord, my child. Do not spend your time in the contemplation of another’s life. Death walks with us: and he accompanies us on the longest journey we undertake. The skin gets wrinkled. Hair grows white. Old age makes man weak and helpless. Man delights at the sight of the sun rising and again, the setting sun is pleasing to the eye. But man forgets that every sunrise and every sunset has lessened one’s life on earth by another day. The seasons come and go and each season has a charm of its own. But they come and when they go, they take with them large slices of our lives every time. On the large expanse of the sea two pieces of wood come together. They float together for a while and then they are parted. Even so it is with man and his relationship with life, child, kinsmen, wealth and other possessions. Meetings end only in separation. It is the law of nature. No one is capable of altering the course of Fate. Weeping for one who is dead will not bring him back to life.

Perhaps the immobility of the things around us is imposed on them by our certainty that they are themselves and not anything else, by the immobility of our mind confronting them. However that may be, when I woke thus, my mind restlessly attempting, without success, to discover where I was, everything revolved around me in the darkness, things, countries, years. My body, too benumbed to move, would try to locate, according to the form of its fatigue, the position of its limbs so as to deduce from this the direction of the wall, the placement of the furniture, so as to reconstruct and name the dwelling in which it found itself. Its memory, the memory of its ribs, its knees, its shoulders, offered in succession several of the rooms where it had slept, while around it the invisible walls, changing place according to the shape of the imagined room, spun through the shadows. And even before my mind, hesitating on the thresholds of times and shapes, had identified the house by reassembling the circumstances, it—my body—would recall the kind of bed in each one, the location of the doors, the angle at which the light came in through the windows, the existence of a hallway, along with the thought I had had as I fell asleep and that I had recovered upon waking. My stiffened side, trying to guess its orientation, would imagine, for instance, that it lay facing the wall in a big canopied bed and immediately I would say to myself: “Why, I went to sleep in the end even though Mama didn’t come to say goodnight to me,” I was in the country in the home of my grandfather, dead for many years; and my body, the side on which I was resting, faithful guardians of a past my mind ought never to have forgotten, recalled to me the flame of the night-light of Bohemian glass, in the shape of an urn, which hung from the ceiling by little chains, the mantelpiece of Siena marble, in my bedroom at Combray, at my grandparents’ house, in faraway days which at this moment I imagined were present without picturing them to myself exactly and which I would see more clearly in a little while when I was fully awake.

With the increasing recognition of Jews as the parasitic germs of these diseases, state after state was forced in the last years to take a position on this fateful question for nations. Imbued with the instinct of self-preservation, they had to take those measures which were suited to protect for good their own people against this international poison. Even if Bolshevik Russia is the concrete product of this Jewish infection, one should not forget that democratic capitalism creates the conditions for it. In this way, the Jews prepare what the same Jews execute in the second stage of this process. In the first stage, they deprive the majority of men of their rights and reduce them to helpless slaves. Or, as they themselves put it, they make them expropriated proletarians in order to spur them on, as a fanaticized mob, to destroy the foundations of their state. Later, this is followed by the extermination of their own national intelligentsia, and finally by the elimination of all cultural foundations that, as a thousand-year-old heritage, could provide these people with their inner worth or serve as a warning to the future. What remains after that is the beast in man and a Jewish class that, as parasites in leadership positions, will in the end destroy the fertile soil on which it thrives. On this process-which according to Mommsen results in the Jewish engineered decomposition of people and states-the young, awakening Europe has now declared war. Proud and honorable people in other parts of the world have allied themselves to it. They will be joined by hundreds of millions of oppressed men who, irrespective of how their present leaders may view this, will one day break their chains. The end of these liars will come, liars who claim to protect the world against a threatening domination but who actually only seek to save their own world-rule. We are now in the midst of this mighty, truly historic awakening of the people, partly as leading, acting, or performing men. On the one side stand the men of the democracies that form the heart of Jewish capitalism, with their whole dead weight of dusty theories of state, their parliamentary corruption, their outdated social order, their Jewish brain trusts, their Jewish newspapers, stock exchanges, and banks-a combination, a mix of political and economic racketeers of the worst sort; on their side, there is the Bolshevik state, that is, that number of brutish men over whom the Jew, as in the Soviet Union, wields his bloody whip. And on the other side stand those nations who fight for their freedom and independence, for the securing of their people’s daily bread. Adolf Hitler – speech to the Reichstag April 26, 1942

Dear Mom and Dad How are you? If you are reading this it means your back from the wonderful cruise my brothers and I sent you on for your anniversary. We’re sure you both had a wonderful time. We want you to know that, while you were away, we did almost everything you asked. All but one thing, that is. We killed the lawn. We killed it dead. You asked us not to and we killed it. We killed it with extreme prejudice and no regard for its planty life. We killed the lawn. Now we know what you’re thinking: “But sons, whom we love ever so much, how can this be so? We expressly asked you to care for the lawn? The exactly opposite of what you are now conveying to us in an open digital forum.” True enough. We cannot dispute this. However, we have killed the lawn. We have killed it good. We threw a party and it was quite a good time. We had a moon bounce and beer and games and pirate costumes, oh it was a good time. Were it anyone else’s party that probably would have been enough but, hey, you know us. So we got a foam machine. A frothy, wet, quite fun yet evidently deadly, foam machine. Now this dastardly devise didn’t kill the lawn per se. We hypothesize it was more that it made the lawn very wet and that dancing in said area for a great many hours over the course of several days did the deed. Our jubilant frolicking simply beat the poor grass into submission. We collected every beer cap, bottle, and can. There is not a single cigarette butt or cigar to be found. The house is still standing, the dog is still barking, Grandma is still grandmaing but the lawn is no longer lawning. Now we’re sure, as you return from your wonderful vacation, that you’re quite upset but lets put this in perspective. For one thing whose idea was it for you to leave us alone in the first place? Not your best parenting decision right there. We’re little better than baboons. The mere fact that we haven’t killed each other in years past is, at best, luck. Secondly, let us not forget, you raised us to be this way. Always pushing out limits, making sure we thought creatively. This is really as much your fault as it is ours, if not more so. If anything we should be very disappointed in you. Finally lets not forget your cruise was our present to you. We paid for it. If you look at how much that cost and subtract the cost of reseeding the lawn you still came out ahead so, really, what position are you in to complain? So let’s review; we love you, you enjoyed a week on a cruise because of us, the lawn is dead, and it’s partially your fault. Glad that’s all out in the open. Can you have dinner ready for us by 6 tonight? We’d like macaroni and cheese. Love always Peter, James & Carmine

The masses of dense foliage all round became prison walls, impassable circular green ice-walls, surging towards her; just before they closed in, I caught the terrified glint of her eyes. On a winter day she was in the studio, posing for him in the nude, her arms raised in a graceful position. To hold it for any length of time must have been a strain, I wondered how she managed to keep so still; until I saw the cords attached to her wrists and ankles. Instead of the darkness, she faced a stupendous sky-conflagration, an incredible glacial dream-scene. Cold coruscations of rainbow fire pulsed overhead, shot through by shafts of pure incandescence thrown out by mountains of solid ice towering all round. Closer, the trees round the house, sheathed in ice, dripped and sparkled with weird prismatic jewels, reflecting the vivid changing cascades above. Instead of the familiar night sky, the aurora borealis formed a blazing, vibrating roof of intense cold and colour, beneath which the earth was trapped with all its inhabitants, walled in by those impassable glittering ice-cliffs. The world had become an arctic prison from which no escape was possible, all its creatures trapped as securely as were the trees, already lifeless inside their deadly resplendent armour. Frozen by the deathly cold emanating from the ice, dazzled by the blaze of crystalline ice-light, she felt herself becoming part of the polar vision, her structure becoming one with the structure of ice and snow. As her fate, she accepted the world of ice, shining, shimmering, dead; she resigned herself to the triumph of glaciers and the death of her world. Fear was the climate she lived in; if she had ever known kindness it would have been different. The trees seemed to obstruct her with deliberate malice. All her life she had thought of herself as a foredoomed victim, and now the forest had become the malign force that would destroy her. In desperation she tried to run, but a hidden root tripped her, she almost fell. Branches caught in her hair, tugged her back, lashed out viciously when they were disentangled. The silver hairs torn from her head glittered among black needles; they were the clues her pursuers would follow, leading them to their victim. She escaped from the forest at length only to see the fjord waiting for her. An evil effluence rose from the water, something primitive, savage, demanding victims, hungry for a human victim. It had been night overhead all along, but below it was still daylight. There were no clouds. I saw islands scattered over the sea, a normal aerial view. Then something extraordinary, out of this world: a wall of rainbow ice jutting up from the sea, cutting right across, pushing a ridge of water ahead of it as it moved, as if the flat pale surface of sea was a carpet being rolled up. It was a sinister, fascinating sight, which did not seem intended for human eyes. I stared down at it, seeing other things at the same time. The ice world spreading over our world. Mountainous walls of ice surrounding the girl. Her moonwhite skin, her hair sparkling with diamond prisms under the moon. The moon’s dead eye watching the death of our world.

The boy's smile was a mockery of innocence. 'Are you frightened?' 'Yes,' I said. Never lie- that had been Rhys's first command. The boy stood, but kept to the other side of the cell. 'Feyre,' he murmured, cocking his head. The orb of faelight glazed the inky hair in silver. 'Fay-ruh,' he said again, drawing out the syllables as if he could taste them. At last, he straightened his head. ''Where did you go when you died?' 'A question for a question,' I replied, as I'd been instructed over breakfast. ... Rhys gave me a subtle nod, but his eyes were wary. Because what the boy had asked... I had to calm my breathing to think- to remember. But there was blood and death and pain and screaming- and she was breaking me, killing me so slowly, and Rhys was there, roaring in fury as I died. Tamlin begging for my life on his knees before her throne... But there was so much agony, and I wanted it to be over, wanted it all to stop- Rhys had gone rigid while he monitored the Bone Carver, as if those memories were freely flowing past the mental shields I'd made sure were intact this morning. And I wondered if he thought I'd give up then and there. I bunched my hands into fists. I had lived; I had gotten out. I would get out today. 'I heard the crack,' I said. Rhys's head whipped toward me. 'I heard the crack when she broke my neck. It was in my ears, but also inside my skull. I was gone before I felt anything more than the first lash of pain.' The Bone Carver's violet eyes seemed to glow brighter. 'And then it was dark. A different sort of dark than this place. But there was a... thread,' I said. 'A tether. And I yanked on it- and suddenly I could see. Not through my eyes, but- but his,' I said, inclining my head toward Rhys. I uncurled the finger of my tattooed hand. 'And I knew I was dead, and this tiny scrap was all that was left of me, clinging to the thread of our bargain.' 'But was there anyone there- were you seeing anything beyond?' 'There was only that bond in the darkness.' Rhysand's face had gone pale, his mouth a tight line. 'And when I was Made anew,' I said, 'I followed that bond back- to me. I knew that home was on the other end of it. There was light then. Like swimming up through sparkling wine-' 'Were you afraid?' 'All I wanted was to return to- to the people around me. I wanted it badly enough I didn't have room for fear. The worst had happened and the darkness was calm and quiet. It did not seem like a bad thing to fade into. But I wanted to go home. So I followed the bond home.' 'There was no other world,' the Bone Carver pushed. 'If there was or is, I did not see it.' 'No light, no portal?' Where is it that you want to go? The question almost leaped off my tongue. 'It was only peace and darkness.' 'Did you have a body?' 'No.' 'Did-' 'That's enough from you,' Rhysand purred- the sound like velvet over sharpest steel. 'You said a question for a question. Now you've asked...' He did a tally on his fingers. 'Six.' The Bone Carver leaned back against the wall and slid to a sitting position. 'It is a rare day when I meet someone who comes back from true death. Forgive me for wanting to peer behind the curtain.

But sleep tha pondereth and is not to be and there oh may my weary spirit dwell apart forms heaven's eternity and yet how far from hell. other friends have flown before on the morrow he will leave me as my hopes have flown before the bird said nevermore. leave my loneliness unbroken. how dark a woe yet how sublimes a hope. And the fever called living is conquered at last. I stand amid the roar of a surf tormented shore and i hold within my hand grains of the golden sand how few yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep while i weep while i weep o god can i not grasp them with a tighter clasp o god can i not save one from the pitiless wave is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream. Hell rising form a thousand thrones shall do it reverence. It was the dead who groaned within lest the dead who is forsaken may not be happy now. even for thy woes i love thee even for thy woes thy beauty and thy woes think of all that is airy and fairy like and all that is hideous and unwieldy. hast thou not dragged Diana from her car. I care not though it perishes with a thought i then did cherish. For on its wing was dark alley and as it fluttered fell an essence powerful to destroy a soul that knew it well. (Talking about death) the intense reply of hers to our intelligence. Then all motion of whatever nature creates most writers poets in especial prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy an ecstatic intuition and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought at the true purposes seized only at the last moment at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable at the cautions selection and rejections at the painful erasures and interpolations in a word at the wheels and pinions the tackle for scene shifting the steep ladders and demon traps the cock[s feathers a the red pain and the black patches which in ninety nine cases out of the hundred constitute the properties of the literary _histiro. Wit the Arabians there is a medium between heaven and hell where men suffer no punishment but yet do not attain that tranquil and even happiness which they supposed to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment. If i could dwell where israfel hath dwelt and he where i he might not sing so wildly well mortal melody, while a bolder note than this might swell form my lyre within the sky. And i am drunk with love of the dead who is my bride. And so being young and dipt in folly , I feel in love with melancholy. I could not love except where death was mingling his with beauty's breath or hymen, Time, and destiny were stalking between her and me. Yet that terror was not friegt but a tremulous delight a feeling not the jeweled mine could teach or bribe me to define nor love although the love were thine. Whose solitary soul could make an Eden of that dim lake. that my young life were a lasting dream my spirit not awakening till the beam of an eternity should bring the morrow. An idle longing night and day to dream my very life away. As others saw i could not bring my passions from a comman spring from the sam source i have not taken my sorrow and all i loved i loved alone La solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire que la solitude estune belle chose impulse upon the ether the source of all motion is thought and the source of all thought. Be of heart and fear nothing your allotted days of stupor have expired and tomorrow i will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence. unknown now known of the speculative future merged in the august and certain present.

I, Patrick, am dying. I, Patrick, i am dead. I, Patrick, should not have turned gay. I, Patrick, is a warning to all the homosexuals.

For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts.”[1] Similar to the advice inscribed on the wall outside the temple of Apollo where the Oracle at Delphi dwelt that one “Know Thyself,” Baxter is urging that pastors would have a keen understanding of who they are and a constant attention to the state of their souls, their passions, their motivations and their desires. For him, that encompassed both the positive and the negative; that is, their desire for God and for right-intentioned ministry, and also their desires for the things which would hinder them in that ministry. One of the common things I hear when speaking to husbands or wives who have committed adultery is “I don’t know how I got here.” We know it’s not the case that one day we simply wake up to find ourselves in an adulterous relationship or other sin, or spiritual deadness, or loss of faith, but rather that when we find ourselves in those places, we do so because of a long string of choices made and opportunities to turn around missed. We do so, because unaware of the state of our hearts and souls we wander off the path of discipline, onto easier paths of self-indulgence, self-centeredness, self-abandon; everything but self-awareness. Baxter, following Paul, who also told Timothy to “watch [his] life and doctrine closely,”[2] urged those in ministry to keep their eyes open on their own hearts and lives. This is where formation begins, as we understand how unlike the character of Christ is ours, in what areas we need attention and growth, and begin to understand how God wants to work formation in us. “For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts.”[3] Questions: How would I rate my level of self-awareness? Do I truly understand my motivations and desires? When I sin, do I understand what it is I am really looking for? Look ahead 10 or 20 years and imagine you have been disqualified from ministry. What is the issue that is most likely to have been the reason? What are you doing now to avoid it becoming a bigger problem than it already is? Meditation:

Life isn't over until you're dead. Another ultra-positive, ultra-motivational tweet to improve your day. You're welcome.

On the beach, men saw Father Lacy “go down to the water’s edge and pull the dead, dying, and wounded from the water and put them in relatively protected positions. He didn’t stop at that, but prayed for them and with them, gave comfort to the wounded and dying. A real man of God.”22

... the Great Depression had descended on the American economy and there were no jobs available. [He] not only couldn't find a position as an artist, he was unable to secure any kind of work. Weeks and months went by without success. Finally, he was hired by a small Texaco service station at the edge of town where cars seldom came. He was paid one dollar a day to pump gasoline, clean bathrooms, and remove grease off the pavement. My dad would later refer to that time as his days of 'Egyptian Bondage.' The Lord left him in this dead-end job for seven years until he became sick of himself and his lofty dreams.

An Indirect quote - Some visitors came to a planet to see its resources and available benefits for them. They knew the universal secrets, but when they visited this planet, only primitive humans were living and there were dark in nature. So they tried to utilize them and to rule them, but as days and minutes passed these visitors started loving those dark people, and then they started teaching them about morality, perseverance, how to talk, how to walk and everything about utopian or high life style but some of these dark people misused it and some love stories became harassing stories and these visitors got tensed as they were teachers, they wanted to be respectful. But their main motive was to use the resources on this planet, because their planet already dead. And guy from those dark people asked a serious question after getting taught from them, you people came to utilize us and now you guys are enslaving us, just like you people we are also organisms of universe, and that sentence was a damn shocking for them then there was rain, a heavy rain or Indra. These dark people prayed a lot to preserve their culture with the knowledge they got from these visitors which in turn gave births of visitors souls to their children. Some of these dark people were used to build a plan against enemies as it was their psychology against thrests, and then there was manu smiriti or psychology given by visitors to not to give high positions to to these dark skinned people as they build a plan to destroy threats, they may turn violent people against universe. And then there was a girl in these dark people who said that, destruction is also another creation , and she was shakthi. Finally these visitors lost with their intention because these dark people started speaking truths, and still they had bad motives to kill these visitors those were called asuras, and this indra made his clans to protect humanity from these asuras. And people those who were interested in love and too much love to utilize these situations were given business opportunities on daily needs, people that were interested in extreme love I e - harassing people from these visitors were given protection duties. souls turned into another sex called trans, other than man and women to find out divergent i e mixed people. languages evolves, teaching evolved, business evolved, education evolved, there was silent guy who seems to be creator of these visitors, were given no duties at all other than science. But he himself was not a creator because for creating something new , he needs destruction or shiv and for protecting he needed another visitor called krishna, but what he forgot was this creator himself was a visitor from another planet were diamonds harvested and so called fairy tales and beautiful life was there but that planet was destroyed because of greediness. Because these visitors destroyed lots of planets already and with greedy, too much sex there were completely tired on this beautiful planet. and so finally they had no other planets to visit and whomever been sent did not return. So they finally found this is the final planet to survive. The unmentioned people are from west, and completely north and they were given important tasks to protect the planet which is the only available right now. These manu smiriti or visitors psychology did not enclose the details of creator but only said about who designed it - Bram. The god was born on west, north, south and down earth to find out what is the actual problem and when to end it for recreation. He found that there is no need of re creation as far as now because he loves all. But the problem is these visitors are from another planet or heaven or hell , and so they were greedy to enough to utilise all they had and sent their clans to search more but they did not return at all. And in between time frame, some visited but couldnt enter properly and those entered were affected much because of completely dynamic atmosphere.

And it’s perhaps late in the day to admit that I don’t recognize art as a dead category capable of definition at all, but as the human urge to express our position in relation to a universe electrified by consciousness.

She sat on the wall, opened her book, and paid him no mind. After a few minutes the sounds of clipping stopped, and she felt his gaze on her. She turned a page. “Jane,” he said with a touch of exasperation. “Shh, I’m reading,” she said. “Jane, listen, someone warned me that another fellow heard my telly playing and told Mrs. Wattlesbrook, and I had to toss it out this morning. If they spot me hanging around you..” “You’re not hanging around me, I’m reading.” “Bugger, Jane…” “Martin, please, I’m sorry about your TV but you can’t cast me away now. I’ll go raving mad if I have to sit in that house again all afternoon. I haven’t sewn a thing since junior high Home Ec when I made a pair of gray shorts that ripped at the butt seam the first time I sat down, and I haven’t played pianoforte since I quit from boredom at age twelve, and I haven’t read a book in the middle of the day since college, so you see what a mess I’m in.” “So,” Martin said, digging in his spade. “You’ve come to find me again when there is no one else to flirt with.” Huh! thought Jane. He snapped a dead branch off the trunk. Huh! she thought again. She stood and started to walk away. “Wait.” Martin hopped after her, grabbing her elbow. “I saw you with those actors, parading around the grounds this morning. I hadn’t seen you with them before. In the context. And it bothered me. I mean, you don’t really go in for this stuff, do you?” Jane shrugged. “You do?” “More than I want to, though you’ve been making it seem unnecessary lately.” Martin squinted up at a cloud. “I’ve never understood the women who come here, and you’re one of them. I can’t make sense of it.” “I don’t think I could explain it to a man. If you were a woman, all I’d have to say is ‘Colin Firth in a wet shirt’ and you’d say, ‘Ah.’” “Ah. I mean, aha! is what I mean.” Crap. She’d hoped he would laugh at the Colin Firth thing. And he didn’t. And now the silence made her feel as though she were standing on a seesaw, waiting for the weight to drop on the other side. Then she smelled it. The musty, acrid, sour, curdled, metallic, decaying odor of ending. This wasn’t just a first fight. She’d been in this position too many times not to recognize the signs. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked. “Were we ever together enough to require breaking up?” Oh. Ouch. She took a step back on that one. Perhaps it was her dress that allowed her to compose herself more quickly than normal. She curtsied. “Pardon the interruption, I mistook you for someone I knew.” She turned and left, wishing for a Victorian-type gown so she could have whipped the full skirts for a satisfying little cracking sound. She had to satisfy herself with emphatically tightening her bonnet ribbon as she marched. You stupid, stupid girl, she thought. You were fantasizing again. Stop it! It had all been going so well. She’d let herself have fun, unwind, not plague a new romance with constant questions such as, What if? And after? And will he love me forever? “Are you breaking up with me…?” she muttered to herself. He must think she was a lunatic. And really, he’d be right. Here she was in Pembrook Park, a place where women hand over scads of dough to hook up with men paid to adore them, but she finds the one man on campus who’s in a position to reject her and then leads him into it. Typical Jane.

Smith turned the panel van left into the alley and pulled three-quarters of the way down toward Western Avenue. He stopped and then backed in behind a small office building housing an accounting office with a storefront facing Western. From this position, the back of the café was visible at a forty-five-degree angle to the right. Smith had watched the area and this parking spot in particular every Sunday for the last month. Nobody ever came to the building or parked in the back on a Sunday afternoon. He expected this day would be no different.

Ga’n git ‘em, marras! Remember Arroyo!” “Booger Arroyo!” roared Grandarse, and the corporal pulled himself up into a sitting position, and as we swung past he was trying to sing, in a harsh unmusical croak. Aye, Ah ken John Peel an’ Ruby too, Ranter an’ Ringwood, Bellman an’ True From a find to a check, from a check to a view From a view to a death in the morning! He was a romantic, that one, but whoever he was I’m grateful to him, for I can say I have heard the regimental march sung, and the regimental war cry shouted, as we went in under Japanese fire. I don’t know how many casualties we took at that point – seven dead and thirty-three wounded was the count at the end of the day – but I do know that the companies never stopped or even broke stride; they “kept ga’n”, and I must be a bit of a romantic, too, I suppose, for whenever I think back on those few minutes when the whizz-bangs caught us, and see again those unfaltering green lines swinging steadily on, one word comes into my Scottish head: Englishmen.

Never have I seen so many young, privileged, people trying so hard to be happy. There are countless articles written about it, blogs named for it, workshops attending to it. Who ever said we’re supposed to be happy all the time, anyway? We’re not. And the pressure to do so might be what’s making us unhappy to begin with. It’s OK if you’re not completely content with your life twenty-four hours a day. Can you imagine what a boring person you’d be if you were? Going through shit storms, feeling uninspired, hating the way you look and having guilt over not accomplishing enough are just some of the things that make you interesting, relatable and human. Not to mention, if you’re reading this, then you have internet access and if you have internet access, it stands to reason that you have a computer, which makes me think you probably have a place to live, with electricity and plenty of food to eat and clean clothes to wear, which are all things that an enormous amount of people living on the planet today do not have. This is not to say that people shouldn’t strive to better their positions in life, however it seems like so many of us are no longer content with a regular amount of happy, yet dead-set on being maniacally jubilant, all of the time.

Bandit’s Run From behind me came a rattle of brush and then, one of the boars was on me, aiming for my neck. I fell back, and dropped the gun. I brought my feet up to my chest and prepared to fight for my life. Then suddenly, there was another growl. But it was a much different sound this time. It was lower than the excited half-squeals of the wild boar and it froze us all. I saw my chance and got to my feet, spotting the gun a few feet away. As I went for it, I saw him. It was Bandit, my father’s old coonhound. He lurched through the forest, his teeth all fury, showing no fear. I picked up the gun and ran to him. Two boars leapt on the dog’s back, their golden eyes now green and focused. Bandit rolled, as he was taught to do. They fell from his back and the dog was on his feet again, positioned in front of me. I leveled the gun and aimed. I fired. The shot was deafening in the still of night and roared up the sides of the hills, echoing through the ravine. The whole herd took off running with Bandit in hot pursuit. I called after him as I ran blindly through the woods, following the loud bawl of the old hound. I was up and over a small hill, into the next ravine. Bandit was getting farther and farther away but I kept on running, trying to keep up. Before I knew it I was in the clearing where I had first started the day, only about 100 yards from the cabin. I could hear my mother’s voice calling for me and I ran to her. My father was at her side, already putting on his jacket to come and search for me. I hugged my mother and burst out crying, trying to explain what had happened. I could feel my father’s hand on my shoulder, he was telling me to calm down, everything was all right. I looked at him and said, “It was Bandit, Dad. He saved me. He came out of the woods, full speed, he…” “Bandit?” my father asked. The look on his face was one of confusion and wonder. “David, Bandit’s been dead for two years now, remember? We buried him up past those two hills, by that creek bed in the ravine. It must have been another dog, son.” I was going to tell him, tell them both, that I saw his face, I knew it was him, but something told me not to. As we all walked into the cabin together, I could hear a wail in the distance, coming from over the hills and down in a small ravine. Or it could have been the wind. -David Magill

Praise be to the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 PETER 1:3 NOVEMBER 21 Do you know what the greatest word in the New Testament is? It’s life. Hunt through the New Testament to find how many times the word life appears, and you will be amazed. Associated with the word is another word— new. The whole emphasis of the New Testament is on newness. The Bible is the most modern thing in the world. It is more modern than today’s newspaper, for it deals with life that is new. In 1 Peter 2:9 are the words, “[God] called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” What is light associated with? Morning, the new day. And again, in Ephesians 4:23–24, we are told: “Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person.” And, again, the Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That is the word: new, new, new! Fresh, new world. New life.

As I witness the dead of beloved ones, it makes be become more conscious that life indeed has an end.

The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. Theosophists

IT ALL STARTED SO PEACEFULLY, JUST A FEW SHORT WEEKS AGO, on a lovely day in early autumn. I had driven in to work as I always did, through the happy carnage that is rush hour in Miami. It had been a bright and pleasant day: sun shining, temperature in the seventies, the other drivers cheerfully honking their horns and screaming death threats, and I’d steered through it with a blissful feeling of belonging. I had pulled into a spot in the parking lot at police HQ, still completely unaware of the lurking terror that awaited me, and carefully carried a large box of doughnuts into the building and up to the second floor. I’d arrived at my desk punctually, at my usual time. And I made it all the way into a seated position in my chair, a cup of vile coffee in one hand and a jelly doughnut in the other, before I ever for a moment suspected that today would be anything other than one more day of peaceful routine among the newly dead of Our Fair City. And then the phone on my desk began to buzz, and because I was stupid enough to answer it, everything changed forever.

There has always been a vocal minority that claims Christians should not feel stressed. In the old days to acknowledge that you felt anxious, depressed or stressed-out indicated spiritual backsliding, failure in your devotional life or your Christian service. As a result, many people kept quiet about it and just tried to cope. There is little evidence in Scripture for this belief. Both Jesus and Paul were careful to make stress positive as well as negative. Jesus warned us that ‘in this world you will have trouble’, also translated as ‘tribulation’ or ‘pressure’ (John 16:33), but went on to say that we should take heart because he had overcome this on our behalf. In other words, we shall experience pressure but it will not destroy us, he will bring us through. Paul indicates that coping with stress is a recurrent problem for Christians when he says that despite his own period of discouragement and despair, God ‘has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers’ (2 Corinthians 1:10–11).

God is just as good to us in His denials as He is in His approvals. The denials of God are immeasurable mercies. If God answered all our prayers with a positive response, how miserable we would be. Thank heaven that heaven says no!

We serve a hard, edgy crowd. Nearly all the women are black. Few make much effort with appearances any more. Most arrive with hair mashed and twisted, in unwashed sweatshirts and dirty jeans. There is grime under their cracked, badly painted nails. A handful have white teeth, but most passed long ago from yellow to brown. Several have problems with drugs. A few are quite obviously HIV-positive. The women drag themselves through the line like forgotten spirits shuffling off toward the River Styx. They are neither enthusiastic nor reluctant, neither fatalistic nor indignant. They are, for the most part, utterly without affect. They do not grin, cry, laugh, complain. They are merely present. In college, we would-be revolutionaries pretended that the oppressed would one day rise as a mighty army to smite the capitalists, overthrow the system, and establish a truly just society. Well, here are a couple of dozen of the most oppressed people in America, all lined up for their food, and the greatest passion they are able to summon is for brief but heated argument over who got the larger portion. Half may be dead in two years. If not for the hopeful, innocent beauty of their children, who still return a smile for a smile, I probably could not bear to come at all.

The Empress Dowager, the man continued, was much distressed, and had given orders to stop the fighting; the Boxers were fools... Then the soldier waved a farewell, and retreated cautiously, picking his way back through the ruins and débris. Several times he stopped no raised the head of some dead man that lay there, victim to our rifles, and peered at the face to see if it was recognisable. In five days we have accounted for very many killed and wounded, and numbers still lie in the exposed positions where they fell. The disappearing figure of that man was the end to the last clue we came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us there was nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for barricade, loophole for loophole, and sandbag for sandbag. What has been levelled to the ground by fire has been heaped up once more so that the ruins themselves may bring more ruin! But although we exhausted ourselves with questions, and many of us hoped against hope, the hours sped slowly by and no message came. The Palace, enclosed in its pink walls, had sunk to sleep, or forgotten us - or, perhaps, had even found that there could be no truce. Then midnight came, and as we were preparing, half incredulously, to go to sleep, we truly knew. Crack, crack, went the first shots from some distant barricade, and bang went an answering rifle on our side. Awakened by these echoes, the firing grew naturally and mechanically to the storm of sound we have become so accustomed to, and the short truce was forgotten. It is no use; we must go through to the end.

That Thomas was even venerated as a "once and future" being- a hero who was rumored to not be dead but simply removed from our world, and due to return one day- firmly positions him in a much larger tradition of mythical and folkloric heroes, like Arthur in Britain.

once you’ve been in a position to watch everyone you’ve ever known die, the light go slowly out of their eyes, transforming them from this magic assemblage of quirks, habits, preferences, and dreams to an inert pile of spent flesh and bone, you realize not only that life is precious but also that death is absolutely inevitable. No matter what you do. The people you love will die one day, and sometimes it happens sooner and faster and more horribly than you could imagine.

Former unbelievers who respond positively to the Gospel before entering eternity will never need to have any part in the eternally burning Lake of Fire. Anyone can make today be the day he or she chooses to cast his or her sins on the cross, just as the children of Israel cast their sacrifices for sins on the altar, and allow Jesus to bear the burden. His death, burial, and resurrection have already taken place. The work is already finished. All a person needs to do now is trust Jesus for salvation. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

There was a trick of his imagination which recurred persistently; it had recurred, ever since the last ghastly news was brought by the Dillard's [that the third (and last) son had died in the Civil War]. Ira kept seeing his sons around the place, he kept hearing their voices. Sometimes at home he would be in his tool shed, and it seemed that a corner of his vision caught the impression of young Moses going out the door. He was positive that sometimes lying dry and wakeful in the middle of the night, he heard the faint ring of china from Sutherland's room as the young man got up and used his chamber pot. Ira did not believe in ghosts as such. But he thought that perhaps the actual impression of the boys' living had left a variety of sights, sounds and scents which had never been expended and were not dead, even though the boys were dead. He thought that all the trees and shrubbery and walls and fences on the plantation might have absorbed the day-by-day activities of his sons, and still gave them forth, but faintly--as a roasted brick retain its heat long after it had been pinned up in flannel, and so afforded comfort to the cold feet of the invalid who needed warmth. And Ira needed this reassurance that his sons had once been part of a waking, busy scheme called Life; ah, he needed it.

Luit never came out of the anesthesia. He paid dearly for having stood up to two other males, frustrating them by his steep ascent. Those two had been plotting against him in order to take back the power they had lost. The shocking way they did so opened my eyes to how deadly seriously chimpanzees take their politics. Two-against-one maneuvering is what lends chimpanzee power struggles both their richness and their danger. Coalitions are key. No male can rule by himself, at least not for long, because the group as a whole can overthrow anybody. Chimpanzees are so clever about banding together that a leader needs allies to fortify his position as well as the greater community’s acceptance. Staying on top is a balancing act between forcefully asserting dominance, keeping supporters happy, and avoiding mass revolt. If this sounds familiar, it’s because human politics works exactly the same. Before Luit’s death, the Arnhem colony was ruled jointly by Nikkie, a young upstart, and Yeroen, an over-the-hill conniver. Barely adult at seventeen, Nikkie was a brawny character with a dopey expression. He was very determined, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He was supported by Yeroen, who was physically not up to the task of being a leader anymore, yet who wielded enormous influence behind the scenes. Yeroen had a habit of watching disputes unfold from a distance, stepping in only when emotions were flaring to calmly support one side or the other, thus forcing everybody to pay attention to his decisions. Yeroen shrewdly exploited the rivalries among younger and stronger males. Without going into the complex history of this group, it was clear that Yeroen hated Luit, who had wrested power from him years before. Luit had defeated Yeroen in a struggle that had taken three hot summer months of daily tensions involving the entire colony. The next year, Yeroen had gotten even by helping Nikkie dethrone Luit. Ever since, Nikkie had been the alpha male with Yeroen as his right-hand man. The two became inseparable. Luit was unafraid of either one of them alone. In one-on-one encounters in the night cages, Luit dominated every other male in the colony, taking away their food or chasing them around. No single one of them could possibly have kept him in his place. This meant that Yeroen and Nikkie ruled as a team, and only as a team. They did so for four long years. But their coalition eventually began to unravel, and as is not uncommon among men, the divisive issue was sex. Being the kingmaker, Yeroen had enjoyed extraordinary sexual privileges. Nikkie would not let any other males get near the most attractive females, but for Yeroen he had always made an exception. This was part of the deal: Nikkie had the power, and Yeroen got a slice of the sexual pie. This happy arrangement ended only when Nikkie tried to renegotiate its terms. In the four years of his rule, he had grown increasingly self-confident. Had he forgotten who had helped him get to the top? When the young leader began to throw his weight around, interfering with the sexual adventures not only of other males but also of Yeroen himself, things got ugly. Infighting within the ruling coalition went on for months, until one day Yeroen and Nikkie failed to reconcile after a spat. With Nikkie following him around, screaming and begging for their customary embrace, the old fox finally walked away without looking back. He’d had it. Luit filled the power vacuum overnight. The most magnificent chimpanzee male I have known, both in body and spirit, quickly grew in stature as the alpha male. Luit was popular with females, a mighty arbiter of disputes, protector of the downtrodden, and effective at disrupting bonding among rivals in the divide-and-rule tactic typical of both chimp and man. As soon as Luit saw other males together he would either join them or perform a charging display to disband them.

Yin/Yang is used to describe the various qualities of paired items in relation to one another and that nothing in nature can exist without its counterpart.3 This is expressed in the following examples. Without day there can be no night, without right there can be no left, without hard there can be no soft, without East there can be no West, without expansion there can be no contraction, without rest there can be no activity. This list can go on forever. Just take a minute and think of the numerous like comparisons that you can make on your own. The complementary opposite characteristics of Yin/Yang should quickly become apparent. This comparison is even extended to like items, which means that there is no absolute in the concept. Take daytime for example. It is associated with Yang. The counterpart of daytime is nighttime, which is associated with Yin. As the sun moves through the sky during the course of the day it produces shadows. The shadows are associated with Yin, which is in comparison with areas that are receiving full sunshine. The shadows are the Yin within the Yang of the day. At night the moon will sometimes cast light on to the surface of the Earth. That occurrence is considered as Yang, which is in comparison to dark, shadowy areas. It is the Yang within the Yin of night. As the sun and moon move through the sky the positions of the corresponding light and shadow areas will merge and alternate. This represents the cyclic qualities of Yin/Yang. All events in nature, including the interactions of the human body, are cyclic and contain a complementary opposite according in Eastern thought.4 Yin/Yang, at the most basic level, is a simple comparison. Taoist philosophy does not separate cause from effect. In their view, everything is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Day is not caused by night, but simple precedes it. Winter is not caused by summer, but the two are linked in the cycle of the seasons.

Polish Approach” to World Cups and Euros: A theory posited by a Polish waiter in London who once told us: “We Poles always have a defined rhythm to the three group stage games we play at every major tournament in which we are inevitably eliminated. They even have ritualistic names: Match day one: “The opening game in which everything is possible.” Match day two: “The must-win game in which our team’s survival is on the line.” Match day three: “A dead rubber Game of Honor in which the result is irrelevant because the team is already eliminated.

Later in the day, Holly frowned at her reflection in the mirror. “This can’t be right!” Holly muttered to herself. She looked like a cross between a panda bear and a raccoon. She had tried to apply a more advanced version of makeup than she was used to, and it was not going well. “Smokey eye, my foot! I look like I have two black eyes.” She had not done the proper shading with her eye shadow, and now her large green eyes were encased with a deep black color that spanned her entire eyelid. “Maybe I should try a different one,” Holly mused aloud. She sat in William’s bedroom at his dresser. She already had on her pretty crushed velvet black dress and a small heart-shaped diamond pendant. It had been William’s birthday gift to her last year. “Let me re-read this article again to see if I can make sense of these instructions.” Holly read her magazine article out loud. “Which Greek Goddess are you? Athena, Venus, or Aphrodite? Check out our makeup tips below to turn heads at your next event!” “Hmmmm, that sounds soooooo good, if only I was better at applying makeup.” She had decided to try their Aphrodite look and had been trying to apply the eyeliner to give her a smoky eye effect. Holly had to wash her face four times already and start over because each time was worse than the last. “Concentrate, Holly, or you’ll be late for the gala. This is your last chance; it’s do or die time!” she warned her reflection in the mirror. “So, it says to put the light grey eyeshadow on the inner one-third of my eyelids. Hmmm, maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know where the inner third is.” She got an idea and went to William’s desk. Looking around, she found a ruler. “Ah-ha! Eureka, I got it!” She went back to her position at his dresser and closed her eyes for a quick, small prayer, then held the ruler up to measure her eye. “Ah-ha! Twenty-one millimeters. So, that means the inner one-third of my eye must be from my nose out seven millimeters . . . right about HERE!” Holly expertly applied the light grey eye shadow to the inner third of her eyelids. “What a big improvement already! Wow! I’m not a panda bear anymore! Ok, one-third down, two-thirds to go . . . I can do this!” Reading further, she said, “Ok, now apply the dark grey eye shadow to the next third of your eye, finishing with the dark brown eye shadow on the outer third of your eyelid.” Holly expertly followed the instructions and sat back in her chair, stunned. She looked beautiful! She had achieved the desired effect, and now her green eyes were enhanced to perfection. “Wow, wow, wow!” Holly felt encouraged to keep going. She read the next instructions. “‘Now, apply blush to your face with an emphasis on contouring your cheekbones.’” “‘Contouring my cheekbones? Who do they think I am, Rembrandt?” Holly said with a groan. Holly gingerly picked up her blush container as if it were about to bite her. She decided another quick prayer wouldn’t go amiss. With a deep breath she muttered, “Ok, I’m going in!” She glanced nervously at the picture in the magazine and tried her hardest to follow it along her cheekbones. “That turned out pretty good!” Holly turned her face this way and that, examining it. It may not have been exactly as in the picture, but the blush now accentuated her beautiful high cheekbones. “Whew! Only the lip left, thank goodness! You got this, Holly!” She encouraged her reflection in the mirror.

When Mom says “bong,” she means her nebulizer. It turns water into vapor, and she huffs it all day like a singer breathing hot mist before a performance. Except Mom’s machine is handheld. I’m surprised she doesn’t carry it in a gun sling. But my mom is not just inhaling water. “Let’s get some colloidal silver in those lungs,” she says. Second to prayer, colloidal silver is Mom’s insurance policy on life. She makes her own, soaking two silver rods in a glass vat of water that sits next to her kitchen sink. I’ll let her explain it. This is from one of her emails telling me how to live forever: “I use distilled water and 99% pure silver rods. The rods are connected to a positive and negative charge (think of a jumper cable for your car) and they are immersed in the distilled water. Some people leave the rods in the water 2–4 hours. I leave mine in for 8–12 hours so my silver water is extra strength and powerful…I drink ¼ cup colloidal silver in a glass of water before bed, and have for years and years. RARELY am I ever sick. I take a bottle of colloidal silver on every trip (especially overseas) in case I pick up a stomach bug or am around anyone who is sick. I use it on wounds, use it for pink eye, ear infections, the flu, and more because it kills over 600 viruses and most bacteria, including MRSA. There are also studies that show the benefits of colloidal silver against cancer.” Every time I’m home, she gives me a bottle of the stuff to take back to Los Angeles. I, like a good millennial, googled its effectiveness. The scientific establishment seems to believe that colloidal silver does approximately nothing good, and in large quantities, some bad. Perhaps you’ve seen the viral meme of the old blue man? He consumed so much colloidal silver that his skin dyed blue from the inside. He looks like a Smurf with a white beard. Well, he looked like a Smurf. He’s dead. Maybe from something common like heart failure, but… When I told my mother this, she wouldn’t hear it. “I know it works. I’ve been using it for years. I don’t care what those articles say. I’ve read hundreds of articles about it.

I did not know that the institute was providing dolphin trainers to a highly classified Navy research project until I was approached one day about training dolphins to kill enemy divers in Vietnam. Turns out the Vietcong were sending swimmers into Cam Ranh Bay at night to place explosives on American supply ships. The bay was full of floating debris that made it hard to pick out the swimmers from other sonar targets. The idea was that the dolphins could detect the divers and let their trainers know. The trainers would attach a spear with a gas canister on the dolphin’s nose. The creature would swim back and shove the spear into the diver’s chest, inflating his dead body so it floated. It didn’t feel right to put the animals in that position, so I politely declined to get involved.

. The only difference between the kingdom today and the kingdom that we will know in the future is its visibility. Jesus is King right now. He holds the highest governmental office in the universe because He has been elevated to that position by God, which is at the heart of the Apostles’ Creed: “[He] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried…. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” To be at the right hand of God is to be in the position of authority, by which He rules not just the church but also the world. That is why the church cries, “Hallelujah!” Our Messiah is not only our Prophet and Priest but also our King.

My kids come through the door at the end of the day, and I ask, How was your day at school? In stereo, I get back, Fine. Instead of considering that a dead end, I follow up with another question. I inquire, What did you like about it today? My teenage son usually says, I don’t know. I look him right in the eye and tell him, Really, tell me about one class you liked today. He thinks about it for a minute. Finally he says, Science. And I inquire, What did you like about science? He launches into a colorful description of an experiment they did, and we’re talking. The bottom line is that you have to open it up, and you have to show you truly care.

So people say, what is there to be positive about? What is there to hope for? And my answer is always the same—Voyager. The two spacecraft we threw out into space with the hope of a planet behind them. One of them carrying a letter that said, “We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours”. The most hopeful letter any human being ever wrote. Our thoughts, our languages, our music all travelling now through interstellar space. The odds of either Voyager being intercepted within our lifetimes are infinitesimal, but that’s not the point. The point is that one day, so many days into the future we can’t even comprehend the number, some bored lifeform might scoop up a dead, battered piece of junk and find a planet’s hope inside. And if, against all odds, they can understand it, they might just train their sights on our backwater of space and find the place we once occupied and think, Damn. We missed a trick there. So here we are, going about our lives, and all the while the Voyagers are out there, hurtling onward. Every day you wake up they’re just a little bit closer to something amazing. And that’s what makes me smile every time I think of it. Voyager, and the journey never-ending.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me. 카톡☎ppt33☎ 〓 라인☎pxp32☎ 홈피는 친추로 연락주세요 I want to put a ding in the universe. 비그알엑스구입,비그알엑스구매,비그알엑스판매,비그알엑스파는곳,비그알엑스구입방법,비그알엑스구매방법,비그알엑스약효,비그알엑스지속시간,비그알엑스복용법 Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is better than two doubles. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. When I do well in the exam, I will show my paper to my parents, they are so happy to see me do well in the exam. I want to be happy all the time. But I have put so much pressure on myself. One day, my parents tell me that they don’t care how I do well in the exam, they just want me to be happy. I know I should relax myself and be happy. Your negative emotions can also be controlled and directed. PMA and self-discipline can remove their harmful effects and make them serve constructive purposes. Sometimes fear and anger will inspire intense action. But you must always submit your negative emotions--and you positive ones--to the examination of your reason before releasing them. Emotion without reason is a dreadful enemy. What faculty provides the crucial balance between emotions and reason? It is your willpower, or ego, a subject which will be explored in more detail below. Self-discipline will teach you to throw your willpower behind either reason or emotion and amplify the intensity of their expression.

Theism and materialism, so indifferent when taken retrospectively, point, when we take them prospectively, to wholly different outlooks of experience. For, according to the theory of mechanical evolution, the laws of redistribution of matter and motion, tho they are certainly to thank for all the good hours which our organisms have ever yielded us and for all the ideals which our minds now frame, are yet fatally certain to undo their work again, and to redissolve everything that they have once evolved. You all know the picture of the last state of the universe which evolutionary science foresees. I cannot state it better than in Mr. Balfour's words: That is the sting of it, that in the vast driftings of the cosmic weather, tho many a jeweled shore appears, and many an enchanted cloud-bank floats away, long lingering ere it be dissolved—even as our world now lingers, for our joy-yet when these transient products are gone, nothing, absolutely NOTHING remains, of represent those particular qualities, those elements of preciousness which they may have enshrined. Dead and gone are they, gone utterly from the very sphere and room of being. Without an echo; without a memory; without an influence on aught that may come after, to make it care for similar ideals. This utter final wreck and tragedy is of the essence of scientific materialism as at present understood. The lower and not the higher forces are the eternal forces, or the last surviving forces within the only cycle of evolution which we can definitely see. Mr. Spencer believes this as much as anyone; so why should he argue with us as if we were making silly aesthetic objections to the 'grossness' of 'matter and motion,' the principles of his philosophy, when what really dismays us is the disconsolateness of its ulterior practical results? No the true objection to materialism is not positive but negative. It would be farcical at this day to make complaint of it for what it IS for 'grossness.' Grossness is what grossness DOES—we now know THAT. We make complaint of it, on the contrary, for what it is NOT—not a permanent warrant for our more ideal interests, not a fulfiller of our remotest hopes. The notion of God, on the other hand, however inferior it may be in clearness to those mathematical notions so current in mechanical philosophy, has at least this practical superiority over them, that it guarantees an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. A world with a God in it to say the last word, may indeed burn up or freeze, but we then think of him as still mindful of the old ideals and sure to bring them elsewhere to fruition; so that, where he is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution not the absolutely final things. This need of an eternal moral order is one of the deepest needs of our breast. And those poets, like Dante and Wordsworth, who live on the conviction of such an order, owe to that fact the extraordinary tonic and consoling power of their verse. Here then, in these different emotional and practical appeals, in these adjustments of our concrete attitudes of hope and expectation, and all the delicate consequences which their differences entail, lie the real meanings of materialism and spiritualism—not in hair-splitting abstractions about matter's inner essence, or about the metaphysical attributes of God. Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes; spiritualism means the affirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope. Surely here is an issue genuine enough, for anyone who feels it; and, as long as men are men, it will yield matter for a serious philosophic debate.

We armed ourselves with pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles. We knew that the government had us impossibly outgunned but nevertheless felt obliged to not only prepare ourselves for the upcoming collapse of society as we had known it, but also to do whatever it took to speed the day when that collapse occurred. The government was illegitimate; a puppet regime manipulated by a shadowy and sinister force that was hellbent on our destruction. The supposed democracy that seated traitorous politicians had been tainted by mass media that poisoned the minds and souls of our people to not only blind them against what was happening, but also to con them into complicity in their own downfall. Our guns served many purposes. In addition to the simple purpose they were designed for-to kill people-our firearms endowed with us a sense of destiny befitting an epic struggle against fearsome odds. The deadly seriousness of the situation was underlined, italicized, and emboldened by the smell of gun oil and the clack of magazines sliding into position as we recruited new soldiers into our movement. According to the founding Fathers, it was not only our right, but our duty to bear arms against the tyrants who had usurped our beloved nation. I spent 7 years immersed in that world. A reality where I was constantly looking over my shoulder to reveal the handiwork of the enemy. Every aspect of our culture faced a relentless assault. Everything that was good about America-Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit of Happiness-had been denigrated and disparaged by those that sought to impose Marxist equality. I hated them for that. I hated them with the passion of a patriot. That hate was fueled by what I truly believed was a love for my race. Oops! Did I say "race?" I meant a love for my country, Or was it a love of Christ? Or Allah? It could have been any of a number of allegiances-any number of ways to identify myself-that I built walls around and bristled at those outside, and it was all in the name of love. Roads to a lot of really bad places are paved with that kind of bizarro love. A vampiric, soul-depleting love-substitute that beckons to those who never know the real thing. I was very lucky to realize the true love of a little girl-my daughter-otherwise I'd likely be dead or in prison like so many of my former comrades. Simply by playing with other children, she taught me that the walls and guns and hate that had seemed to give me purpose were in fact unnecessary constructs that threatened to separate us. The children she shared toys, laughs, and smiles with also shared the same need for love and compassion that we all do-regardless of the color of our skin, our family's choice of spirituality, or the part of the world we come from. I made a decision to cast aside the fear that masqueraded as love, and to live my life in wonderful affection for diversity instead of scorn for it.

From the day I was sworn in,” I continued, “I’ve gone out of my way to create an environment where everyone’s views are heard. And I think I’ve shown myself willing to make unpopular decisions when I thought it was necessary for our national security. Would you agree with that, Bob?” “I would, Mr. President,” Gates said. “So, when I set up a process that’s going to decide whether I send tens of thousands more troops into a deadly war zone at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, and I see my top military leaders short-circuiting that process to argue their position in public, I have to wonder. Is it because they figure they know better and don’t want to be bothered answering my questions? Is it because I’m young and didn’t serve in the military? Is it because they don’t like my politics…?” I paused, letting the question linger. Mullen cleared his throat.

There’s a way of triumphant accomplishment that comes from lowering dead or unwanted trees. (Not to say the joys of yelling, But that feeling fades pretty quickly once you look down and see unsightly—and very stubborn—Stump milling. If you hire a landscaper or arborist to chop down the trees, they typically leave the stumps behind, unless you pay a further fee. Stump-removal prices vary widely across the country and are supported by the diameter of the stump, but it typically costs between $100 and $200 to get rid of a stump that’s 24 inches in diameter or smaller. And that’s a good price if you’ve only got one stump to get rid of . But, if you've got two or more stumps, you'll save a substantial amount of cash by renting a stump grinder. A gas-powered stump grinder rents for about $100 per day, counting on the dimensions of the machine. And if you share the rental expense with one or two stump-plagued neighbors, renting is certainly the more economical thanks to going. you will need a vehicle with a trailer hitch to tow the machine, which weighs about 1,000 pounds. Or, for a nominal fee, most rental dealers will drop off and devour the grinder. To remove the 30-in.-dia. scarlet maple stump, I rented a Vermeer Model SC252 stump grinder. it's a strong 25-hp engine and 16-in.-dia. cutting wheel that's studded with 16 forged-steel teeth. this is often a loud, powerful machine with a classy mechanism , but it's surprisingly simple to work . But, before you crank up the motor and begin grinding away, it’s important to prep the world for the stumpectomy. Start by ensuring all kids and pets are indoors, or if they’re outdoors, keep them well faraway from the world and under constant adult supervision. Then, use a round-point shovel or garden mattock to get rid of any rocks from round the base of the stump [1]. this is often important because if the spinning cutting wheel hits a rock, it can shoot out sort of a missile and cause serious injury. Plus, rocks can dull or damage the teeth on the cutting wheel, which are expensive to exchange. Next, check the peak of the stump. If it’s protruding out of the bottom quite 6 inches approximately, use a sequence saw to trim it as on the brink of the bottom as possible [2]. While this step isn’t absolutely necessary, it'll prevent quite little bit of time because removing 6 inches of the Stump grinding with a chainsaw is far quicker than using the grinder. After donning the acceptable safety gear, start the grinder and drive it to within 3 feet of the stump. Use the hydraulic lever to boost the cutting wheel until it’s a couple of inches above the stump. Slowly drive the machine forward to position the wheel directly over the stump's front edge [3]. Engage the facility lever to start out the wheel spinning, then slowly lower it about 3 in. in to the stump grinding. Next, use the hydraulic lever to slowly swing the wheel from side to side to filter out all the wood within the cutting range. Then, raise the wheel, advance the machine forward a couple of inches, and repeat the method. While operating the machine, always stand at the instrument panel, which is found near the rear of the machine and well faraway from the cutting wheel. Little by little, continue grinding and advancing your way through to the opposite side of the stump. Raise the cutting wheel, shift into reverse, and return to the starting spot. Repeat the grinding process until the surface of the Stump removal is a minimum of 4 in. below the extent of the encompassing ground. At now, you'll drive the grinder off to at least one side, far away from the excavated hole. Now, discover all the wood chips and fill the crater with screened topsoil [4]. (The wood chips are often used as mulch in flowerbeds and around trees and shrubs.) Lightly rake the soil, opened up a good layer of grass seed, then rake the seeds into the soil [5]. Water the world and canopy the seeds with mulch hay.

God is just as good to us in His denials as He is in His approvals. The denials of God are immeasurable mercies. If God answered all our prayers with a positive response, how miserable we would be. Thank heaven that heaven says no! Negations, restrictions, refusals, denials, and rejections are all divine mercies. May we be as thankful when God says no as when He says yes.

Humankind’s insuppressible exuberance demands that we spring forward clicking our heels in revelry and delight when basking in the fullness of the miracle of life. Every day is a delightful gift. Walking in the dappled valley spackled in filtered sunlight of verdant woodland, we witness the diffused silhouette of humankind’s ambitious gestalt to make known the indeterminate, unravel the indecipherable, and joyfully flaunt the magical experience of living in the moment free of angst.

We ought to beware scientism, but the scientific image of persons need not make us weak in the knees. Even if I am an animal, even if at the end of the day I am dead and gone for good, I still make a difference, good or bad. Why? Because I exist. Each existing thing makes a difference to how things go - a small difference, but a difference. It would be nice, given that I care, how to contribute a bit to the accumulation of good effects, or ones I hope will be positive.

As for me, a girl and therefore my mother's joy and my father's responsibility, I was there to prove my parents are a success. I was among the first to be born out of India within my extended family, proof positive that my parents moved to a faraway prosperous land for good reason.

every day conversation. When this happens the meanings behind many words become lost and its original intent may never be positively identified. It is left to scholars and linguist to offer their best educated guess. Rarely is there one hundred percent agreement on every rendering, although a majority opinion can exist for many words and we can be relatively certain of their renderings. But for every such word there are words whose renderings are hotly debated among scholars. After Hebrew died, Aramaic became the common language of the people and was the common language spoken in Israel at the time of Christ. Jesus came from Galilee which was located in the Northern territory of Israel where they spoke a Northern or Old Galilean dialect of Hebrew which was more idiomatic and colloquial than the Southern dialect spoken in Judea where the Pharisees and other religious leaders lived. Up until just a few years ago it was believed that the Old Galilean Aramaic dialect was also a dead language until it was discovered

When you wake up in the morning, it is important to set the tone for the day. I like to jump out of bed, run to the bathroom, and stare in the mirror for a few minutes and give myself some positive words of encouragement like, "At least you still have your teeth! Now, get in the shower, you fucking bitch, and scrub the slime of that dead horse you call a body. Pronto!" (When you end a sentence with a foreign word, you invite a little culture into your life, and that's fun.)