Purpose Over Popularity Quotes

The question we need to ask ourselves is: what is success to us? More money? That's fine. A healthy family? A happy marriage? Helping others? To be famous? Spiritually sound? To express ourselves? To create art? To leave the world a better place than we found it? What is success to me? Continue to ask yourself that question. How are you prosperous? What is your relevance? Your answer may change over time and that's fine but do yourself this favor – whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that would jeopardize your soul. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Don't depend on drinking the Kool-Aid – it's popular, tastes sweet today, but it will give you cavities tomorrow. Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill. But first answer the question.

Christians’ disengagement from popular culture usually carries over into dualism at work. “Dualism” is a term used to describe a separating wall between the sacred and the secular. It is a direct result of a thin view of sin, common grace, and God’s providential purposes.

The mythology serves purposes darker than sentiment, nothing more so than the currently popular, and arrantly nonsensical, assertion that Lee freed his inherited slaves in 1862 before the war was over, while Grant kept his until the Thirteenth Amendment freed them in 1865. The subtext is transparent. If Southerner Lee freed his slaves while Northerner Grant kept his, then secession and the war that followed can hardly have had anything to do with slavery and must instead have been over the tariff or state rights, or some other handy pretext invented to cloak slavery’s pivotal role.

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat. But the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life-saving station grew. Some of the members of the life-saving were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it as sort of a club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The life-saving motif still prevailed in this club`s decoration, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick and some had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside. At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club`s life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. So they did just that. As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club, and yet another `spin-off` life saving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit the sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along the shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

It is well-known that a big percentage of all marriages in the United States end in divorce or separation (about 39 percent, according to the latest data).[30] But staying together is not what really counts. Analysis of the Harvard Study data shows that marriage per se accounts for only 2 percent of subjective well-being later in life.[31] The important thing for health and well-being is relationship satisfaction. Popular culture would have you believe the secret to this satisfaction is romantic passion, but that is wrong. On the contrary, a lot of unhappiness can attend the early stages of romance. For example, researchers find that it is often accompanied by rumination, jealousy, and “surveillance behaviors”—not what we typically associate with happiness. Furthermore, “destiny beliefs” about soul mates or love being meant to be can predict low forgiveness when paired with attachment anxiety.[32] Romance often hijacks our brains in a way that can cause the highs of elation or the depths of despair.[33] You might accurately say that falling in love is the start-up cost for happiness—an exhilarating but stressful stage we have to endure to get to the relationships that actually fulfill us. The secret to happiness isn’t falling in love; it’s staying in love, which depends on what psychologists call “companionate love”—love based less on passionate highs and lows and more on stable affection, mutual understanding, and commitment.[34] You might think “companionate love” sounds a little, well, disappointing. I certainly did the first time I heard it, on the heels of great efforts to win my future wife’s love. But over the past thirty years, it turns out that we don’t just love each other; we like each other, too. Once and always my romantic love, she is also my best friend.

To drive the point home, Tocqueville stressed the need for individual initiatives in democracy. Tocqueville had shown in his central theoretical part that democracy had severed the aristocratic chain and, with it, social hierarchies. But in concluding, he saw a multitude of atomized individuals lacking in energy and initiative. He blamed widespread popular indolence on the supervisory grip of the state on citizens' lives that amounted to soft despotism. Democratic men submitted to the authority of 'an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably.

The two techniques I refer to are undoing what has been done and isolating. The first of these has a wide range of application and goes back very far. It is, as it were, negative magic, and endeavours, by means of motor symbolism, to ‘blow away’ not merely the consequences of some event (or experience or impression) but the event itself. I choose the term ‘blow away’ advisedly, so as to remind the reader of the part played by this technique not only in neuroses but in magical acts, popular customs and religious ceremonies as well. [...] The same purpose may perhaps account for the obsession for repeating which is so frequently met with in this neurosis and the carrying out of which serves a number of contradictory intentions at once. When anything has not happened in the desired way it is undone by being repeated in a different way; and thereupon all the motives that exist for lingering over such repetitions come into play as well. [...] The second of these techniques which we are setting out to describe for the first time, that of isolation, is peculiar to obsessional neurosis. It, too, takes place in the motor sphere. When something unpleasant has happened to the subject or when he himself has done something which has a significance for his neurosis, he interpolates an interval during which nothing further must happen—during which he must perceive nothing and do nothing.

it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If a sermon promises health and wealth to the faithful, it isn’t true, because that theology makes God an absolute monster who only blesses rich westerners and despises Christians in Africa, India, China, South America, Russia, rural Appalachia, inner-city America, and everywhere else a sincere believer remains poor. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If doctrine elevates a woman’s married-with-children status as her highest calling, it isn’t true, because that omits single believers (whose status Paul considered preferable), widows, the childless by choice or fate or loss, the divorced, and the celibate gay. If these folks are second-class citizens in the kingdom because they aren’t married with children, then God just excluded millions of people from gospel work, and I guess they should just eat rocks and die. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long. It lends restraint when declaring what God does or does not think, because sometimes my portrayal of God’s ways sounds suspiciously like the American Dream and I had better check myself. Because of the Haitian single mom. Maybe I should speak less for God. This brings me to the question at hand, another popular subject I am asked to pontificate on: What is my calling? (See also: How do I know my calling? When did you know your calling? How can I get your calling? Has God told you my calling? Can you get me out of my calling?) Ah yes, “The Calling.” This is certainly a favorite Christian concept over in these parts. Here is the trouble: Scripture barely confirms our elusive calling—the bull’s-eye, life purpose, individual mission every hardworking Protestant wants to discover. I found five scriptures, three of which referred to

Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. The result is the encroachment of one group upon the territory of another, the rivalry of groups for the resources of the soil, and then war. Trade and finance develop, and bring new class-divisions. "Any ordinary city is in fact two cities, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich, each at war with the other; and in either division there are smaller ones - you would make a great mistake if you treated them as single states". A mercantile bourgeoisie arises, whose members seek social position through wealth and conspicuous consumption: "they will spend large sums of money on their wives". These changes in the distribution of wealth produce political changes: as the wealth of the merchant over-reaches that of the land-owner, aristocracy gives way to a plutocratic oligarchy - wealthy traders and bankers rule the state. Then statesmanship, which is the coordination of social forces and the adjustment of policy to growth, is replaced by politics, which is the strategy of parts and the lust of the spoils of office. Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle. Aristocracy ruins itself by limiting too narrowly the circle within which power is confined; oligarchy ruins itself by the incautious scramble for immediate wealth. In rather case the end is revolution. When revolution comes it may seem to arise from little causes and petty whims, but though it may spring from slight occasions it is the precipitate result of grave and accumulated wrongs; when a body is weakened by neglected ills, the merest exposure may bring serious disease. Then democracy comes: the poor overcome their opponents, slaughtering some and banishing the rest; and give to the people an equal share of freedom and power. But even democracy ruins itself by excess – of democracy. Its basic principle is the equal right of all to hold office and determine public policy. This is at first glance a delightful arrangement; it becomes disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest courses. As to the people they have no understanding, and only repeat what their rulers are pleased to tell them; to get a doctrine accepted or rejected it is only necessary to have it praised or ridiculed in a popular play (a hit, no doubt, at Aristophanes, whose comedies attacked almost every new idea). Mob-rule is a rough sea for the ship of state to ride; every wind of oratory stirs up the waters and deflects the course. The upshot of such a democracy is tyranny or autocracy; the crowd so loves flattery, it is so “hungry for honey” that at last the wiliest and most unscrupulous flatterer, calling himself the “protected of the people” rises to supreme power. (Consider the history of Rome). The more Plato thinks of it, the more astounded he is at the folly of leaving to mob caprice and gullibility the selection of political officials – not to speak of leaving it to those shady and wealth-serving strategists who pull the oligarchic wires behind the democratic stage. Plato complains that whereas in simpler matters – like shoe-making – we think only a specially-trained person will server our purpose, in politics we presume that every one who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state.

Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who’d been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons. The Crown saw no point in feeding them year after year, and they were far too dangerous to be turned loose on the streets of London—so, rather than overload the public hanging schedule, the King’s Minister of Gaol decided to put this scum to work on the other side of the Atlantic, in The Colonies, where cheap labor was much in demand. Most of these poor bastards wound up in what is now the Deep South because of the wretched climate. No settler with good sense and a few dollars in his pocket would venture south of Richmond. There was plenty of opportunity around Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—and by British standards the climate in places like South Carolina and Georgia was close to Hell on Earth: swamps, alligators, mosquitoes, tropical disease... all this plus a boiling sun all day long and no way to make money unless you had a land grant from the King... So the South was sparsely settled at first, and the shortage of skilled labor was a serious problem to the scattered aristocracy of would-be cotton barons who’d been granted huge tracts of good land that would make them all rich if they could only get people to work it. The slave-trade was one answer, but Africa in 1699 was not a fertile breeding ground for middle-management types... and the planters said it was damn near impossible for one white man to establish any kind of control over a boatload of black primitives. The bastards couldn’t even speak English. How could a man get the crop in, with brutes like that for help? There would have to be managers, keepers, overseers: white men who spoke the language, and had a sense of purpose in life. But where would they come from? There was no middle class in the South: only masters and slaves... and all that rich land lying fallow. The King was quick to grasp the financial implications of the problem: The crops must be planted and harvested, in order to sell them for gold—and if all those lazy bastards needed was a few thousand half-bright English-speaking lackeys in order to bring the crops in... hell, that was easy: Clean out the jails, cut back on the Crown’s grocery bill, jolt the liberals off balance by announcing a new “Progressive Amnesty” program for hardened criminals.... Wonderful. Dispatch royal messengers to spread the good word in every corner of the kingdom; and after that send out professional pollsters to record an amazing 66 percent jump in the King’s popularity... then wait a few weeks before announcing the new 10 percent sales tax on ale. That’s how the South got settled. Not the whole story, perhaps, but it goes a long way toward explaining why George Wallace is the Governor of Alabama. He has the same smile as his great-grandfather—a thrice-convicted pig thief from somewhere near Nottingham, who made a small reputation, they say, as a jailhouse lawyer, before he got shipped out. With a bit of imagination you can almost hear the cranky little bastard haranguing his fellow prisoners in London jail, urging them on to revolt: “Lissen here, you poor fools! There’s not much time! Even now—up there in the tower—they’re cookin up some kind of cruel new punishment for us! How much longer will we stand for it? And now they want to ship us across the ocean to work like slaves in a swamp with a bunch of goddamn Hottentots! “We won’t go! It’s asinine! We’ll tear this place apart before we’ll let that thieving old faggot of a king send us off to work next to Africans! “How much more of this misery can we stand, boys? I know you’re fed right up to here with it. I can see it in your eyes— pure misery! And I’m tellin’ you, we don’t have to stand for it!...

Since the popularity of both knitting and crocheting exploded in the 2000s, materials and patterns have never been so accessible and so varied. A search for crochet hat patterns on the knitting and crocheting website Ravelry, for example, returns over 17,000 results as of 2014. Crochet hooks have been raised to artistic pieces in their own right; Furls, a leading luxury hook manufacturer, offers hand-carved, ergonomically designed hooks that not only promise smooth, even stitches but also come with a ‘hand health’ guarantee. New crocheters needn’t be overwhelmed, though; simple materials available at most big-box craft stores are fine for the purposes of starting out and learning. Most fiber crafters learn which materials they prefer over time as they try more new types of hooks, yarns, and patterns, so choosing materials, much like

I'd like you to see that we are interfering too drastically. WE can't just assume so completely that Azerbaijan is in the hands of dangerous men and vicious Bolsheviks. I suppose it's all in the way you see Iran. I'd like you to see that Iranians are just as serious about their politics as we are: perhaps more so. The Iranian is a vigorous individual with definite ideas about the right and wrong done to him. It's easy for these journalists to laugh at the idea of political spontaneity among the Iranians because they look on these people as dirty, stupid, childlike natives who stare open-mouthed while the wonders of the west are offered to them. …... They are not like that at all. They want proper government, the same as anybody else. They have certainly tried hard enough to get it, but they haven't had a chance. We have done a great deal to prevent them getting real government. It may shock you, but we have always wanted corrupt administrations. Since the Reuter concessions sixty years ago we have begaved like American gangsters using threats, money, and even war to extort privileges and concessions which amounted to owning the country. At one time we had complete control over the administration, over the entire wealth of the land, the banks, and the army. It's rather silly to say the Iranians are un-political when you realize how quickly we had to hand back those concessions. This country rose to a man against us. We gave in hastily, but we managed to cling desperately to our oil concessions. [MacGregor] I think you are worrying yourself unduly [Essex]. We can't be too bad an influence. We may not be reformers ourselves... but we do not fight people who are really trying to improve the country. You must admit that we did not resist the last Shah, and he certainly reformed the place as best as it could be reformed. [MacGregor] It has become a habit to pass all compliments to Reza Shah,...even though we dethroned him. All reforms and modernizations are supposed to be his idea. Yet he simply took over the power of a popular revolution which we resisted at the time. He took power as a despot and he was little better than his predecessors. These people are getting fed up with despots. They obviously want to achieve some kind of better government, particularly in Azerbaijan.… That revolt in Azerbaijan doesn't have to be a Russian idea. It is really the continuation of five or six revolutions, all of them trying to get rid of corrupt governments. This time they seen to be succeeding. Our idea is to stop it.... Every level of government in Iran is corrupt from top to bottom, including the court, the police, and the parliament. Government is organized corruption. The ministers prey on the population like buzzards; they arragne taxes, laws, finances, famines; everything to the purpose of making money. The last Shah might have wiped out some of it; but that meant he became the biggest grafter of them all. He controlled the little fellows, and took the best of everything for himself. By the end of his rule he owned about a fifth of this entire country. He is not the hero we think he is, and his police regime was as brutal as anything the Germans had. Though we co-operated with him, he was a little tougher than the others and he always held out for more. Once, he threatened to wipe out our oil concession but we brought him off. He could always be bought off, like all the other grafters.

Kimchi Jeon There are many different kinds of Korean pancakes using vegetables, seafood, or meat in Korean cuisine. We call this type of pancake "jeon." Among them, this kimchi pancake snack is one of the most popular Korean pancakes. Today, I want to share some secrets to make really tasty kimchi pancakes with you. When I was little, I used to visit an aunt's house and she made kimchi pancakes for me. I love kimchi pancakes, and her kimchi pancakes were the best ever. She gave me some tips about how to make good kimchi jeon. Some people asked me, why I call some Korean dishes "pancakes," even though they are not sweet, and not even close to the American pancakes that you might be imagining. Another word that could describe Korean pancakes is "fritter" - batter mixed with different kinds of ingredients: vegetables, seafood, meat, and so on. Yield: 1/2 Dozen 8-inch Pancakes Main Ingredients 1 Cup All Purpose Flour 1/3 Frying Mix (or 1/3 Cup All Purpose Flour) 1 Cup Well Fermented Kimchi 1/3 Cup Kimchi Broth 1/4 Cup Milk 1/3 Cup Water 1 Egg 1 1/2 tsp Sugar 1/8 Generous tsp Salt Directions Chop 1 cup of kimchi into 1-inch pieces. The most important tip for delicious kimchi pancakes is using well-fermented kimchi. Sour (old) kimchi works great too. When you cut kimchi on your cutting board, the cutting board will get stained. Here is a tip: Put some wax paper on top of your cutting board before cutting the kimchi. :) In a bowl, add 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup of frying mix. To make the pancakes a little crispier, I like to add some frying mix to the batter. However if you don't have the frying mix or don't want a crispy texture, you can use another 1/3 cup of flour instead. Add 1 1/2 tsp of sugar and a generous 1/8 tsp of salt into the bowl. Mix everything together. Adding some sugar is a secret ingredient from my aunt. Depending on how salty your kimchi is, you might need to adjust the amount of salt. Pour 1/4 cup of milk and 1/3 cup of water into the dried ingredients. Milk is another secret ingredient from her, but if you cannot eat milk or do not have it, you can use another 1/4 cup of water instead. Add 1 egg and 1/3 cup of kimchi broth. Several people have asked, "What is kimchi broth?" While the kimchi is fermenting in the jar, a liquid forms from the fermentation process of the napa cabbage. That is what I call kimchi broth. You can use it for other kimchi dishes such as Kimchi fried rice or kimchi soup, so don't throw away your valuable kimchi broth. It will give these dishes an extra burst of kimchi flavor. Before you add the kimchi to the batter, stir the batter until it doesn't have any chunks and gets a consistency like pancake batter. Add 1 cup of chopped kimchi into the batter. If you don't have enough kimchi broth, you can add a little more water and kimchi to get enough flavor. Mix thoroughly. Oh, it already looks delicious, even without frying. In a non-stick pan, add generous amount of oil. Heat the pan on medium-high. I said generous! =P According to your pan size, get 1 or 2 scoops of batter and pour it into the pan. It is important to spread the batter out thinly for crispy pancakes. ;) When the surface of the pancake starts to cook, flip it over. Pressing the pancake with a spatula helps the pancake fry better and makes it crispier. Occasionally flip the pancake, but not too often. When both sides of the pancakes are nicely brown and crispy, it is done. Again, it is a very simple and delicious dish. You should try this someday, especially if you love kimchi.

Even what may have seemed, in retrospect, like minor quibbles—over the particular wording of sharia clauses, for example—reflected fundamental divides over the boundaries, limits, and purpose of the nation-state. For liberals, certain rights and freedoms are, by definition, nonnegotiable. They envision the state as a neutral arbiter. Meanwhile, even those Islamists who have little interest in legislating morality see the state as a promoter of a certain set of religious and moral values, through the soft power of the state machinery, the educational system, and the media. For them, these conservative values are not ideologically driven but represent a self-evident popular consensus around the role of religion in public life. The will of the people, particularly when it coincides with the will of God, takes precedence over any presumed international human rights norms.

Father God, I want to be a person that others can trust when I make a promise. Let me examine my words to make sure I only give promises to others when I'm committed to fulfill what I've uttered. Truly, keeping promises reflects on my Christian witness. Convict me to be true to my words. Amen. HEART ACTION Practice integrity in all that you say and do. Work on making promises only when you are certain you will keep them. Become a woman that others can trust. Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary. CHINESE PROVERB The LORD has done what He purposed; He has accomplished His word. -LAMENTATIONS 2:17 I often have an instinctive feeling that something isn't right, that I should do this or that, but I usually pass over this because peer pressure tells me my inner feelings should be ignored. The older I become, however, the more I realize that living from my heart has value. I don't want to get into the trap of following everyone else because it's the group thing to do. I want to live a life that is meaningful to me and my family. I want my decisions to be based on my Christian values. To help me make major decisions, I want to use these values, not what TV, Madison Avenue, or popular newsstand magazines tell me to do or think. In order to live intuitively one must have some quiet times to read and think. Hectic lives don't permit one to hear the heartbeat of the soul. When we are too busy we don't

Savona escorted me back to the Residence. For most of our journey the talk was in our usual pattern--he made outrageous compliments, which I turned into jokes. Once he said, “May I count on you to grace the Khazhred ball tomorrow?” “If the sight of me in my silver gown, dancing as often as I can, is your definition of grace, well, nothing easier,” I replied, wondering what he would do if I suddenly flirted back in earnest. He smiled, kissed my hand, and left. As I trod up the steps alone, I realized that he had never really talked with me about any serious subject, in spite of his obvious admiration. I thought back over the picnic. No serious subject had been discussed there, either, but I remembered some of the light, quick flirtatious comments he exchanged with some of the other ladies, and how much he appeared to appreciate their flirting right back. Would he appreciate it if I did? Except I can’t, I thought, walking down the hall to my room. Clever comments with double meanings; a fan pressed against someone’s wrist in different ways to hint at different things; all these things I’d observed and understood the meanings of, but I couldn’t see myself actually performing them even if I could think of them quickly enough. What troubled me most was trying to figure out Savona’s real intent. He certainly wasn’t courting me, I realized as I pushed aside my tapestry. What other purpose would there be in such a long, one-sided flirtation? My heart gave a bound of anticipation when I saw a letter waiting and I recognized the style of the Unknown. You ask what I think, and I will tell you that I admire without reservation your ability to solve your problems in a manner unforeseen by any, including those who would consider themselves far more clever than you. That was all. I read it through several times, trying to divine whether it was a compliment or something else entirely. He’s waiting to see what I do about Tamara, I thought at last. “And in return?” That was what Tamara had said. This is the essence of politics, I realized. One creates an interest, or, better, an obligation, that causes others to act according to one’s wishes. I grabbed up a paper, dipped my pen, and wrote swiftly: Today I have come to two realizations. Now, I well realize that every courtier in Athanarel probably saw all this by their tenth year. Nonetheless, I think I finally see the home-thrust of politics. Everyone who has an interest in such things seems to be waiting for me to make some sort of capital with respect to the situation with Tamara, and won’t they be surprised when I do nothing at all! Truth to say, I hold no grudge against Tamara. I’d have to be a mighty hypocrite to fault her for wishing to become a queen, when I tried to do the same a year back--though I really think her heart lies elsewhere--and if I am right, I got in her way yet again. Which brings me to my second insight: that Savona’s flirtation with me is just that, and not a courtship. The way I define courtship is that one befriends the other, tries to become a companion and not just a lover. I can’t see why he so exerted himself to seek me out, but I can’t complain, for I am morally certain that his interest is a good part of what has made me popular. (Though all this could end tomorrow). “Meliara?” Nee’s voice came through my tapestry. “The concert begins at the next time change.” I signed the letter hastily, sealed it, and left it lying there as I hurried to change my gown. No need to summon Mora, I thought; she was used to this particular exchange by now.

Biblical writers did not teach their cosmography as scientific doctrine revealed by God about the way the physical universe was materially structured, they assumed the popular cosmography to teach their doctrine about God’s purposes and intent. To critique the cosmic model carrying the message is to miss the meaning altogether, which is the message. God’s throne may not be physically above us in waters held back by a solid firmament, but he truly does rule “over” us and is king and sustainer of creation in whatever model man uses to depict that creation. The phrase “every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth” (Rev. 5:13) is equivalent in meaning to the modern concept of every particle and wave in every dimension of the Big Bang space-time continuum, as well as every person dead or alive in heaven or hell.

Although the word “contextualization” is recent, coming into popular usage over the past three or four decades, its practice and reality have always been present as essential to the Christian faith. Unlike the Qur’an, which sees truth as timeless divine oracles, or the Western Enlightenment tradition that believes truth to be found in unchanging and eternal ideas, the Bible understands truth to be the mighty acts of God in history, authoritatively narrated and interpreted in Scripture, as the true story of the whole world in which all people are invited to find their place. The mightiest act of God and fullest revelation of himself and his purpose for the creation has been disclosed in the person and work of Jesus the Christ, especially in his death and resurrection. Truth is a person along with the historical events surrounding him that have irreversibly changed the course of universal history. Sin and evil, death and demonic power, sickness and injustice, poverty and pain—in fact all that corrupts the very good creation of God—have been defeated at the cross

But DeMille’s tenure came to an abrupt end in January 1945, in a political dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists, the actors’ union. At issue was Proposition 12, a ballot proposal popularly known as the “right to work” law. This would allow anyone to work in radio without union membership. AFRA decided to build a war chest to fight it, levying a one-dollar fee against each union member for this purpose. DeMille refused to pay it, or to allow it to be paid on his behalf. He claimed to sympathize with union ideals, but in fact he distrusted AFRA power. It was an issue of freedom, he insisted, and on that there could be no compromise. The argument dragged through late 1944, with AFRA setting and then extending several arbitrary deadlines. DeMille refused to budge, and on Jan. 22 the man who “wouldn’t take a million” for his Lux job gave it up over a dollar, hosted his final show, and never returned. In the fall, William Keighley was given the job on a permanent basis.

An influential current considers fascism a developmental dictatorship, established for the purpose of hastening industrial growth through forced savings and a regimented workforce. Proponents of this interpretation have looked primarily at the Italian case. It could well be argued that Germany, too, although already an industrial giant, needed urgently to discipline its people for the immense task of rebuilding after the defeat of 1918. This interpretation goes seriously wrong, however, in supposing that fascism pursued any rational economic goal whatever. Hitler meant to bend the economy to serve political ends. Even in Mussolini’s case, prestige counted far more than economic rationality when he overvalued the lira in 1926, and when, after 1935, he chose the risks of expansionist war over sustained economic development. If Italian Fascism was meant to be a developmental dictatorship, it failed at it. Though the Italian economy grew in the 1920s under Mussolini, it grew substantially faster before 1914 and after 1945. In one genuinely aberrant form, the developmental dictatorship theory of fascism serves to label as “fascist” all sorts of Third World autocracies without an iota of popular mobilization and without the prior existence of a democracy in trouble.

they mistrusted those who were not educated or well-born or well-to-do. More specifically, they feared the people’s power because, possessing, and esteeming, property, they wanted the rights of property protected against those who did not possess it. In the notes he made for a speech in the Constitutional Convention, James Madison wrote of the “real or supposed difference of interests” between “the rich and poor”—“those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessings”—and of the fact that over the ages to come the latter would come to outnumber the former. “According to the equal laws of suffrage, the power will slide into the hands of the latter,” he noted. “Symptoms, of a leveling spirit, as we have understood, have sufficiently appeared in certain quarters to give notice of the future danger.” But the Framers feared the people’s power also because they hated tyranny, and they knew there could be a tyranny of the people as well as the tyranny of a King, particularly in a system designed so that, in many ways, the majority ruled. “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power,” Madison wrote. These abuses were more likely because the emotions of men in the mass ran high and fast, they were “liable to err … from fickleness and passion,” and “the major interest might under sudden impulses be tempted to commit injustice on the minority.” So the Framers wanted to check and restrain not only the people’s rulers, but the people; they wanted to erect what Madison called “a necessary fence” against the majority will. To create such a fence, they decided that the Congress would have not one house but two, and that while the lower house would be designed to reflect the popular will, that would not be the purpose of the upper house. How, Madison asked, is “the future danger”—the danger of “a leveling spirit”—“to be guarded against on republican principles? How is the danger in all cases of interested coalitions to oppress the minority to be guarded against? Among other means by the establishment of a body in the government sufficiently respectable for its wisdom and virtue, to aid on such emergencies, the preponderance of justice by throwing its weight into that scale.” This body, Madison said, was to be the Senate. Summarizing in the Constitutional Convention the ends that would be served by this proposed upper house of Congress, Madison said they were “first to protect the people against their rulers; secondly to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.

At Emain and Cruachan, as well as at Tara, the assemblages were primarily political. They were conventions of representatives from all parts, for the purpose of discussing national affairs — and were presided over by the king. The yearly Fair of Taillte (now Telltown) in Meath, was mainly for athletic contests — and for this was long famous throughout Eirinn, Alba, and Britain. In the course of time, too, Taillte acquired new fame as a marriage mart. Boys and girls, in thousands, were brought there by their parents, who matched them, and bargained about their tinnscra (dowry) — in a place set apart for the purpose, whose Gaelic name, signifying marriage-hollow, still commemorates its purpose. The games of Taillte were Ireland’s Olympics, and, we may be sure, caused as keen competition and high excitement as ever did the Grecian. These Tailltin games took place during the first week of August — and the first of August, to this day, is commonly called Lugnasad — the games of the De Danann Lugh, who first instituted this gathering in memory of his foster-mother, Taillte.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

New England Clam Chowder YIELD: 4 TO 6 SERVINGS (ABOUT 8 CUPS) I DON’T REMEMBER ever eating clams when I was in France. Oysters and mussels, yes, but not clams. Fried clams and New England clam chowder were popular menu items at Howard Johnson’s, and I soon learned to love them. Although HoJo’s clam chowder recipe was made in 3,000-gallon amounts and canned, it was quite good. I reproduce that taste at home when a bit of Howard Johnson’s nostalgia creeps in. 5 quahog clams or 10 to 12 large cherrystone clams 4 cups water 4 ounces pancetta or lean, cured pork, cut into 1-inch pieces (about ¾ cup) 1 tablespoon good olive oil 1 large onion (about 8 ounces), peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces (1½ cups) 2 teaspoons chopped garlic 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 2 sprigs fresh thyme 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice (2¼ cups) 1 cup light cream 1 cup milk ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Wash the clams well under cold water, and put them in a saucepan with 2 cups of the water. Bring to a boil (this will take about 5 minutes), and boil gently for 10 minutes. Drain off and reserve the cooking liquid, remove the clams from their shells, and cut the clams into ½-inch pieces (1½ cups). Put the clam pieces in a bowl, then carefully pour the cooking liquid into another bowl, leaving behind any sediment or dirt. (You should have about 3½ cups of stock.) Set aside the stock and the clams. Put the pancetta or pork pieces in a large saucepan, and cover with the remaining 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, and boil for 30 seconds. Drain the pancetta, and wash it in a sieve under cold water. Rinse the saucepan, and return the pancetta to the pan with the oil. Place over medium heat, and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for 7 to 8 minutes. Add the onion and garlic, and continue cooking, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the flour, mix it in well, and cook for 10 seconds. Add the reserved stock and the thyme, and bring to a boil. Then add the potatoes and clams, bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to very low, and cook gently for 2 hours. At serving time, add the cream, milk, and pepper, bring to a boil, and serve. (Note: No salt should be needed because of the clam juice and pancetta, but taste and season to your liking.)

The same process occurs, however, when people who prefer popular culture come into contact with high culture; they are frequently shocked by its espousal of “deviant” behavior, especially on the part of the artist, and they condemn it in terms similar to those in the mass culture critique. For example, during the 1960s, cultural and political satire was often called “sick comedy,” and Lenny Bruce was hounded off the stage and into suicide by the police and the courts. The defenders of high and popular culture attack each other in many ways. High culture condemns popular culture as vulgar and pathological, while popular culture attacks high culture for being overly intellectual, snobbish, and effeminate, inventing pejorative terms like “highbrow” and “egghead” for this purpose.

The uses to which Rousseau’s doctrine has been turned are a mater for amazement and provide a striking lesson in social history. All that has been taken over from it is the magic formula, popular sovereignty, divorced both from the subject-matter to which it was applicable and from the fundamental condition of its exercise, the assembly of the people. It is now used to justify the very spate of legislation which it was its purpose to dam, and to advance the indefinite enablement of Power – which Rousseau had sought to restrict! All his school had made individual right the beginning and the end of his system. It was to be guarantee by subjecting to it at two removes the actual Power in human form, namely the executive. The executive was made subject to the law, which was kept strictly away from it, and the law was made subject to the sacrosanct principles of natural justice. The idea of the law’s subjection to natural justice has not been maintained. That of power’s subjection to the law has fared a little better, but has been interpreted in such a way that the authority which makes laws has incoporated with itself the authority which applies them; they have become united, and so the omnipotent law has raised to its highest pitch a Power which it has made omnicompetent. Rousseau’s school had concentrated on the idea of law. Their labour was in vain: all that the social consciousness has taken over from it is the association between the two conceptions, law and popular will. It is no longer accepted that a law owes its validity, as in Rousseau’s thought, should be confined to a generalized subject -matter. Its majesty was usurped by any expression of an alleged popular will. A mere juggling with meanings has brought the wheel full circle to the dictum which so digusted our philosophers: “Whatever pleases the prince shall have force of law.” The prince has changed – that is all. The collapse of this keystone has brought down the whole building. The principle of liberty has been based on the principle of law: to say that liberty consists in obedience to the laws only, presupposes in law such characteristics of justice and permanenece as may enable the citizen to know with precision the demands which are and will be made on him; the limits within which society may command him being in this way narrowly defined, he is his own master in his own prescribed domain. But, if law comes merely to reflect the caprices of the people, or of some body to which the legislative authority has been delegate, or of a faction which control that body, then obedience to the laws means in effect subjection to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of men whoch give this will the form of law. In that event the law is no longer the stay of liberty. The inner ligatures of Rousseau’s system come apart, and what was intended as a guarantee becomes a means of oppression.

We should understand that dream symbols are for the most part manifestations of a psyche that is beyond the control of the conscious mind. Meaning and purposefulness are not the prerogatives of the mind; they operate in the whole of living nature. There is no difference in principle between organic and psychic growth. As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.

In today’s hyperactive social media-led environment, it is likely that a lot of pressure builds up within you to also want to be “seen”, to be “counted” among the others. It is possible that you feel distressed when people don’t talk about you or your work. You may also perhaps be agonizing over the fact that people who you think are creating far less value are more popular than you. Relax. The Purpose of your Life is not to be famous. Your fame is worthwhile only when it is relevant to posterity – when your work, and your Life’s message, lives on long after you are gone. So, just chill. Put your head down and focus on creating unputdownable value, doing meaningful work, than brooding over why you are not garnering attention and followership on social media! You will then see how happy you really are with what is!

In three years of purposeful dating, I started to refer to the men I met by the generic name of 'Dick," with a letter of the alphabet assigned in the order in which they appeared in my life: A. Dick, B. Dick, C. Dick, D. Dick, E. Dick. I was so popular on the over-fifty online dating sites that I damn near ran our of alphabet letters to assign to Dicks.

In three years of purposeful dating, I started to refer to the men I met by the generic name of 'Dick,' with a letter of the alphabet assigned in the order in which they appeared in my life: A. Dick, B. Dick, C. Dick, D. Dick, E. Dick. I was so popular on the over-fifty online dating sites that I damn near ran our of alphabet letters to assign to Dicks.

As ego-driven individuals, we love to think that the universe is all about us. That we are at the center and everything that happens, happens because the universe has some divine plan for us. We are compelled to believe that the universe personally cares about us. Otherwise, what is the point? How can we care about the universe if it does not care about us? But just because we need it to care, does not mean that it does. The universe or a god, as some might view it, is not a human, nor does it function like one. It does not experience emotion or empathy. And it does not care about the ways in which humans perceive and experience what it is. It functions objectively. And therefore, fundamentally, things do not happen for a reason. They happen merely because of the arbitrary alignments of time and space. Mere coincidence. But then why does it so often seem that when things happen, they happen for a reason? That every time something happens to us, it leads to some purpose in our life. That even when bad things happen to us, they can end up leading us to good things. Certainly, there must be a reason why the cliché ”everything happens for a reason,” is so widely popular. The real reason is because of the resilience of human nature and the power of our imagination. Things appear to happen for a reason not because the universe or a god-like figure is watching over us, playing us like a prewritten video game, but because as humans, we have the power to MAKE things happen for a reason. When things happen to us, we assimilate them into our life and give them a reason for being there. We perceive the alignments of time and space and attach narratives and purpose to the things that occur. We are the writers of our own story. For every moment we experience, we have the ability to write our own meaning. For every conflict we face, we have the ability to write our own resolution. We can learn adapt, and create purpose out of the randomness of life within the universe. And in my opinion, that is even more comforting than the idea that things happen for some ulterior reason.

The only reason I have alluded to this is that the ascetic ideal has, for the present, even in the most spiritual sphere, only one type of real enemy and injurer: these are the comedians of this ideal – because they arouse mistrust. Everywhere else where spirit is at work in a rigorous, powerful and honest way, it now completely lacks an ideal – the popular expression for this abstinence is ‘atheism’ –: except for its will to truth. But this will, this remnant of an ideal, if you believe me, is that ideal itself in its strictest, most spiritual formulation, completely eso- teric, totally stripped of externals, and thus not so much its remnant as its kernel. Unconditional, honest atheism (– its air alone is what we breathe, we more spiritual men of the age!) is therefore not opposed to the ascetic ideal as it appears to be; instead, it is only one of the ideal’s last phases of development, one of its final forms and inherent logical conclusions, – it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of a two-thousand-year discipline in truth-telling, which finally forbids itself the lie entailed in the belief in 127 ‘the religion of suffering’. 118 Third essay God. (The same process of development in India, completely independ- ently, which therefore proves something; the same ideal forcing the same conclusion; the decisive point was reached five centuries before the European era began, with Buddha or, more precisely: already with the Sankhya philosophy subsequently popularized by Buddha and made into a religion.) What, strictly speaking, has actually conquered the Christian God? The answer is in my Gay Science (section 357):128 ‘Christian moral- ity itself, the concept of truthfulness which was taken more and more seriously, the confessional punctiliousness of Christian conscience, trans- lated and sublimated into scientific conscience, into intellectual rigour at any price. Regarding nature as though it were a proof of God’s goodness and providence; interpreting history in honour of divine reason, as a con- stant testimonial to an ethical world order and ethical ultimate purpose; explaining all one’s own experiences in the way pious folk have done for long enough, as though everything were providence, a sign, intended, and sent for the salvation of the soul: now all that is over, it has conscience against it, every sensitive conscience sees it as indecent, dishonest, as a pack of lies, feminism, weakness, cowardice, – this severity makes us good Europeans if anything does, and heirs to Europe’s most protracted and bravest self-overcoming!’ . . . All great things bring about their own demise through an act of self-sublimation: that is the law of life, the law of necessary ‘self-overcoming’ in the essence of life, – the lawgiver himself is always ultimately exposed to the cry: ‘patere legem, quam ipse tulisti’.129 In this way, Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality, in the same way Christianity as a morality must also be destroyed, – we stand on the threshold of this occurrence. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after another, it will finally draw the strongest con- clusion, that against itself; this will, however, happen when it asks itself, ‘What does all will to truth mean?’ . . . and here I touch on my problem again, on our problem, my unknown friends (– because I don’t know of any friend as yet): what meaning does our being have, if it were not that that will to truth has become conscious of itself as a problem in us? . . . Without a doubt, from now on, morality will be destroyed by the will to truth’s becoming-conscious-of-itself: that great drama in a hundred acts reserved for Europe in the next two centuries, the most terrible, most questionable drama but perhaps also the one most rich in hope . . .

John Walton has written recently of this ANE concern with powers over structure in direct relation to the creation story of Genesis. He argues that in the ancient world existence was understood more in terms of function within a god-created purposeful order than in terms of material status within a natural physical structure.197 This is not to say that the physical world was denied or ignored, but rather that the priority and interests were different from our own. We should therefore be careful in judging their purpose-driven cosmography too strictly in light of our own material-driven cosmography. And in this sense, modern material descriptions of reality are more “false” than ancient pictures because they do not include the immaterial aspect of reality: Meaning and purpose. Biblical writers did not teach their cosmography as scientific doctrine revealed by God about the way the physical universe was materially structured, they assumed the popular cosmography to teach their doctrine about God’s purposes and meaning. To critique the cosmic model carrying the message is to miss the meaning altogether, which is the message. God’s throne may not be physically above us in waters held back by a solid firmament, but he truly does rule “over” us and is king and sustainer of creation in whatever model man uses to depict that creation.

My purpose in saying all of this is to make a simple but necessary point. One of the more persistent and inexcusable rhetorical conceits that corrupt the current popular debates over belief in God is the claim that they constitute an argument between faith and reason or between religion and science. They constitute, in fact, only a contest between different pictures of the world: theism and naturalism (this seems the most satisfactory and comprehensive term, at any rate), each of which involves a number of basic metaphysical convictions; and the latter is by far the less rationally defensible of the two. Naturalism is a picture of the whole of reality that cannot, according to its own intrinsic premises, address the being of the whole; it is a metaphysics of the rejection of metaphysics, a transcendental certainty of the impossibility of transcendental truth, and so requires an act of pure credence logically immune to any verification (after all, if there is a God he can presumably reveal himself to seeking minds, but if there is not then there can be no “natural” confirmation of the fact). Thus naturalism must forever remain a pure assertion, a pure conviction, a confession of blind assurance in an inaccessible beyond; and that beyond, more paradoxically still, is the beyond of no beyond. And naturalism’s claim that, by confining itself to purely material explanations for all things, it adheres to the only sure path of verifiable knowledge is nothing but a feat of sublimely circular thinking: physics explains everything, which we know because anything physics cannot explain does not exist, which we know because whatever exists must be explicable by physics, which we know because physics explains everything. There is something here of the mystical.

THE FORT DE ROMAINVILLE glowers over the eastern suburbs of Paris. A brutal stone giant, by 1941 it had been made into another Nazi vision of hell. Built in the 1830s on a low hill, the hulking bastion was part of the defensive ring constructed around Paris to protect the city from foreign attack, but it also held troops who could be deployed in the event of popular insurrection—a bloated, moated, impregnable monstrosity. For the Nazis, the ancient fort served a similar psychological purpose—as a hostage camp, a place of interrogation, torture, and summary execution, and a visible symbol of intimidation, inescapable in every way.

In North America and Europe, there is no lack of odious and incompetent leaders; but there is a sense of creative friction and of evolution, of a political marketplace in which ideas and individuals less popular and effective yield, over time, to those that prove themselves fitter for purpose, and where politics—even if it has its wrong turns and dead ends—is at least in constant motion. In Japan, this is not the case; even seventy years after the war, a genuinely competitive multiparty system has still not established itself.

This generation grew up constantly reminded that they lived in the greatest country in the world, the land of the free, with liberty and justice for all its citizens. Yet, as they matured, members of this generation found a disturbing disparity between this popular American self-image and actual reality. They found that many people in this land—women and certain racial minorities—were, by law and custom, definitely not free. By the sixties the new generation was inspecting closely, and many were finding other disturbing aspects of the United States’ self-image—for instance, a blind patriotism that expected young people to go into a foreign land to fight a political war that had no clearly expressed purpose and no prospect of victory. Just as disturbing was the culture’s spiritual practice. The materialism of the previous four hundred years had pushed the mystery of life, and death, far into the background. Many found the churches and synagogues full of pompous and meaningless ritual. Attendance seemed more social than spiritual, and the members too restricted by a sense of how they might be perceived and judged by their onlooking peers. As the vision progressed, I could tell that the new generation’s tendency to analyze and judge arose from a deep-seated intuition that there was more to life than the old material reality took into account. The new generation sensed new spiritual meaning just beyond the horizon, and they began to explore other, lesser known religions and spiritual points of view. For the first time the Eastern religions were understood in great numbers, serving to validate the mass intuition that spiritual perception was an inner experience, a shift in awareness that changed forever one’s sense of identity and purpose. Similarly the Jewish Cabalist writings and the Western Christian mystics, such as Meister Eckehart and Teilhard de Chardin, provided other intriguing descriptions of a deeper spirituality. At the same time, information was surfacing from the human sciences—sociology, psychiatry, psychology, and anthropology—as well as from modern physics, that cast new light on the nature of human consciousness and creativity. This cumulation of thought, together with the perspective provided by the East, gradually began to crystallize into what was later called the Human Potential Movement, the emerging belief that human beings were presently actualizing only a small portion of their vast physical, psychological, and spiritual potential I watched as, over the course of several decades, this information and the spiritual experience it spawned grew into a critical mass of awareness, a leap in consciousness from which we began to formulate a new view of what living a human life was all about,