Rebuilding Together Quotes

But she didn't want to know - didn't want to think about the Sun Goddess and her agenda as she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him. The first member of her court - the court that would change the world. The court that would rebuild it. Together.

In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

For years I’ve wanted to live according to everyone else’s morals. I’ve forced myself to live like everyone else, to look like everyone else. I said what was necessary to join together, even when I felt separate. And after all of this, catastrophe came. Now I wander amid the debris, I am lawless, torn to pieces, alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities. And I must rebuild a truth–after having lived all my life in a sort of lie.

You can quit a job. I can’t quit being a mother. I’m a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. Being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends them out into the world, forever hostages.

When the storm rips you to pieces, you have to decide how to put yourself back together again.

Despite all odds, she still had this one precious life. She still had a chance to do things differently. Which meant they all could do things differently. They could choose a different future, a different fate. Together, they could end this senseless destruction. They could choose to rebuild, to create, rather than tear down and destroy.

Guys can smell desperation. It triggers an instinct in them to run far and fast so they aren't around when a woman starts peeling apart her heart. They know she'll ask for help in putting it back together the right way - intact and beating correctly - and they dread the thought of puzzling over layers that they can't understand, let alone rebuild. They'd rather just not get blood on their hands. But sharks are different. They smell the blood of desperation and circle in. They whisper into a girl's ear, "I'll make it better. I'll make you forget all about your pain." Sharks do this by eating your heart, but they never mention this beforehand. That is the thing about sharks.

I knew clearly that I could not rebuild my life or put it back together in any way. I had no idea what might lie on the other side of this place. I only knew that the before-world was gone forever.

She felt as if she had been crying without end for minutes now. Yet this parting, this final farewell ... Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. “I love you both,” she whispered. “And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.” “We will see you again,” Chaol said, but even his voice was thick with tears. “Together,” Dorian breathed, shaking. “We’ll rebuild this world together.” She couldn’t stand it, this ache in her chest. But she made herself pull away and smile at their tear-streaked faces, a hand on her heart. “Thank you for all you have done for me.” Dorian bowed his head. “Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear from you.” She barked a rasping laugh, and gave him a shove. “You’re a king now. Such insults are beneath you.” He grinned, wiping at his face. Aelin smiled at Chaol, at his wife waiting beyond him. “I wish you every happiness,” she said to him. To them both. Such light shone in Chaol’s bronze eyes—that she had never seen before. “We will see each other again,” he repeated. Then he and Dorian turned toward their horses, toward the bright day beyond the castle gates. Toward their kingdom to the south. Shattered now, but not forever. Not forever.

We must rebuild organic communities, where people can come together and have analogue conversations and share stories, art, music and emotions.

There are only three options for black sheep: live authentically and get kicked out of the community, have the courage to move out on your own and rebuild from scratch, or hide your true self and desperately try to fit in (which you never will).

Pain is the source of all matter. It is the force that holds the universe together, that will tear it apart, only to rebuild again. Throughout the ages, humanity asks over and over again “why are we here?” and then pretends as if the Void does not bellow the answer back every single time. We are here to hurt each other. Again, and again, and again, in perpetuity.

Being a mother is not a job. Stop throwing things at me. I'm sorry but it is not. I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job. Being a mother isn't a job. It's who someone is. It's who I am. You can quit a job. I can't quit being a mother. I'm a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. Being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends them out into the world, forever hostages.

We are made to create. We feel useful when we create. We release our 'stuckness' when we create. We reinvent our lives, tell new stories, and rebuild communities when we create. We reclaim our esteem, our muse, and our hope when we create.

Put down your guns and go home. Let’s rebuild the nation together. This was President Lincoln’s vision, to which Grant subscribed.

By rebuilding community, we become proud of our society, proud of our institutions, proud of our nations, proud of ourselves. By coming together we discover who we are. We ignite our capacity for empathy and altruism. Togetherness and belonging allow us to become the heroes of the story.

One never knows when the end is coming, or if we may all be assembled together as a whole and complete family again. And so I want you to know that I regret every day that my full attention has been called away from you, and if these talks, and the rebuilding of our loops at home, have caused me to shirk my responsibility to you, I am sorry. In the end I am your mistress and your servant. You mean more to me than all the birds in the sky and the heavens above them. If you love me, I hope I have deserved it.

We house both masterpiece and artist in this skin. So when you are disintegrated, trying to piece together what is left inside you, focus on this: You are not broken. You are simply dissembled for a while as the artist inside rebuilds something infinite out of you.

Jason reached out for my hand, and we headed out the hospital exit, on our way to rebuild our lives together free of chaos and lies.

This day does not belong to one man but to all. Let us together rebuild this world that we may share in the days of peace.

You make out with a boy because he’s cute, but he has no substance, no words to offer you. His mouth tastes like stale beer and false promises. When he touches your chin, you offer your mouth up like a flower to to be plucked, all covered in red lipstick to attract his eye. When he reaches his hand down your shirt, he stops, hand on boob, and squeezes, like you’re a fruit he’s trying to juice. He doesn’t touch anything but skin, does not feel what’s within. In the morning, he texts you only to say, “I think I left the rest of my beer at your place, but it’s cool, you can drink it. Last night was fun.” You kiss a girl because she’s new. Because she’s different and you’re twenty two, trying something else out because it’s all failed before. After spending six weekends together, you call her, only to be answered by a harsh beep informing you that her number has been disconnected. You learn that success doesn’t come through experimenting with your sexuality, and you’re left with a mouth full of ruin and more evidence that you are out of tune. You fall for a boy who is so nice, you don’t think he can do any harm. When he mentions marriage and murder in the same sentence, you say, “Okay, okay, okay.” When you make a joke he does not laugh, but tilts his head and asks you how many drinks you’ve had in such a loving tone that you sober up immediately. He leaves bullet in your blood and disappears, saying, “Who wants a girl that’s filled with holes?” You find out that a med student does. He spots you reading in a bar and compliments you on the dust spilling from your mouth. When you see his black doctor’s bag posed loyally at his side, you ask him if he’s got the tools to fix a mangled nervous system. He smiles at you, all teeth, and tells you to come with him. In the back of his car, he covers you in teethmarks and says, “There, now don’t you feel whole again.” But all the incisions do is let more cold air into your bones. You wonder how many times you will collapse into ruins before you give up on rebuilding. You wonder if maybe you’d have more luck living amongst your rubble instead of looking for someone to repair it. The next time someone promises to flood you with light to erase your dark, you insist them you’re fine the way you are. They tell you there’s hope, that they had holes in their chest too, that they know how to patch them up. When they offer you a bottle in exchange for your mouth, you tell them you’re not looking for a way out. No, thank you, you tell them. Even though you are filled with ruins and rubble, you are as much your light as you are your dark.

Not caring about our own pain and the pain of others is not working. How much longer are we willing to keep pulling drowning people out of the river one by one, rather than walking to the headwaters of the river to find the source of the pain? What will it take for us to let go of that earned self-righteousness and travel together to the cradle of the pain that is throwing all of us in at such a rate that we couldn’t possibly save everyone? Pain is unrelenting. It will get our attention. Despite our attempts to drown it in addiction, to physically beat it out of one another, to suffocate it with success and material trappings, or to strangle it with our hate, pain will find a way to make itself known. Pain will subside only when we acknowledge it and care for it. Addressing it with love and compassion would take only a minuscule percentage of the energy it takes to fight it, but approaching pain head-on is terrifying. Most of us were not taught how to recognize pain, name it, and be with it. Our families and culture believed that the vulnerability that it takes to acknowledge pain was weakness, so we were taught anger, rage, and denial instead. But what we know now is that when we deny our emotion, it owns us. When we own our emotion, we can rebuild and find our way through the pain. Sometimes owning our pain and bearing witness to struggle means getting angry. When we deny ourselves the right to be angry, we deny our pain. There are a lot of coded shame messages in the rhetoric of “Why so hostile?” “Don’t get hysterical,” “I’m sensing so much anger!” and “Don’t take it so personally.” All of these responses are normally code for Your emotion or opinion is making me uncomfortable or Suck it up and stay quiet. One response to this is “Get angry and stay angry!” I haven’t seen that advice borne out in the research. What I’ve found is that, yes, we all have the right and need to feel and own our anger. It’s an important human experience.

Whether it’s your relationship with your spouse or Guru or God, trust is the root. It can only be watered by spending silent time together. Talking is like watering the leaves. When trust dries up, everything you say will be misunderstood and all the sweet talks you have had in the past will only cause pain and tears. They can’t build or rebuild trust.

Part of coming together as a nation means accepting what has been done, rebuilding, helping those harmed, and finding power in forgiveness and redemption.

In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe. For Papa, the newspaper and the coffee are magic wands that transform him into an important man. Like a pumpkin into a coach. Of course he finds this very satisfying: I never see him as calm and relaxed as when he's sitting drinking his six o'clock coffee. But at such a price! You pay such a price when you lead a false life! When the mask is taken away, when there's a crisis - and there's always a crisis at some point among mortals - the truth is terrible!

Someone once told me his idea for surviving a crash of civilization was to be a lone wolf, heading for the hills, with his rifle and knife, living off the land. "Nowadays, I'm more interested in staying behind and helping others," he said, "like after Hurricane Katrina. Coming together and rebuilding something that can last." "How about BEFORE a disaster?" I asked. "Even better.

Trust is the complication that delays love, it’s the bridge that joins two people together, so when that bridge burns down, it takes time to rebuild it, and that’s fine. You spend time rebuilding it, laying down the foundation again and putting all the time, blood, sweat, and tears into it, but here’s the thing. If you rebuild it, you better make sure the other is willing to cross it for you.

The last great humanitarian that tried to win the presidency was Robert F. Kennedy. As hard as he tried...He wasn't allowed to finish the work of trying to bring America together & to heal our nation. My prayer is that we may now all come together now and stop the hate, stop the obstruction and help our President continue to restore & rebuild our nation! The greater America becomes...the brighter humanity will be!

Love me, I'll never disappear Erase me, I may never reappear Test me, your cries I'll never hear You say you can't have me, truth is you gave up hope Our time together, was it wasted? nope Understand? I'm feeling off the scope Had to give a second chance Understood now why I shouldn't Rebuilding my soul, can't promise for sure Trying to not care, but it don't work Maybe you could've believed in us Except, well, you didn't

In a family, when I as son, husband, or father, express love toward you, I do not do so in order to assure myself of love in return. I do not help my son in order to be able to claim assistance from him when I am old; I do it because he and I are in the world together, we are one flesh. Similarly in a workplace, persons who work together form families-at-work. When you and I are working together, and the foreman suddenly discharges you, and I find myself putting down my tools or stopping my machine before I have had time to think—why do I do this? Is it not because, as I actually experience the event, your discharge does not happen only to you but also happens to us?3

Now he’d started crying he couldn’t seem to stop. No more than you can rebuild a burst dam when the flood’s still surging through. That’s the problem with making yourself hard. Once you crack, there’s no putting yourself back together.

It was the kind of upheaval, smack in the middle of adulthood, which was messy enough to make me consider, back then, the wisdom of early marriage. When we’re young, after all, our lives are so much more pliant, can be joined without too much fuss. When we grow on our own, we take on responsibility, report to bosses, become bosses; we get our own bank accounts, acquire our own debts, sign our own leases. The infrastructure of our adulthood takes shape, connects to other lives; it firms up and gets less bendable. The prospect of breaking it all apart and rebuilding it elsewhere becomes a far more daunting project than it might have been had we just married someone at twenty-two, and done all that construction together. The

It turned out that the owner of the construction firm had a brother who was in the local wing of the Taliban. Together, they had built a thriving business: the Taliban brother blew up U.S. projects, and then the unwitting Americans paid his sibling to rebuild them.

She shook with laughter. “I might have something else in mind now.” Rowan let out a growl, and nipped at her ear, her neck. “Good. I do, too.” “And tomorrow?” she asked breathlessly, and they both paused to look at each other. To smile. “Will you work to rebuild this kingdom, this world, with me tomorrow?” “Tomorrow, and every day after that.” For every day of the thousand blessed years they were granted together. And beyond. Aelin kissed him again and took his hand, guiding him into the castle. Into their home. “To whatever end?” she breathed. Rowan followed her, as he had his entire life, long before they had ever met, before their souls had sparked into existence. “To whatever end, Fireheart.” He glanced sidelong at her. “Can I give you a suggestion for what we should rebuild first?” Aelin smiled, and eternity opened before them, shining and glorious and lovely. “Tell me tomorrow.

He trusted that they would be enabled to further the progress already made in rebuilding the domestic stability and economic strength of the United Kingdom and in weaving still more closely the threads which bound together the countries of the Commonwealth, or, as he still preferred to call it, the Empire.’183

Is this last note a sign that I'm incurable, that when reality smashes my dream to bits, I mope and snarl while the first shock lasts, and then patiently, idiotically, start putting it together again? And so always? However often the house of cards falls, shall I set about rebuilding it? Is that what I'm doing now?

Gandhi’s idea of civil disobedience was to be broken into its original elements. It took great discipline. The only way to understand it was to take it apart and lay the elements out, rebuild from there. The civil element, he said, was just as important as the disobedience itself. They had to be considered separately at first in order to put them back together. What it meant to be uncivil. What it meant to be obedient. What it meant to be just. How to achieve the grace of the opposite. The contradictions had to be dismantled and jigsawed back together again. The language of the oppressor, too, had to be taken apart. The civility of the disobedience was part of its power.

You should allow yourself to experience this sadness, because grieving for what you have not had in your marriage up to this point is one of the first steps toward building a new life together. But know that there are many reasons to be hopeful as well. As you learn about the patterns in ADHD relationships, you will also learn what to do about them.

I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job. Being a mother isn’t a job. It’s who someone is. It’s who I am. You can quit a job. I can’t quit being a mother. I’m a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. Being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends them out into the world, forever hostages. If

[Community gardens] were oases in the urban landscape of fear, places where people could safely offer trust, helpfulness, charity, without need of an earthquake or hurricane...Community gardens are places where people rediscover not only generosity, but the pleasure of coming together. I salute all those who give their time and talents to rebuilding that sense of belonging.

Love is not static. We grow dissatisfied and move apart; affection returns and we pull together again. Some people, ignorant of the process, pull away when the good times end and assume the bad times will last forever. These people flee, mope, or drift into affairs. Others see the ups and downs as part of a dynamic process, which, when anticipated and understood, can enrich and revitalize their relationship, even give it an added punch.

Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. Being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends them out into the world, forever hostages.

...because I think that each time it's a new construction, as if everything has been reduced to ashes during the night, and he has to start from scratch. In our world, that's the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it's been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you're alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

I say “constructs himself” because I think that each time it’s a new construction, as if everything has been reduced to ashes during the night, and he has to start from scratch. In our world, that’s the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it’s been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you’re alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

Restorative nostalgics don’t just look at old photographs and piece together family stories. They are mythmakers and architects, builders of monuments and founders of nationalist political projects. They do not merely want to contemplate or learn from the past. They want, as Boym puts it, to “rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps.” Many of them don’t recognize their own fictions about the past for what they are: “They believe their project is about truth.” They are not interested in a nuanced past, in a world in which great leaders were flawed men, in which famous military victories had lethal side effects. They don’t acknowledge that the past might have had its drawbacks. They want the cartoon version of history, and more importantly, they want to live in it, right now. They don’t want to act out roles from the past because it amuses them: they want to behave as they think their ancestors did, without irony.

But you want to take him anyway.” “You look at the heartbreak of one boy. I am here because of the heartbreak of my people. You understand?” His face sagged, his mouth curved into a small frown. “Millions of Jews were killed in this war, Madame. Millions.” He let that sink in. “An entire generation is gone. We need to band together now, those few of us who are left; we need to rebuild. One boy with no memory of who he was may seem a small thing to lose, but to us, he is the future.

consider trying to forgive him yet again. He did his part, so I returned to our home in Virginia that summer of 2010. I wasn’t hopeful, but I didn’t have the strength to end our marriage—or to save it. We attended counseling together for a while, but the conversations reached dead ends. Nonetheless, Robert attempted to rebuild our connection. He wasn’t staying out all night. He helped with the kids and seemed committed to fixing the broken bond between us. Before we knew it, training camp was starting again and he would once again be competing for a spot on the roster. The coaching staff had experienced some changes,

After high school, he’d passed two relatively laid-back years as a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles before transferring to Columbia, where by his own account he’d behaved nothing like a college boy set loose in 1980s Manhattan and instead lived like a sixteenth-century mountain hermit, reading lofty works of literature and philosophy in a grimy apartment on 109th Street, writing bad poetry, and fasting on Sundays. We laughed about all of it, swapping stories about our backgrounds and what led us to the law. Barack was serious without being self-serious. He was breezy in his manner but powerful in his mind. It was a strange, stirring combination. Surprising to me, too, was how well he knew Chicago. Barack was the first person I’d met at Sidley who had spent time in the barbershops, barbecue joints, and Bible-thumping black parishes of the Far South Side. Before going to law school, he’d worked in Chicago for three years as a community organizer, earning $12,000 a year from a nonprofit that bound together a coalition of churches. His task was to help rebuild neighborhoods and bring back jobs. As he described it, it had been two parts frustration to one part reward: He’d spend weeks planning a community meeting, only to have a dozen people show up. His efforts were scoffed at by union leaders and picked apart by black folks and white folks alike. Yet over time, he’d won a few incremental victories, and this seemed to encourage him. He was in law school, he explained, because grassroots organizing had shown him that meaningful societal change required not just the work of the people on the ground but stronger policies and governmental action as well. Despite my resistance to the hype that had preceded him, I found myself admiring Barack for both his self-assuredness and his earnest demeanor. He was refreshing, unconventional, and weirdly elegant.

After God, who is the central core pillar to any Christian marriage, there are four important marital relationship foundations. These are: * Self-Esteem - if you don't love yourself you will find it almost impossible to accept love from others. * Friendship - a strong friendship will sustain your marriage even when feelings of love are harder to find. * Laughter - it will improve your quality of life, your health and your relationships * Romance - feeling close to your partner can be the glue which holds your relationship together through the rough patches, but the absence of romance causes a void that problems will easily fill.

To me, an evolving faith … has proven to be about the questions, the curiosity, and the ongoing reckoning of a robust, honest faith. An evolving faith brings the new ideas and ancient paths together. It’s about rebuilding and reimagining a faith that works not only for ourselves but for the whole messy, wide, beautiful world. For me, this has proven to be deeply centered in the Good News of Jesus ... An evolving faith is a resilient and stubborn form of faithfulness that is well acquainted with the presence of God in our loneliest places and deepest questions ... Anyone who gets to the end of their life with the exact same beliefs and opinions they had at the beginning is doing it wrong. Because if we don’t change and evolve over our lifetime, then I have to wonder if we’re paying attention to the invitation of the Holy Spirit that is your life.

to say that I saw ways to connect with Americans that Barack and his West Wing advisers didn’t fully recognize, at least initially. Rather than doing interviews with big newspapers or cable news outlets, I began sitting down with influential “mommy bloggers” who reached an enormous and dialed-in audience of women. Watching my young staffers interact with their phones, seeing Malia and Sasha start to take in news and chat with their high school friends via social media, I realized there was opportunity to be tapped there as well. I crafted my first tweet in the fall of 2011 to promote Joining Forces and then watched it zing through the strange, boundless ether where people increasingly spent their time. It was a revelation. All of it was a revelation. With my soft power, I was finding I could be strong. If reporters and television cameras wanted to follow me, then I was going to take them places. They could come watch me and Jill Biden paint a wall, for example, at a nondescript row house in the Northwest part of Washington. There was nothing inherently interesting about two ladies with paint rollers, but it baited a certain hook. It brought everyone to the doorstep of Sergeant Johnny Agbi, who’d been twenty-five years old and a medic in Afghanistan when his transport helicopter was attacked, shattering his spine, injuring his brain, and requiring a long rehabilitation at Walter Reed. His first floor was now being retrofitted to accommodate his wheelchair—its doorways widened, its kitchen sink lowered—part of a joint effort between a nonprofit called Rebuilding Together and the company that owned Sears and Kmart. This was the thousandth such home they’d renovated on behalf of veterans in need. The cameras caught all of it—the soldier, his house, the goodwill and energy being poured in.

The fact that we’re insignificant, irrelevant. Nothing is expected of us, so better we just hunch down and stay out of sight, stay beneath the notice of things like T’lan Imass, things like gods and goddesses. You and me, Cutter, and Barathol there. And Chaur. We’re the ones who, if we’re lucky, stay alive long enough to clean up the mess, put things back together. To reassert the normal world. That’s what we do, when we can – look at you, you’ve just resurrected a dead boat – you gave it its function again – look at it, Cutter, it finally looks the way it should, and that’s satisfying, isn’t it?’ ‘For Hood’s sake,’ Cutter said, shaking his head, ‘Scillara, we’re not just worker termites clearing a tunnel after a god’s careless footfall. That’s not enough.’ ‘I’m not suggesting it’s enough,’ she said. ‘I’m telling you it’s what we have to start with, when we’re rebuilding – rebuilding villages and rebuilding our lives.

And to bring people together we need a simple and straightforward progressive agenda which speaks to the needs of our people, and which provides us with a vision of a very different America. And what is that agenda? Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. It begins with jobs. If we are truly serious about reversing the decline of the middle class we need a major federal jobs program which puts millions of Americans back to work at decent-paying jobs. At a time when our roads, bridges, water systems, rail, and airports are decaying, the most effective way to rapidly create meaningful jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. That’s why I’ve introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over five years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure. This legislation would create and maintain at least thirteen million good-paying jobs, while making our country more productive, efficient, and safe. And I promise you, as president I will lead that legislation into law.

HAPPINESS: "Flourishing is a fact, not a feeling. We flourish when we grow and thrive. We flourish when we exercise our powers. We flourish when we become what we are capable of becoming...Flourishing is rooted in action..."happiness is a kind of working of the soul in the way of perfect excellence"...a flourishing life is a life lived along lines of excellence...Flourishing is a condition that is created by the choices we make in the world we live in...Flourishing is not a virtue, but a condition; not a character trait, but a result. We need virtue to flourish, but virtue isn't enough. To create a flourishing life, we need both virtue and the conditions in which virtue can flourish...Resilience is a virtue required for flourishing, bur being resilient will not guarantee that we will flourish. Unfairness, injustice, and bad fortune will snuff our promising lives. Unasked-for pain will still come our way...We can build resilience and shape the world we live in. We can't rebuild the world...three primary kinds of happiness: the happiness of pleasure, the happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence...people who are flourishing usually have all three kinds of happiness in their lives...Aristotle understood: pushing ourselves to grow, to get better, to dive deeper is at the heart of happiness...This is the happiness that goes hand in hand with excellence, with pursuing worthy goals, with growing mastery...It is about the exercise of powers. The most common mistake people make in thinking about the happiness of excellence is to focus on moments of achievement. They imagine the mountain climber on the summit. That's part of the happiness of excellence, and a very real part. What counts more, though, is not the happiness of being there, but the happiness of getting there. A mountain climber heads for the summit, and joy meets her along the way. You head for the bottom of the ocean, and joy meets you on the way down...you create joy along the way...the concept of flow, the kind of happiness that comes when we lose ourselves through complete absorption in a rewarding task...the idea of flow..."Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limit in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile."...Joy, like sweat, is usually a byproduct of your activity, not your aim...A focus on happiness will not lead to excellence. A focus on excellence will, over time, lead to happiness. The pursuit of excellence leads to growth, mastery, and achievement. None of these are sufficient for happiness, yet all of them are necessary...the pull of purpose, the desire to feel "needed in this world" - however we fulfill that desire - is a very powerful force in a human life...recognize that the drive to live well and purposefully isn't some grim, ugly, teeth-gritting duty. On the contrary: "it's a very good feeling." It is really is happiness...Pleasures can never make up for an absence of purposeful work and meaningful relationships. Pleasures will never make you whole...Real happiness comes from working together, hurting together, fighting together, surviving together, mourning together. It is the essence of the happiness of excellence...The happiness of pleasure can't provide purpose; it can't substitute for the happiness of excellence. The challenge for the veteran - and for anyone suddenly deprived of purpose - is not simple to overcome trauma, but to rebuild meaning. The only way out is through suffering to strength. Through hardship to healing. And the longer we wait, the less life we have to live...We are meant to have worthy work to do. If we aren't allowed to struggle for something worthwhile, we'll never grow in resilience, and we'll never experience complete happiness.

Or stay in Chechnya and wait to be attacked? What should we do? I have said what we must do. We must go through the mountain caves and scatter and destroy all those who are armed. Perhaps after the presidential elections, we should introduce direct presidential rule there for a couple of years. We must rebuild the economy and the social services, show the people that normal life is possible. We must pull the young generation out of the environment of violence in which it is living. We must put a program of education in place . . . We must work. We must not abandon Chechnya as we did before. In fact, we did a criminal thing back then, when we abandoned the Chechen people and undermined Russia. Now we must work hard, and then transfer to full fledged political procedures, allowing them and us to decide how we can coexist. It is unavoidable fact: We must live together. We have no plans to deport Chechens, as Stalin once solved the problem. And Russia has no other choice. Nobody can impose a solution on us by force but we are prepared to take maximum consideration of Chechen

Being a mother is NOT a job. Stop throwing things at me. I'm sorry but it is not. I find it offensive to motherhood to call being a mother a job. Being a mother isn't a job. It's who someone is. It's who I am. You can quit a job. I can't quit being a mother. I'm a mother forever. Mothers are never off the clock, mothers are never on vacation. Being a mother redefines us, reinvents us, destroys and rebuilds us. Being a mother brings us face-to-face with ourselves as children, with our mothers as human beings, with our darkest fears of who we really are. being a mother requires us to get it together or risk messing up another person forever. Being a mother yanks our hearts out of our bodies and attaches them to our tiny humans and sends tem out into the world, forever hostages. If all of that happened at work, I'd have quit fifty times already. Because there isn't enough money in the world. And my job does not pay me in the smell of baby head and the soft weight of snuggly sleepy toddler on my shoulder. Being a mother is incredibly important. To the naysayers, I growl, do not diminish it by calling it a job.

I’m happy here, Tate. I’ll let you know when the baby comes,” she added quietly. “Certainly, you’ll have access to him any time you like.” Doors were closing. Walls were going up around her. He clenched his teeth together in impotent fury. “I want you,” he said forcefully, which was not at all what he wanted to say. “I don’t want you,” she replied, lying through her teeth. She wasn’t about to become an obligation again. She even smiled. “Thanks for coming to see about me. I’ll phone Leta when she and Matt come home from Nassau.” “They’re already home,” he said flatly. “I’ve been to make peace with them.” “Have you?” She smiled gently. “I’m glad. I’m so glad. It broke Leta’s heart that you wouldn’t speak to her.” “What do you think it’s going to do to her when she hears that you won’t marry the father of your child?” She gaped at him. “She…knows?” “They both know, Cecily,” he returned. “They were looking forward to making a fuss over you.” He turned toward the door, bristling with hurt pride and rejection. “You can call my mother and tell her yourself that you aren’t coming back. Then you can live here alone in the middle of ‘blizzard country,; and I wish you well.” He turned at the door with his black eyes flashing. “As for me, hell will freeze over before I come near you again!” He went out and slammed the door. Cecily stared after him with her heart in her throat. Why was he so angry that she’d relieved him of any obligations about the baby? He couldn’t want her for herself. If he had, if he’d had any real feeling for her, he’d have married her years ago. It was only the baby. She let the tears rush down her face again with pure misery as she heard the four-wheel drive roar out of the driveway and accelerate down the road. She hoped he didn’t run over anybody. Her hand went to her stomach and she remembered with anguish the look on his face when he’d put his big, strong hand over his child. She’d sent him away for the sake of his own happiness, didn’t he know that? She supposed it was just hurt pride that had caused his outburst. But she wished he hadn’t come. It would be so much harder to live here now that she could see him in this house, in these rooms, and be haunted by the memory of him all over again. He wouldn’t come back. She’d burned her bridges. There was no way to rebuild them.

A beautiful example of a long-term intention was presented by A. T. Ariyaratane, a Buddhist elder, who is considered to be the Gandhi of Sri Lanka. For seventeen years there had been a terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. At one point, the Norwegians were able to broker peace, and once the peace treaty was in effect, Ariyaratane called the followers of his Sarvodaya movement together. Sarvodaya combines Buddhist principles of right livelihood, right action, right understanding, and compassion and has organized citizens in one-third of that nation’s villages to dig wells, build schools, meditate, and collaborate as a form of spiritual practice. Over 650,000 people came to the gathering to hear how he envisioned the future of Sri Lanka. At this gathering he proposed a five-hundred-year peace plan, saying, “The Buddha teaches we must understand causes and conditions. It’s taken us five hundred years to create the suffering that we are in now.” Ari described the effects of four hundred years of colonialism, of five hundred years of struggle between Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists, and of several centuries of economic disparity. He went on, “It will take us five hundred years to change these conditions.” Ariyaratane then offered solutions, proposing a plan to heal the country. The plan begins with five years of cease-fire and ten years of rebuilding roads and schools. Then it goes on for twenty-five years of programs to learn one another’s languages and cultures, and fifty years of work to right economic injustice, and to bring the islanders back together as a whole. And every hundred years there will be a grand council of elders to take stock on how the plan is going. This is a sacred intention, the long-term vision of an elder. In the same way, if we envision the fulfillment of wisdom and compassion in the United States, it becomes clear that the richest nation on earth must provide health care for its children; that the most productive nation on earth must find ways to combine trade with justice; that a creative society must find ways to grow and to protect the environment and plan sustainable development for generations ahead. A nation founded on democracy must bring enfranchisement to all citizens at home and then offer the same spirit of international cooperation and respect globally. We are all in this together.

Tobias takes me to the atrium near the hotel dormitory, and we spend some time there, talking and kissing and pointing out the strangest plants. It feels like something that normal people do--go on dates, talk about small things, laugh. We have had so few of those moments. Most of our time together has been spent running from one threat or another, or running toward one threat or another. But I can see a time on the horizon when that won’t need to happen anymore. We will reset the people in the compound, and work to rebuild this place together. Maybe then we can find out if we do as well with the quiet moments as we have with the loud ones. I am looking forward to it. Finally the time comes for Tobias to leave. I stand on the higher step in the atrium and he stands on the lower one, so we’re on the same plane. “I don’t like that I can’t be with you tonight,” he says. “It doesn’t feel right to leave you alone with something this huge.” “What, you don’t think I can handle it?” I say, a little defensive. “Obviously that is not what I think.” He touches his hands to my face and leans his forehead against mine. “I just don’t want you to have to bear it alone.” “I don’t want you to have to bear Uriah’s family alone,” I say softly. “But I think these are things we have to do separately. I’m glad I’ll get to be with Caleb before…you know. It’ll be nice not having to worry about you at the same time.” “Yeah.” He closes his eyes. “I can’t wait until tomorrow, when I’m back and you’ve done what you set out to do and we can decide what comes next.” “I can tell you it will involve a lot of this,” I say, and I press my lips to his. His hands shift from my cheeks to my shoulders and then slide painstakingly down my back. His fingers find the hem of my shirt, then slip under it, warm and insistent. I feel aware of everything at once, of the pressure of his mouth and the taste of our kiss and the texture of his skin and the orange light glowing against my closed eyelids and the smell of green things, growing things, in the air. When I pull away, and he opens his eyes, I see everything about them, the dart of light blue in his left eye, the dark blue that makes me feel like I am safe inside it, like I am dreaming. “I love you,” I say. “I love you, too,” he says. “I’ll see you soon.” He kisses me again, softly, and then leaves the atrium. I stand in that shaft of sunlight until the sun disappears. It’s time to be with my brother now.

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry asea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough.

Eastern Shore Breakfast Pudding Eggs, cheddar, ham or sausage, and bread baked together in the rich tradition of English savory puddings. This rib-sticking main course is equally delicious in a vegetarian rendition. 4 thick slices white bread, torn into quarters ¾ pound cooked ham, thinly sliced and chopped (or 1 pound sausage meat, cooked and drained) 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated ½ medium onion, minced 1 sweet red pepper, diced 1 tablespoon olive oil 6 eggs 2 cups milk ¼ teaspoon salt Black and red pepper to taste Pinch of nutmeg Parsley to garnish Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a deep 8 x 8 inch baking dish. Lay bread in the dish, covering the bottom, and top with the ham or sausage and cheese. In a small pan, sauté the onion and red pepper in oil until fragrant and softened, about 5 minutes, and layer on top of the cheese. Whisk together the eggs and milk, salt, peppers, and nutmeg. Pour the mixture over the bread, meat, vegetables, and cheese. Bake for about one hour, until the pudding is puffed, firm, and golden brown. Tent with foil if necessary to prevent too much browning. Cut into four squares, garnish with parsley, and serve along with Old Bay potatoes (below), steamed asparagus, and broiled tomatoes. You shouldn’t see a hungry guest again until dinnertime. Note: For vegetarians, substitute for the meat a cup each of lightly steamed broccoli cut into small florets and thinly sliced, sautéed zucchini—both well drained. Serves 4.

For fifteen years, John and Barbara Varian were furniture builders, living on a ranch in Parkfield, California, a tiny town where the welcome sign reads “Population 18.” The idea for a side business came about by accident after a group of horseback riding enthusiasts asked if they could pay a fee to ride on the ranch. They would need to eat, too—could John and Barbara do something about that? Yes, they could. In the fall of 2006, a devastating fire burned down most of their inventory, causing them to reevaluate the whole operation. Instead of rebuilding the furniture business (no pun intended), they decided to change course. “We had always loved horses,” Barbara said, “so we decided to see about having more groups pay to come to the ranch.” They built a bunkhouse and upgraded other buildings, putting together specific packages for riding groups that included all meals and activities. John and Barbara reopened as the V6 Ranch, situated on 20,000 acres exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Barbara’s story stood out to me because of something she said. I always ask business owners what they sell and why their customers buy from them, and the answers are often insightful in more ways than one. Many people answer the question directly—“We sell widgets, and people buy them because they need a widget”—but once in a while, I hear a more astute response. “We’re not selling horse rides,” Barbara said emphatically. “We’re offering freedom. Our work helps our guests escape, even if just for a moment in time, and be someone they may have never even considered before.” The difference is crucial. Most people who visit the V6 Ranch have day jobs and a limited number of vacation days. Why do they choose to visit a working ranch in a tiny town instead of jetting off to lie on a beach in Hawaii? The answer lies in the story and messaging behind John and Barbara’s offer. Helping their clients “escape and be someone else” is far more valuable than offering horse rides. Above all else, the V6 Ranch is selling happiness.

Reflective nostalgics miss the past and dream about the past. Some of them study the past and even mourn the past, especially their own personal past. But they do not really want the past back. Perhaps this is because, deep down, they know that the old homestead is in ruins, or because it has been gentrified beyond recognition--or because they quietly recognize that they wouldn't much like it now anyway. Once upon a time life might have been sweeter or simpler, but it was also more dangerous, or more boring, or perhaps more unjust. Radically different from the reflective nostalgics are what Boym calls the restorative nostalgics, not all of whom recognize themselves as nostalgics at all. Restorative nostalgics don't just look at old photographs and piece together family stories. They are mythmakers and architects, builders of monuments and founders of nationalist political projects. They do not merely want to contemplate or learn from the past. They want, as Boym puts it, to "rebuild the lost home and patch up the memory gaps." Many of them don't recognize their own fictions about the past for what they are: "They believe their project is about truth." They are not interested in a nuanced past, in a world in which great leaders were flawed men, in which famous military victories had lethal side effects. They don't acknowledge that the past might have had its drawbacks. They want the cartoon version of history, and more importantly, they want to live in it, right now. They don't want to act out roles from the past because it amuses them: they want to behave as think their ancestors did, without irony. It is not by accident that restorative nostalgia often goes hand in hand with conspiracy theories and the medium-sized lies. These needn't be as harsh or crazy as the Smolensk conspiracy theory or the Soros conspiracy theory; they can gently invoke scapegoats rather than a full-fledged alternative reality. At a minimum, they can offer an explanation: The nation is no longer great because someone has attacked us, undermined us, sapped our strength. Someone—the immigrants, the foreigners, the elites, or indeed the EU—has perverted the course of history and reduced the nation to a shadow of its former self. The essential identity that we once had has been taken away and replaced with something cheap and artificial. Eventually, those who seek power on the back of restorative nostalgia will begin to cultivate these conspiracy theories, or alternative histories, or alternative fibs, whether or not they have any basis in fact.

of you must fully commit to the process of reconnecting, as outlined in this book. This doesn’t mean that you have to feel certain about your future together, only that you must behave as if you feel certain, while you work on changing the ways you perceive and treat each other. Put your negative feelings aside, commit to each other, demonstrate your commitment by engaging in the trust- and intimacy-building strategies, and then, and only then, see whether you feel more loving, and more loved. If you wait to feel more positive before you act more positively, your relationship won’t last the course.

I’m half titanium now. They had to rebuild my face and the left side of my lower body. I had a shattered pelvis, broken femur—” He went on, listing the injuries to his leg and pelvis. The placement of rods and screws the doctors had used to put him back together. My chest ached as he spoke robotically about his surgeries and the initial recovery process. Maybe that was the only way he could talk about it. It was so much. Too much.

Here [in Nahariya] in the sunshine a little group of Jews flung out by Germany were rebuilding their lives under the lee of war. They had worked hard. They had turned this barren coast into a lovely place full of good food and good living. There was only the Alamein Line now between them and Hitler, but they did not seem to be afraid. They knew there was no longer any place they could flee to. This, whatever happened, was their journey's end. Their children were growing up here into a new life, a better life than they could have ever have had in Germany. At night, looking through their lighted doorways, you could see the families sitting together. Someone would be playing music in the garden. Perhaps it was for this that in the last analysis we were fighting the war. A cottage, a piece of farmland, the right to work in one's home securely and enjoy it.

it will be a magical thing, I think, to watch a kingdom come together to rebuild itself" page 247

Much has been made of the youth and inexperience of the US political appointees in the CPA - the fact that a handful of twentysomething Republicans were given key roles overseeing Iraq's $13 billion budget. While there is no question that the members of the so-called brat pack were alarmingly young, that was not their greatest liability. These were not just any political cronies; they were frontline warriors from America's counterrevolution against all relics of Keynesianism, many of them linked to the Heritage Foundation, ground zero of Friedmanism since it was launched in 1973. So whether they were twenty-two-year-old Dick Cheney interns of sixtysomething university presidents, they shared a cultural antipathy to government and governing that, while invaluable for the dismantling of social security and the public education system back home, had little use when the job was actually to build up public institutions that had been destroyed. In fact, many seemed to believe that the process was unnecessary. James Haveman, in charge of rebuilding Iraq's health care system, was so ideologically opposed to free, public health care that, in a country where 70% of child deaths are caused by treatable illnesses such as diarrhea, and incubators are held together with duct tape, he decided that an overarching priority was to privatize the drug distribution system.

Please don’t forget how far you’ve come. Never forget the strength it took to rebuild yourself after everything fell apart. Never forget how many times you’ve healed your own heart. Never forget how much darkness you’ve overcome to radiate so much light. You’ve fought relentlessly to become who you are today. This is the chapter where it all comes together.

My commitment to you today is not based on momentary feelings, but on a full consideration of all that you bring to this relationship, and all that I need. Although there may be times when we hurt, or even hate, each other, I won’t evaluate our relationship on a day-by-day basis. I’m with you for the long haul. I’ll work to keep my occasional disillusionment or dissatisfaction in perspective, and to accept what I consider your imperfections. You are enough for me.20 I’ll try to be patient. I don’t expect our recovery process to be spontaneous or easy. I join hands with you in working to create a shared sense of our future together, one kept alive with optimism and joy. I am so sorry for hurting you. I love you and welcome you back into my life.

But she didn’t want to know—didn’t want to think about the Sun Goddess and her agenda as she flung herself on Rowan, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of him. The first member of her court—the court that would change the world. The court that would rebuild it. Together.

Put measurements in place to differentiate between actions and words. If you are feeling ignored, for example, make a plan together that can clarify the dimensions of your problem—perhaps keeping track of the amount of time you spend together for a week. Consider weekly “learning conversations” (explained in detail in Step 4) to address issues that simply won’t go away. Make it a point to discuss your motives and differences in approach that might be getting in the way of finding common ground. Learn to laugh when you miscommunicate, rather than see it as a sign that you’ll never figure it out. Laughter reduces tension and helps keep you both in a positive mindset.

The world war was the high-water mark for the political influence of engineers and planners. Having seen what could be accomplished in extremis, they imagined what they could achieve if the identical energy and planning were devoted to popular welfare rather than mass destruction. Together with many political leaders, industrialists, labor leaders, and prominent intellectuals (such as Philip Gibbs in England, Ernst Jünger in Germany, and Gustave Le Bon in France), they concluded that only a renewed and comprehensive dedication to technical innovation and the planning it made possible could rebuild the European economies and bring social peace.45 Lenin himself was deeply impressed by the achievements of German industrial mobilization and believed that it had shown how production might be socialized. Just as Lenin believed that Marx had discovered immutable social laws akin to Darwin’s laws of evolution, so he believed that the new technologies of mass production were scientific laws and not social constructions.

You’re afraid all of that will stop again if things don’t work out with someone new?” I let go of the string and look up into her eyes. She leans in, hugging her knees a little to close some distance. “It was just so hard to find the energy to get back into everything after he broke up with me. It just felt hopeless.” “Grief is normal. A lot of people sense a feeling of hopelessness when they experience a loss. You experienced a low, but you didn’t get stuck there. You’ve grown and put some good effort into rebuilding your life.” Her words put weight behind what I have been doing lately. I’ve learned it takes a lot of pieces to put a life back together, and I don’t ever want my world to revolve around anyone else again.

Our Journey Together' features unforgettable moments from our time in Washington: building the Southern Border Wall; cutting America’s taxes; confirming almost 300 federal judges and 3 Supreme Court justices; rebuilding our military; creating Space Force; dealing with Kim Jong-Un, President Xi, President Putin, and many other world leaders; and battling liberals on two Impeachment Witch Hunts, just to name a few.

In our world, that’s the way you live your grown up life. You must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult. The way it’s been put together, it is wobbly, ephemeral and fragile.

Jack nodded, his mind drifting back to a night in Coventry when he and his wife had been caught in an air raid. He closed his eyes briefly as he thought about her, his throat catching as he recalled the letter she had sent him a week earlier. It had been the first he had received from his wife since arriving in France and he knew that it would be the last. In it she had confirmed all of the wild fantasies that had plagued him for countless nights. In it was the end of the hope he had clung to for so long. The letter had barely been a paragraph long, yet it had destroyed the world that Jack had once known. She had told him that there was another man, an American who was stationed on an airbase near their home. He was, she had told him, an officer. They had been together for two years and she planned to marry him. She had asked for a divorce and had informed him briskly that she intended, when the war was over, to take the children and return with her lover to New York. The letter had been blunt and to the point, there had been no warmth, no consideration in the words, just a cold animosity that Jack could not understand. The wording had suggested that it was his fault that their marriage had fallen apart, that somehow, in some imperceptible way, he had forced her into the arms of another. He felt his blood rising and he forced himself to breathe, his hands white against the stock of his Sten gun as he mulled over the contents of the letter. He had, deep inside, harboured a hope, a small dream that when the war finished they could rebuild their strained marriage. The letter had shattered that illusion and left in its wake a cold reality that had struck Jack like a thunderbolt. He spat onto the ground and wished that he could get five minutes alone with the bastard. All those years of writing to her, of missing her. All those years of struggling in the desert, longing to come home, of pouring his heart into the precious letters he had sent to her. All that time she had been with another man.

She felt as if she had been crying without end for minutes now. Yet this parting, this final farewell… Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. “I love you both,” she whispered. “And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.” “We will see you again,” Chaol said, but even his voice was thick with tears. “Together,” Dorian breathed, shaking. “We’ll rebuild this world together.” She couldn’t stand it, this ache in her chest. But she made herself pull away and smile at their tear-streaked faces, a hand on her heart. “Thank you for all you have done for me.” Dorian bowed his head. “Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear from you.” She barked a rasping laugh, and gave him a shove. “You’re a king now. Such insults are beneath you.” He grinned, wiping at his face. Aelin smiled at Chaol, at his wife waiting beyond him. “I wish you every happiness,” she said to him. To them both. Such light shone in Chaol’s bronze eyes—that she had never seen before. “We will see each other again,” he repeated. Then he and Dorian turned toward their horses, toward the bright day beyond the castle gates. Toward their kingdom to the south. Shattered now, but not forever. Not forever.

Rowan laughed, and kissed the top of her head. And for a long moment, he just marveled that he could do it. Could stand with her here, in this kingdom, this city, this castle, where they would make their home. He could see it now: the halls restored to their splendor, the plain and river sparkling beyond, the Staghorns beckoning. He could hear the music she’d bring to this city, and the laughter of the children in the streets. In these halls. In their royal suite. “What are you thinking about?” she asked, peering up at his face. Rowan brushed a kiss to her mouth. “That I get to be here. With you.” “There’s lots of work to be done. Some might say as bad as dealing with Erawan.” “Nothing will ever be that bad.” She snorted. “True. He tucked her in closer. “I am thinking about how very grateful I am. That we made it. That I found you. And how, even with all that work to be done, I will not mind a moment of it because you are with me.” She frowned, her eyes dampening. “I’m going to have a terrible headache from all this crying, and you’re not helping.” Rowan laughed, and kissed her again. “Very queenly.” She hummed. “I am, if anything, the consummate portrait of royal grace.” He chuckled against her mouth. “And humility. Let’s not forget that.” “Oh, yes,” she said, winding her arms around his neck. His blood heated, sparkling with a power greater than any force a god or Wyrdkey could summon. But Rowan pulled away, just far enough to rest his brow against hers. “Let’s get you to your chambers, Majesty, so you can commence your royal wallowing.” She shook with laughter. “I might have something else in mind now.” Rowan let out a growl, and nipped at her ear, her neck. “Good, I do, too.” “And tomorrow?” she asked breathlessly, and they both paused to look at each other. To smile. “Will you work to rebuild this kingdom, this world, with me tomorrow?” “Tomorrow, and every day after that.” For every day of the thousand years they were granted together. And beyond.

Collagen fibrils are more like a bundle of straws held together.

These coils are wound together into a characteristic triple helix structure.

Type II collagen has anti-inflammatory and protective effects on joints. Collagen protein supplements play a role in the building and repair of connective tissue, especially injured or degenerated tissues. Both have been shown to reduce joint pain and can be utilized separately or together, depending on your goals.

the core of your training should involve compound movements that challenge multiple muscle groups and joint systems together.

116 The purpose of this is twofold: it moves energy out of the muscle’s way—so it can contract—and it triggers the surrounding connective tissue fibers to bind together to protect them from injury.

It was a fact. We were scared. But something about being scared together made it feel less so. Because the fact that we were doing something together meant we were already rebuilding what had been broken.

This is the beginning of social criticism and one of the beginnings of democratic thought. Most ancient literature on democracy comes from Athens. But the Bible is also a primary source. The prophets horrify us with visions of destroyed cities. But then they rain magical poetry down on us and make us believe we can change the world. Take a song by Second Isaiah, a song read every Yom Kippur. He is singing to people who feel imprisoned, even if they also are economically doing well. He says they can do morally better: liberate the captives, open the prisons, share your clothes, feed the hungry, satisfy the desire of the afflicted. Acts of empathy will bind people together and give them the collective power to rebuild their ruins, “to raise the foundations of many generations.” Till the 1970s I never noticed the urban ending of this song: “And you will be called the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Hugo’s Prizewinning Praline Pumpkin Pie What does it take to turn out a prizewinning pie? Lots of “mouth feel,” as the saying goes. When the pie cracked as it baked, we added a last-minute ring of pecan praline and that convenient coverall, a small mountain of brandy whipped cream, for first prize in the St. Michaels contest, restaurant division. 9-inch deep-dish pie shell FOR THE FILLING 1 15-ounce can pumpkin, unsweetened 1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed 2 teaspoons cinnamon* ¼ teaspoon cloves* 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated ¼ teaspoon salt 2/3 cup whipping cream 2/3 cup milk 4 eggs FOR THE PRALINE 3 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons butter, softened ¾ cup pecan halves FOR THE CREAM ½ pint whipping cream 1 tablespoon sugar 1 tablespoon brandy Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Partly bake the pie shell on the middle oven rack for about 10 minutes until it looks set. In a food processor, blend the pumpkin, sugar, spices, and salt for one minute. In a heavy saucepan, cook this pumpkin mixture at a simmer, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. Remove pumpkin from the heat and stir in the cream and milk. Whisk eggs to combine whites and yolks and blend thoroughly into the pumpkin mixture. Pour this into the pie shell, adding any extra filling after the pie has baked for about 5 minutes. Bake the pie on the lower oven rack for about 20 minutes and prepare the praline. In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and butter and stir in the pecans. Remove the pie from the oven and spoon the pecan mixture in a circle around the edge of the pie, inside the crust, and return it to the oven. Continue baking for about 10 minutes more until the filling is puffed and wiggles very slightly when the pie is gently shaken. Cool on a wire rack. Whip the cream and sugar together until stiff, then stir in the brandy. When the pie is completely cool, mound the cream on top, inside the ring of pecans. Serve right away or refrigerate. Serves 6 to 8. *Freshly ground cinnamon and cloves are best, but spice straight from the jar will do.

The climate justice fight here in the U.S. and around the world is not just a fight against the [biggest] ecological crisis of all time,” Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Oakland-based Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), explains. “It is the fight for a new economy, a new energy system, a new democracy, a new relationship to the planet and to each other, for land, water, and food sovereignty, for Indigenous rights, for human rights and dignity for all people. When climate justice wins we win the world that we want. We can’t sit this one out, not because we have too much to lose but because we have too much to gain. . . . We are bound together in this battle, not just for a reduction in the parts per million of CO2, but to transform our economies and rebuild a world that we want today.

transformed into a control freak, trying to manage every single detail of your life together. No matter how hard you try, you can never do well enough for your spouse,

But she never quite saw the fighting for votes and the fighting for sales in the same way. Perhaps that was because it cut them down to size, she thought. It was easy when there were a dozen or so together at a Branch meeting to rebuild the world, march at the vanguard of socialism and talk of the inevitability of history. But afterwards she’d go out into the streets with an armful of Daily Worker’s, often waiting an hour, two hours, to sell a copy. Sometimes she’d cheat, as the others cheated, and pay for a dozen herself just to get out of it and go home. At the next meeting they’d boast about it—forgetting they’d bought them themselves—”Comrade Gold sold eighteen copies on Saturday night—eighteen!” It would go in the Minutes then, and the Branch bulletin as well. District would rub their hands, and perhaps she’d get a mention in that little panel on the front page about the Fighting Fund. It was such a little world, and she wished they could be more honest. But she lied to herself about it all, too. Perhaps they all did. Or perhaps the others understood more why you had to lie so much.

clear enough. I asked Birenbaum what he was ultimately trying to preserve by keeping Walden technology free. Was it the land, the cabins, and the lake, and leaving those spaces undisturbed by the outside world? Or were his efforts to keep the digital barbarians at the gate driven by a desire to preserve something deeper, that universal truth that not only made Walden what it was, but drove the Revenge of Analog in all its various forms? Birenbaum didn’t hesitate to answer. “We look at the heart of what we do, and it is interpersonal relationships,” he said. Any debate about technology’s use came down to a simple binary question: will it impact interpersonal relationships or not? “This camp could be wiped out by a meteor tomorrow, and we could rebuild across the road and we’d still be Walden,” he said. What mattered were the relationships and the uniquely analog recipe that enabled their formation. First, you place lots of people together, and have them relate to one another with the guidance of caregivers, who encourage and enforce mutual respect. Next, you mix in a program that creates various stresses, frustrations, and challenges that campers need to confront. This ranges from the simplest task of getting to breakfast on time to ten-day canoe trips in the harsh Canadian wilderness where twelve-year-olds might be expected to carry a 60-pound canoe on their head for a mile or more in the pouring rain, as blackflies gnaw at their ankles. These situations eventually lead to individual perseverance and self-respect . . . what most people call character. And that character is the glue that allows the relationships built at camp to last a lifetime, as my own friendships formed at Walden have. “You go a bit out of your comfort zone, endure a little hardship, people push you and help you to succeed, and you end up with friendships, confidence, and an inner fortitude that ends in a sense of belonging to a greater, interdependent community,” Birenbaum said. “This is one of the most basic aspects of the human condition.

In recent years, Vorster had launched a charm offensive on black African leaders in an attempt to ease the international isolation South Africa faced as a result of apartheid. His idea was to rebuild diplomatic and trade links by exploiting Western fears of a Soviet takeover in the region, presenting himself as a statesman who could come to peaceful terms with his black neighbours. This stuck in Smith’s craw, as during the war Vorster had been a general in the Ossewabrandwag, a South African paramilitary group that had been so pro-Nazi it had even adopted their salute. It was there that Vorster had first met and befriended his spy chief van den Bergh. Smith hated the British with an implacable intensity, but they had at least been on the right side together during the war with Hitler.

In our world, that’s the way you live your grown-up life: you must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult, the way it’s been put together it is wobbly, ephemeral, and fragile, it cloaks despair and, when you’re alone in front of the mirror, it tells you the lies you need to believe.

We are better together than alone. Love has the power to heal. Through love, we can rebuild the world.

While the concepts of pain and suffering are often lumped together, it’s helpful to be aware of their distinctiveness: pain is something we can’t escape and suffering is what we do about the pain. Suffering is the work we do with the pain. We don’t know what the Apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. But when Paul prays to have this “thorn” removed, the divine response is, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul then was able to boast in his weaknesses: “I am content,” he writes, “with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Individually or collectively, the Divine experiences pain, suffers it, and out of the wreckage helps people rebuild their lives—even though things may never be the same as they once were.

I am what I am. I marvel at how yearning can make you disintegrate. And to keep from disappearing all together, you must rebuild yourself.

Carlton Church review – Why Tokyo is populated? How Tokyo became the largest city? Apparently Tokyo Japan has been one of the largest global cities for hundreds of years. One of the primary reasons for its growth is the fact that it has been a political hotspot since they Edo period. Many of the feudal lords of Japan needed to be in Edo for a significant part of the year and this has led to a situation where increasing numbers of the population was attracted to the city. There were many people with some power base throughout Japan but it became increasingly clear that those who have the real power were the ones who were residing in Edo. Eventually Tokyo Japan emerged as both the cultural and the political center for the entire Japan and this only contributed to its rapid growth which made it increasingly popular for all people living in Japan. After World War II substantial rebuilding of the city was necessary and it was especially after the war that extraordinary growth was seen and because major industries came especially to Tokyo and Osaka, these were the cities where the most growth took place. The fact remains that there are fewer opportunities for people who are living far from the cities of Japan and this is why any increasing number of people come to the city. There are many reasons why Japan is acknowledged as the greatest city The Japanese railways is widely acknowledged to be the most sophisticated railway system in the world. There is more than 100 surface routes which is operated by Japan’s railways as well as 13 subway lines and over the years Japanese railway engineers has accomplished some amazing feats which is unequalled in any other part of the world. Most places in the city of Tokyo Japan can be reached by train and a relatively short walk. Very few global cities can make this same boast. Crossing the street especially outside Shibuya station which is one of the busiest crossings on the planet with literally thousands of people crossing at the same time. However, this street crossing symbolizes one of the trademarks of Tokyo Japan and its major tourism attractions. It lies not so much in old buildings but rather in the masses of people who come together for some type of cultural celebration. There is also the religious centers in Japan such as Carlton Church and others. Tokyo Japan has also been chosen as the city that will host the Olympics in 2020 and for many reasons this is considered to be the best possible venue. A technological Metropolitan No other country exports more critical technologies then Japan and therefore it should come as no surprise that the neighborhood electronics store look more like theme parks than electronic stores. At quickly becomes clear when one looks at such a spectacle that the Japanese people are completely infatuated with technology and they make no effort to hide that infatuation. People planning to visit Japan should heed the warnings from travel organizations and also the many complaints which is lodged by travelers who have become victims of fraud. It is important to do extensive research regarding the available options and to read every possible review which is available regarding travel agencies. A safe option will always be to visit the website of Carlton Church and to make use of their services when travelling to and from Japan.

An old gospel hymn says: "Mercy there was great, and grace was free." Four biblical words seem to come together when the subject of grace is under consideration. They are grace, mercy, peace, and kindness. We act out of grace; we give mercy; we extend peace; and we treat one another kindly.

Some revelations stop relationships in their tracks. But others reveal the true person in our midst, the imperfect, limping, and often loving soul we cared about so much. And so we continue to care, and together we rebuild, this time slowly, on a foundation of truth. We can build a house together, or a home, or a beautiful garden that is nourished by acceptance.

Many labor leaders are aware that the global economy is robbing communities of control over our own destiny (former AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland said as much during the anti-NAFTA struggle), but they do not link up with local communities to struggle against NAFTA and other legislation, because they do not understand or accept that the struggle to rebuild and control our communities is the wave of the future.9 That is why they are on the defensive and behind the eight ball in so many struggles, for example, the recent Detroit newspaper strike. On the other hand, as so often happens, it is right-wing reactionaries like the Militiamen and Pat Buchanan who have their fingers on the pulse of the people. Attacking these groups for their reactionary politics will only increase their defenders and supporters. As we wrote back in the early 1970s, “we must not allow our thought to be paralyzed by fear of repression and fascism. One must always think realistically about the dangers, but in thinking about the counter-revolution a revolutionist must be convinced that it is a ‘paper tiger.’”10 What we need to do instead is encourage groups of all kinds and all ages to participate in creating a vision of the future that will enlarge the humanity of all of us and then, in devising concrete programs on which they can work together, if only in a small way, to move toward their vision. In this unique interim time between historical epochs, this is how we can elicit the hope that is essential to the building of a movement and unleash the energies that in the absence of hope are turned against other people or even against oneself. That is why more and more I have been conducting and urging others to conduct visioning workshops using this basic format. When people come together voluntarily to create their own vision, they begin wishing it to come into being with such passion that they begin creating an active path leading to it from the present. The spirit and the way to make the spirit live coalesce. Instead of seeing ourselves only as victims, we begin to see ourselves as part of the continuing struggle of human beings, not only to survive but to evolve into more human human beings.