Recently Passed Away Quotes

The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.

There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they're dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not a hyperbole. When I feel like that, my head drops and my shoulders slump and I ache, I physically ache, for human contact - I truly feel that I might tumble to the ground and pass away if someone doesn't hold me, touch me. I don't mean a lover - this recent madness aside, I had long since given up on any notion that another person might love me that way - but simply a human being. The scalp massage at the hairdresser, the flu jab I had last winter - the only time I experience touch is from people whom I am paying, and they are almost wearing disposable gloves at the time. I'm merely stating the facts.

Any second... now? No. I am a 'mourning person'. Not because anybody close to me has recently passed away, but because I use that term to describe my demeanour at daybreak and as a way of separating myself from what are known as 'morning people' - those high-functioning, grinning morons, who skip out their beds and pounce at the dawn as eagerly and energetically as a young puppy greets a hanging shoelace. My mornings are (with the exception of Christmas Day) dark and sombre affairs, spent grieving the sleep of which I've been robbed; morning is when blades of daylight hack viciously at the dreams that have kept you company through the night.

I'd suffered many losses in recent years after my father mother uncle aunt and cousin had all passed away. In her final years my mother often lamented that there was no one alive who had known her as a girl and I was starting to understand how spooked she'd felt. I wasn't sure I could take any more abandonments. One succumbs so easily to mind spasms, worry spasms. [p. 95]

On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze. A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that? Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most pitiful, amateur truth telling. So the soul must stand in her own meager feathers and learn to fly - or simply take hopeful jumps into the wind. In the Christian calendar, November 1 is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas - saints - who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one - who annoys you so - pretends for a day that he's the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday. Imagine a hectic procession of revelers - the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind's eye, these old firends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints; but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or notice, the feast, indeed, of most of us. It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral. All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.

James Potter moved slowly along the narrow aisles of the train, peering as nonchalantly as he could into each compartment. To those inside, he probably looked as if he was searching for someone, some friend or group of confidantes with whom to pass the time during the trip, and this was intentional. The last thing that James wanted anyone to notice was that, despite the bravado he had so recently displayed with his younger brother Albus on the platform, he was nervous. His stomach knotted and churned as if he’d had half a bite of one of Uncles Ron and George’s Puking Pastilles. He opened the folding door at the end of the passenger car and stepped carefully through the passage into the next one. The first compartment was full of girls. They were talking animatedly to one another, already apparently the best of friends despite the fact that, most likely, they had only just met. One of them glanced up and saw him staring. He quickly looked away, pretending to peer out the window behind them, toward the station which still sat bustling with activity. Feeling his cheeks go a little red, he continued down the corridor. If only Rose was a year older she’d be here with him. She was a girl, but she was his cousin and they’d grown up together. It would’ve been nice to have at least one familiar face along with him.

was sitting in a full-capacity crowd at a hockey game with an empty seat next to him, and the person on the other side asked why it was empty, and the man replied sadly: “It’s my wife’s, but she passed away recently.” Visibly moved, the other man said: “I’m sorry to hear that. But isn’t there someone in your family or a friend who could come to the game with you?” The man replied: “No, they’re all at the funeral.

It hurt so much when I lost my mother, I know how it feels.' Hilary told a friend whose mother had recently passed away. 'I will never get over it.' In a 2015 interview with ABC News, Hillary got emotional when she mentioned her mother, Dorothy Rodham, who died in 2011. Dorothy grew up in poverty and at eight years old she was sent from Chicago to California to live with her grandparents after her parents divorced. 'She told me every day you've got to get up and fight for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is. I think about her a lot, I miss her a lot. I wish she were her with me.

But as to the influence of the death of someone near on those he leaves behind, it has long seemed to me that this ought to be no other than a higher responsibility. Does the person who passes away not leave all the things he had begun in hundreds of ways to be continued by those who outlive him, if they had shared any kind of inner bond at all? In recent years I had to live through so many close experiences of death, but not one person has been taken from me without my having found the tasks around me increased. The weight of this unexplained and perhaps greatest event, which only due to a misunderstanding has gained the reputation of being arbitrary and cruel, presses us (I think increasingly) more evenly and more deeply into life and places the utmost obligations on our slowly growing strengths.

I was inclined to drift away from the sum to wonder why people would care what time two trains passed each other (spies), be so picky about seating arrangements (recently divorced people), or—which to this day remains incomprehensible—run the bath with no plug in.

Don't be so hard on yourself, as if you'd been trapped and sealed in amber. Since you passed away I've been following your trail, traced only with lost words. Recently I went looking for the castle and found it in Bohemia. You'd given orders for diligent restorers to renew its façades on all sides. They hadn't finished back then, they're still at it today, and they will be tomorrow. Because it crumbles, cracks appear, mold swells the plaster, withers its bright skin, on the weather side first. It comforts me, their toil, for I too loved you on all sides, in vain.

With peace of mind came development, and with development beauty. Knowledge—the result of great natural insight—she did not lack; learning, accomplishment—those, alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring passed by her thin face and figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which she had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to abundance of good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but this was infrequent; the sort of wisdom which looked from their pupils did not readily keep company with these lighter moods. Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset so many people without cause; never—to paraphrase a recent poet—never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well knew how it came there; and her present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the same.

Recently, I turned twenty-five, “a quarter of a century” my gran would proclaim to me now if she could say anything to me. Which she can’t, because she is dead. Yes, dead. Why call it anything other than what it is? She did not pass away, like some sweet breeze tickling the heather. She did not go gently. She died. About

Hardest of all were those problems about people doing incomprehensible things with no motivation. I was inclined to drift away from the sum to wonder why people would care what time two trains passed each other (spies), be so picky about seating arrangements (recently divorced people), or - which to this day remains incomprehensible - run the bath with no plug in.

My mom passed away 3 years ago. Recently, I found her “special” photo album- the one in which she saved her favorite pictures, postcards and memories. Halfway through the album I found a small, wrinkled, slip of paper. When I looked closer, I could see that it was a “re-admittance” slip for me, to get back into school... in the 10th grade! Why would she save that all these years???

The lady is ninety-two years old, petite, well poised, and proud. She is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coiffed and her makeup perfectly applied, in spite of the fact that she is legally blind. Today she has moved to a nursing home. Her husband of seventy years recently passed away, making this move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiles sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvers her walker to the elevator, the staff person provides a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that have been hung on her window. “I love it,” she states with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. “Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room… just wait,” the staff person says. Then Mrs. Jones speaks these words: “That does not have anything to do with it,” she gently replies. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like the room or not does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind that matters. I have already decided to love it. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all of the happy memories I have stored away… just for this time in my life.

Ordinary Americans might never have liked the educated or professional classes very much, but until recently they did not widely disdain their actual learning as a bad thing in itself. It might even be too kind to call this merely “anti-rational”; it is almost reverse evolution, away from tested knowledge and backward toward folk wisdom and myths passed by word of mouth—except with all of it now sent along at the speed of electrons.

The bell of Limehouse Church rang as each of them, in this house, drifted into sleep - suddenly once more like children who, exhausted by the day's adventures, fall asleep quickly and carelessly. A solitary visitor, watching them as they slept, might wonder how it was that they had arrived at such a state and might speculate about each stage of their journey towards it: when did he first start muttering to himself, and not realise that he was doing so? When did she first begin to shy away from others and seek the shadows? When did all of them come to understand that whatever hopes they might have had were foolish, and that life was something only to be endured? Those who wander are always objects of suspicion and sometimes even of fear: the four people gathered in this house by the church had passed into a place, one might almost say a time, from which there was no return. The young man who had been bent over the fire had spent his life in a number of institutions - an orphanage, a juvenile home and most recently a prison; the old woman still clutching the brown bottle was an alcoholic who had abandoned her husband and two children many years before; the old man had taken to wandering after the death of his wife in a fire which he believed, at the time, he might have prevented. And what of Ned, who was now muttering in his sleep?

That’s why time-friendly people tend to make fewer emotional commitments than my friend Bernard does. They have a profound understanding of how much time it takes to be there for someone, so they think, deliberate, and pray long and hard before they decide to invest in a relationship. You might think they’re aloof or uncaring. They’re not. They are, instead, unwilling to write bad checks, emotionally speaking. Another friend, Pamela, recently passed the time test with flying colors. We’ve known each other a long time, and I needed her input on a big decision I was making. I knew she was busy, but I called her anyway, asking, “Can we do lunch?” Pamela lives quite a drive away, but she checked her calendar (another trait of safe people!), and we made an appointment. A few days later, we met, and I told her how much it meant to me for her to take the time out for me. She was genuinely surprised. “Well, I told you I’d be here, didn’t I?” Tears came to my eyes. For Pamela, a relationship means that you’re there for good. End of conversation. Look for people who are “anchored” over time. Don’t go for flashy, intense, addictive types. A Ford that will be there tomorrow is a lot better than a Maserati that might be gone. There are stable Maseratis. But it’s best to drive them awhile, that is, test out the relationship over time, to make sure.

After Evie had finished her plate, Sebastian tugged her to the billiards table and handed her a cue stick with a leather tip. Ignoring her attempts to refuse him, he proceeded to instruct her in the basics of the game. “Don’t try to claim this is too scandalous for you,” he told her with mock severity. “After running off with me to Gretna Green, nothing is beyond you. Certainly not one little billiards game. Bend over the table.” She complied awkwardly, flushing as she felt him lean over her, his body forming an exciting masculine cage as his hands arranged hers on the cue stick. “Now,” she heard him say, “curl your index finger around the tip of the shaft. That’s right. Don’t grip so tightly, sweet…let your hand relax. Perfect.” His head was close to hers, the light scent of sandalwood cologne rising from his warm skin. “Try to imagine a path between the cue ball—that’s the white one—and the colored ball. You’ll want to strike right about there”—he pointed to a place just above center on the cue ball—“to send the object ball into the side pocket. It’s a straight-on shot, you see? Lower your head a bit. Draw the cue stick back and try to strike in a smooth motion.” Attempting the shot, Evie felt the tip of the cue stick fail to make proper contact with the white ball, sending it spinning clumsily off to the side of the table. “A miscue,” Sebastian remarked, deftly catching the cue ball in his hand and repositioning it. “Whenever that happens, reach for more chalk, and apply it to the tip of the cue stick while looking thoughtful. Always imply that your equipment is to blame, rather than your skills.” Evie felt a smile rising to her lips, and she leaned over the table once more. Perhaps it was wrong, with her father having passed away so recently, but for the first time in a long while, she was having fun. Sebastian covered her from behind again, sliding his hands over hers. “Let me show you the proper motion of the cue stick—keep it level—like this.” Together they concentrated on the steady, even slide of the cue stick through the little circle Evie had made of her fingers. The sexual entendre of the motion could hardly escape her, and she felt a flush rise up from the neck of her gown. “Shame on you,” she heard him murmur. “No proper young woman would have such thoughts.” A helpless giggle escaped Evie’s lips, and Sebastian moved to the side, watching her with a lazy smile. “Try again.

The wisest of nations, cities, and men in every age have held by certain general principles of thought and action : to this ancient tradition the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians and Indians, Samothracians and Druids, alike adhere ; but the Jews and Moses have no part nor lot in it. I pass by those who explain away the Mosaic records by plausible allegorising. The Mosaic account in regard to the age of the world is false: the flood being in the time of Deucalion was comparatively recent. Neither the teaching nor the institutions of Moses have any claim to originality. He appropriated doctrines which he had heard from men and nations of repute for wisdom. He borrowed the rite of circumcision from the Egyptians. He deluded goatherds and shepherds into the belief that there was one God — whom they called the Highest, or Adonai, or the Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or whatever names they please to give to this world — and there their knowledge ceased. It is of no import whether the God over all be called by the name that is usual among the Greeks, or that which obtains among the Indians or Egyptians.

There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they're dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not a hyperbole. When I feel like that, my head drops and my shoulders slump and I ache, I physically ache, for human contact - I truly feel that I might tumble to the ground and pass away if someone doesn't hold me, touch me. I don't mean a lover - this recent madness aside, I had long since given up on any notion that another person might love me that way - but simply a human being.

After I composed myself, Sister Janja told me this little boy’s story. He was placed in the orphanage at a young age when his mother, a single parent, became unable to care for him due to disability. Sister said that a beautiful and loving family adopted Boris a couple of years ago. She also said that she had not heard anything more about the child in years until just recently, when she was told a remarkable story. About three weeks earlier, Boris had woken up at one o’clock in the morning and had run into his parents’ room in tears. When his mother asked him what was wrong, he said between sobs that he had dreamed she had died. The mother hugged her son and assured him that she was just fine, letting him sleep the rest of the night between her and her husband. At eight o’clock the next morning, Boris’s mother got a call from a woman at the social services office in Central Bosnia. She called to say that Boris’s biological mother had passed away in the night.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15 “They had to turn off the life support.” and “The baby has arrived!” These are two messages I received within minutes of each other recently. They represent two different families dealing with diametrically opposing emotions. It reminds me of the time a few years ago that I went from conducting a wedding ceremony, to visiting a man that had just been released from the hospital—only to discover that he had just passed away mere minutes before my arrival. We never know what each new day is going to bring, but it is comforting to know that we serve a God who is able to bring meaning into every area of life. We rejoice with this new life and celebrate the miracle of birth. It reminds us of the new life that is available to us through Christ. However, at the same time, we mourn with this family that has lost a loved one to death. This reminds us of God’s comfort and the fact that we will all walk this road someday. “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn,” is not only good advice, it’s also a reminder that we all share the tragedies as well as the triumphs of life.

They waited at the back door until the storm clouds passed. The sky was violet and the light was silver. Alice followed her mother into the garden that was glossy with rain. They came to a bush her mother had planted recently. When Alice last took notice, it was just a tumble of bright green leaves. Now, after the rain, the bush was thick with fragrant white flowers. She studied them in bewilderment. 'Thought you might like these,' her mother said. 'Is it magic?' Alice reached out to touch one of the petals. 'The best kind.' Her mother nodded. 'Flower magic.' Alice bent down to get as close as she could. 'What are they, Mama?' 'Storm lilies. Just like the night you were born. They only flower after a good downpour.' Alice leant down and studied them closely. Their petals were flung open, leaving their centers fully exposed. 'They can't exist without rain?' Alice asked, straightening up. Her mother considered her for a moment before nodding. 'When I was in your father's truck the night you were born, they were growing wild by the road. I remember seeing them in bloom in the storm.' She looked away but Alice saw her mother's eyes fill. 'Alice,' her mother began. 'I planted the storm lilies here for a reason.' Alice nodded. 'Storm lilies are a sign of expectation. Of the goodness that can come from hardship.

He swore sharply, David Jones’s still-so-familiar voice coming out of that stranger’s body. “Do you have any idea how unbelievably hard it’s been to get you alone?” Had she finally started hallucinating? But he took off his glasses, and she could see his eyes more clearly and . . . “It’s you,” she breathed, tears welling. “It’s really you.” She reached for him, but he stepped back. Sisters Helen and Grace were hurrying across the compound, coming to see what the ruckus was, shading their eyes and peering so they could see in through the screens. “You can’t let on that you know me,” Jones told Molly quickly, his voice low, rough. “You can’t tell anyone—not even your friend the priest during confession, do you understand?” “Are you in some kind of danger?” she asked him. Dear God, he was so thin. And was the cane necessary or just a prop? “Stand still, will you, so I can—” “No. Don’t. We can’t . . .” He backed away again. “If you say anything, Mol, I swear, I’ll vanish, and I will not come back. Unless . . . if you don’t want me here—and I don’t blame you if you don’t—” “No!” was all she managed to say before Sister Helen opened the door and looked from the mess on the floor to Molly’s stricken expression. “Oh, dear.” “I’m afraid it’s my fault,” Jones said in a British accent, in a voice that was completely different from his own, as Helen rushed to Molly’s side. “My fault entirely. I brought Miss Anderson some bad news. I didn’t realize just how devastating it would be.” Molly started crying. It was more than just a good way to hide her laughter at that accent—those were real tears streaming down her face and she couldn’t stop them. Helen led her to one of the tables, helped her sit down. “Oh, my dear,” the nun said, kneeling in front of her, concern on her round face, holding her hand. “What happened?” “We have a mutual friend,” Jones answered for her. “Bill Bolten. He found out I was heading to Kenya, and he thought if I happened to run into Miss Anderson that she would want to know that a friend of theirs recently . . . well, passed. Cat’s out of the bag, right? Fellow name of Grady Morant, who went by the alias of Jones.” “Oh, dear,” Helen said again, hand to her mouth in genuine sympathy. Jones leaned closer to the nun, his voice low, but not low enough for Molly to miss hearing. “His plane went down—burned—gas tank exploded . . . Ghastly mess. Not a prayer that he survived.” Molly buried her face in her hands, hardly able to think. “Bill was worried that she might’ve heard it first from someone else,” he said. “But apparently she hadn’t.” Molly shook her head, no. News did travel fast via the grapevine. Relief workers tended to know other relief workers and . . . She could well have heard about Jones’s death without him standing right in front of her. Wouldn’t that have been awful?

More than anything, we have lost the cultural customs and traditions that bring extended families together, linking adults and children in caring relationships, that give the adult friends of parents a place in their children's lives. It is the role of culture to cultivate connections between the dependent and the dependable and to prevent attachment voids from occurring. Among the many reasons that culture is failing us, two bear mentioning. The first is the jarringly rapid rate of change in twentieth-century industrial societies. It requires time to develop customs and traditions that serve attachment needs, hundreds of years to create a working culture that serves a particular social and geographical environment. Our society has been changing much too rapidly for culture to evolve accordingly. There is now more change in a decade than previously in a century. When circumstances change more quickly than our culture can adapt to, customs and traditions disintegrate. It is not surprising that today's culture is failing its traditional function of supporting adult-child attachments. Part of the rapid change has been the electronic transmission of culture, allowing commercially blended and packaged culture to be broadcast into our homes and into the very minds of our children. Instant culture has replaced what used to be passed down through custom and tradition and from one generation to another. “Almost every day I find myself fighting the bubble-gum culture my children are exposed to,” said a frustrated father interviewed for this book. Not only is the content often alien to the culture of the parents but the process of transmission has taken grandparents out of the loop and made them seem sadly out of touch. Games, too, have become electronic. They have always been an instrument of culture to connect people to people, especially children to adults. Now games have become a solitary activity, watched in parallel on television sports-casts or engaged in in isolation on the computer. The most significant change in recent times has been the technology of communication — first the phone and then the Internet through e-mail and instant messaging. We are enamored of communication technology without being aware that one of its primary functions is to facilitate attachments. We have unwittingly put it into the hands of children who, of course, are using it to connect with their peers. Because of their strong attachment needs, the contact is highly addictive, often becoming a major preoccupation. Our culture has not been able to evolve the customs and traditions to contain this development, and so again we are all left to our own devices. This wonderful new technology would be a powerfully positive instrument if used to facilitate child-adult connections — as it does, for example, when it enables easy communication between students living away from home, and their parents. Left unchecked, it promotes peer orientation.

So is he a radical?” non-Muslims often asked when I told them about the Sheikh. “Not at all,” I’d say, assuming we were all speaking in post-9/11 code. “Of course not.” And I’d meant it. He is not a radical. Or rather, not their kind of radical. His radicalism is of entirely another caliber. He’s an extremist quietist, calling on Muslims to turn away from politics and to leave behind the frameworks of thought popularised by Islamists in recent centuries. Akram’s call for an apolitical Islam unpicked the conditioning of a generation of Muslims, raised on the works of Abu l’Ala Maududi and Sayyid Qutb and their nineteenth-century forerunners. These ideologues aimed to make Islam relevant to the sociopolitical struggles facings Muslims coping with modernity. Their works helped inspire revolutions, coups, and constitutions. But while these thinkers equated faith with political action, the Sheikh believed that politics was puny. He was powered by a certainty that we are just passing through this earth and that mundane quests for land or power miss Islam’s point. Compared with the men fighting for worldly turf, Akram was far more uncompromising: turn away from quests for nation-states or parliamentary seats and toward God. “Allah doesn’t want people to complain to other people,” he said. “People must complain to Allah, not to anyone else.” All the time spent fulminating, organising, protesting? It could be saved for prayer. So unjust governments run the world? Let them. They don’t, anyway. Allah does, and besides, real believers have the next world to worry about.

Islamophobia” as a weapon of jihad The charge of “Islamophobia” is routinely used to shift attention away from jihad terrorists. After a rise in jihadist militancy and the arrest of eight people in Switzerland on suspicion of aiding suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia, some Muslims in Switzerland were in no mood to clean house: “As far as we’re concerned,” said Nadia Karmous, leader of a Muslim women’s group in Switzerland, “there is no rise in Islamism, but rather an increase in Islamophobia.”5 This pattern has recurred in recent years all over the world as “Islamophobia” has passed into the larger lexicon and become a self-perpetuating industry. In Western countries, “Islamophobia” has taken a place beside “racism,” “sexism,” and “homophobia.” The absurdity of all this was well illustrated by a recent incident in Britain: While a crew was filming the harassment of a Muslim for a movie about “Islamophobia,” two passing Brits, who didn’t realize the cameras were rolling, stopped to defend the person being assaulted. Yet neither the filmmakers nor the reporters covering these events seemed to realize that this was evidence that the British were not as violent and xenophobic as the film they were creating suggested.6 Historian Victor Davis Hanson has ably explained the dangerous shift of focus that “Islamophobia” entails: There really isn’t a phenomenon like “Islamophobia”—at least no more than there was a “Germanophobia” in hating Hitler or “Russophobia” in detesting Stalinism. Any unfairness or rudeness that accrues from the “security profiling” of Middle Eastern young males is dwarfed by efforts of Islamic fascists themselves—here in the U.S., in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Turkey, and Israel—to murder Westerners and blow up civilians. The real danger to thousands of innocents is not an occasional evangelical zealot or uncouth politician spouting off about Islam, but the deliberately orchestrated and very sick anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism that floods the airways worldwide, emanating from Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, to be sure, but also from our erstwhile “allies” in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.7

I put my hand on his forearm, I don't know why I do this, and it's not exactly natural, although it's not unnatural, except that I really want to touch his skin. It's smooth and tan just a little bit and feels like summer, like something familiar and warm and good, like my skin did on the first days aboard 'Fishful Thinking' before it salted and burned and peeled. 'We broke up three years after that.' I sit back in my chair and give a sly smile. Relationships are complex and sometimes you can't really explain them to an outside party. 'I can't believe I just told you that' 'YES! YOU! ARE! LIVING! YOUR! FULL! LIFE!' A third time. I am not imagining it. 'There you are.' This time my heart does skip a beat. I look down at his arm, and we are still touching, and he has made no attempt to retract his arm or retreat. All my surroundings, the red formica table top, the pink yogurt, the blue sky, the green vegetables in the market, they all come alive in vibrant technicolor as the sun peers from behind a cloud. I am living my full life. 'Honesty in all things,' Byron adds, lifting his cup of yogurt for a toast of sorts. I pull my hand away from him and the instant my hand is back by his side, I miss the warmth of his arm, the warmth of him. Honesty in all things. I should put my hand back, that's where it wants to be, that's Lily's lesson to me. Be present in the moment, give spontaneous affection. I'm suddenly aware I haven't spoken in a bit. 'Did you know that an octopus has three hearts?' As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I realize I sound like that kid from 'Jerry McGuire.' 'Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?' I hope my question comes off almost a fraction as endearing. 'No,' Byron says with a glint in his eye that reads as curiosity, at least I hope that it does, but even if it doesn't I'm too into the inertia of the trivia to stop it. 'It's true, one heart called the systemic heart that functions much like the left side of the human heart, distributing blood throughout the heart, then two smaller branchial heart with gills that act like the right side of our hearts to pump the blood back.' 'What made you think of that?' I smile. It may be entirely inappropriate first date conversation, but at least it doesn't bore me in the telling. I look up at the winsome August sky, marred only by the contrails of a passing jet, and a vaguely dachshund shaped cloud above the horizon. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in love at first site. I don't believe in angels. I don't believe in heaven and that our loved ones are looking down on us, but the sun is so warm and the breeze is so cool and the company is so perfect and the whole afternoon so intoxicating, ti's hard not to hear Lily's voice dancing in the gentle wind, 'one! month! is Long! Enough TO! BE! SAD!' ... 'I recently lost someone close to me....I don't know, I feel her here today with us, you, me, her, three hearts, like an octopus,' I shrug. If I were him, I would run. What a ridiculously creepy thing to say. I would run and I would not stop until I was home in my bed with a gallon of ice cream deleting my profile from every dating site I belonged to. Maybe it's because it's not rehearsed, maybe it's because it's as weird a thing to say as it is genuine, maybe it's because this is finally the man for me. Byron stands and offers me his hand, 'Let's take a walk and you can tell me about her.' The gentle untying of a shoe lace. It takes me a minute to decide if I can do this, and I decide that I can, and I throw our yogurt dishes away, and I put my hand in his, and it's soft and warm, and instead of awkward fumbling, our hands clasp together like magnets and metal, like we've been hand-in-hand all along, and we are touching again. ...

A brief snapshot of Race Maggad III: rangy and blond, with a smooth plump-looking chin, narrow green eyes and a tan as smooth as peanut butter. His long aquiline nose has a permanent hump where he once whacked himself accidentally with a polo mallet. Twice weekly his fingernails are professionally polished to a porcelain sheen, and the tooth whitener of his preference is imported at no small expense from Marseille. He calls his wife 'Casey-Coo' and they own four neutered Golden Retrievers, in lieu of children. They tend homes in Wellington, Florida; East Hampton, Long Island; and San Diego, California, where Maggad-Feist has its corporate headquarters. The man of the house loves sports cars, particularly those of German pedigree. Recently he turned forty-one, the same age at which Bebe the bottle-nosed dolphin (one of seven who played Flipper on TV) passed away.

There’s Tom,” Becky says. He’s been tromping around the city half the day, but I don’t see a speck of mud on him. Though he dresses plain, it always seems he rolls out of bed in the morning with his hair and clothes as neat and ordered as his arguments. We walk over to join him, and he acknowledges us with a slight, perfectly controlled nod. He’s one of the college men, three confirmed bachelors who left Illinois College to join our wagon train west. Compared to the other two, Tom Bigler is a bit of a closed book—one of those big books with tiny print you use as a doorstop or for smashing bugs. And he’s been closing up tighter and tighter since we blew up Uncle Hiram’s gold mine, when Tom negotiated with James Henry Hardwick to get us out of that mess. “How goes the hunt for an office?” I ask. “Not good,” Tom says. “I found one place—only one place—and it’s a cellar halfway up the side of one those mountains.” Being from Illinois, which I gather is flat as a griddle, Tom still thinks anything taller than a tree is a mountain. “Maybe eight foot square, no windows and a dirt floor, and they want a thousand dollars a month for it.” “Is it the cost or the lack of windows that bothers you?” He pauses. Sighs. “Believe it or not, that’s a reasonable price. Everything else I’ve found is worse—five thousand a month for the basement of the Ward Hotel, ten thousand a month for a whole house. The land here is more valuable than anything on it, even gold. I’ve never seen so many people trying to cram themselves into such a small area.” “So it’s the lack of windows.” He gives me a side-eyed glance. “I came to California to make a fortune, but it appears a fortune is required just to get started. I may have to take up employment with an existing firm, like this one.” Peering at us more closely, he says, “I thought you were going to acquire the Joyner house? I mean, I’m glad to see you, but it seems things have gone poorly?” “They’ve gone terribly,” Becky says. “They haven’t gone at all,” I add. “They’ll only release it to Mr. Joyner,” Becky says. Tom’s eyebrows rise slightly. “I did mention that this could be a problem, remember?” “Only a slight one,” I say with more hope than conviction. “Without Mr. Joyner’s signature,” Becky explains, “they’ll sell my wedding cottage at auction. Our options are to buy back what’s ours, which I don’t want to do, or sue to recover it, which is why I’ve come to find you.” If I didn’t know Tom so well, I might miss the slight frown turning his lips. He says, “There’s no legal standing to sue. Andrew Junior is of insufficient age, and both his and Mr. Joyner’s closest male relative would be the family patriarch back in Tennessee. You see, it’s a matter of cov—” “Coverture!” says Becky fiercely. “I know. So what can I do?” “There’s always robbery.” I’m glad I’m not drinking anything, because I’m pretty sure I’d spit it over everyone in range. “Tom!” Becky says. “Are you seriously suggesting—?” “I’m merely outlining your full range of options. You don’t want to buy it back. You have no legal standing to sue for it. That leaves stealing it or letting it go.” This is the Tom we’ve started to see recently. A little angry, maybe a little dangerous. I haven’t made up my mind if I like the change or not. “I’m not letting it go,” Becky says. “Just because a bunch of men pass laws so other men who look just like them can legally steal? Doesn’t mean they should get away with it.” We’ve been noticed; some of the men in the office are eyeing us curiously. “How would you go about stealing it back, Tom?” I ask in a low voice, partly to needle him and partly to find out what he really thinks. He glances around, brows knitting. “I suppose I would get a bunch of men who look like me to pass some laws in my favor and then take it back through legal means.” I laugh in spite of myself. “You’re no help at all,” Becky says.

A filmmaker made a short documentary about this happy-go-lucky teenager on death row, called My Last Days. It showed Zach living happily, hanging out with his family, and playing music. Everybody loved Zach. When you see the footage, you can’t help but like him. As you watch him laugh and love and sing, you catch yourself forgetting: this kid is about to die. Zach’s family tells the camera how knowing he would die has helped them realize what matters in life and to find true meaning. “It’s really simple, actually,” Zach says. “Just try and make people happy.” As the 22-minute film closes, Zach looks into the camera, smiling, and says, “I want to be remembered as the kid who went down fighting, and didn’t really lose.” Not long after he said those words, Zach passed away. When Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley of Upworthy saw the film, they thought, This is a story that needs to be heard. Now just over a year old, Upworthy has become quite popular. In fact, it recently hit 30 million monthly visitors, making it, according to the Business Insider, the fastest-growing media company in history.* (Seven-year-old BuzzFeed was serving 50 million monthly visitors at the time.) The Zach Sobiech story illustrates how Upworthy used rapid feedback to do it: According to Upworthy’s calculations, My Last Days had the potential to reach a lot of people. But so far, few had seen it. The filmmaker had posted the documentary under the headline, “My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech.” Though descriptive, it was suboptimal packaging. In the ADD world of Facebook and Twitter, it’s no surprise that few people clicked. Upworthy reposted the video with a new title: “We Lost This Kid 80 Years Too Early. I’m Glad He Went Out with a Bang,” and shared it with a small number of its subscribers, then waited to see who clicked.

I walked out onto the stage and I started telling the tale of the “Untold Story of the Origin of Zombies.” And it went like this: Where do Zombies come from? Not many people know. But after some extensive investigative Zombie journalism, we’ve discovered the truth. It all began when the human government decided that they wanted to create stronger soldiers. They had lost too many battles, and now they wanted to win every war that they fought. So they approached some soldiers in their army to join a special secret project. The only requirement was that the soldiers they chose had no living relatives. This way, no one could claim their bodies in case something went wrong. So, they exposed these soldiers to an experimental virus to enhance their abilities and make them into super soldiers. The experiment seemed to be working. But then, something terrible happened... The soldiers went crazy, and they were horribly disfigured. Ultimately, the experiment claimed their lives. But, when the soldiers were being prepared for burial, they suddenly came to life. They were not only walking, but they had enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell and enhanced hearing. They attacked the soldiers in charge of burying them. And the recently bitten soldiers also transformed into the living dead. Before long, the entire army base was contaminated with the virus. Once everyone in the base was exposed, the virus mutated and the soldiers began having an overwhelming craving for something warm and mushy. They longed for brains! Soon, the army of the living dead found their way to the next unsuspecting town in search of brains. They attacked that town, biting anything that moved both human and animal. Soon that town was overrun. The virus spread from town to town, and city to city, until the entire world was contaminated. It was the first Zombie Apocalypse. After hundreds of years had passed, the Zombies started to evolve and began developing intelligent thoughts. They began forming villages, and then towns, and then entire cities of Zombies were created. The Zombies made great advances in health and science, and became highly advanced technologically. But, eventually the Zombies’ appetite for brains and warm flesh gave way to an even greater craving... The craving for CAKE! Their overwhelming desire for cake resulted in an explosive rise in the baking industry. Cake shops began springing up on every corner of every Zombie city street. They just couldn’t get enough! The human race began growing again, too. Human villages of farmers and miners began springing up. And because the Zombies were a peaceful race, they coexisted with the humans by staying away from them. But soon, the Zombie’s resources began to become scarce, especially the cake. So Zombies began scaring villagers in order to get the supplies they needed, especially the highly valued resource of cake. Now Zombies send their kids to Scare School to train their children from a very young age. They train them on how to effectively scare humans in order to get their needed supplies, especially cake. And so it has been until today. Thank you.

Like last week, she was wearing all black. And like last week, he couldn’t keep from noticing the way the dark color highlighted her pale skin and grayish-blue eyes. She was petite and put together in every detail from her severe coif to her immaculate garments. Though she wasn’t remarkable in her appearance, there was something in her delicate porcelain face that he liked. Perhaps her determination? Or compassion? Or honesty? Truthfully, he hadn’t noticed her at all before last Sunday, but now he was chagrined to admit he’d thought about her all week. He’d told himself that his thoughts had only to do with the way God had spoken through her to answer his prayer. He’d been battling such doubts recently regarding his ministry among the immigrants, and when she’d spoken to him after the service, it was almost as if she’d been delivering a message directly from God. He loved when God worked that way. Regardless, his mind had wandered too many times from the answered prayer to the bearer of the answer. He hadn’t met a woman in years who had arrested him quite the way Miss Pendleton had. And he was quite taken aback by his strange reaction. After Bettina had passed away ten years ago, he’d had little desire to think about courting other women. At first he’d been too filled with grief and had focused all his energy on raising Thomas. When Thomas had left home to pursue his studies at Union Theological Seminary, Guy had taken the challenge given by the New York Methodist Episcopal Conference. He’d accepted their position as an itinerant pastor to start a mission and chapel among the lions’ den. He’d left his comfortable pastoral position and embraced God’s calling to raise the outcast and homeless, to be among those who had no friend or helper, and do something for them of what Christ had done for him. He’d focused all his time and attention on reaching the lost. Nothing and no one had shaken that attention. Until last week.

Serbs don’t forget, as the graffito goes, the atrocities that the Croatian ustashas committed against them in World War II. That was repeated in school over and over by history teachers when I was a pupil in Croatia. Many Croats don’t forget the slaughters that the Serb nationalist chetniks committed on the Croatian rural population, although that lesson was passed over in silence in our history lessons. My brother-in-law—who died of stomach cancer, and who had spent the recent war two hundred yards away from the Serb border toward Vukovar, from where his street was shelled almost daily—told me that when he was a child, during World War II, he ran into a ditch full of Croatian peasants massacred by chetniks. He never forgot, and wasn’t even allowed to talk about it because he would be jailed for spreading nationalist propaganda. He told me this in the park after my father’s funeral, at a moment when we were both talking about life, death, and souls. Which is better, to forget or to remember? Of course, to remember, but not to abuse the memories as Serbian leaders have done to spur their armies into aggression against Croats and Muslims. Croats will remember Vukovar. Muslims will remember Srebrenica. And what is the lesson? Not to trust thy neighbor? But that’s perhaps where the trouble began and will resume.

Reverend Bedell?” she said. He halted and glanced at her. She expected irritation or at least weariness to cross his features and was completely unprepared for his warm smile and the genuine kindness in his eyes. “Yes? Mrs. . . . ? Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten your name.” “Please don’t concern yourself. You have so many names to remember.” His eyes had pleasant crinkles at the corners, belying his age in a way the rest of his appearance didn’t. She’d overheard the other ladies at the Society meeting whispering that he had a grown son who was in seminary and studying to be a pastor. Yet he certainly didn’t look old enough for that to be true. “I always try to learn the names of volunteers. It just takes me time, Mrs. . . .” “Miss Pendleton,” she supplied, shifting uncomfortably as he perused her black dress with its sloping shoulders, wide pagoda sleeves, and full skirt. Mother had passed away in March, and she hadn’t yet finished the six months of mourning that was socially expected at the loss of a parent. “Mrs. Pendleton,” he replied. “I’m sorry for your loss. Your husband?” “Oh, no. I’m not married. It’s Miss Pendleton.” She enunciated her title more clearly and loudly, but then realized she’d just announced her spinsterhood for all the world to hear and flushed at the mistake. “I beg your pardon,” the reverend said. “My mother recently passed,” she added and hurried to cover her embarrassment. “She was ill for many years and was finally released from her burdens.” “Again, I’m sorry for your loss.” From the compassion that filled his eyes, she had the distinct impression he was being sincere and not merely placating her. “Thank you.

It is very important to note that the transcendence of the object is by no means a primitive component necessarily ingredient in all knowledge. It is missing in all ecstatic knowledge. In ecstatic knowledge the known world is still not objectively given. Only when the (logically and genetically simultaneous) act furnishing ecstatic knowledge and the subject which performs this act become themselves the content of knowledge in the act of reflection does the character originally given in ecstatic knowledge become a mere reference pointing to the “object.” It is only here that the object or that which turns into an object remains from now on “transcendent” to consciousness. Therefore, whenever there is consciousness, objects transcendent to consciousness must also be given to consciousness. Their structural relationship is indissoluble. Whenever self-consciousness and consciousness of an object arise, they do so simultaneously and through the same process. The categorical form of an object is not first impressed in a judgment upon a nonobjective given, not even in a one-term, simple judgment, as some people have thought (e.g., Heinrich Maier in his book *Wahrheit und Wirklichkeit*). This is a pure construction. Consciousness of an object precedes all judgment and is not originally constituted by judgment. The same holds true of consciousness of states of affairs. The consciousness of an object and the intentional object are not the result of an active [tätige] “forming” or “imprinting” which we perform on the given through judgments or any other operations of thought. On the contrary, they are the result of a pulling back, the result, that is, of the re-flexive act, in which an originally ecstatic [*ekstatisch gebender*] act turns back knowingly onto itself and comes upon a central self as its starting point. This central self can be given at every level and degree of “concentration” and “collectedness” in “self-consciousness.” What we had hold of [*das Gehabte*] remains “as” object, while the act of reflection turns the knowing back into the knower, as the result of a turning away [*Abwendung*] and a pulling back, and not of an active turning to [*Zuwendung*]. From what has been said, one may very well imagine that the real world could be abolished without consciousness and the self being altered or abolished thereby. But this could in no way be the case with the world of objects that transcend consciousness. Descartes as well as Lotze misunderstood this. Where a *cogito* exists, there must also be a *cogitatur* in which a transcendent object is thought. Only a being capable of reflection (*reflexio*) and self-consciousness *can* have objects. Charlotte Bühler has recently made it seem probable that the infant does not yet possess objective consciousness. In waking from the effects of a drug we can follow the process by which the givenness of the surrounding world becomes objective again. There is one last point of contact between the problem of reality and the consciousness of transcendence. The consciousness of transcendence, as already indicated, shows how the mere ecstatic possession of reality on the level of the immediately experienced resistance of an X to the central drives of life passes over into a reflexive and thus objective possession of reality. And we find similar transitions between ecstatic remembering which is merged in the being of what is past and reflexive remembering, between ecstatic drive activities and recurrent deliberation [*Besinnung*], between ecstatic surrender to a value and objectification of a value, between identifying with an alter ego and “understanding” [*Verstehen*] another, however slightly.” ―from_Idealism and Realism_

And it also seems likely that many Scots are directly descended from the hunter-gatherer communities of the western refuges. Very recent ancestral DNA research shows that more than 40 per cent carry markers from the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups identified as H, H1 and HVO, all of which originated amongst the people of the painted caves. Each of us carries a great deal of information in our DNA but two small parts of our genomes are especially informative about ancestry. Men carry a Y-chromosome marker inherited from their fathers and their fathers before them, away back in time, and they also inherit mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, from their mothers and their mothers, again away back in deep time. Women carry only mtDNA but they pass it on to their children of both genders. So, men carry mtDNA too but can only pass on their Y-chromosome marker, their fatherline, to their sons. In the act of reproduction, when the 6 billion letters of DNA we carry are passed on, tiny errors of copying are made. These are known as DNA markers and both their origin and the date when they arose can be calculated. Therefore, it is possible to say with considerable certainty that more than 40 per cent of all Scots, men and women, carry the

The media, polling, and Big Tech rigging alone would have been enough to cause Republicans to doubt any election loss, but what Democrats did to the manner in which people vote was further destabilizing to the country... Long-standing historical concerns about the integrity of elections led to the development of a single Election Day, a secret ballot, and governmental running of elections--all developments that went a long way toward building up trust in America's electoral process. In recent years, Democrats have lobbied to move away from each of those things, saying that efforts to stop them from doing so were 'voter suppression.' In the months leading up to 2020, Democrats were able to convince legislators, courts, and election officials to open elections up to ballot trafficking, voting without showing identification, voting without following state laws or guidelines, and counting ballots without oversight from independent observers. Meager checks on fraud, such as signature matching, were watered down to the point of meaninglessness...And then Democrats tried to make permanent all of the radical changes they had made by passing legislation to ban voter ID, legalize vote trafficking weaken absentee voter verifications, and make it more difficult to keep updated lists of voters.

I woke up every morning at six to study—because it was easier to focus in the mornings, before I was worn out from scrapping. Although I was still fearful of God’s wrath, I reasoned with myself that my passing the ACT was so unlikely, it would take an act of God. And if God acted, then surely my going to school was His will. The ACT was composed of four sections: math, English, science and reading. My math skills were improving but they were not strong. While I could answer most of the questions on the practice exam, I was slow, needing double or triple the allotted time. I lacked even a basic knowledge of grammar, though I was learning, beginning with nouns and moving on to prepositions and gerunds. Science was a mystery, perhaps because the only science book I’d ever read had had detachable pages for coloring. Of the four sections, reading was the only one about which I felt confident. BYU was a competitive school. I’d need a high score—a twenty-seven at least, which meant the top fifteen percent of my cohort. I was sixteen, had never taken an exam, and had only recently undertaken anything like a systematic education; still I registered for the test. It felt like throwing dice, like the roll was out of my hands. God would score the toss. I didn’t sleep the night before. My brain conjured so many scenes of disaster, it burned as if with a fever. At five I got out of bed, ate breakfast, and drove the forty miles to Utah State University. I was led into a white classroom with thirty other students, who took their seats and placed their pencils on their desks. A middle-aged woman handed out tests and strange pink sheets I’d never seen before. “Excuse me,” I said when she gave me mine. “What is this?” “It’s a bubble sheet. To mark your answers.” “How does it work?” I said. “It’s the same as any other bubble sheet.” She began to move away from me, visibly irritated, as if I were playing a prank. “I’ve never used one before.” She appraised me for a moment. “Fill in the bubble of the correct answer,” she said. “Blacken it completely. Understand?” The test began. I’d never sat at a desk for four hours in a room full of people. The noise was unbelievable, yet I seemed to be the only person who heard it, who couldn’t divert her attention from the rustle of turning pages and the scratch of pencils on paper. When it was over I suspected that I’d failed the math, and I was positive that I’d failed the science. My answers for the science portion couldn’t even be called guesses. They were random, just patterns of dots on that strange pink sheet. I drove home. I felt stupid, but more than stupid I felt ridiculous. Now that I’d seen the other students—watched them march into the classroom in neat rows, claim their seats and calmly fill in their answers, as if they were performing a practiced routine—it seemed absurd that I had thought I could score in the top fifteen percent. That was their world. I stepped into overalls and returned to mine.

In Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master, this alternation between the devotee-mood and the saviour-mood was often noted, because his life was recent and was subjected to study by men who closely observed and recorded it, unlike in the case of the past Incarnations, whose lives have been clothed, long after their passing away, in thundering miracles by poets and mythologists. This process of distortion was partly due to a studied effort on the part of their followers to hide their human side. For, they felt it detrimental to their glory as divinities if any human qualities were allowed to percolate through their divinities. But an Incarnation is man and God in one, and the concept loses all its significance when the Incarnate is made into a Deity.

Some churches try so hard to be user-friendly and relational that the Bible is implicitly ignored or depreciated. In one evangelical church that I recently attended, the morning’s skit came in three secenes that devoured about fifteen minutes. The closing lines on true love and friendship emerged from a scene in which one woman was giving comfort and love to another who had just had a miscarriage. The latter thanked her for not quoting verses like Romans 8:28 at her, but just loving her. Now I realize that quoting verses “at” someone can be done in an insensitive and triumphalistic fashion. Yet the fact remains that no Christian who passes through deep waters draws much comfort from God until he or she realizes that God really is in control, God really does love his own people, God really is wise and good, God really can use pain in this fallen world in remarkable ways.77 To turn people away from such God-centered truths to appeal to purely human comfort I might have expected from a liberal church; it is crushingly disappointing in a church that nominally retains its evangelical statement of faith.

Vanni, I want to marry you, take care of you and Mattie.” She frowned slightly. “Wait a minute—is there anything else you should tell me before you propose? Any other little secret stuffed in the back of your closet?” “Honest to God, that’s it. Until very recently, I had the most boring life in Grants Pass!” “You’re sure about that? Because until last week, I thought I knew everything about you. I mean, I’ve known you for years, lived with you for months. We spent so many hours just talking…” “That’s it. Jesus, isn’t that enough? I want to marry you and Mattie. In fact, once we get the lay of the land, I’d like to have more children. Maybe at least one that we actually make together. I’d give anything for that, Vanni.” She smiled. “Let’s see how many you have so far before we make those kinds of plans, huh?” “Then you’ll marry me?” he asked, brushing the hair away from her brow. “You’re a very interesting guy, Paul. It takes you years to tell me you love me, and minutes to ask me to marry you.” “I’ll wait till you’re ready, but I want us to be together forever.” The corner of her mouth lifted along with one reddish brow, teasing. “Don’t you think we should see how we work out sexually? See if we’re good together?” she asked, grinning playfully. “Vanessa, we’ll be good together. Well, you’ll be perfect and I’m sure I’ll catch on eventually.” He kissed her again. “Are you going to say yes or make me beg?” “Do you think I want to live with my father and have a weekend boyfriend forever? Yes,” she said. “I’m probably going to marry you.” “Oh God, thank you,” he said, grabbing her to him again. “Is tomorrow too soon?” “A

Are you all right, Vanni?” he asked. “Hmm, just a little melancholy, that’s all.” “It’s hard to tell what’s bothering you most—Midge’s passing or some problem you’re having with Paul.” She turned to look at him and he said, “Anything you want to talk about?” She shrugged. “There’s not too much to talk about, Dad.” “You could help me understand a couple of things, you know.” “For instance?” “Oh, don’t be coy—you stood Paul up to go away with the doctor and if I know anything about you, you’re not that interested in the doctor. Hell, you’ve been in a strange mood since Paul left after Mattie was born. You knew Paul was coming for the weekend—and despite his best efforts to be circumspect, you knew he was coming for you.” “I wasn’t so sure about that.” “I heard you fight with him, Vanni. Did you and Paul have some kind of falling-out?” “Not exactly, Dad.” Walt took a breath. “Vanessa, I don’t mean to pry, but it’s pretty apparent to me how you feel about Paul. And how Paul feels about you. And yet…” “Dad, while Paul was here last autumn, we got a lot closer. We were good friends before, but of course with all we went through together… Dad, before all that happened, Paul had a life in Grants Pass. One that’s not so easily left behind.” “Vanni, Paul loves you, but something happened between you recently…” “He let me know—there are complications in Grants Pass. Something he’s been struggling with. It’s kept him from being honest about his feelings,” she said. “He has commitments, Dad.” “A woman?” Walt asked. Vanni laughed softly. “We shouldn’t be so surprised that Paul actually had women in his life, should we? Yes, apparently there was a woman. Is a woman…” “Jesus,” Walt said under his breath. “He’s not married, is he?” “Of course not. He wouldn’t keep something like that from us.” “Engaged?” “He says there’s enough of an entanglement there to make his position difficult. That’s why he wasn’t around after Mattie was born.” Walt drove in silence for a while and Vanni resumed gazing out the window. After a few moments of silence Walt asked, “What about you, Vanni? I know you care about him.” “Dad, Matt’s only been gone a few months. Should I even have such feelings? Should I be completely embarrassed? I’ll miss him forever, but I—” “Please don’t do that to yourself, honey,” he said. “Haven’t we learned by now? Life is too short to suffer needlessly.” “Will people say I—” “I don’t give a good goddamn what people say,” he growled. “Everyone is entitled to a little happiness, wherever that is. And I think for you, it’s with Paul.” She sighed and said, “I’m asking myself why I thought I had some claim on him. He was very good to us all, I’m so grateful—but why didn’t I realize that a man like Paul wouldn’t have any trouble attracting the attention—the love—of a woman? I’ve been so angry with him for not telling me, but… Why didn’t I ask?” “Now what, Vanni? Is he trying to make a choice, is that it?” “We were having a discussion, not a very pleasant one, right when the call came from Shelby. It left his intentions up in the air a bit. But there’s one thing I won’t do, I can’t do—I can’t ask Paul to choose me over a woman he has an obligation to. I tried to make it very clear, his duty to me as his best friend’s widow has expired. He doesn’t have to take care of me anymore.” “I have a feeling it’s more than duty,” Walt said. “I have a feeling it always has been…” “He has to do the right thing,” she said. “I’m not getting in the way of that. A man like Paul—he could regret the wrong decision for the rest of his life. And frankly, I don’t want to be the one left to live with his regret.” “Oh, boy. You two have some talking to do.” “No. Paul has business to take care of. I have nothing more to say about this.” *

Cemetery Nights V Wheel of memory, wheel of forgetting, bitter taste in the mouth--those who have been dead longest group together in the center of the graveyard facing inward. The sooner they become dust the better. They pick at their flesh and watch it crumble, they chip at their bones and watch them dissolve. Do they have memories? Just shadows in the mind like a hand passing between a candle and a wall. Those who have been dead a lesser time stand closer to the fence, but already they have started turning away. Maybe they still have some sadness. And what are their thoughts? Colors mostly, sunset, sunrise, a burning house, someone waving from the flames. Those who have recently died line up against the fence facing outward, watching the mailman, deliverymen, the children returning from school, listening to the church bells dealing out the hours of the living day. So arranged, the dead form a great spoked wheel-- such is the fiery wheel that rolls through heaven. For the rats, nothing is more ridiculous than the recently dead as they press against the railing with their arms stuck between the bars. Occassionally, one sees a friend, even a loved one. Then what a shouting takes place as the dead tries to catch the eye of the living. One actually sees his wife waiting for a bus and reaches out so close that he nearly touches her yellow hair. During life they were great lovers. Maybe he should throw a finger at her, something to attract her attention. Like a scarecrow in a stiff wind, the dead husband waves his arms. Is she aware of anything? Perhaps a slight breeze on an otherwise still day, perhaps a smell of earth. And what does she remember? Sometimes, when she sits in his favorite chair or drinks a wine that he liked, she will recall his face but much faded, like a favorite dress washed too often. And her husband, what does he think? As a piece of crumpled paper burns within a fire, so the thought of her burns within his brain. And where is she going? These days she has taken a new lover and she's going to his apartment. Even as she waits, she sees herself sitting on his bed as he unfastens the buttons of her blouse. He will cup her breasts in his hands. A sudden breeze will invade the room, making the dust motes dance and sparkle as if each bright spot were a single sharp eyed intelligence, as if the vast legion of the dead had come with their unbearable jumble of envy and regret to watch the man as he drops his head presses his mouth to the erect nipple.

Pictures old photographs hang on the wall of loved ones: far away, long since moved or recently deceased.   i dread each new picture that joins, the clips and my heart already sagging from the weight of loss. Mac & Cheese gathered around the kitchen counter, we share dinner of macaroni and cheese. we share dinner, my parents and i, as though no time had passed, the same plates holding the noodles as when i was just learning to hold a fork.

Complaining     “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Philippians 4:11).     God hates complaining. In the Old Testament, God rescued the Israelites from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. They had a miraculous escape through the Red Sea and were on their way to the Promised Land. Yet only two of the original group actually arrived at the final destination. The rest perished in the desert. Why? One contributing factor was their complaining.   First, they complained that they had no food so God graciously provided manna. This was food that miraculously appeared each morning for them to collect for their families for the day. However, it wasn’t long before they complained about the manna. They even went so far as to say that they preferred their lives of slavery in Egypt to another day of eating manna.   I’m disgusted by their ungratefulness. They were a complaining, grumbling bunch that couldn’t see how good they actually had it. They were constantly looking for the bad in their situation instead of focusing on how God had favoured them, heard their cries, saved them from slavery, and provided for them on their way to the Promised Land.   However, it’s easy for me to pass judgment on them as I read about their story in the Bible. It’s obvious to me what they did wrong. But I was recently convicted of my own behaviour. Some days I am no better than those complainers.   I can think specifically of a job I received. This job was a miracle from God in itself. My two co-workers had been waiting over three years to get this job – I had just applied a month before. It was only part-time hours so it allowed me to continue to pursue my other interests and hobbies. It was close to my home, within the hours that my children were at school and doing what I love to do – teach.   However, when I was first offered the job I complained about the topic I would be teaching – accounting. It was not my first love. I would have preferred to teach creative writing or marketing – something fun. But accounting? I balked. Then I complained about the cost of parking. Then I complained that I had to share an office. Then I complained that my mailbox was too high, the water was too cold, the photocopier was too far away, the computer was too slow – well, you get the point. Instead of focusing on the answer to prayer, I focused on the little irritants about which to complain.   Finally, I started to complain about the students – one particular student. She would come to class with a snarl and sit in the back of the classroom with her arms crossed, feet up and a scowl that would scare crows away. It seemed to me that she not only hated the topic I was teaching, but she also hated the teacher.   Each day, I returned home and complained to my husband about this particular student. Things didn’t improve. She became more and more despondent and even poisoned the entire class with her sickly attitude. I complained more. I complained to other teachers and my friends; anyone who dared to ask the question, “How do you enjoy teaching?”  

Come Clean with God It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. —1 TIMOTHY 1:15 NASB     One of the most watched TV series in recent years has been Donald Trump’s The Apprentice. The highlight of the program is when Mr. Trump delights in saying, “You’re fired!” This format has been so well received in America that other networks quickly introduced their versions. While we never want to hear our bosses utter, “You’re fired!” it could happen. But thankfully, we will only hear Jesus say, “You’re hired.” He gives us new life. But in order for us to be hired, we must humble ourselves and come clean with God. The apostle Paul had the same dilemma when he was challenged to deal with God’s grace. Some of these struggles can be found in his writings: • 1 Corinthians 15:9—I am the least of all the apostles. • Ephesians 3:8—I am the least deserving Christian there is. • 1 Timothy 1:15—I am the worst sinner of all. Paul was humbled by his past and wanted to change his direction in life. At one time in my life I had to make a decision. I had to let old things pass away and then turn to eternal values. As I faced decisions about how I lived and what I wanted, I had to ask, How do I come close to God? Examine Paul’s challenge in 1 Timothy 2:1-4: Here are my directions: Pray much for others; plead for God’s mercy upon them; give thanks for all he is going to do for them.   Pray in this way for kings and all others who are in authority over us, or are in places of high responsibility, so that we can live in peace and quietness, spending our time in godly living and thinking much about the Lord. This is good and pleases God our Savior, for he longs for all to be saved (TLB). Paul gives us three very valuable challenges and instructions: (1) pray for your needs, (2) pray for others, and (3) pray for thanksgiving. Notice that we are instructed to go from our internal needs first and then move to prayers for others and then thanksgiving to God. We are a very narcissistic

Mrs. Mayfield’s bakery still filled the streets with the smell of fresh bread, the barbershop still seemed empty, and the Dundurn Gazette building still looked dilapidated and about to crumble. Maybe this is what I need, Gen thought. She craved stability right now. Recently she had felt lost and overwhelmed, hating life at university and struggling with her course, but desperate to please her mother. Every Isherwood woman attended the University of Toronto; Gen couldn’t be the exception. There was only one major road entering and leaving Dundurn, and it quickly took them away from the bustle. Soon they could see the arch boldly displaying the farm’s name etched into the metal: The Triple 7 Ranch. Nothing about the ranch seemed to have changed: the barn behind the house, the farmland beyond it, or the wheat fields arranged in neat lines stretching into the distance. Gen waited to hear Whisky, their German shepherd, as they pulled in. She always came out of wherever she was and barked loudly when cars arrived. “Where’s Whisky?” she asked after a couple of seconds. “Oh, Whisky passed on last year, honey,” her mum said. “No! What happened?” “Some hooligans from Saskatoon ran her over, honey.” “Sheriff Liam says we have to be extra careful now that some new businesses have settled out there.” “Who would do such a thing?” It seemed some things changed after all. ><>< Gen turned the knob of the bedroom door, which creaked as it swung open. Peering into her old bedroom, memories flooded her senses; she travelled to a time when the world made sense. She heard giggling and the patter of running feet as she recalled a time when all that mattered was finding the best place to hide while playing with her grandfather. She had been an only child but had never felt the loneliness others in her position described. Her grandfather had been her friend, confidante,

what did the research team do? Dr. Keys and his collaborators gathered up the data, slides, and other evidence, packed it into a bunch of file boxes, and kept the boxes in a basement. Decades later, a savvy scientist working for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Chris Ramsden, MD, noticed that a grant had been approved for a one-of-a-kind experiment to test the diet-heart hypothesis back in the 1960s, but he couldn’t find where the final data had ever been properly published. After some clever detective work, his team managed to locate the basement where the files lay hidden, stashed away by one of the study authors who’d recently passed away; his family hadn’t yet gotten around to selling his home in Minnesota. Some of the data was missing, but there was more than enough to draw some very important conclusions.

Recent research has swept away the simple idea that “having” a particular gene produces a particular result. It turns out that many genes work together to influence a single outcome. Even more important, genes are not fixed; life events can trigger biochemical messages that turn them on or off by attaching methyl groups, a cluster of carbon and hydrogen atoms, to the outside of the gene (a process called methylation), making it more or less sensitive to messages from the body. While life events can change the behavior of the gene, they do not alter its fundamental structure. Methylation patterns, however, can be passed on to offspring—a phenomenon known as epigenetics. Once again, the body keeps the score, at the deepest levels of the organism.

The inside of my skull is more like a wall upon which decades of posters have been plastered - for circuses, for trials, for vaudevilles and public exorcisms - their images (some garish, some spare) pasted on top of one another. In places, the more recent additions have been torn and gouged away, revealing glimpses of events that have long since passed from view, but whose fragments are here patched with more modern entertainments, creating a sum far weirder than its parts. in others, an image has gathered echoes, and is now surrounded by bizarre puns and riffs upon itself.

Now there is no normal process except death which completely clears the brain from all past impressions; and after death, it is impossible to set it going again. Of all normal processes, sleep comes the nearest to a non-pathological clearing. How often we find that the best way to handle a complicated worry or an intellectual muddle is to sleep over it! However, sleep does not clear away the deeper memories, nor indeed is a sufficiently malignant state of worry compatible with an adequate sleep. We are thus often forced to resort to more violent types of intervention in the memory cycle. The more violent of these involve a surgical intervention into the brain, leaving behind it permanent damage, mutilation, and the abridgment of the powers of the victim, as the mammalian central nervous system seems to possess no powers whatever of regeneration. The principal type of surgical intervention which has been practiced is known as prefrontal lobotomy, and consists in the removal or isolation of a portion of the prefrontal lobe of the cortex. It has recently been having a certain vogue, probably not unconnected with the fact that it makes the custodial care of many patients easier. Let me remark in passing that killing them makes their custodial care still easier. However, prefrontal lobotomy does seem to have a genuine effect on malignant worry, not by bringing the patient nearer to a solution of his problems but by damaging or destroying the capacity for maintained worry, known in the terminology of another profession as the conscience. More generally, it appears to limit all aspects of the circulating memory, the ability to keep in mind a situation not actually presented. The various forms of shock treatment—electric, insulin, metrazol—are less drastic methods of doing a very similar thing. They do not destroy brain tissue or at least are not intended to destroy it, but they do have a decidedly damaging effect on the memory. In so far as this concerns the circulating memory, and in so far as this memory is chiefly damaged for the recent period of mental disorder, and is probably scarcely worth preserving anyhow, shock treatment has something definite to recommend it as against lobotomy; but it is not always free from deleterious effects on the permanent memory and the personality. As it stands at present, it is another violent, imperfectly understood, imperfectly controlled method to interrupt a mental vicious circle. This does not prevent its being in many cases the best thing we can do at present.

there, she pushes herself to her feet. Hoisting her school bag onto her shoulder, she walks across the stones to the boardwalk, waiting for a mother with a pushchair to pass by before crossing over it and heading for the gate in their wall. As she lets herself onto the patio, closing the gate behind her, she looks up. Through the fronds of the palm, she sees her mum as she has many times before. Standing in her studio, her brush to the painting in front of her. Kitty in a bouncy chair beside her. Megan studies her, wondering what it is that causes her mother to press the front of her forearm to her forehead. What she’s painted on that flat white surface. More sea, she presumes. More boring sky. It’s hard to see clearly, as the sunlight’s shining on the glass, but, as Megan watches, her mum stands back from the canvas, covering her face with the palms of both hands. As though unable to stand the sight of what’s in front of her. Megan turns away, not wanting to see. Apart from that time after Kitty was born, she’d always thought of her mum as strong. Now the vulnerability she’s shown recently scares her… leaves her wondering where that leaves her. What’s clear is she can never tell her mum what she’s done. Not unless she wants to make things worse. Alex will have to remain her secret. Her mum drops her hands, and Megan steps back into the shadows of the oleander, not wanting to be seen. As she waits for her mum to move away from the sliding doors, she sees that the fat buds in the leaves that hide her from view have produced their first flower. It’s something her mum would celebrate, seeing as how, every year in November, she and Sean have to drag it, in its giant pot, into the sunroom so the winter frosts don’t get it. She wonders whether she’s seen it, but, from the look of her mum now, it’s clearly the last thing on her mind.

It was not difficult for an intelligent physicist to understand what was behind his gazes. The longer we sit, the more he looks at my smallest detail, he keeps looking at my lips, my neck, and my shoulders, with a gaze full of passion. Shy but still a female, who will not fail to feel a man’s desires toward her which is one of her most important strengths that was inherited from her ancestors. She looks away, but still sees her surroundings with a wider panoramic view than a man does. her sensors pick up risks, feelings, and repressed desires, many times as much as he can. It is enough for her to stand in front of the wardrobe and without moving her head or her eyes, she sees all its contents, she finds what she wants in a second, while a man has to move his eyes, head, and probably most of his organs and all of his senses to find what he is looking for, and often fails. Thus, our mind has developed these physical abilities, over thousands of years, as needed. The man’s need was to focus on his arrow and his prey, and his foresight has evolved, it has become more focused, while the woman’s need is to protect the home and children from dangers, her panoramic view has evolved to see her surroundings more broadly than the man’s. So, our mind programmed itself, and in this way, it developed our abilities. What it does not need, it leaves or neglects until this thing withers and dies, but what it thinks is important or needed, it keeps, strengthens it. Necessity is the key to evolution. Even athletes are well aware of this: in the body-building halls, they gradually lift weights, to force their brains to feed and build muscles. And as long as they’re still in pain to lift a weight, their brains realize they need more muscle power, so they can handle that weight without danger, and the brain starts to protein the muscles, thereby strengthening them and increasing their size. If it didn’t find enough protein in the diet, it creates it. As the muscles became stronger, and the weight on the trainee became easier to carry, he increased it, and the brain began to strengthen the muscles more to handle the new weight. If the muscle ceases to gain weight, it freezes at enough force and size to carry the current weight. The principle of negligence and usage; what has a need remains, and what has no need perishes. But Mousa’ need recently while going to the bodybuilding gym is not to stimulate the mind to meet his muscular needs. Rather, his causes are more profound, dangerous, and insane… But whom of us would need this?

I witnessed a pathetic incident, which is yet as fresh and vivid in my memory as if it had happened only yesterday. Soon after our arrival I procured a pass for a few hours, and took a stroll through the city. While thus engaged I met two hospital attendants carrying on a stretcher a wounded Union soldier. They halted as I approached, and rested the stretcher on the sidewalk. An old man was with them, apparently about sixty years old, of small stature and slight frame, and wearing the garb of a civilian. I stopped, and had a brief conversation with one of the stretcher-bearers. He told me that the soldier had been wounded in one of the recent assaults by the Union troops on the defenses of Vicksburg, and, with others of our wounded, had just arrived at Memphis on a hospital boat. That the old gentleman present was the father of the wounded boy, and having learned at his home in some northern State of his son being wounded, had started to Vicksburg to care for him; that the boat on which he was journeying had rounded in at the Memphis wharf next to the above mentioned hospital boat, and that he happened to see his son in the act of being carried ashore, and thereupon at once went to him, and was going with him to a hospital in the city. But the boy was dying, and that was the cause of the halt made by the stretcher-bearers. The soldier was quite young, seemingly not more than eighteen years old. He had an orange, which his father had given him, tightly gripped in his right hand, which was lying across his breast. But, poor boy! it was manifest that that orange would never be tasted by him, as the glaze of death was then gathering on his eyes, and he was in a semi-unconscious condition. And the poor old father was fluttering around the stretcher, in an aimless, distracted manner, wanting to do something to help his boy—but the time had come when nothing could be done. While thus occupied I heard him say in a low, broken voice, "He is—the only boy—I have." This was on one of the principal streets of the city, and the sidewalks were thronged with people, soldiers and civilians, rushing to and fro on their various errands,—and what was happening at this stretcher excited no attention beyond careless, passing glances. A common soldier was dying,—that was all, nothing but "a leaf in the storm." But for some reason or other the incident impressed me most sadly and painfully. I didn't wait for the end, but hurried away,—tried to forget the scene, but couldn't.

I returned home the evening before Adelaide Modine’s body was found and I attended the autopsy. Call it gruesome curiosity. Now, I’m sorry, Mr. Parker, but I have nothing more to say and a great deal of work to do.” He led me to the door and pushed open the screen to let me out. “You don’t seem particularly anxious to help me find Catherine Demeter, Mr. Hyams.” He breathed in heavily. “Who suggested that you talk to me, Mr. Parker?” “Alvin Martin mentioned your name.” “Mr. Martin is a good, conscientious deputy and an asset to this town, but he is still a comparatively recent arrival,” said Hyams. “The reason why I am reluctant to talk is a matter of client confidentiality. Mr. Parker, I am the only lawyer in this town. At some point, nearly everyone who lives here, regardless of color, income, religious or political belief, has passed through the door of my office. That includes the parents of the children who died. I know a great deal about what happened here, Mr. Parker, more than I might wish to know and certainly much more than I plan to share with you. I’m sorry, but that’s the end of the matter.” “I see. One more thing, Mr. Hyams.” “Yes?” he asked, wearily. “Sheriff Granger lives on this road too, doesn’t he?” “Sheriff Granger lives next door, the house on the right here. This house has never been burgled, Mr. Parker, a fact that is surely not unconnected. Good night.” He stood at the screen door as I drove away. I cast a glance at the sheriff’s house as I passed but there were no lights within and there was no car in the yard. As I drove back to Haven, raindrops began to strike the windshield and by the time I reached the outskirts of the town it had turned into a harsh, ceaseless downpour. The lights of the motel appeared through the rain. I could see Rudy Fry standing at the door, staring out into the woods and the gathering darkness beyond. By the time I had parked, Fry had resumed his position behind the reception desk. “What do folks do around here for fun, apart from trying to run other folks out of town?” I asked. Fry grimaced as he tried to separate the sarcasm from the substance of the question. “There ain’t much to do around here outside of drinking at the Inn,” he replied,

Think of mind as pure awareness, like an empty sky. Through the mind travel our thoughts, images, body awareness, memories, urges, dreams, and more—always moving and transforming, like weather in the atmosphere. This “weather” is our state of mind at any given time. When we are in reasonable mind it is just another day, and we don’t even notice the weather. The mind is hyper-rational, focused on the facts and tasks at hand. When we are in emotion mind, emotions are in control and storms blow in. Rationality flies away like leaves in an autumn gale. Under the influence of very strong emotions, thoughts jump from the past to the future and back to the present, and emotions and urges feel as unstable as tornados. The weather of wise mind is peaceful, even if a storm has recently passed by. Emotions may be present, like clouds in a blue sky, but the weather is calm. We are aware both of the facts of a situation and of our feelings about it. The mind is quiet and the attention is focused in the moment. Most of the time a part of your attention is quietly observing everything you are doing, even your own state of mind. To identify your state of mind, tune in to yourself from that observing part of you. How do you feel in your body? What are your thoughts like? Is emotion present? Can you name it? Do you feel any urges? Do you feel a loud intensity; a cool, logical focus; or a quiet inner knowing? Being able to look at your mind this way will help you identify your state of mind

It’s no wonder that heavy social media users—any one of whose hundreds or thousands of friends or followers can reflexively pass judgment—disproportionaly suffer from anxiety, depression, and narcissism.25 It’s a bleak reality, and one that kids don’t necessarily even want. In a recent poll of thirteen- to thirty-year-olds, most reported feeling defined by their online social profiles, exhausted by always having to work at it, and yet utterly unable to look away.26

Perhaps someone very precious to you recently passed away. If this is the case, you can also be assured that death is not the end for a Christian. Because you belong to Jesus, you can look beyond the grave to a life that will continue forever. Jesus died on the cross so that you will one day have eternal life if you believe in Him.

The Gift of Imagination Imagination is the best way for your life to come up with new ideas. Let go of the creativity. When considering what you want to do or have in your life, there is no chance. Since you were young, what did you want to do? Or, recently, what did you hear others do that you wish you could do? Are you interested in taking an adventure or relaxation break, even if not this year? Even if it seems like your wishes will take a miracle to pass, write the answers on a sheet of paper. Write down all the ideas that come up on another piece of paper, asking you that you can't have or do those things. Get your system's negative thoughts. Now, write down how you can literally make them happen on the back of the first page that has your wish list. Which action will you take? Write them down even if they seem unrealistic. Write that on the other piece of paper that has your negative thoughts on it when a negative thought comes up. Burn or throw away the negative thoughts at the end of this exercise and read the wish list again. Keep it in your routine scheduler or bag. Just let it fly with you all day long. If you have more time and energy to work with it, take it out again and start taking the steps. But let it hang out with you until then as you go about your everyday life. Eventually something magical could happen. Taking the time to encourage your creativity to flow freely makes you open up to your fantasies about what you want and need in your life. Every one of us wants time to rest, enjoy, and satisfaction. Let your imagination convince you what your heart wants. Recognize it, write it down, and nurture it.