Refreshing Life Quotes

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring — these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.

Love is the greatest refreshment in life

Beloved, surrender wholeheartedly to Jesus Christ, who loves you. As you drink from the deep well of Scripture, the Lord will refresh you and cleanse you, mold you and re-create you through His Living Word. For the Bible is the very breath of God, giving life eternal to those who seek Him.

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered.

People, walking on the catwalk of indifference and evaporating in a bubble of apathy, may be unconscious of the decay of their emotions and the scattering of their attention that are crucial obstacles to refreshing their mental framework and to topping up the content of their life story. ( “Twilight of desire “ )

The urge to check Twitter or refresh Reddit becomes a nervous twitch that shatters uninterrupted time into shards too small to support the presence necessary for an intentional life.

Relax. Refresh. Renew. Play. Sing. Laugh. Enjoy. Forgive. Dance. Love. Hug. Share. Kiss. Create. Explore. Hope. Listen. Dare. Trust. Dream. Learn. TODAY!

It hurts to let go, to say goodbye for the final time and remain distant in your closure, it may even tear your heart out to the point of insanity; but somehow in it all you find the pieces of your worth and you start creating yourself again, and in that journey of transformation you find the essence of what truly matters, inner happiness. It's life, we all fall at some stage but it's up to you, to decide how long you want to stay there.

I laughed. It was just like Owen to make excuses for someone else’s shortcomings. Even fictional characters. Owen found my tendency to speak my mind “refreshingly honest,” and hailed Marc’s temper as “a deep protective instinct.” He said Ethan “thoroughly enjoyed life,” and that Parker “really knew how to have a good time.” According to Owen, we were all doing just fine, and all was right with the world.

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.

Isn’t it refreshing to know that what comes perfectly natural for you is your greatest strength? Your power is in your nature. You may not think it’s a big deal that you can spend hours immersed in something that interests you—alone—but the extrovert next door has no idea how you do it.

Truth lifts the heart, like water refreshes thirst.

A combination of fine tea, enchanting objects and soothing surroundings exerts a therapeutic effect by washing away the corrosive strains and stress of modern life. [... It] induces a mood that is spiritually refreshing [and produces] a genial state of mind.

I discovered Buddha did not set out to found a world religion. He set out to understand why one suffers. I learned that only through living life’s ups and downs can you develop empathy; that in order not to suffer, or at least not to suffer so much, one must become comfortable with impermanence.

Whatever happened to our dreams? The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. This is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Sincere compliments cost nothing and can accomplish so much. In ANY relationship, they are the applause that refreshes.

the First Insight is an awareness of the mysterious occurrences that change one’s life, the feeling that some other process is operating.

Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.

Everybody needs some time to rejuvenate, refresh, recharge and begin again. Seeing babies face is the best way to relax, refresh, rejuvenate and recharge.

There is nothing like calamity for refreshing the moment. Ironically, the last several years my life had begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down around my ankles.

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double; And that is life! A crust and a corner that love makes precious, With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter; And that is life!

I may stay here in this town another day or I may go on to another town. No one knows where I am. I am taking this bath in life, as you see, and when I have had enough of it I shall go home feeling refreshed.

If you could understand impermanence deeply, you would develop more equanimity. You would not get too excited about either the ups or downs of life. And only then would you be ready to develop that deeper sense of empathy and compassion for everything around you.

Success can cause people to unlearn the habits that made them successful in the first place

When you find yourself thinking about someone or something in the same old negative way, just stop yourself. Think. Check. Change. Refresh. Job done. Smile. Move on. Do this enough times and you will change. For the better; for the stronger.

Life consists with Wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest trees.

Relax and refuse to let worry and stress rule your life. There is always a solution to every problem. Things will work out for you when you take time to relax, refresh, restore and recharge your soul.

If you could understand impermanence deeply, you would develop more equanimity. You would not get too excited about either the ups and downs of life.

So," Nate attempted conversation for the third time. He seemed to be in a better mood lately. "Do you guys maybe want to talk about how every uncomfortable this is?" He smiled tightly, looking first at Tristan, then at Scarlet. "Because I don't know about you, but I feel awkward. Let's hash it out, shall we? Tristan," Nate said brightly. "We'll start with you. How are you feeling?" "Annoyed." "I like your honesty and openness." Nate turned to Scarlet. "What about you? How are you feeling?" "Tired," she said. "Nine in the morning is too early for needles." Tristan said, "Maybe if you hadn't stayed out so late, you wouldn't be so tired." Scarlet said, "Look who's decided to speak again. Suddenly the silent and dark Tristan has an opinion on my life." "Oh, I have many opinions." "See?" Nate said, his smile tighter than before. "Isn't all this openness refreshing?

Be real, rare, refreshing you! Fan the flames of self love and ignite your light!

Never judge yourself so harshly that you never arise from the ashes of life.

Love is always fresh as morning dew.

He’d come into my life like a storm. A storm I didn’t want, one I’d prepared all my life to hate, to fight. But it brought with it refreshing rain. It cleared the skies and brought out only warmth. Zaal was saving me, liberating me from loneliness.

Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun!

To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose. To get rid of what you no longer need is neither wasteful nor shameful. Can you truthfully say that you treasure something buried so deeply in a closet or drawer that you have forgotten its existence? If things had feelings, they would certainly not be happy. Free them from the prison to which you have relegated them. Help them leave that deserted isle to which you have exiled them. Let them go, with gratitude. Not only you, but your things as well, will feel clear and refreshed when you are done tidying.

It is dangerous for a man to try teaching before he is trained in the good life. A man whose house is about to fall down may invite travellers inside to refresh them, but instead they will be hurt in the collapse of the house. It is the same with teachers who have not carefully trained themselves in the good life; they destroy their hearers as well as themselves. Their mouth invites to salvation, their way of life leads to ruin.

But coming out of that sleep was excruciating. My entire life flashed before my eyes in the worst way possible, my mind refilling itself with all my lame memories, every little thing that had brought me to where I was. I'd try to remember something else—a better version, a happy story, maybe, or just an equally lame but different life that would at least be refreshing in its digressions—but it never worked. I was always still me. Sometimes I woke up with my face wet with tears. The only times I cried, in fact, were when I was pulled out of that nothingness, when the alarm on my cell phone went off.

The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. We are intermittent creatures, always falling to little ends and rising to new beginnings. Our soon-tired consciousness is meted out in chapters, and that the world will look quite different tomorrow is, both for our comfort and our discomfort, usually true. How marvelously too night matches sleep, sweet image of it, so nearly apportioned to our need. Angels must wonder at these beings who fall so regularly out of awareness into a fantasm-infested dark. How our frail identities survive these chasms no philosopher has ever been able to explain.

Why couldn't two unhappy people refresh each other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little talk,—real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked, what they still tried to hope?

Recreation", which is to say: a refreshing exercise of the organism, because it was in immediate danger of overindulging itself in the uninterrupted monotony of daily life and growing indifferent.

And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly. I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent. Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her! I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing. One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I! Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-cost with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

So long as you enjoy it, do it mindfully and well, and have an honest purpose behind it, life won’t fail you.

...travel is ultimately about creating a contrast with everyday life, thereby refreshing your mind and making time seem more spacious.

With all its many risks, this life endures No more than windblown bubbles in a stream. How marvelous to breathe in and out again, To fall asleep and then awake refreshed.

Solomon, who was one of the Deity's favorites, had a copulation cabinet composed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. To save his life he could not have kept two of these young creatures satisfactorily refreshed, even if he had fifteen experts to help him. Necessarily almost the entire thousand had to go hungry for years and years on a stretch. Conceive of a man hardhearted enough to look daily upon all that suffering and not be moved to mitigate it.

Beauty means this to one person, perhaps, and that to another. And yet when any one of us has seen or heard or read that which to him is beautiful, he has known an emotion which is in every case the same in kind, if not in degree; an emotion precious and uplifting. A choirboy's voice, a ship in sail, an opening flower, a town at night, the song of the blackbird, a lovely poem, leaf shadows, a child's grace, the starry skies, a cathedral, apple trees in spring, a thorough-bred horse, sheep-bells on a hill, a rippling stream, a butterfly, the crescent moon -- the thousand sights or sounds or words that evoke in us the thought of beauty -- these are the drops of rain that keep the human spirit from death by drought. They are a stealing and a silent refreshment that we perhaps do not think about but which goes on all the time....It would surprise any of us if we realized how much store we unconsciously set by beauty, and how little savour there would be left in life if it were withdrawn. It is the smile on the earth's face, open to all, and needs but the eyes to see, the mood to understand.

The revelation that we have everything we need in life to make us happy but simply lack the conscious awareness to appreciate it can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot afternoon. Or it can be as startling as cold water being thrown in our face. How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance?

The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. It is, on the whole, a merciful arrangement. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves.

To give children the words they need is to give them life, growth and refreshment

Mapenzi ni kiburudisho kikubwa kuliko vyote katika maisha.

Be in touch with what is wondrous, refreshing, and healing, both inside and around yourself.

Gracious words refresh, restore and revive the soul.

It’s time to stop allowing people to blame the woman for everything. As women, we try to figure out what they need, what they want; and the entire time we’re stressing ourselves out and they don’t give a shit as long as it’s done. Hell, no. Timeout for that too! We do not give a rat’s ass anymore—they are quick to blame us for their mess-ups and think we are supposed to make magic happen. It is time to let them deal with it and figure out how they are going to mend their shit. If they want to blame us, let them, who cares? Their shit isn’t our problem. Go ahead, blame the women. We are holding up the peace sign, smiling and laughing, feeling good as we press forward! ​We are free and feel refreshed. It feels good to be the last ones standing. We look at life totally differently, and we now see that it’s okay to be a little rough around the edges.

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay." And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Everything is at its best when it's doing exactly what it was created for. A lamp gives light. An apple gives sustenance and refreshment. A chair is perfect in being exactly what it is--a chair.

Du, Erde, warst auch diese Nacht beständig Und atmest neu erquickt zu meinen Füßert, Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben, Du regst und rührst ein kräftiges Beschließen, Zum höchsten Dasein immerfort zu streben. This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken, And now thou breathest new-refreshed before me, And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting, A vigorous resolution to restore me, To seek that highest life for which I'm panting.

I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered.

Tell yourself, I know why I am here. I know why I am alive. Be honest with yourself and be open to how you want your life to feel. Feeling new, refreshed and learning how to love again. You deserve to smile. All the pain was wearing you down. The battles left you shattered and broken. There were times you were stumbling, but you didn’t fall. Each tear you cried brought you to this moment. Your scars gave you strength to heal, and they taught you how to love and appreciate yourself. You rose above it all!

The Bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that we the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed everyday". Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minuitae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God.

Redd stared at the bald head bent down before her. How refreshing Vollrath's sacrifice was. He didn't beg for his life. He didn't embarrasss himself with groveling or sniveling, or appeals to her nomexistent mercy. Thinking that he might still be helpful in finding her Looking Glass Maze, she said, "I'm feeling generous today. You get to live.

If Daddy was a color, he would be a forest green—thick, lush, calm, whispering refreshing wisdom only few could hear. If Michael was a color, he would be bark brown—cocoa, mocha, chocolate, the color of earth. Quiet, supportive, but strong. A softness that love grows from. Together, they are the tree I lean on when I’m weary. The tree I swing from. The tree of life when surrounded by death.

Alone you're refinding a glittering, a clarity, you're finding your distilled self. ...You think of the two types of aloneness you've known recently: this wonderful, sparkly, soul-refreshing type, and the despairing loneliness that sucks the breath from your life.

The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

The life you live will be enrich with every journey you made.

Encouragement is a fire of flame. It refreshes the soul and revives the spirit.

There is no refreshment more gratifying to the soul than the sight of Nature in her summer finery, before the heat is at its most intense. She is soothing, but not soporific; intoxicating without inebriation.

And what after all, is death?? 'Tis but a cessation from mortal life; 'tis but the finishing of an appointed course; the refreshing inn after a fatiguing journey; the end of a life of cares and troubles; and, if happy, the beginning of a life of immortal happiness.

Redd stared at the bald head bent down before her. How refreshing Vollrath's sacrifice was. He didn't beg for his life. He didn't embarrasss himself with groveling or sniveling, or appeals to her nomexistent mercy.

Ah, guilt and sorrow had dogged Juan's footsteps too, for he was not a Catholic who could rise refreshed from the cold bath of confession. Yet the banality stood: that the past was irrevocably past. And conscience had been given man to regret it only in so far as that might change the future. For man, every man, Juan seemed to be telling him, even as Mexico, must ceaselessly struggle upward. What was life but a warfare and a stranger's sojourn?

It is untrue that fiction is nonutilitarian. The uses of fiction are synonymous with the uses of literature. They include refreshment, clarification of life, self-awareness, expansion of our range of experiences, and enlargement of our sense of understanding and discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty , and understanding. Like literature generally, fiction is a form of discovery, perception, intensification, expression, beauty, and understanding. If it is all these things, the question of whether it is a legitimate use of time should not even arise.

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.

The sea refreshes our imagination because it does not make us think of human life; yet it rejoices the soul, because, like the soul, it is an infinite and impotent striving, a strength that is ceaselessly broken by falls, an eternal and exquisite lament. The sea thus enchants us like music, which, unlike language, never bears the traces of things, never tells us anything about human beings, but imitates the stirrings of the soul. Sweeping up with the waves of those movements, plunging back with them, the heart thus forgets its own failures and finds solace in an intimate harmony between its own sadness and the sea’s sadness, which merges the sea’s destiny with the destinies of all things.

Ideas and philosophies have a shelf-life. They must be kept fresh and renewed or they will spoil. If left unattended, the same ideas and philosophies that once nourished you and helped you grow can poison you and make you sick. Become aware of new ideas that can refresh your way of life and be open to the fact that your old ideas and philosophies can work for you for some time, but when the shelf-life has passed, those ideas and philosophies could also harm you.

I wake up most mornings feeling refreshed and well rested, with an excitement about the day. And as long as you can say that, I think you’re doing OK.

There is more than just grandeur in this view of life, bleak and cold though it can seem from under the security blanket of ignorance. There is deep refreshment to be had from standing up and facing straight into the strong keen wind of understanding: Yeats’s ‘Winds that blow through the starry ways’.

Be alone. That’s when and where you will refresh. Be a stranger someplace for some odd amount of time. Introduce you to you. Try on new thoughts like sneakers. Walk up and back. How’s the toe feel? Recharge and welcome the new year like you’d welcome a happy puppy returning a stick. Tail wagging, tongue out. Then mix in with those who unbecame to become their best selves, too.

I got an abortion and learned how to make dehydrated tuna flakes and turkey jerky and took a refresher course on basic first aid and practiced using my water purifier in my kitchen sink. I had to change. I had to change was the thought that drove me in those months of planning. Not into a different person, but back to the person I used to be -- strong and responsible, clear-eyed and driven, ethical and good. And the PCT would make me that way. There, I'd walk and think about my entire life. I'd find my strength again, far from everything that had made my life ridiculous.

the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

They can’t slow down because they use their routine to distract themselves, to reduce life to only its practical considerations. And they do this to avoid recalling how uncertain they are about why they live.

Authenticity is the sine qua non of everything that matters. When you encounter someone unguarded, without artifice or pretense--Mon Dieu!--you know it. I compare it to being at the top of the mountain: the air is clearer, there's nothing to muddy the senses. It's bracingly refreshing.

In any family, the child must first receive energy from the adults in his life. Usually, identifying with and integrating the energy of the same-sexed parent is accomplished easily, but receiving energy from the other parent can be more difficult because of the differences in the sexes.

The more aware of our feelings, the more competent we are likely to be in restraining them when necessary, and the more easily will we loosen such restraint when circumstances no longer seem to require it. Also in this way we will not need to use up any more energy than necessary. The release of pent-up feelings almost always seems to be refreshing and energizing, so long as they do not explode into destructive conduct which we later have good reason to regret.

Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they were not only perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The colour floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole wesr blushed and glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom. Could I but see the spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content. Content! -Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! Yea, I would cease to be, if that would bring me one word of love from the one mouth. The twilight sand around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not slept for months. I did not awake till late in the morning; when, refreshed in body and mind I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, and then dies itself in the new morrow.

By disconnecting from the ever-whirling devices, we reconnect with ourselves. I don’t mean in some heavy, existential, angsty kind of way. I mean reconnecting with ourselves to reconnect with our delights, our memories, our dreams and plans, and our very experience of the present moment in a natural and satisfying way. It provides a refreshing and destressing dip into the fresh lake of life. It also means reconnecting with the people around us, our loved ones, family, and friends.

The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten, but that we are all doomed to being forgotten—that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts, nothing matters. It means that everything we experience unfolds without a pattern, and life is just a wild, random, baffling occurrence, a scattering of notes with no melody. But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know that you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose—a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, so we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string. Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory. In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived. It is something that no one else can entirely share, one that burns down and disappears when we die. But if you can take something from that internal collection and share it—with one person or with the larger world, on the page or in a story recited—it takes on a life of its own.

That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.

Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away.

She looked surprised. “You remember.” “Of course.” Blake couldn’t forget the way Farrah’s eyes lit up when she talked about the competition. She was studying interior design because she loved it, not because everyone said she should. Her passion was refreshing…and depressing. Blake had never felt that way about football or anything else in his life, really.

Something people don’t think much about when they write a soldier in a war zone is how much diversion can refresh the soul.

Relax and be refreshed.

Spring time is a refreshing time.

Great Goddess, Great God, I come before you at the end of another day and thank you for the many blessings in my life. For friends and family and pets, for home and health and good food. I thank you for (the names of whichever people crossed my path that day in meaningful ways) and for (whatever good things happened or whichever not-so-great things they helped me survive.). Please help me to get a good night's sleep so I might wake in the morning refreshed and energized and ready to face another day. Watch over me and those I love. So mote it be.

A rainy day comes as a relief. Rain is your pass to stay inside, to retreat. It's cozy and safe, hanging out on this side of the gray. But then the sun comes out in the afternoon, and there's disappointment, even fear, because the world will now resume, and it expects your participation. People will get dressed and leave their houses and go places and do things. Stepping out into the big, whirling, jarringly sunny world--a world that just a few minutes ago was so confined and still and soft and understated, and refreshingly gloomy--seems overwhelming.

When you fully integrate this view of your life, you will have achieved what the Manuscript calls a clear awareness of your spiritual path. According to the Manuscript we all must spend as much time as necessary going through this process of clearing our past. Most of us have a control drama we have to transcend but once we do, we can comprehend the higher meaning for why we were born to our particular parents, and what all the twists and turns of our lives were preparing us to do. We all have a spiritual purpose, a mission, that we have been pursuing without being fully aware of it, and once we bring it completely into consciousness, our lives can take off.

The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten but that we are all doomed to being forgotten; that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts nothing matters. Everything we experience unfolds without a pattern, and life is just a baffling occurrence, a scattering of notes with no melody. But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know that you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose—a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, so we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string. Writing a book is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory.

Every religion is eventually corrupted by its fallible clergy and the slow, inevitable drift toward hollow ritual and empty ceremony… That’s why religion needs refreshing every millennium or so.

if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know that you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose—a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, so we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string.

Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

Fuck, she was on fire. I understand it was anger, but it was sexy as hell. The way she barged into my house. The fact that she came prepared to shoot me had me hard as a rock. I wanted to rip off her clothes, pin her down on the floor, and fuck her ass while she held the gun to my face. It’s an adrenaline rush that I haven’t experienced in a long time. For someone who has a cunt, she’s got balls. I like it. It’s refreshing. She’s exactly what I’ve been looking for in my repetitive life. Giving me something to do.

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter...to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird’s nest or a wildflower in spring— these are some of the rewards of the simple life. The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it.

The refreshing serenity of mountains, streams and more forests in Pennsylvania gave way to small communities and the more thickly-settled towns of New Jersey. And finally, New York City. It took us six days to get there, and as I crossed the George Washington Bridge I remember thinking how amazing this was. I was back in New York. A city that takes no crap. I was back amongst Carefree Scamps who I could trust with my life

People are always telling us what they think we want to hear. Raw honesty is a refreshing change, isn't it?" "Refreshing for you, perhaps," Phoebe said with a reluctant smile. "Well, you'll certainly get that from Pandora. She's incapable of being awed by anyone." "It's one of the reasons I love her," her brother admitted. "I also love her wit, her zest for life, and the fact that she needs me to keep her from walking in circles.

Once you become conscious of the questions active in the moment, you always get some kind of intuitive direction of what to do, of where to go. You get a hunch about the next step. Always. The only time this will not occur is when you have the wrong question in mind. You see, the problem in life isn’t in receiving answers. The problem is in identifying your current questions. Once you get the questions right, the answers always come.

It was a terrible refreshment, his plain way, the simple words, the absence of strategy. It made you realize how much of your life you spent not being like that. It made you realize what a waste not being like that was.

Let your rest be perfect in its season, like the rest of waters that are still. If you will have a model or your living, take neither the stars, for they fly without ceasing, nor the ocean that ebbs and flows, nor the river that cannot stay, but rather let your life be like that of the summer air, which has times of noble energy and times of perfect peace. It fills the sails of ships upon the sea, and the miller thanks it on the breezy uplands; it works generously for the health and wealth of all men, yet it claims it hours of rest.. “I have pushed the fleet, I have turned the mill, I have refreshed the city, and now though the captain may walk impatiently on the quarter-deck, and the miller swear, and the city stink, I will stir no more until it pleases me.

Childhood went by enjoying 'Merry Go Round'.. but this life's 'Go Round' is not Merrier at all.. the path of life is taking me back to the same point.. again n again.. just to refresh my wounds.. n give me new pain n ache.. !!!

A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, And never a laugh but the moans come double; And that is life! A crust and a corner that love makes precious, With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter; And that is life!

Sure, things die. Yet hard on the heels of every death there comes a birth. And if the life around me is being perpetually refreshed in such a relentless manner, why would I think that the life within me can’t have the same experience.

It is fair to say that those who make Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and other giants of philosophy their daily companions will be more fully engaged in a rewarding life. None of these friends will be too busy to welcome you inside their home, none will fail to leave his caller feeling refreshed after an appointment. Any man can spend time with them day or night.

The pull of fascist politics is powerful. It simplifies human existence, gives us an object, a “them” whose supposed laziness highlights our own virtue and discipline, encourages us to identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the world, whose bluntness regarding the “undeserving” people in the world is refreshing. If democracy looks like a successful business, if the CEO is tough-talking and cares little for democratic institutions, even denigrates them, so much the better. Fascist politics preys on the human frailty that makes our own suffering seem bearable if we know that those we look down upon are being made to suffer more. Navigating the tensions created by living in a state with a democratic sphere of governance, a nondemocratic hierarchical economic sphere, and a rich, complex civil society replete with organizations, associations, and community groups adhering to multiple visions of a good life can be frustrating. Democratic citizenship requires a degree of empathy, insight, and kindness that demands a great deal of all of us. There are easier ways to live.

The sea refreshes our imagination because it does not make us think of human life; yet it rejoices the soul, because, like the soul, it is an infinite and impotent striving, a strength that is ceaselessly broken by falls, an eternal and exquisite lament.

The house was an immense place, isolated in a great wooded area. The building and the trees seemed wet, glistening dimly in the grey morning light that was much like the light of midday of Anthea. It was refreshing to his over-sensitive eyes. He liked the woods, the quiet sense of life in them, and the glistening moisture - the sense of water and of fruitfulness that this earth overflowed with, even down to the continual trilling and chirping sounds of the insects. It would be an endless source of delight compared to his own world, with the dryness, the emptiness, the soundlessness of the broad, empty deserts between the almost deserted cities where the only sound was the whining of the cold and endless wind that voiced the agony of his own, dying people.....

How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are! [...] When we are weary with travel, we lay down our load and rest by the wayside. So, when we are weary with the burden of life, why do we not lay down this load of falsehoods which we have volunteered to sustain, and be refreshed as never mortal was? Let the beautiful laws prevail. Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of the earth. So, when we would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. Let things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar of fall.

I have sat through entire conferences on adolescent human behavior without ever hearing the words power and sex, even though to me they are what teen life is all about. When I bring it up, usually everyone nods and thinks it’s marvelously refreshing how a primatologist looks at the world, then continue on their merry way focusing on self-esteem, body image, emotion regulation, risk-taking, and so on. Given a choice between manifest human behavior and trendy psychological constructs, the social sciences always favor the latter. Yet among teens, there is nothing more obvious than the exploration of sex, the testing of power, and the seeking of structure.

Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted For my sake the fruit forbidden? Must your light like mine be hidden, Your young life like mine be wasted, Undone in mine undoing, And ruined in my ruin, Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?'— She clung about her sister, Kissed and kissed and kissed her: Tears once again Refreshed her shrunken eyes, Dropping like rain After long sultry drouth; Shaking with aguish fear, and pain, She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth. Her lips began to scorch, That juice was wormwood to her tongue, She loathed the feast: Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung, Rent all her robe, and wrung Her hands in lamentable haste...

And after a refreshing sleep filled with cobwebby dreams of my past life in the East I got up, washed in the station men’s room, and strode off, fit and slick as a fiddle, and got me a rich thick milkshake at the roadhouse to put some freeze in my hot, tormented stomach.

Ah! This is retribution for Promethean fire! Besides being patient, you must also love this sadness and respect your doubts and questions. They are an abundant excess, a luxury of life, and they appear more at the summits of happiness, when you have no crude desires. They are not born in the midst of mundanity. They have no place where there is grief and want. The masses go along without knowing the fog of doubts or the anguish of questions. But for anyone who has encountered them at the right time they are dear visitors, not a hammer.' 'But there's no coping with them. They bring anguish and indifference to nearly everything.' she added indecisively. 'But for how long? Afterward they refresh life,' he said. 'They lead to an abyss from which nothing can be gained, and they force you to look again at life, with even greater love. They summon up your tested powers to struggle with it, as if expressly to let them sleep afterward.' 'This fog and these specters torment me!' she complained. 'Everything is bright and all of a sudden a sinister shadow is cast over life! Are there no means against this?' 'What do you mean? Your buttress is in life! Without it, life is sickening, even without any questions!' p. 508

Now the photos serve as a reminder she says, to her, but mostly to her clients. “You should allow yourself more than a nail appointment. You should indulge in things that refresh your spirit, or make you laugh, or make you feel something.” She sighs. “People deserve indulgences.

It is a source of refreshment, laughter, joy and life—and of more power. Remove power and you cut off life, the possibility of creating something new and better in this rich and recalcitrant world. Life is power. Power is life. And flourishing power leads to flourishing life. Of course, like life itself, power is nothing—worse than nothing—without love. But love without power is less than it was meant to be. Love without the capacity to make something of the world, without the ability to respond to and make room for the beloved’s flourishing, is frustrated love. This is why the love that is the heartbeat of the Christian story—the Father’s love for the Son and, through the Son, for the world—is not simply a sentimental feeling or a distant, ethereal theological truth, but has been signed and sealed by the most audacious act of true power in the history of the world, the resurrection of the Son from the dead. Power at its best is resurrection to full life, to full humanity. Whenever human beings become what they were meant to be, when even death cannot finally hold its prisoners, then we can truly speak of power.

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air, and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter… to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life.

Try this receipt, O believer, whenever thou art sad of heart and in heaviness of spirit: forget thyself and thy little concerns, and seek the welfare and prosperity of Zion. When thou bendest thy knee in prayer to God, limit not thy petition to the narrow circle of thine own life, tried though it be, but send out thy longing prayers for the church's prosperity, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," and thine own soul shall be refreshed.

Happy the soul to whom it is given to attain this life with Christ, to cleave with all one’s heart to him whose beauty all the heavenly hosts behold forever, whose love inflames our love, the contemplation of whom is our refreshment, whose graciousness is our delight, whose gentleness fills us to overflowing, whose remembrance makes us glow with happiness, whose fragrance revives the dead, the glorious vision of whom will be the happiness of all the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. For he is the brightness of eternal glory, the splendour of eternal light, the mirror without spot.

Broken tree branches Scattered flowers Bent street light poles Cut electricity lines Dead birds But the weather is beautiful, and the breeze is refreshing… My heart is full of an after-storm peace and tranquility… The real tranquility is the one that follows not precedes the storm… (July 1, 2015)

Food and cooking are among the richest subjects in the world. Every day of our lives, they preoccupy, delight, and refresh us. Food is not just some fuel we need to get us going toward higher things. Cooking is not a drudgery we put up with in order to get the fuel delivered. Rather, each is a heart’s astonishment. Both stop us dead in our tracks with wonder. Even more, they sit us down evening after evening, and in the company that forms around

When I first took this job at the factory it was not my intention to work there very long, for I once possessed higher hopes for my life, although the exact nature of these hopes remained rather vague in my youthful mind. While the work was not arduous, and my fellow workers congenial enough, I did not imagine myself standing forever at my designated assembly block, fitting together pieces of metal into other pieces of metal, with a few interruptions throughout that day for breaks that were supposed to refresh our minds from the tedium of our work or for meal breaks to allow us to nourish our bodies. Somehow it never occurred to me that the nearby town where I and the others at the factory lived, travelling to and from our jobs along the same fog-strewn road, held no higher opportunities for me or anyone else, which no doubt accounts for the vagueness, the wispy insubstantiality, of my youthful hopes.

Although only seven, she’d been reading since she was three, a fact her mother told anyone who would listen. Sarah was a voracious reader, and she’d found friends hiding between the pages of books. For her, the trips to the library meant more than the refreshing burst of air-conditioning. They were life.

In the midst of the complexities of modern life, with all its pressures, the spirit of man needs to refresh itself by communion with unspoiled nature. In such surroundings- occasional as our visits may be- we can achieve that kind of physical and spiritual renewal that comes alone from the wonder of the natural world.

There are no good or evil people. There is only a great, unfathomable mob trampling itself underfoot. The life-giving sources of the old morality have dried up and vanished in the sands of oblivion. There's no other source to draw from, no place to refresh oneself. There is no example, no inspiration. It is night. A night of indifference, apathy, chaos.

you can choose to reset and refresh your energy and start from a neutral place at the center of the graph.

Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

Music is the only medicine I know of in which overdose is allowed. Its one sound has the power to mend millions of souls and refresh the hopeless at the same time.

In this interpretive tradition, Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity. Such solidarity is imaginable and capable of performance only when the drivenness of acquisitiveness is broken. Sabbath is not simply the pause that refreshes. It is the pause that transforms. Whereas Israelites are always tempted to acquisitiveness, Sabbath is an invitation to receptivity, and acknowledgement that what is needed is given and need not be seized.

I sit down by the river. Its incessant flow has polished the rocks carried from the top of the mountain. The aqueous caress, that has unrolled for millions of years the liquid ribbon from the summits towards the plains, keeps the freshness of the youth. The July sun heats the trees on the shore, while the stream of water refreshes the air; Two breaths which mingle without opposing one another. The foliage softly sways under the summer breeze, tuning its movement to that of the fiery wave. Won by a palpable peace, thank you Mother Nature, I dive into my book. A time later, which seems infinite to me, the sky becomes darker, I raise my head. How many hours have passed during which, indifferent to the human time, the cascading water has descended from the mountain? How much water has passed in front of me? How many beings have quenched their thirst there, and get their lives out from it? How long after my small passage on Earth will have been forgotten, the river will continue to flow, to carry its rocks, to erode the mountain until it becomes a plain, to spread life like a vein of the Earth ?

At what point, 2,000 years on from the life of Jesus, do we need a refresher course? Another 2,000 years? Imagine 100,000 years’ time – would the story of Moses’ burning bush amaze a generation laden with unimaginable scientific and technological wonders? Here lies religion’s biggest quandary. While science is squeezing the life out of God, how is religion going to muster a counterattack from here?

Spring was at hand. " I believe I might recover," I thought, "if I could get out of this shell into the light of day, into the fields and woods." It was so long since I had seen them. I remember, too, it came into my mind how nice it would be if by some magic, some enchantment, I could forget everything that had happened in the last few years; forget everything, refresh my mind, and begin again with new energy. In those days, I still dreamed of that and hoped for a renewal of life. "Better go into an asylum," I thought, "to get one's brain turned upside down and rearranged anew, and then be cured again.

A "successful" life has become a violent enterprise. We make war on our own bodies, pushing them beyond their limits; war on our children, because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they are hurt and afraid and need our company; war on our spirit, because we are too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us; war on our communities, because we are fearfully protecting what we have, and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous; war on the earth, because we cannot take the time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us, to taste its blessings and give thanks.

The natural quality of mind is clear, awake, alert, and knowing. Free from fixation. By training in being present, we come to know the nature of our mind. So the more you train in being present - being right here - the more you begin to feel like your mind is sharpening up. The mind that can come back to the present is clearer and more refreshed, and it can better weather all the ambiguities, pains, and paradoxes of life.

I am a soup lover. To me soup may be the greatest culinary invention. It can be made with two ingredients or two hundred twenty-two ingredients. It can be served hot or cold. It can be cooked fast or slow. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It can be vegetarian, vegan, paleo, pescatarian, or carnivorian. It can be simple or complex. It comforts, it soothes, it refreshes, and it restores. Soup is life in a pot.

At the time, death seemed as though it would be something refreshing, like slipping on that clean new uniform. If life was the summer that had just gone by, if life was a body sullied with sweat and bloody pus, clotted seconds that refused to pass, if life was a mouthful of sour bean sprouts that only served to intensify the hunger pangs, then perhaps death would be like a clean brushstroke, erasing all such things in a single sweep.

It is pure love when you ask God neither for release from punishment nor for increase of reward, nor even for the sweetness of his love in this life – unless it happens that you desire the sweetness at a particular time, to refresh your spiritual powers so that they do not fail on the way – but when you ask God for nothing but himself. And you have neither care nor concern whether you will be in pain or in bliss, so long as you have him whom you love. This is pure love.

Social media is a frequent “unwinding” activity for many. Yet it’s not actually that restful. Social media’s passivity is different from leisure, which has a tendency to refresh us by helping us to stop focusing so much on ourselves and our own mental state and instead pay attention to something pleasant outside us. This partially explains why an hour of scrolling Instagram or Facebook feels oddly tiring. What keeps us locked in for that amount of time is often aimlessness.

Americans unhappy with the reflexively polarized politics of the first decades of the twenty-first century will find the presidency of George H. W. Bush refreshing, even quaint. He embraced compromise as a necessary element of public life, engaged his political foes in the passage of important legislation, and was willing to break with the base of his own party in order to do what he thought was right, whatever the price. Quaint, yes: But it happened, in America, only a quarter of a century ago.

Someone once elaborated on each line of the well-known and much-loved Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shepherd — that’s relationship! I shall not be in want — that’s supply! He makes me lie down in green pastures — that’s rest! He leads me beside quiet waters — that’s refreshment! He restores my soul — that’s healing! He guides me in the paths of righteousness — that’s guidance! For His name’s sake — that’s purpose! Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death —that’s testing! I will fear no evil — that’s protection! For you are with me — that’s faithfulness! Your rod and the staff, they comfort me — that’s discipline! You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies —that’s hope! You anoint my head with oil — that’s consecration! My cup overflows — that’s abundance! Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life —that’s blessing! And I will dwell in the house of the Lord — that’s security! Forever — that’s eternity! AUTHOR OF ELABORATED MATERIAL UNKNOWN

That’s a much better kiss than the one you gave her when you won the shooting match!” “And a much better proposal of marriage than the one you gave her yesterday morning!” Minerva chimed in. “Leave him be!” Celia chided as Jackson went red about the ears. “He saved my life twice, figured out who killed Mama and Papa, and taught Gran some humility. We can’t all be good at everything, you know.” Amid the laughter, he kissed her again, but her family didn’t let that go on for long. It was cold outside, after all. Gran herded them inside to the great hall, where the servants had brought out refreshments. There, everyone had to take turns congratulating them and clamoring for all the usual details of how it had started and when it had become true love.

The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite. The bright, busy surface of life—that is the key. How easily it distracts us, like a magician who waves a wand with one hand while, with the other, he plucks a rabbit from his vest. Here is the golden morning, we say; here is the beautiful sea. Here is my beautiful home, my adoring wife, my morning cup of coffee, and my refreshing daybreak swim. We look no deeper into things because we do not desire this; neither are we meant to. That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another. I ask again: Did I know? Of course I did. Of course I fucking knew.

Whenever thoughts arise, just observe them as thoughts and label them “thinking.” What usually happens when we have thoughts is that we absorb ourselves and cease to be aware that we are thinking at all. One should try not to suppress thoughts in meditation, but just try to see their transitory nature, their translucent nature. We do not become involved in them or reject them, but simply acknowledge them and then come back to the awareness of breathing. There should be no deliberate effort to control and no attempt to be peaceful. Our thoughts simply cease to be the VIPS in our lives. On the other hand, there is no implication that by sitting and meditating, coming back to the breath, we have found a way to avoid problems, an escape from one point to another. Meditation is not a quick cure or cover-up for the complicated or embarrassing aspects of ourselves. It is a way of life. It is extremely important to persist in our practice without second-guessing ourselves through disappointments, elations, or whatever. We might actually begin to see the world we carry with us in a more open, refreshing way. Meditation is very much a matter of exercise, a working practice. It is not a matter of going into some imaginary depth, but of widening and expanding outward.

After the mountains, I found that when my blood sugar levels were between 140 and 180, I was strong during my pulls--and felt refreshed and ready to go for the next ones. Same with Joe. This was a vital piece of information for all eight of us and we immediately spread the word among our teammates. Working out the diabetes strategy was as important as our race strategy. Bike-racing teams ahve to worry about a lot of things; Team Type 1 has to worry about all those same things plus a potentially life-threatening disease.

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic, features, the sea-cost with its wrecks, the wilderness…the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

There is redemption in sadness. It tells me that for nearly five months in 2003, I lived life with the open, raw, refreshing outlook of the young. The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone -- it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe it happened. I just quit -- and I was on a monumental trip. I didn't suffer financial ruin, my wife didn't leave me, the world didn't stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed as a whim my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm.

The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper.

Since true life and sustenance are found in the presence of God, we must regularly drink deeply from the river of his delights. In our weariness, though, we often seek life from entertainment, empty friendships and ceaseless activity, which all fail to bring life. So many of our “recreational” activities fail to re-create the inner resources of our soul to face the challenges of each day. Like the Israelites before us, we forsake the river of God’s presence and hew out empty cisterns that do not hold water to satisfy our thirsts (Jer 2:13). Will we satisfy our soul at the fountain of living waters? Or will we hew out cisterns of putrid water that do not satisfy? The rivers of life flowing from the presence of God in Eden beckon us to the satisfaction and re-creation of these refreshing waters that are only found in the presence of God. We sacrifice for what satisfies. The soul-satisfying riches in the presence of God propel us out of our comfort zones, calling us out of the warm confines of our beds to our knees in early-morning prayer and meditation on God’s Word. Only these soul-satisfying riches can sustain us in the rigors of God’s calling on our lives as we move out to proclaim his name to the nations across the street and across the globe. A heart for mission grows out of a soul that finds satisfaction in God’s presence, the riches of which can be seen in the imagery of Eden.

She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves; but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well aware. She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation: excepting one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, know the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had been always used to feel alone in the world; and Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's fond partiality for their own daughters' performance, and total indifference to any other person's, gave her much more pleasure for their sakes, than mortification for her own.

I am now at a time of life when I can look back on the past, for my soul has been refined in the crucible of interior and exterior trials. Now, like a flower after the storm, I can raise my head and see that the words of the Psalm are realised in me: "The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up on the water of refreshment. He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice for His own Name's sake. For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils for Thou are with me."[6]

JANUARY 30 WORSHIP ME ONLY. Whatever occupies your mind the most becomes your god. Worries, if indulged, develop into idols. Anxiety gains a life of its own, parasitically infesting your mind. Break free from this bondage by affirming your trust in Me and refreshing yourself in My Presence. What goes on in your mind is invisible, undetectable to other people. But I read your thoughts continually, searching for evidence of trust in Me. I rejoice when your mind turns toward Me. Guard your thoughts diligently; good thought-choices will keep you close to Me. PSALM 112:7; 1 CORINTHIANS 13:11

Existential loneliness and a sense that one’s life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning a belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place. A continually refreshed sense of the endless complexity of patterns in the natural world, patterns that are ever present and discernible, and which incorporate the observer, undermines the feeling that one is alone in the world, or meaningless in it. The effort to know a place deeply is, ultimately, an expression of the human desire to belong, to fit somewhere.

Friday, April 2. In the afternoon I felt, in secret prayer, much resigned, calm, and serene. What are all the storms of this lower world, if Jesus by his Spirit does but come walking on the seas!--Some time past, I had much pleasure in the prospect of the heathen being brought home to Christ, and desired that the Lord would employ me in that work:--but now, my soul more frequently desires to die, to be with Christ. O that my soul were wrapt up in divine love, and my longing desires after God increased!--In the evening, was refreshed in prayer, with the hopes of the advancement of Christ's kingdom in the world.

So the best defense against porn, for every member of our family, is a full life--the kind of life that technology cannot provide on its own. This is why the most important things we will do to prevent porn from taking over our own lives and our children's lives have nothing to do with sex. A home where wisdom and courage come first; where our central spaces are full of satisfying, demanding opportunities for creativity; where we have regular breaks from technology and opportunities for deep rest and refreshment (where devices "sleep" somewhere other than our bedrooms and where both adults and children experience the satisfactions of learning in thick, embodied ways rather than thin, technological ways); where we've learned to manage boredom and where even our car trips are occasions for deep and meaningful conversation--this is the kind of home that can equip all of us with an immune system strong enough to resist pornography's foolishness.

You can get a running start on a day of aligned Energy as you put yourself to bed the night before: Find things in your immediate vicinity—such as your bed, your bed linens, and your pillow—to direct your appreciation toward. Then set your intention to sleep well and to awaken refreshed. When you find yourself awake in the morning, lie in more appreciation for at least five minutes, and then refresh yourself by bathing and eating. Then, sit for 15 minutes and quiet your mind. Feel whatever resistance you may have fall away, and feel your Vibration rise. Then open your eyes, and sit for five or ten minutes writing a list of things you appreciate about your life.

The Danes are so full of joie de vivre that they practically sweat it. In a corner of Europe where the inhabitants have the most blunted concept of pleasure (in Norway, three people and a bottle of beer is a party; in Sweden, the national sport is suicide), the Danes’ relaxed attitude to life is not so much refreshing as astonishing.

But what a path it has been! I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. But it was right that it should be so; my eyes and heart acclaim it. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.

I, out of my own experience, am able to witness that Jesus Christ is true God; I know full well and have found what the name of Jesus had done for me. I have often been so near death that I thought verily now must I die, because I teach His Word to the wicked world, and acknowledge Him; but always He mercifully put life into me, refreshed and comforted me. Therefore, let us use diligence only to keep Him, and then all is safe, although the devil were ever so wicked and crafty, and the world ever so evil and false. Let whatsoever will or can befall me. I will surely cleave by my sweet Saviour Christ Jesus, for in Him am I baptized; I can neither do nor know anything but only what He has taught me.

Patriotism,” said Lymond, “like honesty is a luxury with a very high face value which is quickly pricing itself out of the spiritual market altogether. [...] It is an emotion as well, and of course the emotion comes first. A child’s home and the ways of its life are sacrosanct, perfect, inviolate to the child. Add age; add security; add experience. In time we all admit our relatives and our neighbours, our fellow townsmen and even, perhaps, at last our fellow nationals to the threshold of tolerance. But the man living one inch beyond the boundary is an inveterate foe. [...] Patriotism is a fine hothouse for maggots. It breeds intolerance; it forces a spindle-legged, spurious riot of colour.… A man of only moderate powers enjoys the special sanction of purpose, the sense of ceremony; the echo of mysterious, lost and royal things; a trace of the broad, plain childish virtues of myth and legend and ballad. He wants advancement—what simpler way is there? He’s tired of the little seasons and looks for movement and change and an edge of peril and excitement; he enjoys the flowering of small talents lost in the dry courses of daily life. For all these reasons, men at least once in their lives move the finger which will take them to battle for their country.… “Patriotism,” said Lymond again. “It’s an opulent word, a mighty key to a royal Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. Patriotism; loyalty; a true conviction that of all the troubled and striving world, the soil of one’s fathers is noblest and best. A celestial competition for the best breed of man; a vehicle for shedding boredom and exercising surplus power or surplus talents or surplus money; an immature and bigoted intolerance which becomes the coin of barter in the markets of power— [...] These are not patriots but martyrs, dying in cheerful self-interest as the Christians died in the pleasant conviction of grace, leaving their example by chance to brood beneath the water and rise, miraculously, to refresh the centuries. The cry is raised: Our land is glorious under the sun. I have a need to believe it, they say. It is a virtue to believe it; and therefore I shall wring from this unassuming clod a passion and a power and a selflessness that otherwise would be laid unquickened in the grave. [...] “And who shall say they are wrong?” said Lymond. “There are those who will always cleave to the living country, and who with their uprooted imaginations might well make of it an instrument for good. Is it quite beyond us in this land? Is there no one will take up this priceless thing and say, Here is a nation, with such a soul; with such talents; with these failings and this native worth? In what fashion can this one people be brought to live in full vigour and serenity, and who, in their compassion and wisdom, will take it and lead it into the path?

My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.

When You Stop Being Afraid, You Feel Good! Haw realized he had been held captive by his own fear. Moving in a new direction had freed him. Now he felt the cool breeze that was blowing in this part of the Maze and it was refreshing. He took in some deep breaths and felt invigorated by the movement. Once he had gotten past his fear, it turned out to be more enjoyable than he once believed it could be. Haw hadn’t felt this way for a long time. He had almost forgotten how much fun it was to go for it. To make things even better, Haw started to paint a picture in his mind again. He saw himself in great realistic detail, sitting in the middle of a pile of all his favorite cheeses-from Cheddar to Brie! He saw himself eating the many cheeses he liked, and he enjoyed what he saw. Then he imagined how much he would enjoy all their great tastes. The more clearly he saw the image of himself enjoying New Cheese, the more real and believable it became. He could sense that he was going to find it. He wrote: Imagining Yourself Enjoying Your New Cheese Leads You To It.

Nietzsche needed no flamboyance, no outward proof of genius, so long as he had his illness. It enabled him to live numberless lifetimes within one. She noticed how his life fell into a general pattern. A regular recurrent decline into sickness always demarcated one period of his life from another. Every illness was a death, a dip down into Hades. Every recuperation was a joyful rebirth, a regeneration. This mode of existence refreshed him. During each fleeting recuperation the world gleamed anew. And so each recuperation became not only his own rebirth, but also the birth of a whole new world, a new set of problems that demanded new answers. It was like the annual fertility cycle of the god being plowed into the ground.

Every evening the girls of the house gathered about me on the mats, and after chasing away Kory-Kory from my side—who nevertheless, retired only to a little distance and watched their proceedings with the most jealous attention—would anoint my whole body with a fragrant oil, squeezed from a yellow root, previously pounded between a couple of stones, and which in their language is denominated ‘aka’. And most refreshing and agreeable are the juices of the ‘aka’, when applied to ones, limbs by the soft palms of sweet nymphs, whose bright eyes are beaming upon you with kindness; and I used to hail with delight the daily recurrence of this luxurious operation, in which I forgot all my troubles, and buried for the time every feeling of sorrow. Sometimes

At its best, Star Trek appears to function as pop-allegory/ pop metaphor, taking current events and issues (ecology, war, racism) and objectifying them for us to contemplate in a sci-fi setting. The world it presents may make no scientific sense but it is well and truly sufficient to lay out human questions for us to think about. Removed from our immediate neighborhoods, it is refreshing and even intriguing to consider earth matters from the distance of a few light years. Like the best science fiction, Star Trek does not show us other worlds so meaningfully as it shows us our own—for better or worse, in sickness and in health. In truth, Star Trek doesn’t really even pretend to show us other worlds—only humanity refracted in a vaguely hi-tech mirror.

Above all, Hurston is essential universal reading because she is neither self-conscious nor restricted. She was raised in the real Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town; this unique experience went some way to making Hurston the writer she was. She grew up a fully human being, unaware that she was meant to consider herself a minority, an other, an exotic or something depleted in rights, talents, desires and expectations. As an adult, away from Eatonville, she found the world was determined to do its best to remind her of her supposed inferiority, but Hurston was already made, and the metaphysical confidence she claimed for her life (“I am not tragically colored”) is present, with equal, refreshing force, in her fiction. She liked to yell “Culllaaaah Struck!”9 when she entered a fancy party—almost everybody was. But Hurston herself was not. “Blackness,” as she understood it and wrote about it, is as natural and inevitable and complete to her as, say, “Frenchness” is to Flaubert. It is also as complicated, as full of blessings and curses. One can be no more removed from it than from one’s arm, but it is no more the total measure of one’s being than an arm is.

I’m attracted to its inappropriateness. It sticks out, it’s noticeable, which is refreshing in the current era of public discourse, when all prominent figures seem at pains to be blandly appropriate: to show the expected level of respect, rage, shock, support, joy or grief. I like the judge for having taken the trouble to find something odd to say – something interesting and off-message. It’s a rare skill.

As for the vice of lust - aside from what it means for spiritual persons to fall into this vice, since my intent is to treat of the imperfections that have to be purged by means of the dark night - spiritual persons have numerous imperfections, many of which can be called spiritual lust, not because the lust is spiritual but because it proceeds from spiritual things. It happens frequently that in a person's spiritual exercises themselves, without the person being able to avoid it, impure movements will be experienced in the sensory part of the soul, and even sometimes when the spirit is deep in prayer or when receiving the sacraments of Penance or the Eucharist. These impure feelings arise from any of three causes outside one's control. First, they often proceed from the pleasure human nature finds in spiritual exercises. Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure. This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love - for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason - the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one individual, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the Philosopher says: Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver. Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God's spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God's Spirit, and the soul thus receives everything according to the mode of the Spirit.

Scene I. A little dark Parlour in Boston: Guards standing at the door. Hazlerod, Crusty Crowbar, Simple Sapling, Hateall, and Hector Mushroom. Simple. I know not what to think of these sad times, The people arm'd,—and all resolv'd to die Ere they'll submit.—— Crusty Crowbar. I too am almost sick of the parade Of honours purchas'd at the price of peace. Simple. Fond as I am of greatness and her charms, Elate with prospects of my rising name, Push'd into place,—a place I ne'er expected, My bounding heart leapt in my feeble breast. And ecstasies entranc'd my slender brain.— But yet, ere this I hop'd more solid gains, As my low purse demands a quick supply.— Poor Sylvia weeps,—and urges my return To rural peace and humble happiness, As my ambition beggars all her babes. Crusty. When first I listed in the desp'rate cause, And blindly swore obedience to his will, So wise, so just, so good I thought Rapatio, That if salvation rested on his word I'd pin my faith, and risk my hopes thereon. Hazlerod. Any why not now?—What staggers thy belief? Crusty. Himself—his perfidy appears— It is too plain he has betray'd his country; And we're the wretched tools by him mark'd out To seal its ruins—tear up the ancient forms, And every vestige treacherously destroy, Nor leave a trait of freedom in the land. Nor did I think hard fate wou'd call me up From drudging o'er my acres, Treading the glade, and sweating at the plough, To dangle at the tables of the great; At bowls and cards to spend my frozen years; To sell my friends, my country, and my conscience; Profane the sacred sabbaths of my God; Scorn'd by the very men who want my aid To spread distress o'er this devoted people. Hazlerod. Pho—what misgivings—why these idle qualms, This shrinking backwards at the bugbear conscience; In early life I heard the phantom nam'd, And the grave sages prate of moral sense Presiding in the bosom of the just; Or planting thongs about the guilty heart. Bound by these shackles, long my lab'ring mind, Obscurely trod the lower walks of life, In hopes by honesty my bread to gain; But neither commerce, or my conjuring rods, Nor yet mechanics, or new fangled drills, Or all the iron-monger's curious arts, Gave me a competence of shining ore, Or gratify'd my itching palm for more; Till I dismiss'd the bold intruding guest, And banish'd conscience from my wounded breast. Crusty. Happy expedient!—Could I gain the art, Then balmy sleep might sooth my waking lids, And rest once more refresh my weary soul.

Guthrie sat in silence for a moment, mulling over Barbara Berlingieri's purposely degrading offer and letting his mind wander a bit: What if he had stepped aside and let the surgeon at the hospital sew up her face instead of doing it himself? And what if the head surgeon, who had never performed plastic surgery before, had tightened the stitching of the muscles in her cheek a bit too much and left her wit ha sneer instead of her natural smile? What if he had sewn the vermilion border straight across, without first making a notch, so that it had a permanent pucker? No. It was better that Bob Guthrie had stepped into the breach. Because now and for the rest of her life, Barbara Berlingieri would look into her mirror upon rising, check her reflection as she passed shop windows, peer into her compact while refreshing her makeup, and in these and a dozen other ways every day confront her image and be reminded of Bob Guthrie's genius and of her own towering ingratitude.

He had sinned mortally not once but many times and he knew that, while he stood in danger of eternal damnation for the first sin alone, by every succeeding sin he multiplied his guilt and his punishment. His days and works and thoughts could make no atonement for him, the fountains of sanctifying grace having ceased to refresh his soul. At most, by an alms given to a beggar whose blessing he fled from, he might hope wearily to win for himself some measure of actual grace. Devotion had gone by the board. What did it avail to pray when he knew that his soul lusted after its own destruction? A certain pride, a certain awe, withheld him from offering to God even one prayer at night, though he knew it was in God's power to take away his life while he slept and hurl his soul hellward ere he could beg for mercy. His pride in his own sin, his loveless awe of God, told him that his offence was too grievous to be atoned for in whole or in part by a false homage to the All-seeing and All-knowing.

They seek for themselves private retiring places, as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains; yea thou thyself art wont to long much after such places. But all this thou must know proceeds from simplicity in the highest degree. At what time soever thou wilt, it is in thy power to retire into thyself, and to be at rest, and free from all businesses. A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul; he especially who is beforehand provided of such things within, which whensoever he doth withdraw himself to look in, may presently afford unto him perfect ease and tranquillity.... free from all confusion and tumultuousness. Afford then thyself this retiring continually, and thereby refresh and renew thyself. Let these precepts be brief and fundamental, which as soon as thou dost call them to mind, may suffice thee to purge thy soul throughly, and to send thee away well pleased with those things whatsoever they be, which now again after this short withdrawing of thy soul into herself thou dost return unto.

At least she was good at archaeology, she mused, even if she was a dismal failure as a woman in Tate’s eyes. “She’s been broody ever since we got here,” Leta said with pursed lips as she glanced from Tate to Cecily. “You two had a blowup, huh?” she asked, pretending innocence. Tate drew in a short breath. “She poured crab bisque on me in front of television cameras.” Cecily drew herself up to her full height. “Pity it wasn’t flaming shish kebab!” she returned fiercely. Leta moved between them. “The Sioux wars are over,” she announced. “That’s what you think,” Cecily muttered, glaring around her at the tall man. Tate’s dark eyes began to twinkle. He’d missed her in his life. Even in a temper, she was refreshing, invigorating. She averted her eyes to the large grass circle outlined by thick corded string. All around it were make-shift shelters on poles, some with canvas tops, with bales of hay to make seats for spectators. The first competition of the day was over and the winners were being announced. A woman-only dance came next, and Leta grimaced as she glanced from one warring face to the other. If she left, there was no telling what might happen. “That’s me,” she said reluctantly, adjusting the number on her back. “Got to run. Wish me luck.” “You know I do,” Cecily said, smiling at her. “Don’t disgrace us,” Tate added with laughter in his eyes. Leta made a face at him, but smiled. “No fighting,” she said, shaking a finger at them as she went to join the other competitors. Tate’s granitelike face had softened as he watched his mother. Whatever his faults, he was a good son.

The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking, and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out before us. We see the same things every day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us. And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: the solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of some day easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up. his is very important, so I want to say it as clearly as I can: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

People who live with purpose are willing to be sewn back together; they’re willing to admit they’re separated in the first place, and they’re willing to have some safe friends get involved to help put them back together. Come home to yourself. Get reacquainted with your true self, which is the you everyone sees plus the shadow they don’t. Give yourself a pep talk about how it’s okay to be exactly who you are. The people I enjoy the most aren’t looking to me for validation; they have already arrived there for themselves knowing they are not perfect but that God loves them anyway. They recognize that life is trying to put them in a prison cell of head fakes and faulty expectations. It’s refreshing to be around them, and if this is the kind of person you are becoming, lay out the red carpet and invite these people into your life. Decide to ditch insecurity and replace it with God’s brand of acceptance. Try it. Nothing feels quite so good as tossing off toxic expectations and the distractions of unhealthy peers, workmates, family, and the world around you as you settle into the joy of simply being you.

In the presence of our families and friends, I take you, Celestia, to be my mate, my love, my consort, and my wife. Together, we can accomplish more than I could ever do alone. I will never let the pressures of the present and uncertainty of the future stop me from loving you, because you are my partner in mayhem, my enabler in trouble, and my companion in a life full of unexpected, strange adventures. I will encourage you to try new things and revisit the old to refresh your memories. I promise to celebrate our love daily, snuggle with you often, and make you laugh out loud. I vow to lend you my strength only when you need it, and to cheer you on from the sideline and support you when you don’t. I pledge to nurture and be respectful of your talents and quirks even when they involve dead animals.” He glanced at a raven in the back of the room, which I’d assumed was one of Odin’s. “You have a huge, kind, and giving heart, and I’m the lucky man you’ve given it to for safekeeping. I promise to never give you a reason to doubt my love for you, because this is just the beginning of our journey together. We have forever, and I will love you always.

Here, I think, lies the answer to the barrenness of single life, or of a life that might otherwise be selfish or lonely. It is the answer, I have found, to depression as well. You yourself will be given light in exchange for pouring yourself out for the hungry; you yourself will get guidance, the satisfaction of your longings, and strength, when you “pour yourself out,” when you make the satisfaction of somebody else's desire your own concern; you yourself will be a source of refreshment, a builder, a leader into healing and rest at a time when things around you seem to have crumbled.

There is a good deal of the Nietzschean standpoint in this verse. It is the evolutionary and natural view. Of what use is it to perpetuate the misery of tuberculosis, and such diseases, as we now do? Nature's way is to weed out the weak. This is the most merciful way, too. At present all the strong are being damaged, and their progress hindered by the dead weight of the weak limbs and the missing limbs, the diseased limbs and the atrophied limbs. The Christians to the Lions! Our humanitarianism, which is the syphilis of the mind, acts on the basis of the lie that the King must die. The King is beyond death; it is merely a pool where he dips for refreshment. We must therefore go back to Spartan ideas of education; and the worst enemies of humanity are those who wish, under the pretext of compassion, to continue its ills through the generations. The Christians to the Lions! Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot, as is done with flawed steel castings. Death will purge, reincarnation make whole, these errors and abortions. Nature herself may be trusted to do this, if only we will leave her alone. But what of those who, physically fitted to live, are tainted with rottenness of soul, cancerous with the sin-complex? For the third time I answer: The Christians to the Lions! Hadit calls himself the Star, the Star being the Unit of the Macrocosm; and the Snake, the Snake being the symbol of Going or Love, the Dwarf-Soul, the Spermatozoon of all Life, as one may phrase it. The Sun, etc., are the external manifestations or Vestures of this Soul, as a Man is the Garment of an actual Spermatozoon, the Tree sprung of that Seed, with power to multiply and to perpetuate that particular Nature, though without necessary consciousness of what is happening. (―New Comment on Liber AL vel Legis III:48)

The Bible is full of evidence that God’s attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a Great Cosmic Cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us—loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here—and—now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew—laden grass that is “renewed in the morning” (Ps 90:5), or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, “our inner nature is being renewed every day” (2 Cor 4:16). Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous attention to detail in the book of Leviticus, involving God in the minutiae of daily life—all the cooking and cleaning of a people’s domestic life—might be revisioned as the very love of God. A God who cares so much as to desire to be present to us in everything we do. It is this God who speaks to us through the psalmist as he wakes from sleep, amazed, to declare, “I will bless you, Lord, you give me counsel, and even at night direct my heart” (Ps 16:7, GR). It is this God who speaks to us through the prophets, reminding us that by meeting the daily needs of the poor and vulnerable, characterized in the scriptures as the widows and orphans, we prepare the way of the Lord and make our own hearts ready for the day of salvation. When it comes to the nitty—gritty, what ties these threads of biblical narrative together into a revelation of God’s love is that God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise. The rhythm of sunrise and sunset marks a passage of time that makes each day rich with the possibility of salvation, a concept that is beautifully summed up in an ancient saying from the monastic tradition: “Abba Poeman said concerning Abba Pior that every day he made a new beginning.

We are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters... A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when to have a clean shirt once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gentry, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. ... We too shall in our turn be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with twenty shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they are now to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty workingman. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich.

I laid out my five expectations that first day [as FBI Director] and many times thereafter: I expected [FBI employees] would find joy in their work. They were part of an organization devoted to doing good, protecting the weak, rescuing the taken, and catching criminals. That was work with moral content. Doing it should be a source of great joy. I expected they would treat all people with respect and dignity, without regard to position or station in life. I expected they would protect the institution's reservoir of trust and credibility that makes possible all their work. I expected they would work hard, because they owe that to the taxpayer. I expected they would fight for balance in their lives. I emphasized that last one because I worried many people in the FBI worked too hard, driven by the mission, and absorbed too much stress from what they saw. I talked about what I had learned from a year of watching [a previous mentor]. I expected them to fight to keep a life, to fight for the balance of other interests, other activities, other people, outside of work. I explained that judgment was essential to the sound exercise of power. Because they would have great power to do good or, if they abused that power, to do harm, I needed sound judgment, which is the ability to orbit a problem and see it well, including through the eyes of people very different from you. I told them that although I wasn't sure where it came from, I knew the ability to exercise judgment was protected by getting away from the work and refreshing yourself. That physical distance made perspective possible when they returned to work. And then I got personal. "There are people in your lives called 'loved ones' because you are supposed to love them." In our work, I warned, there is a disease called "get-back-itis." That is, you may tell yourself, "I am trying to protect a country, so I will get back to" my spouse, my kids, my parents, my siblings, my friends. "There is no getting back," I said. "In this line of work, you will learn that bad things happen to good people. You will turn to get back and they will be gone. I order you to love somebody. It's the right thing to do, and it's also good for you.

Sweep your mind and clean your heart, for these are the very places where things that make or mar our entire journey of life and living dwell! Sweep your mind and clean your heart, then you shall be free to be free and indeed have a true freedom! Sweep your mind and clean your heart, so you may have a clean mind and heart to be clean! Sweep your mind and clean your heart for not all things deserve a place in your heart and body! Sweep your mind and clean your heart, for in the end, so many things living in your heart and mind may never matter as part of the matters of your lifetime and life which really matter! Clean your heart and sweep your mind for certain people and things are in there only to disturb you for all the moments they shall continue to live there! Sweep your mind and clean your heart, for your body deserves nothing, but a clean mind and a clean heart daily for a daily fresh and refreshed body! Sweep your mind and clean your heart for there are so many toxic substances in our minds and hearts which we ponder over and over every day that weaken not just our hearts and minds every day, but our entire daily life and living! Sweep your mind and clean your heart for certain things deserve to live permanently in our hearts and minds so as to enable us live and leave distinctive footprints, and certain things deserve to leave our hearts and minds so that we can have a safe journey of life, and live and leave distinctive footprints in our journey of life!

Why two (or whole groups) of people can come up with the same story or idea at the same time, even when across the world from each-other: "A field is a region of influence, where a force will influence objects at a distance with nothing in between. We and our universe live in a Quantum sea of light. Scientists have found that the real currency of the universe is an exchange of energy. Life radiates light, even when grown in the dark. Creation takes place amidst a background sea of energy, which metaphysics might call the Force, and scientists call the "Field." (Officially the Zero Point Field) There is no empty space, even the darkest empty space is actually a cauldron of energies. Matter is simply concentrations of this energy (particles are just little knots of energy.) All life is energy (light) interacting. The universe is self-regenreating and eternal, constantly refreshing itself and in touch with every other part of itself instantaneously. Everything in it is giving, exchanging and interacting with energy, coming in and out of existence at every level. The self has a field of influence on the world and visa versa based on this energy. Biology has more and more been determined a quantum process, and consciousness as well, functions at the quantum level (connected to a universe of energy that underlies and connects everything). Scientist Walter Schempp's showed that long and short term memory is stored not in our brain but in this "Field" of energy or light that pervades and creates the universe and world we live in. A number of scientists since him would go on to argue that the brain is simply the retrieval and read-out mechanism of the ultimate storage medium - the Field. Associates from Japan would hypothesize that what we think of as memory is simply a coherent emission of signals from the "Field," and that longer memories are a structured grouping of this wave information. If this were true, it would explain why one tiny association often triggers a riot of sights, sounds and smells. It would also explain why, with long-term memory in particular, recall is instantaneous and doesn't require any scanning mechanism to sift through years and years of memory. If they are correct, our brain is not a storage medium but a receiving mechanism in every sense, and memory is simply a distant cousin of perception. Some scientists went as far as to suggest that all of our higher cognitive processes result from an interaction with the Field. This kind of constant interaction might account for intuition or creativity - and how ideas come to us in bursts of insight, sometimes in fragments but often as a miraculous whole. An intuitive leap might simply be a sudden coalescence of coherence in the Field. The fact that the human body was exchanging information with a mutable field of quantum fluctuation suggested something profound about the world. It hinted at human capabilities for knowledge and communication far deeper and more extended than we presently understand. It also blurred the boundary lines of our individuality - our very sense of separateness. If living things boil down to charged particles interacting with a Field and sending out and receiving quantum information, where did we end and the rest of the world began? Where was consciousness-encased inside our bodies or out there in the Field? Indeed, there was no more 'out there' if we and the rest of the world were so intrinsically interconnected. In ignoring the effect of the "Field" modern physicists set mankind back, by eliminating the possibility of interconnectedness and obscuring a scientific explanation for many kinds of miracles. In re-normalizing their equations (to leave this part out) what they'd been doing was a little like subtracting God.

The books began to arrive, boxes of them. At first I could not open a single one, but was taken by them as objects. The covers were all so attractive. The jacket copy made each one sound great, blurbs from established literary icons told me why I should like it. The fat books were praised for being fat, the skinny books were praised for being skinny, old writers were great because they were old, young writers were talents because of their youth, every one was startling, ground-breaking, warm, chilling, original, honest and human. I would have found refreshing: "Jo Blow’ s new novel takes on the mundane and leaves it right where it is. The prose is clear and pedestrian. The moves are tried and true. Yet the book is not so alarmingly dishonest. The characters are as wooden as the ones we meet in real life. This is a torturous journey through the banal. The novel is ordinary but not insipid, pointless but not meaningless, savorless but not stale. Jo Blow is a middle aged writer with a family and no discernible special features. He lives in a house and is about as smart as his last novel." So, I opened the first book and I loved it. Actually, I enjoyed reading. The book sucked. But I did enjoy reading it and so I read another and another. I read three in one night and the better part of the next day. All three were sterile, well-constructed, predictable fare. I decided that perhaps I was jaded. I was familiar with novels the way a surgeon is familiar with blood. I would have to contact my innocent, inner self, the part of me that could be amazed by the dull and commonplace.

A well-known skin specialist patronized by many famous beauties charges seventy-five dollars for a twenty-minute consultation and eight dollars for a cake of sea-mud soap. I get more satisfaction and just as much benefit out of applying a purée of apples and sour cream! [...] Of course, all masques should COVER THE NECK too. [...] Masques should only be used ones or twice a week. [...] While the masque is working, place pads soaked in witch hazel or boric acid over your eyelids and put on your favorite music. [...] A masque really works only when you're lying down. Twenty minutes is the right length of time. Then wash the masque off gently with warm water and follow with a brisk splash of cold water to close the pores. [...] For a luxurious once-a-week treatment give your face a herbal steaming first by putting parsley, dill, or any other favorite herb into a pan of boiling water. (Mint is refreshing too.) Hold a towel over your head to keep the steam rising onto your face. The pores will open so that the masque can do a better job. [...] Here are a few "kitchen masques" that work: MAYONNAISE. [...] Since I'm never sure what they put into those jars at the supermarket, I make my own with whole eggs, olive or peanut oil, and lemon juice (Omit the salt and pepper!). Stir this until it's well blended, or whip up a batch in an electric blender. PUREED VEGETABLES - cucumbers, lemons, or lettuce thickened with a little baby powder. PUREED FRUITS - cantaloupe, bananas, or strawberries mixed to a paste with milk or sour cream or honey. A FAMOUS OLD-FASHIONED MIXTURE of oatmeal, warm water, and a little honey blended to a paste.

He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man. So he concretes that singular conclusion into a law, for good and all. And he does it without consulting the woman, although she has a thousand times more at stake in the matter than he has. His procreative competency is limited to an average of a hundred exercises per year for fifty years, hers is good for three thousand a year for that whole time—and as many years longer as she may live. Thus his life interest in the matter is five thousand refreshments, while hers is a hundred and fifty thousand; yet instead of fairly and honorably leaving the making of the law to the person who has an overwhelming interest at stake in it, this immeasurable hog, who has nothing at stake in it worth considering, makes it himself!

Here, where an immense country lies about me, over which the winds pass coming from the seas, here I feel that no human being anywhere can answer for you those questions and feelings that deep within them have a life of their own; for even the best err in words when they are meant to mean most delicate and almost inexpressible things. But I believe nevertheless that you will not have to remain without a solution if you will hold to objects that are similar to those from which my eyes now draw refreshment. If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it—but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.

III. They seek for themselves private retiring places, as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains; yea thou thyself art wont to long much after such places. But all this thou must know proceeds from simplicity in the highest degree. At what time soever thou wilt, it is in thy power to retire into thyself, and to be at rest, and free from all businesses. A man cannot any whither retire better than to his own soul; he especially who is beforehand provided of such things within, which whensoever he doth withdraw himself to look in, may presently afford unto him perfect ease and tranquillity. By tranquillity I understand a decent orderly disposition and carriage, free from all confusion and tumultuousness. Afford then thyself this retiring continually, and thereby refresh and renew thyself. Let these precepts be brief and fundamental, which as soon as thou dost call them to mind, may suffice thee to purge thy soul throughly, and to send thee away well pleased with those things whatsoever they be, which now again after this short withdrawing of thy soul into herself thou dost return unto. For what is it that thou art offended at? Can it be at the wickedness of men, when thou dost call to mind this conclusion, that all reasonable creatures are made one for another? and that it is part of justice to bear with them? and that it is against their wills that they offend? and how many already, who once likewise prosecuted their enmities, suspected, hated, and fiercely contended, are now long ago stretched out, and reduced unto ashes? It is time for thee to make an end. As for those things which among the common chances of the world happen unto thee as thy particular lot and portion, canst thou be displeased with any of them, when thou dost call that our ordinary dilemma to mind, either a providence, or Democritus his atoms; and with it, whatsoever we brought to prove that the whole world is as it were one city? And as for thy body, what canst thou fear, if thou dost consider that thy mind and understanding, when once it hath recollected itself, and knows its own power, hath in this life and breath (whether it run smoothly and gently, or whether harshly and rudely), no interest at all, but is altogether indifferent: and whatsoever else thou hast heard and assented unto concerning either pain or pleasure? But the care of thine honour and reputation will perchance distract thee? How can that be, if thou dost look back, and consider both how quickly all things that are, are forgotten, and what an immense chaos of eternity was before, and will follow after all things: and the vanity of praise, and the inconstancy and variableness of human judgments and opinions, and the narrowness of the place, wherein it is limited and circumscribed? For the whole earth is but as one point; and of it, this inhabited part of it, is but a very little part; and of this part, how many in number, and what manner of men are they, that will commend thee? What remains then, but that thou often put in practice this kind of retiring of thyself, to this little part of thyself; and above all things, keep thyself from distraction, and intend not anything vehemently, but be free and consider all things, as a man whose proper object is Virtue, as a man whose true nature is to be kind and sociable, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. Among other things, which to consider, and look into thou must use to withdraw thyself, let those two be among the most obvious and at hand. One, that the things or objects themselves reach not unto the soul, but stand without still and quiet, and that it is from the opinion only which is within, that all the tumult and all the trouble doth proceed. The next, that all these things, which now thou seest, shall within a very little while be changed, and be no more: and ever call to mind, how many changes and alterations in the world thou thyself hast already been an eyewitness of in thy time. This world is mere change, and this life, opinion.

Jack Sanford looks back fondly on childhood visits to the old family farmhouse in New Hampshire. In particular, he’s never forgotten the old well that stood outside the front door. The water from the well was surprisingly pure and cold, and no matter how hot the summer or how severe the drought, the well was always dependable, a source of refreshment and joy. The faithful old well was a big part of his memories of summer vacations at the family farmhouse. Time passed and eventually the farmhouse was modernized. Wiring brought electric lights, and indoor plumbing brought hot and cold running water. The old well was no longer needed, so it was sealed shut. Years later while vacationing at the farmhouse, Sanford hankered for the cold, pure water of his youth. So he unsealed the well and lowered the bucket for a nostalgic taste of the delightful refreshment he once knew. But he was shocked to discover that the well that had once survived the worst droughts was bone dry. Perplexed, he began to ask questions of the locals who knew about these kinds of things. He learned that wells of that sort were fed by hundreds of tiny underground rivulets, which seep a steady flow of water. As long as water is drawn out of the well, new water will flow in through the rivulets, keeping them open for more to flow. But when the water stops flowing, the rivulets clog with mud and close up. The well dried up not because it was used too much but because it wasn’t used enough. Our souls are like that well. If we do not draw regularly and frequently on the living water that Jesus promised would well up in us like a spring,66 our hearts will close and dry up. The consequence of not drinking deeply of God is to eventually lose the ability to drink at all. Prayerlessness is its own worst punishment, both its disease and cause. David’s description of his prayer life is a picture of a man who knew the importance of frequent, regular prayer—disciplined prayer, each morning. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. He knew how important it was to keep the water flowing—that from the human side of prayer, the most important thing to do is just to keep showing up. Steady, disciplined routine may be the most underrated necessity of the prayerful life.

Normally, Bentner would have beamed approvingly at the pretty portrait the girls made, but this morning, as he put out butter and jam, he had grim news to impart and a confession to make. As he swept the cover off the scones he gave his news and made his confession. “We had a guest last night,” he told Elizabeth. “I slammed the door on him.” “Who was it?” “A Mr. Ian Thornton.” Elizabeth stifled a horrified chuckle at the image that called to mind, but before she could comment Bentner said fiercely, “I regretted my actions afterward! I should have invited him inside, offered him refreshment, and slipped some of that purgative powder into his drink. He’d have had a bellyache that lasted a month!” “Bentner,” Alex sputtered, “you are a treasure!” “Do not encourage him in these fantasies,” Elizabeth warned wryly. “Bentner is so addicted to mystery novels that he occasionally forgets that what one does in a novel cannot always be done in real life. He actually did a similar thing to my uncle last year.” “Yes, and he didn’t return for six months,” Bentner told Alex proudly. “And when he does come,” Elizabeth reminded him with a frown to sound severe, “he refuses to eat or drink anything.” “Which is why he never stays long,” Bentner countered, undaunted. As was his habit whenever his mistress’s future was being discussed, as it was now, Bentner hung about to make suggestions as they occurred to him. Since Elizabeth had always seemed to appreciate his advice and assistance, he found nothing odd about a butler sitting down at the table and contributing to the conversation when the only guest was someone he’d known since she was a girl. “It’s that odious Belhaven we have to rid you of first,” Alexandra said, returning to their earlier conversation. “He hung about last night, glowering at anyone who might have approached you.” She shuddered. “And the way he ogles you. It’s revolting. It’s worse than that; he’s almost frightening.” Bentner heard that, and his elderly eyes grew thoughtful as he recalled something he’d read about in one of his novels. “As a solution it is a trifle extreme,” he said, “but as a last resort it could work.” Two pairs of eyes turned to him with interest, and he continued, “I read it in The Nefarious Gentleman. We would have Aaron abduct this Belhaven in our carriage and bring him straightaway to the docks, where we’ll sell him to the press gangs.” Shaking her head in amused affection, Elizabeth said, “I daresay he wouldn’t just meekly go along with Aaron.” “And I don’t think,” Alex added, her smiling gaze meeting Elizabeth’s, “a press gang would take him. They’re not that desperate.” “There’s always black magic,” Bentner continued. “In Deathly Endeavors there was a perpetrator of ancient rites who cast an evil spell. We would require some rats’ tails, as I recall, and tongues of-“ “No,” Elizabeth said with finality. “-lizards,” Bentner finished determinedly. “Absolutely not,” his mistress returned. “And fresh toad old, but procuring that might be tricky. The novel didn’t say how to tell fresh from-“ “Bentner!” Elizabeth exclaimed, laughing. “You’ll cast us all into a swoon if you don’t desist at once.” When Bentner had padded away to seek privacy for further contemplation of solutions, Elizabeth looked at Alex. “Rats’ tails and lizards’ tongues,” she said, chuckling. “No wonder Bentner insists on having a lighted candle in his room all night.” “He must be afraid to close his eyes after reading such things,” Alex agreed.

My husband and I have been a part of the same small group for the past five years.... Like many small groups, we regularly share a meal together, love one another practically, and serve together to meet needs outside our small group. We worship, study God’s Word, and pray. It has been a rich time to grow in our understanding of God, what Jesus has accomplished for us, God’s purposes for us as a part of his kingdom, his power and desire to change us, and many other precious truths. We have grown in our love for God and others, and have been challenged to repent of our sin and trust God in every area of our lives. It was a new and refreshing experience for us to be in a group where people were willing to share their struggles with temptation and sin and ask for prayer....We have been welcomed by others, challenged to become more vulnerable, held up in prayer, encouraged in specific ongoing struggles, and have developed sweet friendships. I have seen one woman who had one foot in the world and one foot in the church openly share her struggles with us. We prayed that God would show her the way of escape from temptation many times and have seen God’s work in delivering her. Her openness has given us a front row seat to see the power of God intersect with her weakness. Her continued vulnerability and growth in godliness encourage us to be humble with one another, and to believe that God is able to change us too. Because years have now passed in close community, God’s work can be seen more clearly than on a week-by-week basis. One man who had some deep struggles and a lot of anger has grown through repenting of sin and being vulnerable one on one and in the group. He has been willing to hear the encouragement and challenges of others, and to stay in community throughout his struggle.... He has become an example in serving others, a better listener, and more gentle with his wife. As a group, we have confronted anxiety, interpersonal strife, the need to forgive, lust, family troubles, unbelief, the fear of man, hypocrisy, unemployment, sickness, lack of love, idolatry, and marital strife. We have been helped, held accountable, and lifted up by one another. We have also grieved together, celebrated together, laughed together, offended one another, reconciled with one another, put up with one another,...and sought to love God and one another. As a group we were saddened in the spring when a man who had recently joined us felt that we let him down by not being sensitive to his loneliness. He chose to leave. I say this because, with all the benefits of being in a small group, it is still just a group of sinners. It is Jesus who makes it worth getting together. Apart from our relationship with him...,we have nothing to offer. But because our focus is on Jesus, the group has the potential to make a significant and life-changing difference in all our lives. ...When 7 o’clock on Monday night comes around, I eagerly look forward to the sound of my brothers and sisters coming in our front door. I never know how the evening will go, what burdens people will be carrying, how I will be challenged, or what laughter or tears we will share. But I always know that the great Shepherd will meet us and that our lives will be richer and fuller because we have been together. ...I hope that by hearing my story you will be encouraged to make a commitment to become a part of a small group and experience the blessing of Christian community within the smaller, more intimate setting that it makes possible. 6

You are very quiet,” Archer remarked as they walked together to the refreshment table. They’d just finished a game of whist and when Rose begged off from a second round, Grey’s brother did the same. “My apologies,” she replied. “I do not mean to be rude.” “My brother doesn’t deserve to take up so much room in that lovely head of yours.” She might have been insulted by his disparaging Grey, or his familiarity with her, had she not been so surprised by the remark itself. “You are impertinent, sir.” He grinned-a grin so much more roguish than Grey’s. “One of my more charming traits. I did not mean offense, dear lady. Only that thinking about him will do you no good. The man is bent on punishing himself for the rest of his life.” Rose accepted the plate he offered her. “Thank you. Why would he wish to punish himself?” “Because he’s an ar…idiot. Sandwich?” He held up a cucumber sandwich caught in silver tongs. “Please. I’m not certain I wish to discuss your brother with you, Lord Archer.” “Not even if I can help you win him?” Rose’s heart froze-no, it simply stopped. Her entire body went numb. She would have dropped her plate had Archer not swept it from her hand into his own. “What makes you think I wish to win him?” He flashed her a coy glance. “Please, lady Rose. I’ve not made a career out of studying your sex to fall for your false innocence now.” Oh dear God. Had Grey told him? “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve had to put with hearing about you for the last four years-no offense.” Rose arched a brow as he piled food upon her plate. “None taken. I wasn’t aware that I looked at your brother in a manner different from how I might look upon anyone else.” “Mm.” He popped a small cake into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s just it. You try too hard to treat him like everyone else. It’s obvious you care for him, and not just as the man who saved your life.” “Saved my life? How very dramatic.” He gave her a very serious look as he handed her the laden plate. “Where do you suppose you’d be right now if Grey hadn’t taken you in? Certainly not here, with such good food and charming company.” Point taken. And now she felt simply awful for the way she had spoken to Grey earlier. She was such a cow. “You shame me, sir.” And worse, he’d made tears come to her eyes. Staring at her food-such a wonderful array he’d picked for her-she blinked them away. He steered her toward a window seat where they sat in plain view of the room, but at least with a modicum of privacy. “My apologies, my lady. I did not mean to offend you with my plain and thoughtless words.” “Plain, perhaps. Thoughtless, I highly doubt it.” She managed a small smile. “I don’t think you do anything without thinking first.” Archer laughed, looking so much like Grey it hurt to look at him. “Were that but true.

In her eyes, he could see the fear, but also the love. The need. Time to show her, that to him, she meant everything. “Before you shower me with kisses for saving you –” “I think it could be argued that I played a part.” “Not when I retell the story you won’t. But we can argue about that later, naked. As I was saying, I have something for you.” Remy pulled the sheet of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it. Initially he’d worried about it being too short. But as Lucifer assured him when he made the contract and binding, the less clauses he put in, the more his promise would stick out. Handing it to her, he waited. Fidgeted when she didn’t say a word. Almost tore it from her grasp. Then stumbled back as she threw herself at him. I, Remy, the most awesome demon in Hell, do declare to love the witch Ysabel, fiery temper and all, for an eternity. I will never stray. Never betray her trust. Never do anything to cause her pain upon penalty of permanent death. This I do swear in blood, Remy A simple contract, which in its very lack of clauses and sub items, awed her. “You love me that much?” He peered at her with incredulity on his face. “Of course I love you that much. Would I have done all the things I did if I didn’t?” “Well, you are related to a mad woman.” “Yes, and maybe it’s madness for me to love you, but I do. Do you think just any woman would inspire me enough to take on a bloody painful curse. Or put up with the fact you have a giant, demon eating cat. I know you have trust issues, and that I might not have led the kind of life that inspires confidence, but I will show you that you can believe in me. I want you to love me.” “I know you do. And I do love you. Only for you would I come to the rescue wearing nothing to cover my bottom.” His eyebrows shot up. “You came to battle in a skirt without any underwear?” A slow nod was her answer. He grinned, then scowled. “You will not do that again. Do you know how many demons live in the sewer and could have looked up your skirt? I won’t have them looking at what’s mine. On second thought. Throw out all your underwear. I’ll lead the purge on the sewers myself so you can stroll around with your girl parts unencumbered for my enjoyment.” “You’re insane,” she laughed. “Crazy in love with you,” he agreed. “But I do warn you, we’ll have to have dinner with my crazy mother at least once a month.” “Or more often. I quite like your mom. She’s got a refreshing way of viewing the world.” “Oh fuck. Don’t tell me she’s already rubbing off,” he groaned, as he pulled her into his arms. She snuggled against him. This was where she belonged. But she did have a question. “As my new… what should I call you anyway? Boyfriend? Demon I sleep with?” “The following terms are acceptable to me. Yours. Mate. Husband. Divine taster of your –” She slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’ll stick to mate.” “And I’m going with my super, sexy, touch her and die, fabulous cougar, ass kicking witch.” “I dare you shout that five times in a row without stumbling.” He did to her eye popping disbelief. “I told you, I have a very agile tongue.” “I remember.

The street sprinkler went past and, as its rasping rotary broom spread water over the tarmac, half the pavement looked as if it had been painted with a dark stain. A big yellow dog had mounted a tiny white bitch who stood quite still. In the fashion of colonials the old gentleman wore a light jacket, almost white, and a straw hat. Everything held its position in space as if prepared for an apotheosis. In the sky the towers of Notre-Dame gathered about themselves a nimbus of heat, and the sparrows – minor actors almost invisible from the street – made themselves at home high up among the gargoyles. A string of barges drawn by a tug with a white and red pennant had crossed the breadth of Paris and the tug lowered its funnel, either in salute or to pass under the Pont Saint-Louis. Sunlight poured down rich and luxuriant, fluid and gilded as oil, picking out highlights on the Seine, on the pavement dampened by the sprinkler, on a dormer window, and on a tile roof on the Île Saint-Louis. A mute, overbrimming life flowed from each inanimate thing, shadows were violet as in impressionist canvases, taxis redder on the white bridge, buses greener. A faint breeze set the leaves of a chestnut tree trembling, and all down the length of the quai there rose a palpitation which drew voluptuously nearer and nearer to become a refreshing breath fluttering the engravings pinned to the booksellers’ stalls. People had come from far away, from the four corners of the earth, to live that one moment. Sightseeing cars were lined up on the parvis of Notre-Dame, and an agitated little man was talking through a megaphone. Nearer to the old gentleman, to the bookseller dressed in black, an American student contemplated the universe through the view-finder of his Leica. Paris was immense and calm, almost silent, with her sheaves of light, her expanses of shadow in just the right places, her sounds which penetrated the silence at just the right moment. The old gentleman with the light-coloured jacket had opened a portfolio filled with coloured prints and, the better to look at them, propped up the portfolio on the stone parapet. The American student wore a red checked shirt and was coatless. The bookseller on her folding chair moved her lips without looking at her customer, to whom she was speaking in a tireless stream. That was all doubtless part of the symphony. She was knitting. Red wool slipped through her fingers. The white bitch’s spine sagged beneath the weight of the big male, whose tongue was hanging out. And then when everything was in its place, when the perfection of that particular morning reached an almost frightening point, the old gentleman died without saying a word, without a cry, without a contortion while he was looking at his coloured prints, listening to the voice of the bookseller as it ran on and on, to the cheeping of the sparrows, the occasional horns of taxis. He must have died standing up, one elbow on the stone ledge, a total lack of astonishment in his blue eyes. He swayed and fell to the pavement, dragging along with him the portfolio with all its prints scattered about him. The male dog wasn’t at all frightened, never stopped. The woman let her ball of wool fall from her lap and stood up suddenly, crying out: ‘Monsieur Bouvet!

In your war, the first, how did you endure?" asked Sebastian. "My war was nothing," said Hilary hastily, "nothing at all compared with yours, or even David's. Yet I had a way, then, that helped with other things later. For there is always the Thing, you know, the hidden Thing, some fear or pain or shame, temptation or bit of self-knowledge that you can never explain to another. . . . And even in those very few healthy insensitives who do not seem to suffer, a love of something—of their work, perhaps—that they would not want to talk about and could not if they would. For it is the essence of it that it is, humanly speaking, a lonely thing. . . . Returning to the sensitives, if you just endure it simply because you must, like a boil on the neck, or fret yourself to pieces trying to get rid of it, or cadge sympathy for it, then it can break you. But if you accept it as a secret burden borne secretly for the love of Christ, it can become your hidden treasure. For it is your point of contact with Him, your point of contact with that fountain of refreshment down at the root of things. "Oh Lord, thou fountain of living waters.' That fountain of life is what Christians mean by grace. That is all. Nothing new, for it brings us back to where we were before. In those deep green pastures where cool waters are there is no separation. Our point of contact with the suffering Christ is our point of contact with every other suffering man and woman, and is the source of our life. " "You could put it another way," said Sebastian. "We are all the branches of the vine, and the wine runs red for the cleansing of the world." "The symbols are endless," agreed Hilary. "Too many, perhaps. They complicate the simplicity of that one act of secret acceptance and dedication.