Russ Love Quotes

The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.

Long before I became a feminist in any explicit way, I had turned from writing love stories about women in which women were losers, and adventure stories about men in which the men were winners, to writing adventure stories about a woman in which the woman won. It was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.

I love stories about people I don’t know, and places I haven’t been to. I’ve lived a thousand lives between a thousand pages, but no story, no life, no page has ever made me as happy as you do, Russ Callaghan.

You know it’s a bad sign when the theme song from Titanic describes your relationship.

Stop trying to control how you feel, and instead take control of what you do.

The mind loves telling stories; in fact, it never stops.

Don't rush into any kind of relationship. Work on yourself. Feel yourself, experience yourself and love yourself. Do this first and you will soon attract that special loving other.

To die on a dying Earth - I'd live, if only to weep.

There is this business of the narcissism of love, the fourth-dimensional curve that takes you out into the other who is the whole world, which is really a twist back into yourself, only a different self.

I left her wallpapering her much-loved, much-tended little corner of hell.

Love locally, trade globally.

And here, of course, we come to the one occupation of a female protagonist in literature, the one thing she can do, and by God she does it and does it and does it, over and over and over again. She is the protagonist of a Love Story.

Somewhere there is a book that says you ought to cry buckets of tears over yourself and love yourself with a passion and wrap your arms around yourself; only then will you be happy and free. That's a good book.

Before I met you, I hadn't considered what my happy ending might look like. I wasn't sure I'd get one. You’re my happy ending, Russ. I fell in love with you in Meadow Springs, and watching you help build our life here has made me fall in love with you a million more times. Thank you for giving me a life that feels too good to be true. Thank you for letting me bring home animals even when you say no. Thank you for letting me live my dreams every day?

Adam Smith was not a big fan of the pursuit of fame and fortune. His view of what we truly want, of what really makes us happy, cuts to the core of things. It takes him only twelve words to get to the heart of the matter: Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely.

Story is a trojan horse for truth. It can sneak truth past the gates of our defenses and prepare our hearts to hear things we might have resisted if they had come as mere declaration.

At thirteen desperately watching TV, curling my long legs under me, desperately reading books, callow adolescent that I was, trying (desperately!) to find someone in books, in movies, in life, in history, to tell me it was O.K. to be ambitious, O.K. to be loud, O.K. to be Humphrey Bogart (smart and rudeness), O.K. to be James Bond (arrogance), O.K. to be Superman (power), O.K. to be Douglas Fairbanks (swashbuckling), to tell me self-love was all right, to tell me I could love God and Art and Myself better than anything on earth and still have orgasms.

Do whatever you like, go wherever you want, love however you feel it to be true. For if you wait, life won't do the same

I believe that God hears our prayers, and cherishes them. I believe He answers by sending us His spirit, giving us strenght, and peace, and insight. I don't think He responds by turning away bullets and curing cancer. Though sometimes that does happen." Harlene frowned. "In other words, sometimes, the answer is no?" "No. Sometimes the answer is "This is life, in all its variety. Make your way through it with grace, and never forget that I love you.

Maybe they were back to not talking. That's what she missed the most: talking. Serious, silly, bone-deep, flippant, all their words and thoughts like gifts to each other, the only gifts they, with their hobbled hearts, could give.

If you want to make the world a better place, work on being trustworthy, and honor those who are trustworthy. Be a good friend and surround yourself with worthy friends. Don’t gossip. Resist the joke that might hurt someone’s feelings even when it’s clever. And try not to laugh when your friend tells you that clever joke at someone’s expense. Being good is not just good for you and those around you, but because it helps others be good as well. Set a good example, and by your loveliness you will not only be loved, but you may influence the world.

I cannot get into this swamp or I will never get out; and if I start crying again I'll remember that I have no one to love, and if anyone treats me like that again, I'll kill him. Only I mustn't because they'll punish me.

La vita è come le montagne russe. Scendi velocemente, rimani a lungo in basso e risali a fatica.

The more importance we place on avoiding unpleasant feelings in life, the more our life tends to go downhill.

They were the only three people I'd chosen on my own to love, and they were gone. But still, that morning in Mobay when I saw Russ for the last time, I saw clearly for the first time that loving Sister Rose and I-Man and even Bruce had left me with riches that I could draw on for the rest of my life, I was totally grateful to them.

the things we generally value most in life bring with them a whole range of feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant. For example, in an intimate long-term relationship, although you will experience wonderful feelings such as love and joy, you will also inevitably experience disappointment and frustration. There is no such thing as the perfect partner and sooner or later conflicts of interest will happen.

If any theme runs through all my work, it is what Adrienne Rich once called "re-vision", i.e., the re-perceiving of experience, not because our experience is complex or subtle or hard to understand (though it is sometimes all three) but because so much of what's presented to us as "the real world" or "the way it is" is so obviously untrue that a great deal of social energy must be mobilized to hide that gross and ghastly fact. has a theatre critic (whose name I'm afraid I've forgotten) once put it," There's less there than meets the eye". Hence, my love for science fiction, which analyses reality by changing it.

Then he was forming letters again, one at a time on her back, while Laurel clung to him, full of heart and body, still joined to him intimately. Wanting his words, needing them, moved profoundly by them. I love you. One letter after the other, until they were all there, telling her everything she needed to know here in the dark.

The fact that you can act with love even when you don’t feel love is very empowering. Why? Because whereas the feelings of love are fleeting and largely out of your control, you can take the actions of love anytime and anyplace for the whole rest of your life.

Our core beliefs serve as the primary framework for shaping our perception and the construction of our reality.

Often the best gifts we can give each other cost nothing.

Smith is showing us a better path to contentment than the one the world holds out to seduce us with. There is another way to be loved. Instead of pursuing attention via wealth or fame or power, pursue wisdom and goodness. There are two ways to be loved, to satisfy the desire we all have in us to be noticed and to be somebody. The first path is to be rich, famous, powerful. The second path is to be wise and virtuous.

She's a bright girl. She learned in her thirteenth year that you can get old films of Mae West or Marlene Dietrich (who is a Vulcan; look at the eyebrows) after midnight on UHF if you know where to look, at fourteen that pot helps, at fifteen that reading's even better. She learned, wearing her rimless glasses, that the world is full of intelligent, attractive, talented women who manage to combine careers with their primary responsibilities as wives and mothers and whose husbands beat them. She's put a gold circle pin on her shirt as a concession to club day. She loves her father and once is enough. Everyone knows that much as women want to be scientists and engineers, they want foremost to be womanly companions to men (what?) and caretakers of childhood; everyone knows that a large part of a woman's identity inheres in the style of her attractiveness. Laur is daydreaming. She looks straight before her, blushes, smiles, and doesn't see a thing... Laur is daydreaming that she's Genghis Khan.

A modern way to capture what Smith is talking about when he talks about being loved and being lovely is authenticity. We want to be real, and we want the people around us to be real in how they think about us. Respect or love or attention that is inaccurate because I don’t deserve it isn’t real. Someone who is thought to be lovely, but who knows he isn’t, is living a lie.

Living with limits is one of the ways we enter into beauty we would not have otherwise seen, good work we would not have chosen, and relationships we would not have treasured. For the Christian, accepting our limits is one of the ways we are shaped to fit together as living stones into the body of Christ. As much as our strengths are a gift to the church, so are our limitations.

In college, educated women (I found out) were frigid; active women (I knew) were neurotic; women (we all knew) were timid, incapable, dependent, nurturing, passive, intuitive, emotional, unintelligent, obedient, and beautiful. You can always get dressed up and go to a party. Woman is the gateway to another world; Woman is the earth-mother; Woman is the eternal siren; Woman is purity; Woman is carnality; Woman has intuition; Woman is the life-force; Woman is selfless love. "I am the gateway to another world," (said I, looking in the mirror) "I am the earth-mother; I am the eternal siren; I am purity," (Jeez, new pimples) "I am carnality; I have intuition; I am the life-force; I am selfless love." (Somehow it sounds different in the first person, doesn't it?) Honey (said the mirror, scandalised) Are you out of your fucking mind? I AM HONEY I AM RASPBERRY JAM I AM A VERY GOOD LAY I AM A GOOD DATE I AM A GOOD WIFE I AM GOING CRAZY Everything was peaches and cream.

For years I said Let me in, Love me, Approve me, Define me, Regulate me, Validate me, Support me. Now I say Move over.

For years I have been saying Let me in, Love me, Approve me, Define me, Regulate me, Validate me, Support me. Now I say Move over.

We are drawn to beauty, and we instinctively know that somewhere, somehow, such a thing as perfection exists

There’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people,” said Vincent van Gogh.

We need to pay attention with a particular attitude: one of openness, curiosity, and receptiveness.

The pattern in Scripture is that of God working through unlikely servants for the glory of his name and the spread of the gospel.

and I realized that a person doesn’t reach the capacity for love. Love just is. It’s all-encompassing. There’s no trade-off. I don’t have to sacrifice my love for your dad or you and Chloe to love Russ. He doesn’t take any of your dad’s place in my heart because the heart doesn’t retract–it expands. My heart grew bigger for Russ. But I will always ache for your dad.

I've never slept with a girl. I couldn't. I wouldn't want to. That's abnormal and I'm not, although you can't be normal unless you do what you want and you can't be normal unless you love men. To do what I wanted would be normal, unless what I wanted was abnormal, in which case it would be abnormal to please myself and normal to do what I didn't want to do, which isn't normal.

If you love somebody deeply and you lose that relationship - whether through death, rejection or separation - you will feel pain. That pain is called grief. Grief is a normal emotional reaction to any significant loss, whether a loved one, a job or a limb. There's no way to avoid or get rid of it - it's just there. And, once accepted, it will pass in its own time. Unfortunately, many of us refuse to accept grief. We will do anything rather than feel it. We may bury ourselves in work, drink heavily, throw ourselves into a new relationship 'on the rebound' or numb ourselves with prescribed medications. But no matter how hard we try to push grief away, deep down inside it's still there. And eventually it will be back. It's like holding a football underwater. As long as you keep holding it down, it stays beneath the surface. But eventually your arm gets tired and the moment you release your grip, the ball leaps straight up out of the water.

What I’ve learned so far in my short life as a dog widower is that it doesn’t matter if you have a dog ten years or ten months––the pain and hurt is still the same. Luckily, the love stays with you forever!

Story is a trojan horse for truth. It can sneak truth past the gates of our defenses and prepare our hearts to hear things we might have resisted if they had come as mere declaration. Jesus relied on storytelling as his primary method of teaching for just this reason--to persuade Jews to empathize with Samaritans, wealthy people to care for the poor, and religious people to have compassion on society's fringe.

Marion had long been inspired, intellectually, by Russ’s conviction that a gospel of love and community was truer to Christ’s teachings than a gospel of guilt and damnation. But lately she’d begun to wonder.

Not only are we drawn to beauty, we are the only creatures who engage in certain behaviors purely for the sake of encountering beauty. We use vacation days to drive to places where we can see the sun come up over the ocean. We visit art museums, theaters, and symphonies. We look at the moon and the stars. We climb to high mountain lakes to put our feet in the frigid water to feel the rush and see the reflection of the summit in the ripples we have made. No other creature stops to behold something beautiful for no other reason than that it has stirred something in their souls. When we do these things, are we not like Moses and David, hungering to see the glory of God?

teased. "I read that in a book once. A woman went down into the basement and discovered her new husband had a whole ass sex room, with all kinds of freaky shit in there. It was actually pretty damn hot, even though the hero was a pastor.

It's no secret that I love books. I love stories about people I don't know, and places I haven't been to. I've lived a thousand lives between a thousand pages, but no story, no life, no page has ever made me as happy as you do, Russ Callaghan.

We are drawn to beauty, and we instinctively know that somewhere, somehow, such a thing as perfection exists. (...) Our best attempts at achieving perfection this side of glory come from an innate awareness that it not only exists, but that we were made for it.

THE SHEEPDOGS Most humans truly are like sheep Wanting nothing more than peace to keep To graze, grow fat and raise their young, Sweet taste of clover on the tongue. Their lives serene upon Life’s farm, They sense no threat nor fear no harm. On verdant meadows, they forage free With naught to fear, with naught to flee. They pay their sheepdogs little heed For there is no threat; there is no need. To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries, Roaming watchful round the peripheries. These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar With the fetid reek of the carnivore, Too like the wolf of legends told, To be amongst our docile fold. Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they? They have no use, not in this day. Lock them away, out of our sight We have no need of their fierce might. But sudden in their midst a beast Has come to kill, has come to feast The wolves attack; they give no warning Upon that calm September morning They slash and kill with frenzied glee Their passive helpless enemy Who had no clue the wolves were there Far roaming from their Eastern lair. Then from the carnage, from the rout, Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!” Thus is our nature but too our plight To keep our dogs on leashes tight And live a life of illusive bliss Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss. Until he has us by the throat, We pay no heed; we take no note. Not until he strikes us at our core Will we unleash the Dogs of War Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path. And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before; We love our sheep, we Dogs of War. Russ Vaughn 2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division Vietnam 65-66

It’s no secret that I love books. I love stories about people I don’t know, and places I haven’t been to. I’ve lived a thousand lives between a thousand pages, but no story, no life, no page has ever made me as happy as you do, Russ Callaghan. Before I met you, I hadn’t considered what my happy ending might look like. I wasn’t sure I’d get one. You’re my happy ending, Russ. I fell in love with you in Meadow Springs, and watching you help build our life here has made me fall in love with you a million more times. Thank you for giving me a life that feels too good to be true.

If Earth had been hit by plague, by fire, by war, by radiation, sterility, a thousand things, you name it, I'd still stand by her; I love her; I would fight every inch of the way there because my whole life is knit to her. And she'd need mourners. To die on a dying Earth- I'd live, if only to weep.

We live in communities that need goodness, truth, and beauty. And we play a role in advancing those transcendentals that make us human. We are to curate them for others. We play a role in blowing on the embers of "whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.

By painting himself into the boat in The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrandt wants us to know that he believes his life will either be lost in a sea of chaos or preserved by the Son of God. Those are his only two options. And by peering through the storm and out of the frame to us, he asks if we are not in the same boat.

The kind of thing I like to do, I know it isn’t the highest form of art. There’s no doubt in the world about that, and I know it better than anybody else. I love to tell stories in pictures—the story is the first thing and the last thing. That isn’t what a fine art man goes for, but I go for it, and I just love to do it that way.

But Israel’s God was different. He was definite, and his character was immutably fixed. And they were to love him for it with everything they had. They were to love him with all their heart. In the seat of their deepest dreams and desires, in the place where they wrestled with their sorrows and clung to flickering hopes, they were to love him. They were to love him with all their soul. In the place that made each individual unique, in the inner court of the mind where decisions were made, in the forming of the bonds between friends and lovers, as well as in the coming together of a community, they were to love him. They were to love him with all their might. In the outward expressions of the passions and decisions of the heart and soul, in the places where men’s thoughts turned to action and resolve turned to progress, they were to love him. In their creativity and in their learning, in their working and in their resting, in their building up and in their tearing down, they were to love him. They were to love him as whole people, in all their weakness and in all their strength. On their best days and on their worst, in the darkest hours of their loneliest nights, and at the tables of their most abundant feasts, they were to love him. This was the heart of Israel’s religion: love. Only divine love made sense of the world. This love went beyond a mere feeling. This love was doctrine. Israel’s story was a story of being kept, and the only reasonable response was to love the Keeper.

The reply to this was that Three took out a small revolver, and this surprised me; for everyone knows that anger is most intense towards those you know: it is lovers and neighbors who kill each other. There's no sense, after all, in behaving that way toward a perfect stranger; where's the satisfaction? No love, no need; no need, no frustration; no frustration, no hate, right? It must have been fear.

One thing I've learned through all of this, Olive, is that people don't fill up on love. There's no brim on the cup. Love overflows. It grows and bubbles over and over. I used to believe there was something I would be trading to let another man into my life. That I would have to give away a part of my heart that belonged to somebody else. And then I met Russ, and I realized that a person doesn't reach the capacity for love. Love just is.

Sometimes this is the artist’s work—to stand and knock on the door of glory and, whenever possible, siphon little wisps of smoke from those places where we catch a glimpse of the light so that others might see and believe. What can we show each other of glory anyway except light in shadow? What glory can anyone see in any of us except for wisps of smoke, traces of the great burning fire? And is that not enough for now—to show enough to prove there’s more?

LOVE is not just an acronym: it is a useful way of thinking about “love” itself. If you think of love as an ongoing process of letting go, opening up, valuing, and engaging, then it is always available to you—even when the feelings of love are absent. So in this sense of the word, you really can have everlasting love. But if you think of love merely as an emotion or feeling, then it can never last for long because all feelings and emotions continually change.

The impulse behind fantasy I find to be dissatisfaction with literary realism. Realism leaves out so much. Any consensual reality (though wider even than realism) nonetheless leaves out a great deal also. Certainly one solution to the difficulty of treating experience that is not dealt with in the literary tradition, or even in consensual reality itself, is to 'skew' the reality of the piece of fiction, that is, to employ fantasy. [...] After all, reality is--collectively speaking--a social invention and is not itself really real. Individually, it is as much something human beings do as it is something refractory that is prior to us and outside of us. [...] When I was seventeen and in a writing class in college, I learned that the kinds of things I wrote about--things that came out of my experience as a seventeen-year-old girl--were not serious literary subjects. My realism wouldn't do. So I decided at some point to write fantasy and science fiction. (I did love them!) Nobody could pull me up on the importance or the accuracy of those. The stories in this book are here because they are good stories and because they are part of a fascinating tradition of fantasy. But they are also here (I suspect) because many fine writers who are women have discovered that fantasy, fantastic elements and methods, or simply even the tone of fantasy, give them the method to handle the specifically female elements of their experience in a way that the literary tradition of realism was designed not to do. And I once thought I was the only one!

deep inside the smoldering stump of Israel, a remnant of life was rising to push back the darkness and break through the crust of the desolation of the people of God to find the light of day. Though they struggled to see it, God loved them. He loved them with an everlasting, unfailing love. Salvation was coming, and when all was said and done, “He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. ” (Rev 21:3-4) “Behold,” he says, “I am making all things new.

I cannot think of a single thing in my life that doesn't bear the touch of others. I'm guessing you can't either. Of course we wish some of those chisel marks never happened--the ones that draw from us a plea for mercy, the ones that kindle a hunger for the renewal of all things. But other marks have been necessary to give us eyes to behold goodness, truth, and beauty we would not have known otherwise. Living with limits is one of the ways we enter into beauty we would not have otherwise seen, good work we would not have chosen, and relationships we would not have treasured. For the Christian, accepting our limits is one of the ways we are shaped to fit together as living stones into the body of Christ. As much as our strengths are a gift to the church, so are our limitations.

Ayant entendu pendant la nuit des bruits étranges dans la cage d'escalier, elle acheta le lendemain au marché noir un 7 x 57 mm Mauser et des munitions et annonça à son mari, qui la regardait en fronçant les sourcils, qu'elle abattrait sans sommation tout inconnu qui franchirait le seuil de son appartement sans son autorisation. Quand Léon lui fit remarquer qu'un pistolet accroché au mur au premier acte devait servir à faire feu au second acte, elle haussa les épaules en répliquant que la vraie vie obéissait à d'autres lois que les pièces de théâtres russes. Et quand il voulut savoir pourquoi elle avait choisi précisément une arme allemande, elle lui répondit que les inspecteurs allemands, s'ils trouvaient des balles allemandes dans un cadavre allemand, chercheraient très probablement le coupable parmi les Allemands.

Suppose your partner has deep-seated fears of abandonment: afraid that you will leave her for someone “better.” Or suppose she fears becoming trapped, controlled, or “smothered.” Then when you fight, these fears will well up inside her; she may not even be aware of them because they very quickly get buried under blame or resentment. Or suppose deep inside your partner feels deeply unworthy: that he is inadequate, unlovable, not good enough. This is painful in itself, but when people feel this way inside, they often act in ways that strain the relationship. Your partner may continually seek approval, demand recognition for what he achieves or contributes, ask for reassurance that you love or admire him, or become quite jealous and possessive. If you then react with frustration, scorn, criticism, impatience, or boredom, you will reinforce his deep-seated sense of unworthiness. And this then gives rise to even more pain.

Do you know, all this time you preached at me? You told me that even Grendel's mother was actuated by maternal love. You told me ghouls were male. Rodan is male—and asinine. King Kong is male. I could have been a witch, but the Devil is male. Faust is male. The man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima was male. I was never on the moon. Then there are the birds, with (as Shaw so nobly puts it) the touching poetry of their loves and nestings in which the males sing so well and beautifully and the females sit on the nest, and the baboons who get torn in half (female) by the others (male), and the chimpanzees with their hierarchy (male) written about by professors (male) with their hierarchy, who accept (male) the (male) view of (female) (male). You can see what's happening. At heart I must be gentle, for I never even thought of the praying mantis or the female wasp; but I guess I am just loyal to my own phylum. One might as well dream of being an oak tree. Chestnut tree, great-rooted hermaphrodite.

So we need to make a schedule, but where do we begin? The common approach is to make a to-do list. We write down all the things we want to do and hope we’ll find the time throughout the day to do them. Unfortunately, this method has some serious flaws. Anyone who has tried keeping such a list knows many tasks tend to get pushed from one day to the next, and the next. Instead of starting with what we’re going to do, we should begin with why we’re going to do it. And to do that, we must begin with our values. According to Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, values are “how we want to be, what we want to stand for, and how we want to relate to the world around us.” They are attributes of the person we want to be. For example, they may include being an honest person, being a loving parent, or being a valued part of a team. We never achieve our values any more than finishing a painting would let us achieve being creative. A value is like a guiding star; it’s the fixed point we use to help us navigate our life choices.

Einstein served as a source of inspiration for many of the modernist artists and thinkers, even when they did not understand him. This was especially true when artists celebrated such concepts as being “free from the order of time,” as Proust put it in the closing of Remembrance of Things Past. “How I would love to speak to you about Einstein,” Proust wrote to a physicist friend in 1921. “I do not understand a single word of his theories, not knowing algebra. [Nevertheless] it seems we have analogous ways of deforming Time.”54 A pinnacle of the modernist revolution came in 1922, the year Einstein’s Nobel Prize was announced. James Joyce’s Ulysses was published that year, as was T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. There was a midnight dinner party in May at the Majestic Hotel in Paris for the opening of Renard, composed by Stravinsky and performed by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Stravinsky and Diaghilev were both there, as was Picasso. So, too, were both Joyce and Proust, who “were destroying 19th century literary certainties as surely as Einstein was revolutionizing physics.” The mechanical order and Newtonian laws that had defined classical physics, music, and art no longer ruled.

I'm a victim of penis envy (said Laura) so I can't ever be happy or lead a normal life. My mother worked as a librarian when I was little and that's not feminine. She thinks it's deformed me. The other day a man came up to me in the bus and called me sweetie and said, "Why don't you smile? God loves you!" I just stared at him. But he wouldn't go away until I smiled, so finally I did. Everyone was laughing. I tried once, you know, went to a dance all dressed up, but I felt like such a fool. Everyone kept making encouraging remarks about my looks as if they were afraid I'd cross back over the line again; I was trying , you know, I was proving their way of life was right, and they were terrified I'd stop. When I was five I said, "I'm not a girl, I'm a genius," but that doesn't work, possibly because other people don't honor the resolve. Last year I finally gave up and told my mother I didn't want to be a girl but she said Oh no, being a girl is wonderful. Why? Because you can wear pretty clothes and you don't have to do anything; the men will do it for you. She said that instead of conquering Everest, I could conquer the conqueror of Everest and while he had to go climb the mountain, I could stay home in lazy comfort listening to the radio and eating chocolates. She was upset, I suppose, but you can't imbibe someone's success by fucking them.

Ever seen a movie where the hero gets punched right in the face? A gruesome slow-mo close-up, where a spray of sweat and blood flies through the air? Notice how you wince, or flinch, or turn away even though you know it’s only a movie? Even though you know it’s make-believe, you can’t help relating to it on some level. How ironic is it that we can so easily relate to the nonexistent pain of a fictitious movie character, but we often completely forget about the very real pain of the people we love? Humans are social animals. When it comes to affairs of the heart, most of us are pretty similar. We want to be loved, respected, and cared for. We want to get along with others and generally have a good time with them. When we fight with, reject, or distance ourselves from the people we love, we don’t feel good. And when they fight with, reject, or distance themselves from us, we feel even worse. So when you fight with your partner, you both get hurt. Your partner may not reveal his pain to you; he may just get angry, or storm out of the house, or quietly switch on the TV and start drinking, but deep inside he hurts just like you. Your partner may refuse to talk to you, she may criticize you in scathing tones, or go out on the town with her friends, but deep inside, she hurts just as you are. It is so important to recognize and remember this. We tend to get so caught up in

During [Erté]’s childhood St. Petersburg was an elegant centre of theatrical and artistic life. At the same time, under its cultivated sophistication, ominous rumbles could be distinguished. The reign of the tough Alexander III ended in 1894 and his more gentle successor Nicholas was to be the last of the Tsars … St. Petersburg was a very French city. The Franco-Russian Pact of 1892 consolidated military and cultural ties, and later brought Russia into the First World war. Two activities that deeply influenced [Erté], fashion and art, were particularly dominated by France. The brilliant couturier Paul Poiret, for whom Erté was later to work in Paris, visited the city to display his creations. Modern art from abroad, principally French, was beginning to be show in Russia in the early years of the century … In St. Petersburg there were three Imperial theatres―the Maryinsky, devoted to opera and ballet, the Alexandrinsky, with its lovely classical façade, performing Russian and foreign classical drama, and the Michaelovsky with a French repertoire and company … It is not surprising that an artistic youth in St. Petersburg in the first decade of this century should have seen his future in the theatre. The theatre, especially opera and ballet, attracted the leading young painters of the day, including Mikhail Vrubel, possibly the greatest Russian painter of the pre-modernistic period. The father of modern theatrical design in Russia was Alexandre Benois, an offspring of the brilliant foreign colony in the imperial capital. Before 1890 he formed a club of fellow-pupils who were called ‘The Nevsky Pickwickians’. They were joined by the young Jew, Leon Rosenberg, who later took the name of one of his grandparents, Bakst. Another member introduced his cousin to the group―Serge Diaghilev. From these origins emerged the Mir Iskustva (World of Art) society, the forerunner of the whole modern movement in Russia. Soon after its foundation in 1899 both Benois and Bakst produced their first work in the theatre, The infiltration of the members of Mir Iskustva into the Imperial theatre was due to the patronage of its director Prince Volkonsky who appointed Diaghilev as an assistant. But under Volkonsky’s successor Diagilev lost his job and was barred from further state employment. He then devoted his energies and genius to editing the Mir Iskustva magazine and to a series of exhibitions which introduced Russia to work of foreign artists … These culminated in the remarkable exhibition of Russian portraiture held at the Taurida Palace in 1905, and the Russian section at the salon d'Autumne in Paris the following year. This was the most comprehensive Russian exhibition ever held, from early icons to the young Larionov and Gontcharova. Diagilev’s ban from Russian theatrical life also led to a series of concerts in Paris in 1907, at which he introduced contemporary Russian composers, the production Boris Godunov the following year with Chaliapin and costumes and décor by Benois and Golovin, and then in 1909, on May 19, the first season of the ballet Russes at the Châtelet Theatre.

our own suffering that we can easily forget our partner is in the same boat. Suppose your partner has deep-seated fears of abandonment: afraid that you will leave her for someone “better.” Or suppose she fears becoming trapped, controlled, or “smothered.” Then when you fight, these fears will well up inside her; she may not even be aware of them because they very quickly get buried under blame or resentment. Or suppose deep inside your partner feels deeply unworthy: that he is inadequate, unlovable, not good enough. This is painful in itself, but when people feel this way inside, they often act in ways that strain the relationship. Your partner may continually seek approval, demand recognition for what he achieves or contributes, ask for reassurance that you love or admire him, or become quite jealous and possessive. If you then react with frustration, scorn, criticism, impatience, or boredom, you will reinforce his deep-seated sense of unworthiness. And this then gives rise to even more pain.

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Song of Solomon 8:6

I am the one you seek, Jacob. I am the Alpha and the Omega; who is and who was, and who is to come; the Almighty. “Do not be afraid, Jacob, for I have heard your prayers.  I heard how you sought Me with tears and a humble heart.  My prophet, Joel, spoke of this day when he said, ‘I will pour out My Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.  “ ‘Even on My servants, both men and women, I will pour out My Spirit in those days.  I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.  The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.  And everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.’ “Jacob, I am about to purge My people, Israel. I am sending My two olive branches to you. They will tell you what you must do. “Remember that I love you, Jacob. Be of good courage, for I am with you and all those who call upon My Name.

I shall betroth thee unto me forever.  Yea, I shall betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in loving kindness and in compassion, and I shall betroth thee unto me in faithfulness…” The Book of Hosea, Chapter Two, Verse Nineteen.

If I have the eloquence of men and of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.  If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all mysteries and knowing everything, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but am without love, I gain nothing.  Love is always patient and kind, it is never jealous nor selfish, it does not take offense and is not resentful.  Love does not take pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth.  It is always ready to excuse, to trust, and to endure whatever comes.  Love does not end.  There are, in the end, three things that last: Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these is Love.’  The Book of First Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen.

We conclude this ceremony of marriage with the breaking of the glass.  It is a joyous ceremony which has many explanations.  Today, let us say that the fragility of the glass suggests the frailty of human relationships.  The glass is broken to protect this marriage with this prayer, ‘May your bond of love be as difficult to break as it would be to put together the pieces of this glass.’ “After Jerry and Ruth break the glass, I invite everyone to shout the Hebrew words, Mazel Tov, which mean, ‘God’s blessings’ and ‘Congratulations!

Jerry and Ruth will now light the Unity Candle.  In the wedding liturgy, candlelight symbolizes the commitment of the love these two people are declaring today.  Before you, you see three special candles.  The two smaller candles symbolize the lives of the bride and the groom. “Until today, both have allowed their light to shine as individuals. Now, they have come to publicly proclaim their love in the new union of marriage.

Ruth,” he said, his eyes boring deeply into hers, “I was alive and functioned in this world, but I saw weakly; I felt weakly; I knew weakly all its joys and all the fullness that it had to offer.  I needed someone who would help me see; someone who could point the path ahead; someone who could give the meaning and the wealth to all that would come by.  I needed someone special I could hold who would hold on to me; whose feet would walk my path.  I needed someone who could share my heart and know my God and take my life upon her to share it well beyond the edge of time, who would share it well beyond the gates of forever; straight into the everlasting, loving mind of God. “That one is you.  Without knowing your name, I have loved you all my life.  In all my blindness born of hurt and rage, it was you and you alone I sought.  It was my God who pointed me to you…to you and you alone… “You are my wife; you are my friend; you are my love…

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 13:1-3 And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. Revelation 13:13-17

Let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy! Spread Your protection over them That those who love Your name may rejoice in You! For surely, O LORD, You bless the righteous; You surround them with Your favor… As with a shield!

Sometimes the answer is ‘This is life, in all its variety. Make your way through it with grace, and never forget that I love you.

crickets singing for love before the frosts came and mowed them all down.

Until then, we save our vacation days, plan our itineraries, and make our way across oceans, over mountains, through cities, and down the long stretches of highway that span the countryside to take our place in line to catch a glimpse of the deeper glory we know we were made for. (...) We go to the Louvre in Paris, the Met in New York City. (...) We go to the Grand Canyon of the American West (...) the forests of East Asia, and the islands of the South Pacific. (...) Why? All to join the carnal to the divine. All to get closer to glory.

This is the intangibility of genius--to create work that transfers from the canvas, the page, or the instrument into the heart of another person, arousing a longing for beauty and an end to sadness. This was what Vincent wanted to create--art that would transfer from his easel into someone else's soul to work as a balm of healing for the broken.

If only people could look beyond their imagined impressions of others, if only we could see each other as we really are and not as exaggerated stereotypes, if only a genuine curiosity about the lives of others formed our pursuit to know them, then so many of the forces that divide us would be emptied of their power. We would see the common human experiences of joy and sorrow, love and loss, struggle and victory in those around us, and we would count it all sacred.

The more we engage with beauty, the more we train our hearts to anticipate finding beauty, until eventually, everywhere we go, we're looking for it.

So many things in our world are beautiful but didn't need to be. God chose to make them that way so he might arrest his people by their senses to awaken us from the slumbering economy of pragmatism. That awakening is a vital function of beauty.

Eve did not solve the problem of Adam's limitations. God didn't put the man to sleep and graft into him the rest of what he lacked. Instead, God took something out of the man and made a partner to come alongside, helpful but distinct.

(H)is art is made of darkness and light. It is glorious yet grotesque, divine yet close to the earth, highly intelligent yet easy to understand. It presents a gospel to the poor. (...) Caravaggio understood that the gospel was (...) a power vital for the languishing. It was a message of grit and hope for the vile and desperate. It was the promise of God at work in a world of prostitutes and magistrates and murders and those chased by the hounds of heaven.

Vincent didn't see the world as a collection of plain, unaffected objects. He saw the unfolding drama of the human story, which to him was a heartbreaking tale.

Many artists took their easels and paints outside and captured what they saw. Vincent wanted to capture what he felt as he tried to remember what he saw.

It’s no secret that I love books. I love stories about people I don’t know, and places I haven’t been to. I’ve lived a thousand lives between a thousand pages, but no story, no life, no page has ever made me as happy as you do, Russ Callaghan.

I’m on fire and I love it. For Russ, I can’t help but burn.

Within the Bible, nothing is of more importance than love. We are told the astonishing and beautiful truth: “God is Love.” We are assured that “Love conquers all.” It is love that brings you here today in the union of two hearts and spirits. As your lives interweave as one, remember that it was love that brought you here today, it is love that will make this a glorious union, and it is love, which will cause this union to endure. “Marriage is the most important of all earthly relationships. It should be entered into reverently, thoughtfully, and with a full understanding of its sacred nature. Your marriage must stand by the strength of your love and the power of faith in each other and in God. Just as two threads woven in opposite directions form a beautiful tapestry, so too, will your two lives, when merged, make a beautiful marriage.

we will experience wonderful feelings such as love and joy. But sooner or later, in even the best relationships, we will experience conflict, disappointment, and frustration. (There is no such thing as the perfect relationship.)

For years I have been saying Let me in, Love me, Approve me, Define me, Regulate me, Validate me, Support me . Now I say Move over . If we are all Mankind, it follows to my interested and righteous and right now very bright and beady little eyes, that I too am a Man

If everything falls apart because I rocked the boat, who’s going to notice if I fall overboard? Who’s there if I sink?” “I notice everything you do, Halle. And I bet I could sail a boat if I tried.” “You do say you’re good at everything.” “And Russ is too responsible to let anyone not wear a life jacket. Aurora probably has enough money to buy the Coast Guard. The guys trained to be lifeguards in high school to meet girls. Robbie would love bossing people around. You’re not sinking, Cap. I’m not letting you.

We shouldn’t,” he whispers. “We definitely shouldn’t,” I whisper back. “But if you happen to want to, then just know I can be super quiet.” Russ’s laugh is low and husky, dirtier than normal, and I start to throb. That’s there I am at: throbbing at dirty laughs. “You’re so smart,” he teases, and I swear this man is trying to end me. “But I love it when you’re loud.

I believe that prayer focuses our human thoughts and energies, sends them to the people we’re praying for. I believe that helps, in ways we can’t yet understand.” Harlene looked surprised. She had probably expected a quick yes. Followed by an exhortation to the Almighty to keep everyone safe. “I believe that God hears our prayers, and cherishes them. I believe He answers by sending us His spirit, giving us strength, and peace, and insight. I don’t think He responds by turning away bullets and curing cancer. Though sometimes that does happen.” Harlene frowned. “In other words, sometimes, the answer is no?” “No. Sometimes the answer is ‘This is life, in all its variety. Make your way through it with grace, and never forget that I love you.

But Russ looks at you the way my dad looks at my papa when he isn’t looking, so I think he might love you.

It’s no secret that I love books. I love stories about people I don’t know, and places I haven’t been to. I’ve lived a thousand lives between a thousand pages, but no story, no life, no page has ever made me as happy as you do, Russ Callaghan. Before I met you, I hadn’t considered what my happy ending might look like. I wasn’t sure I’d get one. You’re my happy ending, Russ. I fell in love with you in Meadow Springs, and watching you help build our life here has made me fall in love with you a million more times. Thank you for giving me a life that feels too good to be true. Thank you for letting me being home animals even when you say no. Thank you for letting me live my dreams every day.

Then the Prophets came, and you remember, because you were there. They didn’t restore him from the dead, they made that very clear. They called on God, and God gave life back to Daniel. “That same God is with us now. That same God and giver of life will be with us throughout what’s going to come; that same God of mercy and love who gave me back my son and gave his own son for me, that God will see us through…no matter what!

Henri Nouwen wrote in The Return of the Prodigal Son, “Our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

It is hard to render an honest self-portrait if we want to conceal what is unattractive and hide what is broken. We want to appear beautiful. But when we do this, we hide what needs redemption —what we trust Christ to redeem. And everything redeemed by Christ becomes beautiful.

Smith in his book and with his life is telling us how to live. Seek wisdom and virtue. Behave as if an impartial spectator is watching you. Use the idea of an impartial spectator to step outside yourself and see yourself as others see you. Use that vision to know yourself. Avoid the seductions of money and fame, for they will never satisfy. How to be virtuous is not so obvious, and that comes next. But I want to close this chapter with Peter Buffett, the man who ended up selling his Berkshire Hathaway stock for $90,000 and giving up the $100 million he could have had in order to pursue a career as a musician. A few years ago, Peter Buffett reflected on his decision to sell his Berkshire Hathaway stock to pursue his dreams in his memoir, Life Is What You Make It. He claims to have no regrets. But could a life as a successful musician possibly be worth giving up $100 million? Wouldn’t $100 million be even more pleasant? Then you ask yourself—what could he have with the extra millions? A nicer car? He could have a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster that retails for about $4 million. Or he could settle for the lovely Ferrari Spider, at $300,000; he could have a couple of those. He could have a mansion you and I can only imagine, anywhere in the world. Like Onassis, he could own an island or two rather than enduring the indignity of visiting an island in the Mediterranean, say, and having to share it with others while staying at a nice hotel. Could those physical pleasures possibly be worth sacrificing the life in music that he dreamed of and ultimately achieved? I think Peter Buffett got a bargain. He gave up $100 million and got something—hard as it is to imagine—that was even more precious. A good life. I think Adam Smith would agree with me.

This woman did not know me, but she knew this stretch of trail. She didn't know if I was kind or mean, gentle or abrasive, honest or a liar. She didn't need to know what I had accomplished in life or what I had wasted. She just knew that if I was there in her hospital on my birthday, I was probably feeling a little lost. On that basis alone, i mattered to her.

I, the infirm, find myself caring for the sorrows and fears of the well.

I always encourage the students to address their employer’s self-love and not just their humanity—to come up with some reason XYZ will benefit from hiring them. How would your skills serve the goals of XYZ? Do you have any idea what those goals are? The idea that other people care about themselves is generally a good thing to remember if you want them to do something for you in return. But

Historically, God deals with those he loves by breaking them.

If I wanted, I could come up with reasons to be angry with everyone I know; there are sins of commission or omission I could hang on every last person in my life… The truth is, I will never run out of people to indict. We are all guilty of so many failures to love well that if I wanted--and sometimes I do want--I could find some fault or transgression in everyone I know that I could then use to justify writing them off. I could blaze that trail to hell if I wanted to, and just the thought of it scares me off

If there are differences and divisions, let them be healed by counsel, by careful words of loving confrontation that bring repentance in the heart. May none of God’s people have to know what it is like to have someone they worship with turn on them with wounding words. If you have a complaint against anyone, you must, for the sake of your soul and the sake of gospel unity and the sake of Christ, go to them. May there be no gossip, no hidden anger or bitterness. “May our lives be all covered with that harvest of righteousness that Jesus Christ produces to the glory of God.” (Philippians 1:11) (Moffatt 1922).

Dex saw the threat for what it was, and nodded again. "I'm trying, sir." "Don't try...do." "Yes, sir.

The Law of the Lord is a love story.

The same time and pressure that gave us the stone from which David was cut could reclaim him at any moment.

Depicting Jesus as he actually was—a Middle Eastern, dark-skinned Jew—wasn’t a value at that time because the goal of art wasn’t historical accuracy; it was accessibility.

This is how we should see others and how we should be willing to be seen by others: broken and of incalculable worth.

The pursuit of goodness, the pursuit of truth, and the pursuit of beauty are, in fact, foundational to the health of any community.

On the other side of the veil is the tangible glory of unfailing perfection, but it is just out of our reach. So we have given ourselves to the pursuit of making copies from the dust of the earth, compressed by time, crafted by pressure, but conceived by something more than mere imagination. Our best attempts at achieving perfection this side of glory come from an innate awareness that it not only exists, but that we were made for it.

In my later entries of the diary homework, I pondered, “Why art?” In answer to my cry, my professor wrote back in typical eloquence, “Mako, that is one of the most important questions to ask. And I would like to push you to ask a deeper question through your art and writing: ‘Why live?

the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way . . . To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion—all in one.”14

The fact is there will always be significant differences between you and your partner in some or all the areas mentioned here and also in many others. That’s why relationships aren’t easy. They require communication, negotiation, compromise, and a lot of acceptance of differences; they also require you to stand up for yourself, to be honest about your desires and your feelings, and—in some situations, where something vitally important to your health and well-being is at stake—to absolutely refuse to compromise.

Love is not a verb. It is simply any experience that produces an awareness of the ever-present radiance of the Divine. Any experience; a sunset, a puppy, or the embrace of a lover's arms.

But please do be careful; it’s easy to spend a lot of time combing through your childhood experiences, trying to figure out how they “made you the way you are.” And while it’s useful to have some understanding of how your childhood has influenced you, be wary of getting lost in “analysis paralysis”: so busy analyzing your past experiences and figuring out “how you got to be this way” that you don’t do anything practical about changing your behavior.

Our default is to get trapped inside-the-mind: we give it all our attention, take it very seriously, believe the things it says to us, and obey what it tells us to do. When you’re inside-the-mind, you get lost in the smog of your own thought processes.

Both fill in a DRAIN worksheet, as described earlier.

Our mind has an endless supply of stories, and while some of them are pleasant, enjoyable, and helpful, many of them are the opposite: unhelpful, difficult, or painful. And when such stories hook us, they create a thick black cloud of “psychological smog.” And just like real smog, it surrounds us, smothers us, and prevents us from seeing clearly or acting effectively. Usually, several types of stories intermingle and coalesce to produce psychological smog.

But Kievan Rus’s glory days were short-lived. Lying on his deathbed in 1054 Yaroslav had pleaded with his offspring to ‘love one another’ for ‘If ye dwell in envy and dissension, quarrelling with one another, then ye will perish yourselves and bring to ruin the land of your ancestors . . .’11

Beauty is a relic of Eden - a remnant of what is good. It comes from a deeper realm. It trickles into our lives as water from a crack in a dam, and what lies on the other side of that dam fills us with wonder and fear. Glory lies on the other side. And we were made for glory.

Dear Cely, You know I'm not good at words, so I'll keep this short and sweet. First thing, I know we've had our differences, but I want you to know, raising you was never a burden. Was nice having you around, keeping me in line. Second thing is, he world's a big place. And life is too short to get hung up on the past. Live. Fall in love. But don't ever let some ungrateful prick put out your fire. You find someone that burns with you. For you. You're aves, kid. Always remember that. Have fun. But not too much, right? Always, Russ

Instead of a feeling, think of love as an action. The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can’t control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.

she said aloud, “my darling; my love.  In just a moment, you will break that glass.  I want you to know that my heart had been broken as well, and it lay in sharp and fragile shards that neither time nor well-intentioned advice had ever removed.               “For that to happen; for the splinters of the past to be brushed away, I needed a miracle; I needed someone strong enough both in himself and in his God to take the pieces of my life and, loving me, to make them whole.  That was the miracle that God has given me…in you.               “And now, my past begins the moment I met you; my present is the time I hold your hand; my future is whatever and wherever and however Our Lord may grant, knowing all the time that your love has made me whole.  My love is wholly with you now, and beyond the edge of time.               “You are my husband; you are my friend; you are my love…”               Jerry Westfield took one step closer to the wrapped glass and to Ruth.               “Ruth,” he said, his eyes boring deeply into hers, “I was alive and functioned in this world, but I saw weakly; I felt weakly; I knew weakly all its joys and all the fullness that it had to offer.  I needed someone who would help me see; someone who could point the path ahead; someone who could give the meaning and the wealth to all that would come by.  I needed someone special I could hold who would hold on to me; whose feet would walk my path.  I needed someone who could share my heart and know my God and take my life upon her to share it well beyond the edge of time, who would share it well beyond the gates of forever; straight into the everlasting, loving mind of God.               “That one is you.  Without knowing your name, I have loved you all my life.  In all my blindness born of hurt and rage, it was you and you alone I sought.  It was my God who pointed me to you…to you and you alone…               “You are my wife; you are my friend; you are my love…

Russ told Harlene to patch Mark through to Clare’s if and when he turned up anything. “I’d love to know how you managed to work Reverend Fergusson into this one,” Harlene said. “Reverend Fergusson manages to work herself into these things all on her own,” he said. “She doesn’t need any pushing from me.

Guests came and went as they pleased, filling their gold-banded plates with hot breads, poached eggs on toast, smoked quail, fruit salad, and slices of charlotte russe made with sponge cake and Bavarian cream. Footmen crossed through the entrance hall as they headed outside with trays of coffee, tea, and iced champagne. Ordinarily this was the kind of event Cassandra would have enjoyed to no end. She loved a nice breakfast, especially when there was a little something sweet to finish off, and charlotte russe was one of her favorite desserts. However, she was in no mood to make small talk with anyone. Besides, she'd eaten far too many sweets lately... the extra jam tart at teatime yesterday, and all the fruit ices between dinner courses last night, and that entire éclair, stuffed with rich almond cream and roofed with a crisp layer of icing. And one of the little decorative marzipan flowers from a platter of puddings.

It bothered her to be sneaky with him. She loved him more than she had any other man or woman on Earth. But she had to find a way to the artifact, either through trust or stealth, and Russ was the obvious candidate for either.

So many things in our world are beautiful but didn’t need to be. God chose to make them that way so he might arrest his people by their senses to awaken us from the slumbering economy of pragmatism. That awakening is a vital function of beauty. This is the gift of beauty from an artist to their community—to awaken our senses to the world as God made it and to awaken our senses to God himself.

When I was young, I thought my spiritual life would unfold as a plane ascending ever upward to some greater station of maturity with an ever-deepening faith. I would make mistakes and learn from them. I would gather information I lacked and move forward with an understanding of what to do and how to be. I would read my Bible and pray, and the God on the other side would come to life in greater definition and power. I thought the same would be true of my vocational life. I would find a role someplace where I was able to contribute, grow in experience and skill, and eventually rise to some level of mastery that would bring opportunity, satisfaction, and maybe, after thirty years, a gold watch. Spiritually and vocationally—if I was faithful, I thought—I would be able to look back and see a straight line, more or less, leading me from there to here. Ever upward, fairly clean. I also thought my spiritual and vocational journeys would run on parallel tracks—near each other, but separate. Then affliction hit—the kind that would require me to release my hold on this world. After that, loss—the kind that would take from me people and things I never expected to lose. And after that, grief that would circle back in the most unexpected ways at the most unexpected times until I began to realize that the God I had put my faith in when I was younger wasn’t who I thought he was. It wasn’t that I felt he wasn’t real or that he had somehow failed me. No, the unraveling I experienced seemed to prove to me more than ever just how real, good, and loving he was. But he wasn’t who I thought he was. He was more. So much more. When I was young, I thought my life would be about what I could accomplish—the good I could do in the world. But when affliction came, I felt like I was watching my vocational and spiritual life merge into one thing. Since then, I’ve come to believe they’ve always been one, never separate. Who I am to God is who I am. What comes out of this life is his business, but what I do will never be what makes me who I am. Because this is so, when suffering comes, it doesn’t have the power to unravel God’s design. Instead, the suffering becomes part of the fabric.

When I was young, I thought my spiritual life would unfold as a plane ascending ever upward to some greater station of maturity with an ever-deepening faith. I would make mistakes and learn from them. I would gather information I lacked and move forward with an understanding of what to do and how to be. I would read my Bible and pray, and the God on the other side would come to life in greater definition and power. I thought the same would be true of my vocational life. I would find a role someplace where I was able to contribute, grow in experience and skill, and eventually rise to some level of mastery that would bring opportunity, satisfaction, and maybe, after thirty years, a gold watch. Spiritually and vocationally—if I was faithful, I thought—I would be able to look back and see a straight line, more or less, leading me from there to here. Ever upward, fairly clean. I also thought my spiritual and vocational journeys would run on parallel tracks—near each other, but separate. Then affliction hit—the kind that would require me to release my hold on this world. After that, loss—the kind that would take from me people and things I never expected to lose. And after that, grief that would circle back in the most unexpected ways at the most unexpected times until I began to realize that the God I had put my faith in when I was younger wasn’t who I thought he was. It wasn’t that I felt he wasn’t real or that he had somehow failed me. No, the unraveling I experienced seemed to prove to me more than ever just how real, good, and loving he was. But he wasn’t who I thought he was. He was more. So much more.

All his life, Simeon hoped he would catch a glimpse of the Christ, but God had something better in mind. Simeon got to hold him. He took the boy in his arms and sang a song of praise: O Lord, my God! Father of all blessing and honor and praise, you have been so good to your servant. I hold in my arms your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of a dark but watching world. He will be the light by which the Gentiles will see you and come to know you, and the light by which your people Israel will again see the glory of how you have loved them with a love that has not let them go. O great and glorious King, Shepherd of my soul, Captain of my guard, I have kept my post. I have not turned my eyes from the horizon because you have promised that your Messiah would come on my watch. I have seen him. I have held him. Now let your servant go in peace. Honorably retire your watchman, O great and glorious King, and bring me home.

This is the gift of beauty from an artist to their community—to awaken our senses to the world as God made it and to awaken our senses to God himself (p. 14).

The disciple’s question reverberates down through the ages – does God care about our perishing? Jesus came treading on our roughest seas, speaking peace into the gale. And he will do it again. His triumph over the grave calls those who are perishing to be born again into a new and living hope. The peace he has brought by his resurrection is neither myth nor fantasy. It is an inheritance that will never perish, kept for those who believe, world without end. His is a Kingdom that will live. But it is the only one of its kind. If The Storm on the Sea of Galilee still exists, Rembrandt, in all his glory, is tucked away in some closet, attic, or vault, hidden from the world. He is still clutching that rope, still trying to keep his hat from flying off his head. And he is looking out into our world for anyone who will make eye contact.