Serenity Sunday Quotes

If it is true that a picture paints a thousand words, then there was a Roman centurion who got a dictionary full. All he did was see Jesus suffer. He never heard him preach or saw him heal or followed him through the crowds. He never witnessed him still the wind; he only witnessed the way he died. But that was all it took to cause this weather-worn soldier to take a giant step in faith. “Surely this was a righteous man.”1 That says a lot, doesn’t it? It says the rubber of faith meets the road of reality under hardship. It says the trueness of one’s belief is revealed in pain. Genuineness and character are unveiled in misfortune. Faith is at its best, not in three-piece suits on Sunday mornings or at V.B.S. on summer days, but at hospital bedsides, cancer wards, and cemeteries. Maybe that’s what moved this old, crusty soldier. Serenity in suffering is a stirring testimony. Anybody can preach a sermon on a mount surrounded by daisies. But only one with a gut full of faith can live a sermon on a mountain of pain.

Hands fitted into each other’s, we would walk Pausing only for an expresso at Dario’s And a while to lean on the railing of the bridge To watch the dark mystery of the canal moving upon itself We would lie in the tall grass and watch fireflies Dance against the tent of night Then race madly to catch the last train home Where we would eat bread and cheese And drink cheap wine on the table we made from boxes And life was young, alive and beautiful Because it was Sunday, and you loved Sundays.

MOTHER. I do not believe that there is anything sweeter in the world than the ideas which awake in a mother’s heart at the sight of her child’s tiny shoe; especially if it is a shoe for festivals, for Sunday, for baptism, the shoe embroidered to the very sole, a shoe in which the infant has not yet taken a step. That shoe has so much grace and daintiness, it is so impossible for it to walk, that it seems to the mother as though she saw her child. She smiles upon it, she kisses it, she talks to it; she asks herself whether there can actually be a foot so tiny; and if the child be absent, the pretty shoe suffices to place the sweet and fragile creature before her eyes. She thinks she sees it, she does see it, complete, living, joyous, with its delicate hands, its round head, its pure lips, its serene eyes whose white is blue. If it is in winter, it is yonder, crawling on the carpet, it is laboriously climbing upon an ottoman, and the mother trembles lest it should approach the fire. If it is summer time, it crawls about the yard, in the garden, plucks up the grass between the paving-stones, gazes innocently at the big dogs, the big horses, without fear, plays with the shells, with the flowers, and makes the gardener grumble because he finds sand in the flower-beds and earth in the paths. Everything laughs, and shines and plays around it, like it, even the breath of air and the ray of sun which vie with each other in disporting among the silky ringlets of its hair. The shoe shows all this to the mother, and makes her heart melt as fire melts wax.

Sunday evening, when Mr. Klum left me at the foot of our driveway, I felt serene, sun-tinged, and happy. Mother’s first words were “Beverly! You’ve ruined your complexion!” I flopped into the nearest chair. “Mother,” I said, pleading and without anger, “it does seem as if no matter what I do, you make me feel guilty.” “Why, that’s ridiculous,” she said. Somehow I found the courage to contradict. “No, it isn’t ridiculous. You do make me feel guilty,” I insisted, still without anger. I wanted so much to talk honestly with Mother, to tell her my feelings, to become her friend. Mother stiffened, her mouth a straight line. “Well, excuse me for living,” she said. For the first time, I understood that I was afraid of Mother for the guilt she made me bear, and that I could never have an honest conversation with her. The woman I wanted for a friend would always be right; I would always be wrong. I have never understood why, for Mother was genuinely kind to others and could be kind to me when I did exactly as she wished.

The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each other. Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose, as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a purpose and it did at least keep him on the move. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was --- indeed, is --- one of the Universe's very small number of immortal beings. Those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards. He had had his immortality thrust upon him by an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying. Wowbagger closed his eyes in a grim and weary expression, put some light jazz on the ship's stereo, and reflected that he could have made it if it hadn't been for Sunday afternoons, he really could have done. To begin with it was fun, he had a ball, living dangerously, taking risks, cleaning up on high-yield long-term investments, and just generally outliving the hell out of everybody. In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul. So things began to pall for him. The merry smiles he used to wear at other people's funerals began to fade. He began to despise the Universe in general, and everyone in it in particular. This was the point at which he conceived his purpose, the thing which would drive him on, and which, as far as he could see, would drive him on forever. It was this. He would insult the Universe.

If a country successfully translate the principles of truth and honesty into their social life, then that country experiences peace, tranquillity and serenity.

Returning to Bath, Dahmer moved in with his father and stepmother. However, it was not long before his excessive drinking got him in trouble with the law. In October 1981, he was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. His dad tried to get him some help and introduced him to Alcoholics Anonymous, but it didn’t take. Thoughts of his earlier deed refused to go away, and his drinking caused conflict in the home. To appease his wife, his father suggested Jeff move in with his paternal grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin—a working-class suburb of Milwaukee. His father felt it would serve two purposes: Jeff could look after his grandmother, who was getting on in years, and with him gone, there would finally be peace in their home. Dahmer’s move to Wisconsin was the beginning of some real soul searching. His grandmother was a very religious woman. He loved and admired her and felt she could help him get control of his life. She was kindly, loving, and tolerant, and she had a quiet serenity about her that he craved. He felt that religion might provide a way out of his predicament. They discussed religious matters, and he began to accompany her to Sunday service and weekday Bible study. This kept him sober during the day, but when Grandma retired for the evening, he began to drink again. He knew he had an alcohol problem, but felt his need to drink arose from the horrible memory he carried with him. He could never get it out of his mind. No matter how hard he tried, the knowledge of what he had done stayed with him.

The fragrance started off bright and happy, fresh-cut grass and sunshine, iced hibiscus tea, the best of a Sunday afternoon. Lavender and rose released their sweetness into the air so serenely you knew there was not a weed within ten yards of them. The scents filtered out through the store, and as Victoria and I watched, the customers began putting down their phones, looking about with greater interest, smiling at one another. "Well, you certainly made them friendly," Victoria said. I just smiled. The fragrance began to deepen. Vanilla, the clarion call of mothers in aprons and after-school cookies warm from the oven. The women's expressions softened. Your life can be like this, the fragrance said. Your children will love you. Then, slowly, lazily, in came the scent of jasmine. Victoria tilted her head. "Hello, troublemaker," she said. It floated out across the room, heavy and sensual, the essence of beautiful, younger women. Women who birthed children and wore bikinis within a month, or worse yet, never had children at all, their stomachs taut, their breasts ripe. Women who drew the wandering eyes of husbands. Then, even as the customers began shifting away from each other with polite, nervous smiles, there came another scent, lurking inside the jasmine, where it always waited- a touch of indole. A trail that led you downward, into the dirt. But not enough- the fragrance was still too sweet. It hovered in the store, off-kilter. "Hmm," Victoria said, her eyebrows pulling together. "Wait," I said. The want of balance was like an ache in the air. The fragrance reached out, searching, begging for completion. It didn't want sweet. It didn't want nice. And then, out of the skin, the sweat, the very heat of the women's thoughts, came the missing base note. Keen edged as a knife, it rose to meet the sweetness. Jealousy. As we watched, one of the women picked up a cashmere throw and clutched it to her chest. Another sat down on a leather couch, her arms spread out like a claim jumper. Mine. "Brilliant," Victoria said, stifling a laugh. "Absolutely brilliant.

Eliza focuses on Christ’s expression, appalling in a serenity as disproportionate to the scene as the weeping Marys. Where is your anger? Eliza questions. Sunday by Sunday she asks and receives no answer. I am angry, I am furious! She knows the impropriety of these feelings; she knows Christ suffers for her immortal soul. Can I not be both grateful for the miracle and angry at the injustice? Who can look at Christ’s face, his jutting ribs, the discoloration of rot rising on the skin of his dying feet, his dying hands – who can look upon this man and lack fury?