Shelter From The Storm Quotes

Matthias was dreaming again. Dreaming of her. The storm raged around him, drowning out Nina’s voice. And yet his heart was easy. Somehow he knew that she would be safe, she would find shelter from the cold. He was on the ice once more, and somewhere he could hear the wolves howling. But this time, he knew they were welcoming him home.

I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm…And make certain that storm isn’t you.

The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood.

Don't let the rain drive you to the wrong shelter; the shade can turn out to be your protector and also your destroyer, and sometimes the rain is the perfect protector from the rain.

I am the only storm that matters now, and there is no shelter from what I bring.

It's not about finding shelter from the storm, it's about learning to dance in the rain.

I live to tear demons apart. Bring the bastards on. (Sin) Agreed…bring on the rain. The one thing I learned from Astrid is that life isn’t about finding shelter in a storm. It’s about learning to dance in the rain. I don’t care what I kill as long as I get bloody while doing it. (Zarek)

All right, asshole. You want to wallow, wallow. It’s no sweat off my balls if you crawl inside a bottle and pickle yourself solid. I’ve got other things to think about now. But let me remind you of something a good friend once said to me when I was being eaten alive by feelings I didn’t understand. ‘Even when my marriage was bad, it was good.’ I had no real idea what you meant that night, but now I do and I’m grateful to the gods I can finally believe in that I took a chance on something that almost killed me. The life I have now…no, the woman I have now is worth every rotten moment of my worthless existence that led me to her door, and I would relive it all to have one kiss from her lips. You’re the one who told me that the right woman was a shelter from the storm. (Nykyrian to Syn)

Perhaps love is like a resting place, a shelter from the storm. It exists to give you comfort, it is there to keep you warm, and in those times of trouble when you are most alone, the memory of love will bring you home.

Home for me is not where I am. Home for me is a physical structure where the girl whom I love is sheltered and protected from the incoming storms of life. Home for me is not where I am safe, but where she is safe. Home for me is not where she exists, but where she lives. She is my home.

People do not need saving. People need love, support, and encouragement that they can withstand any trials and will always come out stronger, wiser, and more compassionate. I cannot shelter anyone from the storms of life, or they will never grow, learn, and expand.

Everyone is in need of a shelter from the storm, be the shelter, be kind.

I love weather. I'm a connoisseur of weather. Wherever my travels take me, the first thing I do is turn on the weather channel and see what's going on, what's coming. I like to know about regional weather patterns, how storms are created in different altitudes, what kinds of clouds are forming or dissipating or blowing through, where the winds are coming from, where they've been. That's not a passion everybody shares, I know, but I don't believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered, don't feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath.

Help your father As he ages And loses his strength For it was he who sheltered you And protected you from the storms KhoiSan Book of Wisdom

I know very little, and I still know more than you, Khalid-jan. I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm . . .” Jalal rose to his feet, straightening the insignia of the Royal Guard at his shoulder. “And make certain that storm isn’t you.

Street children are lovely blossoms just dropped from the tree after a heavy storm. Now they need to be put together with a needle and threads of security and shelter to live into a beautiful circle of life’s garland

know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm . . .

Back then life was simple and sweet. Everything was simple and sweet. The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the fresh smell of the river. That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills, sheltered from the storms. Ignorant of the world, as though on an island. Peaceful and untroubled. And then. Then everything changed.

You’re thinking, maybe it would be easier to let it slip let it go say ”I give up” one last time and give him a sad smile. You’re thinking it shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t be this dark, thinking love could flow easily with no holding back and you’ve seen others find their match and build something great together, of each other, like two halves fitting perfectly and now they achieve great things one by one, always together, and it seems grand. But you love him. Love him like a black stone in your chest you couldn’t live without because it fits in there. Makes you who you are and the thought of him gone—no more—makes your chest tighten up and maybe this is your fairytale. Maybe this is your castle. You could get it all on a shiny piece of glass with wooden stools and a neverending blooming garden but that’s not yours. This is yours. The cracks and the faults, the ugly words in the winter walking home alone and angry but falling asleep thinking you love him. This is your fairy tale. The quiet in the hallway, wishing for him to turn around, tell you to stay, tell you to please don’t go I need you like you need me and maybe it’s not a Jane Austen novel but this is your novel and your castle and you can run from it your whole life but this is here in front of you. Maybe nurture it? Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour or two. This is your fairy. It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed. It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love. Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go. Be someone’s someone for someone. Be that someone for him. That’s your fairy tale. This is your castle. Now move in. Build a home. Build a house. Build a safety around things you love. It’s yours if you make it so. Welcome home, sweet girl, it will be all be fine.

I have sent you to the Garden of the Gods and offered you the whole world in which to play. I have provided sufficient bounty to make certain that there is enough for everyone. No one should go hungry, least of all die of hunger. No one need be without clothing to keep warm, nor should anyone be without shelter from the storm. There is enough for everyone.

Tim curled up in a corner of the backseat, sheltering his penguin from the storm, all tensed up in “scandalized Maggie Smith” pose.

WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG, Papa used to tell me that words fly on wild winds from the mouths of sly people. When the winds pick up, he said, sand blows into your ears and bites your eyes. Storms build overhead like a lake with a spout, but you can’t see or hear. Only when you are safely sheltered, Papa said, can you tell which way the wind is blowing. Only from the calm, he said, can you see how to protect yourself from trouble.

We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. This drive to emotionally attach — to find someone to whom we can turn and say “Hold me tight” — is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy — to survive.

Steadfast a lamp burns sheltered from the wind; Such is the likeness of the Yogi's mind Shut from sense-storms and burning bright to Heaven.

It´s alright, Ma, Things have changed. Tangled up in blue, Just like a woman, Like a rolling stone. Most of the time, Mr Tamburin Man Gotta serve somebody. All I really want to do, Can´t wait, Soon after midnight – Visions of Joanna, Lay lady lay, Make you feel my love. The man in me, This dream of you, Things have changed. Simple twist of fate, One too many mornings, Things have changed. Saved! Roll on John, Masters of War, Must be Santa. Seven days, Shelter from the storm, Life is hard.

Tell me about dying, Del.” Her eyes fluttered open and she looked out the spattered window. “It’s a little like being a raindrop. You wanna cling to the glass, but the ground’s calling your name.” –

There are those who believe that fear is an enemy, one that must be avoided at all costs. They run at its first stirrings. They seek shelter from the storm inside the house only to get crushed when the roof falls in. Fear is the most misunderstood of creatures. It only wants the best for you. It will help you if you let it. Isabelle understood this. She listened to her fear and let it guide her

At night, she slipped into the shelter of the boy’s arms as they stood together on deck, picking out constellations from the vast spill of stars: the Hunter, the Scholar, the Three Foolish Sons, the bright spokes of the Spinning Wheel, the Southern Palace with its six crooked spires.

Running had always put me into a kind of trance. It was one of my first meditative experiences, and it let me escape from my self-berating, never-good-enough routine. Running produces endorphins that are calming; running lowers anxiety. I loved the feeling I had when I ran. It was shelter from the storm.

What I did know was that as we sheltered from our own private tempests, something immutable happened to the bond between Finn Strachan and me, and our unnamed relationship shifted into something far stronger than either of us knew how to control. If I'd had the energy, I might have halted it there, kept my face turned away and driven on through the storm. But right then, I needed the haven that Finn offered more than oxygen.

Somewhere to take shelter from the elements but not the storms of life.

Who’s the informant, Ennis?” He wiggled a battery cable. “Not sure. They’re protecting his identity like the Pope protects perverts. Why?

The one thing I learned from Astrid is that life isn't about finding shelter in a storm. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

all gardens rain will fall. But the heart and the love it’s capable of will give us shelter from even the worst storms.

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove And old men with broken teeth stranded without love Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn Come in, she said I'll give ya shelter from the storm

The wheat had survived the hail and lightning of the summer storms, but luck could not deliver it from the cold. By the time the refugees took shelter in the old house, the wheat was dead, killed by the hard fist of a deep frost.

The Herons! The Herons! The mighty, fighting Herons! No other Brotherband you'll see Is even half as darin' We sailed away from Hallasholm, we had to be real quick, For Kloof had eaten Erak's ax and chewed his walking stick. We sailed across the Stormwite and we struck a mighty storm. We had to wear our woolly caps to keep us nice and warm. We sailed around Cape Shelter and then south to Araluen. We called upon the people there to find out what was doin'. We chased an evil slaver to the market of Socorro. "We can't rescue them tonight," said Hal. "We'll get them out tomorrow." Lydia and the Ranger burned the market to the ground. The rest of us, we freed the slaves then headed out of town. The Herons! The Herons! The mighty, fighting Herons! No other Brotherband you'll see Is even half as darin' The slave master named Mahmel was a nasty kind of thug, So Stiggy dropped a rock and crushed him like a bug. We sailed back to Cresthaven and we set the captives free. King Duncan said, "Well done, my lads, you're just the boys for me. My Ranger Gilan has to go hunt down some assassins So go along with him and give these wicked types a thrashin'." A pirate galley barred our way. We quickly overtook 'em. And Ingvar led the charge aboard to stab and chop and hook 'em. We beat the Tualaghi and the Scorpions as well. The Ranger stuck his saxe into the leader, the Shurmel. When all the assassins threw a fit of wild hysterics, Hal grabbed up the Shurmel's staff and brought it back for Erak. The Herons! The Herons! The mighty, fighting Herons! No other Brotherband you'll see Is even half as darin

The Whites always mean well when they take human fish out of the ocean and try to make them dry and warm and happy and comfortable in a chicken coop; but the kindest-hearted white man can always be depended on to prove himself inadequate when he deals with savages. He cannot turn the situation around and imagine how he would like it to have a well-meaning savage transfer him from his house and his church and his clothes and his books and his choice food to a hideous wilderness of sand and rocks and snow, and ice and sleet and storm and blistering sun, with no shelter, no bed, no covering for his and his family's naked bodies, and nothing to eat but snakes and grubs and offal. This would be a hell to him; and if he had any wisdom he would know that his own civilization is a hell to the savage - but he hasn't any, and has never had any; and for lack of it he shut up those poor natives in the unimaginable perdition of his civilization, committing his crime with the very best intentions, and saw those poor creatures waste away under his tortures; and gazed at it, vaguely troubled and sorrowful, and wondered what could be the matter with them.

The night was dark as pitch or coal. Stupid expressions, thought Pereda. European nights might be pitch-dark or coal-black, but not American nights, which are dark like a void, where there's nothing to hold on to, no shelter from the elements, just empty, storm-whipped space, above and below.

As Elizabeth Blackmar and Ray Rosenzweig wrote in their magisterial history of [Central Park in NYC]: 'The issue of demoncratic access to the park has also been raised by the increasing number of homeless New Yorkers. Poor people--from the 'squatters' of the 1850s to the 'tramps' of the 1870s and 1890s to the Hooverville residents of the 1930s--have always turned to the park land for shelter...The growing visibility of homeless people in Central Park osed in the starkest terms the contradiction between Americans' commitment to democratic space and their acquiescence in vast disparities of wealth and power.

These were the distractions I had to choose from. There were no other lights burning downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders in the back yards were the only evidence that the wasteful, consuming process of life went on at all. On Tuesday nights the Owl Club danced; then there was a little stir in the streets, and here and there one could see a lighted window until midnight. But the next night all was dark again.

There will come a time when each of us will need a clean, well-lighted place that stays open all day and night, offering shelter from life’s storms. This is a hospital.

Even a fallen leaf can shelter a bug from the storm.

The LORD GOD is a shelter from the heat. The LORD GOD is a refuge from the storm.

How pleasant it is', says the Roman poet, 'to listen to a storm from the safe shelter of the shore.

How do you do it, my love? My haven is in your heart and my shelter is in your arms. When your eyes find mine, they give me refuge from the storm. Did you know I’m homesick without you?

The true enemy of humanity was not Evil, an abstract idea personified by some sort of crimson-faced creature dancing in flames, but Chance, that smoky million-handed monster forever fitting its tiny fingers into the fissures of your life, working tear it apart, loosening the fatal screw, turning that first cell cancerous, sending lightning to strike the tree that you chose for shelter from the storm.

Men who think women are weak are fools. Their greatest strength is that they’re wicks for every nuance of emotion around them. That gift makes them both perceptive and yet vulnerable to others’ judgments. Their

...in the running of cities, virtually nothing is done by anyone that is conducive to political health, nor is there a single ally with whom one might go to the aid of justice and still remain alive; it would be a case of a solitary human among wild animals, neither wanting to join in their depredations nor able to stand alone against their collective savagery, dead before he'd done any good to his city or friends and useless both to himself and everybody else. Once a person has made all these calculations, he keeps his peace and minds his own business, like someone withdrawing from the prevailing wind into the shelter of a wall in a storm of dust or rain, and as he sees everyone else filling themselves full of lawlessness he is content if he himself can somehow live out life here untainted by injustice and impious actions, and leave it with fine hopes and in a spirit of kindness and good will.

Often we can get caught in our own struggles, our own small stories, that we forget our place in the larger story arc – the way that our actions, our choices, our achievements can and will blaze trails for that who come after us, so that they do not have to spend their time and energy re-fighting the same battles. For sure we walk a spiral path, but for generations of women the spirals were so tightly packed that it seemed they were going round in circles – let us blaze trails so that the path we walk takes in wider and wider sweeps of human experience. Trail blazing is what we do when we find ourselves in the wilderness, with no path to guide us but our own intuitive understanding of nature and our destination. At times we must walk through the night, guided only by the stars. We know when to sit and rest, to shelter from storms, when to gather water, and what on the trail will sustain us and what will do us harm. We are courageous and cautious in equal measure, but we are driven forward, not only by our own desire to reach our destination, but also by the desire to leave a viable way for others who follow. Trail blazing is an art-form. It is how we find paths through what before was wilderness. We push aside braches, or cut them back, we tramp down nettles and long grasses, ford rivers and streams, through the inner and outer landscapes.

The Bible's picture of a godly leader also describes the godly home: "A shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock" (Isaiah 32:2). May that be true of your home.

When we reluctantly set out for someone’s house, thinking all the while that we don’t want to go, that we’re sure to end up bored to distraction, it’s often the case that the people we’re going to visit are genuinely delighted to have us. But suppose we’re thinking: Ah, that house is my home away from home. In fact, it’s more like home than my own place. It’s my only shelter from the storm! What then? We set out for the visit in high spirits, but in this case, my friends, we’re very likely to be considered a nuisance, an excrescence, and a hound from hell and to find our hosts repeatedly checking their watches. Thinking of someone else’s house as our shelter from the storm is, perhaps, evidence of a certain imbecility, but the fact remains that we often labor under astonishing misconceptions when calling on others. Unless we have a particular mission in mind, it’s probably best to refrain from visiting even our most intimate friends at home.

I know very little, and I still know more than you, Khalid-jan. I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm

Those who have flesh and blood children but have never created anything artistically can never appreciate what the fruit of a childless author's "womb" can mean to him. The book is often as much a product of the heart and the soul as it is of the mind, it has quite likely been many years in the making, and though the author knows that one day his offspring will have to make its own way in a cruel world that can never appreciate it as he does, he also knows that, for as long as he lives, it is his solemn duty to watch over it, pick it up when it falls down, and shelter it from the worst of any storm. To do any less would be to fail publicly as a parent. The new born book is a helpless child. The "father" may not recognise it as his own, or even know that it exists.

Mia, love is just a word. That’s all. I promise to show you how I feel by reminding you each day I don’t take you for granted. I will honor you. Protect you. Shelter you from the storms before they even happen. I will worship you with my body, my mind, my heart, and my soul.

I am your shelter from the storm. I am your strength when you are weak. I am the fire that burns through your veins and heats you when you are in need. I am the one who will fill your womb and protect the children you give me. I am your light in the darkness and the one who guides your way when you are lost. I am the creature who will destroy worlds to keep you and will never allow you to fall. I am Lennox, beast to the High King of the Nine Realms and King of Norvalla. I am your mate, Aria Karnavious.” Leaning closer, locking eyes with mine, Lennox asked, “Who are you?

Another reason for Buddha’s emphasis on detachment may have been the turbulent times he lived in: Kings and city-states were making war, and people’s lives and fortunes could be burned up overnight. When life is unpredictable and dangerous (as it was for the Stoic philosophers, living under capricious Roman emperors), it might be foolish to seek happiness by controlling one’s external world. But now it is not. People living in wealthy democracies can set long-term goals and expect to meet them. We are immunized against disease, sheltered from storms, and insured against fire, theft, and collision. For the first time in human history, most people (in wealthy countries) will live past the age of seventy and will not see any of their children die before them. Although all of us will get unwanted surprises along the way, we’ll adapt and cope with nearly all of them, and many of us will believe we are better off for having suffered. So to cut off all attachments, to shun the pleasures of sensuality and triumph in an effort to escape the pains of loss and defeat—this now strikes me as an inappropriate response to the inevitable presence of some suffering in every life.

And you told us: the storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation or armament and you told us: the storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth enables men (and women) everywhere to live in dignity and human decency.

And after everything she was put through. Every storm no one sheltered her from. Every battle field no one fought by her side. Every scar that marked her body. She still made herself stronger. She is one with her storm. She is more than 100 men on that battle field. She heals her own scar's. She is underestimated.

And at night, waking out of a dream, overwhelmed and bewitched by the crowding apparitions, a man perceives with alarm how slight is the support, how thin the boundary that divides him from the darkness. We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out.

no one can recover if they won’t admit the wrongdoings. i won’t recover if i pretend it was all sunshine. i have to remember his vindictive temper and realize that sheltering the house from the storm wasn’t actually going to make a difference if i still got damaged in the process. because then it’s just another broken house with no one to tell its story.

I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life, - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it; - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; - and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered from the shock of the tempest.' 'Granted; - but would you use the same argument with regard to a girl?' 'Certainly not.' 'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?' 'Assuredly not.' 'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be either that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded, that she cannot withstand temptation, - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity, - whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only the further developed - ' 'Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last." 'Well, then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the merest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished - his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others. Now I would have both so to benefit by the experience of others, and the precepts of a higher authority, that they should know beforehand to refuse the evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself; - and as for my son - if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world - one that has "seen life," and glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it as to sober down, at length, into a useful and respected member of society - I would rather that he died to-morrow! - rather a thousand times!' she earnestly repeated, pressing her darling to her side and kissing his forehead with intense affection. He had already left his new companion, and been standing for some time beside his mother's knee, looking up into her face, and listening in silent wonder to her incomprehensible discourse. Anne Bronte, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (24,25)

You know very little, and I still know more than you, Khalid-jan. I know love is fragile. And loving someone like you is near impossible. Like holding something shattered through a raging sandstorm. If you want her to love you, shelter her from that storm..." Jalal rose to his feet, straightening the insignia of the Royal Guard at his shoulder. "And make certain that storm isn't you.

He loves her because she is a fierce, wholly unexpected, electric storm, yet she is a constant, quiet, pure and utterly calm shelter from the cruel, cold world. She Is a Wild Thing! She is nature's most enigmatic, rare and magickal creature and he is the only man able to ravish her body, soul and spirit without destroying her. They are a match made in heaven raising all manners of hell.

Once as a child, Phoebe had been caught outside in a summer storm, and had seen a butterfly knocked from the air by raindrops. It had fluttered and fallen to the ground, bombarded from every direction. The only choice had been to fold its wings, take shelter and wait. This man was the storm and the shelter, pulling her into a deep, encompassing darkness where there was too much to feel- hot soft firm sweet hungry rough silken tugging. She strained helplessly in his arms, although she didn't know whether she was trying to escape or press closer. She had craved this, the hardness and heat of his body against hers, the sensation familiar and yet not at all familiar. She had feared this, a man with a will and power that matched her own, a man who would desire and possess every last part of her without mercy.

(T)he true enemy of humanity was not Evil, an abstract idea personified by some sort of crimson-faced creature dancing in flames, but Chance, that smoky million-handed monster forever fitting its tiny fingers into the fissures of your life, working tear it apart, loosening the fatal screw, turning that first cell cancerous, sending lightning to strike the tree that you chose for shelter from the storm. The version of Satan that embodied every ill of human life had been patched onto the Judeo-Christian tradition because the early God that Moses knew was too tough and terrible for worshippers to want to deal with. The fear that Moses had of Yahweh was as much of His caprice as of His power --He was just as likely to force the Hebrews to wander in the wilderness as He was to rescue them from the Egyptians. In short, He was not the embodiment of good, but of chance: neither good nor evil, but inscrutable and unavoidable.

I belong to myself. Always. Eternally. Without question. My own safe house. My own sheltered harbor. I am my own solid ground. I am the lighthouse beacon. I call the ships safely home from sea. I am the North Star and the compass. I am my own port in the wildest storm. I am the spell caster and the spell breaker. I am a witch of alchemy and transformation. I am the pages in the grimoire of knowledge, I am the source of all the magic ever known. I am the kiss that wakes us all from slumber. I am the white horse knight in shining armor. I am my own happily ever after fairytale godmother. I am my own rest stop on the longest journey of living. The final destination on every treasure map I will ever need. I am my own primary relationship, my own till death do us part. I am my own center and saving grace, my own best-kept secret. I am the lineage of wisdom itself, the home of my own belonging. I am my own. And my own. And always my own.

Kiyoaki and Honda were perhaps as different in their makuep as the flower and the leaf of a single plant. Kiyoaki was incapable of hiding his true nature, and he was defenceless against society's power to inflict pain. His still unawakened sensuality lay dormant within him, unprotected as a puppy in a March rain, body shivering, eyes and nose pelted with water. Honda, on the other hand, had quite early in life grasped where the danger lay, choosing to shelter from all storms, whatever their attraction.

Many hundreds of craft of all sizes and nationalities - transatlantic steamers, full-rigged ships, barques, schooners, and fishing smacks - were running into the Sound from the open sea, making for the shelter of the roads of Elsinore. Not a single vessel was heading the other way, all were scudding in before the tempest; many of them, no doubt, had put to sea several days before, bound round the Skaw into the German Ocean, but had been compelled to turn back by the violence of the hurricane. They were all staggering along under the smallest possible amounts of canvas, pitching heavily into the frightfully high seas; here a full-rigged ship under close-reefed topsails; here a schooner under fore and main trysails; here a brig under bare poles; here a pilot-cutter under spit-fire jib, and the balance-reef down in her mainsail. Several vessels had lost spars or portions of their bulwarks; one Norwegian barque was evidently water-logged, and in a sinking condition, and was floundering slowly into smoother water, but just in time; and outside the Sound, on the raging Kattegat, were hundreds of other vessels, some hull down on the horizon, making for the same refuge, their fate still uncertain among those gigantic rollers, and, no doubt, with many an anxious heart on board of them.

So, O king, does the present life of man on earth seem to me, in comparison with the time which is unknown to us, as though a sparrow flew swiftly through the hall, coming in by one door and going out by the other, and you, the while, sat at meat with your captains and liegemen, in wintry weather, with a fire burning in your midst and heating the room, the storm raging out of doors and driving snow and rain before it. For the time for which he is within, the bird is sheltered from the storm, but after this short while of calm he flies out again into the cold and is seen no more. Thus the life of man is visible for a moment, but we know not what comes before it or follows after it.

Arianna simply wasn’t up to it. She had a pretty voice, she could carry a tune—that was never a problem. But she had no depth. She couldn’t interpret a song, place her stamp on it. Unlike Lesley, who fairly stomped on it! And that’s what you need in folk music. These are songs that have been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They existed for centuries before any kind of recording was possible, even before people could write, for god’s sake! So the only way those songs lived and got passed on was by singers. The better singer you were, the more likely it was people were going to turn out to hear you and remember you—and remember the song—whether it was at a pub or wedding or ceilidh or just a knot of people seeking shelter under a tree during a storm. It’s a kind of time machine, really, the way you can trace a song from whoever’s singing it now back through the years—Dylan or Johnny Cash, Joanna Newsom or Vashti Bunyan—on through all those nameless folk who kept it alive a thousand years ago. People talk about carrying the torch, but I always think of that man they found in the ice up in the Alps. He’d been under the snow for 1,200 years, and when they discovered him, he was still wearing his clothes, a cloak of woven grass and a bearskin cap, and in his pocket they found a little bag of grass and tinder and a bit of dead coal. That was the live spark he’d been carrying, the bright ember he kept in his pocket to start a fire whenever he stopped. You’d have to be so careful, more careful than we can even imagine, to keep that one spark alive. Because that’s what kept you alive, in the cold and the dark. Folk music is like that. And by folk I mean whatever music it is that you love, whatever music it is that sustains you. It’s the spark that keeps us alive in the cold and night, the fire we all gather in front of so we know we’re not alone in the dark. And the longer I live, the colder and darker it gets. A song like “Windhover Morn” can keep your heart beating when the doctors can’t. You might laugh at that, but it’s true.

To me the front is a mysterious whirlpool. Though I am in still water far away from its centre, I feel the whirl of the vortex sucking me slowly, irresistibly, inescapable into itself. From the earth, from the air, sustaining forces pour into us—mostly from the earth. To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever. Earth!—Earth!—Earth! Earth with thy folds, and hollows, and holes, into which a man may fling himself and crouch down. In the spasm of terror, under the hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of the explosions, O Earth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life. Our being, almost utterly carried away by the fury of the storm, streams back through our hands from thee, and we, thy redeemed ones, bury ourselves in thee, and through the long minutes in a mute agony of hope bite into thee with our lips! At the sound of the first droning of the shells we rush back, in one part of our being, a thousand years. By the animal instinct that is awakened in us we are led and protected. It is not conscious; it is far quicker, much more sure, less fallible, than consciousness. One cannot explain it. A man is walking along without thought or heed;—suddenly he throws himself down on the ground and a storm of fragments flies harmlessly over him;—yet he cannot remember either to have heard the shell coming or to have thought of flinging himself down. But had he not abandoned himself to the impulse he would now be a heap of mangled flesh. It is this other, this second sight in us, that has thrown us to the ground and saved us, without our knowing how. If it were not so, there would not be one man alive from Flanders to the Vosges. We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers—we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals. An

The only reason you can't believe it is because you live in a different reality from the rest of us. You are a Stormling. You never knew of the market's existence because you do not need it. When the storms hit, you have a spacious shelter. You know that the palace where you live in will be protected at all costs. You needn't fear the cold or heat or hunger. You don't have to worry about the finite number of jobs in the kingdom or take lower and lower pay to keep from losing your position to someone willing to do the work for less, only to then worry you won't have enough to pay the taxes required to remain a citizen. The rest of us are always keenly aware that we could not survive outside these city walls, and must do everything to maintain our livelihoods within them. So treason might seem absurd to you, but for the rest of us, it's a fact of life.

To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when be buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever. Earth! - Earth! - Earth! Earth with thy folds, and hollows, and holes, into which a man may fling himself and crouch down. In the spasm of terror, under the hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of explosions, O Earth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life. Our being, almost utterly carried away by the fury of the storm, streams back through our hands from thee, and we, thy redeemed ones, bury ourselves in thee, and through the long minutes in a mute agony of hope bite into thee with our lips.

To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever. Earth! - Earth! - Earth! Earth with thy folds, and hollows, and holes, into which a man may fling himself and crouch down. In the spasm of terror, under the hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of explosions, O Earth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life. Our being, almost utterly carried away by the fury of the storm, streams back through our hands from thee, and we, thy redeemed ones, bury ourselves in thee, and through the long minutes in a mute agony of hope bite into thee with our lips.

At half-past two o'clock of a moonlit morning in March, I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake!" feeling sure I was going to learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one another so closely, that I had to balance myself carefully in walking as if on the deck of a ship among waves, and it seemed impossible that the high cliffs of the Valley could escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, towering above my cabin, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a large yellow pine, hoping that it might protect me from at least the smaller outbounding boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became more and more violent--flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few twists and battering, explosive, upheaving jolts--as if Nature were wrecking her Yosemite temple, and getting ready to build a still better one.

It was delicious in the garden. The storm had passed over long since, and it was still and warm; the sweetness of the stocks and roses filled the air with the peculiar intensity of fragrance of flowers after rain - in the evening light they had the unnatural shadowy vividness of a coloured photograph. The rain had stirred up the nightingales too - near and far, their bubbling ecstasy welled out from the dark shelter of ilexes and cypresses, and through the open windows of the villa there came presently the cool elusive sequences of Debussy's music - ghosts of melody rather than melodies, evocations rather than statements; gleams on water and pale lights in spring skies, a single star, slow waves beating in mist on a deserted shore. Grace leant back in the corner of her seat, listening, watching the leaves of the buckthorns, like little curved pencils, against the sky above her head; in the relaxation of fatigue her attention was fixed on nothing, but some part of her was profoundly aware of all these things - the scent of the flowers, the song of the nightingales, the cool western music, with its memories of her own Atlantic shores.

Truth is elusive, subtle, manysided. You know, Priscilla, there’s an old Hindu story about Truth. It seems a brash young warrior sought the hand of a beautiful princess. Her father, the king, thought he was a bit too cocksure and callow. He decreed that the warrior could only marry the princess after he had found Truth. So the warrior set out into the world on a quest for Truth. He went to temples and monasteries, to mountaintops where sages meditated, to remote forests where ascetics scourged themselves, but nowhere could he find Truth. Despairing one day and seeking shelter from a thunderstorm, he took refuge in a musty cave. There was an old crone there, a hag with matted hair and warts on her face, the skin hanging loose from her bony limbs, her teeth yellow and rotting, her breath malodorous. But as he spoke to her, with each question she answered, he realized he had come to the end of his journey: she was Truth. They spoke all night, and when the storm cleared, the warrior told her he had fulfilled his quest. ‘Now that I have found Truth,’ he said, ‘what shall I tell them at the palace about you?’ The wizened old creature smiled. ‘Tell them,’ she said, ‘tell them that I am young and beautiful.

Call to mind how Jesus used to forgive men's sins, thus lifting from their hearts the crushing load that paralyzed all their efforts. Recall the tenderness with which he received those from whom the religious of his day turned aside—the repentant women who wept sore-hearted from very love, the publicans who knew they were despised because they were despicable. With him they sought and found shelter. He was their saviour from the storm of human judgment and the biting frost of public opinion, even when that opinion and that judgment were re-echoed by the justice of their own hearts. He received them, and the life within them rose up, and the light shone—the conscious light of light, despite even of shame and self-reproach. If God be for us who can be against us? In his name they rose from the hell of their own hearts' condemnation, and went forth to do the truth in strength and hope. They heard and believed and obeyed his words. And of all words that ever were spoken, were ever words gentler, tenderer, humbler, lovelier—if true, or more arrogant, man-degrading, God-defying—if false, than these, concerning which, as his, I now desire to speak to you: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am plac'd in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expell'd all human commerce, and left utterly abandon'd and disconsolate. Fain wou'd I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth; but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join me, in order to make a company apart; but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads that storm, which beats upon me from every side. I have expos'd myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declar'd my disapprobation of their systems; and can I be surpriz'd, if they shou'd express a hatred of mine and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; tho' such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning.

If anything, the LAPD had long and famously been guilty of overreaction, as they had shown, for example, during the infamous 1988 raid on two small, adjacent apartment buildings on South Central’s Dalton Avenue. There, eighty LAPD officers had stormed the buildings looking for drugs on a bullshit tip. After handcuffing the terrorized residents—including small children and their grandparents—they then spent the next several hours tearing all the toilets from the floors; smashing in walls, stairwells, bedroom sets, and televisions with sledgehammers; slashing open furniture; and then sending it all crashing through windows into the front yard and arresting anyone who happened by to watch. As they were leaving, the officers spray-painted a large board located down the street with some graffiti. “LAPD Rules,” read one message; “Rolling 30s Die” read another. So completely uninhabitable were the apartments rendered that the Red Cross had to provide the occupants with temporary shelter, as if some kind of natural disaster had occurred. No gang members lived there, no charges were ever filed. In the end, the city paid $3.8 million to the victims of the destruction. A report later written by LAPD assistant chief Robert Vernon called it “a poorly planned and executed field operation [that] involved . . . an improperly focused and supervised aggressive attitude of police officers, supervisors and managers toward being ‘at war’ with gang members.” The

Well, Mr Markham, you that maintain that a boy should not be shielded from evil, but sent out to battle against it, alone and unassisted - not taught to avoid the snares of life, but boldly to rush into them, or over them, as he may - to seek danger rather than shun it, and feed his virtue by temptation - would you-' 'I beg your pardon, Mrs Graham - but you get on too fast. I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life - or even wilfully to seek temptation for the sake of exercising his virtue by overcoming it - I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hot-house, tending it carefully night and day, and shielding it from every breath of wind, you could not expect it to become a hardy tree, like that which has grown up on the mountain-side, exposed to all the action of the elements, and not even sheltered form the shock of the tempest.' 'Granted; but would you use the same arguments with regard to a girl?' 'Certainly not.' 'No; you would have her to be tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house plant - taught to cling to others for direction and support, and guarded, as much as possible, from the very knowledge of evil. But will you be so good as to inform me why you make this distinction? Is it that you think she has no virtue?' 'Assuredly not.' 'Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith. It must be, either, that you think she is essentially so vicious, or so feeble-minded that she cannot withstand temptation - and though she may be pure and innocent as long as she is kept in ignorance and restraint, yet, being destitute of real virtue, to teach her how to sin, is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the wider her liberty, the deeper will be her depravity - whereas, in the nobler sex, there is a natural tendency to goodness, guarded by a superior fortitude, which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, it is only further developed-' 'Heaven forbid that I should think so!' I interrupted her at last. 'Well then, it must be that you think they are both weak and prone to err, and the slightest error, the nearest shadow of pollution, will ruin the one, while the character of the other will be strengthened and embellished - his education properly finished by a little practical acquaintance with forbidden things. Such experience, to him (to use a trite simile), will be like the storm to the oak, which, though it may scatter the leaves, and snap the smaller branches, serves but to rivet the roots, and to harden and condense the fibres of the tree. You would have us encourage our sons to prove all things by their own experience, while our daughters must not even profit by the experience of others.

Mal’s calm, the surety he seemed to carry in his steps. “Do you think it’s out there?” I asked one afternoon when we’d taken shelter in a dense cluster of pines to wait out a storm. “Hard to say. Right now, I could just be tracking a big hawk. I’m going on my gut as much as anything, and that always makes me nervous.” “You don’t seem nervous. You seem completely at ease.” I could hear the irritation in my voice. Mal glanced at me. “It helps that no one’s threatening to cut you open.” I said nothing. The thought of the Darkling’s knife was almost comforting—a simple fear, concrete, manageable. He squinted out at the rain. “And it’s something else, something the Darkling said in the chapel. He thought he needed me to find the firebird. As much as I hate to admit it, that’s why I know I can do it now, because he was so sure.” I understood. The Darkling’s faith in me had been an intoxicating thing. I wanted that certainty, the knowledge that everything would be dealt with, that someone was in control. Sergei had run to the Darkling looking for that reassurance. I just want to feel safe again. “When the time comes,” Mal asked, “can you bring the firebird down?” Yes. I was done with hesitation. It wasn’t just that we’d run out of options, or that so much was riding on the firebird’s power. I’d simply grown ruthless enough or selfish enough to take another creature’s life. But I missed the girl who had shown the stag mercy, who had been strong enough to turn away from the lure of power, who had believed in something more. Another casualty of this war. “It still doesn’t seem real to me,” I said.

Hey,” Chase said as he approached. “The rain sucks.” “Agreed.” His younger brother settled on a log. “I checked on the cattle. They’re fine. The clouds don’t look like there’s going to be any lightning or thunder, but they look plenty wet.” Zane nodded. “Storm’s supposed to last two days. I was hoping it would hold off until Saturday.” Chase sipped his coffee. “Everybody okay?” There was something about the question. Zane stared at him. “What do you mean?” “Nothing. Just checking.” Had Chase heard something in the night? Zane shook his head. Not possible. His tent had been some distance from the others, and the rain had blocked out a lot of noise. Nothing about his brother’s expression told what he was thinking. “We’re heading back today, right?” Chase said. “That’s the plan. I wish it wasn’t a two-day ride.” “There’s--” Chase stopped speaking and stared at his coffee. Zane knew what he’d been about to say. Reilly’s place. It was only about an hour’s ride. The old man would give them shelter until the worst of the storm passed, and even send out a few of his men to watch over the cattle until then. But Zane wasn’t about to impose on his neighbor. Not now and not ever. He glanced at the sky and wondered how long he could take a stand in weather like this. Whatever his issues with Reilly, his guests’ safety came first. “I better see how everyone’s doing,” he said as he tossed the rest of his coffee into the fire. “Before you go,” Chase said and held out something in his hand. “I wasn’t sure if you had enough with you.” Zane stared at the three condoms resting on his brother’s palm. Then he glanced at Chase, who was grinning. “Way to go, big brother.” Not knowing what to say, Zane rose and stalked off. But not before he took the condoms. He might be stubborn, but he wasn’t a fool.

Each year before the first rain after the harvest in Spring, I would look at the dry peach tree that I know so well at our backyard and anticipating that in summer it will be covered in an overgrown hedge unless my father who was a committed gardner of note take a weekend off from Jo'burg during the pruning season to prune it. Even now, I still remember with crystal clarity my childhood mood - warm days in Schoonoord with rich nostalgia of green scenery and flowers flowering everywhere.  One evening I was sitting at the veranda of our firehut looking at the orange tree between the plat (flat - roofed) house and the big L - shaped house - the tree served as a shelter from the sun for the drinking water pot next to the plat house - suddenly the weather changed, the wind howled, the tree swayed, the loose corrugated iron sheets on roof of he house clattered and clanged, the open windows shuts with a bang and the sky made night a day, and I was overwhelmed with that feeling of childhood joy at the approaching rain. All of a sudden, the deafening of steady pouring rain. The raging storm beat the orange tree leaves while I sat there remembering that where the orange tree stood used to be our first house, a small triangular   shaped mokhukhu ((tin house) made of red painted corrugated iron sheets salvaged from demolishing site in Witbank, also remembering that my aunt's mokhukhu was also made of the same type and colour of corrugated iron sheets. The ashen ground drunk merily until it was quenched and the floods started rolling down Leolo Mountains, and what one could hear above the deafening steady pouring rain was the bellowing of the nearby Manyane Dale, and if it was daylight one could have seen the noble Sebilwane River rolling in sullen glide. After about fifteen minutes of steady downpour, and rumbling sounds, the storm went away in a series of small, badly lit battle scenes.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am plac'd in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expell'd all human commerce, and left utterly abandon'd and disconsolate. Fain wou'd I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth; but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join me, in order to make a company apart; but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads that storm, which beats upon me from every side. I have expos'd myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declar'd my disapprobation of their systems; and can I be surpriz'd, if they shou'd express a hatred of mine and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; tho' such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning. For with what confidence can I venture upon such bold enterprises, when beside those numberless infirmities peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human nature? Can I be sure, that in leaving all established opinions I am following truth; and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune shou'd at last guide me on her foot-steps? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I shou'd assent to it; and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view, under which they appear to me. Experience is a principle, which instructs me in the several conjunctions of objects for the past. Habit is another principle, which determines me to expect the same for the future; and both of them conspiring to operate upon the imagination, make me form certain ideas in a more intense and lively manner, than others, which are not attended with the same advantages. Without this quality, by which the mind enlivens some ideas beyond others (which seemingly is so trivial, and so little founded on reason) we cou'd never assent to any argument, nor carry our view beyond those few objects, which are present to our senses. Nay, even to these objects we cou'd never attribute any existence, but what was dependent on the senses; and must comprehend them entirely in that succession of perceptions, which constitutes our self or person. Nay farther, even with relation to that succession, we cou'd only admit of those perceptions, which are immediately present to our consciousness, nor cou'd those lively images, with which the memory presents us, be ever receiv'd as true pictures of past perceptions. The memory, senses, and understanding are, therefore, all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.

I want him to be my shelter through any storm. A shelter for my heart. But I’m in love with this man. And who is going to save me from that?

You better hurry, Parker Wilmington.” Ashley’s voice was muffled against his chest. “Promise me you’ll come back to me.” Parker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I promise.” “Tonight.” “Tonight,” Parker echoed dutifully. “Cross your heart.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ashley, I said I’d be back, didn’t I? Don’t I always come back? Even when you don’t want me to?” Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. Fear squeezed in her chest. It can’t be…it’s impossible. For she knew now why she’d listened so intently to Ashley and Parker, why their conversation had seemed so familiar… Oh, God, no… “Parker,” she whispered. Starting forward, she saw Ashley and Etienne standing at the edge of the shelter. Ashley was shivering, and Etienne’s arm was around her shoulders. Miranda tried to call out, to shout a warning, to stop Parker from going, but he’d already dashed into the rain; she could already see the beam of his flashlight growing smaller and dimmer, swallowed by the storm. Yet his words were still here. They lingered in this dark, frightening, abandoned place--the words he’d spoken to Ashley, and the words Ashley had spoken to him. Prophetic words and fatal words. Words that tore at Miranda’s heart and echoed over and over again in her mind. The words Nathan and Ellena had spoken… Right before the end.

Clouds hung low and heavy over the valley, their gray-bottomed cotton hiding the peaks of the white-capped Montana Rockies. The Pine Creek Lake werewolves lived high in the Absarokas, south of Livingston, in a smattering of stout log cabins surrounding the main lodge. A couple of adolescents, in wolf form, were dashing about, trying to get the last bit of their energy out before the storm came. Most of the adults were already inside except a few in human form, like Mark, doing the final checks of the area, making sure all of the cabins had adequate firewood and the guiding ropes were strung from door to door in case someone needed to get to a neighboring cabin in whiteout conditions.

How are you feeling today? Sometimes I’m so angry about the way my legs limp and my arms ache that I want to hurricane everything and everyone around me. Sometimes I’m so confused wondering what I did to deserve this that the tears come fast like a tsunami I can’t escape. Sometimes I’m so scared of losing the parts of me that I always believed made ME, that I wish I could board myself up and shelter from this storm. Sometimes the sinking ship inside me sinks further and further into my stomach and all I want to do is sleep. But, when she asks, all I’m ever able to say is: I’m fine.

Orthodox theologian Brad Jersak describes a time of exhaustion in his own life, on the verge of burnout, when he learned to attend to his soul in ways that would surely have resonated with Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, and the apostle Paul. It began with a strange fantasy—a dark cave with a crackling fire—that Brad started visiting regularly in prayer. Day after day he would simply imagine himself in this space, sitting silently with Jesus, sheltering from a storm outside, not even knowing if this counted as prayer. And then one day he “noticed” a surprising thing: the ark of the covenant had also materialized in the cave. This continued for weeks. All verbal prayer had given way to this internal, quiet vision. . . . I began to wonder if this was fruitful, if it was even prayer at all. Perhaps I should have started writing prayer lists again? But I had no heart for that. Even my forays into reading psalms ended with my forehead pasted in the pages of my Bible. All I

The Vikings would have understood it anyway. They didn't have a word for the prolongation of war long past any rational goal -- they just knew that's what always happened. It's the subject of their longest and greatest saga, the Brennu-njalasaga, or The Saga of Njal Burned Alive. The saga describes a trivial feud in backcountry Iceland that keeps escalating for reasons nobody can understand or resolve until it engulfs the whole of northern Europe. Provocation after fresh provocation, peace conference after failed peace conference, it has its own momentum, like a hurricane of carnage. The wise and farseeing hero Njal, who has never met the original feuders and has no idea what their quarrel was about, ultimately meets his appalling death (the Vikings thought there was nothing worse than being burned alive) as part of a chain of ever-larger catastrophes that he can tell is building but is helpless to stop -- a fate that seems in the end to be as inevitable as it is inexplicable. ... In Njal's saga the war's end comes only through divine intervention; the two leaders of the last feuding factions reconcile after they're both converted to Christianity. They meet by chance in the middle of a blizzard and, as a mutual test of their newfound faith, one wordlessly offers shelter for the night, and the other accepts. As they sit silently in the hall before the fire, neither willing to make any overt sign of peace, they realize that their feud has already ended. It has somehow passed from their world as mysteriously as it came, the way a storm will pass by morning.

Don't shelter yourself from the storms of life, son. Absorb it, relish it. It's okay to get soaked in it; the sun always returns.

Funny thing is when you’re young and vulnerable, you should have two people you can trust: your parents. They are the people you’re supposed to rely on, the people who are supposed to shelter you from the relentless storm we call the world. But when one of them destroys every aspect of your childhood, it’s hard to trust anyone else. It’s hard to let people in when your heart has been hardened to the outside world. Why would you? Why would you make yourself so vulnerable again?

May the blessing of light be on ye, light outside and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine down on ye like a great fire so strangers and friends alike may come and warm themselves with it. And may ye two be a beacon of light for everyone around ye, like a candle set by the window of a house, bidding the wanderer take shelter from the storm. And may the blessing of the rain be on ye. May it wash yer Spirit fair and clean, leaving a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines. May the blessing of the Earth be on ye, soft under yer feet as you walk along the roads, soft under ye as you lie on it when ye’re tired at the end of the day.

THE EYE OF THE STORM Fear not that the whirlwind will carry you hence, Nor wait for its onslaught in breathless suspense, Nor shrink from the blight of the terrible hail, But pass through the edge to the heart of the tale, For there is a shelter, sunlighted and warm, And Faith sees her God through the eye of the storm. The passionate tempest with rush and wild roar And threatenings of evil may beat on the shore, The waves may be mountains, the fields battle plains, And the earth be immersed in a deluge of rains, Yet, the soul, stayed on God, may sing bravely its psalm, For the heart of the storm is the center of calm. Let hope be not quenched in the blackness of night, Though the cyclone awhile may have blotted the light, For behind the great darkness the stars ever shine, And the light of God’s heavens, His love will make thine, Let no gloom dim your eyes, but uplift them on high To the face of your God and the blue of His sky. The storm is your shelter from danger and sin, And God Himself takes you for safety within; The tempest with Him passes into deep calm, And the roar of the winds is the sound of a psalm. Be glad and serene when the tempest clouds form; God smiles on His child in the eye of the storm.

This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. My personal experience with Nazi monkey business was limited. There were some vile and lively native American Fascists in my home town of Indianapolis during the thirties, and somebody slipped me a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I remember, which was supposed to be the Jews' secret plan for taking over the world. And I remember some laughs about my aunt, too, who married a German German, and who had to write to Indianapolis for proofs that she had no Jewish blood. The Indianapolis mayor knew her from high school and dancing school, so he had fun putting ribbons and official seals all over the documents the Germans required, which made them look like eighteenth-century peace treaties. After a while the war came, and I was in it, and I was captured, so I got to see a little of Germany from the inside while the war was still going on. I was a private, a battalion scout, and, under the terms of the Geneva Convention, I had to work for my keep, which was good, not bad. I didn't have to stay in prison all the time, somewhere out in the countryside. I got to go to a city, which was Dresden, and to see the people and the things they did. There were about a hundred of us in our particular work group, and we were put out as contract labor to a factory that was making a vitamin-enriched malt syrup for pregnant women. It tasted like thin honey laced with hickory smoke. It was good. I wish I had some right now. And the city was lovely, highly ornamented, like Paris, and untouched by war. It was supposedly an 'open' city, not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there. But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of February 13, 1945, just about twenty-one years ago, as I now write. There were no particular targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen underground. And then hundreds of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep firemen in their holes, and all the little fires grew, joined one another, and became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: fire storm. It was the largest massacre in European history, by the way. And so what? We didn't get to see the fire storm. We were in a cool meat-locker under a slaughterhouse with our six guards and ranks and ranks of dressed cadavers of cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. We heard the bombs walking around up there. Now and then there would be a gentle shower of calcimine. If we had gone above to take a look, we would have been turned into artefacts characteristic of fire storms: seeming pieces of charred firewood two or three feet long - ridiculously small human beings, or jumbo fried grasshoppers, if you will. The malt syrup factory was gone. Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men. So we were put to work as corpse miners, breaking into shelters, bringing bodies out. And I got to see many German types of all ages as death had found them, usually with valuables in their laps. Sometimes relatives would come to watch us dig. They were interesting, too. So much for Nazis and me. If I'd been born in Germany, I suppose I would have been a Nazi, bopping Jews and gypsies and Poles around, leaving boots sticking out of snowbanks, warming myself with my secretly virtuous insides. So it goes. There's another clear moral to this tale, now that I think about it: When you're dead you're dead. And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.

Who are you? Go back with the others until you are judged.” He met Hest’s stare eye to eye. Hest responded with wide-eyed shock. “But… but I’m Hest Finbok! I’ve come all this way to find my wife, Alise! I hired passage on the newest and swiftest ships I could find to come in search of her. When treachery by the captain let it fall to Chalcedean pirates, I thought all was lost. But here I am! Sweet Sa, your miracles never cease! I am here, and alive, and so is my darling wife! Alise, don’t you know me? Has your mind been turned by this harsh place? I am here now, and you need no other protector than your loving husband.” His words, she thought, danced all through the truth, never touching it. Reyn, startled, stayed as he was as Hest stepped around him. “No.” It was the only word she could manage. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. She could not find breath to say more than that, but she clung to Leftrin’s arm as if it were her only lifeline in a wild sea storm. And he did not let go of her. He stood firm at her side. Leftrin spoke in a low growl. “The lady says no.” “Take your hands off my wife!” Hest ignored Reyn’s challenge of him as he stepped around the Elderling to glare menacingly at Leftrin. “She is obviously not right in her mind! Look how she stares! She does not recognize me, poor thing! And you, you scoundrel, have taken advantage of her! Oh, my Alise, my darling, what has he done to you? How can you not recognize your own loving husband?” She felt a low rumbling from Leftrin as if he snarled like a beast. His arm in her clutch had become hard as iron. He would protect her, he would save her. All she had to do was let him. “No,” she said again, this time to Leftrin. She squeezed his arm reassuringly and then stepped out of his shelter. She stood free of him, and the wind off the river blew past her. Her unbound hair lifted in wild red snakes, and she knew a moment of dismay as she wondered how ridiculous she looked, her skin weathered, her woman’s body garbed in the bright colors of an Elderling as if she did not know her age or place in the world. Her place in the world. She squared her shoulders. As she walked forward, Reyn stepped toward her as if to offer his arm and support. She waved him off without meeting his eyes. She advanced on Hest, hoping to see some flicker of doubt in his eyes. Instead his smile only widened as if he were truly welcoming her. He actually believed that she would resume that role, would pretend to be his loving, dutiful wife. That thought touched fire in her soul. She halted before him and looked up at him. “Oh, my dear! How harshly the world has treated you!” he exclaimed. He tried to put his arms around her. She set both hands to his chest and pushed him firmly away. As he staggered backward, it pleased her that he had not expected her to be so strong. “You are not my husband,” she said in a low voice. He teetered a moment, then caught his balance. He tried to recover his aplomb. But she had seen the sparks of anger flare in his dark eyes. He tipped his head, solicitous, his voice striken. “My dear, you are so confused!” he began. She lifted her voice, pitched it for all to hear. “I am NOT confused. You are NOT my husband. You broke the terms of our marriage contract, rendering it void. From the earliest days of our marriage, you were unfaithful to me. You entered into the contract with no intent of keeping yourself to me. You have deceived me and made me an object of mockery. You are not my husband, and by the terms of our marriage contract, all that is mine comes back to me. You are not my husband, and I am not your wife. You are nothing to me.

For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat; for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall.” Isaiah 25:4

He guarded him . . . like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. (Deuteronomy 32:10–12) Our almighty God is like a parent who delights in leading the tender children in His care to the very edge of a precipice and then shoving them off the cliff into nothing but air. He does this so they may learn that they already possess an as-yet-unrealized power of flight that can forever add to the pleasure and comfort of their lives. Yet if, in their attempt to fly, they are exposed to some extraordinary peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them and carry them skyward on His mighty wings. When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count on Him to deliver them. from The Song of Victory When God places a burden upon you, He places His arms underneath you. There once was a little plant that was small and whose growth was stunted, for it lived under the shade of a giant oak tree. The little plant valued the shade that covered it and highly regarded the quiet rest that its noble friend provided. Yet there was a greater blessing prepared for this little plant. One day a woodsman entered the forest with a sharp ax and felled the giant oak. The little plant began to weep, crying out, “My shelter has been taken away. Now every fierce wind will blow on me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!” The guardian angel of the little plant responded, “No! Now the sun will shine and showers will fall on you more abundantly than ever before. Now your stunted form will spring up into loveliness, and your flowers, which could never have grown to full perfection in the shade, will laugh in the sunshine. And people in amazement will say, ‘Look how that plant has grown! How gloriously beautiful it has become by removing that which was its shade and its delight!’ ” Dear believer, do you understand that God may take away your comforts and privileges in order to make you a stronger Christian? Do you see why the Lord always trains His soldiers not by allowing them to lie on beds of ease but by calling them to difficult marches and service? He makes them wade through streams, swim across rivers, climb steep mountains, and walk many long marches carrying heavy backpacks of sorrow. This is how He develops soldiers—not by dressing them up in fine uniforms to strut at the gates of the barracks or to appear as handsome gentlemen to those who are strolling through the park. No, God knows that soldiers can only be made in battle and are not developed in times of peace. We may be able to grow the raw materials of which soldiers are made, but turning them into true warriors requires the education brought about by the smell of gunpowder and by fighting in the midst of flying bullets and exploding bombs, not by living through pleasant and peaceful times. So, dear Christian, could this account for your situation? Is the Lord uncovering your gifts and causing them to grow? Is He developing in you the qualities of a soldier by shoving you into the heat of the battle? Should you not then use every gift and weapon He has given you to become a conqueror? Charles H. Spurgeon