Singing Appreciation Quotes

I think older people can appreciate my music because I really show my heart when I sing, and it's not corny. I think I can grow as an artist, and my fans will grow with me.

The true miracle lies in our eagerness to allow, appreciate, and honor the uniqueness, and freedom of each sentient being to sing the song of their heart.

I've been in love with you since you helped me bury that spider in my garden, and you sang with me like we were singing “Amazing Grace” instead of “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider.” I've loved you since you quoted Hamlet like you understood him, since you said you loved ferris wheels more than roller coasters because life shouldn't be lived at full speed, but in anticipation and appreciation. I read and re-read your letters to Rita because I felt like you'd opened up a little window into your soul, and the light was pouring out with every word. They weren't even for me, but it didn't matter. I loved every word, every thought, and I loved you . . . so much.

My advice for life: dance and sing your song while the party is still on.

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.

May you never be the reason why someone who loved to sing, doesn’t anymore. Or why someone who dressed so uniquely, now wears plain clothing. Or why someone who always spoke so excitedly about their dreams, is now silent about them. May you never be the reason someone gave up on a part of themselves because you were demotivating, non-appreciative, hypercritical, or even worse—sarcastic about it.

No, no," said Taran slowly, "It would be folly to think of attacking them." He smiled quickly at Fflewddur. "The bards would sing of us," he admitted, "but we'd be in no position to appreciate it.

Teach me to sing and recite, To whistle and jingle and strum. Teach me to color and paint, To sculpt and weave and create. Teach me to sway and dance, To tap and leap and twirl. Teach me to laugh and giggle, To tickle and play and pretend. Teach me that life is beautiful.

Now, I'm as appreciative as the next obsessive-compulsive recovering-academic of the vast riches of material becoming available online, thanks to all those Google scanners crouched in the basements of libraries around the world, madly feeding books through their machines. I download obscure tomes onto my iPad and give thanks to the dual gods Gates and Jobs, singing hymns to all the lesser pantheon of geniuses. But there's nothing like a book.

We believe in the wrong things. That's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong. I don't think meaning is something that can be explained. You have to understand it on your own. It's like when you're starting to read. First, you learn the letters. Then, once you know what sounds the letters make, you use them to sound out words. You know that c-a-t leads to cat and d-o-g leads to dog. But then you have to make that extra leap, to understand that the word, the sound, the "cat" is connected to an actual cat , and that "dog" is connected to an actual dog. It's that leap, that understanding, that leads to meaning. And a lot of the time in life, we're still just sounding things out. We know the sentences and how to say them. We know the ideas and how to present them. We know the prayers and which words to say in what order. But that's only spelling" It's much harder to lie to someone's face. But. It is also much harder to tell the truth to someone's face. The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star. (Logan Pearsall Smith) Being alone has nothing to do with how many people are around. (J.R. Moehringer) You could be standing a few feet away...I could have sat next to you on the subway, or brushed beside you as we went through the turnstiles. But whether or not you are here, you are here- because these words are for you, and they wouldn't exist is you weren't here in some way. At last I had it--the Christmas present I'd wanted all along, but hadn't realized. His words. The dream was obviously a sign: he was too enticing to resist. Wow. You must have a lot of faith in me. Which I appreciate. Even if I'm not sure I share it. I could do this on my own, and not freak out that I had no idea what waited for me on the other side of this night. Hope and belief. I'd always wanted hope, but never believed that I could have such an adventure on my own. That I could own it. And love it. But it happened. Because I'm So uncool and so afraid. If there was a clue, that meant the mystery was still intact I fear you may have outmatched me, because not I find these words have nowhere to go. It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show that you tried unless you end up succeeding. This was not a haystack. We were people, and people had ways of finding eachother. It was one of those moments when you feel the future so much that is humbles the present. Don't worry. It's your embarrassment at not having the thought that counts. You think fairy tales are only for girls? Here's ahint- ask yourself who wrote them. I assure you, it wasn't just the women. It's the great male fantasy- all it takes is one dance to know that she's the one. All it takes is the sound of her song from the tower, or a look at her sleeping face. And right away you know--this is the girl in your head, sleeping or dancing or singing in front of you. Yes, girls want their princes, but boys want their princesses just as much. And they don't want a very long courtship. They want to know immediately. Be careful what you;re doing, because no one is ever who you want them to be. And the less you really know them, the more likely you are to confuse them with the girl or boy in your head You should never wish for wishful thinking

I can appreciate that,” says Henry. He’s adding to the list. I look over his shoulder. Sex Pistols, the Clash, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, Dead Kennedys, X, the Mekons, the Raincoats, the Dead Boys, New Order, the Smiths, Lora Logic, the Au Pairs, Big Black, Pil, the Pixies, the Breeders, Sonic Youth… Henry, they’re not going to be able to get any of that up here.” He nods, and jots the phone number and address for Vintage Vinyl at the bottom of the sheet. “You do have a record player, right?” My parents have one,” Bobby says. Henry winces. What do you really like?” I ask Jodie. I feel as though she’s fallen out of the conversation during the male bonding ritual Henry and Bobby are conducting. Prince,” she admits. Henry and I let out a big Whoo! And I start singing “1999” as loud as I can, and Henry jumps up and we’re doing a bump and grind across the kitchen. Laura hears us and runs off to put the actual record on and just like that, it’s a dance party.

We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employees, but how seldom do we nourish their self-esteem? We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars.

Above them, one of the blackened television screens brightens, and there's an announcement about the in-flight movie. It's an animated film about a family of ducks, one that Hadley's actually see, and when Oliver groans, shes about to deny the whole thing. But then she twists around in her seat and eyes him critically. "There's nothing wrong with ducks," she tells him, and he rolls his eyes. "Talking ducks?" Hadley grins. "They sing, too." "Don't tell me," he says. "You've already seen it." She holds up two fingers. "Twice." "You do know it's meant for five-year-olds, right?" "Five- to eight-year-olds, thank you very much." "And how old are you again?" "Old enough to appreciate our web-footed friends." "You," he says, laughing in spite of himself, "are a mad as a hatter." "Wait a second," Hadley says in mock horror. "Is that a reference to a...cartoon?" No, genius. It's a reference to a famous work of literature by Lewis Carroll. But once again, I can see how well that American education is working for you.

Lira?” she asks. “What do they sing where you’re from?” For some reason, Lira finds this amusing. “Nothing you would appreciate.

I see no reason why church services have to be standard. I've discussed this with the man who used to be a pastor here at the Methodist Church in Sebastopol. I told him I saw no reason why, on a certain Sunday morning, if a minister has felt during the week the burden of a topic upon his heart and he knows that it is going to take more than the standard twenty minutes to discuss this thing, why he can't rise at the beginning of the service and say 'I have something of special importance this morning so let's sing just one song, and if you'll forgive me, I think I'm going to need about an hour to explain it to you.' I think the congregation would appreciate his candor and give him their attention. If, on the other hand, he does not feel that a definite message has been given him, why not admit it from the pulpit and say, 'This morning, I'm not going to try to make up something to fill the time. We'll sing a few extra hymns and go home!' Why do the services have to begin and end at the same time, and why does everything have to be so rigid?

And the third thing is: Rather than thinking how to get love, start giving. If you give, you get. There is no other way. People are more interested in how to grab and get. Everybody is interested in getting and nobody seems to enjoy giving. People give very reluctantly—if ever they give, they give only to get, and they are almost businesslike. It is a bargain. They always go on watching to make sure they get more than they give—then it is a good bargain, good business. And the other is doing the same. Love is not a business, so stop being businesslike. Otherwise you will miss your life and love and all that is beautiful in it—because all that is beautiful is not at all businesslike. Business is the ugliest thing in the world—a necessary evil, but existence knows nothing of business. Trees bloom, it is not a business; the stars shine, it is not a business and you don’t have to pay for it and nobody demands anything from you. A bird comes and sits at your door and sings a song, and the bird will not ask you for a certificate or some sign of appreciation. He has sung the song and then happily he flies away, leaving no traces behind.

The weight of appreciation and the threat, which was never spoken, of a return to Momma were burdens that clogged my childish wits into impassivity.

The Lord probably didn't appreciate her feigning nearsightedness in order to repeatedly lean into her husband when she should've been concentrating on the meaning behind the hymn she was singing.

Lord I thank you for the gift of breath, eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to taste, nose to smell; mouth to speak, face to smile, voice to sing, body to dance, legs to walk, mind to think and hands to write.

There are many things a boy considers beautiful: the shine of a bike’s paint, the luster of a dog’s pelt, the singing of a yo-yo as it loops the loop, the yellow harvest moon, the green grass of a meadow, and free hours at hand. The face of a girl, no matter how well-constructed, is usually not in that realm of appreciation.

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.

He was right. I would only eke out a living as a singer. The limited success I had, which Bailey recognized, stemmed from the fact that I didn't love singing. My voice was fair and interesting; my ear was not great, or even good, but my rhythm was reliable. Still, I could never become a great singer, since I would not sacrifice for it. To become wondrously successful and to sustain that success in any profession, one must be willing to relinquish many pleasures and be ready to postpone gratification. I didn't care enough for my own singing to make other people appreciate it.

A person who can understand, appreciate, and sing along with a tree has a deeper perception on life.

Sing for yourself and for the people who appreciate how wonderful you are.

Wherever I land, next time I'll look close, swear to God.

A step further. Creationism. If you want to go in so deep as to ignore all of the advances and hard facts that SCIENCE and LEARNING have provided us in the field of biological evolution and instead profess that the creation story, written by men from their holy visions, about how the Christian deity spinning the world together out of the void in the magic of Genesis describes the true origin of the universe, that is your business. Terrific. It’s a cool story, don’t get me wrong; I love magic. Check out Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which won a Newbery Medal. For the record, I don’t believe the book of Genesis ever won one of those. You and your fellow creationists profess belief in a magical story. You are welcome to do so. Sing and chant, and eat crackers and drink wine that you claim are magically infused with the blood and flesh of your church’s original grand wizard, the Prince of Peace. I personally think that’s just a touch squirrelly, but that’s your business, not mine. You will not be punished for those beliefs in our nation of individual freedoms. But I do think the vast majority of your fellow Americans would appreciate it, kind creationists, if you silly motherfuckers would keep that bullshit out of our schools. Your preferred fairy tales have no place in a children’s classroom or textbook that professes to be teaching our youngsters what is REAL. Jesus Christ, it’s irrefutably un-American, people!

I have been listening to the cats in the courtyard. They are all singing Rossini. It is obvious that cats have declined as badly as composers. Domenico Scarlatti owned one which would actually stroll across the keyboard and pick out passable subjects for fugue. But that was a Spanish cat of the Enlightenment. It appreciated counterpoint. Nowadays all cats appreciate are coloratura. Like the rest of the Public.

An empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what’s in front of it. An overstuffed mind is unable to. While the clear mind listens to a bird singing, the stuffed-full-of-knowledge-and-cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing. The more stuffed up it is, the less it can hear through its own ears and see through its own eyes. Knowledge and cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by knowledge, cleverness, and abstract ideas tends to go chasing off after things that don’t matter, or that don’t even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.

In that moment, I wanted to tell this stranger, this Merle, this girl from the tiny island of Montserrat, that I had commensurate preferences too, but I couldn’t be a brave warrior like her. I wanted to tell her about Morris. I wanted to sing his name out into the night. His name is Morris. He is my Morris and he always been my Morris. He’s a good-hearted man, a special man, a sexy man, a history-loving man, a loyal man, a man who appreciates a good joke, a man of many moods, a drinking man, and a man with whom I can be myself completely. Yes, I was in the throes of a Malibu-and-Coke-soaked madness, a madness that could lead to the demise of my life as I’d hitherto known it. But I was on the verge.

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.

Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.” A woman who was in a relationship with Prince years ago told me that when he gave women baths he took total control. “He ran the bath, he put the bubbles in, he took your clothes off, he washed you, he washed your hair, it was a whole procedure and process. He put lotion on you after. He’d give you a robe. I don’t know if it was worshipful or if it was sweet and sensitive.

God’s recounting of the wonders of nature can be seen in one of two ways. One possibility is that the immensity of the natural world, in its merciless indifference, has nothing to do with the concerns of human beings. The desert does not care if you pray, and the rushing cataract will not pause for pity. Nature shows its blank, grand face to us, and we are nothing. Indeed Job recants of his protest, proclaiming ‘for I am but dust and ashes.’ … But gradually we see that each image, from the cell to the cosmos, is not only grand, it is beautiful. The second half of the quote from Job, how the morning stars sing, reminds us that the appreciation of wonder and beauty is also possible. We may lose our ego in nature’s indifference, but we may also lose it in nature’s magnificence. Do we see the world as heartless or as sublime? The drama of our life and death is fleeting, but it is played out on a stage of unparalleled wonder.

When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers, 'whenever man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains... You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause.' When the laundry is for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, I think I'm due some appreciation. So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy. But when Christ is center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. Passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant to all. When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to it's purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness.

Tips and Pointers for Building a Spiritual Life from Scratch Pray Meditate Be aware / Stay awake Bow Practice yoga Feel Chant and sing Breathe and smile Relax / Enjoy / Laugh / Play Create / Envision Let go / Forgive / Accept Walk / Exercise / Move Work / Serve / Contribute Listen / Learn / Inquire Consider / Reflect Cultivate oneself / Enhance competencies Cultivate contentment Cultivate flexibility Cultivate friendship and collaboration Open up / Expand / Include Lighten up Dream Celebrate and appreciate Give thanks Evolve Love Share / Give / Receive Walk softly / Live gently Expand / Radiate / Dissolve Simplify Surrender / Trust Be born anew

I really believed that someone would stay with me, that I would actually have friends and a family. Be part of a group. But no one stayed. Not you or one member of my family. Now I’ve finally learned how to deal with that and how to protect myself. But I can’t talk about this now. I appreciate your coming to see me in here, I do. And maybe someday we can be friends, but I can’t think about what comes next. Not in here.

There are certain things that you have to be British, or at least older than me, or possibly both, to appreciate: skiffle music, salt-cellars with a single hole, Marmite (an edible yeast extract with the visual properties of an industrial lubricant), Gracie Fields singing “Sally,” George Formby doing anything, jumble sales, making sandwiches from bread you’ve sliced yourself, really milky tea, boiled cabbage, the belief that household wiring is an interesting topic for conversation, steam trains, toast made under a gas grill, thinking that going to choose wallpaper with your mate constitutes a reasonably fun day out, wine made out of something other than grapes, unheated bedrooms and bathrooms, erecting windbreaks on a beach (why, pray, are you there if you need a windbreak?), and cricket. There may be one or two others that don’t occur to me at the moment.

Coriolanus felt his anxieties melt away. Full of fresh food, shaded by the trees, Lucy Gray singing softly beside him, he began to appreciate nature. It really was beautiful out here. The crystal clean air. The lush colors. He felt so relaxed and free. What if this was his life: rising whenever, catching his food for the day, and hanging out with Lucy Gray by the lake? Who needed wealth and success and power when they had love? Didn't it conquer all?

That’s just the way life is. It can be exquisite, cruel, frequently wacky, but above all utterly, utterly random. Those twin imposters in the bell-fringed jester hats, Justice and Fairness—they aren’t constants of the natural order like entropy or the periodic table. They’re completely alien notions to the way things happen out there in the human rain forest. Justice and Fairness are the things we’re supposed to contribute back to the world for giving us the gift of life—not birthrights we should expect and demand every second of the day. What do you say we drop the intellectual cowardice? There is no fate, and there is no safety net. I’m not saying God doesn’t exist. I believe in God. But he’s not a micromanager, so stop asking Him to drop the crisis in Rwanda and help you find your wallet. Life is a long, lonely journey down a day-in-day-out lard-trail of dropped tacos. Mop it up, not for yourself, but for the guy behind you who’s too busy trying not to drop his own tacos to make sure he doesn’t slip and fall on your mistakes. So don’t speed and weave in traffic; other people have babies in their cars. Don’t litter. Don’t begrudge the poor because they have a fucking food stamp. Don’t be rude to overwhelmed minimum-wage sales clerks, especially teenagers—they have that job because they don’t have a clue. You didn’t either at that age. Be understanding with them. Share your clues. Remember that your sense of humor is inversely proportional to your intolerance. Stop and think on Veterans Day. And don’t forget to vote. That is, unless you send money to TV preachers, have more than a passing interest in alien abduction or recentlypurchased a fish on a wall plaque that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy.’ In that case, the polls are a scary place! Under every ballot box is a trapdoor chute to an extraterrestrial escape pod filled with dental tools and squeaking, masturbating little green men from the Devil Star. In conclusion, Class of Ninety-seven, keep your chins up, grab your mops and get in the game. You don’t have to make a pile of money or change society. Just clean up after yourselves without complaining. And, above all, please stop and appreciate the days when the tacos don’t fall, and give heartfelt thanks to whomever you pray to….

Tate, listen to me. For years I longed to be with people. I really believed that someone would stay with me, that I would actually have friends and a family. Be part of a group. But no one stayed. Not you or one member of my family. Now I’ve finally learned how to deal with that and how to protect myself. But I can’t talk about this now. I appreciate your coming to see me in here, I do. And maybe someday we can be friends, but I can’t think about what comes next. Not in here.

Down at the far end of the lake there’s a marsh that rolls wide and long with a thatch-work thicket of pristine cattails that gently sway in the lightest breeze. And the redwing blackbirds call from it, with their sweet and throaty melody finding its way across the lake’s expanse and listing into the adjacent woods of muscular oaks and graceful maples. And sitting in a boat on the lake’s expanse, I wonder what insanity would prompt me to focus on the fish I can’t catch, and not on the melody that I can.

I would appreciate it if they would call a halt on all their devoted efforts to find a way to abolish war or eliminate disease or run trains with atoms or extend the span of human life to a couple of centuries, and everybody concentrate for a while on how to wake me up in the morning without my resenting it. It may be that a bevy of beautiful maidens in pure silk yellow very sheer gowns, barefooted, singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and scattering rose petals over me would do the trick, but I’d have to try it.

He gave Jude the bunch of herbs, which he was still holding, and Jude thanked him, pinching its little purple flowers between his fingers to release its perfume. 'I think it's a kind of perilla,' he said, and held his fingers up for Willem to smell. 'Nice,' he said, and they smiled at each other. And so Jude began, and he followed, and he made it through without going sharp. And at the end of the song, just after the last note, Jude immediately began singing the next song on the list, 'For Unto Us a Child Is Born,' and after that, 'Good King Wenceslas,' and again and again, Willem followed. His voice wasn't as full as Jude's, but he could tell in those moments that it was good enough, that it was maybe better than good enough: he could tell it sounded better with Jude's, and he closed his eyes and let himself appreciate it. They were still singing when the doorbell chimed with their breakfast, but as he was standing, Jude put his hand on his wrist, and they remained there, Jude sitting, he standing, until they had sung the last words of the song, and only after they had finished did he go to answer the door. Around him, the room was redolent of the unknown herb he'd found, green and fresh and yet somehow familiar, like something he hadn't known he had liked until it had appeared, suddenly and unexpectedly, in his life.

Reflecting back on the journey to the “Great Outdoors” places me in a different tonal mood, filled up with hope and passion, not resentful, suppressed relics of anger unresolved Did you listen to the winds? What did you hear? Did you listen to the trees? What knowledge did they bring you? Did you listen to the birds? What songs did they sing to you? Did you listen to the Universe(s)? What messages did they bring you? Did you listen to the ancestors? What hope did they send you? Did you really listen? Close your eyes and open up your full heart and listen again Not for me Do it 4 UrSelf Do it 4 tha Future Look beyond UrSelf Open up UrSelf Love ThySelf Quiet the chatter of your mind, close the racing tracks and be still and quiet so that U can hear what they’re trying to say to U. Be appreciative for what U have been bestowed and blessed to be stewards of, please do not take this to mean: Destroy, dominate, and control. Let it mean be cognizant of the complexity, respect true biodiversity, respect and honor all Life, allow for balance, and recognize evolutionary adaptability in all of Creation. The winds are blowing good tidings and blessings in this here direction as this one poem comes to a close while striving for the rootedness of an ancient Sequoia so high up in the sky and deeply rooted in our common Mother. Listen to my woes of loneliness and see that will Life all around, NO one is truly lonely or alone.

Tom Arnold is already waiting at the bar when I arrive, and Vanessa purrs loudly when she spots him. I ignore the slut and stand next to him, waiting for him to notice me, bopping my head slightly to Andy Williams singing Can’t Take My Eyes Off You. At last, he turns and smiles at me. “Pip! You look lovely,” he tells me with an appreciative glance. I simper. “So do you,” I tell him, attempting to bat my eyelids like Vanessa would. “Have you got something in your eye?” he frowns. “Contact lens is playing up,” I mutter. “I didn’t know you wore contacts,” he says in surprise. “All the better to see you with, my dear,” I respond in a deep voice, and he gives me a strange look. I clear my throat. “It’s a free bar tonight, isn’t it?

AUTUMN WAS COMING; the evergreens might not have noticed, but the sycamores did. They flashed thousands of golden leaves across slate-gray skies. Late one afternoon, after the lesson, Tate lingering when he should have left, he and Kya sat on a log in the woods. She finally asked the question she’d wanted to ask for months. “Tate, I appreciate your teaching me to read and all those things you gave me. But why’d you do it? Don’t you have a girlfriend or somebody like that?” “Nah—well, sometimes I do. I had one, but not now. I like being out here in the quiet and I like the way you’re so interested in the marsh, Kya. Most people don’t pay it any attention except to fish. They think it’s wasteland that should be drained and developed. People don’t understand that most sea creatures—including the very ones they eat—need the marsh.” He didn’t mention how he felt sorry for her being alone, that he knew how the kids had treated her for years; how the villagers called her the Marsh Girl and made up stories about her. Sneaking out to her shack, running through the dark and tagging it, had become a regular tradition, an initiation for boys becoming men. What did that say about men? Some of them were already making bets about who would be the first to get her cherry. Things that infuriated and worried him. But that wasn’t the main reason he’d left feathers for Kya in the forest, or why he kept coming to see her. The other words Tate didn’t say were his feelings for her that seemed tangled up between the sweet love for a lost sister and the fiery love for a girl. He couldn’t come close to sorting it out himself, but he’d never been hit by a stronger wave. A power of emotions as painful as pleasurable.

Witnessing the panoply of beauty in all of nature takes us out of our shell of self-absorption and makes us realize that we are merely bit players in the game of life. Witnessing the majesty of beauty confirms that the real show lies outside us to observe and appreciate and not inside us to transfix us. True beauty charms us into seeing the grandeur of goodness that surrounds us and by doing so, the pristine splendor of nature releases us from wallowing in the poverty of our self-idealization. The bewitching spell cast by the exquisiteness of nature levitates our souls and transforms our psyche. When we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch what is beautiful, we cannot suppress the urge to replicate its baffling texture by singing, dancing, painting, or writing. Opening our eye to the loveliness of a single flower is how we stay in touch with the glorious pageantry of living.

Some Christians mistrust or de-emphasize the role of the senses in spirituality, considering them to be inferior to reason and cognition. Such a view fails to appreciate the indispensable part of human personhood the senses actually form. It falls into the gnostic error of denying human embodiment. Because Christians affirm the goodness of the physical body and believe in the physicality of the incarnation, we should also affirm the importance of encountering God through our senses. God gave us senses to enrich our lives. They are channels that can be spiritually tuned so as to register the traces of the divine that saturate the world . . . it could be the sight of a child, the sound of birds singing, the smell of flowers or freshly cut grass, or the feeling of warmth. Any of these things-and many more-can serve as a call to pause and, even if just for a moment, turn our heart toward God.

Sorry about our . . . altercation in the buggy. I was only playing. I’m Raphael.” “The one who likes the hurting.” I moved to shake his hand and he reversed it and kissed my fingers instead, singeing me with a look that was pure smolder. I took my hand back. “That woke me up.” He smiled a picture-perfect smile. “Been a while?” For some reason, I felt like answering. “Two years. And if you could tone down that smile, I’d appreciate it. Getting weak in the knees.” Raphael took a step back. His face took on the same concerned look I saw on Doolittle when I assured him I was fine. “Two years? That’s entirely too long. If you want, we can take care of that. After two years, it’s pure therapy.” “No thank you. Curran already offered to help me with that problem, and since I turned him down, I wouldn’t want to cause any friction between you two.” The last thing I needed was to set Curran and the hyenas on a collision course. Raphael backed away with his hands in the air, strategically positioning himself behind Andrea. “No offense.” “None taken.” “Is Curran serious?” Aunt B asked. She wanted to know if she now had to walk on eggshells around me. For once, I was happy to disappoint. “No, he’s just being an asshole. Apparently every time he calls me ‘baby,’ I look like a red-hot poker is stuck up my butt. Causes him no end of fun.” Aunt B gave me an odd look. “You know,” she said, stirring her tea, “the fastest way to get him off your back is to sleep with him. And tell him you love him. Preferably while in bed.” I smirked and the tea almost came out of my nose. “He’d run like he was on fire.” Raphael rested his hands on Andrea’s shoulders. “Still a bit tense?” His fingers began to gently knead her muscles. “Will you do it?” Aunt B gazed at me over the rim of her cup. “Not while I’m alive, no. Wait, I take it back. That should be ‘hell no.

you went to parties and when someone said something ridiculous, you’d look across the table, and he’d look back at you, expressionless, with just the barest hint of a raised eyebrow, and you’d have to hurriedly drink some water to keep from spewing out your mouthful of food with laughter, and then back at your apartment—your ridiculously beautiful apartment, which you both appreciated an almost embarrassing amount, for reasons you never had to explain to the other—you would recap the entire awful dinner, laughing so much that you began to equate happiness with pain. Or you got to discuss your problems every night with someone smarter and more thoughtful than you, or talk about the continued awe and discomfort you both felt, all these years later, about having money, absurd, comic-book-villain money, or drive up to his parents’ house, one of you plugging into the car’s stereo an outlandish playlist, with which you would both sing along, loudly, being extravagantly silly as adults the way you never were as children. As you got older, you realized that really, there were very few people you truly wanted to be around for more than a few days at a time, and yet here you were with someone you wanted to be around for years, even when he was at his most opaque and confusing.

Certainly in a period of history in which we have become so acutely aware of our alienation in its different manifestations, it has become difficult to unmask the illusion that the final solution for our experience of loneliness is to be found in human togetherness. It is easy to see how many marriages are suffering from this illusion. Often they are started with the hope of a union that can dispel all painful feelings of “not belonging” and continue with the desperate struggle to reach a perfect physical and psychological harmony. Many people find it very hard to appreciate a certain closedness in a marriage and do not know how to create the boundaries that allow intimacy to become an always new and surprising discovery of each other. Still, the desire for protective boundaries by which man and woman do not have to cling to each other, but can move graciously in and out of each other’s life circle, is clear from the many times that Kahlil Gibran’s words are quoted at a wedding ceremony: Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone. Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Stand together yet not too near together For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

His shows on tape do not wear well. Topical humor can be hilarious at the time, but it seldom holds up. The moment is lost, the immediacy gone, and a modern listener is left, perhaps, with a sense of curiosity. The opening of the June 2, 1942, show from Quantico is a good example. There is little doubt that Hope is playing to the best crowds of his life, a cheering section that many another comedian would die for. His theme is all but drowned in the wild cheering, and he sings his way (“… aaah, thank you, so much …”) into the opening monologue. “This is Bob Quantico Marine Base Hope, telling you leathernecks to use Pepsodent and you’ll never have teeth that’d make a cow hide.” The Marines find this a scream. Hope continues with local color. He had an easy time finding Quantico: “I just drove down U.S. 1 and turned left at the first crap game.” The boys love it. On another show, Hope talks of the coming baseball season. “This is Bob Baseball Season Hope, telling you if you use Pepsodent on your teeth, you may not be able to pitch like Bob Feller, but at dinnertime you’ll be able to pitch in with what’s under your smeller.” This is hardly timeless humor, though it was timely in the extreme. That’s the way to listen to Hope today: with a keen sense of history, with an appreciation of what the world found funny in an unfunny time.

He took a breath. He could feel his anxiety fade; he could feel himself returning to who he was. 'But would you sing with me?' Every morning for the past two months, they had been singing with each other in preparation for Duets. In the film, his character and the character's wife led an annual Christmas pageant, and both he and the actress playing his wife would be performing their own vocals. The director had sent him a list of songs to work on, and Jude had been practicing with him: Jude took the melody, and he took the harmony. 'Sure,' Jude said. 'Our usual?' For the past week, they'd been working on 'Adeste Fideles,' which he would have to sing a cappella, and for the past week, he'd been pitching sharp at the exact same point, at 'Venite adoremus,' right in the first stanza. He'd wince every time he did it, hearing the error, and Jude would shake his head at him and keep going, and he'd follow him until the end. 'You're overthinking it,' Jude would say. 'When you go sharp, its because you're concentrating too hard on staying on key; just don't think about it, Willem, and you'll get it.' That morning, though, he felt certain he'd get it right. He gave Jude the bunch of herbs, which he was still holding, and Jude thanked him, pinching its little purple flowers between his fingers to release its perfume. 'I think it's a kind of perilla,' he said, and held his fingers up for Willem to smell. 'Nice,' he said, and they smiled at each other. And so Jude began, and he followed, and he made it through without going sharp. And at the end of the song, just after the last note, Jude immediately began singing the next song on the list, 'For Unto Us a Child Is Born,' and after that, 'Good King Wenceslas,' and again and again, Willem followed. His voice wasn't as full as Jude's, but he could tell in those moments that it was good enough, that it was maybe better than good enough: he could tell it sounded better with Jude's, and he closed his eyes and let himself appreciate it. They were still singing when the doorbell chimed with their breakfast, but as he was standing, Jude put his hand on his wrist, and they remained there, Jude sitting, he standing, until they had sung the last words of the song, and only after they had finished did he go to answer the door. Around him, the room was redolent of the unknown herb he'd found, green and fresh and yet somehow familiar, like something he hadn't known he had liked until it had appeared, suddenly and unexpectedly, in his life.

I regret the passing of the studio system,” Lucille Ball once said. “I was very appreciative of it because I had no talent. Believe me. What could I do? I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t sing. I could talk. I could barely walk. I had no flair. I wasn’t a beauty, that’s for sure.

Let us sing our songs of joy while we can sing; we never know when the end-bell will ring and the bird will fly away.

Let’s talk about where meditation and mindfulness practice lead. Imagine, if you will, one of those thirteenth-century Scottish fight scenes with Mel Gibson. The untrained and distracted mind is a melee of broadswords, hideous grimaces, war cries, people’s heads flying off. As we practice returning to the breath, we slowly build up the necessary stability in awareness to notice this battle that we’ve been waging with ourselves. We recognize, we accept. We remember. Very slowly, the internal thugs get disarmed. Eventually they’re gathered in a circle, drinking mead and hiccupping and singing weepy Gaelic ballads. A great calm descends upon the land. So that’s one part of it. The other is we start to notice and appreciate the gorgeous green highland scenery that these idiots have been standing in front of the whole time.

Include “acts of kindness” in the holiday schedule. Helping in a homeless soup kitchen, volunteering at the local food bank, writing a thank you card to someone whose services or efforts you appreciate (the friendly baker, for example), singing carols in the neighborhood or at a senior home, participating in a gift drive, or putting together a box for Operation Christmas Child (see “Resources”) bring compassion to the season.

He sings, in one of the deepest lyrics in all of his oeuvre, “Would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me?” Could I be the shoulder you cry on and could the bond between us be so deep that I’m the one you want holding you after I made you cry? Could I be your salvation if I’m the sinner? When he snaps back to a male perspective he remains female focused, sweetly trying to win her over in a way that he thinks she would want, ways that move through intimacy rather than traditional masculine expressions of sexuality. He offers a tickle war that’ll make her laugh and laugh then suggests he’ll kiss her down there where it counts and “drink every ounce” and then they’ll have the ultimate cuddlefest: “I’ll hold u tight and hold u long and together we’ll stare into silence and we’ll try 2 imagine what it looks like.” People say Prince did crave that sort of intimacy in his relationships with women even as he struggled with the intimacy he wanted. Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.

One Must Have Great Feelings In the modern world where there are so many problems, one is apt to lose great feeling. I mean by that word feeling, not sentiment, not emotionalism, not mere excitement, but that quality of perception, the quality of hearing, listening, the quality of feeling, a bird singing on a tree, the movement of a leaf in the sun. To feel things greatly, deeply, penetratingly, is very difficult for most of us because we have so many problems. Whatever we seem to touch turns into a problem. And, apparently, there is no end to man’s problems, and he seems utterly incapable of resolving them because the more the problems exist, the less the feelings become. I mean by “feeling” the appreciation of the curve of a branch, the squalor, the dirt on the road, to be sensitive to the sorrow of another, to be in a state of ecstasy when we see a sunset. These are not sentiments, these are not mere emotions. Emotion and sentiment or sentimentality turn to cruelty, they can be used by society; and when there is sentiment, sensation, then one becomes a slave to society. But one must have great feelings. The feeling for beauty, the feeling for a word, the silence between two words, and the hearing of a sound clearly—all that generates feeling. And one must have strong feelings, because it is only the feelings that make the mind highly sensitive.

I am your shower curtain and I am watching you. I surround you, I shield you, and I like you. I like to see the water touch you, travel down upon you, searching, falling away from you. I like to see you lather. I like to see you rinse. I like to see you thinking your thoughts with your eyes closed. I do not like to hear you hum. I do not like to hear you sing. I like you quiet. I like you thinking, silently, your lips moving, your eyes closed tight. I like your fingers. Your wrists, your toes. I like your shins. Your knees. I like the way the water funnels between your legs and cascades down, turning in corkscrews. I like it when you like yourself. When you give a moment to your thighs. When you give a moment to the back of your neck, to the inner fold of your arm. Take a moment. Give yourself time. Take the soap and make circles on your flesh. Make slow circles on your flesh. Make long elliptical shapes upon your beautiful flesh. Your beautiful flesh today. Tomorrow your flesh will be different. It will be older. Appreciate it now. Your flesh is a miracle. You started from nothing. From an egg too small to see. Then a relentless multiplication of cells, each one a miracle, each one a preposterous happening. And from this ridiculous profusion now you are you. You are a giant. You are a giant and water is falling upon you and you are cleaning yourself because you are beautiful. Please don’t think about anything else. I know I said I liked to see you think but that, i realize now, is not true. I don’t want to see you think. I only want the elliptical touching of your flesh. throw your mind away and enjoy your wet flesh. thrill in your existence. Your persistence. the fact that you can be here, under this falling water. this, as much as any other reason, is why you are here, why you exist. to enjoy this. to feel this. it is good enough. It is good enough to justify everything else.

See, Shel (Silverstein) was possessed with one of the worst singing verses ever heard. Musical appreciation is inherently subjective, and it's normally senseless to write about vocalists or instrumentalists as 'good' or 'bad.' But in Shel's case, it's a practical necessity. His voice was a razor-gargled hyena screech.

Charlotte Richmond says of herself: “I have few ladylike accomplishments. I cannot sing, I cannot draw, I cannot play the pianoforte or the harp and I cannot produce delicately beautiful embroideries. Sadly, the ability to do quantities of mending, to cook a good plain dinner and to shoot a marauding crocodile as I once did, is not appreciated in Polite Society.

Hey, we’ll let Huckleberry enjoy his lunch. Speaking of something, if you are in a better mood now, come with me to the Rainforest Room. I have something to show you. I wanted to wait until you calmed down because it means a lot to me, and I hoped you might be happy for me. Here, come with me.” He led her back to the previous room, which had amazing, rare rainforest plants in it. “Check this out!” He tossed her a magazine that said Horticultural Digest on the cover. Holly neatly caught it and opened it up to the dog-eared page. Blaring across the page in huge font was the title: WILLIAM SMITH, THE RAINMAKER OF SHELLESBY COLLEGE’S FAMOUS RAINFOREST ROOM. It was a five-page spread with big glossy photos of the Rainforest Room sprinkled throughout the article. “Five, count ‘em, five pages! That’s my record. Until now, they’ve only given me four. Check it out: I’m the Rainmaker, baby! Let it rain, let it rainnnn!” William stomped around in make-believe puddles on the floor. He picked up a garden hose lying along the side of the room and held it upright like an umbrella. “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.” Holly squealed with laughter and applauded. William jumped up on a large over-turned pot and shifted the hose to now play air guitar while he repeated the verse. “William, there is no air guitar in that song!” “There is now, baby!” Holly exploded again in laughter, clutching her sides. After a few more seconds of air guitar, William jumped off the pot and lowered his voice considerably. “Thank you, thank you very much,” William said in his Elvis impersonation. He now held the garden hose like a microphone and said, “My next song is dedicated to my beagle, my very own hound dog, my Sweetpea. Sweetpea, girl, this is for youuuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “Hound Dog.” “You ain’t nothing but a hound dogggg.” With this, he also twirled the hose by holding it tight two feet from the nozzle, then twirling the nozzle in little circles above his head like a lasso. “Work it, William! Work it!” Holly screamed in laughter. He did some choice hip swivels as he sang “Hound Dog,” sending Holly into peals of laughter. “William, stop! Stop! Where are you? I can’t see I’m crying so hard!” William dropped his voice even lower and more dramatically. In his best Elvis voice, he said, “Well, if you can’t find me darlin’, I’ll find you.” He dropped on one knee and gently picked up her hand. “Thank you, thank you very much,” he said in Elvis mode. “My next song, I dedicate to my one and only, to my Holly-Dolly. Little prickly pear, this one’s for youuuuuu.” He now launched into Elvis’s famous “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” “Take my hand, take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you.” With that, he gave her hand a soft kiss. He then jumped up onto an empty potting table and spun around once on his butt, then pushed himself the length of the entire table, and slid off the far end. “Loose, footloose!” William picked up his garden-hose microphone again and kept singing. “Kick off the Sunday shoes . . .” He sang the entire song, and then Holly exploded in appreciative applause. He was breathing heavily and had a million-dollar smile on his face. “Hoo-wee, that was fun! I am so sweaty now, hoo-boy!” He splashed some water on his face, and then shook his hair. “William! When are you going to enter that karaoke contest at the coffee shop in town? They’re paying $1,000 to the winner of their contest. No one can beat you! That was unbelievable!” “That was fun.” William laughed. “Are in a better mood now?” “How can I not be? You are THE best!

He wants all these things because it is Himself that enjoys and appreciates them; it is God who wants to play, and sing, and enjoy beauty, and proclaim truth and wear fine clothes, and eat good foods. “It is God that worketh in you to will and to do,” said Paul.

At a moment when Angel demonstrated her passion for teaching, writing, and singing, a gentle breeze, like the breath of her Creator, was blowing her long blond curls across her fear-filled face during an illuminating and colorful sunset.

In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have you not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers? Surely with mankind the appreciation of flowers must have been coeval with the poetry of love. Where better than in a flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, fragrant because of its silence, can we image the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended the brute. He became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless. In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen with flowers. We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to speak in the language of flowers. How could we live without them? It frightens one to conceive of a world bereft of their presence. What solace do they not bring to the bedside of the sick, what a light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits? Their serene tenderness restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes. When we are laid low in the dust it is they who linger in sorrow over our graves. Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth.

We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars.

Nice hammer,” Harlow said from behind me. “Hey,” I said, glancing around casually to see if Winnie was with her. “Nice shiner.” “You should see the other chick,” she muttered. “Can we talk?” Setting down my hammer, I followed her away from the other guys. Harlow seemed tense and I worried something was wrong with Winnie. “This is awkward and I feel weird coming here like this,” she said, pushing her blonde hair behind her ears. “Are you dating anyone?” My breath caught. A fear rose up in my chest at the thought of Harlow wanting to date me. What would that mean for me and Winnie? The look in Harlow’s eyes calmed my terror. I might as well have been a brick wall based on the lack of attraction she showed. “No.” “Some girl was hugging you outside a restaurant. Wasn’t that a date?” Frowning, I scratched at my jaw where I forgot to shave that morning. “That was a girl from high school. She might have been into me, but we went out as friends. I’m not dating anyone.” “Winnie saw you with that girl and she got really upset. I know she’s not ready to have a boyfriend, but she wants you. Do you want her?” Playing it cool might be the stud move, but I didn’t want to be a player. I wanted Winnie. Besides, for the second time in twenty four hours, someone close to Winnie wanted to play matchmaker. “Yes.” Harlow nodded. “She’s messed up. You know that, right?” “I know she’s fragile, yeah.” “Winnie has a lot of phobias. Not stupid shit for attention, but real chronic problems that won’t go away because you’re hot. She’s been in therapy for years and gotten stronger, but she’ll never be okay.” “I understand.” Harlow bit her lip then nodded again. “Do you want to take her out to dinner tomorrow?” “Yes.” Harlow smiled. “You better be chattier than that on the date or else no one will say anything. Winnie likely won’t say anything all night, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to. She just takes a long time to warm up to people.” I wasn’t sure what Harlow saw on my face, but she grinned. “She really wants to warm up to you, Dylan. Don’t fuck it up, okay?” “I’ll do my best.” When Harlow narrowed her eyes, I was pretty sure she might hit me. “I appreciate the way you tried to save us that day. You showed balls and I respect that. With that said, you better be taking this seriously, understand?” Leaning closer, I stared right into those suspicious eyes. “No one makes me feel like Winnie. If she needs to take it slow, we’ll go slow. If she wants to rush into it, we’ll rush. If she needs me to stand on my fucking head and sing the National Anthem, I’ll do it. So yes, I’m taking this very seriously,” I said, running a hand where short dark stubble took the place of my mohawk. “I told Winnie I would wait and I meant it. What you think is me being passive is just patience.” “Okay,” Harlow said softly. “You know when I came to Ellsberg, I was pretty messed up. My family was dead and I was in this new place with strangers. Winnie took care of me. She became my sister and best friend. I love her like she’s blood. Nothing personal, but if you hurt her, I’ll have to kill you.” “Fair enough,” I said, grinning. “Smile all you want, buddy, but I’ve got moves.” Harlow faked a punch, but I didn’t flinch. My mind was already focused on tomorrow. I hadn’t talked to Winnie since the day Nick’s dad showed up. I hadn’t seen her close up in weeks. I needed to be close to her even if she couldn’t do more than hide behind her hair all night.

Lord I thank you for the gift of breath, eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to taste, nose to smell, mouth to speak, face to smile, voice to sing, body to dance, legs to walk, mind to think and hands to write.

There was only Lora and the ocean’s song. She closed her eyes, moving forward to bathe her feet in the colorful sea foam, which washed over the sand as it drifted ashore. Cool, soothing water splashed her, soaking the ankles of her jeans. The hypnotic music completely consumed Lora, dominating her mind, until it could focus on nothing else. The chill of the wind against her pale skin felt so freeing. Why couldn’t every day be like this? Music dwelled within her nature, as a part of her soul. She wasn’t meant to spend her days in a small classroom filled with students. Each day should be filled with singing and music. Her clan had no appreciation of their roots, however. They didn’t embrace who they really were. If they discovered she sang with the ocean this morning, they would punish her. But one day, she promised herself, she would be free of their restraints. Ignoring the nagging part of her mind which feared discovery, Lora finally joined the ocean’s song. A hum escaped her, then another, until her throat reverberated with the low melody of the ocean. Lora couldn’t help herself. She felt compelled to sing along.

Celeste was practically talking to herself now because Stamford and the baby were in a world of their own. The baby's hands had reached the man's face and he was tapping every feature of it, doing everything that was necessary for the man to say the words the baby had come to expect in their brief history together. Stamford's mouth opened more and more. 'You here early this mornin,' Stamford Crow Blueberry would say to Ellwood Freemen that day some twenty years later in Richmond. Ellwood would be walking up the street with the reins of his horse in his hand, and Stamford would be walking with a baby resting on his shoulder, the newest member of the Richmond Home for Colored Orphans. Mother and father killed in a fire. Walking and singing to the baby in the morning seemed to calm the infant for the rest of the day. Ellwood Freemen would say, 'I have come to fulfill my duty, just as I promised, Mr. Blueberry. Is that to be one of my pupils?' Stamford would shake his hand, nodding. Ellwood said, 'You look as if you didn't believe I would keep my word.' 'Oh,' Stamford said, 'I whatn't worried. I know where your mama and papa live. I know where I could find them to tell em that their boy didn't keep his word.' Ellwood told him he had to tend to some business elsewhere in Richmond and would return shortly to settle in at the home for orphans. He got on his horse and rode slowly out to the main street, the street that would be named for Stamford Blueberry and his wife Delphie. Blueberry, with the new orphan on his shoulder, followed. He watched Ellwood take his time going off and Stamford that day would realize for the first time just how far they had come. He would have cried as he had that day after the ground opened up and took the dead crows, but he had in his arms a baby new to being an orphan. Stamford, it don't matter now, he told himself, watching Ellwood and the horse saunter away. It don't matter now. The day and the sun all about him told that was true. It mattered not how long he had wandered in the wilderness, how long they had kept him in chains, how long he had helped them and kept himself in his own chains; none of that mattered now. He patted the baby's back, turned around and went back to the Richmond Home for Colored Orphans. No, it did not matter. It mattered only that those kind of chains were gone and that he had crawled out into the clearing and was able to stand up on his hind legs and look around and appreciate the differences between then and now, even on the awful Richmond days when the now came dressed as the then. Behind him, as he walked back, was the very corner where more than a hundred years later they would put that first street sign - Stamford and Delphie Crow Blueberry Street.

Dear Christopher, This is the perfume of March: rain, loam, feathers, mint. Every morning and afternoon I drink fresh mint tea sweetened with honey. I’ve done a great deal of walking lately. I seem to think better outdoors. Last night was remarkably clear. I looked up at the sky to find the Argo. I’m terrible at constellations. I can never make out any of them except for Orion and his belt. But the longer I stared, the more the sky seemed like an ocean, and then I saw an entire fleet of ships made of stars. A flotilla was anchored at the moon, while others were casting off. I imagined we were on one of those ships, sailing on moonlight. In truth, I find the ocean unnerving. Too vast. I must prefer the forests around Stony Cross. They’re always fascinating, and full of commonplace miracles…spiderwebs glittering with rain, new trees growing from the trunks of fallen oaks. I wish you could see them with me. And together we would listen to the wind rushing through the leaves overhead, a lovely swooshy melody…tree music! As I sit here writing to you, I have propped my stocking feet much too close to the hearth. I’ve actually singed my stockings on occasion, and once I had to stomp out my feet when they started smoking. Even after that, I still can’t seem to rid myself of the habit. There, now you could pick me out of a crowd blindfolded. Simply follow the scent of scorched stockings. Enclosed is a robin’s feather that I found during my walk this morning. It’s for luck. Keep it in your pocket. Just now I had the oddest feeling while writing this letter, as if you were standing in the room with me. As if my pen had become a magic wand, and I had conjured you right here. If I wish hard enough… Dearest Prudence, I have the robin’s feather in my pocket. How did you know I needed token to carry into battle? For the past two weeks I’ve been in a rifle pit, sniping back and forth with the Russians. It’s no longer a cavalry war, it’s all engineers and artillery. Albert stayed in the trench with me, only going out to carry messages up and down the line. During the lulls, I try to imagine being in some other place. I imagine you with your feet propped near the hearth, and your breath sweet with mint tea. I imagine walking through the Stony Cross forests with you. I would love to see some commonplace miracles, but I don’t think I could find them without you. I need your help, Pru. I think you might be my only chance of becoming part of the world again. I feel as if I have more memories of you than I actually do. I was with you on only a handful of occasions. A dance. A conversation. A kiss. I wish I could relive those moments. I would appreciate them more. I would appreciate everything more. Last night I dreamed of you again. I couldn’t see your face, but I felt you near me. You were whispering to me. The last time I held you, I didn’t know who you truly were. Or who I was, for that matter. We never looked beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s better we didn’t--I don’t think I could have left you, had I felt for you then what I do now. I’ll tell you what I’m fighting for. Not for England, nor her allies, nor any patriotic cause. It’s all come down to the hope of being with you.

If I can’t sing, then let me listen to the songs of the wilderness and let me watch the dance of a lonely leaf.

Because of You   Because of you I appreciate the sunset more than before. Because of you I stop to look up at the moon and wish upon a star. Because of you I look forward to hearing the birds sing in the morning, and thank God for their beautiful songs. Because of you I am more understanding of others and accept people for who they are. Because of you material things do not matter. Because of you the touch of someone you love is more precious than any gift you can receive. Because of you I have a broken heart but I thank God for sending you to me. For there is no stronger love than I hold for you.

I voice my opinions. I speak up for myself. I sing the praises of love and joy. My words are the music of life. I choose the thoughts that express beauty and gratitude. I proclaim my oneness with all of life. I love and appreciate my beautiful voice!

He slid back beneath the covers, smiling like a fool. It was rather nice, being the hero of the hour ... and there were no words to describe how he'd felt when Miss Juliet Paige had come in to say good night to him and bent down to touch her cool, sweet lips to his brow. He sighed and lay back in bed with a happy grin. Such attentions made him feel quite special, indeed. And, appreciated. He wasn't used to anyone appreciating him. He closed his eyes. The blackbird was still singing, and as he began to drift away, he allowed himself to imagine that Juliet Paige was gazing reverently down at him, standing watch over him as though he were some mighty fallen warrior-hero and she, heaven's dearest angel. When Lucien came quietly in to check on him an hour later, Gareth was fast asleep ... and still smiling.   ~~~~

We had to convince these guys to perform, but they were easy to win over.” She points to the curtain, and it opens slowly. “I give you the Reeds, performing to Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong with Me.’” The curtain opens, and Paul, Matt, Logan, Sam, and Pete are all standing in a line. They’re all dressed in jeans and sleeveless T-shirts, and you can see all their tattoos and they’re so fucking handsome that I can’t even believe they’re mine. I see Hayley, Joey, and Mellie standing on the side of the stage, all waiting anxiously to watch their daddies and uncles. Seth starts the music, and he’s underlaid some kind of hip-hop track beneath the beat, but you can still pick out the music. It’s a song about unrequited love and realizing that what you wanted was right there in front of you the whole time, but you were being too stupid to see it. It’s told from a girl’s point of view, so some of the words don’t exactly fit the boys, but it makes it all the funnier. The Reeds have moves. Serious moves. I think everyone woman in the auditorium sits forward in her seat so she doesn’t miss seeing the shaking hips and flexing muscles. Paul even picks Matt up and spins him around one time, and Sam does the same to Pete. I can’t stop laughing. Even Logan dances, and I can imagine the kind of work it took for him to learn this routine when he can’t even hear the music the same way everyone else can. He can appreciate music, just in a different way. As the song starts to close, Matt, Pete, Logan, and Paul all point out at the audience when the words, “You belong with me,” play. Matt points to Sky. Pete points to Reagan, and Logan points to Emily, who is holding the baby in her lap. And Paul points in my direction. Those four men jump off the stage and come toward us. They sing and dance all the way down the aisle. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kelly get up to intercept Paul, but he doesn’t even notice her. He points past her, and sings out the last line, “You belong with me,” in my ear. He picks me up and spins me around, and I have never felt more happiness in my whole life. The music stops, and everyone looks to the stage. Sam has sat down on the side of it, and he looks pretty dejected. He’s holding a sign above his head that says, Available. After this, he won’t be available for long, because every woman there now has a crush on all the Reeds, and he’s the only one who isn’t taken. I love that they can be so silly, and so loving, and so…them. They don’t hide it. They don’t make a game of it. They just love. They love hard. “I love you so hard,” I say to Paul. His eyes jerk to meet mine, and he almost looks surprised. “You do?” he asks. I nod. “I do.” “Will you come home tonight?” he asks quietly. I nod. “Good. That’s where you belong.

Great is His Faithfulness     “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).     At church on Sunday, they sang a song from the hymnbook called, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” The lyrics were by Thomas Obediah Chisholm and music by William Marion Runyan. Although I had difficulty singing along, I paid close attention to the words. My favourite line was, “All I needed Thy hand hath provided.”   This verse resonated with my soul that day. It didn’t say, “All that I wanted” but rather, “All that I needed.” I took a moment to reflect on the last five years of my life and I was taken to my knees in awe and appreciation.   I wish that I had kept a journal of answered prayer. I think this is a brilliant idea. I have kept notes here and there and I have various journals that I write in every day, but I’ve never dedicated one book to just answered prayer.   There are so many little things that I pray for every day. My husband was working on my income tax on the computer when all of a sudden the program kicked him out. Two hours of work – lost. But it was restored within ten minutes without as much as one number out of place – an answer to prayer.   One of my cats was coughing and sneezing. She looked as if she had trouble breathing and took to hiding under a desk. Would she survive the night? Is it just a cold or something much worse like cat leukemia? The vet announced it only a virus – an answer to prayer.   On a four-hour hike with my mother, two aunts and my brother’s mother-in-law, the average age was 65. The terrain was full of obstacles with fallen trees, raspberry bush thorns, and slippery logs. We made the entire trip without incidence – an answer to prayer.  

The more you find something to appreciate, the better it feels; the better it feels, the more you want to do it; the more you do it, the better it feels; the better it feels . . . the more you want to do it. The Law of Attraction assists with the powerful momentum of these positive thoughts and feelings until, with very little time and effort, you will find your heart singing in your joyous alignment with who you really are.

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated.

Some people sing and dance. I do the opposite of that, and I think the only person who could truly appreciate my art is Helen Keller.

At the back door she lifted her jacket from its hook and left the house. The air smelled good and she breathed it in deeply. The Creator, after all, gave us the magic of crickets singing in the darkness, soft nights and sighing trees, universal skies with their messages of stars.

[...] Can you sing, wizard?' 'I might be able to,' said Rincewind, cautiously. Why?' 'You could be just the man the Seriph needs for a job in the harem.' A couple of slavers sniggered. 'It could be a unique opportunity,' the leader went on, encouraged by this audience appreciation. There was more broad-minded approval from behind him. Rincewind backed away. 'I don't think so,' he said, 'thanks all the same. I'm not cut out for that kind of thing.' 'Oh, but you could be,' said the leader, his eyes bright. 'You could be.

Pop art from the sixties lingered on as a movement, mutating and becoming more ironic as it drifted further from its origins. Compared to some of the dour work of the conceptualists and minimalists, one felt that at least these artists had a sense of fun. Warhol, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Lichtenstein, and their kin were about embracing, in a peculiar, ironic way, a world with which we were familiar. They accepted that pop culture was the water in which we all swam. I think I can speak for a lot of the musicians in New York at that time and say that we genuinely liked a lot of pop culture, and that we appreciated workmanlike song craft. Talking Heads did covers of 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Troggs, and Patti Smith famously reworked the über-primitive song “Gloria” as well as the soul song “Land of 1,000 Dances.” Of course, our cover tunes were very different from those we would have been expected to play if we had been a bar band that played covers. That would have meant Fleetwood Mac, Rod Stewart, Donny & Marie, Heart, ELO, or Bob Seger. Don’t get me wrong, some of them had some great songs, but they sure weren’t singing about the world as we were experiencing it. The earlier, more primitive pop hits we’d first heard on the radio as suburban children now seemed like diamonds in the rough to us. To cover those songs was to establish a link between one’s earliest experience of pop music and one’s present ambitions—to revive that innocent excitement and meaning.

Fair enough,” Miss Olyer said, handing the knife over to Ten. “Which one of you wants to do the honor?” “While I appreciate you including me,” Mina drawled wryly, “I don’t think any sort of knife wielding is in my future. And I am saying that as a Maiden.” “I can do it,” Ten offered, taking the knife. “Shall we all sing the song?” “Song? What song?!” But no one answered her question because they all burst into the traditional birthday party song, most of them off key and entirely too enthused by the process. Mina’s head kept turning in every direction, trying to catch up with it. It wasn’t a lengthy song, maybe a minute or so, but Ten was perfectly proud of how they all somehow finished on a slightly different note. “Is… Is this a punishment?” Mina asked when they all finished their howling, er, singing. “It’s a little bit of sour to make the cake that much sweeter,” Miss Olyer said with a chuckle. “Now finally, it’s time!

In longtime meditators, such as Tibetan monks who have meditated for over 10,000 hours, the parietal lobe shows greatly reduced activity during meditation. While the brain’s energy usage only fluctuates around 5% up or down each day, in these adepts it drops up to 40% as they enter an altered state of consciousness. People who are isolated and lonely show the opposite effect. Their parietal lobes may be highly active. Feelings of loneliness and isolation are increasing in our fragmented society, according to a number of studies, and they have detrimental effects on our health. We are social beings, and a sense of connectedness translates into overall physical and emotional well-being. In a meta-analysis of 148 studies with a total of 308,849 participants, the researchers found “a 50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships. This finding remained consistent across age, sex, initial health status, cause of death, and follow up.” Even when the researchers corrected for behaviors such as smoking, obesity, and lack of exercise, the effect remained consistent. Think back to the times of your life when you were happiest. For most of us, special moments with family and friends come to mind. We may have been on vacation with loved ones or enjoying a meal or a joke with friends. It may have been singing carols during the holidays, when billions of people join in affirming “peace on earth, goodwill to men.” What’s common to all those happy times is that your attention was fully in the present moment, the “timelessness” of Chapter 2. You weren’t worrying about the past or stressing over the future, the way you might be doing if you didn’t have precious people to engage your thoughts. Time and space receded as the love-filled present occupied your attention. Only in the present moment can you escape the demon’s obsession with the mistakes of the past and the problems of tomorrow. Experiences of timelessness, as the parietal lobe shuts down, shape our perception of the world and how we act in it. A Stanford study of people who experienced “the deep now” found that it changed their behavior. They “felt they had more time available . . . and were less impatient . . . more willing to volunteer their time to help others . . . preferred experiences over material products . . . and experienced a greater boost in life satisfaction.” A quiet parietal lobe promotes empathy, compassion, relaxation, appreciation, connectedness, and self-esteem.

It can be difficult for contemporary commentators to appreciate the place that hymns occupied in the lives of typical Edwardians. They were not indicators of doom and gloom but of hope and joy. They were also a register of commonly held assumptions about the most important issues in life. The difference between the early twentieth century and the early twenty-first century can be illustrated by Elizabeth Nye’s reminiscence: “On Sunday the 14th it became very cold. We couldn’t stay out on deck so we all came together in the dining room for a hymn sing.” It’s hard to imagine passengers on a twenty-first-century cruise liner opting for such an alternative.

NOVEMBER 1 • Order is a lovely thing; On disarray it lays its wing, Teaching simplicity to sing. —Anna Hempstead Branch Things and events have their own order. It’s human to want to impose order from the outside—our order; but often, our attempt to put things in order resembles the old man who tried to push the river. It never went any faster, and if he stopped pushing, it got there just the same. Some people seem to have a knack for order. It could be that they’ve learned to let things take their own shape. If order is natural, then maybe disorder is what we create with our human fussing. It could be, too, that disorder is in the eye of the beholder—especially if the beholder is a perfectionist. Serenity is the ability to appreciate natural order. Today I’ll try to be light on my feet and get out of my own way.

May you never be the reason why someone who loved to sing, doesn’t anymore. Or why someone who dressed so uniquely, now wears plain clothing. Or why someone who always spoke so excitedly about their dreams, is now silent about them. May you never be the reason someone gave up on a part of themselves because you were demotivating, non-appreciative, hypercritical, or even worse—sarcastic about it.” - Sharouk Mustafa Ibrahim

When he paused before a set of wooden doors, the slight smile he gave me was enough to make me blurt, 'Why do anything- anything this kind?' The smile faltered. 'It's been a long time since there was anyone here who appreciated these things. I like seeing them used again.' Especially when there was such blood and death in every other part of his life. He opened the gallery doors, and the breath was knocked from me. The pale wooden floors gleamed in the clean, bright light pouring in from the windows. The room was empty save for a few large chairs and benches for viewing the... the... I barely registered moving into the long gallery, one hand absent-mindedly wrapping around my throat as I looked up at the paintings. So many, so different, yet all arranged to flow together seamlessly. Such different views and snippets and angles of the world. Pastorals, portraits, still lifes... each a story and an experience, each a voice showing or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed. Some had been painted through eyes like mine, artists who saw in colours and shapes I understood. Some showcased colours I had not considered, these had a bend to the world that told me a different set of eyes had painted them. A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me, and yet... and yet I looked at its work and understood, and felt, and cared. 'I never knew,' Tamlin said from behind me, 'that humans were capable of...' He trailed off as I turned, the hand I'd put on my throat sliding down to my chest, where my heart roared with a fierce sort of joy and grief and overwhelming humility- humility before that magnificent art. He stood by the doors, head cocked in that animalistic way, the words still lost on his tongue. I wiped at my damp cheeks. 'It's...' Perfect, wonderful, beyond my wildest imaginings didn't cover it. I kept my hand over my heart. 'Thank you,' I said. It was all I could find to show him what these paintings- to be allowed into this room- meant. 'Come here whenever you want.' I smiled at him, hardly able to contain the brightness in my heart. His returning smile was tentative but shining, and then he left me to admire the gallery at my own leisure. I stayed for hours- stayed until I was drunk on the art, until I was dizzy with hunger and wandered out to find food.

Goodness,” said Sinh Loan, looking faintly scandalized. “You mean she didn’t know?” Chih raised their eyebrows at the tiger’s tone. “She knew that she was sitting down with someone that might have eaten her, madam,” they said politely. Sinh Cam shook her ears impatiently. “She didn’t know that Ho Thi Thao was flirting with her! She was being so sweet and romantic, and Scholar Dieu didn’t even appreciate it!

IF THIS CONCLUSION had signaled the end of Arendt’s thinking on the subject, American readers of On Revolution could close the book basking in a feeling of self-satisfaction, offering a hymn of praise to their country’s exceptionalism, singing a chorus of “God Bless America” and retiring to their beds secure in the conviction that theirs was a nation unlike all others. But this was not the German-Jewish immigrant’s complex understanding of the United States, where gratitude was inevitably tempered by ambivalence and pessimism. Arendt was not one to close on so optimistic a note. The book’s last chapter, bringing the narrative up to the present, takes a sharp turn toward the ominous. It exhibits what one commentator calls a “particularly bleak and embattled tone.” It is a bucket of cold water thrown on the warm glow of the earlier exuberance. Political freedom, Arendt insisted in the book’s final pages, “means the right ‘to be a participator in government,’ or it means nothing.” The colonial townships and assemblies, building pyramidally to the constitutional conventions, were paradigms of citizen participation, but the popular elections that Americans today consider the hallmark of their democratic republic are hardly the same thing. Voting is not what Arendt meant by participation. The individual in the privacy of the voting booth is not engaged with others in the public arena, putting one’s opinions to the test against differing views and life experiences, but instead is choosing among professional politicians offering to promote and protect his or her personal interests through ready-made formulas, mindless banalities, blatant pandering, and outlandish promises cobbled together as party programs. (And heaven help the elected official who, in the manner of Edmund Burke, tries to argue against the personal interest of his or her constituents or to communicate bad news.) Leaders are selected on the basis of private, parochial concerns, not the public welfare, producing a mishmash of self-interested demands, or what Arendt called “the invasion of the public realm by society.” This was almost the opposite of genuine participation. Instead of the kind of intimate interchange of views and the deliberation that might be expected to resolve conflict, which was the practice of the townships and assemblies, isolated voters left to their own devices and with no appreciation of any larger good or of people different from themselves demand an affirmation of their particular prejudices and preconceptions. They have no opportunity, or desire, to come together with the aim of reaching mutual understanding and agreement on shared problems. Centrifugality prevails. American democracy, Arendt writes, had become a zero-sum game of “pressure groups, lobbies and other devices.” It is a system in which only power can prevail, or at best the blight of mutual backscratching to no greater end than mere political survival, lending itself to lies and demagoguery, quarrels and stalemates, cynical deal-making, not public exchange and calm deliberation.

The artist or writer does not impose harmony on reality but—with sufficient reverence and diligence and selflessness and solitude—uncovers the harmony that is always there but that we conceal from ourselves out of a preferencia for material comfort and fear of the consequences a full and unreserved embrace of harmony requires. This faith in the underlying harmony roots itself in a love of and appreciation for nature, because nature, no matter how extreme the human abuse heaped on her, embodies a quiet, continual knitting and healing of life, ever dependent on death to make herself anew. 'Art is a harmony parallel to nature,' Cézanne wrote—not identical with but parallel to nature. Art of any kind, undertaken with atención and focus and as part of a commitment to discipline, is an effort at reenactment of the original creative gesture—the precipitation of the universe at the moment of its creation. That, I believe, is why we sing, paint, dance, sculpt, write; that is why cualquier one of us sets out to create something from nothing, and why the creative impulse is essentially religious or, if you prefer, spiritual. We seek to recreate the original creative gesture, whatever or whoever set it in motion—the bringing into being of what is. We seek the center of beauty.

DIDN’T COME GET me until two in the morning, and she was still singing—in French.” Lydia yawned hugely, then sang, “Ne me quitte pas, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. What am I going to do? Ben won’t let me into his room every night, no matter what Jeffrey says.” “Sleep in my room from now on,” said Alice. “You can have either the top or bottom bunk.” “Really?” What a relief to never again sleep in the mansion. “Actually, I do prefer the top bunk, so if you wouldn’t mind the bottom—” “No, I mean, do you really think I can stay with you? Wouldn’t your parents mind?” “They’ll like it. They’ve decided you’re a good influence on me.” Lydia thought that being a good influence made her sound as boring as being a person who liked everyone (except she didn’t). But if that was what she had to suffer to get out of the mansion, she’d accept it. Both girls were in their new ballet skirts, swishing along on their way to see Blossom. Alice was carrying the oats in a bag—the skirts were without pockets—and Lydia was carrying Natalie’s phone, plus two books, in another bag. Alice knew about only one of the books, Practical Magic, written by an Alice for grown-ups. The other, sneaked in by Lydia, was a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. She was hoping to convince both Alice and Blossom to love it. Unless—she stopped walking—that could be considered being a good influence. No, she decided, and started walking again, quickly, to catch up with Alice as she entered the field. They’d decided to begin the visit with a dance, the best way to show Blossom their new skirts. This was the first time the two of them had danced together seriously, and anyone other than sheep would have appreciated the vision—the beautiful skirts, the fusion of ballet and tae kwon do, the paean to freedom and friendship. But to Blossom, the oat carriers seemed to have gone crazy, spinning around like bugs trying to escape a water trough. She stopped halfway across the field, apparently planning to chomp on grass until they became less buglike. The dancing a failure, the girls moved on to the second part of the entertainment. Alice took out oats, Lydia took out Practical Magic, and Blossom came the rest of the way over, accepting the oats and ignoring the book.

Berlin wrote songs for a number of Astaire films of the period: Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, On the Avenue, Carefree. The two men became close personal friends for the rest of their lives. But the choice of Astaire as a Hollywood leading man is, at first glance, puzzling. Certainly, he was an extraordinary dancer, and songwriters appreciated his accuracy and clarity when singing their songs, even if his voice was reedy and thin. But a leading man? Essentially, Astaire epitomized what Berlin and other Jews strove to achieve. He was debonair, polished, sophisticated. His screen persona was that of a raffish, outspoken fellow, not obviously attractive, whose audacity and romanticism and wit in the end won out. It didn’t hurt that he could dance. But even his dance—so smooth and elegant—was done mostly to jazz. Unlike a Gene Kelly, who was athletic, handsome, and sexy, Astaire got by on style. Kelly was American whereas Astaire was continental. In short, Astaire was someone the immigrant might himself become. It was almost like Astaire was himself Jewish beneath the relaxed urbanity. In a film like Top Hat he is audacious, rude, clever, funny, and articulate, relying mostly on good intentions and charm to win over the girl—and the audience. He is the antithesis of a Clark Gable or a Gary Cooper; Astaire is all clever and chatty, balding, small, and thin. No rugged individualist he. And yet his romantic nature and persistence win all. Astaire only got on his knees to execute a dazzling dance move, never as an act of submission. His characters were largely wealthy, self-assured, and worldly. He danced with sophistication and class. In his famous pairings with Ginger Rogers, the primary dance numbers had the couple dressed to the nines, swirling on equally polished floors to the strains of deeply moving romantic ballads.

Berlin wrote songs for a number of Astaire films of the period: Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, On the Avenue, Carefree. The two men became close personal friends for the rest of their lives. But the choice of Astaire as a Hollywood leading man is, at first glance, puzzling. Certainly, he was an extraordinary dancer, and songwriters appreciated his accuracy and clarity when singing their songs, even if his voice was reedy and thin. But a leading man? Essentially, Astaire epitomized what Berlin and other Jews strove to achieve. He was debonair, polished, sophisticated. His screen persona was that of a raffish, outspoken fellow, not obviously attractive, whose audacity and romanticism and wit in the end won out. It didn’t hurt that he could dance. But even his dance—so smooth and elegant—was done mostly to jazz. Unlike a Gene Kelly, who was athletic, handsome, and sexy, Astaire got by on style. Kelly was American whereas Astaire was continental. In short, Astaire was someone the immigrant might himself become. It was almost like Astaire was himself Jewish beneath the relaxed urbanity. In a film like Top Hat he is audacious, rude, clever, funny, and articulate, relying mostly on good intentions and charm to win over the girl—and the audience. He is the antithesis of a Clark Gable or a Gary Cooper; Astaire is all clever and chatty, balding, small, and thin. No rugged individualist he. And yet his romantic nature and persistence win all.

You will never appreciate nature more than when a loved one dies. It is the music they sing that we can hear.

A French observer of early America, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote that the greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than other nations, but rather in our ability to repair our faults.x Through amendments to our Constitution and court decisions applying those amendments, we abolished slavery, prohibited racial discrimination, and recognized men and women as people of equal citizenship stature. Though we have made huge progress, the work of perfection is scarcely done. Many stains remain in this rich land. Nearly a quarter of our children live in poverty. Nearly half of our citizens do not vote. And we still struggle to achieve greater understanding and appreciation of each other across racial, religious and socio-economic lines. We sing of America, “sweet land of liberty”. Newcomers to our shores . . . came here, from the earliest days of our nation to today, seeking liberty, freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be you and me. A great American jurist, Judge Learned Hand,xi understood liberty. He explained in 1944 what liberty meant to him when he greeted a large assemblage of new Americans gathered in New York City’s Central Park, to swear allegiance . . . to the United States. These are Judge Hand’s words: Just what is this sacred liberty that must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the rootless, unbridled will, it is not freedom to do as one likes. I cannot define the spirit of liberty, I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weight their interests alongside its own, without bias.10 May the spirit of liberty, as Judge Hand explained it, be your beacon. May you have the conscience and the courage to act in accord with that high ideal, as you play your part in helping to achieve a more perfect union. From “Remarks at the New York Historical Society”, 10 April 2018

When the whip-poor-will sings his melody in the moonlight, and it is answered by your own heart beating a bit faster in awed appreciation, who in their right mind would say that it was all conjured by imbecilic billiard balls slamming each other by the laws of chance? No observant person would be able to utter such a thing, which is why it always strikes me as slightly amazing that any scientist can aver, with a straight face, that they stand there at the lectern—a conscious, functioning organism with trillions of perfectly functioning parts—as the sole result of falling dice. Our least gesture affirms the magic of life’s design.

Before embarking on this project, I doubt I ever truly properly appreciated precisely how urgent the various voices of the New Testament authors are, or how profound the provocations of what they were saying were for their own age, and probably remain for every age. Those voices blend, or at least interweave, in a kind of wildly indiscriminate polyphony, as if an early Baroque vocal trio, an Appalachian band, a couple of Viennese tenors piping twelve-tone Lieder, and a jazz crooner or two were all singing out together; but what all have in common, and what somehow forges a genuine harmony out of all that ecstatic clamor, is the vibrant certainty that history has been invaded by God in Christ in such a way that nothing can stay is it was, and that all terms of human community and conduct have been altered at the deepest of levels.

People don’t know what to do when they encounter someone different. History hides a whole world of talented people we have never known because bright minds surrendered to the advice of small thinkers. “You got a great voice, kid—now go check on the cattle and don’t forget to lock the entrance.” And you spent so much time trying to convince everyone to appreciate some small idea or gift. They won’t know. They will never understand ideas until they happen. They don’t believe in start-ups, but love success stories. They won’t encourage your singing career, but love the radio. We ought to fly away from everyone and everything and right when we’ve launched far enough in space to risk no return, we can then come back to earth as us.