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I'm Losing Faith in My Favorite Country
Throughout my life, the United States has been my favorite country, save and except for Canada, where I was born, raised, educated, and still live for six months each year. As a child growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, I aggressively bought and saved baseball cards of American and National League players, spent hours watching snowy images of American baseball and football games on black and white television and longed for the day when I could travel to that great country. Every Saturday afternoon, me and the boys would pay twelve cents to go the show and watch U.S. made movies, and particularly, the Superman serial. Then I got my chance. My father, who worked for B.F. Goodrich, took my brother and me to watch the Cleveland Indians play baseball in the Mistake on the Lake in Cleveland. At last I had made it to the big time. I thought it was an amazing stadium and it was certainly not a mistake. Amazingly, the Americans thought we were Americans.
I loved the United States, and everything about the country: its people, its movies, its comic books, its sports, and a great deal more. The country was alive and growing. No, exploding. It was the golden age of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American dream was alive and well, but demanded hard work, honesty, and frugality. Everyone understood that. Even the politicians.
Then everything changed.
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Stephen Douglass
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Malone: Me father died of starvation in Ireland in the black 47. Maybe you've heard of it.
Violet: The Famine?
Malone: No, the starvation. When a country is full o food, and exporting it, there can be no famine.
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George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman)
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Morality can go to its father the devil.
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George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman)
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Only girls wear tights. - Nic responds, "Uh,uh. Superman wears tights.
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David Sheff (Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction)
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I called up my grandparents who I hadn't spoken to for over three years. I called my mother, who I had recently told to stop calling lest I contact the police. I sat with them all and it was normal and fun and good. I'm even ready - maybe - to speak to my father. Superman doesn't get upset at the people who shoot bullets at him. I get why, now.
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Harvey Pekar (American Splendor: The Life and Times of Harvey Pekar)
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was Superman. He jumped off a building—a skyscraper, no less—thinking he could fly away, and died when he found that he couldn't. I don't know if he was wearing his super suit at the time. Noel Thomas's story began with the same ending, though the means weren’t so dramatic. She sat in my office, slim black purse on the floor next to her, hands folded on her lap, and calmly related that her father had killed himself. She wanted to know why.
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Judy K. Walker (Back to Lazarus (Sydney Brennan Mysteries, #1))
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All my father ever told me was “don’t get caught” and “don’t cause a scandal.” That’s not love, it’s public relations. You have no idea how lucky you are. When my father dies, kings will come to his funeral but when yours does, his friends will come.
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Lex Luthor, Smallville
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Unassuming comic Frank Shuster reigns supreme as a Canadian propaganda machine. Besides his own influential comedy duo, he is the father-in-law of heir apparent Lorne Michaels and the cousin of Joe Shuster, the creator of Superman (see Superman, the Greatest Canadian Hero)!
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Kerry Colburn (The U.S. of EH?: How Canada Secretly Controls the United States and Why That's OK)
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THE STATUE. Ah, you outlived that weakness, my daughter: you must be nearly 80 by this time. I was cut off (by an accident) in my 64th year, and am considerably your junior in consequence. Besides, my child, in this place, what our libertine friend here would call the farce of parental wisdom is dropped. Regard me, I beg, as a fellow creature, not as a father. ANA. You speak as this villain speaks. THE STATUE. Juan is a sound thinker, Ana. A bad fencer, but a sound thinker. ANA [horror creeping upon her] I begin to understand. These are devils, mocking me. I had better pray. THE STATUE [consoling her] No, no, no, my child: do not pray. If you do, you will throw away the main advantage of this place. Written over the gate here are the words “Leave every hope behind, ye who enter.” Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself. [Don Juan sighs deeply]. You sigh, friend Juan; but if you dwelt in heaven, as I do, you would realize your advantages.
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George Bernard Shaw (Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman)
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To be a victim is to be forever frozen in amber by that person’s actions at that moment. Victimization only looks backward, never forward, which is why my family was incapable of moving on or redefining themselves. If I allowed myself to be defined by what my father did to me, it would put him at the center of my identity. He would have control over me for the rest of my life, even once he was gone. Yes, I was stuck in a box with a monster, but wallowing in indulgent self-pity wasn’t the solution; the task before me was to survive the monster without becoming the monster. In a way, I was lucky that my father was as awful as he was. He had no good qualities to negate. Had he been a better human being, I would have become a worse one.
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J. Michael Straczynski (Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood)
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ANA. Stop! [The trap stops]. THE DEVIL. You, Señora, cannot come this way. You will have an apotheosis. But you will be at the palace before us. ANA. That is not what I stopped you for. Tell me: where can I find the Superman? THE DEVIL. He is not yet created, Senora. THE STATUE. And never will be, probably. Let us proceed: the red fire will make me sneeze. [They descend]. ANA. Not yet created! Then my work is not yet done. [Crossing herself devoutly] I believe in the Life to Come. [Crying to the universe] A father! a father for the Superman! She vanishes into the void; and again there is nothing: all existence seems suspended infinitely. Then, vaguely, there is a live human voice crying somewhere. One sees, with a shock, a mountain peak shewing faintly against a lighter background. The sky has returned from afar; and we suddenly remember where we were.
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George Bernard Shaw (Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman)
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ANA. Has even death failed to refine your soul, Juan? Has the terrible judgment of which my father’s statue was the minister taught you no reverence? DON JUAN. How is that very flattering statue, by the way? Does it still come to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomless pit? ANA. It has been a great expense to me. The boys in the monastery school would not let it alone: the mischievous ones broke it; and the studious ones wrote their names on it. Three new noses in two years, and fingers without end. I had to leave it to its fate at last; and now I fear it is shockingly mutilated. My poor father! DON JUAN. Hush! Listen! [Two great chords rolling on syncopated waves of sound break forth: D minor and its dominant: a sound of dreadful joy to all musicians]. Ha! Mozart’s statue music. It is your father. You had better disappear until I prepare him. [She vanishes].
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George Bernard Shaw (Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman)
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Don Juan once made love to a woman called Donna Ana. Donna Ana was married to a man called Ottavio. You will read about him in this piece. He does not appear. So when Don Juan made love to Donna Ana, Donna Ana screamed, and her father came to her rescue to defend her virtue. Donna Ana’s father got into a sword fight with Don Juan, and in the sword fight Don Juan killed Donna Ana’s father. Then the story cuts to some time later. There was a statue erected to the memory of Donna Ana’s father, and in a high mood one day Don Juan invited the Statue to come and have supper with him, and lo and behold, the Statue stepped down from its pedestal and came and had supper with Don Juan. And in return the Statue invited Don Juan to supper with it, and on this occasion the Statue took Don Juan down into Hell, where, according to Shaw, Ana joins them and they talk with the Devil. —CHARLES LAUGHTON
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George Bernard Shaw (Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman)
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Son: I can't go to school today.
Father: Why not?
Son: I don't feel well.
Teacher: Where don't you feel well?
Son: In school! *** What's the difference between man and Superman?
Man wears underwear under the trouser and superman wears it over the trouser. *** Thomas Edison walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "Okay, I'll serve you a beer. Just don't get any ideas." *** What happened when the ghost asked for a whiskey at his local bar?
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Various (Best Jokes 2014)
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This was it. This would be my final mission. An overwhelming sadness swept over me at the realization. There would be no more racing across campus to replace the missing arm of the Caesar Augustus statue with one made of pink duct tape. My mind would no longer be used as a photographic tool to unveil a terrorist’s plan. No more last-minute science experiments to help rescue a father and daughter from a terrorist organization. I wouldn’t get to rescue myself with the aid of a Millard-enhanced device. No more disguises involving wigs and glasses to save a Van Gogh painting. The Mariinsky Theatre, the Superman building, the Louvre—my stories would disappear, along with my memories. Light had vanished around me as the ocean swallowed me. I’d been unable to save a helpless girl from her evil kidnapper. In the darkness I heard Daly’s voice, clear and strong, almost like he was there. Don’t give up. Fight. Push yourself. Alexandra Stewart can make a masterpiece out of any canvas. He was right—I couldn’t give up. (page 206)
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Robin M. King (Memory of Monet (Remembrandt, #3))
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My mother worked as a saleslady at the well-known Five Corner bakery in Journal Square during the day. Her orders were that I do at least one page of homework for every one of my subjects before she came home. It didn’t matter what my teachers would assign, those were her rules and I didn’t dare to violate them! However, I usually allowed others to make the rules and then decide whether I would follow them. Turning on our small Bakelite radio, I would ignore my mother’s rules and listen to my favorite adventure shows.
“Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Superman, who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Tom Mix were my favorite daily half-hour radio programs during the week. Tom Mix was forever solving some mystery that I could help him with, since I had a decoder badge that cost only 10 cents, along with a box top from a Ralston Purina’s “Wheat Chex” cereal box. Since it tasted like straw, wanting to get a decoder badge was the only way I would eat this blah cereal for breakfast.
The radio shows were way too exciting, and my homework always took second place. When my mother finally came home and saw that I had not done my work, she would get quite upset and make me do twice as much, seated at the kitchen table where she could keep her eye on me. Being under her direct supervision wasn’t much fun, but I would sit there until she was satisfied that I had finished my assignments. My mother showed no mercy! If my father found out about my being lax, there would be hell to pay! For whatever reason, I never seemed to learn….
Oh, woe is me, woe is me…. I was in trouble again… No, I was still in trouble!
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Hank Bracker
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Four Years Since
Today I remember the day but to be honest it is everyday
That day then, the moment then, when you left us all here
More than just a father I call, a gem I treasure, that day I lost
We four girls, my mom’s other half, my brothers best bud, our first love, we lost
Holding the key to the future called You, I stand still facing the gate of the past
Why I keep on asking the same question?
Why you? Why out of all those people? Why too soon? Why?
It has been years, 4 years exact, it seems like yesterday yes
You were taken too soon, words aren’t enough to express
It’s not fair, but who I am to blame, who Am I to question?
My eyes express longing you cannot fathom
From my open mouth my broken heart pours
Words that try to capture that image so faint
He is the picture I could not ever paint
Yet our memories is in the solid bowl being kept
Spare me even just 5 or 10 minutes of your presence
To build up this longing I feel, I am asking
I want to hear your nag; I want to hear your laugh
In my dreams please see me there
I won’t get afraid nor get frightened
Like a waterfalls my tears keeps on flowing
Like a bubble your voice keeps on vanishing
He, his shadow, he himself starts from fading
I don’t want to forget you please stop time from ticking
I don’t want to open my eyes don’t wake me from dreaming
You are the art of my painting, the muse of my poem
My strength, my inspiration why I’m still holding on
My king, my superman, name them all, you are my only one
I miss the old golden days when you used to carry us one by one
Look papa, how I am now, hoping always, you’ll be proud
It pains me to know this inevitable truth, yes
That I can’t see you for now yes it’s the truth, but
My father’s love undeniable not easily obtained
Something that few, many people rather don’t have
But I’m blessed and proud I have mine claimed.
”
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Venancio Mary Ann
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Significantly, Superman’s first scene shows Jor-El rendering judgment, his deciding vote imposing the “Law of the Father ” on the criminal General Zod and his two followers, whose removal from Krypton’s symbolic order figuratively represents the castration associated with patriarchal punishment.
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Dan Hassler-Forest (Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal Age)
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It’s not how much money you have that matters, it’s what you do with it. That’s how to become really rich.
Let me give you an example of someone who is ridiculously rich, in every sense of the word. Let me introduce you to Dave.
This is how Dave works: whenever he comes across great, everyday people, whoever they are - whether it’s a shy 17-year-old just leaving school with a longing to visit his absent father who now lives in Canada; or a plumber who has worked beyond the call of duty, been respectful and diligent, but who rarely gets to see his kids as he works so hard; or a single mother, a friend of a friend, who is struggling to balance a million things and multiple jobs and wishes she could treat her kids to something nice - Dave steps in. A bit like Superman!
You see, Dave has worked hard in his life, and been rewarded with great wealth, but through it all he has learnt something far greater: that great wealth doesn’t make you rich unless you do great things with it.
So Dave will secretly help people out in some special way. Maybe he pays for the young man’s plane fare to Canada to see his dad, or for the plumber to take his family on holiday, or the single mum to get a car. Anything that is beyond the norm, out of the ordinary - he does it. And you know what? It blows people away!
Not only does Dave have the most loyal army of everyday people who would go to the ends of the Earth for him (and it is not because of the money he gave them, by the way, it is because he did something so far beyond the norm for them), but Dave is also the happiest man I have ever met.
Why?
Because it is impossible to live like this and not be ridiculously happy!
It is in the giving that a person becomes rich. And that can start today, whatever point we are along the road of our goals.
So don’t waste a chance to get rich quick by getting busy giving.
Then stand back and watch the happiness unfold…
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Bear Grylls (A Survival Guide for Life: How to Achieve Your Goals, Thrive in Adversity, and Grow in Character)
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They say it takes a hero to gaze unflinchingly past their childhood indoctrinations. But my father’s indoctrination was pure goodness. “Everyone is brainwashed,” my father
says. “It just depends on what you wash your brain with.”
He brainwashed me to want to be like him — a hero. He showed me that a hero can be like the moon, quietly impacting the changing tides of life while the world sleeps, without
needing the sun splash of a public stage.
From the day his disability attacked him until this very moment, my father walks with “abilities” far less than other mortal men. But it’s what’s on the inside that makes my Ta, or anyone, a Superman.
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Levi Welton
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They say it takes a hero to gaze unflinchingly past their childhood indoctrinations. But my father’s indoctrination was pure goodness. “Everyone is brainwashed,” my father says. “It just depends on what you wash your brain with.”
He brainwashed me to want to be like him — a hero. He showed me that a hero can be like the moon, quietly impacting the changing tides of life while the world sleeps, without needing the sun splash of a public stage.
From the day his disability attacked him until this very moment, my father walks with “abilities” far less than other mortal men. But it’s what’s on the inside that makes my Ta, or anyone, a Superman
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Levi Welton
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This saying of Nietzsche is well known: "Nicht fort sollst du dich pflanzen, sondern hinauf. Dazu helfe dir der Garten der Ehe." (Do not plant for the future but for the heights. May the garden of marriage help you in that.) It refers to the idea that today’s man is a mere form of transition whose only purpose is to prepare the birth of the "superman," being ready to sacrifice himself for him, and to withdraw at his arising. We have already done justice to the craze of the superman and this finalism that postpones the possession of an absolute meaning of existence to a hypothetical future humanity. But from the wordplay of Nietzsche’s saying, one can deduce the endorsement of a concept that marriage should serve to reproduce not "horizontally" (such is the meaning of fortpflanzen), simply breeding, but rather "vertically," toward the summit (hinauf pflanzen), elevating one’s own line. In fact, this would be the only higher justification of marriage and family. Today it is nonexistent, because of the objective existential situation of which we have spoken, and because of the processes of dissolution that have severed the profound ties that can spiritually unite the generations. Even a Catholic, Charles Peguy, had spoken of being a father as the "great adventure of modem man," given the utter uncertainty of what his own offspring may be, given the improbability that in our day the child might receive anything more than mere "life" from the father. I have already emphasized that it is not about having or not having that paternal quality, not only physical, that existed in the ancient family and that grounded his authority. Even if this quality were still present—and, in principle, one should assume that it could still be present in the differentiated man—it would be paralyzed by the presence of a refractory and dissociated material in the younger generation. As we have said, the state of the modem masses is by now such that, even if figures having the stature of true leaders were to appear, they would be the last to be followed. Thus one should not deceive oneself about the formation and education still possible for an offspring born in an environment like that of present society, even if the father were such in a more than legal sense.
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Julius Evola (Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul)
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I had caught my dear superman red-handed in the act of being human: I felt that I loved him even more for it.
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Marcel Pagnol (My Father's Glory & My Mother's Castle: Marcel Pagnol's Memories of Childhood)
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Then I stumbled upon Max and Dave Fleischer’s Superman cartoons. They were beautiful, even a small black and white TV. The scene that lit up my brain like a Christmas tree showed Superman use his cape to protect Lois Lane from a cascade of molten metal. Rather than being angry at her for getting in trouble, he was gentle and brave and saved her. I imprinted on that moment like a baby duck and my child’s mind folded around a sudden understanding.
No, Superman was never going to be my father but if I worked at it really hard maybe day could become Superman. (32)
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J. Michael Straczynski (Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood with Stops Along the Way at Murder, Madness, Mayhem, Movie Stars, Cults, Slums, Sociopaths, and War Crimes)
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Ullrich was like a superman—or, to be more accurate, a superboy. He’d come up training in East Germany, where the coaches lived by the maxim Throw a dozen eggs against the wall, and keep the ones that don’t break. Ullrich was the unbreakable egg, a Cold War kid who, like Lance, had grown up without a father and, with the help of the East German state, had turned his energy into the single most impressive physique in cycling history.
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Tyler Hamilton (The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France)
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Dad I just noticed the superman you are, instead of the superman i thought you were.
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Vineet Raj Kapoor
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Jamie stared at the file open on her screen, at the names of his parents. Kevin and Margaret Hammond. The address was in the good part of Brentwood. An expensive area. You’d have to be well-off to live there. A picture was forming in her head. Hard-working parents neglect their son for their careers. He rebels, lashes out, resents the private schooling, the luxury of his life. Starts mixing with the wrong crowd. Wouldn’t mum and dad just hate it if I got a tattoo? If I went out with this girl? If I tried heroin. She was gripping her phone hard, seeing it play out in her head. She knew it was possible. Easy even. Her own father had been an addict her whole life and she’d not known until she was in her early teens. Until then, she thought her dad was superman. Catching bad guys by day, devoted father and husband by night. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
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Morgan Greene (Bare Skin (DS Jamie Johansson, #1))
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Finding Superman In today’s vernacular, Yeshua’s Way is indeed the way of superheroes. In this sense, was He not the first superhero, and we now His apprentices, born into His identity and learning to fly? Would we not rush to see and experience this truth about Yeshua, our Father, and ourselves through the power of the Holy Spirit? Think of yourself as Superman or Superwoman. If Superman were to forget that he’s Superman, he would only be Clark Kent and Clark Kent can’t fly. Only Superman can fly. And having forgotten that he’s actually Superman, Clark no longer knows he can fly. How then does Clark Kent go about flying again? Someone would need to tap Clark Kent on the shoulder and say, “Umm . . . excuse me, but you’re Superman. If you take off that shirt and tie (surrender them) you’ll find you’re clothed in another suit in which you can fly.” Then Clark Kent would need to believe this is true. Only then could he go about the business of rushing to the phone booth, letting go of his old Clark Kent costume, and fly once more as Superman. In the same way, we who are clothed in Christ have great power and none greater than to love—without which, to quote Paul, the rest is nothing. But only in surrendering the old business suit do we see who we really are. Who are you being right now, at this moment? Do you want to “fly” again? Or maybe you want to fly for the first time, because our life ‘flying’ is loving God with all your heart, loving yourself as you are loved, and loving all others as yourself. As much, it is operating in the dimension unbound by space and time, called the miraculous.
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Ted Dekker (Waking Up: To The Way of Love)