Tears Of The Kingdom Quotes

Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom . . . very much.” And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion. It was a long story, and sometimes she grew quiet and cried—-and during those times he leaned over to wipe away her tears.

I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.

We were all supposed to make it,” said Wylan softly. Maybe that was naive, the protest of a rich merchant’s son who’d only had a taste of Barrel life. But Jesper realized he’d been thinking the same thing. After all their mad escapes and close calls, he’d started to believe the six of them were somehow charmed, that his guns, Kaz’s brains, Nina’s wit, Inej’s talent, Wylan’s ingenuity, and Matthias’ strength had made them somehow untouchable. They might suffer. They might take their knocks, but Wylan was right, in the end they were all supposed to stay standing. “No mourners,” said Jesper, surprised by the ache of tears in his throat. “No funerals,” they all replied softly.

An answering smile drifted across his tanned face. "What is mine, I intend to keep.

This hand says you spend the rest of your life with me," he said, holding out his left hand, "and this one says I spend the rest of my life with you. Choose." She bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. She took both of his hands in hers and he shuddered. "I will die protecting you," he says. There was a look of dismay on her face. "Just like a man of this kingdom, Finnikin. Talking of death, yours or mine, is not a good way to begin a-" Isaboe gave a small gasp when he leaned forward, his lips an inch away from hers. "I will die for you," he whispered. She cupped his face in her hands. "But promise me you'll live first. Because nothing we are about to do is going to be easy and I need you by my side.

I took his name, Erawan spat, writhing as the words flowed from his tongue under Damaris's power. I wiped it away from existence. Yet he only remembered it once. Only once. The first time He behelded you. Tears slid down Dorian's face at the unbearable truth.

...and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.

She made a sound of regret. ‘We come second, you and I, Luc-ien,’ she said. ‘Our allegiance is always to our kingdoms. Without that allegiance, our people would fall.’ She placed her head back against his chest and he felt her tears. ‘This is not our time.’ ‘But that will never mean I love you less,’ he said.

You have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you,” he said to her. “I feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.

Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.

My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder It's never over, all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her... It's never over, All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter... It's never over, She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever...

I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken.” Her tears flowed past him in the wind. “And I will be with you …” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a family,' thought Julia, as she watched Rachel and Scott hug their father. 'Where love and forgiveness replace tears and suffering

Belén shrugs. "It's a perfect plan." "As easy as falling in love," Mara adds. "Foolproof," Hector agrees. I don't deserve such friends. I blink against the sting of threatening tears and say, "All you Joyans are filthy liars.

Jesper gave his shoulder another little shake. "Well, how about this? Kaz is going to tear your father's damn life apart." Wylan was about to say that didn't help either, but he hesitated. Kaz Brekker was the most brutal, vengeful creature Wylan had ever encountered--and he'd sworn he was going to destroy Jan Van Eck. The thought felt like cool water cascading over the hot, shameful feeling of helplessness he'd been carrying with him for so long. Nothing could make this right, ever. But Kaz could make his father's life very wrong.

But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them.

Jesper and Kaz swung around, crashed into the mechanism of the clock, righted themselves. It wasn’t a fight, it was a brawl—graceless, a tangle of elbows and fists. “Ghezen and his works, someone stop them!” Wylan said desperately. “Jesper hasn’t shot him,” Nina said. “Kaz isn’t using his cane,” said Inej. “You think they can’t kill each other with their bare hands?” They were both bleeding—Jesper from a cut on his lip and Kaz from somewhere near his brow. Jesper’s shirt was halfway over his head and Kaz’s sleeve was tearing at the seam.

You act as if I’m intentionally cruel. As if I’m indifferent to you.” “Aren’t you?” “No,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Of course not.” Cyrus stared at her from where he stood, his chest heaving with barely leashed intensity. He devastated her with that look, even as he seemed planted in the ground, immovable. “Then be with me,” he said softly. “Let me worship you.

The curse was broken. Manon just stared at them, her breathing turning jagged. Then she roused Abraxos, and was in the saddle within heartbeats. She did not offer them any explanation, any farewell, as they leaped into the thinning night. As she guided her wyvern to the bit of blasted earth on the battlefield. Right to its heart. And smiling through her tears, laughing in joy and sorrow, Manon laid that precious flower from the Wastes upon the ground. In thanks and in love. So they would know, so Asterin would know, in the realm where she and her hunter and child walked hand in hand, that they had made it. That they were going home.

I also need you to "spread the word," quietly, that if any harm should come to Antanasia during my imprisonment, I will not only tear down these walls stone by stone, but -- once freed -- shatter the rule of law and destroy, with great satisfaction, anyone who arouses in me even the slightest suspicion. Indeed, if so much as one hair on my wife's head is disturbed while I cannot protect her, this kingdom will see retribution that will go down in the history books -- to be read by the very few who remain standing. - Lucius

Go!" He shouted the word at her, leveling the arrow at her forehead even as tears poured down his cheeks. "I never want to see your face. I never want to hear your name. If there were a way to scour you from my life, I'd do it. But until I find the strength to put you in a goddamned grave, this is all I have. Now run!" His fingers quivered on the bowstring. He would do it. And it would kill him.

This pain you feel . . . you might believe that you will never recover. And while it might always hurt, the pain will fade a little more each time—until one day, there will be no more tears. Just the memories and the hope, that you might find some joy in them again.

Royce understood then why she had come: she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: "Darling," he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, "don't do this…" But his wife wouldn't listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs. By the time she finally arose, there could not have been many among the spectators who had not seen what she had done. Standing up, she stepped back, lifted her tear-streaked face to his, and squared her shoulders. Pride exploded in Royce's battered being—because, somehow, she was managing to stand as proudly—as defiantly—as if she had just been knighted by a king.

There's no other life for me. Anyway, clemency wouldn't begin to repay your debt. I've given you a greater gift than you know." "What gift?" "You'll find out. In return, I expect you to keep it safe." Kelsea turned back to the mirror. "Great God, tell me you didn't impregnate me while I slept." The fetch threw back his head and roared with laughter. He placed a friendly hand on Kelsea's back, making her skin prickle. "Tear Queen, you'll either be dead within a week or you'll be the most fearsome ruler this kingdom has ever known. I see no middle ground.

But the gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, “Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk.” This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry.

Wylan’s legs gave out and he sat down hard, right there in the middle of the road, and he couldn’t bring himself to care because the tears were coming and there was no way he could stop them. They gusted through his chest in ragged, ugly sobs. He hated that Jesper was seeing him cry, but there was nothing he could do, not about the tears, not about any of it. He buried his face in his arms, covering his head as if, were he to only will it strongly enough, he could vanish.

In silence, they stared. Bells began pealing; people shouted. Not with fear. But in wonder. A hand rising to her mouth, Aelin scanned the broad sweep of the world. The mountain wind brushed away her tears, carrying with it a song, ancient and lovely. From the very heart of Oakwald. The very heart of the earth. Rowan twined his fingers in hers and whispered, awe in every word, “For you, Fireheart. All of it is for you.” Aelin wept then. Wept in joy that lit her heart, brighter than any magic could ever be. For across every mountain, spread beneath the green canopy of Oakwald, carpeting the entire Plain of Theralis, the kingsflame was blooming.

Fire supposed he needed to be there in order to give rousing speeches and lead the charge into the fray, or whatever is was commanders did in wartime. She resented his competence at something so tragic and senseless. She wished he, or somebody, would throw down his sword and say, 'Enough! This is a silly way to decide who's in charge!' And it seemed to her, as the beds in the healing room filled and emptied and filled, that these battles didn't leave much to be in charge of. The kingdom was already broken, and this war was tearing the broken pieces smaller.

The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Valar are grieved. For Lúthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Ilúvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.

All I know of Inviernos is bloodshed and cruelty and rage and..." Her voice trails off as tears fill her eyes. "And me," Storm says softly. "You know me.

It must be admitted that such things were common coin of the period. Kingdoms were often handed over to adolescents, whose absolute power fasinated them as might a game. Hardly grown out of the age in which it is fun to tear the wings from flies, they might now amuse themselves by tearing the heads from men. Too young to fear or even imagine death, they would not hesitate to distribute it around them.

And that's when I realized that there's really two ways people cry. You cry when you're sorry for yourself, and then you cry when you are really sad. The tears you cry for yourself? Those are kid tears. You're crying because you want somebody to help you or pick you up. Your mom, your dad, the old lady next door... anyone.

She felt as if she had been crying without end for minutes now. Yet this parting, this final farewell ... Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. “I love you both,” she whispered. “And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.” “We will see you again,” Chaol said, but even his voice was thick with tears. “Together,” Dorian breathed, shaking. “We’ll rebuild this world together.” She couldn’t stand it, this ache in her chest. But she made herself pull away and smile at their tear-streaked faces, a hand on her heart. “Thank you for all you have done for me.” Dorian bowed his head. “Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear from you.” She barked a rasping laugh, and gave him a shove. “You’re a king now. Such insults are beneath you.” He grinned, wiping at his face. Aelin smiled at Chaol, at his wife waiting beyond him. “I wish you every happiness,” she said to him. To them both. Such light shone in Chaol’s bronze eyes—that she had never seen before. “We will see each other again,” he repeated. Then he and Dorian turned toward their horses, toward the bright day beyond the castle gates. Toward their kingdom to the south. Shattered now, but not forever. Not forever.

Instead, he extended a hand. Tears streamed down my face as I stared at it, my sobs nearly choking me now. “Rise,” he said softly. “Just as they always feared you would.

have been degraded and humiliated in so many ways, for so many years,” she said, voice shaking. Not from fear, but from the tidal wave that swept up everything inside her, burning alongside the wound in her leg. “But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.” She hated the angry tears that stung her eyes. “I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?

It is often said that the invention of terrible weapons of destruction will put an end to war. That is an error. As the means of extermination are improved, the means of reducing men who hold the state conception of life to submission can be improved to correspond. They may slaughter them by thousands, by millions, they may tear them to pieces, still they will march to war like senseless cattle. Some will want beating to make them move, others will be proud to go if they are allowed to wear a scrap of ribbon or gold lace.

She still wept, but the tears were never shed. They filled the empty place inside her, a well of sadness where, each night, she sank like a stone.

But some men dream of times long dead, and times that never existed, and they're willing to tear the world apart entirely to get them.

Be careful with your tears,” her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. “They’re blood of the spirit.

You do not yield. Aelin slammed her hand into the lid. Cairn paused. Aelin pounded her fist into the iron again. Again. You do not yield. Again. You do not yield. Again. Again. Until she was alive with it, until her blood was raining onto her face, washing away the tears, until every pound of her fist into the iron was a battle cry. You do not yield. It rose in her, burning and roaring, and she gave herself wholly to it. Over and over, she pounded against the lid. Over and over, that song of fire and darkness flared through her, out of her, into the world. You do not yield And when she awoke chained on the altar, she beheld what she had done to the iron coffin. The top of the lid had been warped. A great hump now protruded, the metal stretched thin. As if it had come so very close to breaking entirely.

There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about you. Every time I manage to sleep, I dream of you. You were my obsession since we were kids, but now it’s way fucking worse. I don’t know how I managed to spend eight years without you in my life when now I suffocate if I don’t see you for hours.” My eyes fill with tears. “Aiden…” “Choose me, Elsa. Choose us.

Big Jim was not a crow, but he knew about the loyalty of murder, which makes him as much crow as any I’d met. “Crows before hoes,” said Big Jim, pretending he wasn’t drowning as I sat on his shoulder and collected his tears.

Holy water cannot help you now A thousand armies couldn’t keep me out See, I’ve come to burn your kingdom down I’ve come to smoke you out Seven devils all around you Seven devils in my house See, I was dead when I woke up this morning, And I’ll be dead before the day is done And now all your love will be exorcised And we will find your sayings to be paradox And it’s an even sum It’s a symphony It’s a battle cry They can keep me alive ‘Til I tear the walls ‘Til I slave you heart And they take your soul And what have we done?

Have you seen the man’s thighs?” she said, pointing. “That towel is hardly strong enough to do the job required—in fact, I daresay it’s liable to tear in half—” “You seem somehow incapable of delicacy,” said Cyrus, cutting her off, “so I ask this question sincerely: Do you happen to think I’m deaf?

Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him- and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again

My future stretched before me, lonely and bleak—a lifetime of servitude without hope of betterment. An unwanted tear welled up in the corner of my eye. I had learned to swallow them, inhaling sharply or blinking them away. But as I was alone, I let it trail down my cheek.

This is why the Enemy wants you to think you have no song to write, no story to tell, no painting to paint. He wants to quiet you. So sing. Let the Word by which the Creator made you fill your imagination, guide your pen, lead you from note to note until a melody is strung together like a glimmering constellation in the clear sky. Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor, too, by making worlds and works of beauty that blanket the earth like flowers. Let your homesickness keep you always from spiritual slumber. Remember that it is in the fellowship of saints, of friends and family, that your gift will grow best, and will find its best expression. And until the Kingdom comes in its fullness, bend your will to the joyful, tearful telling of its coming. Write about that. Write about that, and never stop.

Once you've seen a solution to the disease that's tearing you apart, relapsing is never fun. You know there's an alternative to the way you're living and that you're going against something you've been given for free by the universe, this key to the kingdom. Drug addiction is a progressive disease, so every time you go out, it gets a little uglier than it was before; it's not like you go back to the early days of using, when there was less of a price to pay. It isn't fun anymore, but it's still desperately exciting. Once you put that first drug or drink in your body, you don't have to worry about the girlfriend or the career or the family or the bills. All those mundane aspects of life disappear. Now you have one job, and that's to keep chucking the coal in the engine, because you don't want this train to stop. If it stops, then you're going to have to feel all that other shit.

What is a princess, and what is a queen? Why is the princess often a pejorative description of a certain type of woman, and the word queen hardly ever applied to women at all? A princess is a girl who knows that she will get there, who is on her way perhaps but is not yet there. She has power but she does not yet wield it responsibly. She is indulgent and frivolous. She cries but not yet noble tears. She stomps her feet and does not know how to contain her pain or use it creatively. A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passed her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power.

Because what touches His heart is not how much we know, but how much we love. Not how pure we are, but how passionate. Maybe that is why, when Pharisees were fighting over theology, prostitutes were falling at the Savior’s feet and slipping into the kingdom of God on their tears.

You have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you," he said to her. "I feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. I think I might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.

What use are tears? Ying had murmured to her once, back when they had just crossed their twelfth cycle of life and the wounds of Lan’s losses still cut deep every night. The dead will neither feel them nor be called by them. Grief is for the survivors, and I think that, rather than living my life in pain, I would live it in laughter and love. To the fullest.

Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes – and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away and he that sits upon the throne will say, ‘Behold, I make all things new.

I took his name, Erawan spat, writhing as the words flowed from his tongue under Damaris’s power. I wiped it away from existence. Yet he only remembered it once. Only once. The first time he beheld you. Tears slid down Dorian’s face at that unbearable truth. Perhaps his father had unknowingly hidden his name within him, a final kernel of defiance against Erawan. And had named his son for that defiance, a secret marker that the man within still fought. Had never stopped fighting. Dorian. His father’s name. Dorian let go of Damaris’s hilt. Yrene’s breathing turned ragged. Now—it had to be now. Even with the Valg king before him, something in Dorian’s chest eased. Healed over.

You’re not the one proposing, I am.” I groan, pulling her and the stupid bucket into me. “I’m going to fucking marry you, Elsa. You’ll be my wife. My family. My fucking home.” She nods several times, tears shining in her eyes. “You’ll be my home, too, Aiden. Always.

In the whole vast domain of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom. As soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom, you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die, and how many are killed. But from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A power of violence at once hidden and palpable … has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. Thus there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fishes of prey, quadrupeds of prey. There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself. He kills to adorn himself, he kills in order to attack, and he kills in order to defend himself. He kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself. He kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound ... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses ... And who in all of this will exterminate him who exterminates all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man ... So it is accomplished ... the first law of the violent destruction of living creatures. The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.

I still want to feel you against me.” Her gaze dropped to his hands. “I want you to stay with me. Hold me. Just tonight. If I lose you again tomorrow then it will still be worth it. I will lose you a hundred times, if you would but hold me in your arms each time before my loss.” She saw his eyes water, but no tears emerged...

Father used to say that change took time, but he was wrong. It did not take any time at all to change me. The glimpse of a family. A beautiful tale. A child’s tears. A confession. A wound. An honest opinion. A friend’s betrayal. One parent’s death and another’s embrace. A touch—an instant slapping you with its light and jolting you back, shaken and blinking. Those quick moments were what changed people.

Communion with God is the only thing to live for. You will have to come to that understanding eventually, often after much suffering. Why not learn now? He is ready to welcome you. You can’t fail to reach God ultimately. It is foolish to ask, “Will I be able to get into the kingdom of heaven?” There is no other place you can stay, for that is your real home. You don’t have to earn it. You are already God’s child, made in His image. You have only to tear away the mask of the human being and realize your divine birthright.

She raised the long glass and peered back down at the harbor, at the passengers disembarking, but the image was blurry. Reluctantly, she released his hand. It felt like a promise, and she didn’t want to let go. She adjusted the lens, and her gaze caught on two figures moving down the gangplank. Their steps were graceful, their posture straight as knife blades. They moved like Suli acrobats. She drew in a sharp breath. Everything in her focused like the lens of the long glass. Her mind refused the image before her. This could not be real. It was an illusion, a false reflection, a lie made in rainbow-hued glass. She would breathe again and it would shatter. She reached for Kaz’s sleeve. She was going to fall. He had his arm around her, holding her up. Her mind split. Half of her was aware of his bare fingers on her sleeve, his dilated pupils, the brace of his body around hers. The other half was still trying to understand what she was seeing. His dark brows knitted together. “I wasn’t sure. Should I not have—” She could barely hear him over the clamor in her heart. “How?” she said, her voice raw and strange with unshed tears. “How did you find them?” “A favor, from Sturmhond. He sent out scouts. As part of our deal. If it was a mistake—” “No,” she said as the tears spilled over at last. “It was not a mistake.” “Of course, if something had gone wrong during the job, they’d be coming to retrieve your corpse.” Inej choked out a laugh. “Just let me have this.” She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible. Now Inej was shaking, her hands pressed to her mouth, watching them move up the dock toward the quay. She started forward, then turned back to Kaz. “Come with me,” she said. “Come meet them.” Kaz nodded as if steeling himself, flexed his fingers once more. “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?” Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair. “That’s the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground. “Mama!” she called out. “Papa!” Inej saw them turn, saw her mother grip her father’s arm. They were running toward her. Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

As if I didn't have enough to worry about. My kingdom is threatened by war, extinction, or both, and the only way to solve it is to give up the only thing I've ever really wanted. Then Toraf pulls something like this. Betrays me and my sister. Galen cant imagine how things could get worse. So he's not expecting it when Emma giggles. He turns on her. "What could be funny?" She laughs so hard she has to lean into him for support. He stiffens against the urge to wrap his arms around her. Wiping tears from her eyes, she says, "He kissed me!" The confession makes her crack up all over again. "And you think that's funny?" "You don't understand, Galen," she says, the beginnings of hiccups robbing her of breath. "Obviously." "Don't you see? It worked!" "All I saw was Toraf, my sister's mate, my best friend, kissing my...my..." "Your what?" "Student." Obsession. "Your student. Wow." Emma shakes her head then hiccups. "Well, I know you're mad about what he did to Rayna, but he did it to make her jealous." Galen tries to let that sink in, but it stays on the surface like a bobber. "You're saying he kissed you to make Rayna jealous?" She nods, laugher bubbling up again. "And it worked! Did you see her face?" "You're saying he set Rayna up." Instead of me? Galen shakes his head. "Where would he get an idea like that?" "I told him to do it." Galen's fists ball against his will. "You told him to kiss you?" "No! Sort of. Not really though." "Emma-" "I told him to play hard to get. You know, act uninterested. He came up with kissing me all on his own. I'm so proud of him!" She thinks Toraf is a genius for kissing her. Great. "Did...did you like it?" "I just told you I did, Galen." "Not his plan. The kiss." The delight leaves her face like a receding tide. "That's none of your business, Highness." He runs a hand through his hair to keep from shaking her. And kissing her. "Triton's trident, Emma. Did you like it or not?" Taking several steps back, she throws her hands on her hips. "Do you remember Mr. Pinter, Galen? World history?" "What does that have to do with anything?" "Tomorrow is Monday. When I walk into Mr. Pinter's class, he won't ask me how I liked Toraf's kiss. In fact, he won't care what I did for the entire weekend. Because I'm his student. Just like I'm your student, remember?" Her hair whips to the side as she turns and walks away with that intoxicating saunter of hers. She picks up her towel and steps into her flip-flops before heading up the hill to the house. "Emma, wait." "I'm tired of waiting, Galen. Good night.

Not a breath, not a sound—except at intervals the muffled crackling of stones that the cold was reducing to sand—disturbed the solitude and silence surrounding Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that the sky above her was moving in a sort of slow gyration. In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from contemplating those drifting flares. She was turning with them, and the apparently stationary progress little by little identified her with the core of her being, where cold and desire were now vying with each other. Before her the stars were falling one by one and being snuffed out among the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. Breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight of others, the craziness or stuffiness of life, the long anguish of living and dying. After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing from fear, she had come to a stop at last. At the same time, she seemed to recover her roots and the sap again rose in her body, which had ceased trembling. Her whole belly pressed against the parapet as she strained towards the moving sky; she was merely waiting for her fluttering heart to calm down and establish silence within her. The last stars of the constellations dropped their clusters a little lower on the desert horizon and became still. Then, with unbearable gentleness, the water of night began to fill Janine, drowned the cold, rose gradually from the hidden core of her being and overflowed in wave after wave, rising up even to her mouth full of moans. The next moment, the whole sky stretched out over her, fallen on her back on the cold earth.

O God, I don’t need a kingdom nor do I desire to be an emperor. I don’t want rebirth or the golden vessels or heaven. I don’t need anything from you. O Lord, if you want to give me something, then give me a soft heart and hard hands, so that I can wipe the tears of others.

And to Rhaego son of Drogo, the stallion who will mount the world, to him I also pledge a gift. To him I will give this iron chair his mother's father sat in. I will give him Seven Kingdoms. I, Drogo, khal, will do this thing.'' His voice rose, and he lifted his fist in the sky. ''I will take my khalasar west to where the world ends, and ride the wooden horses across the black salt water as no khal has done before. I will kill the men in the iron suits and tear down their stone houses. I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak to bow down beneath the Mother of Mountains. This I vow, I, Drogo son of Bharbo. This I swear before the Mother of Mountains, as the stars look down in witness.

For the rest of our lives, I want to be the only one who witnesses her breaking and support her through the storm. I want to be the one who soothes her ache when she needs soothing. The one who wipes her tears when they need wiping. The one who lifts her up when she needs lifting. I want to be there for her, full stop. She’s mine. Fucking mine. It’s not only her body or her heart that I’m interested in, I want her entire soul so she’ll never be able to leave me.

Grief wasn’t simply a shadow that followed people around; it was the worst sort of companion. It was an emotion that could either encourage someone to wither away through sorrow and tears or turn them into a monster. Craving vengeance like blood. Justice. Retribution. As if spilling blood would bring that one person back. I would know. It was the very same spark that ignited my current path.

My body turns and yearns for a sleep That won't ever come It's never over, My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder It's never over, all my riches for her smiles When I slept so soft against her It's never over, All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter It's never over, She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

I wanted a thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair. Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.

Everybody, listen!” he shouted to the far-off crowds. “Rundark has super-powerful magical bombs. And they will be headed straight toward those giant vision orbs you’re watching. You need to get as far away from those orbs as possible!” And all around the Thirteen Kingdoms, seven people turned away from the orbs and fled. Yes, that’s right: seven. The thousands of others stayed glued to the action. They’d discovered a new form of moving-picture entertainment, and nothing was going to tear them away

They walked down to the boathouse. But before Wylan entered, he bent and plucked a red tulip from its bed. They all followed suit and silently filed inside. One by one, they knelt by Nina and rested a flower upon Matthias’ chest, then stood, surrounding his body, as if now that it was too late, they might protect him. Kuwei was the last. There were tears in his golden eyes, and Jesper was glad he’d joined their circle. Matthias was the reason Kuwei and Jesper had survived the ambush on Black Veil; he was one of the reasons Kuwei would have a chance to truly live as a Grisha in Ravka.

I don't want you to go back to Tove tomorrow." "I have to." "I know," he said. "But I don't want you to." "You can have me for tonight, though." I gave him a small smile, and he lifted his head so his eyes met mine. "That's all I can give you." "I don't want only one night. I want all of you, forever." Tears swam in my eyes, and my heart yearned so badly it hurt. Sitting there with Loki, I didn't think I'd ever felt quite so heartbroken. "Don't cry, Wendy." He smiled sadly at me, and I saw the heartbreak in his eyes mirroring my own. He pulled me to him and kissed my forehead, then my cheeks, then my mouth. "So, if this is all you'll let me have, then I will take it all," Loki said. "No talking or even worrying about the kingdom or responsibility or anyone else. You're not the Princess. I'm not Vittra. We're only a boy and a girl crazy about each other, and we're naked in bed." I nodded. "I can do that." "Good, because I'm determined to make the most of it." He smiled and pushed me down on the bed. "I think we broke the bed a little bit last time. What do you say we see if we can destroy it?

The tears I couldn’t shed were drowning me, and I was gasping for breath.

The past few nights had been cool, as the last vestiges of winter refused to cede their kingdom to the spring.

Adrina, it is time you mended your own soul. Cry, cry until there are no more tears in you.

Where are we going?” the gargoyle asked again. He looked back at me. “We can’t go without Bartholomew.” I turned away, tears falling down my face. “Wait—wait.” The gargoyle began to sob, more pieces of stone falling from his body. “I’m her squire. We cannot be apart.” He had to be hauled away by Maude, who was already doing the same to Rory. I heard his wailing sobs on the other side of the wall. “Bartholomew!

You expect me to marry him." "Yes,of course," Finn said, almost wearily. "You're not even gonna try to..." I swallowed back tears and looked away from him. "When Elora told me, I fought with her. I fought for you." "I am sorry,Wendy." His voice had gotten low and thick. He stepped closer and raised his hand as if he meant to touch me,but dropped it instead. "But you will be happy with Tove. He can protect you." "I wish everyone would stop talking about him that way!" I sat back on the bed, exasperated. "Tove is a person! This is his life! Doesn't he deserve better than being somebody's watchdog?" "I can imagine worse things in life than being married to you," Finn said quietly. "Don't." I shook my head. "Don't joke. Don't be nice." I glared up at him. "You kept this from me. But worse still, you didn't fight for me." "You know why I can't,Wendy." His dark eyes smoldered, and his fists clenched at his side. "Now you know who you are and what you mean to the kingdom. I can't fight for something that isn't mine. Especially not when you mean so much to our people." "You're right,Finn,I'm not yours." I nodded, looking down at the floor. "I'm not anybody's. I have a choice in all of this, and so do you.But you have no right to take my choice away from me,to tell me who I should marry." "I didn't arrange this marriage," Finn said incredulously. "But you think I should marry him, and you've done nothing to stop it." I shrugged. "You might as well have arranged it yourself." I wiped at my eyes, and he didn't say anything. I lay down on my bed and rolled over so my back was to him. After a few mintues, I heard him walk away and the door shut behind him.

Sorry to swear,” I said, turning to Will and to Dennis, “but this is the most depressing fucking thing I have ever seen.” My shoulders shook. At first, I thought I was going to cry, but then I burst out laughing. All of a sudden, everyone was laughing. Giggles and roars and oceanic tears at the absurdity of it all.

He felt at his face, wondering what the hot dampness was. For a moment he thought he was bleeding. Swearing under his breath, he pushed the tears away, vowing that they would be the last he ever shed. Strength, not weakness, was what he needed from this day forward.

I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken.” Her tears flowed past him in the wind. “And I will be with you …” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you always.

This hand says you spend the rest of your life with me," he said, holding out his left hand, "and this one says I spend the rest of my life with you. Choose." She bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. She took both of his hands in hers and he shuddered. "I will die protecting you," he says. There was a look of dismay on her face. "Just like a man of this kingdom, Finnikin. Talking of death, yours or mine, is not a good way to begin a-" Isaboe gave a small gasp when he leaned forward, his lips an inch away from hers. "I will die for you," he whispered. She cupped his face in her hands. "But promise me you'll live for me first, my love. Because nothing we are about to do is going to be easy and I need you by my side.

Gods fight, Ragnar went on earnestly, and some win, some lose. The Christian god is losing. Otherwise why would we be here? Why would we be winning? The gods reward us if we give them respect, but the Christian god doesn't help his people, does he? They weep rivers of tears for him, they pray to him, they give him their silver, & we come along & slaughter them! Their god is pathetic. If he had any real power then we wouldn't be here, would we?

My final word is for the readers. The Tearling is not an easy world, I know. Contrarian that I am, I am determined to make thins kingdom echo life, where answers to our questions are not delivered neatly in a beautiful expositional package, but must be earned, through experience and frustration, sometimes even tears (and believe me, not all of those tears are Kelsea's). Sometimes answers never come at all. To all of the readers who stuck with this story, understanding and sometimes even enjoying the fact that the Tearling is a gradually unfolding world, full of lost and often confounding history, thank you for your faith in the concept. I hope that your patience was rewarded in the end. Now let's all go and make a better world." (Afterwords of the author)

The berth belongs to you too. It will always be there when—if you want to come back.” Inej could not speak. Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain. “I don’t know what to say.” His bare hand flexed on the crow’s head of his cane. The sight was so strange Inej had trouble tearing her eyes from it. “Say you’ll return.” “I’m not done with Ketterdam.” She hadn’t known she meant it until she said the words. Kaz cast her a swift glance. “I thought you wanted to hunt slavers.” “I do. And I want your help.” Inej licked her lips, tasted the ocean on them. Her life had been a series of impossible moments, so why not ask for something impossible now? “It’s not just the slavers. It’s the procurers, the customers, the Barrel bosses, the politicians. It’s everyone who turns a blind eye to suffering when there’s money to be made.” “I’m a Barrel boss.” “You would never sell someone, Kaz. You know better than anyone that you’re not just one more boss scraping for the best margin.” “The bosses, the customers, the politicians,” he mused. “That could be half the people in Ketterdam—and you want to fight them all.” “Why not?” Inej asked. “One the seas and in the city. One by one.” “Brick by brick,” he said. Then he gave a single shake of his head, as if shrugging off the notion. “I wasn’t made to be a hero, Wraith. You should have learned that by now. You want me to be a better man, a good man. I—“ “This city doesn’t need a good man. It needs you.” “Inej—“ “How many times have you told me you’re a monster? So be a monster. Be the thing they all fear when they close their eyes at night. We don’t go after all the gangs. We don’t shut down the houses that treat fairly with their employees. We go after women like Tante Heleen, men like Pekka Rollins.” She paused. “And think about it this way…you’ll be thinning the competition.” He made a sound that might almost have been a laugh. One of his hands balanced on his cane. The other rested at his side next to her. She’d need only move the smallest amount and they’d be touching. He was that close. He was that far from reach. Cautiously, she let her knuckles brush against his, a slight weight, a bird’s feather. He stiffened, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m not ready to give up on this city, Kaz. I think it’s worth saving.” I think you’re worth saving. Once they’d stood on the deck of a ship and she’d waited just like this. He had not spoken then and he did not speak now. Inej felt him slipping away, dragged under, caught in an undertow that would take him farther and farther from shore. She understood suffering and knew it was a place she could not follow, not unless she wanted to drown too. Back on Black Veil, he’d told her they would fight their way out. Knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. She would fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying. She felt his knuckles slide again hers. Then his hand was in her hand, his palm pressed against her own. A tremor moved through him. Slowly, he let their fingers entwine.

I am not thorny," Malini said. "I cried." "Weeping does not make you any less yourself," her mother replied. She touched her fingertips to Malini's shorn hair. "Be careful with your tears," her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. "They're blood of the spirit. Weep too much, and it will wear you thin, until your soul is like a bruised flower." Her mother had been wrong, though. Weep enough and your nature becomes like stone, battered by water until it is smooth and impervious to hurt. Use tears as a tool for long enough, and you will forget what real grief feels like. That was some small mercy, at least.

By speech first, but far more by writing, man has been able to put something of himself beyond death. In tradition and in books an integral part of the individual persists, for it can influence the minds and actions of other people in different places and at different times: a row of black marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to dust. In truth, the whole progress of civilization is based upon this power.

Dany had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.

Yes, yes, it ended in my corrupting them all! How it could come to pass I do not know, but I remember it clearly. The dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole. I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall. Like a vile trichina, like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms, so I contaminated all this earth, so happy and sinless before my coming. They learnt to lie, grew fond of lying, and discovered the charm of falsehood. Oh, at first perhaps it began innocently, with a jest, coquetry, with amorous play, perhaps indeed with a germ, but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts and pleased them. Then sensuality was soon begotten, sensuality begot jealousy, jealousy—cruelty . . . Oh, I don't know, I don't remember; but soon, very soon the first blood was shed. They marvelled and were horrified, and began to be split up and divided. They formed into unions, but it was against one another. Reproaches, upbraidings followed. They came to know shame, and shame brought them to virtue. The conception of honour sprang up, and every union began waving its flags. They began torturing animals, and the animals withdrew from them into the forests and became hostile to them. They began to struggle for separation, for isolation, for individuality, for mine and thine. They began to talk in different languages. They became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow; they thirsted for suffering, and said that truth could only be attained through suffering. Then science appeared. As they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism, and understood those ideas. As they became criminal, they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it, and to ensure their being kept, set up a guillotine. They hardly remembered what they had lost, in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent. They even laughed at the possibility o this happiness in the past, and called it a dream. They could not even imagine it in definite form and shape, but, strange and wonderful to relate, though they lost all faith in their past happiness and called it a legend, they so longed to be happy and innocent once more that they succumbed to this desire like children, made an idol of it, set up temples and worshipped their own idea, their own desire; though at the same time they fully believed that it was unattainable and could not be realised, yet they bowed down to it and adored it with tears! Nevertheless, if it could have happened that they had returned to the innocent and happy condition which they had lost, and if someone had shown it to them again and had asked them whether they wanted to go back to it, they would certainly have refused. They answered me: "We may be deceitful, wicked and unjust, we know it and weep over it, we grieve over it; we torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that merciful Judge Who will judge us and whose Name we know not. But we have science, and by the means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at it consciously. Knowledge is higher than feeling, the consciousness of life is higher than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal the laws, and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.

What use are tears? Ying had murmured to her once, back when they had just crossed their twelfth cycle of life and the wounds of Lan’s losses still cut deep every night. The dead will neither feel them nor be called by them. Grief is for the survivors, and I think that, rather than living my life in pain, I would live it in laughter and love. To the fullest.

It's way easier to tear a kingdom down than to fix it. Utopia's never gonna happen. At least total annihilation might be possible

I am Seal’s Dread, The Huntress Of The Floe, The Last Of The Ice Bears. What is a mother without her cub? I will paint the snow with my paws and tear apart glaciers to find you.

No one’s here!” Alex said, and tears came to her eyes. “We’re too late again! Uncle Lloyd has already taken everyone! We’ll never catch up to him!

Perhaps, amid so much loneliness, tears become ultimately useless.

I mistook that donkey for a Goron.

No, thank you, for letting me be your friend,” he smiled.

you have consumed my thoughts since the moment I met you…i feel now, in your presence, entirely strange. i think i might fetch you the moon if only to spare your tears again.

It’s why I like needlework,” she added. Fenris lifted an eyebrow. “Like splitting wood. Like you said. Embroidery doesn’t do anything. It isn’t anything but what it is, and I don’t have to worry that I’ve done something terribly wrong and my tutors will get sent away or that I slighted someone important and they’ll want to close down trade with my kingdom. I can just make pictures and patterns, and if I make a mistake, I can tear it out again and no one dies.” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a princess. The thread doesn’t care.

The Place of God’s Justifiable Wrath How horrible is this echo? Let’s take a look at Matthew 18:8–9: And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. This passage, by the way, doesn’t just give us the comparative negative of hell, but it translates really well into a theology of suffering. With these words of Jesus in mind, I can now know that it is better never to hold my children, it is better never to run my fingers through my wife’s hair, it is better not to be able to brush my own teeth, it is better never to be able to drive a car, it is better to be paralyzed and never feel anything from the neck down, and it is better to have stage III anaplastic oligodendroglioma than to find myself outside the kingdom of God. It is better never to see the sunset or the sunrise, never see the stars in the sky, never to see my daughter in her little dress-up clothes, never to see my son throw a ball—it is better never to have seen those things than to have seen those things and yet end up outside the kingdom of God.

Do not speak glibly of virtue. Nothing shall change-nothing-so long as each individual awaits preferment rather than embodying beneficence in himself; so long as we wait upon the edicts of a government ruled by invested and interested men looking to their private purses; so long as we idle in expectation that all shall be healed, and that we shall somehow be stopped in our career of plunder by an eighteen-hundred-year-old mummy, scarred with the wounds of torture, falling out of the sky or stumbling out of the desert, eyes filled with the tears that we should weep ourselves.

Violence promises us something we all deeply desire, something we genuinely want; violence promises us peace. Violence promises us, that in the end, when the last battle is fought, the last bomb is dropped, and the last enemy is slain, we will have what we always dreamed of – safety, a world without suffering, death or bloodshed; a world at rest. Yet, these are the very things Christ offers with the Kingdom of God. A world where the lamb will lay down with the lion, where swords are beaten into plowshares, where mercy and justice flow down like the waters, where every tear will be wiped away from our eyes, and where there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. Christ and violence seem to offer the same final result, the two being competitors for our allegiance.

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It’s all in Jimi’s absurd and delirious guitar riffs.

Believe me, I know. I used to think that it only happened once, your single opportunity to make good. But now I think - no, know - that love is abundant. That's Glorianna's gift to us. That we love, over and over, many times and many people. You're one of them. I love you, Ash." He crossed to me, tentative, and lifted his hands to cup my naked breasts. "Your tits are so much larger,"he commented.

You would betray me again so willingly?” “I would tear apart the world, princess. Even if that meant hurting you to make sure you weren’t with him. I would make you hate me all over again just to make sure you were safe.

The next time I took notice of you, you were sobbing all over the snow. Well, I thought, finally she's being sensible. Then I realized that you were sobbing because you'd stabbed yourself in the arm, and not out of concern for my imminent demise. I noticed that your tears were freezing as they hit the icy ground and collecting into the shape of a sword. Well, that almost killed me. I mean that---I froze for a full second, during which our yeti friend nearly skewered me through. I dodged, barely, my head whirling. One day I would like for you to explain to me how you heard of the story of Deirdre and her faerie husband, a long-ago king, which is one of the oldest tales in my realm. Do mortals tell it as we do? When the king's murderous sons schemed to steal his kingdom by starving it into torpor with endless winter, Deirdre collected the tears of his dying people and froze them into a sword, with which he was finally able to slay his children. It is a tale many of my own people have forgotten---I know it only because that poor, witless king is my ancestor. I felt the story in my blood and let my magic flow into the sword you were fashioning.

Before Set’s defeat and banishment from the kingdom, he tears out one of his nephew’s eyes. But the eventually victorious Horus takes back the eye. Then he does something truly unexpected: he journeys voluntarily to the underworld and gives the eye to his father. What does this mean? First, that the encounter with malevolence and evil is of sufficient terror to damage even the vision of a god; second, that the attentive son can restore the vision of his father.

God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.

So this being—whom we shall call Nahadoth because that is a pretty name, and whom we shall label male for the sake of convenience if not completeness—promptly set out to create an existence, which he did by going mad and tearing himself apart.

A tear slipped from eye, as I stood helpless beside Kiran. “They have done nothing wrong, except fight for the freedom you have stolen from them, from all of us!” I shouted back, unable to stay silent when my friends stood at his mercy. “I give you freedom, the freedom to live your life as you please,” Lucan challenged, tilting his chin with pride and sincerity. “I ask nothing of you, except for your loyalty. I am the king, it is the least of what I deserve,” Lucan turned to address the kingdom, his argument ringing through the air. “Then why is it only your bloodline that is allowed immortality?” I argued, taking a step forward. “Why do the rest of our people suffer from the separation of races? Why are the Shape-shifters exiled by penalty of death? What have they done? What is their crime? Are you afraid to share true immortality? Are you so scared of a people that realize they don’t need a king?” I turned to face the crowd too, hoping to empower them with my words.

This pain you feel... you might believe that you will never recover. And while it might always hurt, the pain will fade a little more each time until one day, there will be no more tears. Just the memories and hope, that you might find some joy in them again.

But you don't understand." Mary's face crumpled and she began to cry. Tears dropped wet and scalding through her fingers. "You don't understand. It's not my fault I took this train. It was my parents. They wanted me to go." "You let them buy the ticket for you, though," the woman persisted. "You let them put you on the train, didn't you? You accepted and did not rebel." "It's still not my fault," Mary exclaimed vehemently, but the woman's eyes were upon her, level after blue level of reproach, and Mary felt herself sinking, drowned in shame.

Eliza.” He spoke quiet, still gripping her shoulders. “I don’t know why, but I believe God has led you into my life.” His throat swelled and tears trailed down his face and dripped from his chin. “If you live, I promise to make up for all the ways I’ve failed you.” Clenching

It is understood that, for next year's remembrance ceremony, the prime minister's tear ducts are to be surgically altered so that he can cry French benedictine on demand, lick it off his own face, and then transubstantiate it in his bladder, to wee out the holy tears of the fallen.

Lorcan slid his other arm around Elide, bringing his mouth close to her ear as he said, “You have to let me go.” Elide didn’t shift her focus from the keep ahead. “No.” “You have to. You have to, Elide. I’m too heavy—and without my weight, you might make it to the keep in time.” “No.” The salt of her tears filled his nose. “I love you,” he whispered in Elide’s ear. “I have loved you from the moment you picked up that axe to slay the ilken. And I will be with you…” His voice broke, but he made himself say the words, the truth in his heart. “I will be with you always.

Why then I do but dream on sovereignty, Like one that stands upon a promontory And spies a far-off shore where he would tread, Wishing his foot were equal with his eye, And chides the sea that sunders him from thence, Saying, he'll lade it dry to have his way: So do I wish the crown, being so far off, And so I chide the means that keeps me from it, And so, I say, I'll cut the causes off, Flattering me with impossibilities, My eye's too quick, my hear o'erweens too much, Unless my hand and strength could equal them. Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard; What other pleasure can the world afford? I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap, And deck my body in gay ornaments, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. O miserable thought! and more unlikely Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns! Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb; And for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe, To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub, To make an envious mountain on my back, Where sits deformity to mock my body; To shape my legs of an unequal size, To disproportion me in every part, Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp That carries no impression like the dam. And am I then a man to be belov'd? O monstrous fault, to harbor such a thought! Then since this earth affords no joy to me But to command, to check, to o'erbear such As are of better person than myself, I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown, And whiles I live, t' account this world but hell, Until my misshap'd trunk that bears this head Be round impaled with a glorious crown. And yet I know not how to get the crown, For many lives stand between me and home; And I - like one lost in a thorny wood, That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns, Seeking a way, and straying from the way, Not knowing how to find the open air, But toiling desperately to find it out - Torment myself to catch the English crown; And from that torment I will free myself, Or hew my way out with a bloody axe. Why, I can smile, and murther whiles I smile, And cry "Content" to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions. I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall, I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk, I'll play the orator as well as Nestor, Deceive more slily than Ulysses could, And like a Simon, take another Troy. I can add colors to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, And set the murtherous Machevil to school. Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.

But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own heart-strings, unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unking'd, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine! Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all-too possible, in the prospect; in the retrospect,--alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the 'five hundred thousand' ghosts, who sank shamefully on so many battle-fields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an epigram,--crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou 'hast done evil as thou couldst:' thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men; daily dragging virgins to thy cave;--clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but Death's? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these moments for thee.--We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's death-bed.

The pretentiousness and the fake sympathy, or even the real tears, are all useless. Why cry for someone who will never come back? They can’t hear you, so the whole point behind crying is selfishness. People don’t cry for the dead. People cry because of the uncontrollable rush of their own emotions.

MAY 9 YOU WILL REBUKE ALL THE POWERS OF JEZEBEL OUT OF YOUR LIFE MY CHILD, PLACE yourself securely within the control and power of My Holy Spirit so that you will not be surprised or intimidated by the overwhelming of the spirit of Jezebel in your world today. Allow My presence to permeate your spirit and sensitize you to all the gateways by which the devil and Jezebel may enter your life. Get rid of the gods of Jezebel who creep in unawares into your home. Do not let the diviners and evil prophets of this world deceive you, nor listen to the lies they would tell you about your thoughts and dreams. Watch out for the evil influence of this world’s enchanters, astrologers, and diviners. Allow the power of My Holy Spirit to fill your life with My power, which alone is mighty enough to destroy the spirits of Jezebel out of your life. 1 SAMUEL 28:9; JEREMIAH 29:8; DANIEL 5:11 Prayer Declaration Father, I loose tribulation against the kingdom of Jezebel. I rebuke and tear down her strongholds, and in the name of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit I destroy her witchcraft. No longer will she be allowed to cast spells or influence me or my family to practice idolatry. Greater is the power of Your Holy Spirit within me than the evil power of Jezebel upon me.

No breath, no sound, except at times the muffled cracking of stones being reduced to sand and cold, came to disturb the solitude that surrounded Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that a king of slow gyration was sweeping the sky above her. In the depths of the dry, cold night thousands of stars were formed unceasingly and their sparkling icicles, no sooner detached, began to slip imperceptibly towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from the contemplation of these shifting fires. She turned with them, and the same stationary progression reunited her little by little with her deepest being, where cold and desire now collided. Before her, the stars were falling one by one, then extinguishing themselves in the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living and dying.

One of the windows shatters with enough force to tear down the blinds, saturating my place with muted light. I see a red figure standing in my living room at the same time I spot the daggers flying toward me. I leap onto the edge of the sink and hear the triple thud of knives slicing into the kitchen wall—to the hilt. I

Night and day rule from their two thrones, Where the darkest hour and the brightest light meet the Hellmouth shall be crossed by she strengthened under the gift of day, by she liberated with the gift of light. And the world is whole again. But the Cruel Kingdom hungers for a sacrifice. Sacrifice overthrows chaos. Sacrifice is necessary for what was two to become one. Test your worth; offer to her, Inanna’s immortality. She will grieve endlessly for the sister Who slumbers in the house of the dead, but her tears will save us all. And until the Gates of Death and Life interwine, Love continues to be the toll. And she will pay. She will pay.

From here on, I will submit to great art. It will do with me as it sees fit. I will go where it tells me. I will let it in, let it tear me limb from limb, eradicate me, rebuild me in its own image. I will dwell in it as does a subject in a heavenly kingdom. I will never again attempt to own anything: no film, no person, no idea.

For there he stands, the emissary from the kingdom of sighs, the elected favourite of suffering, the apostle of sorrow, the silent friend of pain, the unhappy lover of memory, confounded in his memory by the light of hope, deceived in his hope by the shadows of memory. His head is heavy, his knees are weak, yet he rests on none but himself. He is faint, yet how powerful! His eyes seem not to have shed, but to have drunk, many tears; yet a fire burns in them that could consume the entire world, though not one splinter of the sorrow within his breast. He is bent, yet his youth portends a long life; his lips smile at the world that misunderstands him. Rise, dear Symparanekromenoi, bow before him, sorrow’s witnesses, in this solemn hour! I salute you, great unknown, whose name I do not know; I salute you with your title of honour: The Unhappiest One! Receive a welcome here in your home from the community of the unhappy; welcome at the entrance to the humble and low dwelling which is yet prouder than all the world’s palaces!

What do you do when you’re hurt?” I stuttered, trying hard to keep my burning tears back so I wouldn’t cry in front of him, even though I had no doubt he’d be a safe person to cry to. “I curse,” he stated matter-of-factly. “And trust me, sailors have some very creative ones. I’d demonstrate, but I’m afraid they’re too indelicate for a lady’s ears.

One may ask, how is the great King Jaron described by those who know him? The answer rarely includes the word “great,” unless the word to follow is “fool,” though I have also heard “disappointment,” “frustration,” and “chance that he’ll get us all killed.” There are other answers, of course. “He was born to cause trouble, as if nothing else could make him happy.” My nursemaid said that, before I was even four years of age. I still believe her early judgments of me were unfair. Other than occasionally climbing over the castle balconies, and a failed attempt at riding a goat, what could I have possibly done to make her say such a thing? My childhood tutor: “Jaron has a brilliant mind, if one can pin him down long enough to teach him anything he doesn’t think he already knows. Which one rarely can.” It wasn’t that I thought I already knew everything. It was that I had already learned everything I cared to know from him, and besides, I didn’t see the importance of studying in the same way as my elder brother, Darius. He would become king. I would take a position among his advisors or assume leadership within our armies. My parents had long abandoned the idea of me becoming a priest, at the tearful request of our own priest, who once announced over the pulpit that I “belonged to the devils more than the saints.” To be fair, I had just set fire to the pulpit when he said it. Mostly by accident.

Upon seeing Emma, he realized the small child was his future mate. From that moment on, no one could tear him from their kingdom. He became their most vigilant protector, seducing Emma’s mother, so that he may always remain near his mate and one day, steal Emma away. Aurora believed it was all because he fell in love with her, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The phrase as weak as a baby doesn’t apply in the kingdom of God, for when the Lord wants to accomplish a mighty work, He often starts by sending a baby. This was true when He sent Isaac, Joseph, Samuel, John the Baptist, and especially Jesus. God can use the weakest things to defeat the mightiest enemies (1 Cor. 1: 25–29). A baby’s tears were God’s first weapons in His war against Egypt (p. 21).

The self may be royal, but it hungers like a pauper. [...] And it is a king imperilled, a sovereign forever at the mercy of many insurgents, of fear, for example, and anxiety, of isolation and bewilderment, of a strange unspeakable pride and a wild, silent shame. The self is beset by secrets, secrets eat at it constantly, secrets will tear down its kingdom and leave its sceptre broken in the dust.

This is why the Enemy wants you to think you have no song to write, no story to tell, no painting to paint. He wants to quiet you. So sing. Let the Word by which the Creator made you fill your imagination, guide your pen, lead you from note to note until a melody is strung together like a glimmering constellation in the clear sky. Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor, too, by making worlds and works of beauty that blanket the earth like flowers. Let your homesickness keep you always from spiritual slumber. Remember that it is in the fellowship of saints, of friends and family, that your gift will grow best, and will find its best expression. And until the Kingdom comes in its fullness, bend your will to the joyful, tearful telling of its coming. Write about that... write about that, and never stop.

Understatement of the year, although I highly doubted March was trying to lure me under the sheets. If he was, then it probably qualified as the second-worst attempt at seduction ever in the animal kingdom—the worst one being, in my opinion, the way some octopuses tear their own penis off and throw it in their girlfriend’s general direction, only for it to swim toward the lady and latch onto her body. No. Just no.

Be careful with your tears," her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. "They're blood of the spirit. Weep too much, and it will wear you thin, until your soul is like a bruised flower." Her mother had been wrong, though. Weep enough and your nature becomes like stone, battered by water until it is smooth and impervious to hurt. Use tears as a tool for long enough, and you will forget what real grief feels like.

After his wife died, in great pain C. S. Lewis realized, “If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came.”3 Our own suffering is often our wake-up call. But even if you aren’t now facing it, look around and you’ll see many who are. ... Suffering and evil exert a force that either pushes us away from God or pulls us toward him. ... Unfortunately, most evangelical churches—whether traditional, liturgical, or emergent—have failed to teach people to think biblically about the realities of evil and suffering. A pastor’s daughter told me, “I was never taught the Christian life was going to be difficult. I’ve discovered it is, and I wasn’t ready.” ... On the other side of death, the Bible promises that all who know him will fall into the open arms of a holy, loving, and gracious God—the greatest miracle, the answer to the problem of evil and suffering. He promises us an eternal kingdom on the New Earth, where he says of those who come to trust him in this present world of evil and suffering, “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:3–4)

They do. But I won’t. Not tonight. If you do two things for me.” His voice was calm, almost hypnotic. It had the coarse rasp of an over-rosined bow. “First, you must crawl into bed. And second, you must never tell anyone you’ve seen us, especially your da.” He leaned forward and gave Hanna’s braid a playful tug. “Because if you do, I’ll slit your mother’s throat and then your father’s, and then I’ll cut out the hearts of all these sweet slobbering hounds. I shall save Duke Silverhaunch for last so that you will know it’s all your fault.” The little girl’s face was as white as the lace on the neck of her nightgown, her eyes wide and bright as new moons. “Do you understand?” She nodded frantically, chin wobbling. “Now, now, no tears. Monsters see tears and it only whets their appetites. Off to bed with you, and take that useless Maestro Spots along too.

Fortunately, the great king did not have to deal with Set on his own. The Egyptians also worshipped Horus, the son of Osiris. Horus took the twin forms of a falcon, the most visually acute of all creatures, and the still-famous hieroglyphic single Egyptian eye (as alluded to in Rule 7). Osiris is tradition, aged and willfully blind. Horus, his son, could and would, by contrast, see. Horus was the god of attention. That is not the same as rationality. Because he paid attention, Horus could perceive and triumph against the evils of Set, his uncle, albeit at great cost. When Horus confronts Set, they have a terrible battle. Before Set’s defeat and banishment from the kingdom, he tears out one of his nephew’s eyes. But the eventually victorious Horus takes back the eye. Then he does something truly unexpected: he journeys voluntarily to the underworld and gives the eye to his father.

If A Tree Could Wander Oh, if a tree could wander and move with foot and wings! It would not suffer the axe blows and not the pain of saws! For would the sun not wander away in every night ? How could at ev'ry morning the world be lighted up? And if the ocean's water would not rise to the sky, How would the plants be quickened by streams and gentle rain? The drop that left its homeland, the sea, and then returned ? It found an oyster waiting and grew into a pearl. Did Yusaf not leave his father, in grief and tears and despair? Did he not, by such a journey, gain kingdom and fortune wide? Did not the Prophet travel to far Medina, friend? And there he found a new kingdom and ruled a hundred lands. You lack a foot to travel? Then journey into yourself! And like a mine of rubies receive the sunbeams? print! Out of yourself ? such a journey will lead you to your self, It leads to transformation of dust into pure gold!

After three years of music-hall and theatre I'm still the same: always ready too soon. Ten thirty-five. . . . I'd better open that book lying on the make-up shelf, even though I've read it over and over again, or the copy of Paris-Sport the dresser was marking just now with my eyebrow pencil; otherwise I'll find myself all alone, face to face with that painted mentor who gazes at me from the other side of the looking-glass, with deep-set eyes under lids smeared with purplish grease-paint. Her cheek-bones are as brightly coloured as garden phlox and her blackish-red lips gleam as though they were varnished. She gazes at me for a long time and I know she is going to speak to me. She is going to say: "Is that you there? All alone, therr in that cage where idle, impatient, imprisoned hands have scored the white walls with interlaced initials and embellished them with crude, indecent shapes? On those plaster walls reddened nails, like yours, have unconsciously inscribed the appeal of the forsaken. Behind you a feminine hand has carved Marie, and the name ends in a passionate mounting flourish, like a cry to heaven. Is it you there, all alone under that ceiling booming and vibrating beneath the feet of dancers, like the floor of a mill in action? Why are you there, all alone? And why not somewhere else?" Yes, this is the dangerous, lucid hour. Who will knock at the door of my dressing-room, what face will come between me and the painted-mentor peering at me from the other side of the looking-glass? Chance, my master and my friend, will, I feel sure, deign once again to send me the spirits of his unruly kingdom. All my trust is now in him----and in myself. But above all in him, for when I go under he always fishes me out, seizing and shaking me like a life-saving dog whose teeth tear my skin a little every time. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days. Faith, that is what it is, genuine faith, as blind as it sometimes pretends to be, with all the dissembling renunciations of faith, and that obstinacy which makes it continue to hope even at the moment if crying. "I am utterly forsaken!" There is no doubt that, if ever my heart were to call my master Chance by another name, I should make an excellent Catholic.

Matthew 12:25 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”   This is true for every kingdom. A people united can stand against strong foes, and a kingdom divided has little power. What sects cannot do, a united people can. Satan understands this. The church has the promise that the gates of hell cannot stand against the church,[1] yet the church is losing its battle against spiritual warfare.

Rowan fell to his knees before her, putting his head in her lap as his arms wrapped around her waist. “I can’t bear it, Aelin. I can’t.” She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I wanted that thousand years with you,” she said softly. “I wanted to have children with you. I wanted to go into the Afterworld together.” Her tears landed in his hair. Rowan lifted his head. “Then fight for it. One more time. Fight for that future.” She gazed at him, at the life she saw in his face. All that he offered. All that she might have, too.

From east to west, in fact, her gaze swept slowly, without encountering a single obstacle, along a perfect curve. Beneath her, the blue-and-white terraces of the Arab town overlapped one another, splattered with the dark-red spots of the peppers drying in the sun. Not a soul could be seen, but from the inner courts, together with the aroma of roasting coffee, there rose laughing voices or incomprehensible stamping of feet. Father off, the palm grove, divided into uneven squares by clay walls, rustled its upper foliage in a wind that could not be felt up on the terace. Still farther off and all the way to the horizon extended the ocher-and-gray realm of stones, in which no life was visible. At some distance from the oasis, however, near the wadi that bordered the palm grove on the west could be seen broad black tents. All around them a flock of motionless dromedaries, tiny at the distance, formed against the gray ground the black signs of a strange handwriting, the meaning of which had to be deciphered. Above the desert, the silence was as vast as the space. Janine, leaning her whole body against the parapet, was speechless, unable to tear herself away from the void opening before her. Beside her, Marcel was getting restless. He was cold; he wanted to go back down. What was there to see here, after all? But she could not take her gaze from the horizon. Over yonder, still farther south, at that point where sky and earth met in a pure line - over yonder it suddenly seemed there was awaiting her something of which, though it had always been lacking, she had never been aware until now. In the advancing afternoon the light relaxed and softened; it was passing from the crystalline to the liquid. Simultaneously, in the heart of a woman brought there by pure chance a knot tightened by the years, habit, and boredom was slowly loosening. She was looking at the nomads' encampment. She had not even seen the men living in it' nothing was stirring among the black tents, and yet she could think only of them whose existence she had barely known until this day. Homeless, cut off from the world, they were a handful wandering over the vast territory she could see, which however was but a paltry part of an even greater expanse whose dizzying course stopped only thousands of miles farther south, where the first river finally waters the forest. Since the beginning of time, on the dry earth of this limitless land scraped to bone, a few men had been ceaselessly trudging, possessing nothing but serving no one, poverty-stricken but free lords of a strange kingdom. Janine did not know why this thought filled her with such a sweet, vast melancholy that it closed her eyes. She knew that this kingdom had been eternally promised her and yet that it would never be hers, never again, except in this fleeting moment perhaps when she opened her eyes again on the suddenly motionless sky and on its waves of steady light, while the voices rising from the Arab town suddenly fell silent. It seemed to her that the world's course had just stopped and that, from that moment on, no one would ever age any more or die. Everywhere, henceforth, life was suspended - except in her heart, where, at the same moment, someone was weeping with affliction and wonder.

If to a person religion means reading books and obeying every single word from it without the slightest bit of reasoning, then such perception would only bring destruction upon the person and the world. Also there are people who use the words from those books to justify their own filthy actions. Let’s take a conservative Muslim, for example. Say, the conservative Muslim male Homo sapiens (I won’t call such creature a human, regardless of the religion, since his action here shows no sign of humanity) is found to be beating his wife. Now, if someone says to him “this is wrong”, he would naturally reply, “this is a divine thing to do, my book says so”. Now, if a Christian says “my book is older, so you should stop obeying your book and start obeying mine”, there will come the Buddhist, and say, “my book is much older still, obey mine”. Then will come the Jew, and say, “my book is even older, so just follow mine”. And in the end will come the Hindu and say “my books are the oldest of all, obey them”. Therefore referring to books will only make a mess of the human race and tear the species into pieces.

We are all sinners in need of a savior. God came to earth in the person of Jesus to redeem and gather His people. He healed the sick, cast out demons, and taught about the kingdom of heaven. Labeled a blasphemous heretic by religious leaders, He was crucified on a cross but rose from the dead three days later at a real time in recorded history, in a real location. He revealed Himself to hundreds of real eyewitnesses, claiming that anyone who believed in Him would have peace, rest, and, most importantly, eternal life in a place where all tears would be wiped away, forever.

This universal conflict is to be seen most clearly in the animal kingdom. Animals have the vegetable kingdom for their nourishment, and within the animal kingdom again every animal is the prey and food of some other. This means that the matter in which an animal’s Idea manifests itself must stand aside for the manifestation of another Idea, since every animal can maintain its own existence only by the incessant elimination of another’s. Thus the will-to-live generally feasts on itself, and is in different forms its own nourishment, till finally the human race, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as manufactured for its own use. Yet, as will be seen in the fourth book, this same human race reveals in itself with terrible clearness that conflict, that variance of the will with itself, and we get homo homini lupus.71 However, we shall again recognize the same contest, the same subjugation, just as well at the low grades of the will’s objectivity. Many insects (especially the ichneumon flies) lay their eggs on the skin, and even in the body, of the larvae of other insects, whose slow destruction is the first task of the newly hatched brood. The young hydra, growing out of the old one as a branch, and later separating itself therefrom, fights while it is still firmly attached to the old one for the prey that offers itself, so that the one tears it out of the mouth of the other. But the most glaring example of this kind is afforded by the bulldog-ant of Australia, for when it is cut in two, a battle begins between the head and the tail. The head attacks the tail with its teeth, and the tail defends itself bravely by stinging the head. The contest usually lasts for half an hour, until they die or are dragged away by other ants. This takes place every time.

In the Hebrew language, there is no distinction between knowing and doing. Knowing is doing and doing is knowing. In other words, if you aren't doing it, then you don't really know it... The phrase all out literally means "maximum effort." It's giving God everything you've got -- 100 percent. It's loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. It's not just worshiping God with your words. It's worshiping God with blood, sweat, and tears. It's more than sincere sentiments. It's sweat equity in kingdom causes. You cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus if you're sitting on your butt.

I tell you your Heaven is full of the kingdom of the earth's most crass- headed idiots and poverty-stricken in spirit! I tell you, you have filled your Heaven with the grossest and most cherished harlots from here below, who have bent their knees piteously before you at their hour of death! I tell you, you have used force against me, and you know not, you omniscient nullity, that I never bend in opposition! I tell you, all my life, every cell in my body, every power of my soul, gasps to mock you--you Gracious Monster on High. I tell you, I would, if I could, breathe it into every human soul, every flower, every leaf, every dewdrop in the garden! I tell you, I would scoff you on the day of doom, and curse the teeth out of my mouth for the sake of your Deity's boundless miserableness! I tell you from this hour I renounce all thy works and all thy pomps! I will execrate my thought if it dwell on you again, and tear out my lips if they ever utter your name! I tell you, if you exist, my last word in life or in death--I bid you farewell, for all time and eternity--I bid you farewell with heart and reins. I bid you the last irrevocable farewell, and I am silent, and turn my back on you and go my way.... Quiet.

He laughs, the sound strained and bitter. “No, honey. I’m not. And Hera is going to die in these Trials if I can’t get her out.” I shake my head, fighting the tears starting to sting my eyes. “Get her out? You mean, run away with her?” He opens his mouth, but anger is already spitting out of mine. “You were going to leave me! You were going to get Hera and flee the kingdom!” I suck in a quivering breath. “You were going to die when they caught you.” “I was bound to die anyway,” he breathes. “It was only a matter of time before someone found out what I am. And there can only be one Wielder in the kingdom.

I think you and I both know I was born for something different. Having a title has always weighed me down,” I say and sneak a peek at Pierce, who told me the same thing once. “I need to spread my wings and see what I can do with my gift. When I’m done training, I promise you, I’ll come back to Enchantasia and share my gift with this kingdom that I truly love.” Mother sobs. “I just want you to be happy.” “I already am,” I say and hug her. “This is what I want.” Mother pulls back and looks at me with tears in her eyes. She’s stopped sobbing. “Then go fly, Devinaria Nile.” That’s exactly what I prepare to do.

Runach took the book in hand and went to look for that Bruadarian lass, who was likely having a conversation with the flora and fauna of his grandfather's garden... He just hadn't expected her to be singing. It wasn't loud singing, though he could hear it once he'd wandered the garden long enough to catch sight of her, standing beneath a flowering linden tree, holding a blossom in her hand. Runach came to a skidding halt and gaped at her. Very well, so he had ceased to think of her as plain directly after Gobhann, and he had been struggling to come up with a worthy adjective ever since. He supposed he might spend the rest of his life trying, and never manage it. It was difficult to describe a dream. He had to sit down on the first bench he found, because he couldn't stand any longer. He wondered if the day would come where she ceased to surprise him with the things she did. Her song was nothing he had ever heard before, but for some reason it seemed familiar in a way he couldn't divine. It was enough for the moment to simply sit there and watch as she and the tree--and several of the flowers, it had to be said--engaged in an ethereal bit of music making. It was truthfully the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, and that was saying something, because the musicians who graced his grandfather's hall were unequalled in any Elvish hall he'd ever visited. And then Runach realized why what she was doing sounded so familiar. She was singing in Fadaire. He grasped for the rapidly disappearing shreds of anything resembling coherent thought, but it was useless. All he could do was sit on that very cold bench and listen to a woman who had hardly set foot past her place of incarceration, sing a song in his mother's native tongue, that would have brought any elf in the vicinity to tears if they had heard it. He knew because it was nigh onto bringing him to that place in spite of his sorry, jaded self.

Once upon a time,” she said to him, to the world, to herself, “in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom… very much.” And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion. It was a long story, and sometimes she grew quiet and cried—and during those times he leaned over to wipe away her tears. When she finished, Rowan merely passed her more of the tonic. She smiled at him, and he looked at her for a while before he smiled back, a different smile than all the others he’d given her before.

We have always called ourselves a tax-exempt 501c3 antiprofit organization. We wrestle to free ourselves from macrocharity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community. We visit rich people and have them visit us. We preach, prophesy, and dream together about how to awaken the church from her violent slumber. Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. We are about ending poverty, not simply managing it. We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it. We fight terrorism—the terrorism within each of us, the terrorism of corporate greed, of American consumerism, of war. We are not pacifist hippies but passionate lovers who abhor passivity and violence. We spend our lives actively resisting everything that destroys life, whether that be terrorism or the war on terrorism. We try to make the world safe, knowing that the world will never be safe as long as millions live in poverty so the few can live as they wish. We believe in another way of life—the kingdom of God—which stands in opposition to the principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark world (Eph. 6:12).3

And though you are the one I hurt, it was God who was offended by me,” he said with downcast eyes. My heart was deeply moved and I felt great pity for him. “I wish for your redemption, John. Fear not Brother, for all is as it should be,” I said sincerely, clutching the stone in my hand, hopeful of its magic. “You shall hereby be released from the burdens you have carried like a ball and chain into Heaven,” I declared, weeping tears of regret. “You are forgiven, John. Now go forth and let us meet in the Kingdom of eternal grace,” I said expectantly. “I have paid a great price for my sins, Mariam. Please tell our daughter that her father loves and watches over

Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a Dream, into void Immensity; Time is done, and all the Scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unking’d,* and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine! Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all too possible, in the prospect: in the retrospect,—alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the ‘five hundred thousand’ ghosts,* who sank shamefully on so many battle-fields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an epigram,*—crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou ‘hast done evil as thou couldst:’* thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men;* daily dragging virgins to thy cave;—clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but Death’s? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these moments for thee.—We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner’s deathbed.

But Aelin didn’t turn as he rushed onto the balcony. And halted, too. In silence, they stared. Bells began pealing; people shouted. Not with fear. But with wonder. A hand rising to her mouth, Aelin scanned the broad sweep of the world. The mountain wind brushed away her tears, carrying with it a song, ancient and lovely. From the very heart of Oakwald. The very heart of the earth. Rowan twined his fingers in hers and whispered, awe in every word, “For you, Fireheart. All of it is for you.” Aelin wept then. Wept in joy that lit her heart, brighter than any magic could ever be. For across every mountain, spread beneath the green canopy of Oakwald, carpeting the entire Plain of Theralis, the kingsflame was blooming.

Shortly after the Gulf War in 1992 I happened to visit a July Fourth worship service at a certain megachurch. At center stage in this auditorium stood a large cross next to an equally large American flag. The congregation sang some praise choruses mixed with such patriotic hymns as “God Bless America.” The climax of the service centered on a video of a well-known Christian military general giving a patriotic speech about how God has blessed America and blessed its military troops, as evidenced by the speedy and almost “casualty-free” victory “he gave us” in the Gulf War (Iraqi deaths apparently weren’t counted as “casualties” worthy of notice). Triumphant military music played in the background as he spoke. The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American flag waving in the background. Majestic, patriotic music now thundered. Suddenly, four fighter jets appeared on the horizon, flew over the crosses, and then split apart. As they roared over the camera, the words “God Bless America” appeared on the screen in front of the crosses. The congregation responded with roaring applause, catcalls, and a standing ovation. I saw several people wiping tears from their eyes. Indeed, as I remained frozen in my seat, I grew teary-eyed as well - but for entirely different reasons. I was struck with horrified grief. Thoughts raced through my mind: How could the cross and the sword have been so thoroughly fused without anyone seeming to notice? How could Jesus’ self-sacrificial death be linked with flying killing machines? How could Calvary be associated with bombs and missiles? How could Jesus’ people applaud tragic violence, regardless of why it happened and regardless of how they might benefit from its outcome? How could the kingdom of God be reduced to this sort of violent, nationalistic tribalism? Has the church progressed at all since the Crusades? Indeed, I wondered how this tribalistic, militaristic, religious celebration was any different from the one I had recently witnessed on television carried out by Taliban Muslims raising their guns as they joyfully praised Allah for the victories they believed “he had given them” in Afghanistan?

To One in Bedlam With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars, Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine; Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares, Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine, And make his melancholy germane to the stars? O, lamentable brother! if those pity thee, Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me; Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap, All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers, Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep, The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours

God wants people in his city: he tears down the walls to let everyone inside. But God’s very presence is a fire that protects the city. Like a father protecting his children from the bullies on the prowl. Like a chief protecting his village from hostile invasion. Like a husband protecting his wife from a would-be rapist. God protects his kingdom from the tyrannous onslaught that wants inside. God fights “fire with fire.” He does not need cannons or jets or armies to protect his city: it is protected by the very strength of his presence, indwelling in glory with all who would receive him. God’s holy love is experienced inside the city as redemptive glory. But to those ill-intentioned powers that want to invade, God’s holy love is experienced as protective fire.

Aelin’s hand began shaking. The queen’s voice broke entirely as she said, “I am alive today because of your mother.” Elide only whispered, “I know.” “She told me to tell you …” A shuddering inhale. But Aelin didn’t break her stare, even as tears continued cutting through the dirt on her cheeks. “Your mother told me to tell you that she loves you—very much. Those were her last words to me. ‘Tell my Elide I love her very much.’ ” For over ten years, Aelin had been the sole bearer of those final words. Ten years, through death and despair and war, Aelin had carried them across kingdoms. And here, at the edge of the world, they had found each other again. Here at the edge of the world, just for a heartbeat, Elide felt the warm hand of her mother brush her shoulder.

Here there was a cheerful boy At least he created tales and lived in joy. Nursery rhymes his grandmother told, Songs and tales emerged gladly in gold. Caring heart, affection spoke loud as brighter, He made the decision: he would be a writer! Rising laughters, crying tears, many feelings, Inserted everything and nothing was in vain. So he transformed the ugly into beautiful, Tales to amuse and make everyone sane, In there he went, without daydreams or zeal. As such it was born the icon of literature still. No one denied he was exceedingly bountiful. A ballerina loves the soldier in his world, Nothing gets involved in his fairy tales, Dancing from a poor weak boy to a king, Eccentric prince of charm in winged corners! Rare star of sweet tenderness, Sensible and masterful in tenderness, Emchanted kingdom of dreams and candor, Now a divine fire of a soul he shines. Havia um menino alegre porem so Ao menos criava contos e deles vivia Nas historias que contava sua avo, Seus contos surgiam pois ele os via. Carinho nao faltava em seu coracao ator, Havia tomado a decisao: seria escritor! Risos, lagrimas, sentimentos saos, Inseria tudo e nada era em vao. Transformava ate o feio em belo, Inadvertia e divertia com seu elo, Adiante ia, sem devaneios e zelo. Nascia assim o icone da literatura. A bailarina ama o soldado em seu mundo, Nada se interpunha em seus contos de fadas, De pobre menino fraco e cogitabundo, Era principe de encantos em cantos alados! Rara estrela de doce brandura, Sensata e magistral em ternura, Em seu reino de sonhos e candura, No fogo divino de sua alma fulgura.

From these citations we can see how Christ was assimilated to symbols that also meant the kingdom of God, for instance the grain of mustard-seed, the hidden treasure, and the pearl of great price. He and his kingdom have the same meaning. Objections have always been made to this dissolution of Christ’s personality, but what has not been realized is that it represents at the same time an assimilation and integration of Christ into the human psyche.157 The result is seen in the growth of the human personality and in the development of consciousness. These specific attainments are now gravely threatened in our antichristian age, not only by the sociopolitical delusional systems, but above all by the rationalistic hybris which is tearing our consciousness from its transcendent roots and holding before it immanent goals.

Chapter 28 Genghis Cat Gracing Whatever Shithole This Is, Washington, USA You can all relax now, because I am here. What did you think? I’d run for safety at the whim of a fucking parrot with under-eye bags like pinched scrotums? Did you suspect I—a ninja with feather-wand fastness and laser-pointer focus—had the spine of a banana slug? Then you are a shit-toned oink with the senses of a sniveling salamander. Then you don’t know Genghis Cat. I look around and can see that we are surrounded by The Bird Beasts, those crepe-faced, hair ball–brained fuck goblins. I intensely dislike these lumpy whatthefuckareyous who straddle between the Mediocre Servant and animal worlds, trying to be one thing and really not being, like imitation crabmeat in a sushi log that is really just fucking whitefish and WE ALL KNOW IT. “Would you like a little of the crabmeat, Genghis?” my Mediocre Servants seemed to ask with their blobfish lips and stupid faces. “THAT’S FUCKING WHITEFISH, YOU REGURGITATED MOLES!” I’d yowl, and then I’d steal the sushi log and run off and growl very much so they couldn’t have it back, and later I would pee on their night pillows for good measure. I cannot imagine their lives before me. We mustn’t think of those bleak dark ages. But the Beasts are dangerous. I have watched them morph and chew into a house. I have seen them with spider legs and second stomachs and camouflage skins. I have seen them tear the legs off a horse and steal flight from those with feathers. Orange and I have lost family to their fuckish appetites. But they are still fakish faking beasts and I’m fucking Genghis Cat. They are imitation crab and Genghis is filet mignon Fancy Feast, bitch. Probably I should come clean here and tell you that I’m immortal. I always suspected it but can confirm it now that I have surpassed the allocated nine lives. I’m somewhere around life 884, give or take seventy-eight. Some mousers have called me a god, but I insist on modesty. I also don’t deny it. I might be a god. It seems to fit. It feels right. A stealthy, striped god with an exotically spotted tummy—it seems certain, doesn’t it to you? I’m 186 percent sure at this point. Orange insists we stay away from the Beasts all the time, but I only let Orange think he’s in charge. Orange is incredibly sensitive, despite being the size of a Winnebago. He hand-raised each of my kittens and has terrible nightmares, and I have to knead my paws on him to calm him down. Orange and I have a deal. I will kill anything that comes to harm Orange and Orange will continue to be the reason I purr.

The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence, It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the 'Living Infitine', as one of your poets has said. In fact, Professor, Nature manifests herself in it by her three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, and animal. The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature, The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it will not end with it? In its supreme tranquillity. The sea does not belong to despots, Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears.

But then jJax said, "Yet don't we always go looking for danger?" "And we have a Metal to save," Robb added. Talle shook her head. "Who is now a brainwashed murdering robot who wants to KILL us." "But he didn't," Ana argued, painfully aware of the wound in her stomach. If he had wanted to kill her, he could have. He knew how. She didn't tell them what Di had whispered before he plunged the blade into her, wishing to have let her burn. That was not Di. So, she kept it to herself, a secret between her and her new scars. And that means the HIVE didn't take everything. The HIVE WON'T take everything. The Iron Kingdom isn't mine--it's ours. We're the outcasts, the rebels, the refugees--" "And the royalty," said Jax. "And the royalty," she agreed. "We're part of the Iron Kingdom. We're the parts no one remembers, so they'll never see us coming. Who's with me?" Jax and Robb raised their hands without hesitation, and then Lenda, and Talle. The captain pursed her lips, blinking the stray tears out of her eyes, and then she nodded because Ana knew she just wanted to keep her safe--but now it was Ana's turn to save people. "To the ends of the universe, darling," Siege finally replied. Ana's heart swelled. She held tightly to Di's memory core, a lifeline glowing with hope in the dark. Once, she had not known who she could be without Di, and once she couldn't have fathomed the thought. But now she knew she carried Di with her, and Barger, and Wick, and Riggs--and Siege, and Talle, and Lenda and Robb and Jax, and Machivalle and Wynn, and Viera, and her late parents and lost brothers, tucked within the steady thrum of her heart. They were the sum of her parts that made her whole. She was Ananke Armorov. She was the heir to the Iron Kingdom. She was a girl born in fire and raised in the stars, and she would burn against the darkness--and drive it away.

Expressions of Passion, INTERCESSION. This scripture indicates the “birthing” kind of prayer passion when one prays for revivals or for a nation. Such prayer is usually not public, just as childbirth is not. The text parallels severe labor pains preceding a birth with those private times the Holy Spirit may produce involuntary, regular groaning coming from an intensity of desire. This prayer becomes powerful as it couples with God in faith, knowing something very significant is being brought about in the spiritual realm. It is often accomplished by intensity of speech and weeping. God assures us that such travail in the Spirit brings results in His time. Don’t fear such passion of travail and tears when praying for nations, missionary organizations, churches, denominations, spiritual leaders, people groups, individuals, or lost souls. The Father’s heart is being exposed by the Holy Spirit through an intensified burden where words are inadequate. Permit the Holy Spirit to enable it in His times and seasons of stirring you in private intercession.

That’s right. You can’t win. You think you’re a gambler, but you’re just a born loser. Fights. Cards. Boys. Girls. You’ll keep playing until you lose, so for once in your life, just walk away.” Jesper swung first. Kaz dodged right and then they were grappling. They slammed into the wall, knocked heads, drew apart in a flurry of punches and grabs. Wylan turned to Inej, expecting her to object, for Matthias to separate them, for someone to do something, but the others just backed up, making room. Only Kuwei showed any kind of distress. Jesper and Kaz swung around, crashed into the mechanism of the clock, righted themselves. It wasn’t a fight, it was a brawl—graceless, a tangle of elbows and fists. “Ghezen and his works, someone stop them!” Wylan said desperately. “Jesper hasn’t shot him,” Nina said. “Kaz isn’t using his cane,” said Inej. “You think they can’t kill each other with their bare hands?” They were both bleeding—Jesper from a cut on his lip and Kaz from somewhere near his brow. Jesper’s shirt was halfway over his head and Kaz’s sleeve was tearing at the seam.

T'here are no gods left to watch, I’m afraid. And there are no gods left to help you now, Aelin Galathynius.' Aelin smiled, and Goldryn burned brighter. 'I am a god.'” “You do not yield.” “Live, Manon. Live.” “And far away, across the snow-covered mountains, on a barren plain before the ruins of a once-great city, a flower began to bloom” “Aelin looked at Chaol and Dorian and sobbed. Opened her arms to them, and wept as they held each other. 'I love you both,' she whispered. 'And no matter what may happen, no matter how far we may be, that will never change.'” “Yet the songs would mention this—that the Lion fell before the western gate of Orynth, defending the city and his son.” “'We came,' Manon said, loud enough that all on the city walls could hear, 'to honor a promise made to Aelin Galathynius. To fight for what she promised us.' Darrow said quietly, 'And what was that?' Manon smiled then. 'A better world.'” “Her mother placed a phantom hand over Aelin’s heart.b'It is the strength of this that matters. No matter where you are, no matter how far, this will lead you home.'” “'Rise,' Darrow said, 'Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen.'” “One blink for yes. Two for no. Three for Are you all right? Four for I am here, I am with you. Five for This is real, you are awake.” And she said to Abraxos, touching his spin, 'I love you.' It was the only thing that mattered in the end. The only thing that mattered now.” “Lord Lorcan Lochan?” Chaol and Yrene began bickering, laughing as they did, but Dorian strode to the edge of the aerie. Watched that white-haired rider and the wyvern with silver wings become distant as they sailed toward the horizon. Dorian smiled. And found himself, for the first time in a while, looking forward to tomorrow.” “'I took his name,' Erawan spat, writhing as the words flowed from his tongue under Damaris's power. 'I wiped it away from existence. Yet he only remembered it once. Only once. The first time He behelded you.' Tears slid down Dorian's face at the unbearable truth.” “Gavriel smiled at him. 'Close the gate, Aedion,' was all his father said. And then Gavriel stepped beyond the gates. That golden shield spreading thin.

The farther back the bed, the older the child looked. The last few didn’t even look like children anymore, but petite senior citizens. Their faces were wrinkled and their hair was gray. “These must be the missing children!” Red gasped. “What’s happening to them?” Tootles asked. Red noticed that the walls were lined with empty coffins. She covered her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears. “Morina is draining their youth and beauty to make potions!” Red said. “She’s a monster!” Red and the Lost Boys stared around at the cursed children in disbelief. They wanted to free them from whatever enchantment was draining their life force, but they didn’t know how. They were too afraid to touch any of them. “Why are there empty beds?” Nibs asked. “Because they died,” said a voice that didn’t belong to Red or the Lost Boys. They looked around the basement to see where it was coming from. Propped up in the corner of the basement was a tall mirror with a silver frame, and to Red’s horror, Froggy was standing inside of it. “Charlie!” Red yelled, and ran to it. She placed both of her hands on the glass and Froggy put his webbed hands against hers. “Our dad’s a giant frog?” Nibs asked. “Hooray, our dad’s a frog!” “Red, who are these children?” Froggy asked. “And why are they calling me Dad?” “These are the Lost Boys of Neverland. I’ve adopted them for the time being—it’s a long story,” Red said. “Charlie, what are you doing inside a mirror?” “Morina put me in here so I would have to watch the children,” Froggy said sadly. “So how do we get you out?” Red asked. Froggy shook his head. “Magic mirrors are irreversible, my darling” he said. “I’m trapped just like the Evil Queen’s lover, but since the wishing spell doesn’t exist anymore, I’ll most likely be in here… forever.” Red fell to her knees and shook her head. She thought her heart was broken before, but it had shattered into so many pieces now, it might never heal again. “No…,” she whispered. “No, no, no…” Froggy became emotional at the sight of her. “I am so sorry, my love,” he cried. “You must take these children and leave before Morina gets back.” “I can’t leave you…,” Red cried. “There’s nothing we can do.” Froggy wept. “Morina wanted to separate us, and I’m afraid she has for good. The

My husband and I have been a part of the same small group for the past five years.... Like many small groups, we regularly share a meal together, love one another practically, and serve together to meet needs outside our small group. We worship, study God’s Word, and pray. It has been a rich time to grow in our understanding of God, what Jesus has accomplished for us, God’s purposes for us as a part of his kingdom, his power and desire to change us, and many other precious truths. We have grown in our love for God and others, and have been challenged to repent of our sin and trust God in every area of our lives. It was a new and refreshing experience for us to be in a group where people were willing to share their struggles with temptation and sin and ask for prayer....We have been welcomed by others, challenged to become more vulnerable, held up in prayer, encouraged in specific ongoing struggles, and have developed sweet friendships. I have seen one woman who had one foot in the world and one foot in the church openly share her struggles with us. We prayed that God would show her the way of escape from temptation many times and have seen God’s work in delivering her. Her openness has given us a front row seat to see the power of God intersect with her weakness. Her continued vulnerability and growth in godliness encourage us to be humble with one another, and to believe that God is able to change us too. Because years have now passed in close community, God’s work can be seen more clearly than on a week-by-week basis. One man who had some deep struggles and a lot of anger has grown through repenting of sin and being vulnerable one on one and in the group. He has been willing to hear the encouragement and challenges of others, and to stay in community throughout his struggle.... He has become an example in serving others, a better listener, and more gentle with his wife. As a group, we have confronted anxiety, interpersonal strife, the need to forgive, lust, family troubles, unbelief, the fear of man, hypocrisy, unemployment, sickness, lack of love, idolatry, and marital strife. We have been helped, held accountable, and lifted up by one another. We have also grieved together, celebrated together, laughed together, offended one another, reconciled with one another, put up with one another,...and sought to love God and one another. As a group we were saddened in the spring when a man who had recently joined us felt that we let him down by not being sensitive to his loneliness. He chose to leave. I say this because, with all the benefits of being in a small group, it is still just a group of sinners. It is Jesus who makes it worth getting together. Apart from our relationship with him...,we have nothing to offer. But because our focus is on Jesus, the group has the potential to make a significant and life-changing difference in all our lives. ...When 7 o’clock on Monday night comes around, I eagerly look forward to the sound of my brothers and sisters coming in our front door. I never know how the evening will go, what burdens people will be carrying, how I will be challenged, or what laughter or tears we will share. But I always know that the great Shepherd will meet us and that our lives will be richer and fuller because we have been together. ...I hope that by hearing my story you will be encouraged to make a commitment to become a part of a small group and experience the blessing of Christian community within the smaller, more intimate setting that it makes possible. 6

If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.

WILL NEVER BE AN OPTION Why do you think I should be an option Or the side piece for any man? My deepest sympathy For your illusions. Assumptions are worse than demons; Bombs and bullets get more respect Than your disrespect. You are used to women Who have no problem Being an option or fighting with the Next woman for your attention. Reality check: I am not the one. I will create my kingdom Until the right man comes along. I will never be an option Or make him one. Hate me, slander me... Have your whole army of community Rise up against me... Grounded, I stand. I fear no man. I PROMISE YOU I will never share a man Or entertain a woman’s man. A woman who tears another woman down Needs to go within and heal her demons. I walk with queens Who fix another woman’s crown. Ironically, my self-respect started a war To tear me down on the internet. Your tongue became so poisonous, It reeks of death. For the attack I received, My Healing Journal ~ From Once Broken to I AM No remorse has come from you yet. I do not expect it. You will never acknowledge your wrongs. If you confront me, Expect the silence of resilience. My confidence is not cocky, Nor is it a red flag. I do not share. Never will. Never had.

It wanted me,” she says, her tone too even. “Me alone.” I turn her in my arms to face her. “You’re safe now.” “I am the key.” She shakes her head. “If I deny it, there will be more and more of this...until eventually, both kingdoms will die.” “Amalia…” “I love you,” she says, meeting my eyes, not caring who hears her. “Rhys, I love you desperately. Whether you love me or not. But what can I do? If I’m with you, everything will be destroyed. And it will be my fault.” “Give me time,” I whisper. “Please.” “We don’t have time.” “Then give me minutes,” I whisper, holding her close. “Rhys,” she says, her voice breaking. “I love you, Amalia. And I swear to you—I make a solemn vow—I will see us through this together.” “You love me?” she whispers, tears once more trailing down her cheeks. “I do.” And then, not caring who sees, I capture her face in my hands and press my lips to hers, sealing the vow I made back in Saulette. Amalia cries against me, grasping hold of my shoulders and pulling me close. I lean into her, swearing to myself I will make good on my promise. Her tears wet my face, but she meets me without hesitation—trusting me, as I’ve asked her to do so many times. And dawn breaks.

APRIL 2 SATAN IS A LIAR AND THE FATHER OF LIES DON’T ALLOW THE enemy to strategize against you. Overcome and destroy his strategies through prayer. The main tactic of the enemy is deception. He is a liar and the father of lies. My Word will expose his tactics to you. I am light, and My Word is light. The light exposes the enemy and tears away the darkness. Beware of the hosts of lying and deceiving spirits that work under the authority of Satan. These spirits cause delusion, deception, lying, seducing, blinding, error, and guile. Call upon My name, and I will strip away the power from these deceiving spirits and will cause your eyes to be opened. Pray that your enemies will be scattered, confused, exposed, and destroyed. JOHN 8:44–47; 1 TIMOTHY 4:1; PSALM 68:1 Prayer Declaration The Lord has rescued me from all my enemies and from the lying and deceiving spirits that belong to the devil. My enemies are destroyed by my God. The Lord will lead me on level ground and will preserve my life. In His righteousness He has brought me out of trouble. With His unfailing love He has silenced my enemies and destroyed all my foes. In His power I will contend with the powers of darkness that are set against the kingdom of God.

Yet the homogeneity of contemporary humanity is most apparent when it comes to our view of the natural world and of the human body. If you fell sick a thousand years ago, it mattered a great deal where you lived. In Europe, the resident priest would probably tell you that you had made God angry and that in order to regain your health you should donate something to the church, make a pilgrimage to a sacred site, and pray fervently for God’s forgiveness. Alternatively, the village witch might explain that a demon had possessed you and that she could cast it out using song, dance, and the blood of a black cockerel. In the Middle East, doctors brought up on classical traditions might explain that your four bodily humors were out of balance and that you should harmonize them with a proper diet and foul-smelling potions. In India, Ayurvedic experts would offer their own theories concerning the balance between the three bodily elements known as doshas and recommend a treatment of herbs, massages, and yoga postures. Chinese physicians, Siberian shamans, African witch doctors, Amerindian medicine men—every empire, kingdom, and tribe had its own traditions and experts, each espousing different views about the human body and the nature of sickness, and each offering their own cornucopia of rituals, concoctions, and cures. Some of them worked surprisingly well, whereas others were little short of a death sentence. The only thing that united European, Chinese, African, and American medical practices was that everywhere at least a third of all children died before reaching adulthood, and average life expectancy was far below fifty.14 Today, if you happen to be sick, it makes much less difference where you live. In Toronto, Tokyo, Tehran, or Tel Aviv, you will be taken to similar-looking hospitals, where you will meet doctors in white coats who learned the same scientific theories in the same medical colleges. They will follow identical protocols and use identical tests to reach very similar diagnoses. They will then dispense the same medicines produced by the same international drug companies. There are still some minor cultural differences, but Canadian, Japanese, Iranian, and Israeli physicians hold much the same views about the human body and human diseases. After the Islamic State captured Raqqa and Mosul, it did not tear down the local hospitals. Rather, it launched an appeal to Muslim doctors and nurses throughout the world to volunteer their services there.15 Presumably even Islamist doctors and nurses believe that the body is made of cells, that diseases are caused by pathogens, and that antibiotics kill bacteria.

How can I explain to you, my happiness, my golden wonderful happiness, how much I am all yours — with all my memories, poems, outbursts, inner whirlwinds? Or explain that I cannot write a word without hearing how you will pronounce it — and can’t recall a single trifle I’ve lived through without regret — so sharp! — that we haven’t lived through it together — whether it’s the most, the most personal, intransmissible — or only some sunset or other at the bend of a road — you see what I mean, my happiness? And I know: I can’t tell you anything in words — and when I do on the phone then it comes out completely wrong. Because with you one needs to talk wonderfully, the way we talk with people long gone… in terms of purity and lightness and spiritual precision… You can be bruised by an ugly diminutive — because you are so absolutely resonant — like seawater, my lovely. I swear — and the inkblot has nothing to do with it — I swear by all that’s dear to me, all I believe in — I swear that I have never loved before as I love you, — with such tenderness — to the point of tears — and with such a sense of radiance. … You came into my life—not as one comes to visit (you know, “not taking one’s hat off”) but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps.

HE SAID: "Who's knocking at my door?" Said I: "Your humble servant!" Said He: "What business have you got?" Said I: "I came to greet You!" Said He: "How long are you to push?" Said I: "Until You'll call me!" Said He: "How long are you to boil?" Said I: "Till resurrection!" I claimed I was a lover true and I took may oaths That for the sake of love I lost my kingdom and my wealth! He said: "You make a claim - the judge needs witness for your cause!" Said I: "My witness is my tears, my proof my yellow face!" Said He: "The witness is corrupt, your eye is wet and ill!" Said I: "No, by Your eminence: My eye is sinless clear!" He said: "And what do you intend?" Said I: "Just faithful friendships!" Said He: "What do you want from me?" Said I: "Your grace abundant!" Said He: "Who travelled here with you?" Said I: "Your dream and phantom!" Said He: "And what led you to me?" Said I: "Your goblet's fragrance!" Said He: "What is most pleasant, say?" Said I: "The ruler's presence!" Said He: "What did you see there, friend?" Said I: "A hundred wonders!" Said He: "Why is it empty now?" Said I: "From fear of brigands!" Said He: "The brigand, who is that?" Said I: "IT is the blaming!" Said He: "And where is safety then?" Said: "In renunciation." Said He: "Renunciation? That's ... ?" Said I: "The path to safety!" Said He: "And where is danger, then?" Said I: "In Your love's quarters!" Said He: "And how do you fare there?" Said I: "Steadfast and happy." I tested you and tested you, but it availed to nothing - Who tests the one who was once tried, he will repent forever! Be silent! If I'd utter here the secrets fine he told me, You would go out all of yourself, no door nor roof could hold you

Again she heard that crackling hiss, and her nose filled with the smell of burning sugar. It was stronger this time, a sweet, dense cloud of perfume. Suddenly, she was back at the Menagerie, a thick hand grasping her wrist, demanding. Inej had gotten good at anticipating when a memory might seize her, bracing for it, but this time she wasn’t prepared. It came at her, more insistent than the wind on the wire, sending her mind sprawling. Though he smelled of vanilla, beneath it, she could smell garlic. She felt the slither of silk all around her as if the bed itself were a living thing. Inej didn’t remember all of them. As the nights at the Menagerie had strung together, she had become better at numbing herself, vanishing so completely that she almost didn’t care what was done to the body she left behind. She learned that the men who came to the house never looked too closely, never asked too many questions. They wanted an illusion, and they were willing to ignore anything to preserve that illusion. Tears, of course, were forbidden. She had cried the first night. Tante Heleen had used the switch on her, then the cane, then choked her until she’d passed out. The next time, Inej’s fear was greater than her sorrow. She learned to smile, to whisper, to arch her back and make the sounds Tante Heleen’s customers required. She still wept, but the tears were never shed. They filled the empty place inside her, a well of sadness where, each night, she sank like a stone. The Menagerie was one of the most expensive pleasure houses in the Barrel, but its customers were no kinder than those who frequented the dollar houses and alley girls. In some ways, Inej came to understand, they were worse. When a man spends that much coin, said the Kaelish girl, Caera, he thinks he’s earned the right to do whatever he wants. There were young men, old men, handsome men, ugly men. There was the man who cried and struck her when he could not perform. The man who wanted her to pretend it was their wedding night and tell him that she loved him. The man with sharp teeth like a kitten who had bitten at her breasts until she’d bled. Tante Heleen added the price of the blood-speckled sheets and the days of work Inej missed to her indenture. But he hadn’t been the worst.

He got himself dressed at last, and then, slowly, for he was sorely bruised and could not go fast, he proceeded to the stable, followed by all who were present, and going up to Dapple embraced him and gave him a loving kiss on the forehead, and said to him, not without tears in his eyes, "Come along, comrade and friend and partner of my toils and sorrows; when I was with you and had no cares to trouble me except mending your harness and feeding your little carcass, happy were my hours, my days, and my years; but since I left you, and mounted the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand troubles, and four thousand anxieties have entered into my soul;" and all the while he was speaking in this strain he was fixing the pack-saddle on the ass, without a word from anyone. Then having Dapple saddled, he, with great pain and difficulty, got up on him, and addressing himself to the majordomo, the secretary, the head-carver, and Pedro Recio the doctor and several others who stood by, he said, "Make way, gentlemen, and let me go back to my old freedom; let me go look for my past life, and raise myself up from this present death. I was not born to be a governor or protect islands or cities from the enemies that choose to attack them. Ploughing and digging, vinedressing and pruning, are more in my way than defending provinces or kingdoms. 'Saint Peter is very well at Rome; I mean each of us is best following the trade he was born to. A reaping-hook fits my hand better than a governor's sceptre; I'd rather have my fill of gazpacho' than be subject to the misery of a meddling doctor who me with hunger, and I'd rather lie in summer under the shade of an oak, and in winter wrap myself in a double sheepskin jacket in freedom, than go to bed between holland sheets and dress in sables under the restraint of a government. God be with your worships, and tell my lord the duke that 'naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain;' I mean that without a farthing I came into this government, and without a farthing I go out of it, very different from the way governors commonly leave other islands. Stand aside and let me go; I have to plaster myself, for I believe every one of my ribs is crushed, thanks to the enemies that have been trampling over me to-night

Kitty, I hope... I do hope you feel that you can trust me, like you would your father.” He circled his thumb along the top of her hand, undoing the stone wall she’d so carefully constructed to guard her heart. “We are true friends, are we not?” Friends. “Aye.” “Friends confide in one another, do they not?” A frown pulled down at her mouth, for surely he had a motive in asking such questions. But what?  The gentleness in his eyes, though still present, moved aside to allow for deep earnest as the muscles in his jaw flexed. He asked again. “Do they not?” Kitty nodded, pretending she didn’t notice every nuance of his expression. “Aye.” He leaned forward, urgency coating his timbre. Gently holding tighter to her hand, he almost whispered. “I need to know what happened the night you were attacked.” “What?” she breathed. He could not be serious. “Kitty, I am done pretending I don’t know something is wrong. Who is doing this to you?” Squirming, Kitty fought to keep her breath relaxed. “Who is... who is doing what?” “Kitty.” He moved to the edge of the bed. “I only wish to help you, you must know that. I will protect you, I vow it—only you must trust me.” Tears welled, blurring the wound along his eye. She had been the cause of that and despite her desires to trust, his safety trumped all. “I cannot tell you.” Her voice was flat as the words hopped from her mouth before she could stop them. He stilled, his posture pulling back. “And why not?” She tugged her hand free from his, instantly aching from the vacancy that replaced the warmth of his touch. “Do not ask me.” “Why, Kitty?” His brow pinched and his mouth stayed open as if more protests prepared to be spoken. Her throat swelled until it nearly clogged off the air that reached down for her lungs. She swallowed a groan and turned away. “It is not for you to know.” “It is for me to know.”  The compulsion to open her mouth and expel the awful truth she kept hidden was enough to make acid once again inch upward. She clenched her eyes shut, fear and hurt raging in her spirit like a tempest. “Please leave me.” “As you wish.” She shot her head in his direction. No, Nathaniel! I didn’t mean it!  He strode toward the door, and stopped, his mouth hard but hazel eyes soft as leather. “If you cannot place your trust in me, Kitty, I pray you will find strength to place it in someone.” With

Waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. Waiting means believing he will do what he’s promised and then acting with confidence. Waiting on God is not at all like the meaningless waiting that you do at the dentist’s office. You know, he’s overbooked, so you’re still sitting there more than an hour past your scheduled appointment. You’re a man, but you’re now reading Family Circle magazine. You’ve begun to read the article titled “The 7 Best Chicken Recipes in the World.” When you’re a man and you’re getting ready to tear a chicken recipe out of Family Circle magazine because the recipe sounds so good, you know that you have been waiting too long! But waiting on God is not like that. Waiting on God is an active life based on confidence in his presence and promises, not a passive existence haunted by occasional doubt. Waiting on God isn’t internal torment that results in paralysis. No, waiting on God is internal rest that results in courageous action. Waiting is your calling. Waiting is your blessing. Every one of God’s children has been chosen to wait, because every one of God’s children lives between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already this world has been broken by sin, but not yet has it been made new again. Already Jesus has come, but not yet has he returned to take you home with him forever. Already your sin has been forgiven, but not yet have you been fully delivered from it. Already Jesus reigns, but not yet has his final kingdom come. Already sin has been defeated, but not yet has it been completely destroyed. Already the Holy Spirit has been given, but not yet have you been perfectly formed into the likeness of Jesus. Already God has given you his Word, but not yet has it totally transformed your life. Already you have been given grace, but not yet has that grace finished its work. You see, we’re all called to wait because we all live right smack dab in the middle of God’s grand redemptive story. We all wait for the final end of the work that God has begun in and for us. We don’t just wait—we wait in hope. And what does hope in God look like? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. We wait believing that what God has begun he will complete, so we live with confidence and courage. We get up every morning and act upon what is to come, and because what is to come is sure, we know that our labor in God’s name is never in vain. So we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and proclaim. We wait and run. We wait and sacrifice. We wait and give. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of grace to come.

Romans 14 The Danger of Criticism 1 Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. 2 For instance, one person believes it’s all right to eat anything. But another believer with a sensitive conscience will eat only vegetables. 3 Those who feel free to eat anything must not look down on those who don’t. And those who don’t eat certain foods must not condemn those who do, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval. 5 In the same way, some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day is alike. You should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is acceptable. 6 Those who worship the Lord on a special day do it to honor him. Those who eat any kind of food do so to honor the Lord, since they give thanks to God before eating. And those who refuse to eat certain foods also want to please the Lord and give thanks to God. 7 For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. 8 If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead. 10 So why do you condemn another believer[*]? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For the Scriptures say,    “‘As surely as I live,’ says the LORD,    ‘every knee will bend to me,        and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.[*]’” 12 Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. 13 So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall. 14 I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. 15 And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. 16 Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. 17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up. 20 Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble.[*] 22 You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right. 23 But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.[*]

The heart is the center of the human microcosm, at once the center of the physical body, the vital energies, the emotions, and the soul, as well as the meeting place between the human and the celestial realms where the spirit resides. How remarkable is this reality of the heart, that mysterious center which from the point of view of our earthly existence seems so small, and yet as the Prophet has said it is the Throne (al-‘arsh) of God the All-Merciful (ar-Rahmân), the Throne that encompasses the whole universe. Or as he uttered in another saying, “My Heaven containeth Me not, nor My Earth, but the heart of My faithful servant doth contain Me.” It is the heart, the realm of interiority, to which Christ referred when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), and it is the heart which the founders of all religions and the sacred scriptures advise man to keep pure as a condition for his salvation and deliverance. We need only recall the words of the Gospel, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8) […] In Christianity the Desert Fathers articulated the spiritual, mystical, and symbolic meanings of the reality of the heart, and these teachings led to a long tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church known as Hesychasm, culminating with St Gregory Palamas, which is focused on the “prayer of the heart” and which includes the exposition of the significance of the heart and the elaboration of the mysticism and theology of the heart. In Catholicism another development took place, in which the heart of the faithful became in a sense replaced by the heart of Christ, and a new spirituality developed on the basis of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Reference to His bleeding heart became common in the writings of such figures as St Bernard of Clairvaux and St Catherine of Sienna. The Christian doctrines of the heart, based as they are on the Bible, present certain universal theses to be seen also in Judaism, the most important of which is the association of the heart with the inner soul of man and the center of the human state. In Jewish mysticism the spirituality of the heart was further developed, and some Jewish mystics emphasized the idea of the “broken or contrite heart” (levnichbar) and wrote that to reach the Divine Majesty one had to “tear one’s heart” and that the “broken heart” mentioned in the Psalms sufficed. To make clear the universality of the spiritual significance of the heart across religious boundaries, while also emphasizing the development of the “theology of the heart” and methods of “prayer of the heart” particular to each tradition, one may recall that the name of Horus, the Egyptian god, meant the “heart of the world”. In Sanskrit the term for heart, hridaya, means also the center of the world, since, by virtue of the analogy between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the center of man is also the center of the universe. Furthermore, in Sanskrit the term shraddha, meaning faith, also signifies knowledge of the heart, and the same is true in Arabic, where the word îmân means faith when used for man and knowledge when used for God, as in the Divine Name al-Mu’min. As for the Far Eastern tradition, in Chinese the term xin means both heart and mind or consciousness. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Chapter 3: The Heart of the Faithful is the Throne of the All-Merciful)

The heart is the center of the human microcosm, at once the center of the physical body, the vital energies, the emotions, and the soul, as well as the meeting place between the human and the celestial realms where the spirit resides. How remarkable is this reality of the heart, that mysterious center which from the point of view of our earthly existence seems so small, and yet as the Prophet has said it is the Throne (al-‘arsh) of God the All-Merciful (ar-Rahmân), the Throne that encompasses the whole universe. Or as he uttered in another saying, “My Heaven containeth Me not, nor My Earth, but the heart of My faithful servant doth contain Me.” It is the heart, the realm of interiority, to which Christ referred when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21), and it is the heart which the founders of all religions and the sacred scriptures advise man to keep pure as a condition for his salvation and deliverance. We need only recall the words of the Gospel, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8) […] In Christianity the Desert Fathers articulated the spiritual, mystical, and symbolic meanings of the reality of the heart, and these teachings led to a long tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church known as Hesychasm, culminating with St Gregory Palamas, which is focused on the “prayer of the heart” and which includes the exposition of the significance of the heart and the elaboration of the mysticism and theology of the heart. In Catholicism another development took place, in which the heart of the faithful became in a sense replaced by the heart of Christ, and a new spirituality developed on the basis of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Reference to His bleeding heart became common in the writings of such figures as St Bernard of Clairvaux and St Catherine of Sienna. The Christian doctrines of the heart, based as they are on the Bible, present certain universal theses to be seen also in Judaism, the most important of which is the association of the heart with the inner soul of man and the center of the human state. In Jewish mysticism the spirituality of the heart was further developed, and some Jewish mystics emphasized the idea of the “broken or contrite heart” (levnichbar) and wrote that to reach the Divine Majesty one had to “tear one’s heart” and that the “broken heart” mentioned in the Psalms sufficed. To make clear the universality of the spiritual significance of the heart across religious boundaries, while also emphasizing the development of the “theology of the heart” and methods of “prayer of the heart” particular to each tradition, one may recall that the name of Horus, the Egyptian god, meant the “heart of the world”. In Sanskrit the term for heart, hridaya, means also the center of the world, since, by virtue of the analogy between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the center of man is also the center of the universe. Furthermore, in Sanskrit the term shraddha, meaning faith, also signifies knowledge of the heart, and the same is true in Arabic, where the word îmân means faith when used for man and knowledge when used for God, as in the Divine Name al-Mu’min. As for the Far Eastern tradition, in Chinese the term xin means both heart and mind or consciousness. – Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Chapter 3: The Heart of the Faithful is the Throne of the All-Merciful)

Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social harmony. To accomplish that unity, Anarchism has declared war on the pernicious influences which have so far prevented the harmonious blending of individual and social instincts, the individual and society. Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. Religion! How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began. Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster. Break your mental fetters, says Anarchism to man, for not until you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress. Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right, when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the monster dead. "Property is robbery," said the great French Anarchist, Proudhon. Yes, but without risk and danger to the robber. Monopolizing the accumulated efforts of man, property has robbed him of his birthright, and has turned him loose a pauper and an outcast. Property has not even the time-worn excuse that man does not create enough to satisfy all needs. The A B C student of economics knows that the productivity of labor within the last few decades far exceeds normal demand a hundredfold. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution? The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade. America is particularly boastful of her great power, her enormous national wealth. Poor America, of what avail is all her wealth, if the individuals comprising the nation are wretchedly poor? If they live in squalor, in filth, in crime, with hope and joy gone, a homeless, soilless army of human prey. It is generally conceded that unless the returns of any business venture exceed the cost, bankruptcy is inevitable. But those engaged in the business of producing wealth have not yet learned even this simple lesson. Every year the cost of production in human life is growing larger (50,000 killed, 100,000 wounded in America last year); the returns to the masses, who help to create wealth, are ever getting smaller. Yet America continues to be blind to the inevitable bankruptcy of our business of production. Nor is this the only crime of the latter. Still more fatal is the crime of turning the producer into a mere particle of a machine, with less will and decision than his master of steel and iron. Man is being robbed not merely of the products of his labor, but of the power of free initiative, of originality, and the interest in, or desire for, the things he is making.

Father will bury us with both hands. He boasts of me to his so-called friends, telling them I’m the next queen of this kingdom. I don’t think he’s ever paid so much attention to me before, and even now, it is minuscule, not for my own benefit. He pretends to love me now because of another, because of Tibe. Only when someone else sees worth in me does he condescend to do the same. Because of her father, she dreamed of a Queenstrial she did not win, of being cast aside and returned to the old estate. Once there, she was made to sleep in the family tomb, beside the still, bare body of her uncle. When the corpse twitched, hands reaching for her throat, she would wake, drenched in sweat, unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Julian and Sara think me weak, fragile, a porcelain doll who will shatter if touched, she wrote. Worst of all, I’m beginning to believe them. Am I really so frail? So useless? Surely I can be of some help somehow, if Julian would only ask? Are Jessamine’s lessons the best I can do? What am I becoming in this place? I doubt I even remember how to replace a lightbulb. I am not someone I recognize. Is this what growing up means? Because of Julian, she dreamed of being in a beautiful room. But every door was locked, every window shut, with nothing and no one to keep her company. Not even books. Nothing to upset her. And always, the room would become a birdcage with gilded bars. It would shrink and shrink until it cut her skin, waking her up. I am not the monster the gossips think me to be. I’ve done nothing, manipulated no one. I haven’t even attempted to use my ability in months, since Julian has no more time to teach me. But they don’t believe that. I see how they look at me, even the whispers of House Merandus. Even Elara. I have not heard her in my head since the banquet, when her sneers drove me to Tibe. Perhaps that taught her better than to meddle. Or maybe she is afraid of looking into my eyes and hearing my voice, as if I’m some kind of match for her razored whispers. I am not, of course. I am hopelessly undefended against people like her. Perhaps I should thank whoever started the rumor. It keeps predators like her from making me prey. Because of Elara, she dreamed of ice-blue eyes following her every move, watching as she donned a crown. People bowed under her gaze and sneered when she turned away, plotting against their newly made queen. They feared her and hated her in equal measure, each one a wolf waiting for her to be revealed as a lamb. She sang in the dream, a wordless song that did nothing but double their bloodlust. Sometimes they killed her, sometimes they ignored her, sometimes they put her in a cell. All three wrenched her from sleep. Today Tibe said he loves me, that he wants to marry me. I do not believe him. Why would he want such a thing? I am no one of consequence. No great beauty or intellect, no strength or power to aid his reign. I bring nothing to him but worry and weight. He needs someone strong at his side, a person who laughs at the gossips and overcomes her own doubts. Tibe is as weak as I am, a lonely boy without a path of his own. I will only make things worse. I will only bring him pain. How can I do that? Because of Tibe, she dreamed of leaving court for good. Like Julian wanted to do, to keep Sara from staying behind. The locations varied with the changing nights. She ran to Delphie or Harbor Bay or Piedmont or even the Lakelands, each one painted in shades of black and gray. Shadow cities to swallow her up and hide her from the prince and the crown he offered. But they frightened her too. And they were always empty, even of ghosts. In these dreams, she ended up alone. From these dreams, she woke quietly, in the morning, with dried tears and an aching heart.

PROLOGUE Some years ago in the Planet Orfheus ... It was dark when Lucius reached the rendezvous which had been chosen to be the new hideout. The latter had been used for several months and they were concerned that they were being followed and were close to being discovered. "I thought you were not coming. I've been waiting for you for almost an hour. I was getting anxious," Sofia said, relieved. "Sorry, love. It is becoming increasingly difficult. I almost didn't make it today. The troops were ambushed in the last invasion. Igor and many warriors returned seriously injured," Lucius replied. He looked worried. Why this sudden encounter? They had agreed that the next would be the following week. Lucius gave her a big hug, pulled her close to him, and remained silent for a few moments. His longing and desire consumed him. She meant the world to him. Without Sofia, his life would never make sense. He would never forget those eyes, serene and sincere, with a blue so bright and clear that were able to see the soul of the tormented warrior that was he. With her golden hair, Sofia looked like an angel. "Is there a problem? You're so quiet and deep in thought," she asked, puzzled. He answered, "I'm thinking about us. How long are we keeping it secret?" He walked away from her, sighing. "We can't keep lying and pretending that all is well. You have no idea how much I have to endure when you are away from me, or when I see you with him." "Love, not now. We have already discussed this subject several times. You know that our only alternative would be to flee and pray they will never find us," she replied. Sofia knew very well that the laws of the kingdom could not be disregarded. Love, respect, and loyalty were key factors that were part of the hierarchy of Orfheus. Although she had always been in love with Lucius who had never shown any interest in her, Sofia was bound to his brother Alex as a result of a pact. Over the centuries, Lucius began to change and express loving feelings for her. She never ceased to love him and both succumbed to the temptation and passion of it. Inevitably, a love affair developed between the two. Interrupting her thoughts, Lucius grabbed her by the hand and led her into the hut. This hut was located inside a vast and beautiful forest. He pulled her by the waist, gave her a passionate kiss, stroked her hair, and said softly, "Love, I missed you so much." "I also felt homesick but the real reason I came here today is to tell you something very important. I need you to listen carefully and keep calm," she said as she ran her hands through her hair which contrasted with her pale skin. Sofia did not want to scare him. However, she imagined that he would be upset and angry with the news. Unfortunately, the revelation was inevitable and sooner or later, everything would come out. "I'm pregnant," she said unceremoniously. For a brief moment, Lucius said nothing. He just stared at her without any reaction. He seemed to be in a silent battle with his own thoughts. "But how?" he babbled, not believing what he had just heard. It was surely a bombshell revelation. That would be the end for them. Sofia said, "Stay calm, love. I know this changes everything. What we were planning for months is no longer possible." She sat on a makeshift stool and continued with tears in her eyes. "With the baby coming, I cannot simply go through the portal. The baby and I would die during the crossing." Lucius replied, "Could we ask for help from Aunt Wilda? She is very powerful. Probably she would be able to break through the magic of the portals." Sofia had already thought of that. She was well aware that it was the only choice left. Aunt Wilda had always been like a mother to her. The sorceress adopted her when she was a girl, soon after her family had died in combat.

Successful con men are treated with considerable respect in the South. A good slice of the settler population of that region were men who’d been given a choice between being shipped off to the New World in leg-irons and spending the rest of their lives in English prisons. The Crown saw no point in feeding them year after year, and they were far too dangerous to be turned loose on the streets of London—so, rather than overload the public hanging schedule, the King’s Minister of Gaol decided to put this scum to work on the other side of the Atlantic, in The Colonies, where cheap labor was much in demand. Most of these poor bastards wound up in what is now the Deep South because of the wretched climate. No settler with good sense and a few dollars in his pocket would venture south of Richmond. There was plenty of opportunity around Boston, New York, and Philadelphia—and by British standards the climate in places like South Carolina and Georgia was close to Hell on Earth: swamps, alligators, mosquitoes, tropical disease... all this plus a boiling sun all day long and no way to make money unless you had a land grant from the King... So the South was sparsely settled at first, and the shortage of skilled labor was a serious problem to the scattered aristocracy of would-be cotton barons who’d been granted huge tracts of good land that would make them all rich if they could only get people to work it. The slave-trade was one answer, but Africa in 1699 was not a fertile breeding ground for middle-management types... and the planters said it was damn near impossible for one white man to establish any kind of control over a boatload of black primitives. The bastards couldn’t even speak English. How could a man get the crop in, with brutes like that for help? There would have to be managers, keepers, overseers: white men who spoke the language, and had a sense of purpose in life. But where would they come from? There was no middle class in the South: only masters and slaves... and all that rich land lying fallow. The King was quick to grasp the financial implications of the problem: The crops must be planted and harvested, in order to sell them for gold—and if all those lazy bastards needed was a few thousand half-bright English-speaking lackeys in order to bring the crops in... hell, that was easy: Clean out the jails, cut back on the Crown’s grocery bill, jolt the liberals off balance by announcing a new “Progressive Amnesty” program for hardened criminals.... Wonderful. Dispatch royal messengers to spread the good word in every corner of the kingdom; and after that send out professional pollsters to record an amazing 66 percent jump in the King’s popularity... then wait a few weeks before announcing the new 10 percent sales tax on ale. That’s how the South got settled. Not the whole story, perhaps, but it goes a long way toward explaining why George Wallace is the Governor of Alabama. He has the same smile as his great-grandfather—a thrice-convicted pig thief from somewhere near Nottingham, who made a small reputation, they say, as a jailhouse lawyer, before he got shipped out. With a bit of imagination you can almost hear the cranky little bastard haranguing his fellow prisoners in London jail, urging them on to revolt: “Lissen here, you poor fools! There’s not much time! Even now—up there in the tower—they’re cookin up some kind of cruel new punishment for us! How much longer will we stand for it? And now they want to ship us across the ocean to work like slaves in a swamp with a bunch of goddamn Hottentots! “We won’t go! It’s asinine! We’ll tear this place apart before we’ll let that thieving old faggot of a king send us off to work next to Africans! “How much more of this misery can we stand, boys? I know you’re fed right up to here with it. I can see it in your eyes— pure misery! And I’m tellin’ you, we don’t have to stand for it!...

Grief wasn’t simply a shadow that followed people around; it was the worst sort of companion. It was an emotion that could either encourage someone to wither away through sorrow and tears or turn them into a monster.

He blocked it out as Cairn pointed the smoldering poker at the young queen with a heart of wildfire. He would not allow it. Snarling, the male inside him thrashing, Fenrys bellowed at the dark chain binding him. He shredded into it, biting and tearing with every scrap of defiance he possessed. Let it kill him, wreck him. He would not serve. Not another heartbeat. He would not obey. He would not obey. And slowly, Fenrys got to his feet.

The kingdom has been destroyed But the mountains and rivers remain. In spring, the city is filled with thick grass and tall trees Even flowers shed tears in this moment of sorrow Birds mourn, lovers depart The beacon’s flame has burned for three months Letters from home are worth ten thousand gold Trying to tie my hair, I find it gray Too thin for my pin to hold up.

Do you know what hurts more than dying, Fia?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “The sound of your voice.” My eyes closed. My fingers squeezing my skirts too hard. I had to go. I should’ve already left, yet the idea of doing so drew more blood than his cruel words. “Fine,” I eventually said, my tears splashing into the water before I swiped them free of my cheeks and retreated. “Refuse to believe me, but don’t you dare leave me.” I waited, knowing I was wasting time but unable to make myself move—to remove my eyes from his heaving form. “You promised, dragon.” Hoarse, I whispered and watched him grow still, “Until every star burns out.” His silence echoed louder than the water I waded through to head back into the tunnel.

I’d been certain that love was being willing to give someone up if that was what was best for them. But I was wrong. Love was being willing to fight. It was being willing to stand up and say, It’s you and me, we’re in this together, and gods help anyone who attempts to tear us apart.

For all the things he was and wasn't and could never be again. My tears, just like everything else, were for him.

Another wave of laughter surges from my chest, but it crashes over me in time with a wave of tears because, though my mother healed my superficial wounds, I’m still riddled with tiny cracks that will end up sinking me if I don’t find a way to plug them up, and quickly at that. I cannot afford to sink. I need to swim.

It is the purest form of European adventuring. What's it all been for, the murdering seas, the gangrene winters and starving springs, our bone pursuit of the unfaithful, midnights of wrestling with the Beast, our sweat become ice and our tears pale flakes of snow, if not for such moments as this: the little converts flowing out of eye's field, so meek, so trustings—how shall any craw clench in fear, any recreant cry be offered in the presence of our blade, our necessary blade? Sanctified now they will feed us, sanctified their remains and droppings fertilize our crops. Did we tell them "Salvation"? Did we mean a dwelling forever in the City? Everlasting life? An earthly paradise restored, their island as it used to be given them back? Probably, Thinking all the time of the little brothers numbered among our own blessings. Indeed, if they save us from hunger in this world, then beyond, in Christ's kingdom, our salvations must be, in like measure, inextricable. Otherwise the dodoes would be only what they appear as in the world's illusory light—only our prey. God could not be that cruel.

The ice is shrinking. My body follows its suggestion. These are not the bergs of my cub season. The Ice Kingdom is a mere shadow of what it once was. Now there is eerie silence and the drip, drip, dripping of ice as it sheds its tears.

NAOMI, THE GODDESS OF OASIS It was a cool evening when destiny called, Naomi. The call that will revive the hearts of the children of men. Destiny presented herself like a Rose. With thorns that makes the crown. Destiny is beautiful. An enigma of peace that ponder the hearts of men. She adores herself with the blood of motherhood. Smiling in tears and with care she nurtures every soul. She's nature's friend, the waters that pushes with the wind and moves in path with her lings. Her nature is beauty and her songs nourishes the soul of men. Her light illuminates their Hope's and tears are wiped with her smiles. Oh daughter of the great land of Ozoro, the pride of her mother land. The rainbow rose that illuminates the garden of doubts. May your voice sends peace to the wailing hearts. May your day never grow dark on the mornings and may your evening be the time your waistline is with tiring and your love round about you. Great daughter of the forest kingdom. Enigma of royalty. Pride of her love. Queen of the Desert Kingdom. Goddess of Oasis Poem by Victor Vote to Atabeh Rezi. ©️2021 by VVF

I have been degraded and humiliated in so many ways, for so many years,” she said, voice shaking. Not from fear, but from the tidal wave that swept up everything inside her, burning alongside the wound in her leg. “But I have never felt as humiliated as I did when you threw me into the snow. When you called me a lying bitch in front of our friends and allies. Never.” She hated the angry tears that stung her eyes. “I was once forced to crawl before men. And gods above, I nearly crawled for you these months. And yet it takes me nearly dying for you to realize that you’ve been an ass? It takes me nearly dying for you to see me as human again?

Those intelligent, most fortunate of souls who seek for themselves the holy Kingdom, cut to pieces the hard knot in the heart which has been tied tight since the beginning of time. One who does so, is liberated out of gross and subtle matter. They are often misunderstood in the world of the living, for they have separated themselves from the ‘norm’ of society. Yet it is they who achieve the greatest of all rewards, Mary,” he said, gazing at the Temple of Tears thoughtfully. “What kind of pilgrim attains Heaven?” I asked. “Those souls who do good deeds unto others, who are generous, and who give in charity, as well as those who are kindhearted to family and society, enter Heaven. Those who

The tears are in my heart but they never come out. Only when Suleika doesn’t speak to me do I lose all strength. Communication, love, laughter, her presence—that’s what makes this bearable, what allows us to keep going like Ulysses.

Yay, He is youthful and sweet, and He chose me to be his risen son,” he said, wiping away the tears which rained down upon his parched cheeks. His soul groaned, as if he yearned for another world, yet more so for his Lord, whom he loved with all his heart. “And with that, I was catapulted from the Kingdom, to return to the world of mortals—carried upon the sound of my wife’s petitions,” he chuckled, searching me with his eyes. “I am reborn not as a man, but as a spirit on earth,” he said honestly. His words made me tremble. “The Kingdom is nigh’, I have seen it. It is as it should be. Yet now I find myself neither here, nor there, so how am I to live?” he said, scratching his head as if bewildered.

AM WHO I AM. Exodus 3:14 I am the beginning and the end. I am the first, and I am the last. Revelation 22:13 I am light; in me there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. Isaiah 48:13 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Jeremiah 1:5 I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. John 15:16 I am he who blots out your transgressions. I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25 To all who receive Me, who believe in My name, I give the right to become children of God. John 1:12 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16 My Spirit is within you. Ezekiel 36:27 I will not leave you. Deuteronomy 31:8 I will equip you for every good work I’ve planned. Hebrews 13:21 I gave you a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7 I will build my church through you, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18 I will comfort you as you wait. Isaiah 66:13 I will remind you this is all real. John 14:26 I am on my way. Revelation 3:11 My steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 138:8 In just a little while… I am coming and I will take you to the place where I am. Hebrews 10:37; John 14:3 You will inherit the earth. Psalm 25:13 You will be with Me. I will wipe every tear from your eyes, and death will be no more. Behold, I am making all things new. Revelation 21:3–5 My kingdom is coming. My will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10

Love was being willing to fight. It was being willing to stand up and say, It’s you and me, we’re in this together, and gods help anyone who attempts to tear us apart.

Perhaps the best way, then, to read the tough language in Matthew that all sin and all sinners will be burned up in the fire of God’s judgment is to understand it as a graphic expression of what is ultimately a glad, confident, and hopeful promise that nothing that mars God’s goodness will endure. There is no cancer, no killing virus, no Alzheimer’s, no plague, no child abuse, no tyranny, no cruelty, no oppression, no lynching, no placing of children in cages, no homelessness, no tragic tears, no suffocating loneliness, no torture, no death in the kingdom of heaven. God and God’s kingdom will be revealed to be all that truly exists, all-consuming, and nothing outside of it will have any reality at all. All that has destroyed and maimed and oppressed and polluted creation and the human prospect will be burned away like straw.