Text Song Quotes

1. I’m lonely so I do lonely things 2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same. 3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood. 4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home. 5. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave. 6. I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember. 7. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless. 8. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth. 9. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war. 10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes. 11. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents. 12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay. 13. I’m not a dog. 14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong. 15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things. 16. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother. 17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot. 18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me. 19. You were too cruel to love for a long time. 20. It just didn’t work out. 21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back. 22. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth. 23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home. 24. The women in my family die waiting. 25. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you. 26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me. 27. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick. 28. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.” 29. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile 30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love. 31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you. 32. I’m a lover without a lover. 33. I’m lovely and lonely. 34. I belong deeply to myself .

But aren’t small things exactly what friendships are made up of? Frayed string bracelets and late-night texts and compilations of your favorite songs? When you take those things away, what do you have left?

Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind. A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure. Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds; Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.

Why only one song, one speech, one text at a time?" - "When Our Lips Speak Together

I feel your hands on your phone when you read my texts. I go to the Stock after your shifts just to stand where you’ve stood. I fall asleep on the pillow you used when you were in my bed. I need to share whatever piece of the world you’re in. Tell me you don’t feel the same.

Walking around, even on a bad day, I would see things – I mean just the things that were in front of me. People’s faces, the weather, traffic. The smell of petrol from the garage, the feeling of being rained on, completely ordinary things. And in that way even the bad days were good, because I felt them and remembered feeling them. There was something delicate about living like that – like I was an instrument and the world touched me and reverberated inside me. After a couple of months, I started to miss days. Sometimes I would fall asleep without remembering to write anything, but then other nights I’d open the book and not know what to write – I wouldn’t be able to think of anything at all. When I did make entries, they were increasingly verbal and abstract: song titles, or quotes from novels, or text messages from friends. By spring I couldn’t keep it up anymore. I started to put the diary away for weeks at a time – it was just a cheap black notebook I got at work – and then eventually I’d take it back out to look at the entries from the previous year. At that point, I found it impossible to imagine ever feeling again as I had apparently once felt about rain or flowers. It wasn’t just that I failed to be delighted by sensory experiences – it was that I didn’t actually seem to have them anymore. I would walk to work or go out for groceries or whatever and by the time I came home again I wouldn’t be able to remember seeing or hearing anything distinctive at all. I suppose I was seeing but not looking – the visual world just came to me flat, like a catalogue of information. I never looked at things anymore, in the way I had before.

DEAR DI­ARY You are greater than the Bible And the Con­fer­ence of the Birds And the Up­an­ishads All put to­geth­er You are more se­vere Than the Scrip­tures And Ham­mura­bi’s Code More dan­ger­ous than Luther’s pa­per Nailed to the Cathe­dral door You are sweet­er Than the Song of Songs Might­ier by far Than the Epic of Gil­gamesh And braver Than the Sagas of Ice­land I bow my head in grat­itude To the ones who give their lives To keep the se­cret The dai­ly se­cret Un­der lock and key Dear Di­ary I mean no dis­re­spect But you are more sub­lime Than any Sa­cred Text Some­times just a list Of my events Is holi­er than the Bill of Rights And more in­tense

Genesis began with the Father losing His family. Revelation ends with Him getting them back. Is there nothing to be learned from this sad cycle? Truly, family is the legitimate theme of holy text. pg vi

From Genesis to Revelation, holy text is all about relationships and the limitless flavors of those relationships. It is the duty of mankind to tap into our women's unique talents--their genius for 'relationships.' pg vii

People walk the paths of the gardens below, and the wind sings anthems in the hedges, and the big old cedars at the entrance to the maze creak. Marie-Laure imagines the electromagnetic waves traveling into and out of Michel’s machine, bending around them, just as Etienne used to describe, except now a thousand times more crisscross the air than when he lived - maybe a million times more. Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of televisions programs, of e-mails, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I am going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscape we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.

No ancient Jew was ever promised, or expected, a heavenly life. That was a wild and outrageous teaching of Jesus. Holy text never offers a heavenly hope--before Jesus. Think about it: No matter how faithful Adam would have been, he could never graduate to heaven. Going to heaven was a 'Jesus teaching.' It simply does not exist in Torah. pg xxvii

Sometimes the lines in a song are lines you wish you could text-message somebody in real life.

I’m texting you this because I like you. Because when I think of you I get this sort-of insane feeling inside of my gut that makes me want to listen to really bad pop songs and go for a run (You know it’s bad when I willingly want to go running). I’m texting you this because I think about your body sometimes, pressed up against mine and what that would mean and how awesome that would feel. I’m texting you this because I like you and I’m wondering if you’ve caught on.

Just these two words He spoke changed my life, "Enjoy Me" What a burden I thought I was to carry-a crucifix as did He. Love once said to me: "I know a song, would you like to hear it?" And laughter came from every brick in the street and from every pore in the sky. After a night of prayer, He changed my life when He sang "Enjoy me".

literature composed by women was stored not in books but in female bodies, living repositories of poetry and song. I have come across a line of argument in my reading, which posits that, due to the inherent fallibility of memory and the imperfect human vessels that held it, the Caoineadh cannot be considered a work of single authorship. Rather, the theory goes, it must be considered collage, or, perhaps, a folky reworking of older keens. This, to me --- in the brazen audacity of one positioned far from the tall walls of the university --- feels like a male assertion pressed upon a female text. After all, the etymology of the word ‘text’ lies in the Latin verby ‘texere’: to weave, to fuse, to braid. The Caoineadh form belongs to a literary genre worked and woven by women, entwining strands of female voices that were carried in female bodies, a phenomenon that seems to me cause for wonder and admiration, rather than suspicion of authorship.

Come on. Text a friend and tell them who you’re with in case I’m a psycho killer.

Sure, occasionally a certain sappy song or romantic movie would come on, and you’d wonder what he or she was up to, but there was no way to know. Of course, you could always pick up the phone (and more recently, text or e-mail), but that would require that person’s knowing you were thinking of him or her. Where’s the fun in that? You never want them to know you’re thinking of them, so you refrain. Before long the memories start to fade. One day, you realize you can’t quite remember how she smelled or the exact color of his eyes. Eventually, without ever knowing it, you just forget that person altogether. You replace old memories with new ones, and life goes on. It was the clean break you needed to move forward.

Underneath all the texts, all the sacred psalms and canticles, these watery varieties of sounds and silences, terrifying, mysterious, whirling and sometimes gestating and gentle must somehow be felt in the pulse, ebb, and flow of the music that sings in me. My new song must float like a feather on the breath of God.

In the dark places of yourself, thinking machines you never get near enough to see are constantly building things and running their own secretive programmes all of their own. Maybe you get a snippet of what's going on back there, like this fragment of a song drifting its way into the light, or a phrase, or an image, or maybe just a mood, a wash of content of a bleak draining of colour that floods your chest and your stomach more than it ever finds its way into the bight halogen chrome of your mind.

For fuck's sake, I'd killed my best friend, first with carelessness and then with ambition. I started texting back: - you have the wrong.... But then i felt his lips on my shoulder and his warm breath on my skin, and my sorrow dropped out of me. I couldn't finish. My chest hitched and heaved, and the tears came so hard I couldn't breathe. His arms held me tight from behind, and his voice twisted itself into little nothings of comfort. I went into a timeless blackness where I let everything spill out, because he'd catch it. I knew in every couch and sob, ever hitched breath and chest spasm, that he'd hold me together. Whatever fell apart, he'd put right. I couldn't curse him for not being everything I needed or failing to commit to me completely. I didn't have space to reject his idea that I was submissive or the will to deny him control over me. He was there, and he was exactly what I needed.

I was holding on to hurricane nights and lit candles and my acoustic guitar resting in your hands. I was holding on to the sound of your voice saying my name and the peace I felt with your arms around me. I was holding on to documentaries in bed and your beautiful eyes closed as you sang Rocket Man and all the songs we never finished. I was holding on to our first text and last phone call and the plane ticket you offered but never sent. I was holding on to our first Christmas together and the last few Christmas Eves apart and I've been thinking we should be together. we should be kissing even if there isn't any mistletoe because if I have you there' no reason to celebrate and fuck, your lips were mine. They were always supposed to be mine. I was holding on to hope and banana pancakes on Sundays. I was holding on to Main Street and sunsets in Jersey. I was holding on to two streets that separated us and blizzards that couldn't keep us apart. I was holding on to you. I was holding on to us. And it was killing me.

He told friends that this ancient Hindu text—“The Lord’s Song”—was “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.

She bookmarked my texts, my notes, my scribblings. She walked through my thoughts, waded through my dreams.

Although I've written a few (a very few) poems over the years, I am not a natural poet...and I remain in awe of people who are. The ability to evoke deep emotion, reveal a new facet of the world, or condense an entire story into the limited space and form of a poem (or likewise, of a good song lyric, or the text for a children's picture book) seems like pure magic to me.

Indie; I think the ten-minute song is going to be really good. Jenna: I hope you didn't tell him that. Indie: No, I told him it's unmarketable. Hudson: And what did he say? Indie: He said I sounded like a Suit., specifically like Jenna Holden, and that Jenna Holden was hired to get him Balmain deals and negotiate fat deals with record labels, not produce his next album. He also said he'd once caught you nodding your head at a Maroon 5 song, and the fact that you're not dead to him after that is a miracle in itself, so you should not push your luck. Again, his words, not mine.>/b>

What's the story behind the song? Jane texts back a minute later. She addresses and signs it the ways she usually does. august is so used to it that her eyes have started skipping right over the introduction and sign off. I don't remember much. I listened to it in an apartment I had when I was 20. I used to think it was one of the most romantic songs I ever heard. Really? The lyrics are kind of depressing. No, you gotta listen to the bridge. It's all about loving someone so much you can't stand the idea of losing them, even if it hurts, that all the hard stuff is worth it if you can get through together. August pulls it up, lets it spin past the first two verses, into the line: You will remember, when this is blown over . . . Okay, she types, thinking of Wes and how determined he is not to let Isaiah hand him his heart, of Myla holding Niko's hand as he talks to things she can't see, of her mom and a whole life spent searching, of herself, of Jane, of hours on the train - all the things they put themselves through for love. Okay, I get it.

Furthermore, Professor Uzzi-Tuzii had begun his oral translation as if he were not quite sure he could make the words hang together, going back over every sentence to iron out the syntactical creases, manipulating the phrases until they were not completely rumpled, smoothing them, clipping them, stopping at every word to illustrate its idiomatic uses and its commutations, accompanying himself with inclusive gestures as if inviting you to be content with approximate equivalents, breaking off to state grammatical rules, etymological derivations, quoting the classics. but just when you are convinced that for the professor philology and erudition mean more than what the story is telling, you realize the opposite is true: that academic envelope serves only to protect everything the story says and does not say, an inner afflatus always on the verge of being dispersed at contact with the air, the echo of a vanished knowledge revealed in the penumbra and in tacit allusions. Torn between the necessity to interject glosses on multiple meanings of the text and the awareness that all interpretation is a use of violence and caprice against a text, the professor, when faced by the most complicated passages, could find no better way of aiding comprehension than to read them in the original, The pronunciation of that unknown language, deduced from theoretical rules, not transmitted by the hearing of voices with their individual accents, not marked by the traces of use that shapes and transforms, acquired the absoluteness of sounds that expect no reply, like the song of the last bird of an extinct species or the strident roar of a just-invented jet plane that shatters the sky on its first test flight. Then, little by little, something started moving and flowing between the sentences of this distraught recitation,. The prose of the novel had got the better of the uncertainties of the voice; it had become fluent, transparent, continuous; Uzzi-Tuzii swam in it like a fish, accompanying himself with gestures (he held his hands open like flippers), with the movement of his lips (which allowed the words to emerge like little air bubbles), with his gaze (his eyes scoured the page like a fish's eyes scouring the seabed, but also like the eyes of an aquarium visitor as he follows a fish's movement's in an illuminated tank).

To translate man back into nature, to become master over the many vain and overly enthusiastic interpretations and connotations that have so far been scrawled and painted over that eternal basic text of homo natura; to see to it that the human being henceforth stands before human beings as even today, hardened in the discipline of science, he stands before the rest of nature, with intrepid Oedipus eyes and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping at him all too long, "you are more, you are higher, you are of a different origin"—that may be a strange and insane task, but it is a task —who would deny that?

I hurled myself under the covers, naked and half wet, grabbing my phone on the way. - don't come nevermind - I heard a phone dine from the living room and, soon after, a voice so close it shocked me. "Too late," Jonathan said. "Your front door was open." -go away - a blast of cold air hit me as the covers were moved, and in the next breath, I caught his new scent. He pulled the covers over us just as his phone dinged. He pressed his front to my back, spooning me, this clothes taking on the dampness I hadn't gotten around to toweling off. "I'm sorry Monica. He put his face in my wet hair and draped his arm around me. "Ah. What's this text I have here? It says go away." I sniffled. He slid his arm under my neck and held the phone in front of our faces with both hands. His breath tickled my ear. "Let me text back. Hang on." -I'd rather be here for you - I waited for it to appear on my phone. He nuzzled into the hair pooling at the back of my neck as i typed back. - And then what? - His fingers flew across the glass. - And let's talk about the rest later. Today, you are the goddess my universe revolves around. -

This idea of becoming a god is age-old. The old belief relegates it to the time after death, but the mystery cults bring it about in this world. An ancient Egyptian text represents it, very beautifully, as the triumphal song of the ascending soul:

Political headlines were fixating on a hateful, sexist version of rural, working-class America that I did not recognize. Dolly’s music and life contained what I wanted to say about class, gender, and my female forebears: That country music by women was the formative feminist text of my life.

The Renaissance did not break completely with mediaeval history and values. Sir Philip Sidney is often considered the model of the perfect Renaissance gentleman. He embodied the mediaeval virtues of the knight (the noble warrior), the lover (the man of passion), and the scholar (the man of learning). His death in 1586, after the Battle of Zutphen, sacrificing the last of his water supply to a wounded soldier, made him a hero. His great sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella is one of the key texts of the time, distilling the author's virtues and beliefs into the first of the Renaissance love masterpieces. His other great work, Arcadia, is a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs.

Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.

—What are you doing now?— —I’m under my covers— —Alone?— —y— —A crime— I smiled, and the feeling of levity cracked the brittle shell of sorrow, if only for a second, and tears streamed down my face. —Don’t make me laugh, fuckhead— —May I join you under those lucky covers?— When I read the message, I didn’t feel his request in my loins, but on my skin. I wanted him to touch me. Kiss me. Breathe on me. Talk to me. Hold me for hours. The desire wasn’t just between my legs, but in my rib cage, my marrow, my fingertips. Could I give up the consuming protection of loneliness and indulge in a few hours with Jonathan? Was I worthy of a little comfort? Probably not. And I hadn’t forgotten the submissive thing. No. He was going to drag me into a pit of defilement and humiliation. Seeing him would only draw him closer to me than he should be, ever. I texted: —I need you— I hit send. I shouldn’t have.

Blues is both a literary and a musical genre, and the two realms are inseparably linked by the very forces that also bind together music and text in most African cultures: semantic and grammatical tone, phonetic structure leading to offbeat phrasing of melodic accents (Waterman 1952; Kubik 196ia: 157-58. 1988a: 149-52), and the concept-widespread in African cultures-that the meaning of a song derives from its lyrics rather than from "melody," "rhythm," or chord sequences.

I felt that readerly desire achieves its lastingness, its pleasurable sense of suspended duration, in a complicitous nilling, a charged refusal. That is to say that in reading, I undo a text, as I resist my own autonomy. The undoing animates passivity, all that negates and resists rather than insists. It is a slightly unpleasant thought, and it pertains to the ambivalent discomfort of pornography.   That the descriptive representation of erotic pleasure could produce discomfort is partly the unfortunate result of a reader’s embodiment of sociomoral anti-corporeal values. But the discomfort has to do with other difficulties too. If the pornographic text is specifically a work of the imaginary, we could ask where that imaginary works, what it works upon. I’d like to consider the possibility that Histoire d’O is less the signifier for genital eroticism, than it is the song of inconspicuousness, the place where will and its self-negation twist and enlace.

The period of general neglect of Eliot's poetry was one in which a revolution was occurring in the theory of interpretation. Existentialist, phenomenologist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and poststructuralist theories appeared and stimulated dazzling conversations about how texts mean. Bloom, Miller, Poulet, Gadamer, Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva, and Derrida are just a few of the critics who have contributed to these conversations. These studies have enormous value for critics interested in Eliot. In the first place, they have popularized insights about language which are central in Eliot poetry from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to Four Quartets. Anyone who doubts this should read Derrida "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and follow up with a reading of part 5 of each of Four Quartets. In the second place, the studies in theory have created an audience that will be able to appreciate Eliot's dissertation and early philosophical work, an audience unthinkable a generation ago.

Wanna rock you, girl, with a butterfly tunic. / No, I’m not gay, I’m just your emo eunuch. / Gonna smile real shy, won’t cop a feel, / ’cause I’m your virgin crush, your supersafe deal. / Let those other guys keep sexing. / You and me, we be texting / ’bout unicorns and rainbows and our perfect love. / Girl, we fit together like a hand in a glove. / Now I don’t mean that nasty, tell your mom don’t get mad. /I even wrote ‘You’re awesome’ on your maxi pads.” Tiara sighed. “My mom let me use that song for my Christian pole dancing routine.

How about whatever song comes on next, that’s our song. It’ll be fate.” “We can’t just make our own fate.” “Sure we can.” Peter reaches over to turn on the radio. “Wait! Just any radio station? What if it’s not a slow song?” “Okay so we’ll put on Lite 101.” Peter hits the button. “Winnie the Pooh doesn’t know what to do, got a honey jar stuck on his nose,” a woman croons. Peter says, “What the hell?” as I say, “This can’t be our song.” “Best out of three?” he suggests. “Let’s not force it. We’ll know it when we hear it, I think.” “Maybe we’ll hear it at the prom,” Peter offers. “Oh, that reminds me. What color is your dress? My mom’s going to ask her florist friend to make your corsage.” “It’s dusty pink.” It came in the mail yesterday, and when I tried it on for everybody, Trina said it was “the most Lara Jean” dress she’d ever seen. I texted a picture to Stormy, who wrote back, “Ooh-la-la,” with a dancing woman emoji. “What the heck is dusty pink?” Peter wants to know. “It’s like a rose gold color.” Peter still looks confused, so I sigh and say, “Just tell your mom. She’ll know.

The wu-forms that we find throughout the text all advocate a personal disposition that seeks to optimize relationships through collaborative actions that, in the absence of coercion, enable one to make the most of any situation. It is the uniqueness of each situation that requires any generalization about this optimal disposition to be stated in negative terms. A voice coach can describe the constraints that students in general might have to overcome in achieving the fullness of their talent, but all of the students must sing their own unique songs.

Specious, but wrongful deem The speech of those ill-taught ones who extol The letter of their Vedas, saying, "This Is all we have, or need;" being weak at heart With wants, seekers of Heaven: which comes—they say—As "fruit of good deeds done;" promising men Much profit in new births for works of faith; In various rites abounding; following whereon Large merit shall accrue towards wealth and power; Albeit, who wealth and power do most desire Least fixity of soul have such, least hold On heavenly meditation. Much these teach, From Veds, concerning the "three qualities;" But thou, be free of the "three qualities," Free of the "pairs of opposites,"[ FN# 2] and free From that sad righteousness which calculates; Self-ruled, Arjuna! simple, satisfied![ FN# 3] Look! like as when a tank pours water forth To suit all needs, so do these Brahmans draw Text for all wants from tank of Holy Writ. But thou, want not! ask not! Find full reward Of doing right in right! Let right deeds be Thy motive, not the fruit which comes from them. And live in action! Labour! Make thine acts Thy piety, casting all self aside, Contemning gain and merit; equable In good or evil: equability Is Yog, is piety! Yet, the right act Is less, far less, than the right-thinking mind. Seek refuge in thy soul; have there thy heaven! Scorn them that follow virtue for her gifts! The mind of pure devotion—even here—Casts equally aside good deeds and bad, Passing above them. Unto pure devotion Devote thyself: with perfect meditation Comes perfect act, and the right-hearted rise—More certainly because they seek no gain—Forth from the bands of body, step by step, To highest seats of bliss.

The union of a zillion streams of information intermingling, flowing into each other, is what we call the cloud. Software flows from the cloud to you as a stream of upgrades. The cloud is where your stream of texts go before they arrive on your friend’s screen. The cloud is where the parade of movies under your account rests until you call for them. The cloud is the reservoir that songs escape from. The cloud is the seat where the intelligence of Siri sits, even as she speaks to you. The cloud is the new organizing metaphor for computers. The foundational units of this third digital regime, then, are flows, tags, and clouds.

Finally, the survey findings also lent a helping hand to those men who wanted to engage in some heartfelt wooing, by identifying the gestures that women view as most, and least, romantic. The top-ten list of gestures is shown below, along with the percentage of women who assigned each gesture maximum marks on the “how romantic is this” scale. Cover her eyes and lead her to a lovely surprise—40 percent Whisk her away somewhere exciting for the weekend—40 percent Write a song or poem about her—28 percent Tell her that she is the most wonderful woman that you have ever met—25 percent Run her a relaxing bath after she has had a bad day at work—22 percent Send her a romantic text or e-mail, or leave a note around the house—22 percent Wake her up with breakfast in bed—22 percent Offer her a coat when she is cold—18 percent Send her a large bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates at her workplace—16 percent Make her a mix CD of her favorite music—12 percent Interestingly, it seems that gestures that reflect a form of escapism and surprise top the list, followed by those that reflect thoughtfulness, with blatant acts of materialism trailing in last place—scientific evidence, perhaps, that when it comes to romance, it really is the thought that counts.

But when we get these partnerships, all these “best friends” we married don’t text us back like our female best friends do. They can’t wipe a counter to save their lives. Don’t know how to vacuum. And their learned helplessness becomes the punch line to all our jokes. Memes lampoon this male inability to function. A TikTok video shows the face of an exasperated wife on the phone with her husband, who is presumably wandering the grocery store looking for ketchup, and she’s lip-syncing to the song from Hamilton, “Look at where you are. Look at where you started. The fact that you’re alive right now is a miracle.” Hilarious. These are the good men.

Psalm 5 Song of the Clouded Dawn For the Pure and Shining One, for her who receives the inheritance.11 By King David. 1Listen to my passionate prayer! Can’t You hear my groaning? 2Don’t You hear how I’m crying out to You? My King and my God, consider my every word, For I am calling out to You. 3At each and every sunrise You will hear my voice As I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to You. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar And wait for Your fire to fall upon my heart.12 4I know that You, God, Are never pleased with lawlessness, And evil ones will never be invited As guests in Your house. 5Boasters collapse, unable to survive Your scrutiny, For Your hatred of evildoers is clear. 6You will make an end of all those who lie. How You hate their hypocrisy And despise all who love violence! 7But I know the way back home, And I know that You will welcome me Into Your house, For I am covered by Your covenant of mercy and love. So I come to Your sanctuary with deepest awe, To bow in worship and adore You. 8Lord, lead me in the pathways of Your pleasure, Just like You promised me You would, Or else my enemies will conquer me. Smooth out Your road in front of me, Straight and level so that I will know where to walk. 9For you can’t trust anything they say. Their hearts are nothing but deep pits of destruction, Drawing people into their darkness with their speeches. They are smooth-tongued deceivers Who flatter with their words! 10Declare them guilty, O God! Let their own schemes be their downfall! Let the guilt of their sins collapse on top of them, For they rebel against You. 11But let them all be glad, Those who turn aside to hide themselves in You, May they keep shouting for joy forever! Overshadow them in Your presence As they sing and rejoice, Then every lover of Your name Will burst forth with endless joy. 12Lord, how wonderfully You bless the righteous. Your favor wraps around each one and Covers them Under Your canopy of kindness and joy. 11. 5:Title The Hebrew word used here is Neliloth, or “flutes.” It can also be translated “inheritances.” The early church father, Augustine, translated this: “For her who receives the inheritance,” meaning the church of Jesus Christ. God the Father told the Son in Psalm 2 to ask for His inheritance; here we see it is the church that receives what Jesus asks for. We receive our inheritance of eternal life through the cross and resurrection of the Son of God. The Septuagint reads “For the end,” also found in numerous inscriptions of the Psalms. 12. 5:3 Implied in the concept of preparing the morning sacrifice. The Aramaic text states, “At dawn I shall be ready and shall appear before You.

Absence " Then the birds stitching the dawn with their song have patterned your name. Then the green bowl of the garden filling with light is your gaze. Then the lawn lengthening and warming itself is your skin. Then a cloud disclosing itself overhead is your opening hand. Then the first seven bells from the church pine on the air. Then the sun's soft bite on my face is your mouth. Then a bee in a rose is your fingertip touching me here. Then the trees bending and meshing their leaves are what we would do. Then my steps to the river are text to a prayer printing the ground. Then the river searching its bank for your shape is desire. Then a fish nuzzling for the water's throat has a lover's ease. Then a shawl of sunlight dropped in the grass is a garment discarded. Then a sudden scatter of summer rain is your tongue. Then a butterfly paused on a trembling leaf is your breath. Then the gauzy mist relaxed on the ground is your pose. Then the fruit from the cherry tree falling on grass is your kiss, your kiss. Then the day's hours are theatres of air where I watch you entranced. Then the sun's light going down from the sky is the length of your back. Then the evening bells over the rooftops are lovers' vows. Then the river staring up, lovesick for the moon, is my long night. Then the stars between us are love urging its light.

Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of television programs, of e-mail, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I’m going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscapes we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs.

Then he thinks that there should be a place in every town where people could put rescued or found things. Not just objects, but snippets of forgotten languages, or misused time – an hour that can never be lived again. It would be a place where lost faiths could be collected, as well as keys, gloves and love letters never sent. Here you could find extinct animals and old wives’ tales vanished in history; a whole shelf of unfinished songs, discontinued books, deleted texts. It would be a safe for fleeting emotions – the first flush of love, or a particular scent on a sunny day that is never savoured again. Among the dog leads, phones and hats, there would be babies hoped for and lost. All this would be remembered: missed opportunities, mislaid friends, the smile of a wife. It would be a place for lost things.

Exaggeration is another way of saying you’re afraid someone won’t listen to the truth. But the truth’s enough, Laramie. We never know that because we never dare to speak it. Look at how we talk. Or text, in all caps. Thumbs stuck on CAPS lock because we’re scared they won’t get the idea. The media. Everyone begs to be interesting. And questioning what people have always questioned is suddenly an “existential crisis.” And we’re so numb to it. Laughing is called “dying.” Any brief moment of sadness is called “crying.” A great moment is called "iconic." We call our boyfriends and girlfriends our ‘kings’ and ‘queens.’ Who can measure up to that? All of these words, it’s impatient and rudimentary. We are desensitized, Laramie. As if it’s the internet’s information overload that causes us to dramatize our opinions.

After our date on Monday, I put the heart-eyes emoji next to his name in my contacts. I mean, the boy brought me flowers and a Storm comic, and since we didn’t have time to stay for dessert at the restaurant, he brought me a small pack of Chips Ahoy! to eat on the way back to school. He earned those heart eyes. He just sent a couple of texts to guarantee that he keeps them. Do your thing tonight, Princess. Wish I could be there. I probably couldn’t pay attention to your song tho I’d be staring at you too hard Corny? Yes. But it gets a smile out of me. Before I can respond, though, he adds: I’d be staring at that ass too but you know I probably ain’t supposed to admit that. I smirk. Why you admitting it now then? His answer? Cause I bet it made you smile Just for that, I’m adding a second heart-eyes emoji to his name.

You began receiving the texts in late September, after the first date. You wore the translucent dress with the high collar and open-shoulder sleeves that made you feel like you were a fashion writer for a New York magazine, or a high-powered exec of a Fortune 500 company: a shimmering butterfly, someone who mattered, not a barely-eighteen college freshman who spent most evenings in her dorm room slurping Top Ramen. The first guy was forty-five. His wife was the same old song on the radio. He took you out for lobster and fried oysters. Afterwards, he grabbed your neck like you owed him something, and you closed your eyes and imagined pretty things: white-gold ribbons of sunlight skimming the belly of oceans, the sequins falling from your prom dress the first time you slept with a guy, movies where everyone sings soprano and defies the laws of flight.

There is an underlying rhythm to all text. Sentences crashing fall like the waves of the sea, and work unconsciously on the reader. Punctuation is the music of language. As a conductor can influence the experience of the song by manipulating its rhythm, so can punctuation influence the reading experience, bring out the best (or worst) in a text. By controlling the speed of a text, punctuation dictates how it should be read. A delicate world of punctuation lives just beneath the surface of your work, like a world of microorganisms living in a pond. They are missed by the naked eye, but if you use a microscope you will find a exist, and that the pond is, in fact, teeming with life. This book will teach you to become sensitive to this habitat. The more you do, the greater the likelihood of your crafting a finer work in every respect. Conversely the more you turn a blind eye, the greater the likelihood of your creating a cacophonous text and of your being misread.

The history of slavery provides the spine of this novel. Some texts that offered “deep background” were Boubacar Barry’s Senegambia and the Atlantic Slave Trade, which excavates eighteenth-century slave trading history in Wolof-speaking areas of West Africa, and Walter Rucker’s Gold Coast Diasporas: Identity, Culture, and Power, about Asante peoples of West Africa, those who would come to be called “Coromantee.” Sylviane Diouf’s Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas is a must-read for anyone interested in Muslim history on the American side of the Atlantic. And Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History gives background information about the brutal transatlantic slave trade. In addition, the digitized Georgia Archives provided information about eighteenth-century slave and Native American codes, as well as Land Lottery records. Henry Louis Gates’s edited The Classic Slave Narratives, which include Jacobs’s as well as Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, continue to be so important to me. Ailey’s family lives

What?" asked Natalie Blake. She really was too drunk to return to chambers. Her friend Layla was smiling, a little sadly. She was looking at the tablecloth. "Nothing. You're exactly the same." Natalie was in the middle of texting Melanie to warn her she would not be in now until tomorrow morning. "Right. It's not like I have to become another person just because - " "You always wanted to make it clear you weren't like the rest of us. You're still doing it." A waiter came over to ask about dessert. Natalie Blake, though eager for dessert, felt now she could not really order one. She was struck with dread. Her heart beat madly. She had a schoolgirl's impulse to report Layla Dean nee Thompson to the waiter. Layla's being horrible to me! Layla hates me! Outside, a car passed playing "Wanna Be Startin' Something'." Layla did not look up at the waiter and after a moment he went away. She had a thick white napkin she was twisting in both hands. "Even when we used to do those songs you'd be with me but also totally not with me. Showing off. False. Fake. Signaling to the boys in the audience, or whatever." "Layla, what are you talking about?" "And you're still doing it.

It was an innocent crush. It was innocent because you said you weren’t seeing anyone, And I wasn’t the kinda girl who’d love someone that belonged to some other person. I was still writing a thousand texts, swallowing all my pride, I was making up a million dreams over just a glass of wine. Then I cried the whole night, Because I was writing to someone else’s guy. With the radio on, I was writing you over two hundred letters, Even when you added my name to your long list of stalkers. My friends were shouting, ‘save yourself and run,’ But I was fine because you said you weren’t seeing anyone. I wasn’t the kinda girl who’d love someone that belonged to some other person, But I did, and I did because you said you weren’t seeing anyone. On a Sunday morning, I saw your picture with her, You had your arms around, and she was covered in fur. Then I cried the whole night, Because I was in love with someone else’s guy. Now nothing is the same, your eyes or your smile, Because I’m not the kinda girl who’d want someone else’s life. Now it’ll haunt me forever, and I’ll always be mortified, It won’t be the same because you’ll always be the guy who lied. Maybe that will be our song. And believe me, I never thought we’d have a sad song.

What’d you think?” Dan asked as we buckled into the Acclaim after another Sunday under the big top. “I wonder if they realize their worship songs include both amillennial and premillennial theology,” I said with a sigh. “Also, what’s this business from the preacher about Moses writing Numbers? I mean, everyone knows Moses didn’t actually write the book of Numbers. It originated from a combination of written and oral tradition and was assembled and edited by Jewish priests sometime during the postexilic period as an exercise in national self-definition. You can look that up on Wikipedia. And, while we’re at it, a bit more Christology applied to the Old Testament text would be nice.” “Um, Rach, the sermon today was about humility.” Lord, have mercy. See, I’ve got this coping mechanism thing where, when I’m feeling frightened or vulnerable or over my head, I intellectualize the situation to try and regain a sense of control. . . . In some religious traditions, this particular coping mechanism is known as pride. I confess I preened it. I scoffed at the idea of being taught or led. Deconstructing was so much safer than trusting, so much easier than letting people in. I knew exactly what type of Christian I didn’t want to be, but I was too frightened, or too rebellious, or too wounded, to imagine what might be next. Like a garish conch shell, my cynicism protected me from disappointment, or so I believed, so I expected the worst and smirked when I found it. So many of our sins begin with fear . . .

WE ARE THE ONLY TRUE MEDIUMS We the carriers of memory We the conductors and receivers We the stars and suns on earth We the databases of consciousness We the un-system, we the rhythm We the message We the book that’s being written Read spoken and translated Connected across generations with everything living Like planets and seashells in an infinite spiral Where you can’t isolate nothing Where the text is an experience Where borders can’t even be drawn Where lines can’t be drawn because the spiral lasts forever Where the concepts of borders, scripts, divisions, mine, yours The isolation of orthodox science fails Falls We are the true countries We the quantum ur-power stations of nature We the most perfect, most developed technology on Earth Before taxes and birth certificates of fictions This text are the bodies of your ∞ being This text is your body We the transmitters We the books of life The living song Transferrable Open Non-privatizable We the hearts of the earth We the pulse and beat and the harmony of bodies Against the cogs of antediluvian wheels We the trans-national We the divided We the displaced The self-deported and driven further Erased but devious Pagans deported on sunlight and wind Unrealized partisans Wet from the struggle and the fear of lies Of revolutions Whose rotation’s Currency is blood The wealth of nations we are The treasures The brokers of sources of inexhaustible energies Unbuyable Non-privatizable Immortal Because alive We the transmitters We the books of life The living song Transmittable Open Non-privatizable

An upbeat song played over the loudspeaker, and everyone's attention focused on the Jumbotron above the basketball court. "It's time for the Bulls' Kiss Cam. So, pucker up for your sweetie and kiss them." The camera found an older couple in their fifties. The man pulled his wife, I assumed, in for a quick peck on the lips. "Aww. That is so sweet," Trina said. She proceeded to yank poor Owen to his seat in case the spotlight landed on them. She'd do just about anything to get on television, even if it meant not kissing Owen tonight to do so. "That is so staged," I said and sneaked a quick peek at my phone, seeing if he messaged me back. He didn’t. "Really?" she countered and slapped my arm. Once I glanced her way, she pointed towards the large screen looming above. On the screen was Sebastian and me as the camera had just so happened to find us. It stayed there zooming closer. And closer. And closer. "Come on," the announcer called out, prodding us. "Just one kiss won't hurt." He had no idea what he was asking. A kiss would initiate feelings I couldn't avoid any longer. I momentarily forgot how to breathe as the song, “Kiss the Girl” from the Little Mermaid hummed at my lips. Not the best choice, but still. Everything became much worse once my giant moved into view, smiling my favorite smile. Sebastian inched closer; eyebrow cocked to dare me."No pressure or anything." I was quiet for a moment before whispering, "Game on, buddy." My eyes closed a few heartbeats shy of Sebastian's lips meeting mine. His hands rose, cupping my cheeks to keep me from pulling away. Like that was going to happen. Sebastian’s mouth moved against mine, and I conceded, kissing him in return. He tasted sweet and minty, like the home I’d been missing. The kiss turned from soft and tame to fierce and wantingas if neither of us could get enough. And already, I considered myself a goner. Everything became a haze. My heart thumped so wildly against my chest, I swore Sebastian could hear. The crowd surrounding us was whistling and cheering us on, and it only kept gaining momentum as the moments passed. The noise quickly faded until it was as if we were the only two people in the room. We could have been the only two people on earth. "Okay, guys." Trina tapped my shoulder, garnering my attention. "Camera has moved on now." That was our cue to separate, and I slowly drew away from Sebastian. He, in turn, slipped his hand to the back of my neck, holding me here. "Don't," he sighed against my lips. I didn't budge another inch. I didn't want to. Sebastian rewarded me by deepening the kiss. Dear God. There were sparks. My stomach flipped. My toes curled. My body warmed. Every single inch of me only wanted one thing and one thing only. If this continued for too much longer, it was easy to guess my new favorite hobby: Kissing Sebastian Freaking Birch. Needing some air, I pressed my palm flat against his chest. This time he released me as we both were breathless. Sebastian's eyes carefully studied me. He kept staring as if he could read my heart, my mind. And for those brief few seconds, I honestly didn't believe there were any secrets between us. His gaze shifted as he gauged what to do next, and I had no freaking idea where we went from here. We'd done it now. We crossed that line, and there was no way of ever going back.

A song gets absorbed into our imagination in a way that mere texts rarely do.

Finally, the ethical staying power of the Apocalypse is a product of its imaginative richness. The text throbs with theopoetic energy, expressed in its numerous songs of praise and worship. It is no accident that Milton drew inspiration from Revelation or that Handel found the lyrics for the climactic choruses of the Messiah (“Hallelujah” and “Worthy Is the Lamb”) in the poetry of Revelation: “The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (based on Rev. 11:15).

a poem called “Duan Na Muthairn,” or “Rune of the Muthairn.” These were drawn from a collection by Alexander Carmichael called Carmina Gadelica, published in 1900, which was at the forefront of the Gaelic revival movement of the time period. The song is performed in Gaelic by Raya Yarbrough. In English, the text means: Thou King of the moon, Thou King of the sun, Thou King of the planets, Thou King of the stars, Thou King of the globe, Thou King of the sky, Oh! lovely Thy countenance, Thou beauteous Beam.

In late 1968, Manson seized upon a new text for his prophecies: a musical training manual designed to help him create an army out of his cult—the Beatles’ 1968 album known as “the White Album.” Manson said that the Beatles had channeled his own teachings and used them to create the White Album, which he saw as a vehicle for sharing those teachings with the world. Whether Manson truly believed this fanciful idea is difficult to discern, but his starving, acid-frazzled followers believed it wholeheartedly. According to Manson, the White Album expressed the Beatles’ need for a spiritual savior and contained coded messages explicitly directed at him. Manson was, he believed, the savior the Beatles were looking for. Manson also used the coincidence of the Beatle’s song “Sexy Sadie,” his nickname for follower Susan Atkins, to prove his point and focused on the lyrics of “Piggies,” a song about class struggle, assuring his followers that they were the piggies the Beatles were writing about.

Here is the average person’s daily attention training: they wake up in the morning, not peacefully, usually to some loud song or blaring alarm clock. They check their mobile phone for any messages, just to see if anyone missed them. Then they jump out of bed into the shower and there they think about a hundred and ten things that they need to worry about or need to do. Unfortunately, they haven’t allowed themselves enough time to get ready and can only manage a small unhealthy breakfast and fill up with coffee. They get in their car, put the radio on, make phone calls, or even try to text messages in the traffic. They get all angry, and they get all worked up about the traffic. The traffic is there and won’t change; yet, they think it should change. In fact, we worry and focus our attention on a ‘million’ things which can all wait for the appropriate time, but we allow our attention to be pulled in different directions.

What’d you think?” Dan asked as we buckled into the Acclaim after another Sunday under the big top. “I wonder if they realize their worship songs include both amillennial and premillennial theology,” I said with a sigh. “Also, what’s this business from the preacher about Moses writing Numbers? I mean, everyone knows Moses didn’t actually write the book of Numbers. It originated from a combination of written and oral tradition and was assembled and edited by Jewish priests sometime during the postexilic period as an exercise in national self-definition. You can look that up on Wikipedia. And, while we’re at it, a bit more Christology applied to the Old Testament text would be nice.” “Um, Rach, the sermon today was about humility.” Lord, have mercy.

I sent him a text that said: I’m SO sorry. This is Jasper on Ash’s phone, by the way. I didn’t expect Nana to kidnap you. Should we try to distract her? A minute later, he replied: Nah, she’s adorable. I’ll message you when she finishes with me. Right now, she’s trying to come up with a rhyme for wieners. Let’s hope to god I can talk her into an instrumental theme song. I

The Bhagavad Gita, written between 1000 and 500 BCE, translates to “Song of God” and is the philosophical part of a greater text called the Mahabharata, written by the sage Vyasa. The story represents the battle within ourselves—between the higher and lower qualities. It’s a conversation between Arjuna, a warrior (the lower qualities), and Krishna, an incarnation of Brahman (the higher qualities; see here). Arjuna, paralyzed on the battlefield, realizes he has to fight his old teacher and his family, who have terrorized the kingdom. His fight is righteous, but his attachments to his past make it hard for him to take action and do his duty. This battle is a parallel to the battle in our own lives. Our daily interactions and challenges are our battlefield, where we are constantly confronted with choosing the higher or lower options. The Bhagavad Gita helps us understand how to reach for the higher option—continually and consciously.

Applying the historical-critical methods of modern biblical studies, scholars of Buddhism—buddhologists—have shown that canonical Zen texts were in fact written down and revised by later generations of monks and literati rather than being literal transcripts of the words of the masters. To begin with, the story of Bodhidharma, who is said to have brought Zen from India to China sometime around 500 ce, has been revealed to be largely a symbolic fabrication by later generations, even if in part based on an actual historical person. Moreover, much of the foundational Zen lore regarding the words and acts of the golden age of Zen masters in the Tang Dynasty (618–906 ce), it turns out, was edited and embellished by masters and other monks and literati in the Song Dynasty (960–1279). The narratives and teachings recorded in the Transmission of the Lamp [of Enlightenment] literature—from which the episodes and encounter dialogues that appear in the kōan collections were drawn—were subjected to revision not only for pedagogical purposes but also for the sake of pious hagiography and sectarian polemics.

By chance – but it is not by chance – I open the preface to the Veda of my friend and master and ask whoever will listen to me: What would you save from a house in flames? A precious, irreplaceable manuscript containing a message of salvation for the human race or a small number of people threatened by that fire? The dilemma is real and not only for the writer: how can one only be an ‘intellectual, interested in the truth, or only a ‘spiritual person’ engaged in goodness, when people desperately beg for food and justice? How can one follow a contemplative, philosophical or even religious path when the world requires action, commitment and politics? Vice versa, how can one act to make a better world or an indispensable revolution when what one needs is a serene intuition and a just evaluation? It should be clear to all who share life on our planet that the house in flames is not a fact that involves only one individual. Why was I created? Why, having been saved, do I still exist? How must I live and what can I do? My reader said: If I am not ready to save the manuscript from the fire, if I don’t take my intellectual vocation seriously, placing it before everything else – even at the risk of appearing inhuman –, then I am also incapable of helping people in a more serious and immediate manner. Vice versa, if I am not attentive and ready to save people from a outbreak of fire, which means, if I don’t consider my spiritual calling with total honesty, sacrificing all the rest for it, even my own life, then I will be incapable of saving the manuscript. If I let myself be involved in the solid problems of my times and if I don’t open my home to all of the winds of the world, then whatever I produce from an ivory tower will be sterile and cursed. Also, if I don’t close the doors and windows in order to concentrate on this work, I will not be able to offer anything of value to my neighbour. I hear each book on my shelves shouting in silence: In truth, the manuscript can come out of the flames charred and people burned, but the intensity of one preoccupation has helped me with the other. The dilemma is not to choose the monastery or the disco, Harvard or Chanakyapuri (the Vatican or the Quirinal), tradition or progress, politics or academia, the Church or the State, justice or truth. In a word, reality is not a matter of ‘either...or’, it is not a matter of choosing between spirit and matter, contemplation and action, written message and living persons, East and West, theory and approach or even between divine and human.1 My sense and destiny are inscribed in these words. I am a library, thus I exist in the world and thanks to men who have written, printed, bought and guarded my texts, I exist for them and in their world. I exist also because a man has existed. 1

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it, like the rest. And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, I’ll sing the old, old story that I have loved so long. I love to tell the story; I’ll sing this theme in glory and tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. (625)

I find it curious that the Bible allowed so many authors in a collection so important to setting the trajectory of a people. In my Protestant tradition, we acknowledge sixty-six books of the Bible. Within those sixty-six writings, who would dare to venture counting the number of fingerprints on those pages? In the collection known as the Psalms alone, a whole gang of psalmists are identified as contributors. That’s to say nothing of letters like Hebrews, where no author is identified. And let’s not get started on books where biblical scholars aren’t so convinced that the author named in the book actually owned the hand moving the quill. I won’t lie to you: I feel like God chose an awfully sloppy process if the goal was for us to receive each and every single word as though it were spoken by the mouth of the same God. God could’ve given it all to Moses on Sinai that first time and provided a little more uniformity to all of this. But that is not what happened. Instead, we are left with a collection of various writings: wisdom literature, poems, songs, letters, teachings, sermons—and even some stories that seem a lot like what we’d now consider folktales. We even have some writings put in there twice. Either God is a sloppy editor, or the voice of the people was preserved in the text on purpose. If God is a sloppy editor, then the Bible is of marginal value. If the voice of the people is preserved in this text, then the Bible is an invitation to seek God in our history, present, and future.

Gaffer’s torch powers on and then it is turned off again. It is then the sea is visible, the sound of the ocean woven with the racing breeze as they cross a road and follow a sandy path through dunes onto a beach and she knows the name of this beach, she has been here so many times before, and there is a man standing in a pale anorak with his hood pulled up texting into a phone and she sees two inflatable boats by the water’s edge and something inside her is flung when she sees the ocean dark and barren but for the rollers breaking whitely by the headland.

While Jeremiah does not speak of God “calling” him, Isaiah’s second Song of the Servant of the Lord does speak of being called: Before birth the LORD called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. (Isa 49:1, italics added) This prophecy would have caught Paul’s attention because it declares God’s plan for the Gentiles: It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. (Isa 49:6) Acts records that Paul applied this text to his own apostolate to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47).

each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me,        and through each night I sing his songs,        praying to God who gives me life.

Theology God is triune, and the church is plural. Philosophy Groups are foundational for transformation. Practice We offer groups that _____, move people to groups by ______, etc. Theology Christ is the Word incarnate, and the Scripture is His special revelation to us. Philosophy The text must be heralded in all teaching environments. Practice We teach the Word to adults, students, and kids by ____________. Theology God became Man (incarnation) to rescue us. Philosophy We must step into our local context and serve. Practice We serve our local community by __________. Theology Christ redeemed us for His own glory. Corporate worship must celebrate what Christ has done. Philosophy We sing songs that focus on His character and work, not ours. Practice We structure singing in our services by ______________. Theology Christ has made all believers priests. Philosophy All believers are qualified by God to serve the body of believers. Practice We challenge our people to serve in the following ways: ______________.

Learning to read and write disables the oral poet, Lord found: it introduces into his mind the concept of a text as controlling the narrative and thereby interferes with the oral composing processes, which have nothing to do with texts but are ‘the remembrance of songs sung

Psalm 101 A psalm of David. 1 I will sing of your love and justice, LORD.        I will praise you with songs. 2 I will be careful to live a blameless life—        when will you come to help me?    I will lead a life of integrity        in my own home. 3 I will refuse to look at        anything vile and vulgar.    I hate all who deal crookedly;        I will have nothing to do with them. 4 I will reject perverse ideas        and stay away from every evil.

Psalm 67 For the choir director: A song. A psalm, to be accompanied by stringed instruments. 1 May God be merciful and bless us.        May his face smile with favor on us. Interlude 2 May your ways be known throughout the earth,        your saving power among people everywhere. 3 May the nations praise you, O God.        Yes, may all the nations praise you. 4 Let the whole world sing for joy,        because you govern the nations with justice        and guide the people of the whole world. Interlude 5 May the nations praise you, O God.        Yes, may all the nations praise you. 6 Then the earth will yield its harvests,        and God, our God, will richly bless us. 7 Yes, God will bless us,        and people all over the world will fear him.

The Song of Songs, the book of Ruth, and the cycle of stories associated with King David demonstrate that biblical perspectives on sexual desire and family ties remain much more complicated than is often thought. The appropriate expression of desire is not limited to marriage between a man and a woman, but can include the love of a son of a king for his charismatic ally, the love of rabbis and theologians for God, their “husband,” and the love of a faithful Moabite for her Israelite mother-in-law. The nuclear family is also not idealized: Naomi, Ruth, and Obed are a family, bound together by their common love for one another, and, in the Song of Songs, the woman’s mother supports her daughter’s premarital encounters over the objections of her sons, who seek to control their sister’s sexuality and are overruled. King David never even bothers to pursue marriage as commonly envisioned today. His

Biblical desire refuses to be limited to marriage: the lovers of the Song consummate their longing before any marriage ceremony takes place, Ruth “uncovers Boaz’s feet” before Boaz has established his “right to redeem,” and David fathers a child with Bathsheba while she is still married to Uriah. In other words, when all the biblical books are taken into account, no simple message regarding the meaning and limits of desire can be found. In fact, the passages considered in this chapter suggest that nonmarital desire can be both limitless and productive. If Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, Jonathan, David, or Bathsheba had listened to Christian educator Bonnie Park, Obed and Solomon would never have been born. As

I heard one preach a sermon on these words in the song, Song iv. 1, Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair.  But at that time he made these two words, my love, his chief and subject matter: from which, after he had a little opened the text, he observed these several conclusions: 1. That the church, and so every saved soul, is Christ’s love, when loveless.  2. Christ’s love without a cause.  3. Christ’s love, when hated of the world.  4. Christ’s love, when under temptation and under destruction.  5. Christ’s love, from first to last. 90.  But I got nothing by what he said at present; only when he came to the application of the fourth particular, this was the word he said; If it be so, that the saved soul is Christ’s love, when under temptation and desertion; then poor tempted soul, when thou art assaulted, and afflicted with temptations, and the hidings of God’s face, yet think on these two words, ‘My love,’ still.

Former and future nerdistocracy slowly, and to look at them you’d think reluctantly, filtering back out into the street, into the long September which has been with them in a virtual way since spring before last, continuing only to deepen. Putting their street faces back on for it. Faces already under silent assault, as if by something ahead, some Y2K of the workweek that no one is quite imagining, the crowds drifting slowly out into the little legendary streets, the highs beginning to dissipate, out into the casting-off of veils before the luminosities of dawn, a sea of T-shirts nobody’s reading, a clamor of messages nobody’s getting, as if it’s the true text history of nights in the Alley, outcries to be attended to and not be lost, the 3:00 am kozmo deliveries to code sessions and all-night shredding parties, the bedfellows who came and went, the bands in the clubs, the songs whose hooks still wait to ambush an idle hour, the day jobs with meetings about meetings and bosses without clue, the unreal strings of zeros, the business models changing one minute to the next, the start-up parties every night of the week and more on Thursdays than you could keep track of, which of these faces so claimed by the time, the epoch whose end they’ve been celebrating all night—which of them can see ahead, among the microclimates of binary, tracking earthwide everywhere through dark fiber and twisted pairs and nowadays wirelessly through spaces public and private, anywhere among cybersweatshop needles flashing and never still, in that unquiet vastly stitched and unstitched tapestry they have all at some time sat growing crippled in the service of—to the shape of the day imminent, a procedure waiting execution, about to be revealed, a search result with no instructions on how to look for it?

I will sing a new song to you, O God!        I will sing your praises with a ten-stringed harp. 10 For you grant victory to kings!        You rescued your servant David from the fatal sword.

For Filipinos, revolution was not just a crash course in warfare, it was a school of learning. The forms of writing and composition corresponded to the exigencies of the time: proclamations, manifestoes, improvisatory theater, verses, and songs. The literature produced was not just war propaganda but texts that aimed to constitute a nation.

In Welsh tradition, Gwyn was known as the “King under the hill.” He is associated with certain hills, beneath which he was said to have his palace. Place names like that of the hill-fort of Caer Drewyn near Corwen are thought to have originated from Tref Wyn, “the homestead of Gwyn.” Gwyn is also associated with the tradition of the Wild Hunt, which is found in many lands. Given the nature of the Wild Hunt and the gathering of human souls, it should come as no surprise that Gwyn is a psychopomp and is described very clearly as such in The Black Book of Carmarthen, one of the oldest surviving texts written in Welsh.

Song of the Dark Man is an important text, one that fills a notable gap in the annals of “occult” research. It provides a dedicated focus on a key, one may even say foundational, subject: the “Dark Man” of the Witches’ Sabbath—a being of myth but also a shapeshifter, one who is prone to stepping out of the world of folklore and taking on an all too real presence in the lives of those who encounter him.

There’s no response and Coco wonders if now is the time to panic. Her previous three texts—one sent yesterday afternoon from the St. Thomas airport, one sent last night from the Orlando airport (where she shoplifted the new Kristin Hannah book from Hudson News because she’d finished her Jesmyn Ward novel on the plane), and one this morning before takeoff—have gone unanswered. She checks her email. There’s nothing new from Bull Richardson but she’s at least able to reread his previous correspondence:

Ossian’s star faded as evidence emerged that there was little to Macpherson’s claims to have translated the poems from third-century Scots Gaelic texts, and in fact they were largely a construct of Irish Fenian mythology, Gaelic songs, and Macpherson’s own creativity. The whole affair would have appealed to the Dark Man’s sense of humor.

Our sacred text describes the state before creation as tohu wa-bohu, without form and void, a sea of waste and chaos, infinitely perplexed. And, as it turns out, that’s not a bad way to think about emptiness. Certain physicists suggest that the empty space actually roils and tosses about as quantum particles appear and disappear, tiny bits of light creating ripples as they arrive and go out.

Love's Crossroads [Verse] I see you standing there, a smile that could light up the night, Your eyes are calling me, but I know it wouldn’t be right. I got one at home who loves me, waiting up till dawn, And though my heart is aching, I gotta move along. [Verse 2] On this dusty road, I’ve wandered far and wide, Temptation’s always knocking, hard to keep it outside. I hold my wedding ring, a circle made of gold, Promises we kept whisper in my soul. [Chorus] Love's crossroads, where true hearts always meet, Every choice is heavy, though the moment feels sweet. Got a lady back in Tennessee, my heart she's owned for life, So I'll turn away from you, I can't betray my wife. [Verse 3] The jukebox in the corner, plays an old and lonesome song, Two-step thoughts of dancing, but it wouldn't last too long. She’s texting me “I miss you,” while I’m looking in your eyes, But I shake off temptation, and remember my ties. [Bridge] It’s a hard road to travel, walking straight and true, When every stranger's glance feels like a gentle skew. But I'll keep on this path, bound by love so deep, Knowing she's at home, that's the promise I keep. [Chorus] Love's crossroads, where true hearts always meet, Every choice is heavy, though the moment feels sweet. Got a lady back in Tennessee, my heart she's owned for life, So I'll turn away from you, I can't betray my wife.

But rewards and upheavals on the road ahead can and regularly do influence us while we are awake—and in many of the same ways Freud identified as waking manifestations of the unconscious: via uncanny out-of-the-blue feelings, via misperceptions of speech or texts, via slips of the tongue or pen, via songs that get stuck in our head—the lyrics of “earworms,” I find, sometimes relate to something that will happen later that day—and just generally via “random” thoughts and obsessions that end up corresponding to some imminent unpredictable encounter or experience.

One attractive, unique feature of the worship services in Georgia was their use of hymns, facilitated by Wesley’s publication of A Collection of Psalms and Hymns in 1737, the first English hymn book published in America. None of the hymns are by Charles, who had not yet been tapped by his poetic muse. These texts, many translated by John from the German, express the heart of a pietism grounded in Scripture and elucidate the themes that are central to Wesley’s spiritual quest—utter dependency upon grace, the centrality of love, and the desire for genuine fire to inflame his cold heart (see Zinzendorf’s bridal song of the soul).

I think of the good old days, long since ended, 6 when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

I come to your altar, O LORD, 7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders.

It only took two hundred and fourty days seven hours twenty-six minutes and eighteen seconds But I can finally say it: I'm over you. I no longer thing about the way your hips move when you walk the way your lips move when you read the way you always took your glove off before you held my hand so you could feel me I've completly forgotten about texts in the middle of the night, saying you love me, miss me inside jokes no one else thinks are funny songs that made you want to pull your car over and kiss me immediately I can't remember how your voice sounds how your mouth tastes how your bedroom looks when the sun first comes up. I can't recall exactly what you said that day what I was wearing how long it took me to start crying. It only took two hundred and fourty days seven hours twenty-six minutes and eighteen seconds to wipe you from my memory. But if you said you wanted me again today or tomorrow or two hundred and fourty days seven hours twenty-six minutes and eighteen seconds from now, I'm sure it would all come back to me.

The number one mistake in rhyming texts is when the rhyme overwhelms the story rather than serving the story. The monotony of a 32-page story all told in the same rhythm can wear a reader down after a few pages. As an editor, I often start these submissions thinking, “Okay, let’s see if this can be sustained . . .” and after a few stanzas say, “Oh please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” The sing-song-y-ness of “dah-duh dah-duh dah-duh, dah-dah” in line after line pummels a reader with sameness. It also encourages authors to make terrible word choices: odd or forced descriptions or line endings because that last word HAS. TO. RHYME. My test: Extract a line out of your rhyming text and ask yourself if you’d write it the same way if it DIDN’T have to rhyme. If the answer is no, it’s a bad line. The rhyming has to feel effortless." Frances Gilbert On Rhyming Picture Books in Goodreads  "The number one mistake in rhyming texts is when the rhyme overwhelms the story rather than serving the story. The monotony of a 32-page story all told in the same rhythm can wear a reader down after a few pages. As an editor, I often start these submissions thinking, “Okay, let’s see if this can be sustained . . .” and after a few stanzas say, “Oh please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” The sing-song-y-ness of “dah-duh dah-duh dah-duh, dah-dah” in line after line pummels a reader with sameness. It also encourages authors to make terrible word choices: odd or forced descriptions or line endings because that last word HAS. TO. RHYME. My test: Extract a line out of your rhyming text and ask yourself if you’d write it the same way if it DIDN’T have to rhyme. If the answer is no, it’s a bad line. The rhyming has to feel effortless." Frances Gilbert On Rhyming Picture Books in Goodreads  "The number one mistake in rhyming texts is when the rhyme overwhelms the story rather than serving the story. The monotony of a 32-page story all told in the same rhythm can wear a reader down after a few pages. As an editor, I often start these submissions thinking, “Okay, let’s see if this can be sustained . . .” and after a few stanzas say, “Oh please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” The sing-song-y-ness of “dah-duh dah-duh dah-duh, dah-dah” in line after line pummels a reader with sameness. It also encourages authors to make terrible word choices: odd or forced descriptions or line endings because that last word HAS. TO. RHYME. My test: Extract a line out of your rhyming text and ask yourself if you’d write it the same way if it DIDN’T have to rhyme. If the answer is no, it’s a bad line. The rhyming has to feel effortless." Frances Gilbert On Rhyming Picture Books in Goodreads  "The number one mistake in rhyming texts is when the rhyme overwhelms the story rather than serving the story. The monotony of a 32-page story all told in the same rhythm can wear a reader down after a few pages. As an editor, I often start these submissions thinking, “Okay, let’s see if this can be sustained . . .” and after a few stanzas say, “Oh please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” The sing-song-y-ness of “dah-duh dah-duh dah-duh, dah-dah” in line after line pummels a reader with sameness. It also encourages authors to make terrible word choices: odd or forced descriptions or line endings because that last word HAS. TO. RHYME. My test: Extract a line out of your rhyming text and ask yourself if you’d write it the same way if it DIDN’T have to rhyme. If the answer is no, it’s a bad line. The rhyming has to feel effortless." Frances Gilbert On Rhyming Picture Books in Goodreads  "The number one mistake in rhyming texts is when the rhyme overwhelms the story rather than serving the story. The monotony of a 32-page story all told in the same rhythm can wear a reader down after a few pages. As an editor, I often start these submissions thinking, “Okay, let’s see if this can be sustained . . .” and after a few stanzas say, “Oh please stop. I can’t do this anymore.” =

Nevertheless, I like to quote one of Seneca’s affirmations: «It’s not important how many books it has, but rather, how many of them are good», for instance, in this case numbers are not everything and I remember that Panikkar himself used to say: «The importance of a text rests not in what it says, but mainly in what each person reads there and in the overall interpretation that each era has given to it».

It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements: the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons, the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars, the natures of animals and the tempers of wild beasts, the powers of spirits and the reasonings of men, the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots; I learned both what is secret and what is manifest’ (Wisdom 7.17-21). He shows thus, without any possible doubt, that everything that is seen is related to something hidden. That is to say that each visible reality is a symbol, and refers to an invisible reality to which it is related. Origen Commentary on the Song of Songs, 3 (GCS 8,208

In both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, narrative and other more-or-less literary forms are dominant, which seems to call for a strategy of reading for understanding similar to what one might use in an encounter with, say, Homer; but these books’ status as sacred text suggests, to many modern readers anyway, that their purpose is to provide information about God and God’s relation to human beings. “Strip-mining” the Psalms, or the Song of Solomon, or even the more elevated discourses of the Gospel of John, “for relevant content” might not seem like a promising strategy, but many generations of pastors have pushed it pretty hard, as though the Bible were no more than an awkwardly coded advice manual.)

in the empty space between words where our song may be sung, you may experience the infinite where you are known beyond form,

Everybody said he’d break my heart, and I knew that too. But only young can risk. It could have been worse. I could have been forty, he could have been married. But we were twenty four, and that was Valentine. I sent another text, five hundred and ninth. Because he lied, he said he was single that time. And since I was twenty four, I risked it all. I fell in love with the guy, who got the most adorable smile. I gave him all of my heart and he didn’t even give me a reply.