Unbelievable Beauty Quotes

It is a dangerous thing to unbelieve something only because it frightens you.

You're incredibly, absolutely, extremely, supremely, unbelievably different.

He laughed once. "Unbelievable. The one girl I want, and she doesn't want me.

What an utter disgrace it would be to find something truly magic and spend any time at all pretending and trying to convince yourself it is all just an unbelievably orchestrated and beautifully choreographed illusion.

You naked in my bed is even more unbelievably beautiful than I thought it would be... and trust me I've thought about it. A lot.

He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that?

Nice words and nice appearance doesn't conclude that someone is nice, i believe that the nicer you look, the more deceptive you appear.

If someone like you, someone as unbelievably beautiful as you, as crazy and sweet as you, filled with attitude and courage with her heart in the right place, in a lot of right places even though her head normally isn’t… if someone like you shares her bed with me, then that says something about me.

It was unbelievable. She was standing there, staring at him like he was a real rock star.

What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?" he asks me. We're sitting on the bank of a stream and he's tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a gray tee. So adorable. "What?" I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn't even told me the punch line. He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he's mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that? "Dam!" he says.

I knew she would be beautiful today, of course I knew, but this is unbelievable. Never in all my years of Christianity has there been talk of an angel like this. My God, she is not even walking, she floats around the room.

Rose LeBlanc got her name for a reason. She was full of fucking thorns. She was so beautiful—so ridiculously, unbelievably alluring—that just like real roses, she grew little spikes to protect herself. Because everyone wanted to have her.

But you… you have no fucking clue how unbelievably beautiful and desirable you are. You’re not calculating and selfish. And you make me want to be better. --Woods

My beautiful swan. My savior and my undoing.

She was so overwhelmingly beautiful and impressive, he found it too much to handle. He could barely believe any of his new memroies, but the idea that Isabelle Lightwood had been his girlfriend seemed more unbelievable than the fact that vampires were real and Simon had been one. He didn't have the faintest idea how he had made her feel that way about him once, and so he didn't have the faintest idea how to make her feel that way about him again. It was like asking him to fly.

Ultron: Stark asked for a savior, and settled for a slave. The Vision: I suppose we're both disappointments. Ultron: [laughs] I suppose we are. The Vision: Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that. Ultron: They're doomed! The Vision: Yes... but a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It is a privilege to be among them. Ultron: You're unbelievably naïve. The Vision: Well, I was born yesterday.

I could really appreciate him now - could properly see every beautiful line of his perfect face, of his long, flawless body with my strong new eyes, every angle and every plane of him. I could taste his pure, vivid scent on my tongue and feel the unbelievable silkiness of his marble skin under my sensitive fingertips.

She was right about something else too,ʺ Dimitri said after a long pause. My back was to him, but there was a strange quality to his voice that made me turn around. ʺWhatʹs that?ʺ I asked. ʺThat I do still love you.ʺ With that one sentence, everything in the universe changed. Time slowed to one heartbeat. The world became his eyes, his voice. This wasnʹt happening. It wasnʹt real. None of it could be real. It felt like a spirit dream. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and see if Iʹd wake up moments later. No. No matter how unbelievable it all seemed, this was no dream. This was real. This was life. This was flesh and blood. ʺSince . . . since when?ʺ I finally managed to ask. ʺSince . . . forever.ʺ His tone implied the answer was obvious. ʺI denied it when I was restored. I had no room for anything in my heart except guilt. I especially felt guilty about you—what Iʹd done—and I pushed you away. I put up a wall to keep you safe. It worked for a while—until my heart finally started accepting other emotions. And it all came back. Everything I felt for you. It had never left; it was just hidden from me until I was ready. And again . . . that alley was the turning point. I looked at you . . . saw your goodness, your hope, and your faith. Those are what make you beautiful. So, so beautiful.

There's a particular peace and unbelievable beauty that comes when you finally decide to let go of what no longer serves your purpose.

Without Christ, every woman has intense insecurities. Unless we find our identity in Him, we Christian women can be just as prone to insecurities about our appearance as unbelievers. To Christ, the most beautiful person on earth is the one making preparation to meet the Groom.

She’s so beautiful, I can hardly believe it, hardly breathe. Her soul is stunning. Her very being is bright and bold and so unbelievably better than I am. She is a good beyond my grasp, one that I am not worthy of glimpsing, let alone grabbing hold of.

You know how sometimes when you come home and you haven't seen a place for so long that it seems unbelievably beautiful, and you want to cry because you love it so much you think it's going to break your heart? I felt like that, too. I am HOME.

Then, unbelievably, out of the mist came the miracle. First two points of mast, then sails, transparent and wraithlike in the fog, then, as Kit strained her eyes, the looming hull, the prow, and the curved tail of a fish. The Dolphin! Glory be to heaven! The most beautiful sight in the world! The Dolphin, moving down toward Wright’s Island on a steady breeze.

Doesn't it make you feel kind of awesome that the world is beautiful for no other apparent reason that that it is? Like beauty has its own secret reason. It doesn't need human eyes to notice. It just wants to be glorious and unbelievable.

Do you remember when I told you that I sometimes believe that you’re not real? That I imagined you just to hurt myself?” Reed says softly with a bitterly self-effacing laugh that has nothing to do with humor. “I know now that you have to be real. This kind of pain cannot exist if you were imaginary,” Reed’s sexy voice breathes. I feel like I could reach out and touch him, he feels that close to me. “I know you exist, but you’re like a sunset to me now—beautiful and so distant that no matter how fast I fly, I cannot reach you. You are always on the next horizon,” Reed says sadly, and my breath catches in my throat as an unbelievable ache throbs in my chest. “Tel me where you are. I wil meet you— wherever you are in the world. I wil be there. Just you and me, I swear it. We don’t have to endanger anyone else— we’l make sure Buns and Brownie and Zephyr are safe. Just you and me, I promise…I wil meet you anywhere at anytime…I wil …

She is a cat," he thought. "That's all she is—a cat!" But that was not how his mind saw her—quick beyond all dreams of speed, sharp, clever, unbelievably graceful, beautiful, wordless and undemanding. Where would he ever find a woman who could compare with her?

a realisation of my blessings began to return when I slid into bed and Helen, instead of shrinking away from me as it would have been natural to do, deliberately draped her feet and legs over the human ice block that was her husband. The bliss was unbelievable. It was worth getting out just to come back to this.

The best part of the ceremony was after Shy kissed his bride, and when we were done, he didn't let go. So I stood in his arms, my thumb stroking his jaw, my eyes gazing up at him. the world had melted away, so I didn't hear the hoots and hollers of friends and family. I only heard what he muttered in a voice that was weirdly raw but unbelievable beautiful: "Like I'm the only man on the planet." In that minute, he was but then again, for me, really, when it came down to it, he always had been.

I don't know, where i am going But i know, i am on my way I don't know, what i am doing But i know, it is right I don't know , what i see But i know, it is beautiful I don't know, what i hear But i know, it is sweet I don't know, who i am But i know, i am nothing

Rose. Briar Rose. She was named after a flower that was thorny and green and strong and beautiful, with moments of unbelievable softness in white and pink.

He knows what an unbelievably beautiful circumstance he could be in with you,” he adds with a smile.

Every morning he comes to the top of the stairs and looks down over the club and he stands there, so big and powerful and beautiful and..." She swallows hard like her mouth just went totally dry. "Sexy. God, so unbelievably sexy." Her eyes get a weird, intense look like she's remembering something, then she makes a soft noise and doesn't say anything for a second.

Yeah. But I really don’t. It’s just . . .” He holds my eyes. His are a dark, beautiful brown. “I like you very much, Mara. I like talking to you. I like watching you do yoga. I like the way you always smell like sunscreen. I like how you manage to say pretty much whatever you want while still being unbelievably kind. I like being in this house with you, and everything we do in here.” His throat bobs. “I don’t think it’s a surprise that I really, really like the idea of fucking you.

Because a new love affair always gives hope, the irrational mortal loneliness is always crowned, that thing I saw (that horror of a snake emptiness) when I took the deep iodine deathbreath on the Big Sur beach is now justified and hosannah'd and raised up like a sacred urn to Heaven in the mere fact of the taking off of clothes and clashing wits and bodies in the inexpressibly nervously sad delight of love- don't let no old fogies tell you otherwise, and on top of that nobody in the world even ever dares to write the true story of lovem it's awful, we're stuck with a 50% incomplete literature and drama- lying mouth to mouth, kiss to kiss in the pillow dark, loin to loin in unbelievable surrendering sweetness so distant from all our mental fearful abstractions it makes you wonder why men have termed God antisexual somehow- the secret underground truth of mad desire hiding under fenders under buried junkyards throughout the world, never mentioned in newspapers, written about haltingly and like corn by authors and painted tongue in cheek by artists, agh, just listen to Tristan und Isolde by Wagner and think of him in a Bavarian field with his beloved naked beauty under fall leaves.

She’s so beautiful I can hardly believe it, hardly breathe. Her soul is stunning. Her very being is bright and bold and so unbelievably better than I am. She is a good beyond my grasp, one that I am not worthy of glimpsing let alone grabbing hold of.

His eyes undress his ancient unrevealable emotions. … A suffocating pain is hidden in his eyes. His heart is locked in the depth of the eternal abyss. … His smile ripped my soul and hypnotized my brain, … Seduced in an indescribable agony of dreams. … I had dreams haphazardly about a phantasmagorical creature, unbelievably beautiful, … I felt his touch disintegrating my entire body, it was the apogee of an unborn world and the fallen of the existing one, (fragment from Bewitched, chapter Passion)

Covenant did not reply at once. He trembled also, and hand to clench himself before he could say without a tremor, "Why? Why do you trust me?" The Hirebrand's eyes gleamed as if he were on the verge of tears, but he was smiling as he said, "You are a man who knows the value of beauty."

I tell you, they were not men after spoils and glory; they were boys riding the sheer tremendous tidal wave of desperate living. Boys. Because this. This is beautiful. Listen. Try to see it. Here is that fine shape of eternal youth and virginal desire which makes heroes. That makes the doings of heroes border so close upon the unbelievable that it is no wonder that their doings must emerge now and then like gunflashes in the smoke, and that their very physical passing becomes rumor with a thousand faces before breath is out of them, lest paradoxical truth outrage itself.

Jesus didn’t have to extend His love. He didn’t have to think of me when He went up on that cross. He didn’t have to rewrite my story from one of beauty to one of brokenness and create a whole new brand of beauty. He simply didn’t have to do it, but He did. He bought me. He bought me that day He died, and He showed His power when He overcame death and rose from the grave. He overcame my death in that moment. He overcame my fear of death in that unbelievable, beautiful moment, and the fruit of that death, that resurrection, and that stunning grace is peace. It is the hardest peace, because it is brutal. Horribly brutal and ugly, and we want to look away, but it is the greatest, greatest story that ever was. And it was, and it is.

What is Destiny? Is it a doctrine formulated by aristocrats and philosophers arguing that there is some unseen driving force predicting the outcomes of every minuscule and life altering moment in one's life? Or is it the artistry illustrated by those under-qualifed and over-eager to give their future meaning and their ambitions hope? Is it a declaration by those who refuse to accept that we are alone in this universe, spinning randomly through a matrix of accidental coincidences? Or is it the assumptions made by those who concede that there is a divine plan or pre-ordained path for each human being,regardless of their current station? I think destiny is a bit of a tease.... It's syndical taunts and teases mock those naive enough to believe in its black jack dealing of inevitable futures. Its evolution from puppy dogs and ice cream to razor blades and broken mirrors characterizes the fickle nature of its sordid underbelly. Those relying on its decisive measures will fracture under its harsh rules. Those embracing the fact that life happens at a million miles a minute will flourish in its random grace. Destiny has afforded me the most magical memories and unbelievably tragic experiences that have molded and shaped my life into what it is today...beautiful. I fully accept the mirage that destiny promises and the reality it can produce. Without the invisible momentum carried with its sincere fabrication of coming attraction, destiny is the covenant we rely on to get ourselves through the day. To the destiny I know awaits me, I thank you in advance. Don't cry because it's over....smile because it happened.

It is a harsh world, indescribably cruel. It is a gentle world, unbelievably beautiful. It is a world that can make us bitter, hateful, rabid, destroyers of joy. It is a world that can draw forth tenderness from us, as we lean towards one another over broken gates. It is a world of monsters and saints, a mutilated world, but it is the only one we have been given. We should let it shock us not into hatred or anxiety, but into unconditional love.

The Lord speaks to each one of us in different ways. He may use your mother, your sister, your child, or even your boss. He might even use an unbeliever. God never said his messages would come in nicely wrapped packages from your pastor," the pastor could be heard saying from inside the packed church. "God doesn't do things the way WE want them done. He does things the way we NEED them done, so he can get out of us what holds us back, what keeps us from him. He wants to help us reach the next level. He sends us what we need, when we need it, in HIS time. We are on his schedule, not the other way around.

The colors and views of this real paradise on Earth were unbelievable… you know, how can they be real?! Even harder to believe is how the vast majority of our planet’s inhabitants are spending their lives without ever having the opportunity to see all of the absolute beauty of nature that can be discovered in this part of the world.

One day, I wish to find a man like in my books. He has to be just like in one of my books. And he has to love me, love me more than anything in the world. Most important of all, he has to think I’m beautiful.” “Lily, I need to tell you something.” Fazire was going to tell her about Becky’s wish and his mistake and let her look forward to something, let her look forward to the incomparable beauty she was going to be. Most of all, he had to stop her wish now. He didn’t want her wasting it on some fool idea. He wanted it to be special, perfect, to make her world better like she had made Becky and Will’s and, indeed, his. But again she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were bright and they were steady on his. “He has to be tall, very tall and dark and broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped.” Fazire stared. He didn’t even know what “narrow-hipped” meant. “And he has to be handsome, unbelievably handsome, impossibly handsome with a strong, square jaw and powerful cheekbones and tanned skin and beautiful eyes with lush, thick lashes. He has to be clever and very wealthy but hardworking. He has to be virile, fierce, ruthless and rugged.” Now she was getting over his head. He didn’t think there was such a thing as impossibly handsome. How cheekbones could be powerful, Fazire didn’t know. He was even thinking he might have to look up “virile” in the dictionary Sarah had given him. “And he has to be hard and cold and maybe a little bit forbidding, a little bit bad with a broken heart I have to mend or one encased in ice I have to melt or better yet… both!” Fazire thought this was getting a bit ridiculous. It was the most complicated wish he’d ever heard. But she wasn’t yet finished. “We have to go through some trials and tribulations. Something to test our love, make it strong and worthy. And… and… he has to be daring and very masculine. Powerful. People must respect him, maybe even fear him. Graceful too and lithe, like a… like a cat! Or a lion. Or something like that.” She was losing steam and Fazire had to admit he was grateful for it. “And he has to be a good lover.” Lily shocked Fazire by saying. “The best, so good, he could almost make love to me just by using his eyes.” Fazire felt himself blush. Perhaps he should have a look at these books she was reading and show them to Becky. Lily was a very sharp girl, sharp as a tack (another one of Sarah’s sayings, although Fazire couldn’t imagine a tack ever being as clever as Lily) but she was too young to be reading about any man making love to her with his eyes. Fazire had never made love, never would, genies just didn’t. But he was pretty certain fourteen year old girls shouldn’t be thinking about it. Though, he was wrong about that, or at least Becky would tell him that later. Then Fazire realised she’d stopped talking. “Is that it?” he asked. She thought for a bit, clearly not wanting to leave anything out. Then she nodded.

Someone who loves you unconditionally can also hate you unbelievably. A beautiful mirror becomes a dangerous weapon when broken

To live is to struggle. It is in struggling that we appreciate what we have. All of us have suffered adversity, and because of that, we understand the simple beauty of our current lives all the more.

I’ve barely been able to hold myself back from wanting to hold her. She’s so beautiful I can hardly believe it, hardly breathe. Her soul is stunning. Her very being is bright and bold and so unbelievably better than I am. She is a good beyond my grasp, one that I am not worthy of glimpsing let along grabbing hold of. And yet, here she is despite that. Choosing me. It’s a privilege to look into those eyes, to drown in the essence that is her. Because everything about her is too right and everything about me is too wrong. But I’m selfish. I take what I want, and what I want might just want me for once.

You know I love you, right?” She froze. “I know.” The words sounded so unbelievably tortured. “To the depths of my soul. I’ll give you time, but don’t think I’m letting you walk out of my life so easily.

The missing remained missing and the portraits couldn't change that. But when Akhmed slid the finished portrait across the desk and the family saw the shape of that beloved nose, the air would flee the room, replaced by the miracle of recognition as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, and cousin found in that nose the son, brother, nephew, and cousin that had been, would have been, could have been, and they might race after the possibility like cartoon characters dashing off a cliff, held by the certainty of the road until they looked down -- and plummeted is the word used by the youngest brother who, at the age of sixteen, is tired of being the youngest and hopes his older brother will return for many reasons, not least so he will marry and have a child and the youngest brother will no longer be youngest; that youngest brother, the one who has nothing to say about the nose because he remembers his older brother's nose and doesn't need the nose to mean what his parents need it to mean, is the one who six months later would be disappeared in the back of a truck, as his older brother was, who would know the Landfill through his blindfold and gag by the rich scent of clay, as his older brother had known, whose fingers would be wound with the electrical wires that had welded to his older brother's bones, who would stand above a mass grave his brother had dug and would fall in it as his older brother had, though taking six more minutes and four more bullets to die, would be buried an arm's length of dirt above his brother and whose bones would find over time those of his older brother, and so, at that indeterminate point in the future, answer his mother's prayer that her boys find each other, wherever they go; that younger brother would have a smile on his face and the silliest thought in his skull a minute before the first bullet would break it, thinking of how that day six months earlier, when they all went to have his older brother's portrait made, he should have had his made, too, because now his parents would have to make another trip, and he hoped they would, hoped they would because even if he knew his older brother's nose, he hadn't been prepared to see it, and seeing that nose, there, on the page, the density of loss it engendered, the unbelievable ache of loving and not having surrounded him, strong enough to toss him, as his brother had, into the summer lake, but there was nothing but air, and he'd believed that plummet was as close as they would ever come again, and with the first gunshot one brother fell within arms' reach of the other, and with the fifth shot the blindfold dissolved and the light it blocked became forever, and on the kitchen wall of his parents' house his portrait hangs within arm's reach of his older brother's, and his mother spends whole afternoons staring at them, praying that they find each other, wherever they go.

This is what we see when we look up at Rainier, the beauty, the horror, the awe the unbelievability of size that confirms our own consequence on this earth. We look at the mountain, like god and can imagine nothing larger. Its incompressible life-span reminds us of the fleeting mortality of our own bones. It looms over our lives on clear days and and stay present but hidden through the clouds of winter. Like god it remains everywhere forever.

When you live with a dead man’s head that won’t shut up and smokes all your cigarettes, the only way to deal with the awfulness is to make it so unbelievably awful that it becomes kind of weirdly beautiful. Like an exploding giraffe full of fireworks.

But if religion is more than the attainment of power and privilege, if it is the doorway into beauty and mystery and meaning, then not only is divinity unnecessary but it is an impediment, for it implies that enlightenment is beyond the reach of mortals.

I believe that God is masterful enough to be able to weave many of the experiences and tribulations of our life into a tapestry that is ultimately beautiful to behold. Yet, in the present, we often only see the tangled mess of threads on the underside of the tapestry.

I care about you even more than before, more than I thought possible. You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You’re funny, kind, unbelievably clever, beautiful, and brave. You, Quincy Carmichael, aren’t simply long-term material. You’re the forever I’ve been waiting for.

A Mirage It glitters. It is extraordinarily appealing. Unbelievably beautiful. It possesses all the ingredients of reality, Except the reality itself. It is falsehood. A fleeting hope. A passing phase. A false pool of water On a desert road, On a sunny, dry day. It's an aberration. It's a mirage

While awake, he was all angles and tension- the muscles of his jaw were strung tight as a bow, as though he were in a perpetual state of holding himself back. But now, in slumber, in the glow of the fire, he was... Beautiful. The angles were still there, sharp and perfect, as though a master sculptor had had a hand in creating him- the tilt of his jaw, the cleft of his chin, his long, straight nose, the perfect curve of his brows, and those eyelashes, just as they were when he was a boy, unbelievably long and lush, a black, sooty caress against his cheeks. And his lips. Not pressed in a firm, grim line at the moment, instead lovely and full. They had once been so quick to smile, but... they had become dangerous and tempting in a way they'd never been when he was a boy. She traced the peak and valleys of his upper lip with her gaze, wondering how many women had kissed him. Wondering what his mouth would feel like- soft or firm, light or dark. She exhaled, temptation making the breath long and heavy. She wanted to touch him.

There are marriages whose raison d’être is beyond the grasp of even the most literary imagination. You have to accept them the way you put up with unbelievable couplings of opposites in the theater, such as old dodderers and vivacious beauties - relationships that are taken for granted and that form the basis for the mathematical structure of a farce.

Would there be communion at all if there were no need on this earth, no suffering on this earth? If there were no sin? No imperfection? I think there would be no such communion as we now have. We would each live in our isolated worlds. I would not need you. I would not be drawn to you. I would be self-sufficient. I would be caught up smugly and happily in my own perfection. I would simply draw my life totally from within and would never need to look at the beauty or pain on others’ faces. This is the Gnostic temptation, condemned in some form in every century. There are two things that draw us outside of ourselves: pain on other people’s faces, and the unbelievable beauty that is other human beings at their best. Or in other words: cross and resurrection.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

He wasn’t just a man. He wasn’t even of this planet, as far as I was concerned. He was either an alien, crash landed here from some distant galaxy, where everyone was unbelievably attractive, or he really was an angel, who, having fallen from grace and tumbled from heaven, was now living among us mere mortals, confusing us all with his surreal, otherworldly hyper-masculine beauty, and generally causing chaos and disruption wherever the fuck he went.

Okay, okay . . . where do you hear it coming from?” “Around here somewhere.” “Always in this spot?” “No. Not always. You are going to think I am even more insane, but I swear it is following me around.” “Maybe it is my new powers. The power to drive you mad.” She wriggled her fingers at him theatrically as if she were casting a curse on him. “You already drive me mad,” he teased, dragging her up against him and nibbling her neck with a playful growling. “Ah hell,” he broke off. “I really am going mad. I cannot believe you cannot hear that. It is like a metronome set to some ridiculously fast speed.” He turned and walked into the living room, looking around at every shelf. “The last person to own this place probably had a thing for music and left it running. Listen. Can you hear that?” “No,” she said thoughtfully, “but I can hear you hearing it if I concentrate on your thoughts. What in the world . . . ?” Gideon turned, then turned again, concentrating on the rapid sound, following it until it led him right up to his wife. “It is you!” he said. “No wonder it is following me around. Are you wearing a watch?” He grabbed her wrist and she rolled her eyes. “A Demon wearing a watch? Now I have heard everything.” Suddenly Gideon went very, very still, the cold wash of chills that flooded through him so strong that she shivered with the overflow of sensation. He abruptly dropped to his knees and framed her hips with his hands. “Oh, Legna,” he whispered, “I am such an idiot. It is a baby. It is our baby. I am hearing it’s heartbeat!” “What?” she asked, her shock so powerful she could barely speak. “I am with child?” “Yes. Yes, sweet, you most certainly are. A little over a month. Legna, you conceived, probably the first time we made love. My beautiful, fertile, gorgeous wife.” Gideon kissed her belly through her dress, stood up, and caught her up against him until she squeaked with the force of his hug. Legna went past shock and entered unbelievable joy. She laughed, not caring how tight he held her, feeling his joy on a thousand different levels. “I never thought I would know this feeling,” he said hoarsely. “Even when we were getting married, I never thought . . . It did not even enter my mind!” Gideon set her down on her feet, putting her at arm’s length as he scanned her thoroughly from head to toe. “I cannot understand why I did not become aware of this sooner. The chemical changes, the hormone levels alone . . .” “Never mind. We know now,” she said, throwing herself back up against him and hugging him tightly. “Come, we have to tell Noah . . . and Hannah! Oh, and Bella! And Jacob, of course. And Elijah. And we should inform Siena—” She was still rattling off names as she teleported them to the King’s castle.

When they killed my family, they may as well have killed me, Hayden. I was fourteen when I killed my first man. I wasn't even of age. All I could think about was what he had done to my mother, my father, my sister and my brother. That was all I could see. Luke found out who they were and we took care of them. I spent the next sixteen years doint the same thing. I don't think I was alive. I died that night. "I never worried going into battles. I never cared what would happen if I jumped into an ambush. How could I die if I was already dead?" I reached back and pulled his head down so that it was against mine. His arms tightened around me. "But then one day, I looked down a hill and saw this most beautiful woman. I looked into those unbelievable eyes and my heart jumped. When you kissed me by the lake it started to beat again. You're the one who brought me back to life, Hayden, and now that I'm alive again, I'm terrified.

I’m not going to ask you to collar the monster inside you, because I already know it, and it’s a part of you,” she said. “I’ll allow your demons to protect me, and I’ll use mine to defend you, too. Stupid though that is. However fucking dangerous and unbelievably idiotic though that is. But I’m keeping the gun, Fix. And I will use it the moment your demons look like they’re turning on me.” Holy. Fucking. Shit. This woman. She was miraculous. She was beautiful. She was strong. She was everything.

A paradisiacal lagoon lay below them. The water was an unbelievable, unreal turquoise, its surface so still that every feature of the bottom could be admired in magnified detail: colorful pebbles, bright red kelp, fish as pretty and colorful as the jungle birds. A waterfall on the far side fell softly from a height of at least twenty feet. A triple rainbow graced its frothy bottom. Large boulders stuck out of the water at seemingly random intervals, black and sun-warmed and extremely inviting, like they had been placed there on purpose by some ancient giant. And on these were the mermaids. Wendy gasped at their beauty. Their tails were all colors of the rainbow, somehow managing not to look tawdry or clownish. Deep royal blue, glittery emerald green, coral red, anemone purple. Slick and wet and as beautifully real as the salmon Wendy's father had once caught on holiday in Scotland. Shining and voluptuously alive. The mermaids were rather scandalously naked except for a few who wore carefully placed shells and starfish, although their hair did afford some measure of decorum as it trailed down their torsos. Their locks were long and thick and sinuous and mostly the same shades as their tails. Some had very tightly coiled curls, some had braids. Some had decorated their tresses with limpets and bright hibiscus flowers. Their "human" skins were familiar tones: dark brown to pale white, pink and beige and golden and everything in between. Their eyes were also familiar eye colors but strangely clear and flat. Either depthless or extremely shallow depending on how one stared. They sang, they brushed their hair, they played in the water. In short, they did everything mythical and magical mermaids were supposed to do, laughing and splashing as they did. "Oh!" Wendy whispered. "They're-" And then she stopped. Tinker Bell was giving her a funny look. An unhappy funny look. The mermaids were beautiful. Indescribably, perfectly beautiful. They glowed and were radiant and seemed to suck up every ray of sun and sparkle of water; Wendy found she had no interest looking anywhere else.

Rosalind was the kind of girl who didn’t have to try very hard; she just drew men like moths to a flame. A natural ash blonde with unbelievably dark blue eyes, she had a near perfect figure, always wore the trendiest gear and said exactly the right witty things. Not like me. I’m no raving beauty by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve got masses of dark unruly hair which just sort-of hangs around, and I buy only clothes which suit me regardless of fashion. I wouldn’t be seen dead in a mini-skirt – as I’m rather tall with long slim legs, I think I’d look like Olive Oyl.

I've barely been able to hold myself back from wanting to hold her. She's so beautiful, I can hardly believe it, hardly breathe. Her soul is stunning. Her very being is bright and bold and so unbelievably better than I am. She is good beyond my grasp, one that I am not worthy of glimpsing, let alone grabbing hold of. And yet, here she is despite that. Choosing me. It's a privilege to look into those eyes, to drown in the essence that is her. Because everything about her is too right and everything about me is too wrong. But I'm selfish. I take what I want, and what I want might just want me for once.

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting withing plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

Then stole into her the hint of ecstasy. She pressed her face to her knees. The very terribleness of the winters-the very fear and dread subduced her and filled her veins with strong wine. And the beauty-the fierce, dreadful beauty of winter! The summers-Oh, the summers! The unbelievable deep blue of the mountain sky-the huge sculptured skies, the green grass-the young animals, wild and free with startled eyes, the swift-running heels kicking, the perfume, smell of sage and mint and pine and grass and clover and snow, clean from the sweep of hundreds of miles of emptiness-and the loneliness-ah, not loneliness, but serene, deep, tranquil solitude.

Many are still making a similar mistake. In selecting a home they look more to the temporal advantages they may gain than to the moral and social influences that will surround themselves and their families. They choose a beautiful and fertile country, or remove to some flourishing city, in the hope of securing greater [169] prosperity; but their children are surrounded by temptation, and too often they form associations that are unfavorable to the development of piety and the formation of a right character. The atmosphere of lax morality, of unbelief, of indifference to religious things, has a tendency to counteract the influence of the parents. Examples of rebellion against parental and divine authority are ever before the youth; many form attachments for infidels and unbelievers, and cast in their lot with the enemies of God. In choosing a home, God would have us consider, first of all, the moral and religious influences that will surround us and our families. We may be placed in trying positions, for many cannot have their surroundings what they would; and whenever duty calls us, God will enable us to stand uncorrupted, if we watch and pray, trusting in the grace of Christ. But we should not needlessly expose ourselves to influences that are unfavorable to the formation of Christian character. When we voluntarily place ourselves in an atmosphere of worldliness and unbelief, we displease God and drive holy angels from our homes.

That you have to ask Krishnamurti, not me. That is not my business. He loves it, that’s how he has grown. For centuries, for many, many lives, he has been moving towards a tunnel vision. And the tunnel vision has its own beauties, because whatsoever you see, you see very clearly because your eyes are focused. Hence the clarity of Krishnamurti. Nobody has ever been so clear, so crystal clear. Nobody has ever been so logical, so rational; nobody has ever been so analytical. His profundity in going into things and their details is simply unbelievable. But that is part of his tunnel vision. You cannot have everything, remember. If you want clarity you will need tunnel vision; you will have to become more and more focused on less and less.

We had beautiful documents and everyone was really prepared,” Jones says. Bezos read the paper, said, “You’re all wrong,” stood up, and started writing on the whiteboard. “He had no background in control theory, no background in operating systems,” Jones says. “He only had minimum experience in the distribution centers and never spent weeks and months out on the line.” But Bezos laid out his argument on the whiteboard and “every stinking thing he put down was correct and true,” Jones says. “It would be easier to stomach if we could prove he was wrong but we couldn’t. That was a typical interaction with Jeff. He had this unbelievable ability to be incredibly intelligent about things he had nothing to do with, and he was totally ruthless about communicating it.

Marketa really desired, with both her body and her senses, the women she considered Karel's mistresses. And she also desired them with her head: fulfilling the prophecy of her old math teacher, she wanted - at least to the limits of the disastrous contract - to show herself enterprising and playful, and to astonish Karel. But as soon as she found herself naked with them on the wide daybed, the sensual wanderings immediately vanished from her mind, and seeing her husband was enough to return her to her role, the role of the better one, the one who is wronged, Even when she was with Eva, whom she loved very much and of whom she was not jealous, the presence of the man she loved too well weighed heavily on her, stifling the pleasure of the senses. The moment she removed his head from the body, she felt the strange and intoxicating touch of freedom. That anonymity of the body was a suddenly discovered paradise. With an odd delight, she expelled her wounded and too vigilant soul and was transformed into a simple body without past or memory, but all the more eager and receptive. She tenderly caressed Eva's face, while the headless body moved vigorously on top of her. But here the headless body interrupted his movements and, in a voice that reminded her unpleasantly of Karel's, uttered unbelievably idiotic words: "I'm Bobby Fischer! I'm Bobby Fischer!" It was like being awakened from a dream. And just then, as she lay snuggled against Eva (as the awakening sleeper snuggles against his pillow to hide from the dim first light of day), Eva had asked her, "All right?" and she had consented with a sign, pressing her lips against Eva's. She had always loved her, but today for the first time sh loved her with all her senses, for herself, for her body, and for her skin, becoming intoxicated with this fleshly love as with a sudden revelation. Afterward, while they lay side by side on their stomachs, with their buttocks slightly raised, Marketa could feel on her skin that the infinitely efficient body was again fixing its eyes on hers and at any moment was going to start again making love to them. She tried to ignore the voice talking about seeing beautiful Mrs. Nora, tried simply to be a body hearing nothing while lying pressed between a very soft-skinned girlfriend and some headless man.

Do More. Be More. You were made for more! Take all the chances and leaps. Every single step of the journey is a maze and never a straight line. You will sometimes take the wrong turns, make some bad choices, become helplessly confused and in need of direction, but guess what? As long as you don't give quitting a second thought, all of that process of discovering your path, bettering your craft and consistently pushing on, is a beautiful adventure that will surely lead you to unbelievable results! You will become all that you never thought you will be! You will do all that you never thought you could do! You will also become that inspiration that others need to keep moving. It's a beautiful process. Enjoy it! You're never too late. Put no expiry date on your dreams.

Between Myself and Death To Jimmy Blanton's Music: Sophisticated Lady, Body and Soul A fervor parches you sometimes, And you hunch over it, silent, Cruel, and timid; and sometimes You are frightened with wantonness, And give me your desperation. Mostly we lurk in our coverts, Protecting our spleens, pretending That our bandages are our wounds. But sometimes the wheel of change stops; Illusion vanishes in peace; And suddenly pride lights your flesh— Lucid as diamond, wise as pearl— And your face, remote, absolute, Perfect and final like a beast's. It is wonderful to watch you, A living woman in a room Full of frantic, sterile people, And think of your arching buttocks Under your velvet evening dress, And the beautiful fire spreading From your sex, burning flesh and bone, The unbelievably complex Tissues of your brain all alive Under your coiling, splendid hair. * * * I like to think of you naked. I put your naked body Between myself alone and death. If I go into my brain And set fire to your sweet nipples, To the tendons beneath your knees, I Can see far before me. It is empty there where I look, But at least it is lighted. I know how your shoulders glisten, How your face sinks into trance, And your eves like a sleepwalker's, And your lips of a woman Cruel to herself. I like to Think of you clothed, your body Shut to the world and self contained, Its wonderful arrogance That makes all women envy you. I can remember every dress, Each more proud then a naked nun. When I go to sleep my eves Close in a mesh of memory. Its cloud of intimate odor Dreams instead of myself.

For unbelievers, badminton is a namby-pamby version of squash for overweight men afraid of heart attacks. For true believers there is no other sport. Squash is slash and burn. Badminton is stealth, patience, speed and improbable recovery. It’s lying in wait to unleash your ambush while the shuttle describes its leisurely arc. Unlike squash, badminton knows no social distinctions. It is not public school. It has nothing of the outdoor allure of tennis or five-a-side football. It does not reward a beautiful swing. It offers no forgiveness, spares the knees, is said to be terrible for hips. Yet, as a matter of proven fact, it requires faster reactions than squash. There is little natural conviviality between us players, who tend on the whole to be a lonely lot. To fellow athletes, we’re a bit weird, a bit friendless.

Patience outfits faith, guides peace, assists love, equips humility, waits for penitence, seals confession, keeps the flesh in check, preserves the spirit, bridles the tongue, restrains the hands, tramples temptation underfoot, removes what causes us to stumble, brings martyrdom to perfection; it lightens the care of the poor, teaches moderation to the rich, lifts the burdens of the sick, delights the believer, welcomes the unbeliever, commends the servant to his master and his master to God, adorns women and gives grace to men; patience is loved in children, praised in youth, admired in the elderly. It is beautiful in either sex and at every age of life.... Her countenance is tranquil and peaceful, her brow serene.... Patience sits on the throne of the most gentle and peaceful Spirit.... For where God is there is his progeny, patience. When God's Spirit descends patience is always at his side.3o

Beauty and the Illiterate" Often, in the Repose of Evening her soul took a lightness from                   the mountains across, although the day was harsh and                   tomorrow foreign. But, when it darkened well and out came the priest’s hand over                   the little garden of the dead, She Alone, Standing, with the few domestics of the night—the blowing                   rosemary and the murmur of smoke from the kilns—                   at sea’s entry, wakeful Otherly beauty! Only the waves’ words half-guessed or in a rustle, and others                   resembling the dead’s that startle in the cypress, strange                   zodiacs that lit up her magnetic moon-turned head.                   And one Unbelievable cleanliness allowed, to great depth in her, the real                   landscape to be seen, Where, near the river, the dark ones fought against the Angel,                   exactly showing how she’s born, Beauty Or what we otherwise call tear. And long as her thinking lasted, you could feel it overflow the                   glowing sight bitterly in the eyes and the huge, like an                   ancient prostitute’s, cheekbones Stretched to the extreme points of the Large Dog and of the Virgin. “Far from the pestilential city I dreamed of her deserted place                   where a tear may have no meaning and the only light be                   from the flame that ravishes all that for me exists. “Shoulder-to-shoulder under what will be, sworn to extreme silence                   and the co-ruling of the stars, “As if I didn’t know yet, the illiterate, that there exactly, in extreme                   silence are the most repellent thuds “And that, since it became unbearable inside a man’s chest, solitude                   dispersed and seeded stars!

The thing about Dostoevsky's characters is that they are alive. By which I don't just mean that they're successfully realized or developed or "rounded". The best of them live inside us, forever, once we've met them. Recall the proud and pathetic Raskolnikov, the naive Devushkin, the beautiful and damned Nastasya of The Idiot, the fawning Lebyedev and spiderish Ippolit of the same novel; C&P's ingenious maverick detective Porfiry Petrovich (without whom there would probably be no commercial crime fiction w/ eccentrically brilliant cops); Marmeladov, the hideous and pitiful sot; or the vain and noble roulette addict Aleksey Ivanovich of The Gambler; the gold-hearted prostitutes Sonya and Liza; the cynically innocent Aglaia; or the unbelievably repellent Smerdyakov, that living engine of slimy resentment in whom I personally see parts of myself I can barely stand to look at; or the idealized and all too-human Myshkin and Alyosha, the doomed human Christ and triumphant child-pilgrim, respectively. These and so many other FMD creatures are alive-retain what Frank calls their "immense vitality"-not because they're just skillfully drawn types or facets of human beings but because, acting within plausible and morally compelling plots, they dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious-the ones with the most at stake. Plus, without ever ceasing to be 3-D individuals, Dostoevsky's characters manage to embody whole ideologies and philosophies of life: Raskolnikov the rational egoism of the 1860's intelligentsia, Myshkin mystical Christian love, the Underground Man the influence of European positivism on the Russian character, Ippolit the individual will raging against death's inevitability, Aleksey the perversion of Slavophilic pride in the face of European decadence, and so on and so forth....

Being bored with their possessions In the Qur’an, Allah tells us that His blessings do the unbelievers no good: So leave them in their glut of ignorance for a while. Do they imagine that, in the wealth and children We extend to them, We are hastening to them with good things? No indeed, but they have no awareness. (Surat al-Mu’minun: 54-56) Unbelievers may spend their lives surrounded by wealth, beauty, honor, fame, and respect. But none of 42 THOSE WHO EXHAUST ALL THEIR PLEASURES IN THIS LIFE these things does them any good or becomes a blessing for them, and they will only experience increased agony in both worlds. On the surface it seems that Allah gives them blessings, but He does not enable them to enjoy them. Therefore, even though the blessings are all around them, they are, nevertheless, deprived of them. A person can possess everything he wants, but it becomes a great misery for him not to be able to enjoy what he already has.

Art, as we have known it, stands on the threshold of the transcendental. It points beyond this world of accidental and disconnected things to another realm, in which human life is endowed with an emotional logic that makes suffering noble and love worthwhile. Nobody who is alert to beauty, therefore, is without the concept of redemption—of a final transcendence of mortal disorder into a ‘kingdom of ends’. In an age of declining faith art bears enduring witness to the spiritual hunger and immortal longings of our species. Hence aesthetic education matters more today than at any previous period in history. As Wagner expressed the point:‘It is reserved to art to salvage the kernel of religion, inasmuch as the mythical images which religion would wish to be believed as true are apprehended in art for their symbolic value, and through ideal representation of those symbols art reveals the concealed deep truth within them.’ Even for the unbeliever, therefore the ‘real presence’ of the sacred is now one of the highest gifts of art.

This life has been created with blessings that are deeply appealing to people, for: He has given you everything you have asked Him for. If you tried to number Allah’s blessings, you could never count them. Humanity is indeed wrongdoing, ungrateful. (Surah Ibrahim: 34) Moreover, Allah allows us to enjoy these blessings as we wish and informs us that if we thank Him, our blessings will increase even more. However, these wonderful blessings will be a cause of misery to those who are ungrateful. This is one of the Qur’an’s deepest secrets, a manifestation of Allah’s justice, and an important indication of the wisdom of His creation. For those who see the true Way and believe, He continually creates new opportunities and shows them the beauty of belief and the darkness of the unbelievers’ lives. So, whatever blessings people may have cannot give them a sense of real security and contentment. This, in fact, is Allah’s mercy toward His servants, for by this means they can understand that only believers who submit themselves to Allah can find true happiness and contentment, and thus submit themselves to Him.

What an unbelievably refined flavor! And so lusciously gooey you could just faint! The salty, sticky turtle broth seeps through the mouth... melding beautifully with the salty savoriness of the butter and cheese! Together, they lap at your tongue in silky, decadent harmony! "How on earth does this work? What makes the flavor of the turtle fit so well with the cheese? Hm? What's this where the two layers meet?" "You have a keen eye, sir. That's a mix of chopped nuts and seeds- walnuts, peanuts, sesame seeds... ...and... ...." "Kaki no Tane Snack Crackers?!" Those crackers! Soma used those the very first time Takumi challenged him! After lightly toasting them to bring out their aroma, I mixed them into the layer between the sides of my Sformato. Of course, this was after I used my Mezzaluna... ... to chop them all into the perfect size of about 0.1 mm each! "Heyo, Human Food Processor!" "I see! The toasted Kaki no Tane Crackers bring just enough aromatic astringency to erase the smell of the fish and dairy... ... functioning as a sort of bridge to tie the two distinct flavors together! Not only that, their crunchiness adds a fun, contrasting texture while not being filling at all!

The young man, not much more than a boy, heard the wind. Heard the moan, and heeded it. He stayed. After a day his family, afraid of what they might find, came looking and found him on the side of the terrible mountain. Alive. Alone. They pleaded with him to leave, but, unbelievably, he refused. “He’s been drugged,” said his mother. “He’s been cursed,” said his sister. “He’s been mesmerized,” said his father, backing away. But they were wrong. He had, in fact, been seduced. By the desolate mountain. And his loneliness. And by the tiny green shoots under his feet. He’d done this. He’d brought the great mountain alive again. He was needed. And so the boy stayed, and slowly warmth returned to the mountain. Grass and trees and fragrant flowers returned. Foxes and rabbits and bees came back. Where the boy walked fresh springs appeared and where he sat ponds were created. The boy was life for the mountain. And the mountain loved him for it. And the boy loved the mountain for it too. Over the years the terrible mountain became beautiful and word spread. That something dreadful had become something peaceful. And kind. And safe. Slowly the people returned, including the boy’s family. A village sprang up and the Mountain King, so lonely for so long, protected them all. And every night, while the others rested, the boy, now a young man, walked to the very top of the mountain, and lying down on the soft green moss he listened to the voice deep inside. Then one night while he lay there the young man heard something unexpected. The Mountain King told him a secret.

If a negative mind comes to a rose, to a garden, many roses may be there, but he will count only the thorns. The first thing for the negative mind is the thorns; that is significant. Flowers are just illusory; only thorns are real. He will count, and, of course, for each flower a thousand thorns exist. And once he has counted a thousand thorns he cannot believe in one flower. He will say this one flower is just illusory. How can such a beautiful flower exist with such ugly thorns, violent thorns? It is impossible, it is unbelievable. And even if it exists, it means nothing now. One thousand thorns have been counted, and the flower disappears. A positive mind will start with the rose, with the flower. And once you are in a communion with the rose, once you know the beauty, the life, the unearthly flowering, thorns disappear. And one who has known the rose in its beauty, in its highest possibility, one who has looked deep into it, for him now even thorns will not look like thorns. The eyes filled with the rose are different now. Now the thorns will look just like a protection for this flower. They will not be enemies; they will look just like part of the happening of flowers. Now this mind will know that this flower happens and these thorns are needed, they protect. Because of these thorns this flower could happen. This positive mind will feel grateful even to thorns. And if this approach deepens, a moment comes when thorns become flowers. With the first approach the flower disappears – or the flower even becomes a thorn. Only with a positive mind can you get the state of a non-tense mind. With a negative mind you will remain tense, with so many miseries all around. Such a negative, inventive mind goes on revealing miseries and miseries and hells and hells. In

We had planned to spend Christmas morning with my family, and then head over to Phil and Kay’s for Christmas night. The whole family was there, including all the grandkids. Bella, Willie and Korie’s daughter, was the youngest and still an infant. We opened presents, ate dinner, and the whole evening felt surreal. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a baby in this world, I thought. When Jep and I left that night, I said, “I’m gonna go have a baby. See you all later!” For all the worry and concern and tears and prayers we’d spent on our unborn baby, when it came to her birth, she was no trouble at all. I went to the hospital, got prepped for the C-section, and within thirty minutes she was out. Lily was beautiful and healthy. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I felt God had blessed me. He’d created life inside of me--a real, beautiful, breathing little human being--and brought her into this world through me. It was an unbelievable miracle. And the best part? Jep was in the delivery room. Unlike his dad, he wanted to be there, and he shared it all with me. I’ll never forget the sight of Jep decked out in blue scrubs, with the blue head cover, holding his baby girl for the first time. I’ll never forget how she nestled down in the crook of his arm, his hand wrapped up and around, gently holding her. He stared down at her, and I could see a smile behind his white surgical mask. He was already in love--I knew that look. After we admired the baby together, I fell asleep, and Jep took his newborn daughter out to meet the family. He told me later he bawled like a baby. Later, when she went to the hospital nursery, Jep kept going over there to stare at her. I think he was in shock and overwhelmed and excited. Lily had a light creamy complexion and little pink rosebud lips, and she was born December 26, 2002. Despite the rough pregnancy, she was perfect. God answered our prayers, and now we were a family of three. We’d been married just a little over a year.

My intellectual depravity kept me from completely enjoying what surrounded me. I am sure that, in what little I might have tried to say, I was going to ridicule, diminish and materialize everything. In that strange and almost indescribable scenery, so superior to what I was normally able to see, I imagined—obviously an effect of my blind rudeness—that I came across things that faintly resembled the most beautiful things I had contemplated on the sublunary globe. I believed I saw a flower: I beheld something like large woods whose trees were only flowers; nothing but petals, corollas and calyces, fragrant and cradled by a breeze that itself was plainly perfumed with floral breaths—and just as sweet. All the nuances of the rose adorned these gigantic fluttering bouquets. Some of the roses, brown-lipped roses, were so unbelievably arousing and voluptuous—if I can speak like this—that I felt like they rejuvenated my soul. A flower often stood alone, as big as a tree—and with such a divine form, such an embracing scent—that’s the only word that translates, a little ridiculously, what I felt—that the air wafting around it would kill a normal human being with excessive pleasure. Because I was disembodied, I could breath it in with no harm—and even blend myself, overcome by joy, with its intoxicating, incarnadine cloud. Large, flashy birds flew among the heights of the flower-trees where they sometimes alit like snuggling light. Their slow-noted songs evoked a magical past more enticing even than this splendid present. The sky was pink and gold. Pink fountains flowed there, flashing with gold—whose music could only be compared to harps that had —absurdly—crystal strings—and to go further in absurdity: living crystal. All this nature seemed enshrouded—and at the same time penetrated—with a tender cheerfulness. I floated in the pink perfumes of the woods, in the soothing radiance of the glades, in all that gentleness and beauty that felt like an infinite bounty manifested by transportive images and by an immaterial well being… And even though I desperately did not want to leave this atmosphere of delights—which I can give no real idea of—I felt unbalanced, brutal and out of place among the ethereal sweetness. A charitable, sorrowful force (I felt it) chased me away almost in spite of itself in order to cut me off from these joys I was unworthy of.

Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve’s friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him. “It’s a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet,” John said over the phone. “I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they’re going to kill him unless he gets relocated.” John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile. He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?” “Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.” John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly. Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and tossed it toward Steve. As Steve’s hand went above Monty’s head, the crocodile lunged upward in a food response. On film it looked like the croc was about to snatch the can--which Steve caught right in front of his jaws. John was extremely impressed. As he left the zoo after completing the commercial shoot, Steve gave him a collection of VHS tapes. Steve had shot the videotapes himself. The raw footage came from Steve simply propping his camera in a tree, or jamming it into the mud, and filming himself single-handedly catching crocs. John watched the tapes when he got home to Brisbane. He told me later that what he saw was unbelievable. “It was three hours of captivating film and I watched it straight through, twice,” John recalled to me. “It was Steve. The camera loved him.” He rang up his contacts in television and explained that he had a hot property. The programmers couldn’t use Steve’s original VHS footage, but one of them had a better idea. He gave John the green light to shoot his own documentary of Steve. That led to John Stainton’s call to Oregon on the eve of our honeymoon. “I know it’s not the best timing, mate,” John said, “but we could take a crew and film a documentary of you rescuing this crocodile.” Steve turned to me. Honeymoon or crocodile? For him, it wasn’t much of a quandary. But what about me?” “Let’s go,” I replied.

She tilts her head to the side after taking a sip of her tea, studying us. “You know, I can’t get over how beautiful you two are together. One of those couples you love to follow on Instagram, you know, the really cute ones that are so sickening in love that you can’t get enough of them.” Way to drop the love bomb, Mom. Jesus. Thankfully Emory doesn’t show any kind of hatred for the term but instead says, “Like Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod?” “Yes,” my mom answers with excitement. “Oh my gosh, I’m obsessed with watching their stories. The little videos they do together, I just can’t get enough of them. J-Rod,” my mom says dreamily. “Oh gosh, what would your couple name be?” She thinks about it for a second. “Emox . . . or Knemory. Oh I love Knemory. Sounds so poetic.” “Knemory does have a nice ring to it,” I add. “I don’t know, what about Emorox?” “Ohhh, that sounds like a name that belongs in The Game of Thrones.” Taking on a more masculine voice, my mom says, “Look out, Jon, Emorox is coming over the hill, with her fire-spitting dragons, Knemory and George.” “George?” Emory laughs out loud, covering her mouth. “Why George?” “Well, look at the names they have in that show? They’re all exotic names you’ve never heard before—Cersei, Gregor, Arya—and then in waltzes good old Jon Snow. It’s only fair that the dragons have a lemon in the bunch as well.” “Uh, Jon is anything but a lemon, Mom,” I defend. “He was raised from the dead.” My mom’s mouth drops, pure and utter shock in her face. “Jon Snow dies?” Shit. Emory elbows my stomach. “Where the hell is your GOT etiquette? You never talk about the facts of the show until the air is cleared about how far someone is in watching. You are one of those people who spoils everything for someone just catching up to the trend.” *Ahem* “I mean . . . uh . . . he doesn’t die.” “You just said he is raised from the dead,” my mom says. Feeling guilty, I reply, “Well, at least he’s still alive, right?” She slumps against the cushion of the couch and mutters, “Unbelievable.” “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gentry, that your son is a barbarian and broke your GOT trust.” Pressing her hand against her forehead, my mom says, “You know, I blame myself. I thought I taught him a shred of decorum, I guess not.” “Don’t blame yourself,” Emory coos. “You did everything right. It comes down to the hooligans he hangs out with. There’s only so much you can control after they leave the nest.” “You’re absolutely right,” my mom agrees and leans across the couch to smack me in the back of the head. “Hey,” I complain while rubbing the sore spot. I look between the two women in my life and I say, “I don’t like this ganging up on me shit.” “You wanted us to get along, right?” Emory asks. “Well, I happen to like your mom, especially since she complimented my bosom.” “Ah, I see.” I continue to look between the two of them. “You’re okay with my mom catching you with your shirt off now, moved past the embarrassment?” Emory’s eyes narrow. “With that kind of attitude, it might be the very last time you see me topless.” My mom raises her fist to the air, as if to say, “Girl Power.” And then she says, “You tell him, Emory. Don’t let him push you around.” “I wasn’t pushing her around—” “You keep that beautiful bosom under lock and key, and if you have a temptation to show anyone, just flash me.” “Mom, do you realize how wrong that is?” “Want to go to the bathroom right now, Mrs. Gentry?” “I would be delighted to.” They both stand but before they can make a move, I pull on Emory’s hand, bringing her back down to my lap. “No way in hell is that happening. Jesus, what is wrong with you?

What did the fish say when it hit a concrete wall?” he asks me. We’re sitting on the bank of a stream and he’s tying a fly onto my fishing rod, wearing a cowboy hat and a red lumberjack-style flannel shirt over a grey tee. So adorable. “What?” I say, wanting to laugh and he hasn’t even told me the punch line. He grins. Unbelievable how gorgeous he is. And that he’s mine. He loves me and I love him and how rare and beautiful is that? “Dam!” he says.

It was time to tell them the story of Jesus Christ. It was time to save their souls. Powerful sermons meant to convert nonbelievers have a certain structure. You’re supposed to talk about your own weaknesses, about how Christianity saved you, about how you once were blind but now you could see. Everett told them a story about his stepmother’s suicide. This was supposed to trigger a powerful emotional response. But after telling this story, he was greeted by laughter. He was hurt and confused. “What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” he asked. “You people kill yourselves?” the Piraha replied. “We don’t do that. What is this?” It was not that they were mean-spirited or had a cruel sense of humor; it was the very notion of suicide that struck them as unbelievably bizarre and outrageous. And then it dawned on Everett! He had come here to save the Piraha, but they weren’t the ones who needed saving. He writes: I realized they don’t have a word for worry, they don’t have any concept of depression, they don’t have any schizophrenia or a lot of the mental health problems, and they treat people very well. If someone does have any sort of handicap, and the only ones I’m aware of are physical, they take very good care of them. When people get old, they feed them. Still, Everett was determined that his training should not go to waste. He was a true believer; he thought he was doing good by telling them how Jesus would want them to live. So while living with the Piraha, every once in a while, he would pepper them with inspiring anecdotes about Jesus, explaining Christian theology and morality, hoping that the Piraha would change their ways. One morning, he was sitting around drinking coffee when one of the Piraha said: “Dan, I want to talk with you. We like you, we know you live with us because the land is beautiful, and we have plenty of fish, and you don’t have that in the United States...but you know we have had people come and tell us about Jesus before. Somebody else told us about Jesus, and then the other guy came and told us about Jesus, and now you’re telling us about Jesus, and we really like you but, see, we’re not Americans, and we don’t want to know about Jesus. We like to drink, and we like to have a good time, and we like, you know...to have sex with many people, both women and men. So don’t tell us anymore about Jesus or God. We are tired of it.” And then they ate him. Just kidding.

Love is a lot of things, but I'd hardly call it safe. There's the devastating risk, but also the unbelievable beauty of it.

Every morning and evening at Lakefield, the fruit bats would come and go from the trees near our campsite. During the day, you could hear them in the distance as they squabbled over territory. Each fruit bat wanted to jockey for the best position on a branch. But when evening came, as if by silent agreement, all the bats knew to fly off at the same time. Steve grabbed me and the kids one evening just at dusk, and we went out into the river to watch the bats. I would rank that night as one of the most incredible experiences of my life, right up there with catching crocs and swimming with manatees. Sitting at dusk with the kids in the boat, all of a sudden the trees came alive. The bats took flight, skimming over the water to delicately dip for a drink, flying directly over our heads. It was as if we had gone back in time and pterodactyls flew once again. It was such an awe-inspiring event that we all fell quiet, the children included. The water was absolutely still, like an inky mirror, almost like oil. Not a single fish jumped, not a croc moved. All we heard were the wings of these ancient mammals in the darkening sky. We lay quietly in the bottom of the boat, floating in the middle of this paradise. We knew that we were completely and totally safe. We were in a small dinghy in the middle of some of the most prolifically populated crocodile water, yet we were absolutely comfortable knowing that Steve was there with us. “One day, babe,” Steve said softly to me, “we’ll look back on wildlife harvesting projects and things like croc farming the same way we look back on slavery and cannibalism. It will be simply an unbelievable part of human history. We’ll get so beyond it that it will be something we will never, ever return to.” “We aren’t there yet,” I said. He sighed. “No, we aren’t.” I thought of the sign Steve had over his desk back home. It bore the word “warrior” and its definition: “One who is engaged in battle.” And it was a battle. It was a battle to protect fragile ecosystems like Lakefield from the wildlife perpetrators, from people who sought to kill anything that could turn a profit. These same people were out collecting croc eggs and safari-hunting crocodiles. They were working to legalize a whole host of illicit and destructive activities. They were lobbying to farm or export everything that moved, from these beautiful fruit bats we were watching, to magpie geese, turtles, and even whales.

One day, babe,” Steve said softly to me, “we’ll look back on wildlife harvesting projects and things like croc farming the same way we look back on slavery and cannibalism. It will be simply an unbelievable part of human history. We’ll get so beyond it that it will be something we will never, ever return to.” “We aren’t there yet,” I said. He sighed. “No, we aren’t.” I thought of the sign Steve had over his desk back home. It bore the word “warrior” and its definition: “One who is engaged in battle.” And it was a battle. It was a battle to protect fragile ecosystems like Lakefield from the wildlife perpetrators, from people who sought to kill anything that could turn a profit. These same people were out collecting croc eggs and safari-hunting crocodiles. They were working to legalize a whole host of illicit and destructive activities. They were lobbying to farm or export everything that moved, from these beautiful fruit bats we were watching, to magpie geese, turtles, and even whales.

I don't believe in demons, That isn't a lie. But I have seen what was once the unbelievable. I've seen the beauty and the wonder of it. I believe what we've termed the uncanny - there is light and dark in them, as there is light and dark in all of us - will also be swept up and detained and tested. And, I fear, that what H5N1-X leaves us, all of us, will not destroy us, but the fear and violence it breeds in those of us who give in to it - the forced restrictions on freedom - could.

Instead of a cute teenage girl, an unbelievingly beautiful woman stands there, watching me with something that looks very much like anger.

Dr. Kal Anderson looks like Hades himself, if Hades were well over six feet tall and unbelievably attractive. His is a beauty so sharp and focused, it almost hurts to look at him without the benefit of a lens barrier.

That beauty and truth should pass utterly

We are to be people of truth with grace-filled words. People who choose healing and helpful words. Because whether we realize it or not, believers and unbelievers alike are listening intently to the words we speak. They’re reading the words we type. And our words testify to the kind of relationship we have with Jesus and the kind of effect He has on our hearts.

Ah, Creator! Timelord and Landsire! Did You intend that beauty and truth should pass utterly from the Earth?

Yet despite his differences with Barfield, Lewis credits him with bringing about two fundamental changes in his own thinking. The first of these was the demolition of Lewis’s “chronological snobbery,” which Lewis defined as “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”[235] The second change related to Lewis’s way of thinking about reality. Lewis, like most of that age, tended to assume that “the universe revealed by the senses” constituted “rock-bottom reality.” For Lewis, this was the most economical and commonsense way of thinking about things, which he took to be thoroughly scientific. “I wanted Nature to be quite independent of our observation; something other, indifferent, self-existing.”[236] But what of human moral judgements? Or feelings of joy? Or the experience of beauty? How did such subjective ways of thinking and experiencing fit into this? It was no idle thought. As an undergraduate at Oxford, Lewis had been influenced by what he styled the “New Look,” a rationalist way of thinking which led him to believe that he must abandon any notion that his fleeting experiences of “Joy” were clues to the deeper meaning of life.[237] Lewis went with the flow, immersing himself in this then-fashionable way of thinking. He came to believe that his boyhood desires, longings, and experience had been exposed as meaningless. Lewis decided that he was “done with all that.” He had “‘seen through’ them.” He was “never going to be taken in again.”[238] Yet Barfield persuaded Lewis that these lines of argument were inconsistent. Lewis was relying on precisely the same inner patterns of thought that he had dismissed in order to secure his knowledge of an allegedly “objective” world. The consistent outcome of believing only in “the universe revealed by the senses” was to adopt “a Behaviouristic theory of logic, ethics, and aesthetics.” Yet Lewis regarded such a theory as unbelievable. There was an alternative, which gave full weight to the importance of human moral and aesthetic intuitions and did not discount or dismiss them. For Lewis, this led to only one conclusion: “Our logic was participation in a cosmic Logos.”[239] And where might that line of thought take him?