Unique Brother Quotes

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they're like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day... fifty the day after that... and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it's—GASP!!—too late.

A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities.

COOL·NESS [KOOL-NIS] -noun CATCHING your mom gazing at the crazy crowd like she finally gets it WATCHING your dad head-banging like he’s Finn’s twin brother LEARNING that your new friends Tash and Kallie are a thousand times more complicated than you realized, and loving them for it FEELING every one of your boyfriend’s pounding drumbeats, and thinking it’s the most romantic music ever written REALIZING you’re completely unique . . . even in a crowd

One of the the loveliest lines I have ever read comes from Brother Roger, the Prior of the Protestant monks of Taize, France: 'Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' It is still difficult for me to read these words without tears filling my eyes. It is wonderful.

God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God's free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it.

As he soars, he thinks, suddenly, of Dr. Kashen. Or not of Dr. Kashen, necessarily, but the question he had asked him when he was applying to be his advisee: What's your favorite axiom? (The nerd pickup line, CM had once called it.) "The axiom of equality," he'd said, and Kashen had nodded, approvingly. "That's a good one," he'd said. The axiom of equality states that x always equals x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that it must always be equivalent to itself, that it has a uniqueness about it, that it is in possession of something so irreducible that we must assume it is absolutely, unchangeably equivalent to itself for all time, that its very elementalness can never be altered. But it is impossible to prove. Always, absolutes, nevers: these are the words, as much as numbers, that make up the world of mathematics. Not everyone liked the axiom of equality––Dr. Li had once called it coy and twee, a fan dance of an axiom––but he had always appreciated how elusive it was, how the beauty of the equation itself would always be frustrated by the attempts to prove it. I was the kind of axiom that could drive you mad, that could consume you, that could easily become an entire life. But now he knows for certain how true the axiom is, because he himself––his very life––has proven it. The person I was will always be the person I am, he realizes. The context may have changed: he may be in this apartment, and he may have a job that he enjoys and that pays him well, and he may have parents and friends he loves. He may be respected; in court, he may even be feared. But fundamentally, he is the same person, a person who inspires disgust, a person meant to be hated. And in that microsecond that he finds himself suspended in the air, between ecstasy of being aloft and the anticipation of his landing, which he knows will be terrible, he knows that x will always equal x, no matter what he does, or how many years he moves away from the monastery, from Brother Luke, no matter how much he earns or how hard he tries to forget. It is the last thing he thinks as his shoulder cracks down upon the concrete, and the world, for an instant, jerks blessedly away from beneath him: x = x, he thinks. x = x, x = x.

Men flocked to see it and ascended it as it was a novelty and of unique dimensions. It was the toy of the exhibition. So long as we are children we are attracted by toys, and the tower was a good demonstration of the fact that we are all children attracted by trinkets. That may be claimed to be the purpose served by the Eiffel Tower.

For each of you to receive revelation unique to your own needs and responsibilities, certain guidelines prevail. The Lord asks you to develop 'faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God.' Then with your firm 'faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, [and] diligence,' you may ask, and you will receive; you may knock, and it will be opened unto you (D&C 4:5–6; emphasis added).

Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who are unable to connect with the profound—people such as my boring brother-in-law, a hearty type so concerned with normality and fitting in that he eliminates any possibility of uniqueness for himself and his own personality. I wonder if some day, when he is older, he will wake up and the deeper part of him will realize that he has never allowed himself to truly exist, and he will cry with regret and shame and grief.

My little sister is on the spectrum. So, while everyone’s unique, and I’m no expert, I love someone who’s autistic. And I hope you know I’m a safe place for you to be you.

Old men, old men, old men. Medals, medals, medals. Not a brow without a furrow, not a breast without a star. My brother and husband are uniquely-young here. The grouping of young Grand Dukes doesn't count because a grouping is just what they are: a marble bas-relief. Today the whole old-age of Russia seems to have flowed into this place in homage to the eternal youth of Greece. A living lesson of history and philosophy: this is what time does with people, this is what it does--with gods. This is what time does with a man, this is what (a glance at the statues) art does. And, the last lesson: this is what time does with a man; this is what a man does with time. But because of my youth I don't think about that, I feel only a cold shudder. ("The Opening of the Museum")

When Ronan was young and didn’t know any better, he thought everyone was like him. He made rules for humanity based upon observation, his idea of the truth only as broad as his world was. Everyone must sleep and eat. Everyone has hands, feet. Everyone’s skin is sensitive; no one’s hair is. Everyone whispers to hide and shouts to be heard. Everyone has pale skin and blue eyes, every man has long dark hair, every woman has long golden hair. Every child knows the stories of Irish heroes, every mother knows songs about weaver women and lonely boatmen. Every house is surrounded by secret fields and ancient barns, every pasture is watched by blue mountains, every narrow drive leads to a hidden world. Everyone sometimes wakes with their dreams still gripped in their hands. Then he crept out of childhood, and suddenly the uniqueness of experience unveiled itself. Not all fathers are wild, charming schemers, wiry, far-eyed gods; and not all mothers are dulcet, soft-spoken friends, patient as buds in spring. There are people who don’t care about cars and there are people who like to live in cities. Some families do not have older and younger brothers; some families don’t have brothers at all. Most men do not go to Mass every Sunday and most men do not fall in love with other men. And no one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life.

The tradition you were born into was your home, Brother Wayne told me, but as Gandhi once wrote, it should be a home with the windows open so that the winds of other traditions can blow through and bring their unique oxygen. “It’s good to have wings,” he would say, “but you have to have roots, too.

You’re pretty full of yourself. You’re marveling at the tragic spectacle of Caleb Trask—Caleb the magnificent, the unique. Caleb whose suffering should have its Homer. Did you ever think of yourself as a snot-nose kid—mean sometimes, incredibly generous sometimes? Dirty in your habits, and curiously pure in your mind. Maybe you have a little more energy than most, just energy, but outside of that you’re very like all the other snot-nose kids. Are you trying to attract dignity and tragedy to yourself because your mother was a whore? And if anything should have happened to your brother, will you be able to sneak for yourself the eminence of being a murderer, snot-nose?

Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?” “Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?” “Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph. Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?” “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?” Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?” Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.” Adam said, “I don’t see how you could cook and raise the boys and take care of me and still do all this.” “Neither do I,” said Lee. “But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—because ‘Thou mayest.

Bernard was to remember this moment for the rest of his life. As they drank from their water bottles he was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near-infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than anyone could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions, like the woman in black for a husband and two brothers, each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of post-war reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silence and, later, a question: what possible good could come of a Europe covered in this dust, these spores, when forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture?

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day  . . . . fifty the day after that  . . . . and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.

In the end I decided to hold onto the book, my thought being that his story was a unique one, and so best to keep his words aboveground where they might be shared and admired.

something rich and clean and uniquely Ryder.

People and culture cannot be played aside each other, for what makes any human society is its own unique cultural values.

David watched Sol finish the can of beans. Sol always ate fast. He overate. Since he was eight. Sol leaned back in the wooden chair against the wall, under the window. Baby brother. Sol could have been anything he wanted to be. Nothing mathematical, nothing quantitative, of course, but anything else. A beautiful boy, a wonderful brother, they got along well. Then when Sol turned eight years old, age of a new beginning, their mother obsessed over him, ignoring David. Obsessed over Sol and his underwear. Over and over, a regeneration, a newness. Changed his clothes constantly, had him on her lap every minute possible. She put him in bed and tucked the covers in every night. She refused to let their father do it, so he always took care of David. But, of course, David needed no help and Sol always needed Ruth to take care of him. Sol was still being breast fed even when he finally went to kindergarten. Then Ruth slowly increased regular, solid food. But before bed, Sol had a nightcap, mother’s milk. Their special time. Their unique closeness took a turn from breastfeeding to something else. By the time Sol was in third grade, he was one of the fattest kids in class. Then the brothers became a real team. Now here he was. David and Sol still together, on a mission given by the Creator. It was perfect.

Brother, when you've been here as long as I have, you'll come to discover there are only one or two essential things worth living for. Unique to you and you alone. My honor is one of them for me. I keep my honor by keeping the relic out of their hands.

Yours is a curious case, brother... Consistently exposing yourself to the extra-dimensional intelligencies that you and our deluded brethren worship has provoked a uniquely malignant form of of schizophrenia to take root within your mind." - Fabius Bile

Care and concern imply another aspect of love; that of responsibility. Today responsibility is often meant to denote duty, something imposed upon one from the outside. But responsibility, in its true sense, is an entirely voluntary act; it is my response to the needs, expressed or unexpressed, of another human being. To be “responsible” means to be able and ready to “respond.” Jonah did not feel responsible to the inhabitants of Nineveh. He, like Cain, could ask: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The loving person responds. The life of his brother is not his brother’s business alone, but his own. He feels responsible for his fellow men, as he feels responsible for himself. This responsibility, in the case of the mother and her infant, refers mainly to the care for physical needs. In the love between adults it refers mainly to the psychic needs of the other person. Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness, were it not for a third component of love, respect. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me. If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use. It is clear that respect is possible only if I have achieved independence; if I can stand and walk without needing crutches, without having to dominate and exploit anyone else. Respect exists only on the basis of freedom: “l’amour est l’enfant de la liberté” as an old French song says; love is the child of freedom, never that of domination.

The result will not be an Orwellian police state. We always prepare ourselves for the previous enemy, even when we face an altogether new menace. Defenders of human individuality stand guard against the tyranny of the collective, without realising that human individuality is now threatened from the opposite direction. The individual will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within. Today corporations and governments pay homage to my individuality, and promise to provide medicine, education and entertainment customised to my unique needs and wishes. But in order to so, corporations and governments first need to break me up into biochemical subsystems, monitor these subsystems with ubiquitous sensors and decipher their working with powerful algorithms. In the process, the individual will transpire to be nothing but a religious fantasy. Reality will be a mesh of biochemical and electronic algorithms, without clear borders, and without individual hubs.

She was made up of more, too. She was the books she read in the library. She was the flower in the brown bowl. Part of her life was made from the tree growing rankly in the yard. She was the bitter quarrels she had with her brother whom she loved dearly. she was Katie's secret, despairing weeping. She was the shame of her father staggering home drunk. She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.

Married love is fiery, passionate, and intense. It is not constant; it flares up and cools down again. That’s what makes it unique and what creates the attraction. The strength of this kind of love lies in the fact that it is not constant and consistent. Were the relationship of husband and wife to become steady and unchanging like that of a brother and sister, the relationship would become stagnant, and that would be unhealthy.

One example is the familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), which in some ways might be better called the parable of the elder brother. For the point of the parable as a whole - a point frequently overlooked by Christian interpreters, in their eagerness to stress the uniqueness and particularity of the church as the prodigal younger son who has been restored to the father's favor - is in the closing words of the father to the elder brother, who stands for the people of Israel: 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.' The historic covenant between God and Israel was permanent, and it was into this covenant that other peoples too, were now being introduced. This parable of Jesus affirmed both the tradition of God's continuing relation with Israel and the innovation of God's new relation with the church - a twofold covenant.

The individual will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within. Today corporations and governments pay homage to my individuality, and promise to provide medicine, education and entertainment customised to my unique needs and wishes. But in order to so, corporations and governments first need to break me up into biochemical subsystems, monitor these subsystems with ubiquitous sensors and decipher their working with powerful algorithms. In the process, the individual will transpire to be nothing but a religious fantasy.

Tony Williams: You’ve often mentioned that Tales of Hoffmann (1951) has been a major influence on you. George Romero: It was the first film I got completely involved with. An aunt and uncle took me to see it in downtown Manhattan when it first played. And that was an event for me since I was about eleven at the time. The imagery just blew me away completely. I wanted to go and see a Tarzan movie but my aunt and uncle said, “No! Come and see a bit of culture here.” So I thought I was missing out. But I really fell in love with the film. There used to be a television show in New York called Million Dollar Movie. They would show the same film twice a day on weekdays, three times on Saturday, and three-to-four times on Sunday. Tales of Hoffmann appeared on it one week. I missed the first couple of days because I wasn’t aware that it was on. But the moment I found it was on, I watched virtually every telecast. This was before the days of video so, naturally, I couldn’t tape it. Those were the days you had to rent 16mm prints of any film. Most cities of any size had rental services and you could rent a surprising number of films. So once I started to look at Tales of Hoffmann I realized how much stuff Michael Powell did in the camera. Powell was so innovative in his technique. But it was also transparent so I could see how he achieved certain effects such as his use of an overprint in the scene of the ballet dancer on the lily ponds. I was beginning to understand how adept a director can be. But, aside from that, the imagery was superb. Robert Helpmann is the greatest Dracula that ever was. Those eyes were compelling. I was impressed by the way Powell shot Helpmann sweeping around in his cape and craning down over the balcony in the tavern. I felt the film was so unique compared to most of the things we were seeing in American cinema such as the westerns and other dreadful stuff I used to watch. Tales of Hoffmann just took me into another world in terms of its innovative cinematic technique. So it really got me going. Tony Williams: A really beautiful print exists on laserdisc with commentary by Martin Scorsese and others. George Romero: I was invited to collaborate on the commentary by Marty. Pat Buba (Tony’s brother) knew Thelma Schoonmaker and I got to meet Powell in later years. We had a wonderful dinner with him one evening. What an amazing guy! Eventually I got to see more of his movies that I’d never seen before such as I Know Where I’m Going and A Canterbury Tale. Anyway, I couldn’t do the commentary on Tales of Hoffmann with Marty. But, back in the old days in New York, Marty and I were the only two people who would rent a 16mm copy of the film. Every time I found it was out I knew that he had it and each time he wanted it he knew who had it! So that made us buddies.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Only because something can exist as nothing – via the mathematical capacity to express “ nothing ” in non-zero terms, e.g. e iπ + 1 = 0. In other words, wherever you see “ nothing ” (zero), you might in fact be confronting e iπ + 1 (“something” ), without knowing it. Only mathematics has this unique capacity to the ground state of the universe. The compulsory ground state of the universe is zero, the minimum value possible. There is no sufficient reason for any arbitrary non-zero number to serve as the ground state.

If you are a North American Christian, the reality of our society’s vast wealth presents you with an enormous responsibility, for throughout the Scriptures God’s people are commanded to show compassion to the poor. In fact, doing so is simply part of our job description as followers of Jesus Christ (Matt. 25:31–46). While the biblical call to care for the poor transcends time and place, passages such as 1 John 3:17 should weigh particularly heavy on the minds and hearts of North American Christians: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” Of course, there is no “one-size-fits-all” recipe for how each Christian should respond to this biblical mandate. Some are called to pursue poverty alleviation as a career, while others are called to do so as volunteers. Some are called to engage in hands-on, relational ministry, while others are better suited to support frontline workers through financial donations, prayer, and other types of support. Each Christian has a unique set of gifts, callings, and responsibilities that influence the scope and manner in which to fulfill the biblical mandate to help the poor.

[Lena Lees describes from trance her experience of Kuan Yin]: “I see Kuan Yin. She is like Venus, statuesque and standing in front of a beautiful pink half-shell. Quickly, she walks in front of me, pointing the way. We are entering the mouth of a cave. It’s so interesting. I see stairs carved out of rock in the cave. We walk up the stairs to a door. I know somehow this is just another entrance, a doorway to another time, place. Perhaps at another historical time monks lived there. Now, I’m seeing a huge image, a beautiful statue of Kuan Yin right at the top of the mountain. There are stairs leading up to her and it is as if I’m right on location, standing alongside a group of worshipers. I feel the potency of her energy. In these places, perhaps China or Vietnam, there is a palpable sense of being immersed in and supported by her presence. There is a need by the people to know more, to pick up and accumulate wisdom. I’m suddenly feeling a need to be in that kind of energy. Suddenly it is Kuan Yin who is speaking: “Some believe I am in servitude to Buddha. However, Buddha doesn’t see it like that. We’re more like brother and sister. I’m showing, Lena, my abode, a place on earth where humans can visit me and be in my potency. Lena is looking at my statue and then at my form. There’s a difference. I come to people in many forms, forms constructed from people’s own perceptions of how I should come to them. And it is individual spiritual needs that create these unique perceptions. In the end, it does not matter what form I take.” “Kuan Yin wants me to know that I can have the most divine life imaginable,” whispers Lena, still very deep in trance. “She’ll be here until the last soul passes off the earth. She remains in deity form to assist people in transcending their materialistic nature, to help them attain their highest spiritual level.

Other groups of color need to acknowledge the courage of Black America, and our indebtedness to them for what we have learned from their struggles. Although all groups can recount their own unique struggles for equal rights, African Americans have always been in the forefront in advocating for social justice. Many other groups of color (and other marginalized groups—women and LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer] individuals) have learned much from the Black movement, including the importance of group identity, and have profited from the work, struggle, and sacrifice of African American brothers and sisters.

A table of excellencies hangeth over every people. Lo! it is the table of their triumphs; lo! it is the voice of their Will to Power. It is laudable, what they think hard; what is indispensable and hard they call good; and what relieveth in the direct distress, the unique and hardest of all – they extol as holy. Whatever maketh them rule and conquer and shine, to the dismay and envy of their neighbours, they regard as the high and foremost thing, the test and the meaning of all else. Verily, my brother, if thou knewest but a people’s need, its land, its sky, and its neighbour, then wouldst thou divine the law of its surmounts, and why it climbeth up that ladder to its hope.

I'm in the unique position of being able to call my brother, straight out, a non-stop talker - which is a pretty vile thing to call somebody, I think - and yet at the same time to sit back, rather, I'm afraid, like a type with both sleeves full of aces, and effortlessly remember a whole legion of mitigating factors (and 'mitigating' is hardly the word for it). I can condense them all into one: By the time Seymour was in mid-adolescence - sixteen, seventeen - he not only had learned to control his native vernacular, his many, many less than elite New York speech mannerisms, but had by then already cone into his own true, bull's-eye, poet's vocabulary. His non-stop talks, his monologues, his nearharangues then came as close to pleasing from start to finish - for a good many of as, anyway -as, say, the bulk of Beethoven's output after lie ceased being encumbered with a sense of hearing, and maybe I'm thinking especially, though it seems a trifle picky, of the B-flat-major and C-sharp-minor quartets. Still, we were a family of seven children, originally. And, as it happened, none of us was in the least tongue-tied. It's an exceedingly weighty matter when six naturally profuse verbalizers and expounders have an undefeatable champion talker in the house. True, he never sought the title. And he passionately yearned to see one or another of us outpoint or simply outlast him in a conversation or an argument. Аз съм стигнал до завидното положение да мога направо да нарека брат си кречетало — което не е много ласкателно — и същевременно да седя спокойно, сякаш съм пълен господар на положението, и без усилие да си припомням цяла редица смекчаващи вината обстоятелства (при все че „смекчаващи вината“ едва ли е най-подходящият израз в случая). Мога да ги обобщя в едно: по времето, когато Сиймор бе достигнал средата на юношеската си възраст — на шестнайсет-седемнайсет години, — той не само владееше до съвършенство родния си език с всичките му тънкости, но си беше създал и собствен, много точен поетически речник. Неговата говорливост, неговите монолози, неговите едва ли не прокламации звучеха почти толкова приятно — поне за мнозина от нас, — колкото, да речем, повечето от творбите на Бетховен, създадени, след като се е освободил от бремето на слуха; макар и да звучи претенциозно, тук имам предвид по-специално квартетите в си бемол мажор и до диез миньор. В нашето семейство бяхме седем деца. И нито едно от тях не беше лишено в ни най-малка степен от дар слово. Е, не е ли голямо тегло, когато шестима словоохотливци и тълкуватели имат в къщата си един непобедим шампион по речовитост? Вярно, той никога не се е стремил към тази титла. Дори жадуваше някой от нас да го надмине ако не по красноречие, то поне до дългоречие в някой спор или прост разговор.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2). Could it be that those rooms are inner chambers in the heart of God, each of which has an individual’s name on it? If this is true, and I’d like to believe it is, then all I have to do is tell about my Lord and my God. Because I know him intimately, uniquely, it may be a revelation, in a sense, of the secret things of the Father. This is part of my calling—to make known the heart of God. And because he holds a special place in his heart for me and me alone (just as he holds a special place for you), my story stands a chance to be edifying to my sisters and brothers, just as your story, your insight, your revelation of God’s heart, is something the rest of us need.

On its surface this is a book about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet. But it is really about a more primal battle all human beings face, to respect, defend, and love themselves. When Meg pulls the ultimate weapon from her emotional arsenal to fight, for her little brother and for good, it is a great moment, not just for her, but for every reader who has ever felt overlooked, confused, alone. It has been more than four decades since I first read A Wrinkle in Time. If I could tesser, perhaps in some different time and place I would find a Meg Murry just my age, a grown woman with an astonishing brain, a good heart, and a unique perspective on how our differences are what makes life worth living. Oh, how I would like to meet her!

What we are faced with in our culture is the post-Christian version of the doctrine of original sin: all human endeavor is radically flawed, and the journalists who take delight in pointing this out are simply telling over and over again the story of Genesis 3 as applied to today’s leaders, politicians, royalty and rock stars. And our task, as image-bearing, God-loving, Christshaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to the world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to the world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to the world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion. So the key I propose for translating Jesus’ unique message to the Israel of his day into our message to our contemporaries is to grasp the parallel, which is woven deeply into both Testaments, between the human call to bear God’s image and Israel’s call to be the light of the world. Humans were made to reflect God’s creative stewardship into the world. Israel was made to bring God’s rescuing love to bear upon the world. Jesus came as the true Israel, the world’s true light, and as the true image of the invisible God. He was the true Jew, the true human. He has laid the foundation, and we must build upon it. We are to be the bearers both of his redeeming love and of his creative stewardship: to celebrate it, to model it, to proclaim it, to dance to it. “As the Father sent me, so I send you; receive the Holy Spirit; forgive sins and they are forgiven, retain them and they are retained.” That last double command belongs exactly at this point. We are to go out into the world with the divine authority to forgive and retain sins. When Jesus forgave sins, they said he was blaspheming; how then can we imagine such a thing for ourselves? Answer: because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. God intends to do through us for the wider world that for which the foundation was laid in Jesus. We are to live and tell the story of the prodigal and the older brother; to announce God’s glad, exuberant, richly healing welcome for sinners, and at the same time God’s sorrowful but implacable opposition to those who persist in arrogance, oppression and greed. Following Christ in the power of the Spirit means bringing to our world the shape of the gospel: forgiveness, the best news that anyone can ever hear, for all who yearn for it, and judgment for all who insist on dehumanizing themselves and others by their continuing pride, injustice and greed.

I call it the state where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: the state where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: the state where universal slow suicide is called — life. Just look at these superfluous people! They steal for themselves the works of inventors and the treasures of the wise: they call their theft culture — and they turn everything to sickness and calamity. Just look at these superfluous people! They are always ill, they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another and cannot even digest themselves. Just look at these superfluous people! They acquire wealth and make themselves poorer with it. They desire power and especially the lever of power, plenty of money — these impotent people! See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another and so scuffle into the mud and the abyss. They all strive towards the throne: it is a madness they have — as if happiness sat upon the throne! Often filth sits upon the throne — and often the throne upon filth, too. They all seem madmen to me and clambering apes and too vehement. Their idol, that cold monster, smells unpleasant to me: all of them, all these idolaters, smell unpleasant to me. My brothers, do you then want to suffocate in the fumes of their animal mouths and appetites? Better to break the window and leap into the open air. Avoid this bad odour! Leave the idolatry of the superfluous! Avoid this bad odour! Leave the smoke of these human sacrifices! The earth still remains free for great souls. Many places — the odour of tranquil seas blowing about them — are still empty for solitaries and solitary couples. A free life still remains for great souls. Truly, he who possesses little is so much the less possessed: praised be a moderate poverty! Only there, where the state ceases, does the man who is not superfluous begin: does the song of the necessary man, the unique and irreplaceable melody, begin. There, where the state ceases — look there, my brothers. Do you not see it: the rainbow and the bridges to the Superman?

King Apollyon, the ruler of the Empire of Evil looked downcast and very depressed although his powerful voice floated with pressure through the minds of his sons, Abbadon and Plouton. The red-brown eyes of King Apollyon flashed yellow as they saw the empty corral of Fayina, his favorite unicorn, and Apollyon was suddenly very disappointed with Abbadon. Plouton caught the disappointment about Abbadon in his father’s eyes. He knew immediately this was his unique opportunity to step into the conversation. He felt that this was the right moment for him because he had the full attention of his father and his brother. He took his chance and said: “Maybe we should put this whole case into other hands!” “What is this…?” King Apollyon yelled. He lost his temper again and screamed even louder. “What do you mean, to put this case into other hands? Do you expect me to do the work by myself?” Abbadon was astonished about his brother’s recommendation. He looked very critically at him and his red-rimmed eyes burned into his.

Next week is Beltane,” she reminded him. “Do you suppose we will make it through the wedding this time?” “Not if Gideon says you cannot get out of this bed,” he countered sternly. “Absolutely not!” she burst out, making him wince and cover the ear she’d been too close to. She immediately regretted her thoughtlessness, making a sad sound before reaching to kiss the ear she had offended with quiet gentleness. Jacob extricated himself from her hold enough to allow himself to turn and face her. “Okay, explain what you meant,” he said gently. “I refuse to wait another six months. We are getting married on Beltane, come hell or . . . necromancers . . . or . . . the creature from the Black Lagoon. There is no way Corrine is going to be allowed to get married without me getting married, too. I refuse to listen to her calling me the family hussy for the rest of the year.” “What does it matter what she says?” Jacob sighed as he reached to touch the soft contours of her face. “You and I are bonded in a way that transcends marriage already. Is that not what is important?” “No. What’s important is the fact that I am going to murder the sister I love if she doesn’t quit. And she will not quit until I shut her up either with a marriage or a murder weapon. Understand?” Clearly, by his expression, Jacob did not understand. “Thank Destiny all I have is a brother,” he said dryly. “I have been inundated with people tied into knots over one sister or another for the past weeks.” “You mean Legna. Listen, it’s not her fault if everyone has their shorts in a twist because of who her Imprinted mate is! Frankly, I think she and Gideon make a fabulous couple. Granted, a little too gorgeously ‘King and Queen of the Prom’ perfect for human eyes to bear looking at for long, but fabulous just the same.” Jacob blinked in confusion as he tried to decipher his fiancée’s statement. Even after all these months, she still came out with unique phraseologies that totally escaped his more classic comprehension of the English language. But he had gotten used to just shrugging his confusion off, blaming it on the fact that English wasn’t his first, second, or third language, so it was to be expected. “Anyway,” she went on, “Noah and Hannah need to chill. You saw Legna when she came to visit yesterday. If a woman could glow, she was as good as radioactive.” She smiled sweetly at him. “That means,” she explained, “that she looks as brilliantly happy as you make me feel.” “I see,” he chuckled. “Thank you for the translation.” He reached his arms around her, drawing her body up to his as close as he could considering the small matter of a fetal obstacle. He kissed her inviting mouth until she was breathless and glowing herself. “I thought I would be kind to you,” she explained with a laugh against his mouth. “You, my love, are all heart.” “And you are all pervert. Jacob!” She laughed as she swatted one of his hands away from intimate places, only to be shanghaied by another. “What would Gideon say?” “He better not say anything, because if he did that would mean he was in here while you are naked. And that, little flower, would probably cost him his vocal chords in any event.” “Oh. Well . . . when you put it that way . . .

The Sumerian pantheon was headed by an "Olympian Circle" of twelve, for each of these supreme gods had to have a celestial counterpart, one of the twelve members of the Solar System. Indeed, the names of the gods and their planets were one and the same (except when a variety of epithets were used to describe the planet or the god's attributes). Heading the pantheon was the ruler of Nibiru, ANU whose name was synonymous with "Heaven," for he resided on Nibiru. His spouse, also a member of the Twelve, was called ANTU. Included in this group were the two principal sons of ANU: E.A ("Whose House Is Water"), Anu's Firstborn but not by Antu; and EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") who was the Heir Apparent because his mother was Antu, a half sister of Anu. Ea was also called in Sumerian texts EN.KI ("Lord Earth"), for he had led the first mission of the Anunnaki from Nibiru to Earth and established on Earth their first colonies in the E.DIN ("Home of the Righteous Ones")—the biblical Eden. His mission was to obtain gold, for which Earth was a unique source. Not for ornamentation or because of vanity, but as away to save the atmosphere of Nibiru by suspending gold dust in that planet's stratosphere. As recorded in the Sumerian texts (and related by us in The 12th Planet and subsequent books of The Earth Chronicles), Enlil was sent to Earth to take over the command when the initial extraction methods used by Enki proved unsatisfactory. This laid the groundwork for an ongoing feud between the two half brothers and their descendants, a feud that led to Wars of the Gods; it ended with a peace treaty worked out by their sister Ninti (thereafter renamed Ninharsag). The inhabited Earth was divided between the warring clans. The three sons of Enlil—Ninurta, Sin, Adad—together with Sin's twin children, Shamash (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus), were given the lands of Shem and Japhet, the lands of the Semites and Indo-Europeans: Sin (the Moon) lowland Mesopotamia; Ninurta, ("Enlil's Warrior," Mars) the highlands of Elam and Assyria; Adad ("The Thunderer," Mercury) Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites) and Lebanon. Ishtar was granted dominion as the goddess of the Indus Valley civilization; Shamash was given command of the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. This division, which did not go uncontested, gave Enki and his sons the lands of Ham—the brown/black people—of Africa: the civilization of the Nile Valley and the gold mines of southern and western Africa—a vital and cherished prize. A great scientist and metallurgist, Enki's Egyptian name was Ptah ("The Developer"; a title that translated into Hephaestus by the Greeks and Vulcan by the Romans). He shared the continent with his sons; among them was the firstborn MAR.DUK ("Son of the Bright Mound") whom the Egyptians called Ra, and NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Tree of Life") whom the Egyptians called Thoth (Hermes to the Greeks)—a god of secret knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, and the building of pyramids. It was the knowledge imparted by this pantheon, the needs of the gods who had come to Earth, and the leadership of Thoth, that directed the African Olmecs and the bearded Near Easterners to the other side of the world. And having arrived in Mesoamerica on the Gulf coast—just as the Spaniards, aided by the same sea currents, did millennia later—they cut across the Mesoamerican isthmus at its narrowest neck and—just like the Spaniards due to the same geography—sailed down from the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica southward, to the lands of Central America and beyond. For that is where the gold was, in Spanish times and before.

JANUARY 26 Being Kind-I You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. —KAHLIL GIBRAN The great and fierce mystic William Blake said, There is no greater act than putting another before you. This speaks to a selfless giving that seems to be at the base of meaningful love. Yet having struggled for a lifetime with letting the needs of others define me, I've come to understand that without the healthiest form of self-love—without honoring the essence of life that this thing called “self” carries, the way a pod carries a seed—putting another before you can result in damaging self-sacrifice and endless codependence. I have in many ways over many years suppressed my own needs and insights in an effort not to disappoint others, even when no one asked me to. This is not unique to me. Somehow, in the course of learning to be good, we have all been asked to wrestle with a false dilemma: being kind to ourselves or being kind to others. In truth, though, being kind to ourselves is a prerequisite to being kind to others. Honoring ourselves is, in fact, the only lasting way to release a truly selfless kindness to others. It is, I believe, as Mencius, the grandson of Confucius, says, that just as water unobstructed will flow downhill, we, given the chance to be what we are, will extend ourselves in kindness. So, the real and lasting practice for each of us is to remove what obstructs us so that we can be who we are, holding nothing back. If we can work toward this kind of authenticity, then the living kindness—the water of compassion—will naturally flow. We do not need discipline to be kind, just an open heart. Center yourself and meditate on the water of compassion that pools in your heart. As you breathe, simply let it flow, without intent, into the air about you. JANUARY 27 Being Kind-II We love what we attend. —MWALIMU IMARA There were two brothers who never got along. One was forever ambushing everything in his path, looking for the next treasure while the first was still in his hand. He swaggered his shield and cursed everything he held. The other brother wandered in the open with very little protection, attending whatever he came upon. He would linger with every leaf and twig and broken stone. He blessed everything he held. This little story suggests that when we dare to move past hiding, a deeper law arises. When we bare our inwardness fully, exposing our strengths and frailties alike, we discover a kinship in all living things, and from this kinship a kindness moves through us and between us. The mystery is that being authentic is the only thing that reveals to us our kinship with life. In this way, we can unfold the opposite of Blake's truth and say, there is no greater act than putting yourself before another. Not before another as in coming first, but rather as in opening yourself before another, exposing your essence before another. Only in being this authentic can real kinship be known and real kindness released. It is why we are moved, even if we won't admit it, when strangers let down and show themselves. It is why we stop to help the wounded and the real. When we put ourselves fully before another, it makes love possible, the way the stubborn land goes soft before the sea. Place a favorite object in front of you, and as you breathe, put yourself fully before it and feel what makes it special to you. As you breathe, meditate on the place in you where that specialness comes from. Keep breathing evenly, and know this specialness as a kinship between you and your favorite object. During your day, take the time to put yourself fully before something that is new to you, and as you breathe, try to feel your kinship to it.

Mr. Hazlit!” She kept her voice down with effort, but when a man sneaked up behind a lady and slid his arms around her waist, some exclamation was in order. “Hush.” He turned her in his arms, though part of Maggie was strongly admonishing herself to wrestle free. He’d let her go. She trusted him that far, when a servant was likely to appear any moment with a tea tray. “Something has you in a dither. Tell me.” His embrace was the most beguiling, irresistible mockery of a kindness. Gayle had offered her a hug a few days ago, a brusque, brotherly gesture as careful as it was brief. This was different. This was… Benjamin Hazlit’s warm, strong male body, available for her comfort. No conditions, no awkwardness, no dissembling for the benefit of an audience. She sighed and tucked her face against his throat, unwilling—or unable—to deny herself what he offered. For a few moments, she was going to pretend she wasn’t alone in a sea of trouble. She was going to pretend they were friends—cousins, maybe—and stealing this from him was permitted. She was going to hold on to the fiction that she was as entitled to dream of children and a husband to dote upon as the next woman. “You are wound as tight as a fiddle string, Maggie Windham.” Hazlit’s hand settled on her neck, kneading gently. “Are the domestics feuding, or has Her Grace been hounding you?” “She never hounds or scolds.” Maggie rested her forehead on his shoulder, her bones turning to butter at his touch. “She looks at us, disappointment in the prettiest green eyes you’ve ever seen, and you want to disappear into the ground, never to emerge until you can make her smile again. His Grace says it’s the same for him.” When she was held like this, Maggie could detect a unique scent about Hazlit’s person: honeysuckle and spice, like an exotic incense. It clung to his clothing, and when she turned her head to rest her cheek on the wool of his coat, she caught the same fragrance rising from the exposed flesh of his neck. That hand of his went wandering, over her shoulder blades, down her spine. “You are tired,” he said, his voice resonating through her physically. “What is disturbing your sleep, Maggie? And don’t think I’ll be distracted by more hissing and arching your back.” “I’m not a cat.” “You’ve cat eyes.” He turned her so his arm was around her waist. “Let’s sit by the fire, and you can tell me your troubles.” Such

Josephson had died just north of Abd al-Kuri Island, an uninhabited, mountainous desert with, on its eastern side, perhaps the world’s wildest and finest beach. To mollify Holworthy, in a moment of weakness not long after they had departed Lemonnier, Rensselaer had considered leaving a few SEALs there on the way south, to observe traffic, as on occasion irregular forces were ordered to do. But he had decided then that rather than mollify Holworthy, he would keep him down. The rendezvous point with the Puller wasn’t far, and, arriving first, Athena waited. The Puller was out of sight but in radio contact. Eventually they saw her to the west, and she came even with Athena at dusk, although in that latitude, as Josephson had learned, dusk is so short it hardly exists. With the lights of the Puller blazing despite wartime conditions, her vast superstructure, hollow and beamed like a box-girder bridge, was cast in flares and shadows. A brow was extended from a door in the side and fixed to Athena’s main deck. As a gentle swell moved the two ships up and down at different rates, the hinged brow tilted slightly one way and then another. The Iranian prisoners were escorted over the brow and to the brig in the Puller, which would take them very close to their own country, but then to the United States. They were bitter and depressed. The huge ship into the darkness of which they were swallowed seemed like an alien craft from another civilization, which, for them, it was. A gray metal coffin was carried to Athena by a detail from the Puller. This was a sad thing to see, sadder than struggle, sadder than blood. It disappeared below. Josephson’s body was placed inside it and the flag draped over it. Six of Athena’s crew in dress uniform carried it slowly to the brow and set it on deck. After a long silence, Rensselaer spoke a few words. “Our shipmates Speight and Josephson are no longer with us—Speight committed to the deep, lost except to God. And Josephson, who will go home. Neither of these men is unique in death. They are still very much like us, and we are like them: it’s only a matter of time—however long, however short. If upon gazing at this coffin you feel a gulf between you, the living, and him, one of the dead, remember that our fates are the same, and he isn’t as far from us as we may imagine. “At times like this I question our profession. I question the enterprise of war. And then I go on, as we shall, and as we must. In this spirit we bid goodbye to Ensign Josephson, to whom you might have been brothers, and I and the chiefs, perhaps, fathers. May God bless and keep him.” Then the captain read the 23rd Psalm, a salute was fired, and Josephson’s coffin was lifted to the shoulders of its bearers and slowly carried into the depths of the Puller. When he died, he was very young.

Unconditional Love - Love Without Condition I love you as you are, as you seek to find your own special way to relate to the world. I honour your choices to learn in the way you feel is right for you. I know it is important that you are the person you want to be and not someone that I or others think you "should" be. I realise that I cannot know what is best for you, although perhaps sometimes I think I do. I have not been where you have been, viewing life from the angle you have. I do not know what you have chosen to learn, how you have chosen to learn it, with whom or in what time period. I have not walked life looking through your eyes, so how can I know what you need. I allow you to be in the world without a thought or word of judgement from me about the deeds you undertake. I see no error in the things you say and do. In this place where I am, I see that there are many ways to perceive and experience the different facets of our world. I allow without reservation the choices you make in each moment. I make no judgement of this, for if I would deny your right to your evolution, then I would deny that right for myself and all others. To those who would choose a way I cannot walk, whilst I may not choose to add my power and my energy to this way, I will never deny you the gift of love that God has bestowed within me, for all creation. As I love you, so I shall be loved. As I sow, so shall I reap. I allow you the Universal right of Free Will to walk your own path, creating steps or to sit awhile if that is what is right for you. I will make no judgement that these steps are large or small, nor light or heavy or that they lead up or down, for this is just my viewpoint. I may see you do nothing and judge it to be unworthy and yet it may be that you bring great healing as you stand blessed by the Light of God. I cannot always see the higher picture of Divine Order. For it is the inalienable right of all life to choose their own evolution and with great Love I acknowledge your right to determine your future. In humility I bow to the realisation that the way I see as best for me does not have to mean it is also right for you. I know that you are led as I am, following the inner excitement to know your own path. I know that the many races, religions, customs, nationalities and beliefs within our world bring us great richness and allow us the benefit and teachings of such diverseness. I know we each learn in our own unique way in order to bring that Love and Wisdom back to the whole. I know that if there were only one way to do something, there would need only be one person. I will not only love you if you behave in a way I think you should, or believe in those things I believe in. I understand you are truly my brother and my sister, though you may have been born in a different place and believe in another God than I. The love I feel is for all of God's world. I know that every living thing is a part of God and I feel a Love deep within for every person, animal, tree and flower, every bird, river and ocean and for all the creatures in all the world. I live my life in loving service, being the best me I can, becoming wiser in the perfection of Divine Truth, becoming happier in the joy of ... Unconditional Love

As the most perfect subject for painting I have already specified inwardly satisfied [reconciled and peaceful] love, the object of which is not a purely spiritual ‘beyond’ but is present, so that we can see love itself before us in what is loved. The supreme and unique form of this love is Mary’s love for the Christ-child, the love of the one mother who has borne the Saviour of the world and carries him in her arms. This is the most beautiful subject to which Christian art in general, and especially painting in its religious sphere, has risen. The love of God, and in particular the love of Christ who sits at’ the right hand of God, is of a purely spiritual kind. The object of this love is visible only to the eye of the soul, so that here there is strictly no question of that duality which love implies, nor is any natural bond established between the lovers or any linking them together from the start. On the other hand, any other love is accidental in the inclination of one lover for another, or,’ alternatively, the lovers, e.g. brothers and sisters or a father in his love for his children, have outside this relation other conceI1l8 with an essential claim on them. Fathers or brothers have to apply themselves to the world, to the state, business, war, or, in short, to general purposes, while sisters become wives, mothers, and so forth. But in the case of maternal love it is generally true that a mother’s love for her child is neither something accidental just a single feature in her life, but, on the contrary, it is her supreme vocation on earth, and her natural character and most sacred calling directly coincide. But while other loving mothers see and feel in their child their husband and their inmost union with him, in Mary’s relation to her child this aspect is always absent. For her feeling has nothing in common with a wife’s love for her husband; on the contrary, her relation to Joseph is more like a sister’s to a brother, while on Joseph’s side there is a secret awe of the child who is God’s and Mary’s. Thus religious love in its fullest and most intimate human form we contemplate not in the suffering and risen Christ or in his lingering amongst his friends but in the person of Mary with her womanly feeling. Her whole heart and being is human love for the child that she calls her own, and at the same time adoration, worship, and love of God with whom she feels herself at one. She is humble in God’s sight and yet has an infinite sense of being the one woman who is blessed above all other virgins. She is not self-subsistent on her own account, but is perfect only in her child, in God, but in him she is satisfied and blessed, whether. at the manger or as the Queen of Heaven, without passion or longing, without any further need, without any aim other than to have and to hold what she has. In its religious subject-matter the portrayal of this love has a wide series of events, including, for example, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth, the Flight into Egypt, etc. And then there are, added to this, other subjects from the later life of Christ, i.e. the Disciples and the women who follow him and in whom the love of God becomes more or less a personal relation of love for a living and present Saviour who walks amongst them as an actual man; there is also the love of the angels who hover over the birth of Christ and many other scenes in his life, in serious worship or innocent joy. In all these subjects it is painting especially which presents the peace and full satisfaction of love. But nevertheless this peace is followed by the deepest suffering. Mary sees Christ carry his cross, she sees him suffer and die on the cross, taken down from the cross and buried, and no grief of others is so profound as hers. Mary’s grief is of a totally different kind. She is emotional, she feels the thrust of the dagger into the centre of her soul, her heart breaks, but she does not turn into stone.

Every child is born, with some inherited characteristics, into a specific socio-economic and emotional environment, and trained in certain ways by figures of authority. I inherited honesty and self-discipline from my father; from my mother, I inherited faith in goodness and deep kindness and so did my three brothers and sister. But it was the time I spent with Jallaluddin and Samsuddin that perhaps contributed most to the uniqueness of my childhood and made all the difference in my later life. The unschooled wisdom of Jallaluddin and Samsuddin was so intuitive and responsive to non-verbal messages that I can unhesitatingly attribute my subsequently manifested creativity to their company in my childhood.

In the case of my younger brother it was an immortality without flaw, without commentary, smooth, pure, unique. My younger brother had nothing to cry in the wilderness, he had nothing to say, here or anywhere, nothing. He was uneducated, he never managed to learn anything. He couldn't speak, could scarcely read, scarcely write, sometimes you'd think he couldn't even suffer. He was someone who didn't understand and was afraid.

Every relationship we have —with Mom, with Dad, with brothers, with sisters, with friends —is unique because we dream a small dream together. Every relationship becomes a living being made by two dreamers.

Next morning at 10 o’clock William had a unique opportunity. For it was he who would deliver the sermon for the meeting. And to the discomfort of many there he preached on Isaiah 54. “‘Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes’!” he exhorted his fellow ministers. Once again he had delivered his message of obligation to convert the heathen. Finally he concluded, “Brothers, expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” Young John Ryland looked shaken. “Brother Carey, I think you have proved our negligence in this cause of God.” Bringing John Ryland to the cause was a great step forward. William knew he already had one powerful ally in Andrew Fuller. But at the business meeting later, not only was no money allocated toward a missionary society but not one minister seconded William’s motion to form a society. William slumped in his chair, his mind reeling. “This

Liberal politics is based on the idea that the voters know best, and there is no need for Big Brother to tell us what is good for us. Liberal economics is based on the idea that the customer is always right. Liberal art declares that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Students in liberal schools and universities are taught to think for themselves. Commercials urge us to ‘Just do it.’ Action films, stage dramas, soap operas, novels and catchy pop songs indoctrinate us constantly: ‘Be true to yourself’, ‘Listen to yourself’, ‘Follow your heart’. Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated this view most classically: ‘What I feel to be good – is good. What I feel to be bad – is bad.’ People who have been raised from infancy on a diet of such slogans are prone to believe that happiness is a subjective feeling and that each individual best knows whether she is happy or miserable. Yet this view is unique to liberalism. Most religions and ideologies throughout history stated that there are objective yardsticks for goodness and beauty, and for how things ought to be. They were suspicious of the feelings and preferences of the ordinary person. At the entrance of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, pilgrims were greeted by the inscription: ‘Know thyself!’ The implication was that the average person is ignorant of his true self, and is therefore likely to be ignorant of true happiness. Freud would probably concur.fn1 And so would Christian theologians. St Paul and St Augustine knew perfectly well that if you asked people about it, most of them would prefer to have sex than pray to God. Does that prove that having sex is the key to happiness? Not according to Paul and Augustine. It proves only that humankind is sinful by nature, and that people are easily seduced by Satan. From a Christian viewpoint, the vast majority of people are in more or less the same situation as heroin addicts. Imagine that a psychologist embarks on a study of happiness among drug users. He polls them and finds that they declare, every single one of them, that they are only happy when they shoot up. Would the psychologist publish a paper declaring that heroin is the key to happiness? The idea that feelings are not to be trusted is not restricted to Christianity. At least when it comes to the value of feelings, even Darwin and Dawkins might find common ground with St Paul and St Augustine. According to the selfish gene theory, natural selection makes people, like other organisms, choose what is good for the reproduction of their genes, even if it is bad for them as individuals. Most males spend their lives toiling, worrying, competing and fighting, instead of enjoying peaceful bliss, because their DNA manipulates them for its own selfish aims. Like Satan, DNA uses fleeting pleasures to tempt people and place them in its power.

BRANDON!” Jarryd’s voice echoed through the halls and felt like cymbals in Brandon’s ears.  He groaned and sat up.  “I’m in here!” “BRANDON!” Greyson gave him a half-smile and dropped to his pillow.  “Aaah.  It feels good to lie here with no obligations.  Sooo nice.” “Jerk.”  Brandon threw Liam’s pillow at him.  “Someone stole my towel!”  Jarryd screamed.  “I’m NAKED!”  Brandon’s eyes squinted and his lips curled in disgust.  “I’m not in here!  I’m not in here!” Greyson glimpsed Brandon’s panicked face then suddenly stuffed his face into Liam’s pillow to stifle his laughter.  Brandon eyed the boy and kept a cautious look at the doorway, stuck between two unique situations; finally, Greyson had broken his stubborn reserve, but he had an odd, naked boy to clothe in the hall. “W-w-w-w-w what…” he heard from the hall.  Liam had happened upon Jarryd.  Jarryd laughed hysterically, “What are you looking at?  This is my body.  God gave it to me!” Liam rushed into the room, soaking wet, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Ja-Ja-Jarryd’s naked!” Brandon got up and cautiously approached the hall.  “I’m coming out and you better have clothes on, or you’re spending free time with me tomorrow.” “Oh, geez!”  Jarryd expressed from out of view in the hall.  “Nick, throw me my boxers!  Quick!”  Brandon looked back toward Greyson and rolled his eyes.  Greyson dropped his hat over his face, his stomach still bouncing with inner laughter. “Are these my boxers?  These are yours!”  “I’m coming out in three…”  “Can I wear them?” Jarryd asked his brother.  “NO!” Nick shouted. “Two…” “I’m putting them on!”  “One!

He had avenged the murders of his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law. But that did nothing to take away the loss, the pain. Nothing ever could. Time did not heal wounds for Decker. The passage of time was irrelevant to his unique mind. Everything he had ever experienced in life was as freshly minted in his brain as the moment it was created.

In a sermon entitled “The American Dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr., said: You see, the founding fathers were really influenced by the Bible. The whole concept of the imago dei, as it is expressed in Latin, the “image of God,” is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected. Not that they have substantial unity with God, but that every man has a capacity to have fellowship with God. And this gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity. And we must never forget this as a nation: There are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God. One day we will learn that. We will know one day that God made us to live together as brothers and to respect the dignity and worth of every man. This is why we must fight segregation with all of our nonviolent might.80

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And that was the strangest thing of all – to talk to him again, brother to brother, just for a moment before it had to end. For so long, his every thought had been of the kill that had been denied him, but now it was just the old fraternal one upmanship again, the kind of relentless needle all of them had given one another since the start. Because you could forget, if you were not careful, how alone they were; that no one, not the gods, not even their own father, perceived the universe just as they did. They were unique, the primarchs, bespoke blends of the physical and the divine, irreplaceable one-offs amid a galaxy of dreary mass production. In a fundamental sense, Jaghatai knew more of Mortarion’s essential character than most of the Death Guard, and he knew more of the Khan’s than the peoples of Chogoris. That had always been the paradox of them – they had been strangers in their own homelands, cut off by fate from those who should have been their blood brothers. Now they were all back on Terra, the place of origin, and all that seemed to have been forgotten amid the heedless hurry to murder one another.

I went to a store on the Upper West Side. This store is like a Museum of Natural History where everything is for sale: every taxidermic or skeletal animal that roams the earth is represented in this shop and, because of that, it is popular. I went with my brother last weekend. Near the cash register was a bowl of glass eyes and a sign reading “DO NOT HOLD THESE GLASS EYES UP AGAINST YOUR OWN EYES: THE ROUGH STEM CAN CAUSE INJURY.” I talked to the fellow behind the counter and he said, “It’s the same thing every time. First they hold up the eyes and then they go for the horns. I’m sick of it.” It frightened me that, until I saw the sign, my first impulse was to hold those eyes up to my own. I thought it might be a laugh riot. All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I’m afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

We would never say to a man, "Be eccentric"; but if he cannot help being so, we would not have him be otherwise. The Leaning Tower of Pisa owes much of its fame to its leaning, and although it certainly is not a safe model for architects, we would by no means advise its demolition. Ten to one any builder who tried to erect another would create a huge ruin, and therefore it would not be a safe precedent; but there it is, and who wishes it was other than it is? Serve the Lord, brother, with your very best, and seek to do even better, and whatever your peculiarities, the grace of God will be glorified in you.

From the moment people first began practicing rituals, they have been creating folk tales and legends to celebrate their past and create a unique cultural identity. Mythik Press carries these legacies forward by publishing the greatest stories ever concocted, from King Arthur to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.

We are meat, Elliott thought. It was a horrifying thing to have go through his head. He knew that he and his brothers, that all people everywhere, were also exquisite sparks of unique consciousness – perhaps unique in the thirteen-billion-year history of the universe. We are angels, spirit creatures of hope and light and possibility and love.

One reason Bonhoeffer wished to spend a year as a pastor in Barcelona was that he believed communicating what he knew theologically—whether to indifferent businessmen, teenagers, or younger children—was as important as the theology itself. His success in children’s ministry shows this, and this letter to his future brother-in-law Walter Dress gives us a glimpse into this aspect of his year in Barcelona: 86 Today I encountered a completely unique case in my pastoral counseling, which I’d like to recount to you briefly and which despite its simplicity really made me think. At 11:00 a.m. there was a knock at my door and a ten-year-old boy came into my room with something I had requested from his parents. I noticed that something was amiss with the boy, who is usually cheerfulness personified. And soon it came out: he broke down in tears, completely beside himself, and I could hear only the words: “Herr Wolf ist tot” [Mr. Wolf is dead.], and then he cried and cried. “But who is Herr Wolf?” As it turns out, it is a young German shepherd dog that was sick for eight days and had just died a half-hour ago. So the boy, inconsolable, sat down on my knee and could hardly regain his composure; he told me how the dog died and how everything is lost now. He played only with the dog, each morning the dog came to the boy’s bed and awakened him—and now the dog was dead. What could I say? So he talked to me about it for quite a while. Then suddenly his wrenching crying became very quiet and he said: “But I know he’s not dead at all.” “What do you mean?” “His spirit is now in heaven, where it is happy. Once in class a boy asked the religion teacher what heaven was like, and she said she had not been there yet; but tell me now, will I see Herr Wolf again? He’s certainly in heaven.” So there I stood and was supposed to answer him yes or no. If I said “no, we don’t know” that would have meant “no.” . . . So I quickly made up my mind and said to him: “Look, God created human beings and also animals, and I’m sure he also loves animals. And I believe that with God it is such that all who loved each other on earth—genuinely loved each other—will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, though, we admittedly don’t know.” You should have seen the happy face on this boy; he had completely stopped crying. “So then I’ll see Herr Wolf again when I am dead; then we can play together again”—in a word, he was ecstatic. I repeated to him a couple of times that we don’t really know how this happens. He, however, knew, and knew it quite definitely in thought. After a few minutes, he said: “Today I really scolded Adam and Eve; if they had not eaten the apple, Herr Wolf would not have died.” This whole affair was as important to the young boy as things are for one of us when something really bad happens. But I am almost surprised—moved, by the naïveté of the piety that awakens at such a moment in an otherwise completely wild young boy who is thinking of nothing. And there I stood—I who was supposed to “know the answer”—feeling quite small next to him; and I cannot forget the confident expression he had on his face when he left.

The High Priestess met his eyes, evaluating him for another long moment. “I have wondered always what kind of man you would become, Narian. You can believe what you will, but to me you were never just a tool to be forged, an instrument of unique purpose and, therefore, worth. You came to me as a babe in arms, and I treated you as my son to the extent my brother would permit. Now I see that you are also a rare man.” Nantilam shifted her commanding eyes to me. “And you, Alera, are no doubt part of the reason. Had you been born Cokyrian, you would probably be at my side, one of my trusted shield maidens, for you have more than enough courage and ingenuity to merit such an honor. Again, something I did not expect to find in Hytanica.” “Then let’s come to it,” Narian snapped. “Be the wise and fair ruler I grew up believing you to be. If Cannan and his men should succeed in routing our troops, then accept that outcome and recognize Hytanica as a free land. Negotiate a peace treaty with Alera. Ask for whatever crops and goods Cokyri needs, but trade for them.” “You cannot rewrite history, Narian,” she reproached. “Hytanica asked to be conquered the day its king attacked us. I was charged with that crusade before I was even crowned.” “You cannot rewrite history, but you don’t have to be controlled by it, either,” he argued, and Nantilam’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “In the end, the Overlord’s crusade had little to do with history. He wanted to dominate Hytanica for domination’s sake. That was never your purpose--you fought to preserve your people’s pride and their heritage, you took the actions you believed necessary to ensure your empire’s growth and prosperity. Reaffirm your goals now--recognize that what is best for Cokyri is enduring peace with Hytanica.” “And are you giving me advice as the commander of my military, or are you issuing a threat?” “I am offering advice,” Narian replied, with a deferential bow, then his tone and posture subtly became more intimidating. “Although I will stand against you if I am forced to make that choice.” The High Priestess came to her feet, and for the first time, I saw indecision on her face. If Narian fought against her, any battle with Hytanica would be long and brutal, with no guarantee of victory. The Overlord’s powers had not passed to her, would not in all probability reemerge until Nantilam gave birth to a daughter, so for the time being, Narian held the upper hand.

We lay contentedly together, occasionally kissing, my fingers twined in his hair. I loved the feel of it, its texture, its color, and I brushed it back along the nape of his neck. “You’re tickling me,” he said with a smile. “Are you trying to keep me awake?” “No.” I laughed, pushing up on my elbow to look down at him. “It’s just--” I stopped, staring at the birthmark on his neck, the mark of the Bleeding Moon, as it had been called in the legend, and my hand began to shake. “What is it, Alera?” he asked, alarmed. “Nothing. It’s just…” I struggled to form a cohesive thought, for in all my dreams of a life with him, of having children with him, this question had never before occurred to me. “Just what?” He sat up, placing a hand on his neck where I had been playing with his hair. “When we have a child, what will happen? I mean, the High Priestess told me, when she was our prisoner in the cave, that the powers of the Empress of Cokyri were supposed to pass to her firstborn daughter upon the child’s birth, but that they were split between her and her brother when she was born a twin. The possibility of the powers reuniting and passing into the High Priestess’s firstborn daughter gave us our negotiating leverage with the Overlord.” “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” “Well, you have powers, too. I’m wondering…” A shadow fell over his face. “You’re wondering if my powers are unique to me. Or might a child of ours inherit them.” “Yes, or if…” I took a deep breath. “Could they pass from your body and into the child upon birth, like the magic of the Empress of Cokyri?” From the expression on Narian’s face, it was plain this was the first time he had ever considered the question. “I don’t know, Alera. The source of my power derives from an ancient legend and the circumstances surrounding my birth.” He touched my face, then added, “Perhaps it’s time we took another look at the origin of the legend--and we should find out if anything else was ever written about the powers I was destined to have.” I sighed. “I wish London were here. He uncovered the scrolls that foretold your birth, hidden somewhere in Cokyri. He would know what else was written.” Narian nodded, but said nothing more, and I tried to imagine what he must be feeling. Were his powers a blessing or a curse? Would he want them to pass to a child of his? And if a child held them, what manner of life would he or she lead? Then I asked myself the same questions, and an overriding answer became startlingly clear. “It would be good to know, Narian. But it doesn’t matter. I want children with you, and I do not fear the powers you hold, nor would I fear them in the hands of our own child.” He nodded, then settled on his back. I snuggled against him, lost in thought. At some point, I would fall asleep; it did not appear that he intended to do the same.

One and a half million Jewish men and women and children: How was anyone to understand a number like that? Andras knew it took three thousand to fill the seats of the Dohány Street Synagogue. To accommodate a million and a half, one would have had to replicate that building, its arches and domes, its Moorish interior, its balcony, its dark wooden pews and gilded art, five hundred times. And then to envision each of those five hundred synagogues filled to capacity, to envision each man and woman and child inside as a unique and irreplaceable human being, the way he imagined Mendel Horovitz or the Ivory Tower or his brother Mátyás, each of them with desires and fears, a mother and a father, a birthplace, a bed, a first love, a web of memories, a cache of secrets, a skin, a heart, an infinitely complicated brain - to imagine them that way, and then to imagine them dead, extinguished for all time - how could anyone begin to grasp it?

Richard Kay Richard Kay became friends with Diana, Princess of Wales, through his job as royal correspondent for London’s Daily Mail. After her separation in 1992, he used his knowledge to give a penetrating and unique insight into Diana’s troubled life, and they remained friends until the end. Richard is now diary editor or the Daily Mail and lives in London with his wife and three children. Over the years, I saw her at her happiest and in her darkest moments. There were moments of confusion and despair when I believed Diana was being driven by the incredible pressures made on her almost to the point of destruction. She talked of being strengthened by events, and anyone could see how the bride of twenty had grown into a mature woman, but I never found her strong. She was as unsure of herself at her death as when I first talked to her on that airplane, and she wanted reassurance about the role she was creating for herself. In private, she was a completely different person form the manicured clotheshorse that the public’s insatiable demand for icons had created. She was natural and witty and did a wonderful impression of the Queen. This was the person, she told me, that she would have been all the time if she hadn’t married into the world’s most famous family. What she hated most of all was being called “manipulative” and privately railed against those who used the word to describe her. “They don’t even know me,” she would say bitterly, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in Kensington Palace and pouring tea from a china pot. It was this blindness, as she saw it, to what she really was that led her seriously to consider living in another country where she hoped she would be understood. The idea first emerged in her mind about three years before her death. “I’ve got to find a place where I can have peace of mind,” she said to me. She considered France, because I was near enough to stay in close touch with William and Harry. She thought of America because she--naively, it must be said--saw it as a country so brimming over with glittery people and celebrities that she would be able to “disappear.” She also thought of South Africa, where her brother, Charles, made a home, and even Australia, because it was the farthest place she could think of from the seat of her unhappiness. But that would have separated her form her sons. Everyone said she would go anywhere, do anything, to have her picture taken, but in my view the truth was completely different. A good day for her was one where her picture was not taken and the paparazzi photographers did not pursue her and clamber over her car. “Why are they so obsessed with me?” she would ask me. I would try to explain, but I never felt she fully understood. Millions of women dreamed of changing places with her, but the Princess that I knew yearned for the ordinary humdrum routine of their lives. “They don’t know how lucky they are,” she would say. On Saturday, just before she was joined by Dodi Al Fayed for their last fateful dinner at the Ritz in Pairs, she told me how fed up she was being compared with Camilla. “It’s all so meaningless,” she said. She didn’t say--she never said--whether she thought Charles and Camilla should marry. Then, knowing that as a journalist I often work at weekends, she said to me, “Unplug your phone and get a good night’s sleep.

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!…” —Matthew 21:8–9 (RSV) PALM SUNDAY: REMAINING FAITHFUL It’s graduation day at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s thrilling, watching the young men and women I’ve taught go forth and do all of the world’s work, but there’s a nagging disquiet. Like many weighty truths, their education is accompanied by an equally weighty lie. I’ve told my students they’re unique and capable of wonderful things (true); I didn’t warn them of the attendant difficulties that lay ahead. I’ve long stopped betting on their futures. Who am I to tell them about the odds of a successful life, the weird dance of hard work and good luck, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Luckily, today is filled with smiles, flowing robes, hugs, funny hats. In ancient times such celebrations would be marked by palm fronds, like Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. And then is no different from now, where celebration can suddenly turn to trepidation, where young lives quickly discover that speaking the truth may lead to trouble, betrayal, or worse. But today they’ll throw their hats into the air with faith in the future. And when asked, I’ll pose with them for photos. Years from now they’ll wonder about the teacher with the gray hair and wan, anxious smile, who looks as if he might be praying. Lord, we often praise You one day, then betray You the next. Let us overcome our fickle nature and be faithful companions to You and our brothers and sisters. —Mark Collins Digging Deeper: Mt 21:1–11

I want to dedicate today's journal to Football . I hated it before because of my father and elder brother: they were so fanatic that there were Football news playing at home almost everyday. How boring! For this world cup 2014 I decided to give football a last chance and...what a great expeience it's being! I have learnt a lot and I stopped refusing invitations to watch the games. As a result, I have better relations with my co-workers. I will never be a big fan but at least I will be more tolerant with sports in the future. Theee is one thing I have to say about football in my country, Colombia: There ks not one thing or person that can form a patriotic spirit as football does. It is the element that unites people most.Our national identity is not about language nor religion but the passion for this sport. Can you imagine that? I do not mean to criticise but it's our reality, what make us 'unique'. So, enjoy this world cup, colombians!

A couple made a deal the night of their Marriage to NOT open the door of their room to anybody who comes knocking in the morning for any reason! In the morning the parents of the husband came & knocked on the door, the husband & the wife were looking at each other & as they agreed before, they didn't open the door.After a while the parents of the bride came knocking at the door to check on them, the couple were looking at each other, then the bride dropped a tear & started crying she said: "I cannot keep them knocking & not open the door, I miss them already" The husband didn't say anything & he let her open the door for her parents.Years & years passed & the couple had 5 children, the first ones were boys & the 5th was a little girl, when she was born the father was xtremely happy that Almighty blessed him with her, & he threw a Huge Party for her in Grand style, people were so amazed with his joy & his happiness that they asked him, why are you so happy with her more than you were before with her older brothers?He answered simply: "She is the one who will open the door for me"Baby girls are the comfort of the eyes of their father!They hold the key to their mothers hearts!Daughters are really unique.They care for their parents even after they are married. Its rightly said, "A son is a son till he gets a Wife, a daughter is a daughter the rest of her Life!

At Westminster Abbey, Welsh Guards in crimson uniforms raised the casket to their shoulders. They took it down the long aisle of the church and placed it at the front of the altar. After laying a bouquet of white lilies at the foot of the coffin, Prince Charles and Prince Philip led William and Harry, Queen Elizabeth II, and the Queen Mother to seats in the front of the sanctuary. About two thousand mourners were seated behind them. Her brother Charles said, “Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister; the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.” The dean of Westminster said, “Diana profoundly influenced this nation and the world.” At William’s suggestion, Elton John sang “Candle in the Wind,” in which he made specific reference to Diana: “Your footsteps will always fall here/among England’s greenest hills;/ your candle’s burned out long before/ your legend ever will.” The funeral procession made a two-hour trip to the Spencer family home. Along the way, crowds sobbed and threw flowers. Diana was buried on an island in the middle of a small lake on the family estate. The burial was private.

For a moment their gazes met — his, warm and charming; hers, confused and scared — but then he grinned, draped an arm around her shoulders to pull her close, and the moment was lost. She lay stiffly against the hollow of his shoulder, heart pounding, reluctant to put the weight of her head against him and hardly daring to breathe — but very aware of the hard body beneath his soft shirt, the faint hint of his own unique, masculine scent. True to his word, he did nothing but hold her as he prompted her to talk about her fears, her dreams, and, yes, even Charles. And sometime during that long hour that he held her, Lord Gareth de Montforte ceased being the man she'd married and became her best friend.

In the twenty-first century the difference between whites and minorities was that minorities are constantly aware of their unique ethnic lenses; to his white brothers and sisters, though, most of them did not consciously think of themselves as white. What Peter once thought was racism, he later realized was a naiveté that his friends needed to have exposed.

At some point in your life you're going to be faced with this kind of situation. And almost every time you're going to be thinking, PLEASE DON’T GIVE ME THE BALL. I DON’T WANT THE BALL. IT’S TOO MUCH PRESSURE. And that’s fine. It’s how most people feel and it’s how I’ve felt in most situations. But at some point, you're going to find yourself thinking, AS CRAZY AS THIS SOUNDS, I THINK I WANT THE BALL. I KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT. I'M UNIQUELY QUALIFIED TO HANDLE THIS SITUATION. SO. . . GIVE ME THE BALL. And when you find yourself feeling that way, you'll know you're in the right spot. [caps in original. 102]

I love this man so much. He and his brothers are everything I have ever wanted in life. Each of them makes me feel whole and cherished and protected, in their own unique ways.

Soul Brother James Brown thrilled us with his soulful songs and unique dancing steps. Foxtrots remain vital as long as his music wafts through a room, calming the selective rage in a rantipole, and lending grace, without a smut of geck, to the docile feet of a combo. His song SEX MACHINE lives on in the hearts of those that rumbled through the voice of the halcyon days of the 1970s.

Michael Kidd, one of New York’s best choreographers, had already been working in Hollywood, but on Seven Brides he was essential, as his extremely athletic style matched the aggressive nature of the backwoodsman avatar. And, in a unique casting scheme, the brothers and brides were primarily dancers. Keel and Powell of course were singers, and, further, MGM was building Jeff Richards as a jeune premier and insisted on making him one of the brothers. A former baseball player, Richards was anything but a ballroom whiz, and Kidd had to work around him—Richards is especially awkward in “Goin’ Co’tin’,” ensconced in a chair almost throughout while Powell teaches his brothers how to dance—and, at that, MGM ended up dubbing some of the boys and girls. But Seven Brides is a dance piece in a way even the Astaire-Rogers RKOs aren’t. They dance because Astaire dances. Seven Brides dances because that’s how we understand the difference between what men want women to be (chattel) and what women want men to be (nice to them).

My grandfather's name was Arthur, and he talked all the time about his arthritis but pronounced it autha-itis, so for months I thought it was a condition unique to him, that he had his own special burden, just like my brother and me.

And what was behind the harmony of the apples, of the pink lady’s slippers I found on my farther-ranging walks, or of the yellow mayflies and the trout that sipped them in nearby Great Brook? It seemed to me the result of the inevitable unfolding of laws laid down by the universe and embedded in the elements at hand: air and water, sunshine and earth. It was not by chance that the trees and leaves assumed their unique colors and shapes, or that small streams flowed into bigger streams, or that the fireflies lit their little lanterns of phosphorescence among the grasses at night. All of this was the consequence of what the universe had commanded. It was chemistry, biology, physics and some inexpressible something else mixed together into one thing, and that thing was inevitability. We respond to the grasses, the trees and the brooks because we sense a deeper truth in them. A brook cannot be false or a tree deceptive, and because we as a species grew up with them, and among them, we are essentially part of them and they of us. By what other means can we be said to be made? What is evolution but the interaction of our potential with the reality of nature? The apples, the leaves, the mayflies, the trout – they express the harmony of nature, as well as the miracle of nature. We are included in this miracle, and the surprise would be that a separation from nature would result in anything *but* alienation from our deepest and earliest selves, that a reconnection would be anything but a sense of coming home. All of us, it seems to me, seek to recapture the sensations and selves of our childhoods, and nature offers the best way back, to the freshest parts of our true and original essence.

Bertie became a tennis ace, who played in the doubles of the 1926 Wimbledon championships. And he held a unique cricketing hat-trick, dismissing in three consecutive balls, in a game of garden cricket, three consecutive English kings: his grandfather ( Edward VII), his father (George V), and his brother (Edward VIII).

Sweet and Sour Summers “There is something my parents did, and it was pretty unique. My brother and I refer to it as ‘The Sweet and Sour Summer.’ My parents would send us, for the first half of the summer, to an internship with a relative or a friend of the family who had an interesting job. So, at 12, I went and interned with my godbrother, who is a lobbyist in D.C. I would go along with him to pitch congressmen. I had one tie, and I was a pretty good writer. I’d write up one-page summaries of these bills we were pitching, and I’d literally sit there with these congressmen with these filthy mouths—you know, the old Alabaman senator and stuff like that—and watch the pitch happen. It was awesome. I learned so much and developed so much confidence, and really honed my storytelling skills. “But then, from there, I would come home and work in a construction outfit, in a nasty, nasty job. I mean, hosing off the equipment that had been used to fix septic systems, gassing shit up, dragging shit around in the yard, filling up propane tanks. Just being the junior guy on the totem pole, and quite literally getting my ass kicked by whichever parolee was angry at me that day. I think it was part of their master plan, which was: There’s a world of cool opportunities out there for you, but let’s build within you a sense of not just work ethic, but also, a little kick in the ass about why you don’t wanna end up in one of those real jobs. . . .” TIM: “You had the introduction to the godbrother, for the lobbying. Did your parents also help organize the sour part of each summer?” CHRIS: “The guy who ran that construction company is my dad’s best friend, and he was under strict orders to make sure we had the roughest day there.

Who were these people who were Nico's friends at that club? It seemed like an Italian-Spanish coffeeshop. I'm not sure, it was quite far from downtown in a pretty hidden location. I don't remember the name of the club or the street, but if I drive from Urgell I can find it. I took a few pictures outside the reception area while we were waiting outside with Adam to be allowed to enter after being registered as club members. They took our entry into the almost empty private club very seriously, unlike my girlfriend selling weed in their dispensary at age 20, when I just gave her a job elsewhere. The pictures I took were of two skateboards hanging on the wall next to each other. They were spray-painted with smiling devilish faces, the comedy and tragedy masks. („Sock and buskin: The sock and buskin are two ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy. In ancient Greek theatre, actors in tragic roles wore a boot called a buskin (Latin cothurnus). The actors with comedic roles wore only a thin-soled shoe called a sock (Latin soccus).” – Source: Wikipedia) There was another skateboard hanging on the wall, showing the devil smiling with his eyes and teeth and horns only visible in the darkness of the artwork. I doubt they were Italians – they were rather Spaniards – but I never really met anyone else from there besides Nico and Carulo. But I trusted Carulo; he was different. Carulo was a known person in Catalonia. He was known to be the person who was sitting in the Catalan Parliament and rolled a joint and lit it up, smoking during a session as a protest against the law prohibiting marijuana growing and smoking in Spain. Nico told me when he introduced me to Carulo in the summer of 2013, almost a year earlier: “This is the guy you can thank for being able to smoke freely in Catalonia without the police bothering you. Tomas, meet Carulo.” He never really ordered from me if I had met him before. He had no traffic; his growshop was always closed. He was only smoking inside with his younger brother, who was always walking his bull terrier. Their white Bull Terrier was female, half the size of Chico, but she was kind of crazy; you could see in her eyes that she was not normal; she had mental issues. At least, looking into Carulo's eyes and his brother's eyes, I recognized the similar illness in their dog's eyes. In 2014, it had been over four years since I had been working with dogs in my secondary job interpreting Italian and travelling every fifth weekend. Additionally, Huns came to Europe with their animals, including their dogs. There are at least nine unique Hungarian dog breeds.

I stopped expecting that Avery or her brother would become any particular thing (a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, an entrepreneur, and so on). I stopped thinking of them as little bonsai trees that I could prune carefully, and I began treating them instead like wildflowers of unknown genus and species that would reveal their unique and glorious beauty as long as I gave them the proper nourishment and environment

Wagner looked back to what in a primordial past had held people together in communities, a selflessness that had to be left behind so that human beings could become more and more conscious. He had an intuitive presentiment about the future; he felt that once individual freedom and independence had been attained, humans would have to find the way back to fellowship and caring relationships. Selflessness would have to be consciously regained, and loving kindness once more would have to become a prominent factor of life. For Wagner the present linked itself with the future, for he visualized as a distant ideal the existence of selflessness within the arts. Furthermore, he saw art as playing a significant role in evolution. Human development and that of art appeared to him to go hand in hand; both became egoistical when they ceased to function as a totality. As we see them today, drama, architecture and dance have gone their independent ways. As humanity grew more and more selfish, so did art. Wagner visualized a future when the arts would once more function in united partnership. Because he saw a commune of artists as a future ideal, he was referred to as 'the communist.' . . . In older works of art, where dance, rhythm and harmony still collaborated, he recognized something of the musical-dramatic element of the artistic works of antiquity. He acquired a unique sense for harmony, for tonality in music, but insisted that contributions from related arts were essential. Something from them must flow into the music. One such related art was dance, not as it has become, but the dance that once expressed movements in nature and movements of the stars. In ancient times, dance originated from a feeling for laws in nature. Man in his own movements copied those in nature. Rhythm of dance was reflected in the harmony of the music. Other arts, such as poetry, whose vehicle is words, also contributed, and what could not be expressed through words was contributed by related arts. Harmonious collaboration existed among dance, music and poetry. The musical element arose from the cooperation of harmony, rhythm and melody. This was what mystics and also Richard Wagner felt as the spirit of art in ancient times, when the various arts worked together in brotherly fashion, when melody, rhythm and harmony had not yet attained their later perfection. When they separated, dance became an art form in its own right, and poetry likewise. Consequently, rhythm became a separate experience, and poetry no longer added its contribution to the musical element. No longer was there collaboration between the arts. In tracing the arts up to modern times, Wagner noticed that the egoism in art increased as human beings egoism increased.

In addition, you will be exploring the unique terrain of this person’s life. You should feel free to ask questions about her experience. For instance, “Mary is your sister-in-law?” or “Did you move a lot?” or “It sounds like things changed a lot after your mother died.” And most importantly, it is okay to say, “I don’t understand.” Remember, the client will appreciate your interest in her, and asking her to help clarify who or what or when or how is a way of demonstrating your interest. The question to avoid, however, is “Why?” For instance, “Why did your father do that?” or “Why did you feel that way?” or “Why can’t you tell your brother that?” These questions call for an understanding of motivation and for a response that suggests insight about the client’s own behavior or the behavior of others. They are also implicitly asking the client to articulate feelings. She may do that spontaneously, but it is best not to ask for feelings yet. There are a number of reasons for this. First,

Growing up in the Edgemoor neighborhood of Bellingham, Maggie and her brothers and sisters had explored the trails of Chuckanut Mountain and played along the shores of Bellingham Bay. The quiet neighborhood offered views of both the San Juans and the Canadian mountains. It was also situated next to Fairhaven, where you could browse through unique shops and galleries, or eat at restaurants where the waiters could always tell you about the freshest catch and where it had been brought from.

You remember how Hansel and Gretel ends?" Her voice was calm and sly. "Uh, yes. They kill the witch and escape back home?" "Exactly. It's Gretel, the little girl, who outwits the witch and shoves here into the oven, saves her fattened-up brother from the cage, and finds a way out of the dark forest. It's never too late to kill the witch, Daphne. Think about it. There's a natural balance in getting justice, even if it's much later. The witch should't get away with it. I know you think your case is unique, but you can bet there were other children tempted by the candies....

Take a moment and surf over to Panopticlick.com. This is a site built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that will determine just how common or unique your browser configuration is compared to others, based on what’s running on your PC or mobile device’s operating system and the plug-ins you may have installed.

The relationship between a brother and sister is peculiar in the sense that it is unique for it is the only one in which the two sexes can meet as equals on a purely personal basis. No brother thinks of his sister as a woman and few sisters can see their brothers as men. For this reason there can be real friendship between them.

John and Diane Worcester are always on the run. In their amazing pursuit of God’s call, they have planted churches in cities like Moscow, Toronto, and Fort Worth. John tells part of their story: God has called my wife, Diane, and me to be sequential church planters. We move to one city after another to plant churches. Our goal is to make disciples of unsaved people and gather them in churches, where they can mature and be mobilized to make more disciples. By God’s grace, we have planted eight churches and over a dozen other expressions of the church, such as evangelistic campus ministries, singles ministries, etc. We typically apprentice future church planters as we plant, and once the church starts, we turn the church over to a long-term pastor. As planters like John and Diane Worcester run after what God has called them to do, their coaches run alongside them. God has used them to make an incredible gospel impact for thousands of people. No doubt well-intended advisors suggested they stop moving so often, but God had a unique plan. Paul reminds Thessalonian believers to give honor, respect, and love to those who lead: Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other. (1 Thess. 5:12–13 nlt)

By Anne Kihagi - For Wine Enthusiasts Looking for Off-Beaten Path Ideas- Consider the Town of MurphysSuggested by Anne Kihagi California is known for its numerous vineyards and wineries. Located in Calaveras County, the town of Murphys is situated between Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe. It is home to several dozen wineries that operate year-round. Some of the wineries in the town include Indian Rock Vineyards, Mineral Wines Tasting Room, Newsome Harlow, and Courtwood Wine Tasting Tours. The town also offers unique boutique shops, art galleries, and fine dining. You can find items that are new to you at Best Friends Consignment Shop, peruse baseball cards at KCK Collectibles, and sample olive oil at Marisolio Olive Oil Tasting Bar. Unwind after a long day of shopping and wine tasting with dinner at Gabby’s Mexican Cuisine or V Restaurant, Bar, and Bistro. If you have a sweet tooth, visit JoMa’s Artisan Ice Cream or Aria Bakery. A place of interest located near Murphys is Moaning Cavern in Calaveras Trees State Park. It is the largest cavern in the state. If you are a history buff, you will enjoy learning about the town’s origins during the Gold Rush Era. It was started in 1848 by brothers John and Daniel Murphy. Some of the town’s original buildings are still in operation, like the Murphys Historic Hotel and Lodge. It earned a registered historic landmark designation because of the significant figures who once visited it, including Mark Twain and General Ulysses S. Grant.

The kid's footfall was pretty unique. Sans looked to the kid when Papyrus looked back at him and looked to Papyrus when his brother returned his gaze to the human. They did this probably eight or nine times till they were spinning around, coming to a stop facing the human. Sans was trying very hard not to fall over as the world kept spinning. The fact that he was trying not to laugh wasn't helping. Papyrus quickly spun Sans around the other way, rushing in what was as close to a stage whisper as Papyrus got, "SANS! OH MY GOD! IS THAT…A HUMAN!?" They turned back around and Sans, out of habit, couldn't help but mess with his brother. "Uhhhh...Actually, I think that's a rock." Papyrus deflated. "OH." Sans was quick to bring the wind back into Papyrus's sails, though, asking, "Hey, what's that in front of the rock?" Papyrus lit up again, and Sans was very happy to see Papyrus so excited. "OH MY GOD!" Papyrus turned to Sans again and questioned in his not-so stage whisper, "IS…IS THAT A HUMAN?" "Yes," Sans supplied in a stage whisper.

the destruction of conceived human life—whether embryonic, fetal, or viable—is an assault on the unique person-forming work of God. And therefore to the degree that we recognize even in fallen person-hood a unique value, because of its potential to glorify God with conscious obedience and praise, to that degree will we shrink back with reverence and fear from assaulting or obstructing the

Max smiled, his heart warmed by that unique form of contentment that comes from the knowledge that a good friend or loved one is happy.

Brother Hagin told his followers that faithful prayers—and generous tithes to church leaders—are paid back on this side of heaven with financial riches, health, and sobriety. It is a powerful, simple, and uniquely American blend of capitalism, fundamentalism, and magical thinking that continues to be preached by televangelists like Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, and Joyce Meyer.