Warrior Woman Of God Quotes

A strong woman builds her own world. She is one who is wise enough to know that it will attract the man she will gladly share it with.

The original Hebrew word for woman, a word that is used twice to refer to the first woman, three times to refer to strong military forces, and sixteen times to refer to God, is this: Ezer...I learn this: "The word Ezer has two roots: strong and benevolent. The best translation of Ezer is: Warrior." God created woman as a Warrior.

I think sexy is a grown-up word to describes a person who's confident that she is already exactly who she was made to be. A sexy woman knows herself and she likes the way she looks, thinks & feels. She doesn't try to change to match anybody else. She's a good friend herself kind and patient. and she knows how to use her words to tell people she trusts about what's going on inside of her-her fears and anger, love, dreams the mistakes, and needs. When she's angry she expresses her anger in healthy ways. When she's joyful, she does the same thing. She doesn't hide her true self because she is not ashamed. She knows she's just human-exactly how God made her and that's good enough. She's brave enough to be honest and kind enough to except others when they're honest. When two people are sexy enough to be brave and kind with each other, that's love. Sexy is more about how you feel and how you look. Real sexy is letting your true self come out of hiding and find love in safe places. That kind of sexy is good, really good, because we all we want and need love more than anything else

I don’t believe in the Law of Attraction. There were things I wanted in my life that no amount of positive thinking was going to make it a reality for me. However, I have learned to believe in the Law of Tough Love. Life has thrown a dozen tragedies at me. I did what any Christian would do--prayed for the outcome I wanted, but God was tough and only gave me what I needed. I now realize that life is not about fulfilling a wish list; rather a need list. Good and bad experiences are on the horizon. How else does a person change, grow and evolve? And just like any warrior woman, I won’t simply survive-- but thrive!

She had a warrior's heart, but the gods in their blind malice had given her the feeble body of a woman.

The core symbols we use for God represent what we take to be the highest good....These symbols or images shape our worldview, our ethical system, and our social practice--how we relate to one another. For instance, [Elizabeth A.] Johnson suggests that if a religion speaks about God as warrior, using militaristic language such as how "he crushes his enemies" and summoning people to become soldiers in God's army, then the people tend to become militaristic and aggressive. Likewise, if the key symbol of God is that of a male king (without any balancing feminine imagery), we become a culture that values and enthrones men and masculinity.

In the strength of God, you can crush any army

My mother has told me once and for all the useful parts. She will add nothing unless powered by necessity, a riverbank that guides her life. She plants vegetable gardens rather than lawns; she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the field and eats food left for the gods.

I have seen times of plentiful and times of scarcity. I enjoy the times of prosperity and endure the times of difficulty.

Never underestimate the woman that holds God's pen.

Whatever happens to us, God gives grace to endure and overcome the situation.

If a woman is held back, minimized, pushed down, or downplayed, she is not walking in the fullness God intended for her as his image bearer, as his ezer warrior. If we minimize our gifts, hush our voice, and stay small in a misguided attempt to fit a weak and culturally conditioned standard of femininity, we cannot give our brothers the partner they require in God’s mission for the world.

We were despised and trampled upon but the Lord lifted us.

The songs of Japan take the human heart as their seed and flourish as myriad leaves of words. As long as they are alive to this world, the cares and deeds of men and women are endless, so they speak of things they hear and see, giving words to the feelings in their hearts. Hearing the cries of the warbler among the blossoms or the calls of the frog that lives in the waters, how can we doubt that every living creature sing its song? Not using force, it moves heaven and earth, makes even the unseen spirits and gods feel pity, smoothes the bonds between man and woman, and consoles the hearts of fierce warriors-such a thing is poetry.

I look away, farther down the hall, and I see Tish in line with her Sunday school class. Tish sees me and her face lights up. In that instant, I realize I owe nothing to the institution of Christianity—not my health, not my dignity, not my silence, not my martyrdom. I do not answer to this place, I answer to God, to myself, and to the little girl in that line. None of us wants me to try to pass off cowardice for strength, willful ignorance for loyalty, codependence for love. That little girl doesn’t want me to die for her; she never asked to bear that burden. She wants me to live for her. She needs me to show her not how a woman pretends her life is perfect, but how a woman deals honestly and bravely with an imperfect life. She needs to learn from me that these four walls don’t contain God and that the people inside them don’t own God, that God loves her more than any institution God made for her. She will learn this only if I show her that I believe it myself. She will know this only if I know it first. She will learn her song only if her mother keeps singing.

Growing up is an unbecoming. My healing has been a peeling away of costume after costume until here I am, still and naked and unashamed before God, stripped down to my real identity. I have unbecome. And now I stand: Warrior. Undressed for battle. Strong and benevolent. Both yin and yang. Complete, not in need of completing. Sent to fight for everything worth having: truth, beauty, kindness, shamelessness, love. To march into pain and love with eyes and heart wide open, to stand in the wreckage and believe that my power, my love, my light, are stronger than the darkness. I know my name now. Love Warrior. I came from Love and I am Love and I will return to Love. Love casts out fear. A woman who has recovered her true identity as a Love Warrior is the most powerful force on earth. All the darkness and shame and pain in the world can’t defeat her.

I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving. I know a charm that will heal with a touch. I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy. I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks. A fifth charm: I can catch an arrow in flight and take no harm from it. A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender. A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it. An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship. A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore. For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again. An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearths and their homes. A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers. A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child’s head, that child will not fall in battle. A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them. A fifteenth: I had a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe in my dreams. A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman. A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another. And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one know but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.

God created woman as a Warrior. I think about the tragedies the women in my life have faced. How every time a child gets sick or a man leaves or a parent dies or a community crumbles, the women are the ones who carry on, who do what must be done for their people in the midst of their own pain. While those around them fall away, the women hold the sick and nurse the weak, put food on the table, carry their families’ sadness and anger and love and hope. They keep showing up for their lives and their people with the odds stacked against them and the weight of the world on their shoulders. They never stop singing songs of truth, love, and redemption in the face of hopelessness. They are inexhaustible, ferocious, relentless cocreators with God, and they make beautiful worlds out of nothing. Have women been the Warriors all along?

I love God, whoever he is, and I’d really like to get closer to him. I’ve been thinking about how one of the simplest ways to get close to a woman is to be good to her children. To be kind and gentle and to pay close attention to the things that make them special. To try to see her children the way she sees her children. And how God made us in his image. How he is the mother and father of all of us. So I wonder if that would be the best way to get closer to him too. By being kind and gentle to his children and noticing all of the things that make them special. So many of us spend our time trying to find God in books, but maybe the simplest way to God is directly through the hearts of his children.

When the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end. – R.A. Torrey

What the Addict is seeking (though he doesn’t know it) is the ultimate and continuous “orgasm,” the ultimate and continuous “high.” This is why he rides from village to village and from adventure to adventure. This is why he goes from one woman to another. Each time his woman confronts him with her mortality, her finitude, her weakness and limitations, hence shattering his dream of this time finding the orgasm without end—in other words, when the excitement of the illusion of perfect union with her (with the world, with God) becomes tarnished—he saddles his horse and rides out looking for renewal of his ecstasy. He needs his “fix” of masculine joy. He really does. He just doesn’t know where to look for it. He ends by looking for his “spirituality” in a line of cocaine. Psychologists talk about the problems that stem from a man’s possession by the Addict as “boundary issues.” For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. As we’ve said, the Lover does not want to be limited. And, when we are possessed by him, we cannot stand to be limited.

For the sake of the gospel, women must speak—and teach and minister and prophesy, too. For the sake of the gospel, a woman must be free to walk in her God-breathed self as the ezer kenegdo in whatever vocation and season and place of her life. And she does all of this alongside her brothers, as the ezer warrior of Creation’s intent, to see God’s Kingdom come and his expressed will done.

Hamish Alexander-Harrington knew his wife as only two humans who had both been adopted by a pair of mated treecats ever could. He'd seen her deal with joy and with sorrow, with happiness and with fury, with fear, and even with despair. Yet in all the years since their very first meeting at Yeltsin's Star, he suddenly realized, he had never actually met the woman the newsies called "the Salamander." It wasn't his fault, a corner of his brain told him, because he'd never been in the right place to meet her. Never at the right time. He'd never had the chance to stand by her side as she took a wounded heavy cruiser on an unflinching deathride into the broadside of the battlecruiser waiting to kill it, sailing to her own death, and her crew's, to protect a planet full of strangers while the rich beauty of Hammerwell's "Salute to Spring" spilled from her ship's com system. He hadn't stood beside her on the dew-soaked grass of the Landing City duelling grounds, with a pistol in her hand and vengeance in her heart as she faced the man who'd bought the murder of her first great love. Just as he hadn't stood on the floor of Steadholders' Hall when she faced a man with thirty times her fencing experience across the razor-edged steel of their swords, with the ghosts of Reverend Julius Hanks, the butchered children of Mueller Steading, and her own murdered steaders at her back. But now, as he looked into the unyielding flint of his wife's beloved, almond eyes, he knew he'd met the Salamander at last. And he recognized her as only another warrior could. Yet he also knew in that moment that for all his own imposing record of victory in battle, he was not and never had been her equal. As a tactician and a strategist, yes. Even as a fleet commander. But not as the very embodiment of devastation. Not as the Salamander. Because for all the compassion and gentleness which were so much a part of her, there was something else inside Honor Alexander-Harrington, as well. Something he himself had never had. She'd told him, once, that her own temper frightened her. That she sometimes thought she could have been a monster under the wrong set of circumstances. And now, as he realized he'd finally met the monster, his heart twisted with sympathy and love, for at last he understood what she'd been trying to tell him. Understood why she'd bound it with the chains of duty, and love, of compassion and honor, of pity, because, in a way, she'd been right. Under the wrong circumstances, she could have been the most terrifying person he had ever met. In fact, at this moment, she was . It was a merciless something, her "monster"—something that went far beyond military talent, or skills, or even courage. Those things, he knew without conceit, he, too, possessed in plenty. But not that deeply personal something at the core of her, as unstoppable as Juggernaut, merciless and colder than space itself, that no sane human being would ever willingly rouse. In that instant her husband knew, with an icy shiver which somehow, perversely, only made him love her even more deeply, that as he gazed into those agate-hard eyes, he looked into the gates of Hell itself. And whatever anyone else might think, he knew now that there was no fire in Hell. There was only the handmaiden of death, and ice, and purpose, and a determination which would not— couldnot—relent or rest. "I'll miss them," she told him again, still with that dreadful softness, "but I won't forget. I'll never forget, and one day— oneday, Hamish—we're going to find the people who did this, you and I. And when we do, the only thing I'll ask of God is that He let them live long enough to know who's killing them.

The bishop was aghast. "You would threaten me?" Christian didn't hesitate with his answer."For her life, aye." "You would jeopardize your soul for her? She is a heretic and a witch." "She is a woman. My woman." His words only succeeded in angering the bishop more. "I will have you excommunicated for this." Christian pulled the black monk's robe from over his head and balled it up. "Then excommunicate me. If I am in the wrong for protecting an innocent woman, then God can judge me as He will.

I wonder if he knows that all I do is apologize. That’s all I do. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry for being me. My whole life is an apology, and that hasn’t made a damn thing better. Mary had known. She had understood: A woman doesn’t need to be told, yet again, that she’s bad. She needs to be told that she’s good. Mary didn’t ask me to repent. She asked me to rest. But sitting in the priest’s office, I see how the system works here. I have to repent to him so I can go rest with her. I do what I’m told. I apologize. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I want to be better.” He nods again and then offers some magic words I’m to repeat twenty times. After I say them, I will be forgiven. I nod and flash back twenty years. I’m at the neighborhood pool waiting in line to buy ice cream. The ice cream man is selling Popsicles for a dollar each, while a high school kid who has broken into the truck is passing out free Popsicles from the back. The ice cream man hasn’t a clue what’s going on behind him. I wonder if the priest knows that while he’s up here charging for forgiveness, Mary’s back there handing it out for free. He must not know, which is why he is insisting that God’s forgiveness has a price. I am pretending to believe this and promising to pay so I can get back to Mary, who is at the back of the truck hosting a free-for-all.

I was created a warrior, meant to guard the king of gods. For many years, I served him well, helping to keep him in power, protecting him even from his own family. But he did not think me strong enough to guard his most precious possession, a box formed from the bones of the dead goddess of oppression. No, he commanded a woman to do it. She was known as the greatest female warrior, true, but my pride was stung.” Thankfully, Ashlyn remained relaxed. “Thinking to prove a mistake had been made, I helped release the demons inside upon the world. And in punishment, I was bonded to one.

MOTHER! The holiest body on earth without which even god's existence seems next to impossible. A woman whose sufferings cannot be conveyed . A women whose love cannot be measured. The one who loves you unconditionally and protects you beyond her limits. Yes, she's the real hero, a true warrior. Who can win millions of hearts just by her tender touch. She's my bestie.

And then he saw her burning eyes. They gazed at him calmly and he saw in them benediction. He fell to his knees before her, pressing his face to her purple-velvet-clad-belly. "Séraphine, Séraphine, Séraphine. O most beloved of women, most fiery of saints, never leave me, please. I'll erect columns of white marble to you, build gardens of delight for you, cause ships to sail and warriors to rise for you, if you'll only remain by my side." She smiled down at him and cupped his cheeks. "Valentine, do you love me?" Ah, God, it was like a shot to the gut. He squeezed tight his eyes. To come so close and lose her because of this. "If I were able I would love you as no man has ever loved a woman since the beginning of time." She knelt then to face him and whispered, "But you are able." He clutched her. He wouldn't let her go, no, not even when she realized... "Séraphine, my darling, burning one, do you not remember? I told you, so long ago now, that I lacked that part. I cannot-" "But you can, Valentine." She touched a finger to his cheek and then showed it to him. He blinked. Her finger was wet. His eyes were wet. She smiled at him, his burning Séraphine, and it was as if the night sky were ablaze. "You love me." "I love you," he said in wonder, and felt his chest fill with warmth. "I love you." "And I love you," she whispered, her hands cupping his face. So he kissed her until she was limp and pliable and so very hot against him, and then he purred into her ear, "Does that mean you'll become my duchess, darling Bridget Crumb?" And when she sighed back, "Oh, yes, Val," he picked her up and carried her off to have his wicked, wicked way with her. Because he might have a heart now but some things weren't ever going to change.

This was more than a pact; it was a true connection. Once she gave him this, she could not take it away. There should have been a selection process, a ceremony, the burning of copal. She was going at it wrong and she was too young to have a tlapalēhuiāni. The Aztecs did not consider a warrior a man until he had captured his first prisoner of war. Her people did not think a warrior was a woman until she had made an honorable kill or pleased the gods with her deeds. Youths had no business with a tlapalēhuiāni. Fuck it.

Hail, oh woman, who was so afflicted, It was our ruin that you were in chains, Our fine land in the possession of thieves... While you were sold to the foreigners! Oh-ro, welcome home Oh-ro, welcome home Oh-ro, welcome home Now that summer's coming!' Gráinne Mhaol is coming over the sea, Armed warriors as her guard, Only Irish are they, not French nor Spanish... and they will rout the foreigners! May it please God that we might see, Although we may live but one week after, Gráinne Mhaol and a thousand warriors... Dispersing the foreigners!

Rides the Wind stepped outside, and she heard him say, "You saw when Walks the Fire came to the village.I brought her on my pony as a warrior brings what he takes from his enemy. I brought her to care for the son of Dancing Waters.I brought her to teach me about the God who created all things.She has done this. She has saved Hears Not.She has earned a place among the people.Today I tell you she is no longer only the woman who tends the fire in the tepee. Mitawicu. I take this woman for wife." There were murmurs of approval. Rides the Wind continued, "I will hunt for many days.There will be a feast.

The Proverbs 31 woman is introduced as a 'woman hayil' the same Hebrew word used for Boaz and signifies 'strength' and 'power' like that of an 'elite warrior similar to the hero of the Homeric epic.' The meaning, however, gets lost in translation, for whenever hayil applies to a woman in the Bible, translators have opted for softer English words ('virtuous,' 'excellent,' 'capable,' or 'noble character'). These words don't begin to do justice to the meaning, for in reality 'it may well be that a woman of this caliber had all the attributes of her male counterpart.' She is a woman of valor--an apt description of an ezer.

Pilgrimage was a centrally important part of Christian life in the early twelfth century, and had been for nearly one thousand years. People traveled incredible distances to visit saints' shrines and the sites of famous Christian deeds. did it for the good of their souls: sometimes to seek divine relief from illness, sometimes as penance to atone for their sins. Some thought that praying at a certain shrine would ensure the protection of that saint in their passage through the afterlife. All believed that God looked kindly on pilgrims and that a man or woman who ventured humbly and faithfully to the center of the world would improve his or her standing in the eyes of God.

I learn this: “The word Ezer has two roots: strong and benevolent. The best translation of Ezer is: Warrior.” God created woman as a Warrior. I think about the tragedies the women in my life have faced. How every time a child gets sick or a man leaves or a parent dies or a community crumbles, the women are the ones who carry on, who do what must be done for their people in the midst of their own pain. While those around them fall away, the women hold the sick and nurse the weak, put food on the table, carry their families’ sadness and anger and love and hope. They keep showing up for their lives and their people with the odds stacked against them and the weight of the world on their shoulders. They never stop singing songs of truth, love, and redemption in the face of hopelessness. They are inexhaustible, ferocious, relentless cocreators with God, and they make beautiful worlds out of nothing. Have women been the Warriors all along?

The day wore on.While yet Rycca slept, Dragon did all the things she had said he would do-paced back and forth, contemplated mayhem,and even honed his blade on the whetstone from the stable.All except being oblivious to her,for that he could never manage. But when she awoke,sitting up heavy-lidded, her mouth so full and soft it was all he could do not to crawl back into bed with her,he put aside such pursuits and controlled himself admirably well,so he thought. Yet in the midst of preparing a meal for them from the provisions in the pantry of the lodge,he was stopped by Rycca's hand settling upon his. "Dragon," she said softly, "if you add any more salt to that stew, we will need a barrel of water and more to drink with it." He looked down, saw that she was right, and cursed under his breath. Dumping out the spoiled stew, he started over. They ate late but they did eat.He was quite determined she would do so,and for once she seemed to have a decent appetite. "I'm glad to see your stomach is better," he said as she was finishing. She looked up,startled. "What makes you say that?" "You haven't seemed able to eat regularly of late." "Oh,well,you know...so many changes...travel...all that." He nodded,reached for his goblet, and damn near knocked it over as a sudden thought roared through him. "Rycca?" She rose quickly,gathering up the dishes. His hand lashed out, closing on her wrist. Gently but inexorably, he returned her to her seat. Without taking his eyes from her,he asked, "Is there something you should tell me?" "Something...?" "I ask myself what sort of changes may cause a woman to be afflicted with an uneasy stomach and it occurs to me I've been a damned idiot." "Not so! You could never be that." "Oh,really? How otherwise would I fail to notice that your courses have not come of late? Or is that also due to travel,wife?" "Some women are not all that regular." "Some women do not concern me.You do,Rycca. I swear,if you are with child and have not told me, I will-" She squared her shoulders,lifted her head,and met his eyes hard on. "Will what?" "What? Will what? Does that mean-" "I'm sorry,Dragon." Truly repentant, Rycca sighed deeply. "I was going to tell you.I was just waiting for a calmer time.I didn't want you to worry more." Still grappling with what she had just revealed,he stared at her in astonishment. "You mean worry that my wife and our child are bait for a murderous traitor?" "I know you're angry and you have a right to be.But if I had told you, we wouldn't be here now." "Damn right we wouldn't be!" He got up from the table so abruptly that his chair toppled over and crashed to the floor.Ignoring it,Dragon paced back and forth,glaring at her. Rycca waited,trusting the storm to pass. As she did,she counted silently, curious to see just how long it would take her husband to grasp fully what he had discovered. Nine...ten... "We're going to have a baby." Not long at all. She nodded happily. "Yes,we are, and you're going to be a wonderful father." He walked back to the table,picked her up out of her chair,held her high against his chest,and stared at her. "My God-" Rycca laughed. "You can't possibly be surprised.It's not as though we haven't been doing our best to make this happen." "True,but still it's absolutely incredible." Very gently,she touched his face. "Perhaps we think of miracles wrongly. They're supposed to be extraordinarily rare but in fact they're as commonplace as a bouquet of wildflowers plucked by a warrior...or a woman having a baby." Dragon sat down with her still in his arms and held her very close.He swallowed several times and said nothing. Both could have remained contentedly like that for a long while, but only a few minutes passed before they were interrupted. The raven lit on the sill of the open window just long enough to catch their attention,then she was gone into the bloodred glare of the dying day.

The boy under the power of the Mama's Boy is what is called autoerotic. He may compulsively masturbate. He may be into pornography, seeking the Goddess in the nearly infinite forms of the female body. Some men under the infantile power of the Mama's Boy aspect of the Oedipal Child have vast collections of pictures of nude women, alone or making love with men. He is seeking to experience his masculinity, his phallic power, his generativity. But instead of affirming his own masculinity as a mortal man, he is really seeking to experience the penis of God—the Great Phallus—that experiences all women, or rather that experiences union with the Mother Goddess in her infinity of female forms. Caught up in masturbation and the compulsive use of pornography, the Mama's Boy, like all immature energies, wants just to be. He does not want to do what it takes to actually have union with a mortal woman and to deal with all the complex feelings involved in an intimate relationship. He does not want to take responsibility.

By nature and by training this woman was all for conservation of life. She had been brought up in rather a strict and narrow school. In her day although no one, certainly no woman, was expected to save humanity, every female was confidently expected to produce it. More than that, she was earnestly enjoined to guard and protect it. So Mary Ball and her successor Mary Washington, early imbibed not only a sense of the woman's responsibility for the family but a sense of her authority over it....At any rate, in this particular crisi she was merely obeying a law of nature as old as womanhood--to protect the creature she had brought into the world. There was no subtlety in her. She could not see the finer shadings of ths situation, the fact that in holding him back from the frontier she might be putting him into even greater peril. Her course was prompted by instinct and impulse, and she never thought of questioning the right or wrong of it. So, armed with the most primitive of all weapons, she faced her son for a hard fight. But she was pitted here against a temendous paradox. With her whole might she was resisting the demands of war, and yet it had been that very strength that had produced the warrior. Her opponent was remarkably like her--in strength of mind and body, in resolution, in force of will. Now, it is one of the ironies of life that sameness creates opposition. In the conflict that day at Mount Vernon, therefore, the contestants were fighting with identical weapons, even though from different spheres... George Washington must have been a very patient man. And if he had patience, that, too, came from her by that same theory of heredity that makes a firstborn son peculiarly like his mother. So this must be written in to her credity when for the third time she has to be recorded as trying to interrupt his destiny. As a last resort he used a weapon that she herself had put into his hand. Madam," he is said to have remarked with respectful finality, "the God to whom you commended me when first I went to war will be my protector stil.

Nine nights I hung on the bare tree, my side pierced with a spear's point. I swayed and blew in the cold winds and hot winds, without food, without water, a sacrifice of myself to myself, and the worlds opened to me. 'For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again. 'An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearth and their home. 'A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers. ' A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child's head, that child will not fall in battle. 'A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them. 'A fifteenth: I have a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe my dreams.' His voice was so low now that Shadow had to strain to hear it over the plane's engine noise. 'A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman. 'A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another. 'And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one knows but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.

She is also the power behind spiritual awakening, the inner force that unleashes spiritual power within the human body in the form of kundalini. And she is a guardian: beautiful, queenly, and fierce. Paintings of Durga show her with flowing hair, a red sari, bangles, necklaces, a crown—and eight arms bristling with weapons. Durga carries a spear, a mace, a discus, a bow, and a sword—as well as a conch (representing creative sound), a lotus (symbolizing fertility), and a rosary (symbolizing prayer). In one version of her origin, she appears as a divine female warrior, brought into manifestation by the male gods to save them from the buffalo demon, Mahisha. The assembled gods, furious and powerless over a demon who couldn’t be conquered, sent forth their anger as a mass of light and power. Their combined strength coalesced into the form of a radiantly beautiful woman who filled every direction with her light. Her face was formed by Shiva; her hair came from Yama, the god of death; her arms were given by Vishnu. Shiva gave her his trident, Vishnu his discus, Vayu—the wind god—offered his bow and arrow. The mountain god, Himalaya, gave her the lion for her mount. Durga set forth to battle the demon for the sake of the world, armed and protected by all the powers of the divine masculine.1 As a world protector, Durga’s fierceness arises out of her uniquely potent compassion. She is the deity to call on when you’re

Better if I do. The Nadir know me. "Death-walker." I'm part of their legends. They think I'm an ancient god of death stalking the world.' 'Are they wrong, I wonder?' said Rek, smiling. 'Maybe not. I never wanted it, you know. All I wanted was to get my wife back. Had slavers not taken her I would have been a farmer. Of that I am sure - though Rowena doubted it. There are times when I do not much like what I am.' 'I'm sorry, Druss. It was a jest,' said Rek. 'I do not see you as a death-god. You are a man and a warrior. But most of all, a man.' 'It's not you, boy; your words only echo what I already feel. I shall die soon . . . Here at this Dros. And what will I have achieved in my life? I have no sons nor daughters. No living kin . . . Few friends. They will say, "Here lies Druss. He killed many and birthed none." ' 'They will say more than that,' said Virae suddenly. 'They'll say, "Here lies Druss the Legend, who was never mean, petty, nor needlessly cruel. Here was a man who never gave in, never compromised his ideals, never betrayed a friend, never despoiled a woman and never used his strength against the weak." They'll say "He had no sons, but many a woman asleep with her babes slept more soundly for knowing Druss stood with the Drenai." They'll say many things, whiteboard. Through many generations they will say them, and men with no strength will find strength when they hear them.' 'That would be pleasant,' said the old man, smiling.

Fresh Prints We're inundated with the news That all is at unrest. We've not a clue What this world's coming to, Just thank the Lord we're blessed. Beloved, this very day You thought you'd never live to see Is just the one God preordained And chose for you and me. We're not called to shake our heads And utter “what a pity.” We're called as candles on a hill And towers in the city. We can draw far more to Christ than tracts Or fancy steeples We are proof in breathing flesh— God moves among His people! Please understand, this race you run Is not just for your prize. Grab young hands, courageous band, Run for their very lives! For us, we must live for today, For them, live for tomorrow. Redeem the time for many blind For there is none to borrow! The prints of history's heroes Will soon fade into the dust, If there will be fresh prints, my friend, It is up to us. Footprints that walk the talk that says, “I'll go where You will lead!” Kneeprints that bridge the gap And make the hedge to intercede. God, kick us off our cushioned seats Don't let us turn our heads! Let's cease to hide behind the cross And carry it instead! You beckon us, “My warriors, The time has come, ARISE! Draw your swords, fight the fight, Sound the battle cry.” “Where are My few who dare to say, ‘Come follow Him with me?’ Would you lay down your own dear life So that My Son they'll see?” “Consider, Child, carefully— Am I quite worth the cost? To surrender hearts to holiness And count all gains but loss?” “I call you from your comfort zone, Dare you be one of few? If you'll not leave fresh prints, My child, Then I must ask you, who?” If you'll not lead the way, My child, Then look around you, Who?

A tall, well-muscled blond man drew alongside Christian. He inclined his head to them. “Abbot,” he said to Christian in greeting. Christian seemed pleased to see him. “Falcon. It’s been a long time.” “Aye. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to greet you yester eve when you arrived.” Christian offered him a lopsided grin. “’Tis well understood. I heard about your escapade with the butcher’s daughter and your near miss with her father’s cleaver.” Falcon laughed. “Lies all. ’Twas the tanner’s daughter and her father’s ax.” Christian joined his laughter. “One day, my friend, you will meet the one father who can run faster than you.” “’Tis why God gave us horses.” He winked at Christian, then tilted his head so that he could see Adara. “’Tis a pleasure to meet you, Queen Adara. I am Lord Quentin of Adelsbury and my sword is ever at your disposal.” Christian gave him a meaningful stare. “And your sword had best stay sheathed, Falcon, until you’re on the battlefield.” “Your warning is well taken into consideration, Abbot, along with your sword skill and horsemanship. Have no fear of me. Your wife is ever safe from my designs. But no woman is safe from my charm.” Adara couldn’t help teasing the man who seemed of remarkable good spirit and cheer. “However some women might find themselves immune from it, my Lord Falcon.” “What, ho?” he said with a laugh. “Congratulations, Christian. You have found a woman as intelligent as she is beautiful. Tell me, Your Majesty, have you a sister who is fashioned in your image?” “Nay, my lord. I fear I am one of a kind.” He looked sincerely despondent at the news. “’Tis a pity, then. I shall just have to pray for Christian to lay aside his duties and become a monk in earnest.” Christian snorted at that prospect. “You would have a better chance courting my horse.” “Then I shall take my charm and work it on a woman who isn’t immune to it. Good day to you both.” Adara glanced over her shoulder as he fell back into the ranks with the other knights. “Don’t look at him,” Christian said in a teasing tone. “You’ll only play into his overbloated self-esteem.” She gave him a meaningful look. “In that regard, he reminds me of someone else I know.” “Ouch, my lady, you wound me.” “Never, Christian. I would never wound you.

I think sexy is a grown-up word to describe a person who’s confident that she is already exactly who she was made to be. A sexy woman knows herself and she likes the way she looks, thinks, and feels. She doesn’t try to change to match anybody else. She’s a good friend to herself—kind and patient. And she knows how to use her words to tell people she trusts about what’s going on inside of her—her fears and anger, love, dreams, mistakes, and needs. When she’s angry, she expresses her anger in healthy ways. When she’s joyful, she does the same thing. She doesn’t hide her true self because she’s not ashamed. She knows she’s just human—exactly how God made her and that’s good enough. She’s brave enough to be honest and kind enough to accept others when they’re honest. When two people are sexy enough to be brave and kind with each other, that’s love. Sexy is more about how you feel than how you look. Real sexy is letting your true self come out of hiding and find love in safe places. That kind of sexy is good, really good, because we all want and need love more than anything else. “Fake sexy is different. It’s just more hiding. Real sexy is taking off all your costumes and being yourself. Fake sexy is just wearing another costume. Lots of people are selling fake sexy costumes. Companies know that people want to be sexy so badly because people want love. They know that love can’t be sold, so they have big meetings in boardrooms and they say, ‘How can we convince people to buy our stuff? I know! We’ll promise them that this stuff will make them sexy!’ Then they make up what sexy means so they can sell it. Those commercials you see are stories they’ve written to convince us that sexy is the car or mascara or hair spray or diet they’re selling. We feel bad, because we don’t have what they have or look how they look. That’s what they want. They want us to feel bad, so we’ll buy more. It almost always works. We buy their stuff and wear it and drive it and shake our hips the way they tell us to—but that doesn’t get us love, because none of that is real sexiness. People are even more hidden underneath fake sexiness, and the one thing you can’t do if you want to be loved is hide. You can’t buy sexy, you have to become sexy through a lifetime of learning to love who God made you to be and learning who God made someone else to be.” My

I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving. “I know a charm that will heal with a touch. “I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy. “I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks. “A fifth charm: I can catch a bullet in flight and take no harm from it.” His words were quiet, urgent. Gone was the hectoring tone, gone was the grin. Wednesday spoke as if he were reciting the words of a religious ritual, as if he were speaking something dark and painful. “A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender. “A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it. “An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship. “A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore. “Those were the first nine charms I learned. Nine nights I hung on the bare tree, my side pierced with a spear’s point. I swayed and blew in the cold winds and the hot winds, without food, without water, a sacrifice of myself to myself, and the worlds opened to me. “For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again. “An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearth and their home. “A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers. “A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child’s head, that child will not fall in battle. “A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them. “A fifteenth: I have a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe my dreams.” His voice was so low now that Shadow had to strain to hear it over the plane’s engine noise. “A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman. “A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another. “And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one knows but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.” He sighed, and then stopped talking. Shadow could feel his skin crawl. It was as if he had just seen a door open to another place, somewhere worlds away where hanged men blew in the wind at every crossroads, where witches shrieked overhead in the night.

Life within a Templar house was designed where possible to resemble that of a Cistercian monastery. Meals were communal and to be eaten in near silence, while a reading was given from the Bible. The rule accepted that the elaborate sign language monks used to ask for necessities while eating might not be known to Templar recruits, in which case "quietly and privately you should ask for what you need at table, with all humility and submission." Equal rations of food and wine were to be given to each brother and leftovers would be distributed to the poor. The numerous fast days of the Church calendar were to be observed, but allowances would be made for the needs of fighting men: meat was to be served three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Should the schedule of annual fast days interrupt this rhythm, rations would be increased to make up for lost sustenance as soon as the fasting period was over. It was recognized that the Templars were killers. "This armed company of knights may kill the enemies of the cross without stated the rule, neatly summing up the conclusion of centuries of experimental Christian philosophy, which had concluded that slaying humans who happened to be "unbelieving pagans" and "the enemies of the son of the Virgin Mary" was an act worthy of divine praise and not damnation. Otherwise, the Templars were expected to live in pious self-denial. Three horses were permitted to each knight, along with one squire whom "the brother shall not beat." Hunting with hawks—a favorite pastime of warriors throughout Christendom—was forbidden, as was hunting with dogs. only beasts Templars were permitted to kill were the mountain lions of the Holy Land. They were forbidden even to be in the company of hunting men, for the reason that "it is fitting for every religious man to go simply and humbly without laughing or talking too much." Banned, too, was the company of women, which the rule scorned as "a dangerous thing, for by it the old devil has led man from the straight path to paradise the flower of chastity is always [to be] maintained among you.... For this reason none Of you may presume to kiss a woman' be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other.... The Knighthood of Christ should avoid at all costs the embraces of women, by which men have perished many times." Although married men were permitted to join the order, they were not allowed to wear the white cloak and wives were not supposed to join their husbands in Templar houses.

Montreal October 1704 Temperature 55 degrees Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.” Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl. “I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.” Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.” “I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.” They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission? “My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.” Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.” The Indians rather enjoyed being French allies one day and difficult neighbors the next. Lorette Indians might find this a fine way to stab a French soldier in the back without drawing blood. They would need Father Meriel. He could arrange anything if he chose; he had power among all the peoples. But he might say no, and so might Eben’s Indian family. Mercy translated what was going on for Nistenha and Snow Walker. “They want to get married,” she told them. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She couldn’t help laughing from the joy and the terror of it. Ransom would no longer be the first word in Sarah’s heart. Eben would be. Mercy said, “Eben asked her right here in the street, Snow Walker. He wants to save her from marriage to a French soldier she doesn’t want. He’s loved Sarah since the march.” The two Indians had no reaction. For a moment Mercy thought she must have spoken to them in English. Nistenha turned to walk away and Snow Walker turned with her. If Nistenha was not interested in Sarah and Eben’s plight, no Indian would be. Mercy called on her memory of every speech in every ceremony, every dignified phrase and powerful word. “Honored mother,” she said softly. “Honored sister. We are in need and we beg you to hear our petition.” Nistenha stopped walking, turned back and stared at her in amazement. Sarah and Eben and Snow Walker stared at her in amazement. Sam can build canoes, thought Mercy. I can make a speech. “This woman my sister and this man my brother wish to spend their lives together. My brother will need the generous permission of his Indian father. Already we know that my sister will be refused the permission of her French owners. We will need an ally to support us in our request. We will need your strength and your wisdom. We beseech you, Mother, that you stand by us and help us.” The city of Montreal swirled around them. Eben, property of an Indian father in Lorette; Sarah, property of a French family in Montreal; and Mercy, property of Tannhahorens, awaited her answer. “Your words fill me with pride, Munnunock,” said Nistenha softly. She reached into her shopping bundle. Slowly she drew out a fine French china cup, undoubtedly meant for the feast of Flying Legs. She held it for a moment, and then her stern face softened and she gave it to Eben. Indians sealed a promise with a gift. She would help them. From her bundle, Snow Walker took dangling silver earrings she must have bought for Mercy and handed them to Sarah. Because she knew that Sarah’s Mohawk was not good enough and that Eben was too stirred to speak, Mercy gave the flowery thanks required after such gifts. “God bless us,” she said to Sarah and Eben, and Eben said, “He has.

Lie on your back and close your eyes. Let me chase your fear away. With nothing to fear, there is no need to die, eh?” “No.” She tried to push him away. “No.” He slipped an arm under her knees and drew her down the bed onto her back. She propped herself up on her elbows, trying to evade his lips as they nibbled their way down her neck to her collarbone. And lower. Panic welled within her. She couldn’t fight him. Not when she trembled like this. Not when the world tipped sideways. He slid the tip of his tongue under the leather to trace wet circles on her chest--just above her breasts. Her nipples sprang taut, sensitized to the soft leather that grazed them when she oved. Never before had Loretta actually felt the blood drain from her face; she did now. Sucking in a draft of air, she tried to twist sideways, but his arm, roped with muscle and tensed against her, blocked her escape. As she shifted position, his lips found her ear and, in unison with his teeth and tongue, learned its texture, its taste, its shape, discovering with unerring accuracy the sensitive places. His warm breath made chills run over her. “Habbe…” Her voice trailed off. She wanted desperately to distract him, but instead it was she who couldn’t seem to concentrate. “Your name, wha--what was it? Habbe what? What does it mean?” “Habbe Esa, Road to the Wolf, Hunter of the Wolf. My brother the wolf showed his face in my name dream.” “Y-your name dream?” She wriggled away and shoved the heel of her hand against his chin so she could sit up. “Wh-what’s a name dream?” His eyes gleamed down at her as he drew back his head. “A dream a man seeks when he becomes a warrior. In the dream, he learns his name. A woman has no need. She is named by others.” He dipped his head and captured her thumb between his teeth. Mesmerized, Loretta felt his tongue flick across her knuckles. Dear God, she was going to faint. And while she was unconscious, he would--he would…She felt herself tip sideways. His arm caught her from falling. He released her thumb. “Blue Eyes?” Loretta licked her bottom lip, trying desperately to right herself, to stay conscious. She couldn’t pass out--she just couldn’t. His face blurred. And his voice seemed distant. “Hah-ich-ka ein, where are you, Blue Eyes?” Loretta blinked, but it did no good. Was this how it felt to die? All floaty and distant from everything? Hah-ich-ka ein, where are you, Blue Eyes? She tried to answer. Couldn’t.

A swan-maiden came and filled the young sailor’s cup. She bowed her head and went to leave, but before she could Batward grabbed her arm. “A cup for me, too, if you don’t mind,” said the warrior. “Please.” “Are you sure?” asked the woman. Batward nodded. “For too long have I rested these feet on firm land. The sea; she calls to me. I am ready.” “As you wish, m’lord.” The maiden filled Batward’s cup, and then the man stood and raised it high. “A toast to me, and a parting glass to you all — for this drink shall, in Seolho’s fine hall, be my last.” The guests did not cheer or hoot at Batward’s words, for it was known that he had arrived at the hall long before the rest of them. Instead, they bowed their heads and raised a solemn toast. Batward gave a nod to Seolho, and the prince nodded back. And the next day, as the gulls called at dawn, Batward was gone. For a sailor cannot be kept from the sea for long.

She doesn't bend to the will of gods, or the might of a king. She's a warrior from Realm G, a woman who shattered the

Thy word O Lord is my great hope.

KGB might have replaced the songoma in this Russian empire, where no citizen was allowed to believe in holy spirits except in great secrecy. It seemed to him that a society that attempted to put the gods to flight would be doomed. The nkosis know that in my homeland, and hence our gods have not been threatened by apartheid. They can live freely and have never been subjected to the pass laws; they have always been able to move around without being humiliated. If our holy spirits had been banished to remote prison islands, and our singing hounds chased out into the Kalahari Desert, not a single white man, woman or child would have survived in South Africa. All of them, Afrikaners as well as Englishmen, would have been annihilated long ago and their miserable skeletons buried in the red soil. In the old days, when his ancestors were still fighting openly against the white intruders, the Zulu warriors used to cut off their fallen victims’ lower jaw. An impi returning from a victorious battle would bring with him these jawbones as trophies to adorn the temple entrances of their tribal chiefs. Now it was the gods who were on the front line against the whites, and they would never submit to defeat. The first night in the strange

I will be a fisher of souls!

Adara felt her jaw go slack as she turned back to look more closely at the approaching knight. That was her husband? Mercy, the man needed to discard his monk’s robes more often. She didn’t fully believe it until he reined his horse before her and his blue eyes seared her with heat. She’d known her husband was a handsome man, but this… This was unbelievable. He buried his banner into the ground beside his horse. His gaze never wavering from hers, he slung one long, well-muscled leg over his steed before he slid to the ground. She didn’t move as he approached her. She couldn’t. The sight of him had her completely riveted to this spot on the ground. Adara wasn’t sure what he had planned, but when he dropped to his knee before her, she was dumbfounded. He struck himself on his left shoulder with his fist as a salute to her, then bowed his head. “My sword is ever at your disposal, my lady.” Laughter rang out from the men around her. “As is mine,” someone called out. Christian ignored them as he looked up at her like something out of her dreams. The moment seemed surreal. Truly, it was a fantasy come to life. “What has possessed you, Christian?” she asked. “Your beauty. It has…” He paused as if searching for the words. “Your great beauty has possessed my soul and…” More laughter and taunts rang out. Her husband’s eyes flashed angrily, but still he stayed there. “I would be your champion, Adara, and—” “Simpering milksop,” one of the knights finished for him. Christian dropped his head and shook it. “This is not who or what I am,” he muttered before he looked up at her again. “I’m sorry, Adara.” “For what?” His answer came as he rose to his feet. With a determined stride, he went to the men who had been tormenting him. He struck the first man he reached so hard that he was knocked to the ground. “Milksop with an iron fist,” he snarled. “And you’d best remember that.” The knights attacked. Even wounded, Christian fought them off, then drew his sword to keep them back. “Cease!” Ioan’s Welsh accent cut through them all. He pushed his way through his men to see Christian in his finery. Ioan looked at him, blinked, then burst out laughing. “Abbot? Since when do you dress like a woman?” His expression hard, Christian tossed his sword into the air, where it twirled around. He caught the hilt upside down in his fist and in one smooth motion sheathed it. Christian paused beside Ioan and glared at him. “Be glad I carried you out of the Holy Land on my back. That fact, and that alone, is all that precludes me from hurting you. For both our sakes, don’t try my patience and make me kill you after such a sacrifice.” Ioan’s eyes twinkled in merriment. He leaned forward and sniffed. “My God, you even smell like one. What happened to you?” Christian let out a tired breath and headed for the tent they had pitched for him. Phantom tsked in her ear as soon as Christian was out of his hearing range. “Only a woman can make a man sacrifice his dignity on the altar of humility. Tell me, Adara, did Christian just sacrifice his for naught?” Nay, he didn’t.

Adara fought the guards, but in the end she was forced to submit for fear of hurting her unborn child. They grabbed her arms roughly and led her behind the bishop and his priests. The hallway was dismal and horrifying. The screams grew louder. As soon as the priests opened the door to her new cell, the bishop froze. Adara didn’t know why until she saw knights surrounding them. “Let her go.” Her knees weakened at the sound of Christian’s thundering voice. She looked past the bishop to see Christian in the room with Phantom and Ioan. Never had he been more welcome or handsome to her. The bishop glared at him. “You’d best remember your place, brother, as well as who you serve.” “You’d best be warned, Your Grace,” Lutian said in his fool’s voice. “Lord Christian has a mighty sword beneath his robes. Mighty indeed.” The bishop frowned at Christian. “Monks are forbidden to arm themselves. You should know that.” “I’m not a monk,” Christian said as he came forward. “And you will not interrogate my wife for a crime she did not commit.” The man curled his lip as if the idea of any man telling him what to do were the most repugnant action he could imagine. “I have the backing of the Church for what I do.” “And I have the backing of an army who will lay waste to every man here if needs be, should you not heed my words.” The bishop was aghast. “You would threaten me?” Christian didn’t hesitate with his answer. “For her life, aye.” “You would jeopardize your soul for her? She is a heretic and a witch.” “She is a woman. My woman.” His words only succeeded in angering the bishop more. “I will have you excommunicated for this.” Christian pulled the black monk’s robe from over his head and balled it up. “Then excommunicate me. If I am in the wrong for protecting an innocent woman, then God can judge me as He will.” He handed the robe to the bishop, then pushed past him to Adara’s side. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come for you sooner,” he said to her. “I will have you killed for this!” the bishop screamed. Christian gave him an angry glare. “Then I will see you in hell.

Saul walked over to David. “Yes, but you have become a gibborim, a mighty man of valor for your god and king. I have asked myself the question over and over, ‘who is this young warrior poet who has come from nowhere with no pedigree to rise in glory and honor before the eyes of all?’” “I am your lowly servant, my sovereign.” “Indeed. You were but a shepherd whose favor with both god and man has garnered you the position of royal musician, captain of the king’s guard, and now Champion of Israel, defeating the mightiest of our enemies. And yet you seek no glory in it.” “Lord, I am what I am by Yahweh’s grace for his glory.” “But what is it you want?” asked Saul. The question was more like an accusation. Saul was always demanding proof of loyalty from his servants. David dared not say what he was thinking. He wanted love. He wanted the woman whose angelic voice haunted his heart and whose beauty drove him mad with desire. He wanted Michal.

precious look on John’s face. A mixture of revelation and confusion, like he doubted what he had been proclaiming might actually be coming true. Jesus had chuckled and thought of dunking John in the water as a playful prank, but thought better of it because of the seriousness of the moment. Baptism was a serious sacrament indeed. It was a symbolic ritual that recapitulated the cleansing waters of the Great Deluge. In the days of Noah, the fallen Sons of God had not merely come to earth to draw worship away from Yahweh. They also sought to corrupt humanity by violating the holy separation between heaven and earth. They mated with human women who gave birth to unholy hybrids of human and angel. These offspring were giants called Nephilim, and they were mighty warriors of old. The angelic/human crossbreeding had a second purpose: to corrupt the bloodline of the Messiah that was promised through the fully human bloodline of Eve. In the curse on the Serpent of the Garden. Yahweh had said, “I will put war between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall crush your head, and you shall strike his heel.” The violent sins of men and angels brought the judgment of Yahweh to cleanse the earth from abomination. But it was only the beginning of a war that would not cease until the promised Messiah came to crush the Serpent’s head.

Caleb and Joshua stopped and watched the prophets. The three of them were staring at Rahab as if they saw something in her that they did not quite understand. Then a shudder and a gasp of breath seemed to flow from one to the other. Everyone in the room saw it. It was like a rushing wind that penetrated their bodies, but only their bodies, no one else’s. It was the Spirit of the living God. One of the prophets spoke up, “Thus saith Yahweh, behold this woman before you will bear a child in the line of Judah.” The second spoke as if continuing the sentence like they were all three connected in spirit. “It will be a royal bloodline from which a king of Israel shall arise. A gibborim warrior.” And the last one finished, “The Seed of Promise shall issue forth who will crush the Seed of the Serpent.” A strange peace came over Rahab. It was as if Yahweh’s spirit rested upon her as well. It was as if he were comforting her, clearing away all her doubt, and all her years of pain and anguish in search of one true love. And now she had found it. She kept clinging to Caleb. The prophets then lost their breath and looked at one another. The Spirit that had come over them was now gone.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5)

Initiation is the bottom line of masculinity. It means taking the lead. The lead in providing, protecting, mentoring, and befriending. It means caring for and developing our mates, our children, and ourselves. It means taking the lead in apologizing. The lead in seeking forgiveness. The lead in vulnerability. Masculinity means initiation. C. S. Lewis, as you might expect, said it brilliantly: “God is so masculine, that all of creation is feminine by comparison.

Throughout history the church has always zeroed in on “ezer” (pronouncedazer with a long sounding ¯a, as in razor) as the preFall piece of Eve that defines a woman’s role and remained intact despite her sin. God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper [ezer] suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). The meaning of ezer, however, was diminished when translators rendered it “helpmeet” and restricted it to marriage.4 A woman’s mission centered on home and family — vital spheres of ministry to be sure, but only a slice of the vast mission God originally cast by calling women to rule and subdue the earth. Thinking regarding the ezer began to change when scholars pointed out that the word ezer is used most often (sixteen of twenty-one occurrences) in the Old Testament to refer to God5 as Israel’s helper in times of trouble. That’s when ezer was upgraded to “strong helper,” leaving Christians debating among themselves over the meaning of “strong” and whether this affects a woman’s rank with respect to the man. Further research indicates ezer is a powerful Hebrew military word whose significance we have barely begun to unpack.6 The ezer is a warrior, and this has far-reaching implications for women, not only

........................................To a man without a country, He appeared a joint sojourner. To Joshua armed but afraid, He came a valiant warrior. To Moses raised up on the mount, He was the One yet higher. To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He was the fourth man in the fire. To Elijah who stood as one for God, he was never less alone. For Noah's faithful family, He made an ark their home. To Ezekiel He appeared to be the light cast over the dark. To King David running from the throne, He was the true Monarch. To Daniel at the bite of death, He was the lock upon their jaws. To King Solomon who'd had it all, He was the only worthy cause. To a sinking fisherman, He was life upon the water. To a grieving Jairus, He was life unto his daughter. To a woman at the well, He was complete acceptance. To a doubting Thomas, He was the proof for his reluctance. To a dozen throwbacks from the world, He unleashed His awesome power. From a greedy grave of several days burst forth his finest hour. ........................................

To a man without a country, He appeared a joint sojourner. To Joshua armed but afraid, He came a valiant warrior. To Moses raised up on the mount, He was the One yet higher. To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He was the fourth man in the fire. To Elijah who stood as one for God, he was never less alone. For Noah's faithful family, He made an ark their home. To Ezekiel He appeared to be the light cast over the dark. To King David running from the throne, He was the true Monarch. To Daniel at the bite of death, He was the lock upon their jaws. To King Solomon who'd had it all, He was the only worthy cause. To a sinking fisherman, He was life upon the water. To a grieving Jairus, He was life unto his daughter. To a woman at the well, He was complete acceptance. To a doubting Thomas, He was the proof for his reluctance. To a dozen throwbacks from the world, He unleashed His awesome power. From a greedy grave of several days burst forth his finest hour." ~Things pondered

There’s something else too and it’s really important. What do you know about something called a mating scent?” “Mating scent?” Sophie could almost see her sister shrug. “Uh, I may have heard the term. I know the Kindred place a lot of importance on smells.” “That’s because they use them to seduce their brides. When a Kindred warrior claims a woman as his own, his body immediately begins making a pheromone that’s specifically tailored to her DNA,” Sophie said rapidly, quoting as well as she could remember from what Sylvan had told her. “Well, Baird does smell really good. But…so?” “So? So, it’s irresistible. I mean, it makes him irresistible to you. Remember how we were wondering why nobody ever turned the Kindred down and came back to Earth? This is why, Liv—they can’t help themselves. His mating scent is like a drug and you’re being subjected to it every minute you’re with him!” Sophie was panting she was so upset but on the other end of whatever strange connection they had there was a lengthy silence. It went on for so long that she began to wonder if her twin had hung up on her. “Liv?” she asked at last, looking up in the air as though she could see her floating there. “Liv, are you still there?” “I’m here.” Liv’s voice was flat. “Are you sure about this? I mean, how did you get this information?” “Sylvan told me. You know, Baird’s brother?” “Yes, I know.” There was another lengthy silence and then Liv muttered, “Son of a bitch.” “Liv, are you okay?” “Yeah, I’m okay. You’re absolutely certain this is right?” “Positive. He didn’t try to hide it or anything. He said that even if you knew, you wouldn’t be able to fight it—it’s that strong. Your body will react to his mating scent—” “Whether I want it to or not,” Liv said, finishing her sentence in the familiar way they had. “Exactly.” Sophie sighed. “Didn’t Baird tell you any of this?” “He talked about smells being important and said I would find that I wanted him more and more but no. He never told me he was using biological warfare on me.” Now Liv sounded really upset and Sophie felt her heart twist. “Look, Liv, I’m sorry, really I am. I feel horrible now—were you beginning to like him?” “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been fighting what I felt so hard but I didn’t even know what I was fighting—just that I couldn’t, uh, help myself when I was close to him. And all this time he was lying to me. God…it’s Mitch all over again.” “Oh honey, no.” Sophie wished that her sister was there in person so she could give her a hug. “It’s not like you caught him with another woman.” “No—it’s worse. At least Mitch didn’t drug me to force me to stay with him.

Motherhood By Christianna Maas My willingness to carry life is the revenge, the antidote, the great rebuttal of every murder, every abortion, and every genocide. I sustain humanity. Deep inside of me, life grows. I am death’s opposition. I have pushed back the hand of darkness today. I have caused there to be a weakening tremor among the ranks of those set on earth’s destruction. Today a vibration that calls angels to attention echoed throughout time. Our laughter threatened hell today. I dined with the greats of God’s army. I made their meals, and tied their shoes. Today, I walked with greatness, and when they were tired I carried them. I have poured myself out for the cause today. It is finally quiet, but life stirs inside of me. Gaining strength, the pulse of life sends a constant reminder to both good and evil that I have yielded myself to Heaven and now carry its dream. No angel has ever had such a privilege, nor any man. I am humbled by the honor. I am great with destiny. I birth the freedom fighters. In the great war, I am a leader of the underground resistance. I smile at the disguise of my troops, surrounded by a host of warriors, destiny swirling, invisible yet tangible, and the anointing to alter history. Our footsteps marking land for conquest, we move undetected through the common places. Today I was the barrier between evil and innocence. I was the gatekeeper, watching over the hope of mankind, and no intruder trespassed. There is not an hour of day or night when I turn from my post. The fierceness of my love is unmatched on earth. And because I smiled instead of frowned the world will know the power of grace. Hope has feet, and it will run to the corners of earth, because I stood up against destruction. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am the keeper and sustainer of life here on earth. Heaven stands in honor of my mission. No one else can carry my call. I am the daughter of Eve. Eve has been redeemed. I am the opposition of death. I am a woman.

Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow. —Job 8:19 (KJV) I often tell people that sometimes life is like Roller Derby: We may be skating along at the back of the pack, until God grabs our hands and whips us to the front to score. But sitting on a plane departing Atlanta for Kansas City, I was discouraged. I had been hard at work on a project that I thought would take six months to complete. Six months stretched to two years and then five. The more I worked, the further behind I was. The flight attendant interrupted my thoughts: “We will be taking off as soon as our last few passengers arrive.” When a young woman slid into the seat beside me, I glanced at her and the other interesting-looking last-minute boarders. Two words popped into my brain: Roller Derby! “Hi,” I said to my seatmate. “Are you all some sort of team?” She nodded. “We play for the Kansas City Roller Warriors.” I giggled as I recalled Roller Derby matches I’d watched on TV as a child. I rejoiced thinking that I sat in the presence of roller-skating angels, living reenactors of the metaphor I used to encourage others. I chuckled. Life is like Roller Derby. I am never so behind that God cannot reach down His mighty hand and whip me forward. God, thank You for making me smile. When I feel frustrated or too far behind, help me to remember Your Roller Derby angels. —Sharon Foster Digging Deeper: Prv 17:22; Phil 4:4

Consider Jesus’s genealogy in Matthew 1:1–17. In the ancient world, genealogies determined a person’s status—whether you came from an honorable family or a shameful one. A person’s family line says something about that person. Their character, their social status, the types of people they would hang out with. And Jesus’s genealogy says one thing loud and clear: Jesus is right at home with sinners, thugs, and outcasts. Most genealogies list only the male descendants. Remember, the ancient world was patriarchal. Men were more valued than women, so there was no need to list women—thanks for bearing our children, but we’ll take it from here. But Jesus’s genealogy lists five women, most of whom have some shady event attached to their name, all of whom we’ve already met. The first woman is Tamar, the Canaanite woman who dressed up as a prostitute in order to have sex with her father-in-law, Judah. Her plan succeeded, and she became pregnant with Perez, the one whom God would weave into Jesus’s family line. Next is Rahab, Jericho’s down-and-out prostitute, who was the first Canaanite to receive God’s grace. Among all the Canaanite leaders, among all the skilled warriors, Rahab was the only one who savored the majesty of Israel’s God. Then there’s Ruth, the foreign widow burdening a famished society. A social outcast, a perceived stigma of God’s judgment, Ruth was grafted into the messianic line. Then there’s “the wife of Uriah,” Bathsheba, who was entangled in the sinful affair with King David—the man who murdered her husband. Finally, there’s Mary, the teenage girl who got pregnant out of wedlock. Though she would become an icon in church tradition, her name was synonymous with shame and scandal in the beginning of the first century. You thought your family was messed up. All of these women were social outcasts. They belonged under a bridge. Whether it was their gender, ethnicity, or some sort of sexual debacle, they were rejected by society yet were part of Jesus’s genealogy—a tapestry of grace. Not only was God born in a feeding trough to enter our pain, but He chose to be born into a family tree filled with lust, perversion, murder, and deceit. This tells us a lot about the types of people Jesus wants to hang out with. It tells us that Jesus loves Tamars, Judahs, Gomers, and you.

FAVOUR FOR A FAVOUR,” the raven squawked, and then a second raven swooped down, ripped more of the roof free and grabbed a warrior running at Orka in its talons, lifted him high and threw him, spinning and screaming, from the tower. “FOUND YOUR FRIENDS LOOKING FOR YOU,” the first raven cawed as it rose higher on beating wings, and two small shapes swept close, buzzing into the room in a blur of wings. One landed upon a woman’s shoulder, a chitinous, segmented body and a too-human face, bulbous eyes under grey-sagging skin, and a mouth full of too many sharp-spiked teeth. A tail curled up over its back, tapering to a needle-thin sting, which whipped forwards and stabbed the woman in the cheek. “Finally, Spert found you, mistress,” Spert said as the woman staggered and choked and dropped her sword, hands grasping for her face. Her veins were turning black, spreading from the sting in her cheek across her face like a diseased spiderweb, down her neck. She tried to speak, to scream, but her tongue was already black and swelling. She collapsed and Spert’s wings buzzed, hovering and darting after his next victim. Another small figure sped around the room on parchment-thin wings: sharpclawed Vesli, with Breca’s spear in her fist, stabbing it into faces as she flew. Orka smiled and growled, looking for new people to kill.

The biblical King David was also a sacred shepherd. His sensual and ecstatic songs of earthly love, so untypical of the Bible, derive from the ancient love rites of the shepherd king and the Goddess—her Canaanite names were Asherah, Astarte, Ashtoreth. The settled people of the Old Testament, like everyone else in the Near East, practiced Goddess worship. The Old Testament is the record of the conquest and massacre of these Neolithic people by the nomadic Hebrews, followers of a Sky God, who then set up their biblical God in the place of the ancient Goddess. The biblical Hebrews were a nomadic pastoral and patriarchal people, tribes of sheepherders and warriors who invaded land belonging to the matriarchal Canaanites. Both Hebrews and Canaanites were Semitic people. The Canaanites lived in agricultural communities and worshiped the orgiastic-ecstatic Moon Mother Astarte. As Old Testament stories relate, the Hebrews sacked, burned, and destroyed village after village belonging to the Canaanites, massacring or enslaving the people—a series of brutal invasions and slaughters described typically by theologians and preachers as “a spiritual victory.” In this way the Hebrews established themselves on the land, along with the worship of their Sky-and-Thunder God Yahweh (Jehovah), calling themselves his “chosen people.” Yahweh’s male prophets and priests, however, despite their political victory over the Canaanites, had to carry on a continuous struggle and fulmination against their own people, who kept “backsliding” into worship of the Great Mother, the Goddess of all their Near Eastern neighbors. For she had originally been the Goddess of the Hebrews themselves. This constant fight against matriarchal religion and custom is the primary theme of the Old Testament. It begins in Genesis, with the takeover of the Goddess’s Garden of Immortality by a male God, and the inversion of all her sacred symbols—tree, serpent, moon-fruit, woman—into icons of evil. Of the two sons of Eve and Adam, Cain was made the “evil brother” because he chose settled agriculture (matriarchal)—the “good brother” Abel was a nomadic pastoralist (patriarchal). The war against the Goddess is carried on by the prophets’ rantings against the “golden calf,” the “brazen serpents,” the “great harlot” and “Whore of Babylon” (the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar), against enchantresses, pythonic diviners, and those who practice witchcraft. It is in the prophets’ war against the Canaanite worship of “stone idols”—the Triple Moon Goddess worshiped as three horned pillars, or menhirs. One of her shrines was on Mount Sinai, which means “Mountain of the Moon.” Moses was commanded by “the Lord” to go forth and destroy these “idols”—who all had breasts. We are told monotheism began with the Jews, that it was the great “spiritual invention” of the religious leader Moses. This is not so. The worship of one God, like everything else in religion, began with the worship of the Goddess. Her universality has been duly noted by everyone who has ever studied the matter. “Monotheism, once thought to have been the invention of Moses or Akhnaton, was worldwide in the prehistoric and early historic world,” i.e., throughout the Paleolithic and Neolithic ages. As E. O. James wrote in The Cult of the Mother Goddess, “It seems that Evans was correct when he affirmed that it was a ‘monotheism in which the female form of divinity was supreme.” The original monotheism of the Goddess is perhaps most clearly shown by the fact that, in Elizabeth Gould Davis’s words, “Almighty Yahweh, the god of Moses and the later Hebrews, was originally a goddess.” His name, Iahu ’anat, derives from that of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna.

For those who view Jesus as the literally begotten son of God, Jesus’s Jewishness is immaterial. If Christ is divine, then he stands above any particular law or custom. But for those seeking the simple Jewish peasant and charismatic preacher who lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, there is nothing more important than this one undeniable truth: the same God whom the Bible calls “a man of war” (Exodus 15:3), the God who repeatedly commands the wholesale slaughter of every foreign man, woman, and child who occupies the land of the Jews, the “blood-spattered God” of Abraham, and Moses, and Jacob, and Joshua (Isaiah 63:3), the God who “shatters the heads of his enemies,” bids his warriors to bathe their feet in their blood and leave their corpses to be eaten by dogs (Psalms 68:21–23)—that is the only God that Jesus knew and the sole God he worshipped.

People with wombs have always known that bodies and consciousness are cyclical, tied to a rhythm that is larger than the individual. The cycle is twenty-eight days, full moon to full moon. Moon sounds like a name or a noun. But let us remember that moon is a gerund. Always moving. Always moon-ing. It is time to give the masculine back its lunar knowledge. Wombs swell, yearn, mulch, and release in twenty-eight days. But a womb is not just an organ. It is an invitation that anyone of any physicality and any gender expression can accept. It is an invitation to dance inside change for twenty-eight days. To practice softness for a cycle. The masculine has a womb, too. A moon. All it need do is look up at the night sky. What is lunar wisdom? Even on a new moon night, the moon is still present: replete and whole, while also void and occluded. This is a completion that holds loss tenderly inside its body. It is neatly summed up by Octavia Butler’s powerful words: “God is change.”1 The moon is every gender, every sexuality, mostly both, always trans: waxing and waning. The moon only ever flirts with fullness or emptiness for a brief, tenuous moment before slipping into change. Here is our blended, androgynous Dionysus. Wine-drunk, love-swollen, wind-swept, in ecstatic union with the holy, the moon encourages us to dissolve our edges rather than affirm them. Lunar knowledge keeps us limber. Keeps us resilient. Awe, whether somatic or spiritual, transforms us. The alternative to patriarchy and sky gods is not equal and opposite. It is not a patriarchy with a woman seated on a throne. The Sacred Masculine isn’t a horned warrior bowing down to his impassive empress. The divine, although it includes us, is mostly inhuman. Mutable. Mostly green. Often microscopic. And it is everything in between. Interstitial and relational. The light and the dark. Moonlight on moving water. The lunar bowl where we all mix and love and change.

The emigrants confused the gods by diverting their curses, misleading them with crooked streets and false names. They must try to confuse their offspring as well, who, I suppose, threaten them in similar ways—always trying to get things straight, always trying to name the unspeakable. The Chinese I know hide their names; sojourners take new names when their lives change and guard their real names with silence. Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?

Our  truest  selves  will  always  be  found  through  our worst  times  in  our  lives.  Through  the  worst  and darkest  time,  I  met  a  gentle  soul,  but  powerful woman  of  God.  She  was  one  of  those  warriors battling  for  God’s  sons  and  daughters.  She became  my  spiritual  mentor,  more  so,  a  great woman  that  imparted  in  me  a  bravery,  that  spoke life  and  endurance  into  my  spirit.

The Kai-lao girls were arrayed in a triangular formation, but they did not hold themselves as any warriors I knew. Each young woman was posed in strange, exaggerated ways, some balancing on one foot with arms raised, others crouched low and back with hands scrunched up in imitation of animal claws… I think. More so, they all dressed in identical uniforms save for the color, a literal rainbow. Each uniform… or maybe the girls themselves?... sported ears like a Terran feline with tails to match. Considering they twitched and moved, I could only guess they were natural. “Andrea Baker,” I said into the comms, “I misunderstand. You said when you spoke of ‘a cat fight,’ that it was a figure of speech? Perhaps you misspoke?” “Oh my God, Aylin,” Andrea laughed into the comms, “I really thought it was a joke, but I guess I was wrong. It really will be a cat fight!

a king who in all his power puts down the crown to be vulnerable his queen. a warrior who in all his strength puts down his amour to be nurtured by his woman a man who in all his masculinity puts down his pride to be honest with his wife. my answered prayer.

My pussy felt heavy, pulsing with a deep, dull throb that made it impossible to concentrate on anything but that and the cold bite of metal around my neck. “This is who you are,” he whispered into my ear, tracing the gold thorns around my throat so that I shivered. “Not just a slave, a trinket to own and flaunt and punish, but my slave, my topolina, a woman so beautiful it makes me ache. A warrior so powerful Joan and Artemis would shudder at your feet. Do you know how it makes me feel to make you sweat and cum and cry? It makes me feel like a god, fierce enough to deserve you, and a peasant, wholly unworthy of such a magnificent gift.

Futuwwah is the way of the fata. In Arabic, fata literally means a handsome, brave youth. After the enlightenment of Islam, following the use of the word in the Holy Koran, fata (plural: fityan) came to mean the ideal, noble, and perfect man whose hospitality and generosity would extend until he had nothing left for himself; a man who would give all, including his life, for the sake of his friends. According to the Sufis, Futuwwah is a code of honorable conduct that follows the example of the prophets, saints, sages, and the intimate friends and lovers of Allah. The traditional example of generosity is the prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, who readily accepted the command to sacrifice his son for Allah's sake. He is also a model of hospitality who shared his meals with guests all his life and never ate alone. The prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, is an example of mercy, for he pardoned his brothers, who tried to kill him, and a model of honor, for he resisted the advances of a married woman, Zulaykha, who was feminine beauty personified. The principles of character of the four divinely guided caliphes, the successors of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, also served as guides to Futuwwah; the loyalty of Abu Bakr, the justice of 'Umar, the reserve and modesty of 'Uthman, and the bravery of 'Ali, may Allah be pleased with them all. The all-encompassing symbol of the way of Futuwwah is the divinely guided life and character of the final prophet, Muhammad Mustafa, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, whose perfection is the goal of Sufism. The Sufi aims to abandon all improper behavior and to acquire and exercise, always and under all circumstances, the best behavior proper to human beings; for God created man "for Himself" as His "supreme creation," "in the fairest form." As He declares in His Holy Koran, "We have indeed honored the children of Adam.

Fabric woven by a mother who encoded within the threads a secret treasure map that only her favourite daughter could be taught to decode, fabric that could cover a woman’s head thereby propelling her into the lost half of a man’s soul, fabric that could transform an ordinary man into a celestial warrior if he draped it over his shoulders, and fabric that could bless every speck of dust in this faithless world and turn it into a vast holy realm – by just touching it to their foreheads all men, princely or lowborn, would appear before god as equals. As

I think sexy is a grown-up word to describe a person who’s confident that she is already exactly who she was made to be. A sexy woman knows herself and she likes the way she looks, thinks, and feels. She doesn’t try to change to match anybody else. She’s a good friend to herself—kind and patient. And she knows how to use her words to tell people she trusts about what’s going on inside of her—her fears and anger, love, dreams, mistakes, and needs. When she’s angry, she expresses her anger in healthy ways. When she’s joyful, she does the same thing. She doesn’t hide her true self because she’s not ashamed. She knows she’s just human—exactly how God made her and that’s good enough. She’s brave enough to be honest and kind enough to accept others when they’re honest. When two people are sexy enough to be brave and kind with each other, that’s love. Sexy is more about how you feel than how you look. Real sexy is letting your true self come out of hiding and find love in safe places. That kind of sexy is good, really good, because we all want and need love more than anything else.