Water's Wrath Quotes

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunnéd it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole, When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

We're hopeless, you and I," Vhalla whispered. "If I am going to be hopeless for anyone, let it be for you, Vhalla Yarl.

Annabeth and I were relaxing on the Great Lawn in Central Park when she ambushed me with a question. “You forgot, didn’t you?” I went into red-alert mode. It’s easy to panic when you’re a new boyfriend. Sure, I’d fought monsters with Annabeth for years. Together we’d faced the wrath of the gods. We’d battled Titans and calmly faced death a dozen times. But now that we were dating, one frown from her and I freaked. What had I done wrong? I mentally reviewed the picnic list: Comfy blanket? Check. Annabeth’s favorite pizza with extra olives? Check. Chocolate toffee from La Maison du Chocolat? Check. Chilled sparkling water with twist of lemon? Check. Weapons in case of sudden Greek mythological apocalypse? Check. So what had I forgotten? I was tempted (briefly) to bluff my way through. Two things stopped me. First, I didn’t want to lie to Annabeth. Second, she was too smart. She’d see right through me. So I did what I do best. I stared at her blankly and acted dumb.

Do you hold any feelings for me in your heart? Is there a single ember of love that I might, honorably, fan to life once more?

The line between genius and madness is so very thin.

She no longer longed to be anyone more or less than who she was.

Is that any way for a lady to sit?" Aldrik teased. "I am a lady, and I am sitting this way: therefore, yes.

She was as beautiful as a rose with thorns twice as sharp.

LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds. Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time — as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

He traded his freedom for mine," she whispered. "He was a reckless fool, and I was a girl pulled along by puppet strings. The fire burned too hot, and we didn't notice until it consumed everything.

It would inevitable gravitate her into his orbit again, and they would both collapse in on each other like dying stars.

Neither of them were wrong, neither right. Simply different.

Love is far better to know, even if it slips from your grasp or doesn't bear fruit like you'd hoped. People who say they regret love, true love, are just bitter liar.

If you do not help us, we will consider you our enemy.” Vhalla paused with a sigh. “Frankly, I don’t care if I am your enemy.

Something very small can cast a large shadow when its close to the sun.

For this was untrammeled need; this was a body of water and a soul of ash. The

We all know the story. We heard it not long after the Night of Fire and Wind. You were the low born library girl turned sorceress who rode with princes.

Don't tell me." Shades of a healthy Baldair returned as he wheezed for breath. "You two did the do on my couch.

The passion to produce is very great. One man, who has not yet been assigned his little garden plot, is hopefully watering a jimson weed simply to have something of his own growing.

If we refuse to forgive, we have stepped into dangerous waters. First, refusing to forgive is to put ourselves in the place of God, as though vengeance were our prerogative, not his. Second, unforgiveness says God’s wrath is insufficient. For the unbeliever, we are saying that an eternity in hell is not enough; they need our slap in the face or cold shoulder to “even the scales” of justice. For the believer, we are saying that Christ’s humiliation and death are not enough. In other words, we shake our fists at God and say, “Your standards may have been satisfied, but my standard is higher!” Finally, refusing to forgive is the highest form of arrogance. Here we stand forgiven. And as we bask in the forgiveness of a perfectly holy and righteous God, we turn to our brother and say, “My sins are forgivable, but yours are not.” In other words, we act as though the sins of others are too significant to forgive while simultaneously believing that ours are not significant enough to matter.

Hang in there. Let me save something, make it, instead of break it

How many times would she follow the prince into darkness, trusting his light to guide her?

It would be torture. But it would be the most beautiful torture they had ever known.

Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial. There is no uplifting way to say this. I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible—that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings. The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first fruits of the American garden. And the fruits were secured through the bashing of children with stovewood, through hot iron peeling skin away like husk from corn.

Father Bertrand stood at the window, gazing out through the sea oats at the wild ocean in the distance. There was such peace in something as big and powerful, as independent and majestic as the ocean. U-boats could travel through it and do their dirty work, but they, too, were at the mercy of the hapless wrath of such a body should God decide it was time to speak directly. Some people felt there were still enemy patrols out there, and maybe there were. But there was also Coast Guard, Navy Patrol, and our own variety of covert water travel, he thought. There was no sense in wondering why man had a persistent desire for dominance. It was clear that man would carry on until at that final call, when God would say, “Enough!” And no more.

And I beheld that their mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters, and upon the land also, to battle against them. And I beheld that the power of God was with them, and also that the wrath of God was upon all those that were gathered together against them to battle. And I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles that had gone out of captivity were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations.

The drüskelle gave their oath to Fjerda, but to their god as well. If they could be made to see miracles where once they’d seen abomination, what else might change? I have been made to protect you. His duty to his god, his duty to Nina. Maybe they were the same thing. What if Djel’s hand had raised the waters the night of the wrathful storm that wrecked the drüskelle ship and bound Matthias and Nina together? Matthias was running through the streets of a foreign city, into dangers he did not know, but for the first time since he’d looked into Nina’s eyes and seen his own humanity reflected back at him, the war inside him quieted. We’ll find a way to change their minds, she’d said. All of them. He would locate Nina. They would survive this night. They would free themselves of this damp, misbegotten city, and then … Well, then they’d change the world.

Vhalla was there the moment her prince became her Emperor. He turned back to her helplessly. For the first time in the whole of knowing him, Aldrik looked lost, shell-shocked. She tried to offer him an encouraging smile, but there was only one thing to be done. She had something more important to give him than her smiles. Vhalla dropped to her knee before the Emperor of the realms. "Long live Solaris.

Bitterness is a root. If roots are nursed—watered, protected, fed, and given attention—they increase in depth and strength. If not dealt with quickly, roots are hard to pull up. The strength of the offense will continue to grow. We are therefore exhorted not to let the sun go down on our wrath. (See Ephesians 4:26.) Now instead of the fruit of righteousness being produced, we will see a harvest of anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred, strife, and discord. Jesus called these evil fruits.

Blow on, ye death fraught whirlwinds! blow, Around the rocks, and rifted caves; Ye demons of the gulf below! I hear you, in the troubled waves. High on this cliff, which darkness shrouds In night's impenetrable clouds, My solitary watch I keep, And listen, while the turbid deep Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole. Eternal world of waters, hail! Within thy caves my Lover lies; And day and night alike shall fail Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes. Along this wild untrodden coast, Heap'd by the gelid' hand of frost; Thro' this unbounded waste of seas, Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze; Mine was the choice, in this terrific form, To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm. Yes! I am chang'd - My heart, my soul, Retain no more their former glow. Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll, I watch the bark, in murmurs low, (While darker low'rs the thick'ning' gloom) To lure the sailor to his doom; Soft from some pile of frozen snow I pour the syren-song of woe; Like the sad mariner's expiring cry, As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die. Then, while the dark and angry deep Hangs his huge billows high in air ; And the wild wind with awful sweep, Howls in each fitful swell - beware! Firm on the rent and crashing mast, I lend new fury to the blast; I mark each hardy cheek grow pale, And the proud sons of courage fail; Till the torn vessel drinks the surging waves, Yawns the disparted main, and opes its shelving graves. When Vengeance bears along the wave The spell, which heav'n and earth appals; Alone, by night, in darksome cave, On me the gifted wizard calls. Above the ocean's boiling flood Thro' vapour glares the moon in blood: Low sounds along the waters die, And shrieks of anguish fill the' sky; Convulsive powers the solid rocks divide, While, o'er the heaving surge, the embodied spirits glide. Thrice welcome to my weary sight, Avenging ministers of Wrath! Ye heard, amid the realms of night, The spell that wakes the sleep of death. Where Hecla's flames the snows dissolve, Or storms, the polar skies involve; Where, o'er the tempest-beaten wreck, The raging winds and billows break; On the sad earth, and in the stormy sea, All, all shall shudd'ring own your potent agency. To aid your toils, to scatter death, Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force, When the keen north-wind's freezing breath Spreads desolation in its course, My soul within this icy sea, Fulfils her fearful destiny. Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait To lead the victims to their fate; With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy, And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy.

Spread your wings, tokshi, and fly. Soar above them, make their eyes tear as they stare into the sun to watch you reach new heights.

Vhalla,” he said in a dangerously soft voice, “you may be incredibly special to me, but never lash out at me again.

I wish I could hate you, you frustrating man,” she breathed hopelessly. “And I wish I could stop loving you, my frustrating woman.

A locked door was suddenly opened in the back of my mind and a barrage of demented clowns came rushing out.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

FAUSTUS. Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damn'd perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente,172 lente currite, noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd. O, I'll leap up to my God!—Who pulls me down?— See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!— Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!— Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows! Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God! No, no! Then will I headlong run into the earth: Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me! You stars that reign'd at my nativity, Whose influence hath allotted death and hell, Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist. Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud[s], That, when you173 vomit forth into the air, My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths, So that my soul may but ascend to heaven! [The clock strikes the half-hour.] Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon O God, If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me, Impose some end to my incessant pain; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd! O, no end is limited to damned souls! Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul? Or why is this immortal that thou hast? Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true, This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd Unto some brutish beast!174 all beasts are happy, For, when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me! No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven. [The clock strikes twelve.] O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell! [Thunder and lightning.] O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found! Enter DEVILS. My God, my god, look not so fierce on me! Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer! I'll burn my books!—Ah, Mephistophilis! [Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.]

But the Elves were not so lightly to be caught. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and perceived that he would be master of them, and of an that they wrought. Then in anger and fear they took off their rings. But he, finding that he was betrayed and that the Elves were not deceived, was filled with wrath; and he came against them with open war, demanding that all the rings should be delivered to him, since the Elven-smiths could not have attained to their making without his lore and counsel. But the Elves fled from him; and three of their rings they saved, and bore them away, and hid them. Now these were the Three that had last been made, and they possessed the greatest powers. Narya, Nenya, and Vilya, they were named, the Rings of Fire, and of Water, and of Air, set with ruby and adamant and sapphire; and of all the Elven-rings Sauron most desired to possess them, for those who had them in their keeping could ward off the decays of time and postpone the weariness of the world. But Sauron could not discover them, for they were given into the hands of the Wise, who concealed them and never again used them openly while Sauron kept the Ruling Ring. Therefore the Three remained unsullied, for they were forged by Celebrimbor alone, and the hand of Sauron had never touched them; yet they also were subject to the One.

The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men - to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained. The children stood near by drawing figures in the dust with bare toes, and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that there was no break. Then they asked, Whta'll we do? And the men replied, I don't know. but it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The men sat still - thinking - figuring.

… a son?” “Yes. A son.” All of a sudden, he felt the biggest, widest, happiest grin hit his face, the goddamn thing stretching his cheeks until they hurt, making his eyes water from the strain, pulling at his temples until they burned. And the joy wasn’t just on his puss. A flush so great it burned him alive flooded through his body, cleansing him in places he didn’t know were dirty, washing out cobwebs that had crept into his corners, making him feel alive in a way he hadn’t been in a very, very long time.

How easily we can lose everything.  Our fingers reach and grasp and claw, trying to cling to what we have, but in the end, life runs through them like water.  We cannot hold it. My

Infidelity of the heart to some is a greater crime than infidelity of the flesh.

To hack away at the oppressive darkness that continued to try to smother her so she could defend a new dawn.

I will never push you away again," he whispered. "I'll never let you," Vhalla laughed softly. "I vow to honor my promise to you, Vhalla.

She tried to make a deal with devils, but she'd forgotten that devils lie.

It's worth it, the chance is worth it. Love is always worth taking the challenge.

And there is pain in that. Ain't clean. It's muck. I have told other men the same, even though I must now struggle to take my own medicine. I want you to know what I have seen, the men I have known since I have gone. The men who have had to decide what they love more, the everything, lovely and mean, right in front of them, or their own wrath and regard. And I choose the muck of this world, Sophia. I choose the everything.

His voice went flat. “They criticized me,” he said. “The criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams.” His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. “They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I’m doing a big thing now. They won’t criticize me. If they do, I’ll kill them. Ignorance. There’s no room for it in my plans. No room.

THE SPRING IS BEAUTIFUL in California. Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes, swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade down to cover the trunks. The full green hills are round and soft as breasts. And on the level vegetable lands are the mile-long rows of pale green lettuce and the spindly little cauliflowers, the gray-green unearthly artichoke plants.

The Dutch are a hardworking, resourceful people; when their land is flooded they pump out the water and drain it again. They are used to repairing the ravages caused by the wrath of God, for He has sent these tempests to test them.

I am a curse on this world. For some time now my body has laid in darkness. My mind, haunted by the past. The agony… is never-ending. And amid all my pain, I recall a poem that whispers truth into the void: “I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears Night and morning with my tears, And I sunned it with smiles And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright, And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine – And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning, glad, I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis.

The shells had landed on the cobblestone road. "Sonsofbitches," Wiseman muttered. We looked up and grinned at each other. "Here they come again!" Sitting in an inch of water. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, held my breath, and clutched my elbows with my arms around my knees. Three more shells came in, low and angry, and burst in the orchard. "They're walking 'em towards us," I whispered. I felt as if a giant with exploding iron fingers were looking for me, tearing up the ground as he came. I wanted to strike at him, to kill him, to stop him before he ripped into me, but I could do nothing. Sit and take it, sit and take it. The giant raked the orchard and tore up the roads and stumbled toward us in a terrible blind wrath as we sat in our hole with our heads between our legs and curses on our lips.

While we sit bousin, at the nappy, And gettin fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, That lie between us and our hame, Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

Love, that is first and last of all things made, The light that has the living world for shade, The spirit that for temporal veil has on The souls of all men woven in unison, One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought, And alway through new act and passion new Shines the divine same body and beauty through, The body spiritual of fire and light That is to worldly noon as noon to night; Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man And spirit within the flesh whence breath began; Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime; Love, that is blood within the veins of time; That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand, Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land, And with the pulse and motion of his breath Through the great heart of the earth strikes life and death, The sweet twain chords that make the sweet tune live Through day and night of things alternative, Through silence and through sound of stress and strife, And ebb and flow of dying death and life: Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears, Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears, That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings; Love that is root and fruit of terrene things; Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown, The whole world's fiery forces not burn down; Love, that what time his own hands guard his head The whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead; Love, that if once his own hands make his grave The whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save; Love, that for very life shall not be sold, Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold; So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell, Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell; So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given, Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven; Love that is fire within thee and light above, And lives by grace of nothing but of love; Through many and lovely thoughts and much desire Led these twain to the life of tears and fire; Through many and lovely days and much delight Led these twain to the lifeless life of night.

QUEEN OF 339 SOLDIERS The Scorpion Queen. Oh great Queen of the Desert. Amidst your throne are 339 Soldiers Your smiles are like lightning, piercing through the soul of men. How your enemies are crushed. You are love. You are danger in the lock. Let your enemies feel your wrath for beauty is your throne. The water that flourishes in the desert. Intelligent like the sun and proud like the moon. Sex is only for the pleasure your soul and those who betray you will feel the sting of your venom. Oh daughter of desert, may your reign be long. Poem by Victor Vote for Peace Obot ©️2021 by VVF

And in the greatness of thine excellency thou has overthrown them that rose up against thee: Thou sentest forth thy wrath, which consumed them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as a heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. —EXODUS 15:7-8

We believe that when Jesus died on the cross, He took on all the sin, and all the wrath of God for that sin, and now offers grace and forgiveness to those who in faith receive Him and His gift of eternal life. And when you believe that, Cal, when that’s real in your soul, then you can show grace and forgiveness to other people, too.

Vhalla was tempted to show them all exactly how she'd gotten the title of the Hero of the North. She'd reaped destruction and rained hellfire upon her enemies. Vhalla straightened, holding herself taller. But she'd also earned her title and freedom by playing this noble game. If they wanted her to play, then she would show them how to play to win.

XII. If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped, the bents Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk All hope of greenness? Tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. XIII. As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupified, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! XIV. Alive? he might be dead for aught I knew, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain. And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. XV. I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart, As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. XVI. Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm to mine to fix me to the place, The way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. XVII. Giles then, the soul of honour - there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first, What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good - but the scene shifts - faugh! what hangman hands Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! XVIII. Better this present than a past like that: Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet or a bat? I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. XIX. A sudden little river crossed my path As unexpected as a serpent comes. No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath For the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrath Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. XX. So petty yet so spiteful! All along, Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: The river which had done them all the wrong, Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. XXI. Which, while I forded - good saints, how I feared To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, Each step, of feel the spear I thrust to seek For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! - It may have been a water-rat I speared, But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek. XXII. Glad was I when I reached the other bank. Now for a better country. Vain presage! Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage - XXIII. The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque, What penned them there, with all the plain to choose? No footprint leading to that horrid mews, None out of it. Mad brewage set to work Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

If I show you, that you lack just what is most important and necessary to happiness, that hitherto your attention has been bestowed on everything rather than that which claims it most; and, to crown all, that you know neither what God nor Man is—neither what Good or Evil is: why, that you are ignorant of everything else, perhaps you may bear to be told; but to hear that you know nothing of yourself, how could you submit to that? How could you stand your ground and suffer that to be proved? Clearly not at all. You instantly turn away in wrath. Yet what harm have I done to you? Unless indeed the mirror harms the ill-favoured man by showing him to himself just as he is; unless the physician can be thought to insult his patient, when he tells him:—"Friend, do you suppose there is nothing wrong with you? why, you have a fever. Eat nothing to-day, and drink only water." Yet no one says, "What an insufferable insult!" Whereas if you say to a man, "Your desires are inflamed, your instincts of rejection are weak and low, your aims are inconsistent, your impulses are not in harmony with Nature, your opinions are rash and false," he forthwith goes away and complains that you have insulted him.

PSA124.1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, now may Israel say; PSA124.2 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us: PSA124.3 Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: PSA124.4 Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: PSA124.5 Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. PSA124.6 Blessed be the LORD, who hath

They say make love, not war,” Jax shouted down from the spectators’ ring that lined the training pit. “I frankly don’t care as long as you two get to one or the other.” The peanut gallery burst into laughter. “Is that how you treat a lady, Jax? There’s more to it than just saying hello and putting a sword through her eye!” Daniel jested back. “Mate, if you’re going for the eye, your sword is in the wrong place!” A roar of laughter threatened to deafen them.

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine. And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Even if a ship got past the Water Spider, the English were persona non grata on the continent. Europe did not want to invoke R’hlem’s wrath by aiding refugees. “Do ships never come in?” I asked. Magnus easily followed my train of thought. “Well, naturally there’s been some contact. How else would Cellini have arrived? Italy’s the only nation that will offer assistance. Other than that, dear Miss Howel, we are on our own. Here. Cling to me for comfort.” When I didn’t fall into his arms, he continued.

One preacher described it as if you and I were standing a short hundred yards away from a dam of water ten thousand miles high and ten thousand miles wide. All of a sudden that dam was breached, and a torrential flood of water came crashing toward us. Right before it reached our feet, the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed it all. At the Cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, “It is finished.” This is the gospel.

He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?

First a Christian wades in the rivers of God his grace up to the ankles, with some good frame of spirit; yet but weakly, for a man hath strength in his ankle bones... and yet may have but feeble knees.... So farre as you walk in the waters, so far are you healed; why then in the next place, he must wade till he come to the knees, goe a thousand Cubits, a mile further, and get more strenght to pray, and to walk on in your callings with more power and strength. Secondly, but yet a man that wades but to the knees, his loynes are not drenched, for nothing is healed but what is in the water. Now the affections of a man are placed in his loynes, God tries the reines; a man may have many unruly affections, though he be padling in the wayes of grace; he may walk on in some eavennesse, and yet have of the rottennesse of his heart in the sight of God: why then, though hast waded but to the knees, and it is a mercy that thou art come so farre; but yet the loynes want healing, why, wade a mile further then; the grace of God yet comes too shallow in us, our passions are yet unmortified, so as we know not how to grieve in measure, our wrath is vehement and immoderate, you must therefore wade untill the loynes bee girt with a golden girdle; wade an-end, & think all is not well untill you be so deep, & by this you may take a scantling, what measure of grace is poured out upon you. And if thou hast gone so farre, that God hath in some meaure healed thy affections, that thou canst be angry and sin not, &c. it is well, and this we must attain to. But suppose the loyns should be in a good measure healed, yet there is more goes to it then all this; and yet when a man is come thus farre, he may laugh at all temptations, and blesse God in all changes; But yet goe another thousand Cubits, and then you shall swimme; there is such a meaure of grace in which a man may swimme as fish in water, with all readinesse and dexterity, gliding an-end, as if he had water enough to swimme in; such a Christian doth not creep or walk, but he runs the wayes of Gods Commandements; what ever he is to doe or to suffer he is ready for all, so every way drenched in grace, as let God turn him any way, he is never drawn dry.

Here is what I would like you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body -- it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor -- it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial. There is no uplifting way to say this. I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible -- that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings. The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first fruits of the American garden. And the fruits were secured through the bashing of children with stovewood, through hot iron peeling skin away like husk from corn. [. . .] And there it is -- the right to break the black body as the meaning of their sacred equality. And that right has always given them meaning, has always meant that there was someone down in the valley because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below.

This is the definition of peace. The definition is interrupted by Toraf's ringtone. Why did Rachel get Toraf a phone? Does she hate me? Fumbling behind him in the sand, Galen puts a hand on it right before it stops ringing. He waits five seconds and...Yep, he's calling again. "Hello?" he whispers. "Galen, it's Toraf." Galen snorts. "You think?" "Rayna's ready to leave. Where are you?" Galen sighs. “We’re on the beach. Emma’s still sleeping. We’ll walk back in a few minutes.” Emma braved her mom’s wrath by skipping curfew again last night to be with him. Grom’s mating ceremony is tomorrow, and Galen and Rayna’s attendance is required. He’ll have to leave her in Toraf’s care until he gets back. “Sorry, Highness. I told you, Rayna’s ready to go. You have about two minutes of privacy. She’s heading your way. “The phone disconnects. Galen leans down and sweeps his lips over her sweet neck. “Emma,” he whispers. She sighs. “I heard him,” she groans drowsily. “You should tell Toraf that he doesn’t have to yell into the phone. And if he keeps doing it, I’m going to accidentally break it.” Galen grins. “He’ll get the hang of it soon. He’s not a complete idiot.” At this, Emma opens one eye. He shrugs. “Well, three quarters maybe. But not a complete one.” “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” she says, sitting up and stretching. “You know I do. But I think this mating ceremony will be interesting enough without introducing my Half-Breed girlfriend, don’t you think?” Emma laughs and pulls her hair to one side, draping it over her shoulder. “This is our first time away from each other. You know, as a couple. We’ve only been really dating for two weeks now. What will I do without you?” He pulls her to him, leaning her back against his chest. “Well, I’m hoping that this time when I come back, it won’t be to the sight of you kissing Toraf.” The snickers beside them let them know their two minutes of privacy are up. “Yeah. Or someone’s gonna die,” Rayna says cordially. Galen helps Emma up and swats the leftover sand out of her sundress. He takes her hands into his. “Could I please just ask one thing without you getting all mad about it?” She scowls. “Let me guess. You don’t want me to get in the water while you’re gone.” “But I’m not ordering you to stay out of it. I’m asking, no begging, very politely, and with all my heart for you not to get in. It’s your choice. But it would make me the happiest man-fish on the coast if you wouldn’t.” They sense the stalker almost daily now. That and the fact that Dr. Milligan blew his theory about Emma’s dad being a Half-Breed out of the water makes Galen more nervous than he can say. It means they still don’t have any answers about who could know about Emma. Or why they keep hanging around. Emma rewards him with a breathtaking smile. “I won’t. Because you asked.” Toraf was right. I just had to ask. He shakes his head. “Now I can sleep tonight.” “That makes one of us. Don’t stay gone too long. Or Mark will sit by me at lunch.” He grimaces. “I’ll hurry.” He leans down to kiss her. Behind them, he hears Rayna’s initial splash. “She’s leaving without you,” Emma whispers on his lips. “She could have left hours ago and I’d still catch her. Good-bye, angelfish. Be good.” He places a forceful kiss on her forehead, then gets a running start and dives in. And he misses her already.

Men in Númenor are half-Elves (said Erendis), especially the high men; they are neither the one nor the other. The long life that they were granted deceives them, and they dally in the world, children in mind, until age finds them – and then many only forsake play out of doors for play in their houses. They turn their play into great matters and great matters into play. They would be craftsmen and loremasters and heroes all at once; and women to them are but fires on the hearth – for others to tend, until they are tired of play in the evening. All things were made for their service: hills are for quarries, river to furnish water or to turn wheels, trees for boards, women for their body’s need, or if fair to adorn their table and hearth; and children to be teased when nothing else is to do – but they would as soon play with their hounds’ whelps. To all they are gracious and kind, merry as larks in the morning (if the sun shines); for they are never wrathful if they can avoid it. Men should be gay, they hold, generous as the rich, giving away what they do not need. Anger they show only when they become aware, suddenly, that there are other wills in the world beside their own. Then they will be as ruthless as the seawind if anything dare to withstand them. Thus it is, Ancalimë, and we cannot alter it. For men fashioned Númenor: men, those heroes of old that they sing of – of their women we hear less, save that they wept when their men were slain. Númenor was to be a rest after war. But if they weary of rest and the plays of peace, soon they will go back to their great play, manslaying and war. Thus it is; and we are set here among them. But we need not assent. If we love Númenor also, let us enjoy it before they ruin it. We also are daughters of the great, and we have wills and courage of our own. Therefore do not bend, Ancalimë. Once bend a little, and they will bend you further until you are bowed down. Sink your roots into the rock, and face the wind, though it blow away all your leaves.

He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could now swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he’s sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man’s life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?

He came up flailing and sputtering and began to thrash his way toward the line of willows that marked the submerged creek bank. He could not swim, but how would you drown him? His wrath seemed to buoy him up. Some halt in the way of things seems to work here. See him. You could say that he's sustained by his fellow men, like you. Has peopled the shore with them calling to him. A race that gives suck to the maimed and the crazed, that wants their wrong blood in its history and will have it. But they want this man's life. He has heard them in the night seeking him with lanterns and cries of execration. How then is he borne up? Or rather, why will not these waters take him?

My seams gape wide so I'm tossed aside To rot on a lonely shore, While the leaves and mould like a shroud unfold, For the last of my trails are o'er, But I float in dreams on Northland streams That never again I'll see, As I lie on the marge of the old portage With grief for company. When the sunset gilds the timbered hills That guard Timagami, And the moon beams play on far James Bay By the brink of the frozen sea, In phantom guise my spirit flies As the dream blades dip and swing Where the waters flow from the Long Ago In the spell of the beck'ning spring. Do the cow-moose call on the Montreal When the first frost bites the air, And the mists unfold from the red and gold That the autumn ridges wear? When the white falls roar as they did of yore On the Lady Evelyn, Do the square-tail leap from the black pool deep Where the pictured rocks begin? Oh! the fur fleet sings on Temiscaming As the ashen paddles bend, And the crews carouse at Rupert's House At the sullen winter's end; But my days are done where the lean wolves run, And I ripple no more the path, Where the grey geese race 'cross the red moon's face From the white winds Arctic wrath. Tho' the death-fraught way from the Saguenay To the storied Nipigon, Once knew me well, now a crumbling shell I watch as the years roll on, And in memory's haze I live the days That forever are gone from me, As I rot on the marge of the old portage With grief for company.

For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates; and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land.

Wrath shut the door. “Let’s do it,” he said to George. And the dog knew right where to go, leading him to the entrance—which Wrath opened with his mind. “Hi, honey, I’m home!” he hollered. “Did you bring flowers?” Lassiter shouted back. “Not for you.” “Damn it. Well, I’m on deck tonight with Tohr, so can we get moving? There’s a full list of appointments, but I want to get back for Hell’s Kitchen.” “Don’t you DVR that shit?” Wrath groused as he and George went into the old dining room. “Yeah, but I have poor impulse control. It was on at nine, okay? And I hate waiting. I put George’s fresh water down by your chair, b.t.dub.” “At least you’re a dog lover. That’s the only thing that saves you.” “Ha! I have wings and a halo, you cranky son of a bitch. I’m already perma-saved.” “Just our luck.

Wrath held her even closer, right to his beating chest. “. . . a son?” “Yes. A son.” All of a sudden, he felt the biggest, widest, happiest grin hit his face, the g*dd*mn thing stretching his cheeks until they hurt, making his eyes water from the strain, pulling at his temples until they burned. And the joy wasn’t just on his puss. A flush so great it burned him alive flooded through his body, cleansing him in places he didn’t know were dirty, washing out cobwebs that had crept into his corners, making him feel alive in a way he hadn’t been in a very, very long time. Before he knew what he was doing, he burst to his feet with Beth in his arms, leaned back, and hollered at the top of his lungs, with more pride than his six-foot-nine frame could hold. “A soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon! I’m having a soooooooooooooooooooooooon!” -Wrath & Beth

Surah 109 in the Qur'ân, al-Kawthar, gives an especially revealing look into the Prophet's feminine soul. It was revealed because his enemies had been taunting him that he had no sons, only daughters, while they had been given sons to perpetuate their patriarchal ways. Allâh revealed this message of consolation to the Prophet: "We have given thee al-Kawthar ... surely the one who hates thee will be cut off (from progeny)." What is al-Kawthar? Al-Kawthar is a sacred pool of life-giving water in Paradise-a profoundly feminine symbol. The name of Kawthar is derived from the same root as kathîr 'abundance', a quality of the supernal Infinite, the Divine Feminine. Allâh established that Allâh's feminine nature has primacy over Allâh's masculine nature when Allâh says in the hadith qudsi "My mercy precedes My wrath" (rahmatî sabaqat ghadabî). The Prophet also said, "Your body has its rights over you.

I suppose that in general I am not a contrary sort of person,” she said, her voice muffled.   His eyes were narrowed; he was making no attempt to disguise the fact that he really wanted to peer inside her soul. “And yet you are the daughter of a sweela man,” he murmured. “You cannot be as tame as you appear. There must be passion in you that can be roused by something . There must be something you would fight for, or against.”   “I am a woman of water,” she replied. “I am more likely to slip away in stealth than to blaze up in wrath.”   He looked dissatisfied. “All men and women have a little wood and bone in them. Somewhere, from some ancestor. Something that will not back down. Something that will not give way.”   She turned her right hand palm up and studied the faint lines. “There must be bone in me somewhere, or I could not hold my shape,” she said. “But these days all I can feel is blood.

Thou Melko shalt see that no theme can be played save it come in the end of Ilúvatar’s self, nor can any alter the music in Ilúvatar’s despite. He that attempts this finds himself in the end but aiding me in devising a thing of still greater grandeur and more complex wonder:–for lo! through Melko have terror as fire, and sorrow like dark waters, wrath like thunder, and evil as far from the light as the depths of the uttermost of the dark places, come into the design that I laid before you. Through him has pain and misery been made in the clash of overwhelming musics; and with confusion of sound have cruelty, and ravening, and darkness, loathly mire and all putrescence of thought or thing, foul mists and violent flame, cold without mercy, been born, and death without hope. Yet is this through him and not by him; and he shall see, and ye all likewise, and even shall those beings, who must now dwell among his evil and endure through Melko misery and sorrow, terror and wickedness, declare in the end that it redoundeth only to my great glory, and doth but make the theme more worth the hearing, Life more worth the living, and the World so much the more wonderful and marvellous, that of all the deeds of Ilúvatar it shall be called his mightiest and his loveliest.

And while the most desperate hours of the men within the Perimeter were passing, a second battle had been raging in their rear, back in the continental United States. When American soldiers went into action, it had become customary to provide them with a free issue of candy, cigarettes—and beer. In the places American troops fought, there were rarely any handy taverns or supermarkets. Reported to the home front, the “beer issue” rapidly became a national controversy. Temperance, church, and various civic groups bombarded the Pentagon and Congress with howls of protest against the corruption of American youth. One legislator, himself a man who took a brew now and then, tried a flanking attack against the complainers, saying on the floor of the House, “Water in Korea is more deadly than bullets!” But no one either polled the troops for their opinion or said openly that a man who was old enough to kill and be killed was also old enough to have a beer if he wanted it. Unable to shake the habit of acquiescence, the Army leaders bowed to the storm of public wrath. On 12 September the day the 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, lost half its strength securing Hill 314, Far East Command cut off its beer ration. The troops could still buy beer, but only when and if the PX caught up with them.

In ancient agricultural societies, most religions revolved not around metaphysical questions and the afterlife, but around the very mundane issue of increasing agricultural output. Thus the Old Testament God never promises any rewards or punishments after death. He instead tells the people of Israel that ‘If you carefully observe the commands that I’m giving you [. . .] then I will send rain on the land in its season [. . .] and you’ll gather grain, wine, and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your livestock, and you’ll eat and be satisfied. Be careful! Otherwise, your hearts will deceive you and you will turn away to serve other gods and worship them. The wrath of God will burn against you so that he will restrain the heavens and it won’t rain. The ground won’t yield its produce and you’ll be swiftly destroyed from the good land that the Lord is about to give you’ (Deuteronomy 11:13–17). Scientists today can do much better than the Old Testament God. Thanks to artificial fertilisers, industrial insecticides and genetically modified crops, agricultural production nowadays outstrips the highest expectations ancient farmers had of their gods. And the parched state of Israel no longer fears that some angry deity will restrain the heavens and stop all rain – for the Israelis have recently built a huge desalination plant on the shores of the Mediterranean, so they can now get all their drinking water from the sea.

The holy Scriptures speak of us as fallen creatures: in almost every page we shall find something that is calculated to abate the loftiness and silence the pretensions of man. “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous[5].” “How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water[6]?” “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no not one[7].” “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin[8]?” “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it.” “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.” “We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!”—Passages might be multiplied upon passages, which speak the same language, and these again might be illustrated and confirmed at large by various other considerations, drawn from the same sacred source; such as those which represent a thorough change, a renovation of our nature, as being necessary to our becoming true Christians; or as those also which are suggested by observing that holy men refer their good dispositions and affections to the immediate agency of the Supreme Being.

Moses Come. When? Now. This way. I will guide you. Wait! Not so fast. Hurry. You. I said you. Who am I? Certainly I will be with thee. Is nothing, then, what it is? I had rather the rod had stayed a rod and not become a serpent. Come. Quickly. While the blast of my breath opens the sea. Stop. I'm thirsty. Drink water from this rock. But the rock moves on before us. Go with it and drink. I'm tired. Can't you stop for a while? You have already tarried too long. But if I am to follow you I must know your name. I will be that I will be. You have set the mountain on fire. Come. Climb. I will be lost in the terror of your cloud. You are stiff-necked and of a stiff-necked people. YOUR poeple, Lord, Indubitably. Your wrath waxes hot. I burn. Thus to become great. Show me, then, they glory. No man may see my face and live. But I will cover you with my hand while I pass by. My people turn away and cry because the skin of my face shines Did you not expect this? I cannot enter the tent of the congregation while your cloud covers it and your glory fills the tabernacle. Look. It moves before us again. Can you not stay still? Come. Follow. But this river is death. The waters are dark and deep. Swim. Now will I see your face? Where are you taking me now? Up the mountain with me before I die. But death bursts into light. The death is what it will be. These men: they want to keep us here in three tabernacles. But the cloud moves. The water springs from a rock that journeys on. You are contained in me. But how can we contain you in ark or tabernacle or You cannot. Where, then? In your heart. Come. Still? I will be with thee. Who am I? You are that I will be. Come.

We must add that there is no real conflict between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. It was the Old Testament God whom Christ called "Father." It was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son to redeem it. it was Jesus' meat and drink to do the will of this God. It was zeal for the God who slew Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah that consumed Christ. It was the God who destroyed the world by a flood who pours the waters of His grace out to us. The false conflict between the two testaments may be seen in the most brutal act of divine vengeance ever recorded in Scripture. It is not found in the Old Testament but in the New Testament. The most violent expression of God's wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused. If we have cause for moral outrage, let it be directed at Golgotha. The Cross was at once the most horrible and the most beautiful example of God's wrath. It was the most just and the most gracious act in history. God would have been more than unjust, He would have been diabolical to punish Jesus if Jesus had not first willingly taken on Himself the sins of the world. Once Christ had done that, once he volunteered to be the Lamb of God, laden with our sin, then He became the most grotesque and vile thing on this planet. With the concentrated load of sin He carried, He became utterly repugnant to the Father. God poured out His wrath on this obscene thing. God made Christ accursed for the sin He bore. Herein was God's holy justice perfectly manifest. Yet it was done for us. He took what justice demanded for us. This "for us" aspect of the Cross is what displays the majesty of its grace. At the same time justice and grace, wrath and mercy. It is too astonishing to fathom.

No one was in the mood for a Long Service and certainly not for the Previously Appreciated Irony of Captain Crozier’s fabled Book of Leviathan, so it was with some Surprise and not a small bit of Emotion that we listened to the Captain recite from Memory Psalm 90: LORD, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: seeing that is past as a watch in the night. As soon as thou scatterest them, they are even as a sleep: and fade away suddenly like the grass. In the morning it is green, and groweth up: but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered. For we consume away in thy displeasure: and are afraid at thy wrathful indignation. Thou has set our misdeeds before thee: and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For when thou art angry all our days are gone: we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told. The days of our age are three-score years and ten; and though men be strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone. But who regardeth the power of thy wrath: for even thereafter as a man feareth, so is thy displeasure. So teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Turn thee again, O Lord, at the last: and be gracious unto thy servants. O satisfy us with thy mercy, and that soon: so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Comfort us again now after the time that thou has plagued us: and for the years wherein we have suffered adversity. Shew thy servants thy work, and their children thy glory. And the glorious Majesty of the Lord our God be upon us: prosper thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper thou our handy-work. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen. And all of us shivering survivors spake, Amen. There was a Silence then. The snow blew softly against Us. The black water lapped with a Hungry Sound. The ice Groaned and Shifted slightly beneath our feet.

Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial. There is no uplifting way to say this. I have no praise anthems, nor old Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible—that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings. The soul was the body that fed the tobacco, and the spirit was the blood that watered the cotton, and these created the first fruits of the American garden. And the fruits were secured through the bashing of children with stovewood, through hot iron peeling skin away like husk from corn. It had to be blood. It had to be nails driven through tongue and ears pruned away. “Some disobedience,” wrote a Southern mistress. “Much idleness, sullenness, slovenliness…. Used the rod.” It had to be the thrashing of kitchen hands for the crime of churning butter at a leisurely clip. It had to be some woman “chear’d… with thirty lashes a Saturday last and as many more a Tuesday again.” It could only be the employment of carriage whips, tongs, iron pokers, handsaws, stones, paperweights, or whatever might be handy to break the black body, the black family, the black community, the black nation. The bodies were pulverized into stock and marked with insurance. And the bodies were an aspiration, lucrative as Indian land, a veranda, a beautiful wife, or a summer home in the mountains. For the men who needed to believe themselves white, the bodies were the key to a social club, and the right to break the bodies was the mark of civilization. “The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black,” said the great South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun. “And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.” And there it is—the right to break the black body as the meaning of their sacred equality. And that right has always given them meaning, has always meant that there was someone down in the valley because a mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below.*

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. ... The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

think St. Augustine was right to associate the dove that descended on Jesus with the dove Noah sent out when the ark landed in the new world that had been cleansed by the flood. As the waters of God's wrath subsided, Noah sent out a dove, and when it returned with an olive leaf in its mouth, "Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth" (Gen. 8:11b). St. Augustine comments, "As a dove did at that time bring tidings of the abating of the water, so doth it now of the abating of the wrath of God upon the preaching of the Gospel. ,5 Moreover, as Noah's dove signaled the arrival of a world cleansed of sin, the dove of the Holy Spirit symbolizes the new creation in Christ, the life cleansed from sin that every Christian begins when he or she trusts in Jesus Christ.

THE WRATH TO COME. — MATTHEW 3:7 I t is pleasant to pass over a country after a storm has spent itself—to smell the freshness of the herbs after the rain has passed away, and to note the drops while they glisten like purest diamonds in the sunlight. That is the position of a Christian. He is going through a land where the storm has spent itself upon His Savior’s head, and if there be a few drops of sorrow falling, they distill from clouds of mercy, and Jesus cheers him by the assurance that they are not for his destruction. But how terrible it is to witness the approach of a tempest—to note the forewarnings of the storm; to mark the birds of heaven as they droop their wings; to see the cattle as they lay their heads low in terror; to discern the face of the sky as it grows black, and to find the sun obscured, and the heavens angry and frowning! How terrible to await the dread advance of a hurricane, to wait in terrible apprehension till the wind rushes forth in fury, tearing up trees from their roots, forcing rocks from their pedestals, and hurling down all the dwelling-places of man! And yet, sinner, this is your present position. No hot drops have fallen as yet, but a shower of fire is coming. No terrible winds howl around you, but God’s tempest is gathering its dread artillery. So far the water-floods are dammed up by mercy, but the floodgates will soon be opened: The thunderbolts of God are still in His storehouse, the tempest is coming, and how awful will that moment be when God, robed in vengeance, shall march forth in fury! Where, where, where, O sinner, will you hide your head, or where will you run to? May the hand of mercy lead you now to Christ! He is freely set before you in the Gospel: His pierced side is the place of shelter. You know your need of Him; believe in Him, cast yourself upon Him, and then the fury shall be past forever.

February 25 MORNING “The wrath to come.” — Matthew 3:7 IT is pleasant to pass over a country after a storm has spent itself; to smell the freshness of the herbs after the rain has passed away, and to note the drops while they glisten like purest diamonds in the sunlight. That is the position of a Christian. He is going through a land where the storm has spent itself upon His Saviour’s head, and if there be a few drops of sorrow falling, they distil from clouds of mercy, and Jesus cheers him by the assurance that they are not for his destruction. But how terrible it is to witness the approach of a tempest: to note the forewarnings of the storm; to mark the birds of heaven as they droop their wings; to see the cattle as they lay their heads low in terror; to discern the face of the sky as it groweth black, and look to the sun which shineth not, and the heavens which are angry and frowning! How terrible to await the dread advance of a hurricane — such as occurs, sometimes, in the tropics — to wait in terrible apprehension till the wind shall rush forth in fury, tearing up trees from their roots, forcing rocks from their pedestals, and hurling down all the dwelling-places of man! And yet, sinner, this is your present position. No hot drops have as yet fallen, but a shower of fire is coming. No terrible winds howl around you, but God’s tempest is gathering its dread artillery. As yet the water-floods are dammed up by mercy, but the flood-gates shall soon be opened: the thunderbolts of God are yet in His storehouse, but lo! the tempest hastens, and how awful shall that moment be when God, robed in vengeance, shall march forth in fury! Where, where, where, O sinner, wilt thou hide thy head, or whither wilt thou flee? O that the hand of mercy may now lead you to Christ! He is freely set before you in the gospel: His riven side is the rock of shelter. Thou knowest thy need of Him; believe in Him, cast thyself upon Him, and then the fury shall be overpast for ever.

It is deception for us to believe that in order to bring people to Christ, we need to water down the message and make it palatable. I have seen just the opposite take place. God’s wrath is aimed at sin, but because

What was holding her back? The fact that she was leaving? That she was still in love with Stephen? Was it possible that she somehow saw Jake as beneath her? A mere carpenter . . . She’d never treated him that way, but what else was there? His mind spun with possibilities, returning repeatedly to the fact that she didn’t know who he was. He had to tell her, but he’d been hoping . . . What? That he could win her heart first? Heaven knew discovering he was the uncle wasn’t going to win him anything but her wrath. Now that his feelings were involved, they muddied the waters more than ever. It wasn’t only the kids he had to consider now. There were Meridith’s feelings, not to mention his own, and he’d clarified those pretty well. And he did love Meridith. Despite her response—to the words or lack thereof—he wasn’t sorry he’d said them. It was the truth. But now he realized his declaration had frightened her. What if she asked him to leave?

Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah's wrath!

Already this sun was pouring its wrath into the blue Indian ocean where swordfish and marlin cruised like silver-blue attenuated warheads in their green-gold depths...

I've tried reading the Bible. I never make it past all the talk about the firmament. The firmament is the thing, on Day 1 or 2, that divides the waters from the waters. Here you have the firmament. Next to the firmament, the waters. Stay with the waters long enough, presumably you hit another stretch of firmament. I can't say for sure: at the first mention of the firmament, I start bleeding tears of terminal boredom. I grow restless. I flick ahead. It appears to go like this: firmament, superlong middle part, Jesus. You could spend half your life reading about the barren wives and the kindled wraths and all the rest of it before you got to the do-unto-others part, which as I understand it is the high-water mark.

I lived out at Sunlan’ Lan’ an’ Cattle Company’s place. Honest to God, they got a cop for ever’ ten people. Got one water faucet for ’bout two hundred people.

The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor and the disks turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left, there is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive. There is a warmth of life in the barn, and the heat and smell of life. But when the motor of a tractor stops, it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy that the wonder goes out of work, so efficient that the wonder goes out of land and the working of it, and with the wonder the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man there grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation. For nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates; and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt nor water nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more; and the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut, he goes home, and his home is not the land.

The houses were left vacant on the land and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming were alive, and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, discs of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor, and the discs turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn, there is a life and vitality left. There is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive. There is a warmth of life in the barn and the heat and smell of life, but when the motor of a tractor stops it is as dead as the ore it came from. The heat goes out of it like the living heat that leaves a corpse. Then the corrugated iron doors are closed and the tractor man drives home to town, perhaps twenty miles away, and he need not come back for weeks or months, for the tractor is dead. And this is easy and efficient. So easy, that the wonder goes out of work. So efficient, that the wonder goes out of land, the working of it, and with the wonder, the deep understanding and the relation. And in the tractor man the grows the contempt that comes only to a stranger who has little understanding and no relation, for nitrates are not the land, nor phosphates, and the length of fiber in the cotton is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt, water, nor calcium. He is all these, but he is much more, much more. And the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more than his chemistry walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch, that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than it's analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love understands only chemistry, and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself. When the corrugated iron doors are shut he goes home, and his home is not the land.

Madness in a cup of water." Lola muttered "I may roam with Demon’s but pride naturally contaminates your vile veins.