The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

'I never saw any of them again—except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them."

from Collected Poems 1956-1976 by David Wagoner

Gift Wrapping by David Wagoner

Already imagining her
Unwrapping it, I fold the corners,
Putting paper and ribbon between her
And this small box. I could hand it over
Out in the open: why bother to catch her eye
With floss and glitter?
Looking manhandled, it lies there
Like something lost in the mail, the bow
On backwards. And minutes from now,
She will have seen what it is.
But between her guesswork
And the lifting of the lid, I can delay
All disappointments: the give and take
Of love is in the immediate present
Again, though I can't remember myself
What's in it for her.

Ravenous: A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom by Dayna Macy

"There’s more food here if anyone is still hungry," a volunteer calls out. Some men begin to line up again. I apologize to one man because I only have broken pieces of meatloaf to give him. "No need to apologize," he says. "I’m the father of six; I know what it’s like to eat what’s left over. This is good. I’m blessed." As I serve him some broken pieces, I realize something: just as there is a crisis of hunger in the world, there is also a crisis of desire—where you’re always hungry, whether it’s for food, or things, or attention, or admiration. There’s no end to wanting more—until you recognize the abundance you already have. My search for balance extends beyond food. It extends to all that I am attached to and all I consume. I have to say "no" to some things so I can say “yes” to others. Each decision to consume is a choice to spend my time, energy, and attention. Maybe one key to being happier is not having more, but needing less.

The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success by JA Konrath

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Scott Nicholson: The real joy of the creative life, or any life, is when you have all the time and money to do whatever you want, and you discover you were already doing it.

Eli by Bill Myers

Opening Lines:

Monday was an inconvenient time to die. Come to think of it, Tuesday through Sunday weren't all that agreeable either.

The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success by JA Konrath

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If you’re selling eggs, don’t piss off your chickens.

The Simple Dollar by Trent A. Hamm

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...frugality is an exchange: You’re trading the things you don’t value for things that you do value... Consider the human hierarchy of needs as described by Abraham Maslow. To put it simply, once one’s basic needs are met—clothing, food, shelter, companionship—humans then tend to have higher aspirations, such as self-actualization and professional fulfillment. This hierarchy is subverted in many ways—advertising, peer pressure, our own psychology—and it leaves us taking actions that undermine our basic needs while making futile attempts at grabbing at our higher needs.

THE HOLY SPIRIT: Amazing Power for Everyday People by Susan Rohrer

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Isn’t it amazing that the Spirit—who is capable of such great force—is simultaneously characterized by gentleness? This powerful Spirit is the embodiment of all of the fruits listed in Galatians 5:22–23, fruits that Scripture prioritizes above all of the marvelous gifts He distributes. The Holy Spirit is powerfully loving, commandingly joyful, actively peaceful, compellingly patient, emphatically kind, intensely good, infallibly faithful, potently gentle, and vigorously self-controlled. Who wouldn’t want to know a person like this?

The Indie Journey: Secrets to Writing Success by J.A. Konrath, et al

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Look, I figured out early on that writing is about failure. Almost 100 percent guaranteed failure. You’ll never write it as well as you want, you will always fall short of perfection, a typo will always slip in, rejection is more certain than death and taxes, and, if you are lucky enough to get published, a horde is waiting to happily rake you over the coals. After a while, you build up great layers of scar tissue. At this point, I don’t care what anyone thinks except my readers, who are my only customers. And, in a way, they are among my closest, most intimate friends. So why should I care if some scared writer tries to apply a stigma? If you’re a writer, you should be scared, but if you go around worrying about other writers, you have your eyes on the wrong prize. Listen to readers. They rarely apply stigma. The only labels they care about are "good" and "crap."

The Damp by John Donne

WHEN I am dead, and doctors know not why,
            And my friends' curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
            You think a sudden damp of love
            Will thorough all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre,

Poor victories ; but if you dare be brave,
            And pleasure in your conquest have,
First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain ;
And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain ;
            And like a Goth and Vandal rise,
            Deface records and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And without such advantage kill me then,

For I could muster up, as well as you,
            My giants, and my witches too,
Which are vast Constancy and Secretness ;
But these I neither look for nor profess ;
            Kill me as woman, let me die
            As a mere man ; do you but try
Your passive valour, and you shall find then,
Naked you have odds enough of any man.

The Computation by John Donne

For the first twenty years, since yesterday, 
I scarce believed, thou couldst be gone away, 
For forty more, I fed on favours past, 
And forty on hopes, that thou wouldst, they might last. 
Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two, 
A thousand, I did neither think, nor do, 
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;
 Or in a thousand more, forgot that too. 
Yet call not this long life; but think that I      
Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die?

"Shoulders" by Naomi Shihab Nye from Red Suitcase

Shoulders

by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream
deep inside him.

We're not going to be able
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 
Only the monstrous anger of the guns. 
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 
Can patter out their hasty orisons. 
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, 
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 
And bugles calling for them from sad shires. 
What candles may be held to speed them all? 
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes 
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. 
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; 
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, 
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. 

Evening Prayer from Puritan Prayers by Anonymous

O lover of Thy people, Thou hast placed my whole being in the hands of Jesus, my redeemer, commander, husband, friend, and carest for me in Him. Keep me holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners; may I not know the voice of strangers, but go to Him where He is, and follow where He leads. Thou hast bathed me once for all in the sin- removing fountain, cleanse me now from this day's defilement, from its faults, deficiencies of virtue, harmful extremes, that I may exhibit a perfect character in Jesus. O Master, who didst wash the disciples' feet, be very patient with me, be very condescending to my faults, go on with me till Thy great work in me is completed. I desire to conquer self in every respect, to overcome the body with its affections and lusts, to keep under my flesh, to guard my manhood from all grosser sins, to check the refined power of my natural mind, to live entirely to Thy glory, to be deaf to unmerited censure and the praise of men. Nothing can hurt my new-born inner man, it cannot be smitten or die; nothing can mar the dominion of Thy Spirit within me; it is enough to have Thy approbation and that of my conscience. Keep me humble, dependent, supremely joyful, as calm and quiet as a sucking child, yet earnest and active. I wish not so much to do as to be, and I long to be like Jesus; if Thou dost make me right I shall be right; Lord, I belong to Thee, make me worthy of Thyself.

Our Little Lord by George McDonald

Our little Lord, we give thee praise,
     that Thou hast deigned to take our ways.
Born of Mary, a man to be,
     and all the angels sing to thee.
The eternal Father's Son He lay,
     cradled in a crib of hay.
The everlasting God appears
     in our frail flesh and blood and tears.
What the globe could not enwrap,
     nestled lies in Mary's lap.
Just a baby, very wee,
     yet the Lord of all the world is He.
   –Martin Luther 

They were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam'st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.

December by Gary Johnson

December

by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
           Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
           And are there angels hovering overhead? Hark.

From Eating the Honey of Words by Robert Bly

Waking on the Farm

by Robert Bly

I can remember the early mornings—how the stubble,
A little proud with frost, snapped as we walked.

How the John Deere tractor hood pulled heat
Away from our hands when we filled it with gas.

And the way the sun brought light right out of the
      ground.
It turned on a whole hill of stubble as easily as a single
      stone.

Breathing seemed frail and daring in the morning.
To pull in air was like reading a whole novel.

The angleworms, turned up by the plow, looked
Uneasy like shy people trying to avoid praise.

For a while we had goats. They were like turkeys
Only more reckless. One butted a red Chevrolet.

When we washed up at noon, we were more ordinary.
But the water kept something in it of the early
      morning.

Evening Praise from Puritan Prayers by Anonymous

Giver of all, another day is ended and I take my place beneath my great redeemer's cross, where healing streams continually descend, where balm is poured into every wound, where I wash anew in the all-cleansing blood, assured that Thou seest in me no spots of sin. Yet a little while and I shall go to Thy home and be no more seen; help me to gird up the loins of my mind, to quicken my step, to speed as if each moment were my last, that my life be joy, my death glory. I thank Thee for the temporal blessings of this world —the refreshing air, the light of the sun, the food that renews strength, the raiment that clothes, the dwelling that shelters, the sleep that gives rest, the starry canopy of night, the summer breeze, the flowers' sweetness, the music of flowing streams, the happy endearments of family, kindred, friends. Things animate, things inanimate, minister to my comfort. My cup runs over. Suffer me not to be insensible to these daily mercies. Thy hand bestows blessings: Thy power averts evil. I bring my tribute of thanks for spiritual graces, the full warmth of faith, the cheering presence of Thy Spirit, the strength of Thy restraining will, Thy spiking of hell's artillery. Blessed be my sovereign Lord!

The Broken Heart by John Donne

He is stark mad, whoever says,    That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
    But that it can ten in less space devour ;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
    Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
    I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
    If once into love's hands it come !
All other griefs allow a part
    To other griefs, and ask themselves but some ;
They come to us, but us love draws ;
He swallows us and never chaws ;
    By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ;
    He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If 'twere not so, what did become
    Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
    But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
    More pity unto me ; but Love, alas !
    At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
    Nor any place be empty quite ;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
    Those pieces still, though they be not unite ;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
    My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
    But after one such love, can love no more.

December 2 Mark the Calendar

December 2 Mark the Calendar

Jarber is expected to return home. --Charles Dickens: A House to Let.

The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America by William J. Bennett

THIS PRAYER is abridged from George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789. May we all unite in rendering unto God our sincere and humble thanks— For His kind care and protection of the people of this country, For the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have enjoyed, For the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, For the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge, and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us. And may we also unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him— To pardon our national and other transgressions, To enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, To render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, To protect and guide all nations and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord, To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science, And generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

The American Patriot's Almanac: Daily Readings on America by William J. Bennett

ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald during a visit to Dallas, Texas. This somber anniversary is a good time to remember the stirring words the young president offered the nation in his inaugural address, less than three years before his death: Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. . .. In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. . .. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

Did Christ O'er Sinners Weep by Benjamin Beddome

Did Christ o’er sinners weep,
And shall our cheeks be dry?
Let floods of penitential grief
Burst forth from every eye.

The Son of God in tears
The wondering angels see:
Be thou astonished, O my soul;
He shed those tears for thee.

He wept that we might weep;
Each sin demands a tear;
In heaven alone no sin is found,
And there’s no weeping there.

from A Se­lect­ion of Hymns from the Best Au­thors, by John Rippon, 1787.

Confession and Petition from Puritan Prayers by Anonymous

Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word, of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life. My transgressions and short-comings present me with a list of accusations, but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me, for all have been laid on Christ. Go on to subdue my corruptions, and grant me grace to live above them. Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind bring my spirit into subjection, but do Thou rule over me in liberty and power. I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from lusts and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness. Go on with Thy patient work, answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers, and fitting me to accept it. Purge me from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to Thy rule. I thank Thee for Thy wisdom and Thy love, for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject, for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross. No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin. If Thou shouldst give me choice to live in pleasure and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial, give me sanctified affliction. Deliver me from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the brightness of Thy grace in me, everything that prevents me taking delight in Thee. Then I shall bless Thee, God of Jeshurun, for helping me to be upright.

from The Corsair by Lord Byron

Oh! too convincing—dangerously dear.
In woman’s eye the unanswerable tear!
That weapon of her weakness, she can wield,
To save, subdue—at once her spear and shield.

The Bait by John Donne

COME live with me, and be my love,And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whisp'ring run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun ;
And there th' enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest ;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait :
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas ! is wiser far than I.

Flowers over the Wall by Karolee Grim

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The reason outer beauty is so important to the world is because Satan makes the least of us the most important part.

Sonnet 14 by William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
   For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
   Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

Three Things to Remember by William Blake

A Robin Redbreast in a cage, 
Puts all Heaven in a rage. 

A skylark wounded on the wing 
Doth make a cherub cease to sing. 

He who shall hurt the little wren 
Shall never be beloved by men. 

The Apparition by John Donne

When by thy scorn, O murderess, I am dead, 
And that thou think’st thee free 
From all solicitation from me,
 Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, 
And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see; 
Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, 
'And he, whose thou art then, being tired before, '
Will, if thou stir, or pinch to wake him, think'
 Thou call’st for more,     
 'And in false sleep will from thee shrink,
 And then poor aspen wretch, neglected thou 
Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat wilt lie
 A verier ghost than I; 
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
 Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent, 
I had rather thou shouldst painfully repent, 
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent

Divine Support from Puritan Prayers by Anonymous

Thou art the blessed God, happy in Thyself, source of happiness in Thy creatures, my maker, benefactor, proprietor, upholder. Thou hast produced and sustained me, supported and indulged me, saved and kept me; Thou art in every situation able to meet my needs and miseries. May I live by Thee, live for Thee, never be satisfied with my Christian progress but as I resemble Christ; and may conformity to His principles, temper, and conduct grow hourly in my life. Let Thy unexampled love constrain me into holy obedience, and render my duty my delight. If others deem my faith folly, my meekness infirmity, my zeal madness, my hope delusion, my actions hypocrisy, may I rejoice to suffer for Thy name. Keep me walking steadfastly towards the country of everlasting delights, that paradise-land which is my true inheritance. Support me by the strength of heaven that I may never turn back, or desire false pleasures that will disappear into nothing. As I pursue my heavenly journey by Thy grace let me be known as a man with no aim but that of a burning desire for Thee, and the good and salvation of my fellow men.

The Pig and the Inebriate, –Traditional song

How well I do remember
Twas in the bleak December
As I was strolling down the streets in a manly pride
When my heart began to flutter
And I fell into a gutter
And a pig came up and laid down by my side
As I lay there in the gutter
My heart still all a flutter
A man passing by did chance to say,
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
   

“The More Loving One” from Homage to Clio by W. H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell….
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

The Floorless Room by Gerlett Burgess

Wish that my room had a floor!
I don't so much care for a door,
But this crawling around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!

The Little Orphan Annie by James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphan Annie’s come to my house to stay.To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep.While all us other children, when the supper things is done,we sit around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun,a listening to the witch tales that Annie tells about

and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!

Once there was a little boy who wouldn’t say his prayers,and when he went to bed at night away up stairs,his mammy heard him holler and his daddy heard him bawl,and when they turned the covers down,he wasn’t there at all!They searched for him in the attic roomand cubby hole and pressand even up the chimney flu and every wheres, I guess,but all they ever found of him was just his pants and round-abouts

and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!

 Once there was a little girl who always laughed and grinnedand made fun of everyone, of all her blood and kin,and once when there was company and the old folks was there,she mocked them and she shocked them and said, she didn’t care.And just as she turned on her heels and to go and run and hide,there was two great big black things a standing by her side.They snatched her through the ceiling fore she knew what shes about,

and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!! 

  When the night is dark and scary,and the moon is full and creatures are a flying and the wind goes Whoooooooooo,you better mind your parents and your teachers fond and dear,and cherish them that loves ya, and dry the orphans tearsand help the poor and needy ones that cluster all about,

or the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!! 

The Dark Side of Love by unknown author

Is there no other way, O God,

Except through sorrow, pain and loss,
To stamp Christ’s likeness on my soul,
No other way except the cross?
And then a voice stills all my soul,
As stilled the waves of Galilee.
Can’st thou not bear the furnace,
If midst the flames I walk with thee?
I bore the cross, I know its weight;
I drank the cup I hold for thee.
Can’st thou not follow where I lead?
I’ll give thee strength, lean hard on Me!

The Night Walk Men by Jason McIntyre

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You want to chat about the weather first? Well, fine. We can talk about that first. If it’s important. Before that, though, you need to know one thing. This is going to be painful. This is going to be a bowling ball dropped from waist height on your toes. A dentist’s chair plus a drill plus small talk. This is going to be coming down from on high. Or finding your spouse in bed with another. Or murder-suicide. Or heavy metal from the neighbour at three in the morning. This is going to be the doctor telling you it’s inoperable. Or a chemical burn on flesh. Or pepper spray and a wrongful conviction. This is going to be a fire eating your life’s work. This is going to be Your First Time. Or Your Last Time. This is going to be twelve fresh body bags going under the yellow tape and into the house at the end of Sheppard Street. This is going to be malevolent eyes in the dark staring down into a crib at a screaming baby. This is going to be painful. But we can chat about the weather first. That’s no big deal.

Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner

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Meg herself didn't get it. Uncle Vinnie had a loud, booming laugh. He smelled of whiskey and stale cigars. His head was nearly bald, his stomach bursting huge. He looked to her like Kojak crossed with Santa Claus. How could you not like Kojak crossed with Santa Claus?

Savage Run by CJ Box

Opening lines:

On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the forest when a cow exploded and blew them up. Until then, their marriage had been happy.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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’Mama,’ he replied to her, ‘do not weep, life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we don’t want to realize it, and if we did care to realize it, paradise would be established in all the world tomorrow.’ And we all wondered at his words, so strangely and so resolutely did he say this; we felt tender emotion and we wept….’Dear mother, droplet of my blood,’ he said (at that time he had begun to use endearments of this kind, unexpected ones), ‘beloved droplet of my blood, joyful one, you must learn that of a truth each of us is guilty before all for everyone and everything. I do not know how to explain this to you, but I feel that it is so, to the point of torment. And how could we have lived all this time being angry with one another and knowing nothing of this?’ [He spoke even of being guilty before the birds and all creation] …’Yes, he said, ‘all around me there has been such divine glory: birds, trees, meadows, sky, and I alone have lived in disgrace, I alone have dishonored it all, completely ignoring its beauty and glory.’ ‘You take too many sins upon yourself,’ dear mother would say, weeping. ‘But dear mother, joy of my life. I am crying from joy, and not from grief; why, I myself want to be guilty before them, only I cannot explain it to you, for I do not know how to love them. Let me be culpable before all, and then all will forgive me, and that will be paradise. Am I not in paradise now?’

McMafia by Misha Glenny

Page 33:

By using prohibited narcotics, consumers are not only contributing to huge criminal profits, they bear indirect responsibility for the trail of blood that marks every stage of the drugs’ journey.

Souvenirs of Solitude: Finding Rest in Abba's Embrace by Brennan Manning

Page 37:

Let the prayer of Nikos Kazantzakis arise from our hearts as a passionate pitch of loving awareness: I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot. Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break. Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break?

Souvenirs of Solitude: Finding Rest in Abba's Embrace by Brennan Manning

Page 19:

"Were you grieved by the divine command to Abraham that he slay his only begotten son Isaac on Mount Moriah? Were you relieved when the angel intervened, Abraham's hand was stayed, and the sacrifice was not carried out? Have you forgotten that on Good Friday no angel intervened, that sacrifice was carried out, and it was not the heart of Abraham that was broken?

The Bible Period by Period by Josiah Blake Tidwell

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Lessons of the Period: ....(6) False religious beliefs are less tolerant than the true. (7) God may save a whole company for the sake of one man. (8) No matter what calamity comes to us we may in the midst of it be a source of blessing to others.

Souvenirs of Solitude: Finding Rest in Abba's Embrace by Brennan Manning

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(Commenting on Luke 15:11-32 - The story of the prodigal son):

The emphasis is not on the sinfulness of the son but on the generosity of the father. We ought to reread this parable periodically if only to catch the delicate nuance at the first meeting between the two. The son had his little speech of sorrow carefully rehearsed. It was an elegant, polished statement of sorrow. But the old man didn't let him finish it. The son had barely arrived on the scene when suddenly a fine new robe was thrown over his shoulders. He heard music, the fatted calf was being carried into the parlor, and he didn't even have a chance to say to his father, "I'm sorry." The theme is that God wants us back even more than we could possibly want to be back and that we don't have to go into great detail about our sorrow. All you have to do, the parable says, is appear on the scene; before you get a chance to run away again, the Father grabs you by your new robe and pulls you into the banquet so you can't get away.

The Anger Diet by Brenda Shoshanna Ph.D.

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Keep a Book of Praise. As you go through the days, keep a little notebook with you and whenever you do something you appreciate, like, or feel good about, take a moment to write it down. This will keep you conscious of the need to focus upon the good not only in others but also in yourself. The more you do this for yourself, the more you will do it for others as well. Read this little notebook once a week. Take it in. Train your mind to refocus over and over again.

A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis

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Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal?

Whitman and the Moth by Clive James

Whitman and the Moth by Clive James

Van Wyck Brooks tells us Whitman in old age
Sat by a pond in nothing but his hat,
Crowding his final notebooks page by page
With names of trees, birds, bugs and things like that.

The war could never break him, though he’d seen
Horrors in hospitals to chill the soul.
But now, preserved, the Union had turned mean:
Evangelizing greed was in control.

Good reason to despair, yet grief was purged
By tracing how creation reigned supreme.
A pupa cracked, a butterfly emerged:
America, still unfolding from its dream.

Sometimes he rose and waded in the pond,
Soothing his aching feet in the sweet mud.
A moth he knew, of which he had grown fond,
Perched on his hand as if to draw his blood.

But they were joined by what each couldn’t do,
The meeting point where great art comes to pass –
Whitman, who danced and sang but never flew,
The moth, which had not written Leaves of Grass,

Composed a picture of the interchange
Between the mind and all that it transcends
Yet must stay near. No, there was nothing strange
In how he put his hand out to make friends

With such a fragile creature, soft as dust.
Feeling the pond cool as the light grew dim,
He blessed new life, though it had only just
Arrived in time to see the end of him.


-- New Yorker, November 25, 2010

Killing Rain by Barry Eisler

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"I mean, look at us,” he went on. “Are we CIA? No, not really, we’re contractors. But the CIA uses us from time to time. And it ain’t just us. Hell, these days you’ve got Halliburton and Blackwater and DynCorp and Vinnell and Kroll-Crucible… these outfits are springing up all over, and it can be hard to tell where the government ends and the private sector begins."

"That’s true," I said.

"Plus you’ve got the government turning everybody into a bounty hunter by offering twenty-five million for Osama’s scrawny ass."

"Capitalism at work," I said. "Supply and demand."

"I know. Hell, when I was watching us shock and awe the Iraqis on CNN when we first went in, I kept expecting the announcer to say, 'This sortie brought to you by Kellogg’s Rice Krispies,' or something like that. It just ain’t as clear as it used to be."

From News of the World by Philip Levine

My Fathers, The Baltic by Philip Levine

Low and gray, the sky
sinks into the sea.
Along the strand stones,
busted shells, bottle tops,
dimpled beer cans.
Something began here
centuries ago,
maybe a voyage,
a nameless disaster.
Young men set out
for those continents
beyond myth
while the women
waited and the sons
grew into other men.
Looking for a sign,
maybe an amulet
against storms, I kneel
on the damp sand
to find my own face
in a small black pool,
wide-eyed, alarmed.
My grandfather crossed
this sea in '04
and never returned,
so I've come alone
to thank creation
as he would never
for carrying him home
to work, age, defeat,
those blood brothers
faithful to the end.
Yusel Prisckulnick,
I bless your laughter
thrown in the wind's face,
your gall, your rages,
your abiding love
for money and all
it never bought,
for your cracked voice
that wakens in dreams
where you rest at last,
for all the sea taught
you and you taught me:
that the waves go out
and nothing comes back.