quote:
The pollster Nate Silver guessed that Musk is “probably even a ‘genius,’” and theorized that he may not always appear that way because, as he put it on X, “high I.Q.s serve as a force multiplier for both positive and negative traits.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/arts/what-is-elon-musks-iq.html
"What Is Elon Musk’s I.Q.?" by Amanda Hess, April 5, 2025, New York Times
"These days I go to church more than synagogue. But I've learned you can't take the Jew out of the boy. I'm attracted to Jesus the Jew, not the wispy, ethereal, gentle-faced guy with his two fingers in the air whom Christians have invented and put into centuries of European paintings. The Jewish Jesus emerged amid revolution, violence and strife. He walked into the center of all the clashing authority structures and he overturned them all. The Jewish Jesus was a total badass."
~ David Brooks,
from his essay “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be”
“When a clown moves into a palace he doesn’t become a sultan, the palace instead becomes a circus."
~ Turkish proverb
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Barack Obama, President of the United States 2009-2017
Snopes.com fact check:
Elon Musk said these words during a Feb. 28, 2025, episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, from around the 1:16:00 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSOxPJD-VNo
Musk: There's a guy who posts on X who's great, Gad Saad?*
Rogan: Yeah, he's a friend of mine. He's been on the podcast a bunch of times.
Musk: Yeah, he's awesome, and he talks about, you know, basically suicidal empathy. Like, there's so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we've got civilizational suicidal empathy going on. And it's like, I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.
Rogan: Also don't let someone use your empathy against you so they can completely control your state and then do an insanely bad job of managing it and never get removed.
Musk: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They're exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.
Rogan: Right, understand when empathy has been actually used as a tool.
Musk: Yes, like, its weaponized empathy is the issue.
Source: Snopes.com "Yes, Musk said 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.' Here's context"
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-empathy-quote/
* Saad is an atheist who describes himself as culturally Jewish. (Zeitlin, Alan (26 May 2021). "Jewish author Gad Saad stares down the growing tide of antisemitism". The Jerusalem Post.)
Copilot definition of empathy vs. sympathy
Empathy and sympathy are related but distinct concepts:
Sympathy: Involves feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for someone else's hardships. It is an external expression of concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult.
Empathy: Involves understanding and sharing another person's feelings by imagining yourself in their situation. It is an internal emotional response that allows you to connect with someone else's emotional experience.
In summary, sympathy is about feeling for someone, while empathy is about feeling with someone.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another
also : the capacity for this
“Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
"If your God never disagrees with you, you might be worshiping an idealized version of yourself."
~ Rev. Tim Keller
20 LESSONS FROM LIFE
from Bread for the Journey by Henri J.M. Nouwen:
“To console does not mean to take away pain but rather to be there and say, ‘You are not alone, I am with you. Together we can carry the burden. Don’t be afraid. I am here.’ That is consolation. We all need to give it as well as receive it.”
"The art of practical therapeutics involves keeping the patient entertained, while nature effects a cure."
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
Late Fragment
by Raymond Carver
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
2-time CEO always asks this question in interviews: It shows if candidates ‘just want to complain’
Story by Gili Malinsky, 2/27/2025
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/2-time-ceo-always-asks-this-question-in-interviews-it-shows-if-candidates-just-want-to-complain/ar-AA1zVcDW
quotes:
Serial entrepreneur David Royce has been building companies for years. . . .
In his decades building businesses, Royce has identified some immediate red flags when interviewing job candidates. One is negative talk about former employers.
"It's totally okay to have both positive and negative things" to say about them, he says. But if a candidate focuses mostly on the negative, "then the problem is likely" that person.
As such, Royce has a question he likes to ask people he's interviewing to suss out their disposition.
'How might you have changed that situation?' . . .
"Tell me about your previous employer," he says. "What are some things that they could do to improve?" . . .
For any pitfalls they mention, he asks, "how might you have changed that situation?" . . .
"Are they constructive in the way they critique," giving examples of how they would've or could've solved the problem, or do they "just want to complain about it?" . . . [and] drag down the morale of the whole team.
"The No. 1 thing that makes A players want to leave is B players and certainly C players," he says. People who aren't focused on producing and creating a positive environment can "spoil your culture and then potentially force out the best talent."
When choosing who to hire, "I want to make sure somebody is generally positive and looking for opportunities to or ways to improve," he says.
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
quote:
"'Aslan,' said Lucy, 'you're bigger.'
'That is because you are older, little one,' answered he.
'Not because you are?'
'I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.'"
~ C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian, 1951.
“We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the bullion vault of a bank and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor?”
Alexander MacLaren,
the great Scottish Bible expositor
“They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1059917-the-last-battle
quotes:
“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.
But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome.
But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash.
He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.
Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?
The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child?
I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.
Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1059917-the-last-battle
“Emeth came walking forward into the open strip of grass between the bonfire and the Stable. His eyes were shining, his face was solemn, his hand was on his sword-hilt, and he carried his head high. Jill felt like crying when she looked at his face.
And Jewel whispered in the King's ear, "By the Lion's Mane, I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better god than Tash.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1059917-the-last-battle
“You want me to commit some great folly.”
~ Isabel Archer, protagonist in the novel The Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry James,
played by Nicole Kidman in John Malkovich's movie (1996)
The Portrait of a Lady (1881) by Henry James:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2834/2834-h/2834-h.htm
Osmond turned slightly pale; he gave a cold smile. “That’s why you must go then? Not to see your cousin, but to take a revenge on me.”
“I know nothing about revenge.”
“I do,” said Osmond. “Don’t give me an occasion.”
“You’re only too eager to take one. You wish immensely that I would commit some folly.”
“I should be gratified in that case if you disobeyed me.”
"Joy is the most infallible sign of the Presence of God."
~ Teilhard de Chardin
French Jesuit, Catholic priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher, and teacher.
“Music is the ultimate in safe sex.
You get all of the passion
and none of the guilt.”
Susan Werner in concert, 1-22-99
President Bill Clinton, after the acquittal verdict:
“I want to say again … how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and the American people …”
Reporter’s question:
“In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?”
Clinton:
“I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.”
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 13, 1999
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, thinking of the difficulty of shaking Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s hand to seal their peace accord on Sept. 19, 1993:
“You do not make peace with your friends, but friendship can come with time and trust and humility, when we do not pretend that our willfulness is an expressions of God’s will.”
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 5, 1999
“Remember that all the great peacemakers in the world,
in the end, have to let go and walk away,
like Christ, not from apparent,
but from genuine, grievances.”
President Bill Clinton, at the National Prayer Breakfast
Philadelphia Inquirer, February 5, 1999
Approaching Alzheimer’s Persons
• Use a calming tone of voice.
• Try to maintain eye contact.
• Identify yourself.
• Ask “yes” or “no” questions.
• Speak slowly, and not too loudly.
• Allow plenty of time for a response.
• Stay calm.
• Be supportive and reassuring.
Alzheimer’s Association, April 12, 1995
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to cut out a piece of his own heart?"
~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Leadership Magazine, 1983
"It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion."
Prescott's Pickle Principle:
"Cucumbers get more pickled than brine gets cucumbered.
(A small system that tries to change a big system through long and continued contact is more likely to be changed itself.)"
The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice, by Gerald Weinberg, 1986
"Love is best when it’s aged to perfection."
~ Author Unknown
Letting Things Speak About Themselves
Human knowledge about Jesus results from God’s revelation, not from conclusions drawn by seminars of self-appointed experts.
Speaking of Peter’s confession “You are the Christ,” Gillespie declared, “It is God who knows who Jesus is. And in that knowledge God identifies who Jesus is. ... Peter is one of the ways through whom this knowledge is revealed.”
In contemporary society this approach makes some people very nervous. In response to these concerns he cited Thomas Torrance, who points out that this is how all knowledge is attained — letting things speak about themselves to us. In science it is called “discovery.” In theology we call this mode of knowing “revelation.”
Peter did not tell Jesus who he was, he acknowledged who Jesus is, through the knowledge revealed by God.”
Thomas Gillespie, President, Princeton Seminary
“We Believe In One Lord Jesus Christ” theological convocation
Pittsburgh, April 19-22, 1995
King Arthur's Prayer
Give us the wisdom to know what is right,
The will to choose it,
And the strength to make it endure.
First Knight
1995
Bigot: “A person of strong conviction who is intolerant of those who differ.”
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
“It’s not just winning the game that counts,
but making sure everyone else loses.”
quote on being arrested from
John “Corrupt” Lee
Master of Destruction gang
Bedford-Stuyvesant, NY
SCIENCE OF CHARACTER BUILDING
POSITIVE NEGATIVE
Politeness Incivility
Ambition Apathy
Cheerfulness Despondency
Diligence Slothfulness
Endurance Weakness
Hope Despair
Industriousness Idleness
Optimism Pessimism
Purpose Indecision
Self-Confidence Dependency
Success Failure
Vigor Feebleness
Surprised by Joy The Shape of My Early Life, by C.S. Lewis, page 3
Influence of Lewis’ Parents
Lewis begins his journey of faith describing his parents:
“I was born in the winter of 1898 at Belfast, the son of solicitor and of a clergyman’s daughter… The two families from which I spring were as different in temperament as in origin. My father’s people were true Welshmen, sentimental, passionate, and rhetorical, easily moved both to anger and to tenderness; men who laughed and cried a great deal and who had not much of the talent for happiness. The Hamiltons were a cooler race. Their minds were critical and ironic and they had a talent for happiness in a high degree—went straight for it as experienced travelers go for the best seat in a train. From my earliest years I was aware of the vivid contrast between my mother's cheerful and tranquil affection and the ups and downs of my father's emotional life, and this bred in me long before I was old enough to give it a name a certain distrust or dislike of emotion as something uncomfortable and embarrassing and even dangerous."
"No competition cancels the tasks of the day that the performer sets for himself at every performance - to touch the human soul, to fully reveal the author's intention."
~ Alexander Malofeev (2016)
Russian pianist
There are two kinds of people:
those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,'
and those to whom God says,
'All right, then, have it your way.'
~ C. S. Lewis
Words of Encouragement in Challenging and Fearful Times
Joshua 1:1-9
NRSV
After the death
of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son
of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, 2"My servant Moses is dead.
Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I
am giving to them, to the Israelites. 3Every place that the
sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to
Moses. 4From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great
river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in
the west shall be your territory.
5No
one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with
Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6Be
strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land
that I swore to their ancestors to give them.
7Only
be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the
law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand
or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. 8This
book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it
day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is
written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall
be successful.
9I
hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed,
for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."
From
"Lord of the Rings", inspired by author J.R. Tolkein's experiences facing
battles in the British army during World War I:
Lord of
the Rings, The Two Towers, movie version of Samwise Gamgee's speech
FRODO: I can’t
do this, Sam.
SAM: I know.
It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.
It’s like in
the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness
and danger they were.
And sometimes
you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could
the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened.
But in the end,
it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass.
A new day will
come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the
stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small
to understand why.
But I think,
Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of
chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to
something.
FRODO: What are
we holding on to, Sam?
SAM: That
there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
https://thetolkien.forum/wiki/Sams-Speech
Lord of
the Rings, The Two Towers film: Aragorn's Speech before the battle
defending Helm's Deep
Theoden: So
much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?
Aragorn: Ride
out with me. Ride out and meet them.
Theoden: For
death and glory.
Aragorn: For
Rohan. For your people.
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/56716
Lord of the
Rings, Return of the King Film: Aragorn's Speech before the battle at the Black
Gate
Aragorn: Sons
of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers.
I see in your
eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me.
A day may come
when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds
of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of
wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is
not this day!
This day we
fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of
the West!
https://shalafitnhs.tripod.com/returnoftheking.htm
Eleanor
Roosevelt
"You gain
strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop
to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
~ Eleanor
Roosevelt
Eleanor
Roosevelt (October 11, 1884—November 7,
1962) was an American first lady (1933–45), the wife
of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, and a United
Nations diplomat and humanitarian. She was, in her time, one of the world’s
most widely admired and powerful women.
She lived during World War II.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eleanor-Roosevelt
Jane Austen
“My courage
always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet
Joseph to
his brothers, after they sold him into slavery and then found themselves under
his power in Egypt:
Genesis
50:20-21 ESV
"As for
you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,
to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
So do not fear;
I will provide for you and your little ones.”
Thus he
comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
~ Psalm 130:7
from Chuck A. Dec. 7, 2001
quotes:
"She also presents a brilliant, almost anthropological, examination of privileged Presbyterian Pittsburgh society. 'Every woman stayed alone in her house in those days, like a coin in a safe,' she writes."
Annie Dillard's tale of her upper-class youth in Pittsburgh
By Robert G. Seidenstein, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer, Jan. 9, 1992 (newspaper)
An autobiographical book centering on childhood must meet one of two criteria: It has to be by someone famous and important, such as a president, or it has to be very, very good. . . .
In An American Childhood, Annie Dillard strives to be very, very good. More often than not, she succeeds, although the book does have several stretches of tedium, some of them lengthy.
The book has recently been released unabridged by Recorded Books (9½ hours, $49.95 purchase, $16.50 rental). The reader is Alexandra O'Karma.
Dillard, born in 1945, writes about her upper-class youth in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. . . .
Although she includes wonderful stories about her parents and grandparents, she concentrates on her own intellectual development. . . .
Her discussions of her love of playing baseball and her discovery of boys are real gems.
She also presents a brilliant, almost anthropological, examination of privileged Presbyterian Pittsburgh society. "Every woman stayed alone in her house in those days, like a coin in a safe," she writes.
“Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
~ Jeff Bezos
"Why Jeff Bezos Likes ‘Messy’ Meetings"
By Andrew Ross, New York Times, Dec. 7, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/business/dealbook/jeff-bezos-amazon-meetings.html
quote from "Interview with John Piper"
"Do Paul’s Missions Leave Us with a Geographic Pattern to Follow?"
John Piper, Founder & Teacher, Desiring God
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/do-pauls-missions-leave-us-with-a-geographic-pattern-to-follow - accessed 11/14/2024
Paul's Travels: Walking for the Lord
Dr Alex Tang
https://www.kairos2.com/paul_travell.htm - accessed 11/14/2024
Travel in New Testament times was not easy. Though the Romans had built their roads which link major cities and towns, these roads were paved with stones and not comfortable to travel on. The carts drawn by mules did not have spring suspension and were bumpy. Most people, except for the rich and nobles, walked. Travelers were exposed to the weather and at risk from bandits or pirates. They were also at the mercy of unscrupulous innkeepers and their dirty unhygienic inns. One could imagine that the people would not want to travel far unless they had no choice. . . .
Paul was God's chosen instrument to spread the gospel to both the Jews and the Gentiles. While the majority of Jews were in Judea and Samaria, the Gentiles were not but spread out all over the Roman empire. These meant that Paul has to travel far to reach the Gentiles. However Paul did not wander around aimlessly. There seem to be a strategy in Paul's traveling. What then was this strategy?
Firstly, Paul identified and focused on provinces in Asia Minor. Both Luke and Paul referred consistently to provinces rather than cities. Thus Paul was forbidden to preach the word in Asia (Acts 16:6), he was called from Troas not to Philippi or to Thessalonica but to Macedonia. In Paul’s view, the unit was the province rather than the city. Then within these province, Paul identified cities to which he would preach. Paul did not plan to preach in every city in a province but key cities only. He would first preach to the local Jews in the synagogue and if his message was rejected, to the Gentiles outside the synagogues. He planned to establish missional churches in these cities which will spread the gospel into the province itself.
Secondly, Paul usually start with the Jewish communities in the selected cities. Under the Roman government, the Jews enjoyed many privileges. Their religion was recognised. They had liberty to administer their own laws. They were not obligated to share in the worship of the Emperor and they were exempt from military service. Thus Paul entered these centres as member of a powerful and highly privileged group. He could enter and preach in any synagogue.
Thirdly, Paul chose cities which were centres of Greek civilisation. Even in Lystra, half the inscriptions, which have been discovered, are Greek while the other half are Latin. Everywhere Roman government went hand in hand with Greek education. The education provided Paul with his medium of communication. There is no evidence that Paul translated the Scriptures into the local dialects of Asia Minor. The influence of Greek civilisation was an influence, which tended to the spread of education, and Christianity from the first was a religion of education. The disciples were learners. Paul preached in Greek, wrote in Greek and expected his converts to read the Scriptures in Greek. For Paul, one common language was as important as one government under Pax Romana.
Fourthly, Paul’s work was confined within the limits of the Roman administration. In preaching in south Galatia, Paul was preaching in the Roman province next to his native province of Cilicia. Between these two cities lay the territory of Lycaonia Antiochi, and across this territory Paul must have passed when he journeyed from Tarsus to Lystra and Iconium. Yet we were never told that he made any attempt to preach in that area. In areas of Roman administration, Paul knew that he could obtain for himself and his people the security afforded by a strong government. As a Roman citizen, he knew that as a last resort, he could expect and receive protection from his fanatical countrymen. In these Roman provinces, there is religious tolerance, peace and security of travel. In Corinth, Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, was impartial and refuse to hear the case, and in Ephesus the city clerk was reasonable and fair.
Fifthly, the Roman Empire also gave Paul the groundwork for the gospel. The idea of a world-wide empire, the idea of the common citizenship of men of many races in that one empire, the strong authority of one law, the one peace, the breaking down of national exclusiveness, all these things prepared men’s mind to receive Paul’s teaching of the Kingdom of God and of the common citizenship of all Christians in it. Paul used the terms and concepts of his time and 'baptised' it for the purpose of spreading the good news. Caesar Augustus' proclamation of the good news (gospel) that he was the saviour of all humankind through Pax Romana, was subverted by Paul into that the gospel (good news) is Jesus Christ who is the saviour of all humankind and has established the kingdom of heaven.
Sixthly, Paul chose cities which were centres of the world’s commerce. They were cities of importance as leaders of the provinces. These were cosmopolitan cities. In them were many travelers who would carry the gospel back to their own provinces. Their wealth made these cities powerful. They were the trendsetters, foremost in any new fashion or policy. One example was Ephesus which was a major trading port city in the Asia Minor coast. Paul spent a lot of time there. Another example was Corinth, another powerful and wealthy maritime city.
Finally, Paul trained leaders from different provinces. He taught them and brought them along with his travels. This is an effective training model, one which Jesus also used. As the team travelled, Paul would teach the core content of Christian belief (teaching), his trainees would observe his life (modeling), and Paul would get them involved in the ministry (praxis). No less than seven disciples were travelling with Paul on his trip through Macedonia, making it a mobile school (Acts 20:4). Even when Paul was a prisoner in transit to Rome, he was able to have Aristarchus and Luke goes with him (Acts 27:2-8; 28:1, 10-15). At one time, Paul’s entourage consists of nine men from different provinces: Sopater (Berea, Macedonia), Aristarchus and Secundus (Thessalonica), Luke (Philippi), Gaius (Derbe, Galatia), Timothy (Lystra, Galatia), Tychicus and Trophimus (Ephesus, Asia) and Titus (Achaia).
To summarise, Paul's travels were not aimless wanderings but a planned evangelistic outreach. An estimation made by Eckhard J. Schnabel suggested that Paul travelled a distance of 25,000 km (15,500 miles) in 663 days which is a long distance over a long period of time. Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962, 3) notes, "In little more than 10 years, Paul established the Church in 4 provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before AD 47 there were no churches in these provinces; in AD 57 Paul could speak as if his work has been done and was planning to go further afield". It appeared that the strategy worked!
Soli Deo Gloria
Destination | By land (25 km/day) | By sea (100 km/day) | Journey total |
Arabia | 300 km (12 days) | 300 km (12 days) | |
Syria/Cilicia | 1,800 km (70 days) | 1,800 km (70 days) | |
Jerusalem (AD 44) | 1,080 km (45 days) | 1,080 km (45 days) | |
Galatia | 1,440 km (60 days) | 980 km (10 days) | 2,420 (70 days) |
Jerusalem (AD 48) | 1,080 km (45 days) | 1,080 km (45 days) | |
Macedonia/ | 3,110 km (125 days) | 2,060 km (20 days) | 5,170 km (145 days) |
Asia | 2,900 km (115 days) | 3,210 km (35 days) | 6,110 km (150 days) |
Spain | 1,000 km (40 days) | 1,800 km (15 days) | 2,800 km (55 days) |
Crete | 120 km (5 days) | 1,300 km (14 days) | 1,420 km (19 days) |
Last journeys | 900 km (35 days) | 1,700 km (17 days) | 2,570 km (52 days) |
Totals (approximate) | 14,000 km (8,700 miles) by land | 11,000 km (6,800 miles) by sea | 25,000 km (15,500 miles) in 663 days |
Table Source: Adapted from Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 122.
quote from The New York Times "The Morning" email:
Years ago, Ann Douglas, author of “Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s,” a seminal text on the subject of New York in the 1920s, told The Times:
“I have the unfashionable posture of loving my country. I don’t mean in the sense of the Pledge of Allegiance, but in that I believe America was founded on complex social, religious and political ideas and feelings, and that it is still the most exciting culture, the one where there is the most hope for the most people.”
The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com>
Date: Sun, Nov 10, 2024 at 7:44 AM
Subject: The Morning: Revisiting the Harlem Renaissance
The Morning
November 10, 2024
"An American movement" [the Harlem Renaissance]
By Veronica Chambers
From an interview by Alanna Nash with Amy Grant, AARP Bulletin, September 2024:
What's the best way to motivate ourselves? My first mother-in-law taught me a prayer. She said,
"Lord, lead me today to those I need and those that need me."
I said, "Man, what a way to approach a day:
'Lead me to those I need and those that need me.'"
~ Amy Grant
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
~ Alice Walker
Faramir:
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers, the second of The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Faramir Quotes in The Two Towers
Book 4, Chapter 5
"Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo. […]
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom."
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-two-towers/characters/faramir - accessed 11/14/2024
"If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him;
for you are worse than he thinks you to be."
~ Charles Spurgeon
“The principle cannot be denied: the fiercer the struggle against the injustice you suffer, the blinder you will be to the injustice you inflict. We tend to translate the presumed wrongness of our enemies into an unfaltering conviction of our own rightness.”
~ Miroslav Volf
"To triumph fully evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life.
~ Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory
“The practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance.”
~ Miroslav Volf
“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion — without transposing the enemy from the sphere of the monstrous… into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates] that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”
~ Miroslav Volf
“Whatever the reasons, when forgiveness happens it is always a miracle of grace. The obstacles in its way are immense.”
~ Miroslav Volf
“ I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant”
~ Alan Greenspan
“government regulation cannot substitute for individual integrity.”
~ Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
“Capitalism is based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity and trustworthiness as cardinal virtues and makes them pay off in the marketplace, thus demanding that men survive by means of virtue, not vices. It is this superlatively moral system that the welfare statists propose to improve upon by means of preventative law, snooping bureaucrats, and the chronic goad of fear.”
~ Alan Greenspan
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1334.Alan_Greenspan - accessed 11/14/2024
"If your Lord calls you to suffering, do not be dismayed, for He will provide a deeper portion of Christ in your suffering. The softest pillow will be placed under your head though you must set your bare feet among thorns. Do not be afraid at suffering for Christ, for He has a sweet peace for a sufferer."
~ Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), Scottish Presbyterian pastor and theologian, one of the original Scottish Covenanters, and had an integral part of the writing of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Westminster Catechism
“Sometimes our ‘stop-doing’ list needs to be bigger than our ‘to-do’ list.”
~ Patti Digh
Gwyneth Paltrow on being a stepmom to husband Brad Falchuk’s kids:
“I really like to talk about this because it’s one of my biggest learnings as a human being. And my area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my step-kids, and now they’re like my kids.”
She added, “I just learned to try to just keep shining like the sun and never keeping score.”
Marie Claire.com, 3/7/2024
https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/gisele-bundchen-on-being-a-stepmother/
Haley ran a near perfect race. She just couldn’t figure out Trump.
By Natalie Allison, 03/07/2024, Politico
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/07/nikki-haley-2024-campaign-failures-donald-trump-00145535
"More than anyone else’s, [Nikki] Haley’s candidacy — her traditional campaign approach, the discipline of her advisers, the big money she attracted as she built her coalition — raises the question of whether there was any political solution for defeating Trump." . . .
"'What I’ve learned from Trump world, no one’s ever going to be as vicious as he is, but you better come close if you want to have a shot,' DuHaime said."
Prayer of Protection
Richard Foster begins his time of contemplation with this prayer of protection:
“By the authority of almighty God,
I surround myself with the light of Christ,
I cover myself with the blood of Christ,
and I seal myself with the cross of Christ.
All dark and evil spirits must now leave.
No influence is allowed to come near to me
but that it is first filtered through the light of Jesus Christ,
in whose name I pray.
Amen.”
Richard Foster. Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992, page 157.
Pray first before doing anything worthwhile.
"Listen, Child of God, to your teacher’s wisdom. Pay attention to what your heart hears. Make sure you freely accept and live out the loving Father’s directions.
Pray first before doing anything worthwhile. Then persist and never falter in prayer. God loves us as his own children, and forgives us, so we must not grieve him by rejecting that love and doing evil.
We must always make the best use of the good things God gives us."
~ St. Benedict, c. 480-550 AD in Italy, a patron saint of Europe and students
A Student’s Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator,
true source of light and fountain of wisdom!
Pour forth your brilliance upon my dense intellect,
dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and of ignorance.
Grant me a penetrating mind to understand,
a retentive memory, method and ease in learning,
the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace in expressing myself.
Guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress,
and bring it to successful completion.
This I ask through Jesus Christ,
true God and true man,
living and reigning with You and the Father,
forever and ever.
Amen.
~ St. Thomas Aquinas
“Anxiety is the residue of perceived or desired control when we have none.“
~ Seth Scott
“Anne Hathaway taught me this thing on the set of 'Ocean’s 8.'
She takes a piece of paper and writes down everything that worries her and her greatest fears. At the end of it, she burns [the paper].
I do it a couple times a year. I go out to my backyard, because I’m not trying to set my house on fire, and I get a candle and burn it.”
~ Mindy Kaling
https://www.wsj.com/style/mindy-kaling-sex-lives-of-college-girls-oprah-advice-083067bd
“Do the best you can until you know better.
Then when you know better, do better.”
~ Maya Angelou
Toula seeks to avoid a family argument with her aunt Voula:
Toula: "Can we please not discuss it?"
Voula: "No. That's not what we do.
We yell and scream.
We find a solution together
using threats and guilt."
from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3"
Director: Nia Vardalos
Writer: Nia Vardalos
Stars: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Louis Mandylor
Release Date: 2023-09-08
“Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their disbelief in God.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Today is My Birthday, Lord
Of all the gifts I've
received
I hold the gift of Your
Love
closest to my heart.
Of all the friends I've
known,
I cherish above all Your
Friendship.
There have been difficult
days on this journey called Life,
even sorrow,
but You have been there
for me.
There has been joy and
laughter
and I've seen Your presence there.
You breathed life into my
soul
and You chose me to live!
I hope You are pleased
with me.
I ask that You forgive me
when I fail You.
Today is my birthday,
Lord,
and I offer this day to You.
I ask only that You walk
with me.
Lead me home, O Lord,
where we will celebrate
this journey
of friendship and love
in the everlasting life
prepared by You.
Thank You for this birthday, Lord!
~ Author Unknown
Taylor Swift, "Mastermind"
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail/
Strategy sets the scene for the tale"
from her latest album, "Midnights"
"God gave me a plan."
~ Phyllis Duncan, Schwenkfelder Mission Church, 9/25/2022
Marriage
"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.
Let the wife make the husband glad to come home,
and let him make her sorry to see him leave."
~ Martin Luther
Albert Einstein quote about "a holy curiosity"
Curiosity
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
~ Albert Einstein
https://www.azquotes.com/author/4399-Albert_Einstein/tag/curiosity
Winston S. Churchill said the following famous quip about democracy (House of Commons, 11 November 1947)—but he was quoting an unknown predecessor (note bold face below). Credit Churchill as publicist for an unsourced aphorism.
From Churchill by Himself, 574:
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/12/08/democracy-worst/
"Slips are totally normal.
When you have a slip, it’s just that. A slip. It doesn’t define you. It doesn’t make you a failure.
The most important thing is that you don’t let that slip become a slide."
~ Jennette McCurdy
In 1986, Fred Rogers wrote this in a syndicated newspaper column:
I was spared from any great disasters when I was little, but there was plenty of news of them in newspapers and on the radio,
and there were graphic images of them in newsreels.
For me, as for all children, the world could have come to seem a scary place to live.
But I felt secure with my parents, and they let me know that we were safely together whenever I showed concern about accounts of alarming events in the world.
There was something else my mother did that I've always remembered:
"Always look for the helpers," she'd tell me.
"There's always someone who is trying to help."
I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses,
police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends
who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/look-for-the-helpers/
"The central tenet of Christianity as it has come down to us
is that we are
to reach out when our instinct is to pull inward;
to give when we want to take;
to love when we are inclined to hate;
to include when are tempted to exclude."
~ Jon Meacham
“Take care of your body.
It’s the only place you have to live in.”
~ Jim Rohn
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
~ Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy
"Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him."
~ Indian philosopher Bara Dada, quoted in the mid-1920s
Did Gandhi Say This About Christians?
"I like your Christ, but not your Christianity."
Harvard University newspaper The Harvard Crimson, 1927, uses the quote confusingly, as though it might be a paraphrase from a Swarthmore College philosophy professor named J.H. Holmes:
"I like your Christ, but not your Christianity." In these words of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. J.H. Holmes summed up the Indian leader's view of Christianity in a recent interview with a CRIMSON reporter. Dr. Holmes, professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College and a member of the Society of Friends, has just completed a tour around the world, during which he spent some time in India. He had several opportunities of conversing with Gandhi. He was present at the meeting of the All-Indian Congress and had the honor of being the only westerner ever allowed to speak from their platform.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-gandhi-say-this-about-christians/
"Do what you love, and put your whole heart into it, and then just have fun."
~ Tim Cook, Apple CEO
Rebecca McLaughlin, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion, 2019, p. 213.
quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
My thoughts are not all bad: many are good and kind and true. But like a bag of flour infested by maggots, no part of me is pure. This dawned on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as he was lying on rotting straw in a Soviet gulag:
"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either--but right through every human heart.”3
This realization leaves us with another problem: all our relationships hinge, to some extent, on hiding.
3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, trans. Harry Willetts, vol. 3 (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 615.
On Reading St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life:
One phrase from it really stuck with me. He wrote, “Say frequently in the midst of your contradictions, ‘This is the path to heaven.'”
https://aleteia.org/2023/01/23/st-francis-de-sales-6-words-to-hold-onto-when-life-is-really-hard/amp/
quote from Elie Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
"A wise woman wishes to be no one's enemy,
a wise woman refuses to be anyone's victim."
~ Maya Angelou
“A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
- Bruce Lee
"In regards to The Great Book, I have but to say: it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it."
~ Abraham Lincoln
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
St. Augustine, Confessions
“God wants us to long for Him because it is in that longing that we are fulfilled and overwhelmed by God and the reflection of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in our lives.
We are never more fulfilled than when our longing for God is met by His presence in our lives.”
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills
“God put me on this Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I'm so far behind that I'll never die".”
~ Thomas Hobbes
----------------------
“Life is nasty, brutish, and short”
~ Thomas Hobbes
----------------------
“Now I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark”
~ Thomas Hobbes
“God put me on earth to accomplish certain things. Right now, I’m so far behind, I’ll never die.”
~ Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes
----------------------
“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good.
If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky.
And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”
~ Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
----------------------
“You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
What mood is that?
Last-minute panic.”
~ Bill Watterson, author of Calvin and Hobbes
New York Times - Op-Ed Columnist
Love and Gravity
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/opinion/david-brooks-interstellar-love-and-gravity.html
By DAVID BROOKS - NOV. 20, 2014
Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" illustrates how modern science has changed the way we look at love, philosophy and religion.
Most Hollywood movies are about romantic love, or at least sex. But Christopher Nolan’s epic movie “Interstellar” has almost no couples, so you don’t get the charged romance you have in normal movies where a man and a woman are off saving the world.
Instead, there are the slightly different kinds of love, from generation to generation, and across time and space. The movie starts on a farm, and you see a grandfather’s love for his grandkids and the children’s love for their father. (Mom had died sometime earlier). . . .
These plotlines are generally based on real science. The physicist Kip Thorne has a book out, “The Science of Interstellar,” explaining it all. But what matters in the movie is the way science and emotion (and a really loud score) mingle to create a powerful mystical atmosphere.
Nolan introduces the concept of quantum entanglement. That’s when two particles that have interacted with each other behave as one even though they might be far apart. He then shows how people in love display some of those same features. They react in the same way at the same time to the same things.
The characters in the movie are frequently experiencing cross-cutting and mystical connections that transcend time and space. It’s like the kind of transcendent sensation you or I might have if we visited an old battlefield and felt connected by mystic chords of memory to the people who fought there long ago; or if we visited the house we grew up in and felt in deep communion with people who are now dead.
Bloggers have noticed the religious symbols in the movie. There are those 12 apostles, and there’s a Noah’s ark. There is a fallen angel named Dr. Mann who turns satanic in an inverse Garden of Eden. The space project is named Lazarus. The heroine saves the world at age 33. There’s an infinitely greater and incorporeal intelligence offering merciful salvation.
But this isn’t an explicitly religious movie. “Interstellar” is important because amid all the culture wars between science and faith and science and the humanities, the movie illustrates the real symbiosis between these realms.
More, it shows how modern science is influencing culture. People have always bent their worldviews around the latest scientific advances. . . .
But in the era of quantum entanglement and relativity, everything looks emergent and interconnected. Life looks less like a machine and more like endlessly complex patterns of waves and particles. Vast social engineering projects look less promising, because of the complexity, but webs of loving and meaningful relationships can do amazing good.
As the poet Christian Wiman wrote in his masterpiece, “My Bright Abyss,” “If quantum entanglement is true, if related particles react in similar or opposite ways even when separated by tremendous distances, then it is obvious that the whole world is alive and communicating in ways we do not fully understand. And we are part of that life, part of that communication. ...”
I suspect “Interstellar” will leave many people with a radical openness to strange truth just below and above the realm of the everyday. That makes it something of a cultural event.
"Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but more have fallen by the tongue."
~ Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 28:18
"Lord God, please bless them and change me."
~ traditional prayer, author unknown,
for remaining calm when unjustly criticized
“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow, and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”
~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Betty White quotes
“I'm a teenager trapped in an old body.”
~ Betty White
“If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.”
~ Betty White, If You Ask Me: And of Course You Won't
“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”
~ Betty White
“I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time -- and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones -- I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don't worry about other people so much.”
~ Betty White
“You can lie to anyone in the world and even get away with it, perhaps, but when you are alone and look into your own eyes in the mirror, you can’t sidestep the truth. Always be sure you can meet those eyes directly.”
~ Betty White, If You Ask Me: And of Course You Won't
“That’s when you have to remember that image in the mirror and not let success get to you. It is important that you not believe your own publicity. Be grateful for whatever praise you receive, but take it with a grain of salt.”
~ Betty White, If You Ask Me: And of Course You Won't
“However, if one is lucky enough to be blessed with good health, growing older shouldn’t be something to complain about. It’s not a surprise, we knew it was coming—make the most of it. So you may not be as fast on your feet, and the image in your mirror may be a little disappointing, but if you are still functioning and not in pain, gratitude should be the name of the game.”
~ Betty White, If You Ask Me: And of Course You Won't
“It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.”
~ Betty White
“My mother always used to say: The older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana.”
~ Betty White
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
~ C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
Our Class is a Family
by Shannon Olsen
“Family isn’t always your relatives. It’s the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.”
Teachers do so much more than just...
"I learned some invaluable lessons in Nashville that apply to both farming and show business:
Do not corner something you know is meaner than you;
keep skunks of all kinds at a distance;
if you forgive your enemies, it messes up their heads."
~ Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson, Turk Pipkin (2006). “The Tao of Willie: A Guide to the Happiness in Your Heart”, p.53, Penguin
http://www.azquotes.com/author/10736-Willie_Nelson
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
~ Marilyn Monroe
"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way."
~ Franz Kafka
