Gratitude isn't a tool to manipulate the universe or God. It's a way to acknowledge our faith that everything happens for a reason even if we don't know what that reason is. ~Melody Beattie, 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact, pg. 34.
By necessity, we are direct and swift in speech and movement. This is the true dynamic that underlies our apocryphal rudeness. Also true: we do not make eye contact. Neither do we encourage it. Consider the number of humans a New Yorker will pass on ...
Her eyes widened. I assumed in alarm, but who the hell knew what was going on in her stubborn head. I took the coffee cup from her hand and rested it on the grass next to mine. I leaned in toward her slowly. Her eyes remained steady on mine. Just as ...
Brother Lawrence says, in , 'There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it' (Letter 5). No one who has ever tried it has ...
I feel like when you have an unauthorized police badge and something that looks like it could be a concealed weapon in the small of your back that when you, someone crosses you, pisses you off, road rage, I think just the slight badge and the little ...
Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn't looking down at a device in their hands? We've become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big...
You've got to be like a fan at your show, just wild out. I make eye contact. I get in the crowd and kick it with 'em, stage dive, mosh. I make 'em laugh. I go out there and turn up, have fun. There's no set list; I don't have rehearsals.
But what Dakota most enjoyed about the beginning of winter was the crispness of the air (that practically demanded the wearing of knits) and the way that tough New Yorkers - on the street, in elevators, in subways - were suddenly willing to risk a sm...
There is a magic in walking alone, in thinking alone: If there is no one to contact you around, the universe starts contacting you!
A layer of fine powder coats his skin. “My lungs are turning to concrete,” Rob wheezes, hacking and spitting. “So are my eyes. How do I always get roped into these things?” Avery coughs and pats Rob’s back in sympathy. A poof of dust billow...
Scott walked away and did not look back. They knew Maggie would try to follow him, and she did. In her world, they were a pack, and the pack stayed together. Maggie whined and barked, and he heard her claws scrape the tarmac like files. Budress had c...
The two guys who ran the place, always in Williamsburg hipster uniforms of short-sleeved shirts and neatly trimmed beards that looked stuck on with spirit gum, paid, as ever, no attention to anything but the food and the money. Tallow imagined that e...
Caring is open-hearted, keeping us available to transmit love to a stranger through simple eye contact and without condition. This is not the opportunistic sizing-up of sexual cruising; instead, it’s the felt recognition of the divinity and humanit...
Intuition is already in contact with Existence. Intuition is already in contact with that, which is larger than ourselves.
A writer starts out, I think, wanting to be a transfiguring agent, and ends up usually just making contact, contact with other human beings. This, unsurprisingly, is not enough.
It's funny because everyone says, 'Oh you're reclusive; you don't do social media,' but it's not about being reclusive. I like direct contact, and I like contact that's purposeful.
The second principle of magic: things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.
I turn back to see that he is holding out the book, offering it to me. My eyes make contact with the book at first and then travel up his very muscular, very athletic arm, coming to rest on the utterly beautiful tattoo that is wrapped around it. I ca...
Backing up slowly like the doctor had done, I broke eye contact as my gaze traced the floor, noticing a small smudge from a shoe, and off we went. Away from the unspoken words that so badly needed to be said—before everything between us would explo...
You’re not leaving. I told you that.” She worked to keep the calm in her tone to counter his fury. “I’m going to shoot.” “It’s time to put your gun down, Noah.” “His blood will be on you.” Rook made eye contact with her and mouthe...
We used to talk and smile seven days ago when I was wearing a suit. Now I'm dressed in a beard and smell of dog shit I don’t even get eye contact. I ask her how her week is going, and she looks to her friend behind the counter as if to say: I think...
