When I say that George Eliot has long been my hero, I mean to include those aspects of her thought and temperament that have been disparaged or dismissed or ignored. She was, after all, a novelist who did not eschew politics or polemics - sometimes s...
My love affair with nature is so deep that I am not satisfied with being a mere onlooker, or nature tourist. I crave a more real and meaningful relationship. The spicy teas and tasty delicacies I prepare from wild ingredients are the bread and wine i...
Freedom and wealth is an outcome of “Time”; the most precious asset that we all possess. Time however is a variable to each individual as our actions from our choices determine the longevity and returns from this asset. To maximize the return on ...
Love," as he now conceived of it, involved "slow growth, many slowly formed bonds, tests by vicissitudes as well as pleasure, mutual sharing of esthetic experiences, humor, sensory things from food through music to passion, etc." Any truly lasting re...
A good part of the physical attraction [between the hero and heroine of a romance novel] comes to life during these exchanges as well, since language creates a meeting of the minds. I have long thought that these lines of dialogue carve out the lines...
He said he wants variety. The irony is that I wanted variety too. But I wanted variety in a solid, stable committed relationship where I would wake up each morning asking “What are we going to do today?” not asking “Who are you going to do toda...
One species on the planet, and one species only, has reached the point of being able to have an impact on the evolutionary fortunes of all other species and upon the functioning of all ecosystems. We also have, in a way that is not true for any other...
O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than... a collector. Ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects. No t that they come ali...
I don’t understand all the nuances of the women’s movement. But I do understand that there are feminists who want to challenge the dominant paradigm, not only of patriarchy, but of where the original wealth came from and the relationship of that ...
If we can't forget, how can we forgive? I believe that forgiving can't be done by willpower alone. I can will myself to write out my own memories and feelings. I can will myself to imagine onto the page how someone else may have felt. I can will myse...
Page 142: "When a spouse says to the alcoholic, "you need to go to AA," that is obviously not true. The addict feels no need to do that at all, and isn't. But when she says, "I am moving out and will be open to getting back together when you are gett...
every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world—that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust...
I had no illusions that now, in some final and dramatic flash of revelation, we would understand one another. We were done. It was a fact of my life--intractable and sad--that our relationship had been a failure. Still, with her prognosis came one la...
In hindsight, the grand hero ideal she always thought he encompassed chipped away and all that remained was a cheap imitation. He embodied everything she’d hidden from in her adolescence. Boyfriends, relationships, and sex all led to disaster. Bein...
The Flow in life is not a temporal displacement of moving objects, from a past into a future via a present. The essential, ongoing Flow to this Reality is an emergence from the value set of your inner nature into the outer realm of events and relatio...
Every church has a marketing plan! The only difference is that some are better than others! When I think of marketing I think of building a relationship with those within reach of your ministry who know nothing about your church or are disconnected f...
Part of dealing with the sense of being cut off - for both the one dying and the one bereaved - is acknowledging that though a vital part of life has changed dramatically, all relationships (with friends, even with you, perhaps) have not.
I got him' is nonsense in terms of love relationships, and so is 'I lost him'. If we could stop thinking in terms of capture, we would not have to fear the loosening of the captives' bonds and our failing beauty, and he would not have ulcers about be...
Sometimes I worry about how attached I am to this dog. About the fact that the primary relationship of my life is with a canine. That at the end of a terrible day I look forward to nothing more than coming home and lying on the bed, under the covers,...
He took a long drink, then grimaced. “I do not have a drinking problem,” he announced, his voice needlessly loud. “I have a Churchillian relationship with alcohol: I can crack jokes and govern England and do anything I want to do. Except not dr...
If in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be 'devout' and to perform my 'religious duties', then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely 'proper', but loveless.
