And I can promise you something, because it was a thing I saw many years later - a vision in the book thief herself - that as she knelt next to Hans Hubermann, she watched him stand and play the accordion. He stood and strapped it on in the alps of broken houses and played the accordion with kindness silver eyes and even a cigarette slouched on his lips. The bellows breathed and the tall man played for Liesel Meminger one last time as the sky was slowly taken away from her.

Writing is.... being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.

But I cannot accept a vision of You as an engineer who spends His days maintaining the machine of morality. I cannot take the idea of You as an optimizer, introducing evil into human affairs in an attempt to create the best of all possible worlds. I cannot bear this cold mathematician's God who sees all the universe as nothing more than an elaborate problem to be solved. Such a world is a world with no meaning, one in which one history is no more or less preferable to any other.

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,has grown so weary that it cannot holdanything else. It seems to him there area thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,the movement of his powerful soft stridesis like a ritual dance around a centerin which a mighty will stands paralyzed.Only at times, the curtain of the pupilslifts, quietly. An image enters in,rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles,plunges into the heart and is gone.

Sometimes when we get so caught up in our dreams we get tunnel vision. It becomes about "me, me, me," and we fail to see those around us who need our help. When this happens we can expect to experience obstacles or as I like to call them, "gentle reminders" that we are not the center of the universe. When we are not using our talents and strengths to bless others, how can we expect the Lord to bless us?

The back barn door opened, and in walked a vision in a billowing green dress. As she led in her mare, Mr. McBride’s voice faded away as Tom’s total attention turned to the girl. About twenty-one or two, Tom guessed. Not too tall, nor short. Beautiful heart-shaped face decorated with rosy cheeks and light freckles. Long auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. Perfectly set green eyes. Full-bosomed and hourglass shaped. Breathtaking.

“George Bush has staked his reputation on the notion that his singular goal is to protect the American people--from terrorism, from crisis or whatever--that he has the strength and the vision and the leadership skills to do that. But there is a significant number of Americans right now who feel the crisis-manager president didn't act quickly enough, didn't act decisively enough, didn't put the right people in charge. If that view were to fester, that would be devastating to the rest of the president's term and his legacy.”

Isolation and loneliness are central causes of depression and despair. Yet they are the outcome of life in a culture where things matter more than people. Materialism creates a world of narcissism in which the focus of life is solely on acquisition and consumption. A culture of narcissism is not a place where love can flourish. The emergence of "me" culture is a direct response to our nation's failure tot truly actualize the vision of democracy. While emotional needs are difficult, and often impossible to satisfy, material desires are easier to fulfill.

**New business concepts are always, always the product of lucky foresight.**That's right - the essential insight doesn't come out of any dirigiste planning process; it comes form some cocktail of happenstance, desire, curiosity, ambition and need. But at the end of the day, there has to be a degree of foresight -- a sense of where new riches lie. So radical innovation is always one part fortuity and one part clearheaded vision.[first-line bold by author][2002] p.23

Is it a coincidence that stories from the private life became more popular just as the grand hope for public redemption through revolution was beginning to sour? I witnessed a similar shift in taste in my own time. In the 1960s, while a hopeful vision of a just society arose again, countless poems and plays concerning politics and public life were written, read, and performed. But after the hope diminished and public life seemed less and less trustworthy, this subject was less in style.