5
" In short, the Lord's Supper was the realization of new social and political arrangements, the embodiment of the social leveling seen in Jesus' ministry, most profoundly in his acts of table fellowship. Importantly, as we have seen, these new social arrangements could only be achieved if the emotions of social stratification were confronted, eliminated, or reinterpreted. In his body metaphor, Paul dramatically reframes these heretical emotions, the emotions of contempt, disgust, honor, and social presentability. Rather, than signaling exclusion and division - the natural expulsive impulse inherent in these emotions - Paul suggests that these emotions should signal just the opposite in the Kingdom of God: honor, care, and embrace. "
7
" Because the truth was, and we both knew it, he'd gone long, long ago. I'd just made him stick around when he really wanted to be somewhere else. In his own weird way, he was another victim of the shooting, One of the ones who couldn't get away. " Are you mad?" he asked, which I thought was a really strange question. " Yes," I said. And I was. It's just that I wasn't so sure I was mad at him. But I don't think he needed to hear that part. I don't think he wanted to hear that part. I think it was important to him to hear that I cared enough to be angry." Will you ever forgive me?" he asked." Will you ever forgive me?" I shot back, leveling my gaze directly into his eyes.He stared into them for a few moments then got up silently and headed for the door. He didn't turn around when he reached it. Just grabbed the doorknob and held it. " No," he said without facing me. " Maybe that makes me a bad parent, but I don't know if I can. No matter what the police found, you were involved in that shooting, Valerie. You wrote those names on that list. You wrote my name on that list. You had a good life here. You might not have pulled the trigger, but you helped cause the tragedy." He opened the door." I'm sorry. I really am." He stepped out into the hallway. " I'll leave my new address and phone number with your mother," he said before walking slowly out of my sight. "
11
" The differences between religions are reflected very clearly in the different forms of sacred art: compared with Gothic art, above all in its “flamboyant” style, Islamic art is contemplative rather than volitive: it is “intellectual” and not “dramatic”, and it opposes the cold beauty of geometrical design to the mystical heroism of cathedrals. Islam is the perspective of “omnipresence” (“God is everywhere”), which coincides with that of “simultaneity” (“Truth has always been”); it aims at avoiding any “particularization” or “condensation”, any “unique fact” in time and space, although as a religion it necessarily includes an aspect of “unique fact”, without which it would be ineffective or even absurd. In other words Islam aims at what is “everywhere center”, and this is why, symbolically speaking, it replaces the cross with the cube or the woven fabric: it “decentralizes” and “universalizes” to the greatest possible extent, in the realm of art as in that of doctrine; it is opposed to any individualist mode and hence to any “personalist” mysticism.
To express ourselves in geometrical terms, we could say that a point which seeks to be unique, and which thus becomes an absolute center, appears to Islam—in art as in theology—as a usurpation of the divine absoluteness and therefore as an “association” (shirk); there is only one single center, God, whence the prohibition against “centralizing” images, especially statues; even the Prophet, the human center of the tradition, has no right to a “Christic uniqueness” and is “decentralized” by the series of other Prophets; the same is true of Islam—or the Koran—which is similarly integrated in a universal “fabric” and a cosmic “rhythm”, having been preceded by other religions—or other “Books”—which it merely restores. The Kaaba, center of the Muslim world, becomes space as soon as one is inside the building: the ritual direction of prayer is then projected toward the four cardinal points.
If Christianity is like a central fire, Islam on the contrary resembles a blanket of snow, at once unifying and leveling and having its center everywhere. "
― Frithjof Schuon , Gnosis: Divine Wisdom: A New Translation with Selected Letters
12
" The necklace, Marcos,” she said firmly, leveling the gun at his heart once more. “I’ll take it now.” “It’s not here, querida. You waste your time.”Francesca lowered the gun to point at his groin. “Killing you would be too good. Perhaps I will simply have to deprive the female world of your ability to make love ever again. I am quite a good shot, I assure you.” She’d learned out of necessity. And though she never wanted to harm another human being, she had no compunction about making this man think she would do so if it meant she could save Jacques.His voice dropped to a growl. A hateful, angry growl. “You won’t get away with this. Whoever you are, Frankie, I will find you. I will find you and make you wish you’d never met me.”Her heart flipped in her chest. She ignored it. “I already wish that. Now give me the jewel before you lose the ability to ever have children.”Bitterness twisted inside her as she said those words. Ironic to threaten someone with something she would never wish on another soul. But she had to be hard, cold, ruthless – just like he was.He stared at her in impotent fury, his jaw grinding, his beautiful black eyes flashing daggers at her. Very slowly, he reached up with one hand and slipped his bowtie free of its knot. Then he jerked it loose and let it fall. "
13
" She was prepared for him to shut her down, when Behr shrugged a shoulder and said, “Yeah, sounds good. I think it’s a good idea for you to get out of the house. But,” he said, stepping back into the kitchen and leveling her with a hard look, “only if I tag along.”
“What? Why?” Cheyenne questioned, not understanding the need for chaperones.
“Because it’s safer that way,” he reasoned. “I have a couple things to take care of first, so it will probably be a day or two. I expect you to wait for me, though, Cheyenne,” he said, his brilliant blue eyes holding her in place. “It’s safer that way.”
She was preparing to argue when she realized that she wasn’t altogether sure she wanted to venture out on her own yet anyway. It might be a shock to her system after locking herself away for so long. For laughs, she decided to give him a hard time anyway.
“But…” she started. He cut her off with an upraised hand.
“No buts,” he said sternly. “It’s not safe and you know it, and besides, that’s what you have two strapping young men like us for.” He clapped a grinning Dehstroy on the back.
Cheyenne threw her head back and laughed.
“You, young? Ha!”
“What?” Behr said, acting offended. “I’m young.”
“Prove it,” Cheyenne challenged. “Show me your birth certificate.” When he pursed his lips, she laughed some more. “What’s wrong? Didn’t they make birth certificates yet when you were born? No?” She looked between the men, taking in their sheepish expressions. “Well, then. I’ll leave you two to work on clearing that schedule.” Waving, Cheyenne left the kitchen and headed upstairs to her room to lie down. "
― Brandi Salazar , A Warrior's Betrayal (Brotherhood, #2)
