she slammed the door andwas gone.I looked at the closed doorand at the doorknoband strangelyI didn't feelalone.

The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.

My inward experience has often been a wilderness; but Thou hast owned me still as Thy beloved, and poured streams of love and grace into me to gladden me, and make me fruitful.

Nos-tal-gic,_ Akira said, as though it were a word he had been struggling to find. Then he said a word in Japanese, perhaps the Japanese for __ostalgic._ __os-tal-gic. It is good to be nos-tal-gic. Very important.___eally, old fellow?___mportant. Very important. Nostalgic. When we nostalgic, we remember. A world better than this world we discover when we grow. We remember and wish good world come back again. So very important. Just now, I had dream. I was boy. Mother, Father, close to me. in our house.__e fell silent and continued to gaze across the rubble.__kira,_ I said, sensing that the longer this talk went on, the greater was some danger I did not wish fully to articulate. __e should move on. We have much to do.

I think about my mother singing after lunch on a Summer afternoon, twirling in blue dress across the floor of her dressing room

His gut was stitched up good and tight, but that didn__ prevent it from flopping. He wiped his damp palms on the legs of his jeans and stood up shakily, leaning heavily on his cane.He called himself a masochist for putting himself through this torture day after day.He braced himself for the disappointment of having to go home alone.He braced himself for happiness like he__ never known in his entire life.He watched the door they would come through.