Extravagance

By: Ellen G. White

To Meet the Demands of Fashion—In our day, people talk of the dark ages, and boast of progress. But with this progress wickedness and crime do not decrease. We deplore the absence of natural simplicity, and the increase of artificial display. Health, strength, beauty, and long life, which were common in the so-called “Dark Ages,” are rare now. Nearly everything desirable is sacrificed to meet the demands of fashionable life. – {Te 147.1}
A large share of the Christian world have no right to call themselves Christians. Their habits, their extravagance, and general treatment of their own bodies, are violations of physical law, and contrary to the Bible. They are working out for themselves, in their course of life, physical suffering, and mental and moral feebleness. – {Te 147.2}

Daniel loved, feared, and obeyed God. Yet he did not flee away from the world to avoid its corrupting influence. In the providence of God he was to be in the world yet not of the world. With all the temptations and fascinations of court life surrounding him, he stood in the integrity of his soul, firm as a rock in his adherence to principle. He made God his strength and was not forsaken of Him in his time of greatest need.—Testimonies for the Church 4:569, 570. – {Te 190.3}

Indifference

By: Gabriela Yareliz

People wonder why there is so much suffering in the world. They ask God to do something about it, and as I read in Dwight K. Nelson’s book, Pursuing the Passion of Jesus, he did do something about it. He made you. He put you here. It is up to us to be God’s hands and feet. This video is so powerful. It is part of the reason I came to law school in the first place. One doesn’t literally have to be an advocate to make a difference, however.

We can all give love. It all starts with extending your hand out to someone who is broken. Our streets are filled with these people. One doesn’t even need to go far.

Will you be an a part of the body, and say “Lord, I will go”?

Food and religion

By: Ellen G. White

An Important Place in Our Salvation—Those who are not health reformers treat themselves unfairly and unwisely. By the indulgence of appetite they do themselves fearful injury. Some may think that the question of diet is not important enough to be included in the question of religion. But such make a great mistake. God’s word declares, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” The subject of temperance, in all its bearings, has an important place in the working out of our salvation.—Evangelism, 265. – {Te 162.6}
If men and women perseveringly live in accordance with the laws of life and of health, they will realize the blessed results of an entire health reform.—The Signs of the Times, January 6, 1876. – {Te 163.1}

Margaret Atwood: Part II

“I’m not used to girls, or familiar with their customs. I feel awkward around them, I don’t know what to say. I know the unspoken rules of boys, but with girls I sense that I am always on the verge of some unforeseen, calamitous blunder.”-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

“Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert out existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It’s all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?

At the very least we want a witness. We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.” -Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”-Margaret Atwood

“In my dreams of this city I am always lost.”-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (17)

“You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.”— Margaret Atwood

Vindication

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Remember your Jr.High crush? Yup, he was popular, and you were a geeky girl with acne and bangs you were trying to grow out. He didn’t see you. In fact he ran from you. Well, guess what? Sometimes life is sweet. You run across a picture of that person today, and let’s just say the fates are reversed. He got worse with time, and you got better. Life vindicates you sometimes. Look who is running now 😉

Yes. Yes. Yes.

 

Margaret Atwood:Part I

“The past has become discontinuous, like stones skipped across water, like postcards: I catch an image of myself, a dark blank, an image, a blank.”  -Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (322)

“Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.”-Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye (233)

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”-Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Provisions by Margaret Atwood

What should we have taken with us?

We never could decide on that; or what to wear,

or at what time of year we should make the journey
So here we are in thin raincoats and rubber boots
On the disastrous ice, the wind rising
Nothing in our pockets
But a pencil stub, two oranges

Four Toronto streetcar tickets
and an elastic band

holding a bundle of small white filing cards

printed with important facts.