Fast Times in Palestine by Pamela Olson

When I was fifteen years old, I had picked up a copy of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which led to the collapse of my Bible-centric view of the world. Since then I'd prided myself on being the most skeptical of skeptics, the most left-brained of left-brainers. I studied physics in large part because it seemed like the least dogmatic subject, the furthest possible thing from faith.

But eventually I realized there were limits to scientific inquiry. Life, after all, wasn't a controlled experiment. It was just one chaotic iteration of infinite potential, utterly unique in all of creation. Choosing how best to spend it would take more than the methods of science employed over the span of a lifetime. It fundamentally required a leap of faith in one direction or another, whether you realized you were taking it or not.

My initial, unconscious 'faith' had been to organize my life around societal measures of success. That had collapsed after I graduated from college. My new version of faith, which I was slowly piecing together, accepted what my senses and intellect offered and then kept going, trying to stay open to the world and to the vague impulses that quietly directed my actions and seemed to recognize truth better than I could. You could call the source of these impulses God, the Tao, the muse, Allah, the collective unconscious, or a by-product of evolution as it blindly followed the laws of subatomic interactions. But labeling it wouldn't get me any closer to understanding its nature or intentions, blind or otherwise.

Whatever it was, I was pleased with the results so far. Sitting under a thunderstrom on a porch in the West Bank with a seeker like Yusif was better than anything I could have thought up on my own, much less bought and paid for. I supposed I could only be grateful and hope the uiverse knew what it was doing. For now I had no better ideas.

"I've just been following my nose," I said, "waiting for inspiration to strike."
"I think you're looking for light," he said matter-of-factly. "And you shouldn't worry. When you're following your destiny, the whole world conspires to help you."

I smiled. People had been more helpful lately than I had any right or reason to expect. Nothing in my upbringing had prepared me for this level of kindness from strangers.

White Dog Fell from the Sky by Eleanor Morse

What does that mean to avenge a death - kill once, twice, three times more? Where does it end?

***

"Please don't go. I'm sorry about last night." 
Her eyes flashed. "You might have been describing a cow heading for the Meat Commission. I thought you were a different sort of man. If I'd known that's how you felt, I wouldn't have wasted a minute with you."

"That's not how I feel. Roger wanted to know what you looked like."

"And how would Roger even know I existed if Roger hadn't been told?"

"He wouldn't have. You were on my mind."

Something crossed her face, swiftly replaced by rage. Her voice shook. "You said it like an auctioneer. 'The woman's American, recently divorced.' The woman. As though you don't even know me. Gray hair. Already over the hill. Oh, nice body. But big bones. A lady wrestler. Or maybe an orangutan. And then your old boy laughter. You and Roger, whoever the hell that was, yucking it up at my expense. You're a royal prick, you know that?"

She'd already turned to leave when he said, "I know that. Worse than that. I'm an insensitive lout, a cad, a muttonhead, a piss poor specimen of a man, a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave. If I were a dog, I'd have me put down."

"Good. Now leave me alone." He thought a hint of a smile had flitted over her lips. Her footsteps departed, and he watched her climb into the Land Rover.

Paula by Isabel Allende

My fellowship was part of a program for Congolese, to whom Belgium was indebted for many years of brutal colonization. I was the single exception, a light-skinned woman among thirty black males. After suffering a week of humiliations, I came to the conclusion that I was not willing to run such a gauntlet, and offered to withdraw, even though we would be badly strapped without the fellowship money.

The director asked me to explain my sudden departure to the class, and I had no choice but to face that united front and in my lamentable French tell them that in my country men did not enter the women's bathroom unzipping their fly, did not shove women aside to go through a door first, did not knock each other down for a place at the table or to get on a bus, and that I felt badly mistreated and was leaving because I was not used to such foul behavior.

A glacial silence greeted my peroration. After a long pause, one of them spoke to say that in his country no decent woman publicly exhibited her need to go to the bathroom, nor did she try to go through a door before the men but in fact walked several steps behind, and that his mother and his sisters never sat at the table with him, they ate what the men left. He added that they felt permanently insulted by me, that they had never seen a person with such bad manners, and, as I was a minority in the group, I would just have to make the most of it.

"It is true that I am a minority in this course, but you are a minority in this country," I replied. "I am willing to make concessions, but you must do that, too, if you want to avoid problems here in Europe." It was a solution worthy of Solomon; we agreed upon certain basic rules, and I stayed on.

They never wanted to sit with me at the table or on the bus, but they stopped bursting into the bathroom and physically shoving me. During that year, my feminism got lost in the shuffle: I walked a modest two meters behind my companions, never looked up or raised my voice, and was the last one through the door.

Thirteen Senses: A Memoir by Victor Villasenor

All this time, Salvador had only been grinning, but now he laughed. "Look," he said, turning to the priest, "I know you've never been married, Father, so you don't really understand what's going on. But believe me, to tell any woman, who's alive and breathing, that she must obey is so ridiculous that only men who've never married in one hundred generations would have ever come up with such an ignorant idea! Of course, she doesn't have to obey me! She never has in fifty years, so why in the hell would I be stupid enough to think that it was going to be any different now?"

***

"But mama, Luisa has a point," Salvador was saying with gusto, "if you're so close to God, then why is it that you're so ugly?"

"UGLY, ME?" yelled the old woman, laughing so loud that it even startled Lupe in the next room. "Why, mi hijito, don't you know?" she shouted. "I am the STANDARD from which all beauty is measured! If it wasn't for me, there'd be no beautiful people! Why, coming down the street what do people say - and sometimes even aloud - 'look at that dirty, ugly, little, old woman.' But in truth, they are saying, 'hey, I look pretty good and young compared to her.' I make their day! I put a smile on their face! Why, the rich, arrogant, beautiful people of this world would all be lost without me! I am the BASIS of all BEAUTY!"

The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen

... I knew I needed to figure my own way to honor my mama, without losing myself in grieving forever.

Once I set my mind to that, what I heard wasn't the sorrow thoughts that had been in my head all year. It was Mama's voice.

Mary El, I'm sorry I died without a chance to say good-bye proper to you. But we all got to die. What matters is what comes first. Don't be so sad I died that you forget to live. That's what a child's for, living long after her mama and papa are gone. And if you don't start living again, how you gonna do Jesus's work?

It didn't come all at once necessarily, but bits and pieces here and there, adding up to that. And when it did, suddenly everything felt easier to bear.

The one thing no one could do the whole year past was console me like Mama would. Now she seemed ready to comfort and love and badger me even from Heaven above. I smiled to think of it, imagining her wheedling and conniving to get the archangels themselves falling into line.

Finding Mama again was like having a veil of sorrow lifted from before my eyes. After that, it was easy enough for me to lift the real veil myself, fold it up and tuck it away with the rest of the mourning attire.

***

"Servus est." Sed fortasse liber animo. "Servus est." Hoc illi nocebit? Ostende quis non sit: alius libidini servit, alius avaritiae, alius ambitioni, omnes spei, omnes timori.

I silently declaimed the passage from the Stoic philosopher Seneca that I translated my first year in Miss Mapps's class, as the rapacious white men gathered outside Omohundro's looked me over just as though I were standing half-stripped on the auction block.

You say, "He is a slave." But he is a person with a free spirit. You say, "He is a slave." But how shall this harm him? Show me who is not a slave. One man is a slave to his lusts, another is a slave to greed, another a slave of ambition, and all are slaves to hope and fear. 

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

A letter from Linh arrived. In it a picture of Linh and herself. When she unfolded the letter, a sheaf of gold rice stalks fell into her lap. The letter detailed his new activities as staff photographer. She didn't know if it was his awkward use of written English, but the whole letter was disappointingly impersonal. Only the last line spoke to her so she could hear his voice: Each night I pray life is coming back to you, a piece at a time, just as on the burned hills the grass reappears. She studied the photo more closely. The day on the beach at Vung Tau. Linh staring not at the camera but at her. Of course. She had known but ignored what she knew. The war wouldn't be over for her until she saw that grass reappear on those scarred hills.

This is what happened when one left one's home - pieces of oneself scattered all over the world, no one place ever completely satisfied, always a nostalgia for the place left behind. Pieces of her in Vietnam, some in this place of bone. She brought the letter to her nose. The smell of Vietnam: a mix of jungle and wetness and spices and rot. A smell she hadn't realized she missed.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker

In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered.

All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, about all the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length.

The tribal ceremony often lasts several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Gus stroked the coffin as he might have the soft fur of a dog. I saw that his body was shaking and I understood he was crying. Someone in the congregation gave a cough. It sounded phony, as if it had been done to break the moment. What it did was make Gus turn and face them.
He said, "Bobby used to help me take care of the cemetery sometimes. He liked the quiet. He liked the grass and the flowers. To me and you he wasn't much of a talker, but he used to whisper to the headstones like he was sharing a secret with the folks buried there. Bobby had a secret. You know what it was? It took nothing to make him happy. That was it. He held happiness in his hand easy as if he'd just, I don't know, plucked a blade of grass from the ground. And all he did his whole short life was offer that happiness to anybody who'd smile at him. That's all he wanted from me. From you. From anybody. A smile."
He looked back at the casket and anger pulled his face into sudden lines.
"But what did people offer him? They made fun of him. Christian folks and they said things to him hurtful as throwing stones. I hope to Christ you're right, Captain, that Bobby's sitting up there in God's hand, because down here he was just a sweet kid getting his ass kicked. I'll miss him. I'll miss him like I'd miss the robins if they never came back."

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

'Rabbit's clever,' said Pooh thoughtfully.
'Yes,' said Piglet, 'Rabbit's clever.'
'And he has Brain.'
'Yes,' said Piglet, 'Rabbit has Brain.'
There was a long silence.
'I suppose,' said Pooh 'that that's why he never understands anything.'

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Then a woman said,

Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, 

the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart 

and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

i carry your heart with me by E.E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere 
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done 
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                                 i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want 
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows 
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Married to Bhutan by Linda Leaming

'You're so fat!' another old woman says as she gets a good grip on my upper arm, zeroing in on the place where I feel most vulnerable and, well, fat. But this onversation has no room for my vanity. I know what to say.

'Do you really mean it, or are you just trying to flatter me?' I ask. Saying someone is fat isn't an insult in the villages of Bhutan; it's a compliment. Fat doesn't mean fat so much as it means healthy and prosperous.

'No flattery,' she says. 'I mean it! You're really fat!'

'Thank you, thank you, thank you,' I say. 'You're fat, too.'

She smiles shyly. I've made her day.

Most Bizarre Suicide

Recount of the story told by Don Harper Mills, the President of American Academy of Forensic Sciences at the awards dinner during the annual AAFS meeting in San Diego in 1987.

On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head. Mr Opus had jumped from the top of a 10-storey building with the intent to commit suicide. He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency.

As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the 8th floor level to protect some window washers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.

Ordinarily, a person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide. That Mr Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands."

Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man  and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr Opus.

When one intends to kill subject 'A' but kills subject 'B' in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject 'B'.

When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her.

Therefore the killing of Mr Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, if the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun about 6 weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.

Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn't actually pull the trigger.

The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus

Now comes the exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus.

He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the 10-storey building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through the 9th storey window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.