Uncloistered

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  “She gazed ahead through a long reach of future days strung together like pearls in a rosary, every one like the others, and all smooth and flawless and innocent, and her heart went up in thankfulness. Outside was the fervid summer afternoon; the air was filled with the sounds of the busy harvest of men and birds and bees; there were halloos, metallic clatterings, sweet calls, and long hummings. Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun.” A New England Nun By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930)

Return of the Masque

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The Masque Returns--and Jim Carrey ain't in it, nor his little dog, either.

As the Schaivo case gets kicked under the table, and copy-cat cases are springing up, I could not help but remember this quote:

"With the death of abolutes, the prospects are grim for any lover of justice, freedom and order. Western culture will lurch drunkenly between chaotic lawlessness and countering authoritarianism, in which some particularly abysmal vacuum of confidence could finally issue in a supreme dictatorship, mocking Western aspirations for democracy as ineffective and demonstrating the strong alliance between technology and the state. Until then, violence--blood brother of such a totalitarianism--will play its fateful part, naked or disguised, in an inevitable power struggle on all levels."

Os Guiness, "The Dust of Death" (1973)

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