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e1ecd3f
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Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.
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Alan Brennert |
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c10e66d
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Surrounded by darkness yet enfolded in light
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light
darkness-and-light
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Alan Brennert |
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3f2133f
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She already felt dead in everything but name. What remained to be taken from her? She longed to be enfolded, welcomed, into the earth - to breathe no more, love no more, hurt no more
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sleep
suicide
earth
lost
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Alan Brennert |
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c2b3636
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I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death....is the true measure of the Divine within us.
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Alan Brennert |
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3c6c083
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Quoting an old proverb: "An empty cart rattles loudly." she said. meaning, One who lacks substance boasts loudest."
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lacking-substance
proverb
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Alan Brennert |
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b05a72a
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No. Grief and anger doesn't shock me." Catherine paused. "Rachel, do you remember that day at the convent when we saw the old biplane? Remember what I said?" Rachel laughed without amusement. "I don't even remember what I said." "'Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom He has given wings.' I recall that so precisely because I've had time to consider my error." She smiled. "God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain..
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Alan Brennert |
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cc3b95e
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she bid me to look out on the lawn at the leper girls who were running on lame feet, playing croquet with crippled hands. "There is beauty," she said, "in the least beautiful of things."
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Alan Brennert |
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a1c4d34
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Learn how to smile in the cannibal pot and life will be so much easier.
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Alan Brennert |
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47cc242
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You make all these decisions in your life, and they all seem like the right decisions at the time. You think you're doing the right thing. And it's only later that you realize, no, they were exactly the wrong decisions, and instead of bringing you what you wanted, they only carried you even farther away from your dreams. And somehow you've got to live with that.
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Alan Brennert |
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3617744
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But it's a poor church that cares only for what happens to a soul after it leaves this life." -Damien"
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Alan Brennert |
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746b5be
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No land is more beautiful, and therefore more powerful. That is what I believe in, Aouli. I believe in Hawai'i. I believe in the land." -Haleola"
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Alan Brennert |
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07aa72c
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A road need not be paved in gold to find treasures at its end.
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finding-peace
laying-up-your-treasures
streets-of-gold
finding-yourself
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Alan Brennert |
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dfd1d62
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An aching vacuum inside her sucking the air from her lungs. She hung her head and wept fiercely, the emptiness inside her growing larger not smaller; she felt as though it would grow so large it would suffocate her just as surely as the sea would have
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suffocate
emptiness
sea
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Alan Brennert |
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d65c800
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After a while the fear became a constant, cold companion, a simple fact of existence.
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Alan Brennert |
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80fc66a
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Love, marriage, divorce, infidelity... life was the same here as anywhere else, wasn't? She realized now wrong she'd been; the pali wasn't a headstone and Kalaupapa wasn't a grave. It was a community like any other, bound by ties deeper than most, and people here went to their deaths as people did anywhere: with great reluctance, dragging the messy jumble of their lives behind them.
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death
life
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Alan Brennert |
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1a8f82b
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What's it like? Being married? Cold feet. Middle of the night you're sleeping, suddenly, wham, you've got ice cold feet warming themselves on the back of your legs.
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Alan Brennert |
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57c5c3e
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Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom He has given wings? I recall that so precisely because I've had time to consider my error. God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up. I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death...is the true measure ..
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Alan Brennert |
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13427b9
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She had never been afraid of the dark, but then she had never known a dark like this before.
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Alan Brennert |
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d134899
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Hawai'i is not truly the idyllic paradise of popular songs--islands of love and tranquility, where nothing bad ever happens. It was and is a place where people work and struggle, live and die, as they do the world over.
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Alan Brennert |
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7827885
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Perhaps you need to look back before you can move ahead.
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the-past-looking-to-the-future
the-past
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Alan Brennert |
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6d145dd
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and all they could do was sit, sleep, eat, and be reminded day after day, night after night, of their disease and eventual death.
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Alan Brennert |
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56ef703
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With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.
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Alan Brennert |
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6a63e5a
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When we are young, we think life will be like a supo: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths-bits and pieces, odds and ends-people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps.
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Alan Brennert |
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a16ad90
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They toured the new hospital, the renovated and expanded McVeigh Home, and the (named without apparent irony) Bay View Home for the Blind and Helpless.
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Alan Brennert |
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e34c88f
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Isn't it strange, how one so afraid of contracting a fatal malady...should so earnestly wish for death, as well?
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suicide
malady
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Alan Brennert |
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381f9e9
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she would follow her father over the horizon and down the other side, where the world lay hidden.
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world
other-side
horizon
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Alan Brennert |
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f4675fe
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Then Rachel said, "Mama used to tell me that God saw everything, knew everything, even what was in our hearts." "Yes," Catherine agreed, "especially there." "So, He'd know, wouldn't he, what kind of pain was in your mama's heart when she took that medicine." She didn't wait for a reply. "So why can't you trust that God knows enough not to blame her for what she did."
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Alan Brennert |
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abc0a2b
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It is not just the history of the Hawaiian islands but the significance of the ordinary people whose lives - many quite extraordinary - make up that history.
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Alan Brennert |
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f967543
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And sometimes she would dream again of being Namakaokahai'i, her waves rolling across burled coral beds, scattering moonlight, cresting higher and higher the farther she traveled over the reef. She was a colossus of water and motion soaring toward the black crescent of 'Awahuua Bay, her soul perched on the curling lip of the wave, riding it in the only way she could now; she felt the mana, the power in her waves, felt the rumble in her ocea..
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Alan Brennert |
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419d910
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How stupid could she be to think a clean person would love her -- would risk death and decay and banishment for love!
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Alan Brennert |
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af0522c
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None of the patients could say the experiments didn't yield some benefits. It was the way the experiments were conducted that grated: with cold, clinical detachment. Masks, gloves, and carbolic acid were the order of the day fora ll staff, and while this may have been prudent it only made isolated people feel even more isolated.
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Alan Brennert |
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69091bf
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There is beauty in the least beautiful of things.
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Alan Brennert |
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1caedd2
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And to keep her immune system strong she followed Dr. Goodhue's advice to abstain from alcohol, get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and consume a nourishing diet, low in salt. Page 144 "Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master.". Page 204 "I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pa..
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Alan Brennert Moloka'i |
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3c86eae
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Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom He has given wings.'...God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up...I've come to beliece that how we choose to live with painm or injustice, or death. . . . is the true measure of the Divine withing us. Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm..
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Alan Brennert |
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996197f
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marveled at how two souls - two completely different species - could make each other so happy. If you were kind to animals, they repaid that kindness a thousandfold. People disappointed; animals never did.
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dogs
animals-love
companions
animals
cats
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Alan Brennert |
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63830e3
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God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up. "I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death . . . is the true measure of the Divine within us."
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Alan Brennert |
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5fa707f
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he took her in his arms and cradled her; offering her not God's comfort but his own, merely human, consolation.
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Alan Brennert |
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c6eea97
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It slowly dawned on the volunteers that they were not patients but subjects; separated from their friends and community in Kalaupapa, they felt like outcasts among outcasts.
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Alan Brennert |
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09be8ba
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I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death...is the true measure of the Divine within us. Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm to themselves and others. Others, like Kenji, bear up under their pain and help other to bear it.
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Alan Brennert |
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53b9336
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By now the streets of Kalaupapa were filled with people racing for high ground - sick people crying "Tsunami!" as nature played yet another mean trick on them, God's last best joke at their expense. It was, after all, April Fool's Day."
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Alan Brennert |
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01e1e07
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Old Korean adage, "Even jade has flaws." Or, in other words: Nothing in life is ever perfect."
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perfection
life
jade
korean-quote
perfection-seeking
flaws
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Alan Brennert |
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1136e10
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Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'---a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best---a whole greater than the sum of it's parts.
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mixed-plate
honolulu
hawaii
melting-pot
race-relations
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Alan Brennert |
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709f47f
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nine years earlier. Life was still
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Alan Brennert |
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babcf35
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I'm a practical man, Haleola. It's true, I want to save souls. But it's a poor church that cares only for what happens to a soul after it leaves this life. If I can provide some comfort, some ease of life for those about to lose theirs, how could I hesitate to try?
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Alan Brennert |