The Everlasting Staircase Quotes

The Everlasting Staircase"
Jeffrey McDaniel

When the call came, saying twenty-four hours to live,
my first thought was: can't she postpone her exit

from this planet for a week? I've got places to do,
people to be. Then grief hit between the ribs,

said disappear or reappear more fully. so I boarded
a red eyeball and shot across America,

hoping the nurses had enough quarters to keep
the jukebox of Grandma's heart playing. She grew up

poor in Appalachia. And while world war II
functioned like Prozac for the Great Depression,

she believed poverty was a double feature,
that the comfort of her adult years was merely

an intermission, that hunger would hobble back,
hurl its prosthetic leg through her window,

so she clipped, clipped, clipped -- became the Jacques
Cousteau of the bargain bin, her wetsuit

stuffed with coupons. And now --pupils fixed, chin
dangling like the boots of a hanged man --

I press my ear to her lampshade-thin chest
and listen to that little soldier march toward whatever

plateau, or simply exhaust his arsenal of beats.
I hate when people ask if she even knew I was there.

The point is I knew, holding the one-sided
conversation of her hand. Once I believed the heart

was like a bar of soap -- the more you use it,
the smaller it gets; care too much and it'll ~ Jeffrey McDaniel

Only a fool will accept a gift you cannot keep. You can't keep anything from the world but salvation is wise and everlasting. John 3:16 ~ Felix Wantang

For when man comes to front the everlasting God, and look the splendor of His judgments in the face, personal integrity, the dream of spotlessness and innocence, vanishes into thin air: your decencies and your church-goings and your regularities and your attachment to a correct school and party, your gospel formulas of sound doctrine
what is all that, in front of the blaze of the wrath to come? ~ Frederick William Robertson

Fear commonly makes adversaries of us. But sometimes, in the rarest, most frightening moments, fate brings together people, forming everlasting friendships and occasionally, the remarkable bond of love. ~ Nihar Sharma

If we consider eternity, into that time never entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it is, though time had never been. ~ John Donne

Had the love been permanent, there won't have been divorces after love marriages. Had the love been everlasting, there won't have been bad blood in the family. ~ Girdhar Joshi

And then, the negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will not turn upon him too? ~ Abraham Lincoln

to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top. ~ Marcus Garvey

For here rolls the sea, and even here lies the other shore waiting to be reached - yes, here is this everlasting present, not distant, not anywhere else. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Let it all go to waste…
For what I long for, I'm bound to resign!
Bittersweet is, like the taste of wine,
This Love's captivating taste.

Let my heart be tormented by wonder
It will never manage to attain.
On my window symphony of rain,
Open seas resound in strikes of thunder.

Let my soul be lost, 'til Sun is set,
And be found reborn within its death,
I surrender the very last breath,
Confessing my sins with no regret.

Let it all go to waste, indeed.
For with or without it, the sentence is pain.
Therefore, in my stillness, silenced will remain,
Everlasting dream and consuming need. ~ Aleksandra Ninkovic

I am the reason you walk. I created you so that you might walk this earth.
I am the reason you walk. I gave you motivation so you would continue to walk even when the path became difficult, even seemingly impossible.
I am the reason you walk. I animated you with that driving force called love, which compelled you to help others who had forgotten they were brothers and sisters to take steps back towards one another.
And now, my son, as that journey comes to an end, I am the reason you walk, for I am calling you home. Walk home with me on that everlasting road. ~ Wab Kinew

Then, instead of telling her that where there was life there was hope, or to let a smile be her umbrella, or that it was always darkest just before the dawn, or anything else that had just lately fallen out of the dog's ass, she simply held her. Because sometimes only holding was best. That was one of the things she had taught that man whose last name she had taken for her own
that sometimes it was best to be quiet; sometimes it was best to just shut your everlasting mouth and hang on, hang on, hang on. ~ Stephen King

I am filled time and again
with a heart-aching wonder
when I think

of the fire
and frost of memories

of the everlastingness
of love

the solace
of family
and the power
of prayer. ~ Sanober Khan

Platinum for me signifies everlasting love, which needs to be celebrated in the most special way. ~ Ram Kapoor

Our best feelings, which God himself has planted in our hearts, instinctively revolt against the thought that a God of infinite love and justice should create millions of immortal beings in his own image - probably more than half of the human race - in order to hurry them from the womb to the tomb, and from the tomb to everlasting doom! ~ Philip Schaff

To have a child was to receive the gift of true immortality - not time stopped, as it had stopped in Amy, but time continuing and everlasting. ~ Justin Cronin

Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church. ~ Chinua Achebe

It's all very fine down East there, and the hills are great, but one gets mighty homesick for this sky, the old intense blue of it, you know. Down there the skies are all pale and smoky. And this wind, this hateful, dear, old everlasting wind that comes down like the sweep of cavalry and is never tamed or broken, O Joe, I used to get hungry for this wind! I couldn't sleep in that lifeless stillness down there. ~ Willa Cather

Dear friends, I want you to hear this: what is said of Jesus is said of you. I know this can be hard to affirm. You are the beloved daughter or son of God. Can you believe it? Can you hear it not only in your head through your physical ears but in your gut, hear it so that your whole life can be turned around? Go to the scriptures and read: "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have written your name in the palm of my hand from all eternity. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you in your mother's womb. I love you. I embrace you. You are mine and I am yours and you belong to me." You have to hear this, because if you can hear this divine voice speak to you from all eternity, then your life will become more and more the life of the beloved, because that is who you are. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor, and "loaded with promises and commitments" that we may or may not want or keep. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Formative Christian worship paints a picture of the beauty of the Lord--and a vision of the shalom he desires for creation--in a way that captures our imagination....The biblical vision of shalom--of a world where the Lamb is our light, where swords are beaten into ploughshares, where abundance is enjoyed by all, where people from every tribe and tongue and nation sing the same song of praise, where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an everlasting stream--is the vision that should be enacted in Christian worship. ~ James K.A. Smith

In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting. Earthly countries and single malignant boys can go to hell; the idea of countries and the idea of sons triumph for eternity. ~ Lionel Shriver

We wrote our own vows; I take them to heart even today:

I give you my heart, soul, and everlasting love.
I promise to be there during both laughter and tears and to protect you in the days to come.
I will be faithful and truthful, whether near or far, and will never give you cause for doubt.
I will embrace your happiness and hold you when you are sad.
I will be your biggest supporter and your constant friend.
I will remind you of who you are when you forget.
I will consider your happiness with every action.
I will celebrate your soul and work to enrich your life as you enrich mine.
Most of all, I will love you and show my love all the days of my life.

Instead of traditional wedding music, we chose Enya's version of "How Can I Keep from Singing." The words of the song talk of a hymn that can always be heard, no matter how dark the night or how difficult the day. The song speaks of faith and endurance, and through it all, music. It seemed to perfectly capture our love and commitment to each other. The words and tune-hypnotic and soaring-would come to me at various parts of my life. I gave birth to it. I hear it in my head today. ~ Taya Kyle

Animals are molded by natural forces they do not comprehend. To their minds there is no past and no future. There is only the everlasting present of a single generation, its trails in the forest, its hidden pathways in the the air and in the sea. There is nothing in the Universe more alone than Man. He has entered into the strange world of history. ~ Loren Eiseley

Alas, we are what we are, and we need the stories, we need the public transportation, the anxiety meds, the television shows by the dozens, the music in bars and restaurants saving us from the terror of silence, the everlasting promise of brown liquor, the bathrooms in national parks, and the political catchphrases we can all shout and stick to our bumpers. ~ Jaroslav Kalfar

Timeless principles never age, and truth is as young as the day it was spoken into existence. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amidst the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the instability of all that earth calls good. ~ Octavius Winslow

Birds will be bored
If I'd forgotten something
Ring the bells of those school dismissals in the sea
What we shall call pensive borage
We start by giving the solution to the contest
To wit how many tears can be held in a woman's hand
1. as little as possible
2. in a medium-sized hand
While I crumple this star-lit paper
And while the everlasting flesh has once and for all taken
possession of the mountain summits
I live like a recluse in a little house in the Vaucluse
Heart king's order ~ Andre Breton

He wants us to think for ourselves, without fear of ridicule or judgment. He wants us to make up our minds and ignore what the rest of the world is saying. Pay no attention to fads or fashions, and listen, always, to the voice of your innermost self. Learning who you are is your primary task. There are no mistakes in life, as far as Emerson's concerned, only lessons. Once you master one lesson, you move on to the next. And the only place you can learn is right now. In the everlasting present. ~ Mark Frost

Why is there this everlasting craving to be loved?
Listen carefully. You want to be loved because you
do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring wether or not somebody loves you. As long as you demand to be loved, there is no love in you; and if you feel no love you are ugly, brutish, so why should you be loved? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Our God ... is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will be our everlasting joy. But if we refuse His love and remain in the coldness of sin and opposition to Him and to other men then will His fire (by our own choice rather than His) become our everlasting enemy, and Love, instead of being our joy, will become our torment and our destruction. ~ Thomas Merton