"I was chosen to be the spouse of my chutak. I am here today full of immense grief and dignity. My children, my family, you and I are in mourning. This silent love bestows upon us some fortitude. It enables us to experience within us a sorrowful calm. In the Bible, the gospel of John 15:13, it is stated that there is no greater love than for a person to give up his life for the sake of his friends. My dear friends, today we send off half of my soul, my beloved, the father of my children and your brother. We are going to conduct a march without any slogans and without showing any disrespect to those around us. Today we are going to generate immense sound through our silence. Today begins the moment when the darkness of the valleys rises towards brightness. Whoever the assassin may be, whether he was 17 or 27 years old, I know that he was once a baby. My brothers and sisters, one cannot accomplish anything without first questioning the darkness that creates an assassin from such a baby... My brothers and sisters, It was Hrant's love for honesty, for transparency, for his friends that brought him here. His love that challenged fear made him great. They say: "He was a great man." I ask you: "Was he born great?" No! He too was born just like us. He did not come from the heavens; he too was created from earth. But what made him great was his living spirit; his deeds, his style, and the love in his eyes and his heart. It was what he did, the style he chose, the love in his heart that made him great. A person does not become great naturally; it is through his deeds that he becomes great... Yes, he became great because he thought great things and pronounced great words. You too all thought great things by coming here. You talked greatly through your silence; you too are great. But do not let this suffice; do not be content with this alone. Hrant marked the birth of a new era in Turkey and you have all been his seal. With him changed the headlines, dialogues, and bans. For him, there were no taboos or forbidden topics. As it is stated in the scriptures, it all sprang from his heart. He paid a great price. Futures for which great prices are paid can only be accomplished through such love and belief; not with hatred, insults, by holding one blood superior to another. This rise is only possible if one sees and respects the other as oneself, if one assumes oneself to be the other. They separated him from the heaven of his home he had created with the help of Jesus. They made him spread his wings to the eternal celestial heavens - before his eyes tired out, before his body had the chance to age, before he could become sick, before he could spend enough time with his loved ones. We too shall come, my beloved. We too shall come to that matchless heaven. Love and love alone enters there. Love and love alone that is superior to the speech of humans and angels, to prophecy, to mastery of all the mysteries, to faith that moves mountains, to sharing all one possesses, even to giving up one's body up to flames. Only that love will enter heaven. There we shall live together forever in true love. A love that is not jealous of anyone, a love that does not covet the property of anyone else, a love that does not murder anyone, a love that does not belittle anyone, a love that holds one's brother and sister more dear than oneself, a love that abandons one's own allocation, a love that demands the rights of one's brother and sister. A love that is found in the Messiah. And a love that has been poured into us. Who could forget what you have done, what you have said, my beloved? Which darkness could erase them? Could fear? Could life? Could injustice? Could the temptations of the world? Or could death have them forgotten, my beloved? No, no darkness is capable of having them forgotten, my beloved. I too wrote you a love letter, my beloved. Its cost was dear to me too, my beloved. I owe it to Jesus that I was capable of penning this, my beloved. Let us give his due to Him, my beloved. Let us give back everyone their due, my beloved. You departed from those you loved; you departed from your children, your grandchildren. You departed from those here who came to send you off. You departed from my embrace. You did not depart from your country, my beloved."This eulogy was delivered by Rakel Dink in front of the huge crowd gathered around Hrant Dink's coffin on 23 January 2007, in Osmanbey, Istanbul. It was translated by Fatma Müge Göçek.
" Those who are Christ's receive of His fulness. This fulness comes to expression in the lives of believers in terms of “grace upon grace” (1:16, Greek: charin anti charitos) Literally, this means “grace in the place of grace” — like one wave rolling in after another endlessly on the shore.
John then immediately reflects upon what characterized the past age, and what now characterizes the new age. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (1:17). A reign of condemnation (2 Corinthians 3:9) has been succeeded by a reign of grace. This does not mean that there was no “grace” under Moses, and no “law” in Christ. But it does mean that the coming of Christ ushered in grace in such a decisive way that it is as though grace is only now in the fulness of time bursting into human history (just as Paul marks the appearance of “law” with the time of Moses, Romans 5:13-14).
Can you now better understand what Paul means when he states that
Christians are “not under law, but under grace” (6:14)? In the new age, “grace”is now our teacher (Titus 2 11-14)."
I was well into my teenage years when Mr. Ford became the 38th president of the United States."( . . . ) Gerald R. Ford Jr. was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. His real father was a handsome, wealthy, blond-haired wife-beater who first struck his bride on the first night of their honeymoon for smiling at a stranger in the elevator.
Later, Leslie King Sr. held a knife over his wife as she lay in bed with her newborn baby; she then fled to Grand Rapids, Mich., and married a paint salesman named Gerald Ford, who gave her baby boy his name.
At 16, young Jerry, by then a high-school football hero, was tending a lunch counter when Leslie King Sr. sauntered in. "I'm your father," he announced. "I'd like to take you to lunch." King was passing through town on his way to pick up an expensive new car, a Lincoln. King asked Ford if he would like to move back to live with his true father in Wyoming.
"It was a hell of a shock," Ford later recalled. He went to lunch, but was shaking with resentment. "Nothing could erase the image I gained of my real father that day—a carefree, well-to-do man who really didn't give a damn about the hopes and dreams of his son." In bed that night, Ford wept "tears of anger."
He tried to remember verses from Proverbs his mother had taught him: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.
...[H]is personal history contains, at the very least, a foreshadowing of his decision to end what he called "the long national nightmare" of Watergate with a presidential pardon.
In 1937, when Ford was at Yale, his delinquent father turned up again—this time with a quid pro quo. For years, Leslie King had been embroiled with Ford's mother regarding unpaid alimony and child-support payments. Now King was offering Ford a deal: if he would get his mother to back off her legal claims, King would make sure his son was not forgotten in his will.
Ford was cool to his father's approach, but ultimately worked out a settlement that won his mother $4,000. She sent her son a check for more than $2,000, which he promptly returned to her. "I was simply acting as a peacemaker," Ford testified in a 1939 court proceeding.
Duke history professor Peter Wood has speculated that when Ford pardoned Nixon, he was re-enacting the drama of trying to bring peace between his mother and father. This interpretation may be stretching the bounds of psychohistory.
Still, Ford's language, when he announced the pardon that September Sunday in 1974, does suggest that he was obeying what Wood calls "a submerged but controlling personal logic."
Ford told the nation: "My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot continue to prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed ... My conscience tells me it is my duty to not merely proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to ensure it."
