Word: manna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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During the 17 years--17 years--that this situation continues, Lin forms a strong attachment to Manna Wu, a young nurse at his base hospital. That is, she was young when she and Lin first met, but Manna has grown understandably restive during a long courtship that never gets beyond some furtive hand holding. (Army rules forbid unmarried couples from even walking together outside the compound walls.) She keeps urging Lin to divorce his wife, and every year he goes back to his village and tries to do so. And every year Shuyu agrees to his request but then changes...
...view can be spectacular: the light splaying in many hues at sunrise as the visitor reaches the spot where the Bible says Moses received the word of the Lord. The venerated images rush to mind: the burning bush, the parted sea, the dry rock bursting with water, manna...
...they become magically sweet. A similar shortage at Meribah is solved when God directs Moses to strike a rock with his staff, and water pours forth. When food runs out in the wilderness, he promises to "rain down bread for you from the sky." Of all the biblical wonders, manna may admit to the most exact scientific explanation. (Its name is derived from the Israelites' reaction and may best be translated, "Whatta?") Scripture describes manna as "a fine and flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground," which falls with the dew but melts when the sun grows...
...gradually becomes clear that the complaints of the Israelites are not subsiding. At one point they even whine that they are bored with manna. Ever more frequently, God culls their ungrateful ranks with fire or plague; and eventually he rules that they shall die of old age in the desert, and only their children, untainted by prior servitude, may attain the Promised Land...
...England had a Hail Mary answered with a pass interference call that looked like manna straight from heaven and I remained unruffled. So what if pass interference never gets called on Hail Marys. Score, I thought, no sweat. That just makes things more interesting...