John Paul's reign has been so long, and last week's vigil so filled with the imagery of raw human suffering — his last, mute appearance at his window, the increasingly dire bulletins — that it was difficult to bring into focus the extraordinary and vital images of the first days of his papacy, days that helped to re-order the world.
Yet one has the sense that he is honored less for his prose than for his extraordinary élan vital, which somehow persisted even to the day of his suicide, in 1980, when he lunched complacently with his publisher and only then went back to his apartment on the Rue du Bac to shoot himself, having first composed, quickly, a mordantly witty suicide note.
Federal law does provide, however, for notification of fewer lawmakers than the full intelligence committees, but only when "extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States" are at stake.
Unless the person being buried is young, or died in truly horrible circumstances, I do think it's possible to create an intense, extraordinary, moving, memorable, vital, passion-filled day of celebration and remembrance, rather than an unhappy gathering that murkily mourns a death.
You have contributed a great deal to the cultural and economic prosperity of our region and we appreciate the importance of what this extraordinary collection and vital public programs would offer to our future generations.
It is extraordinary that this vital process has now begun to be understood at the cellular level, in large part due to the groundbreaking research of Patricia Shoer Goldman-Rakic.
This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen.
What is extraordinary is that these vital discussions might have remained a hidden footnote to the history of apartheid had not David Aukin, head of drama at Mentorn productions and former head of Film on Four, had a chance encounter with Young.
His extraordinary flexibility has also been vital.
The incredible, vital music, the extraordinary mixture of harmonies.
