Love Kate xxx

“Asher’s artistic lineage is a long one…even as a 9-year-old youngster Asher would go around on his own at the craft fairs and visit with the other artists”

“what was it about Asher that made him so endearing to his friends? so endearing, that they would regard him as a brother?”

“he never flaunted his brilliance, and never gave people the impression that he was intellectually superior in any way [...] but [...] he truly was”

“if you said something that really impressed him, he would be quick to include it in his worldview”

“all this external stuff is just fluff. we need to get past that, we need to go deeper. why can’t we just love each other?”

“beneath the listening, he was loving you”

he was very generous, in many aspects:
“when he was only 2 years old, he and his mother were traveling through a large city. when they came to a site that Asher would never forget. it was a whole block of buildings devoted to people who do not have a home. Julia, his mom, can still remember vividly, how it touched his heart. even though he was only 2 years old at the time, this child, who had the sensitive heart of a true artist, would develop a lifelong passion for helping homeless people [...] truly the heart of an artist.”

when he went back to school, he was especially interested in philosophy, economics, political science:
“Asher was usually the last one out of the library at night, devoting all his time to his college studies, and to thoughtful consideration of how to reconcile the apparent paradox of free enterprise and social justice. how do you balance individual freedom and private ownership with a need to reach out to the poor and the homeless”

“Asher had been quietly fighting that battle all along. he had been clean for an entire year. no one can know how many times he may have felt the call to return to drugs, but said no. maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand times, maybe a thousand times in a day only the Lord knows the depth of the battle that took place within Asher’s soul”

in his backpack…
“what do you think was in there? [...] in Asher’s backpack was a 2-year appointment calendar that his step-father had given him, there was a volume about Nietzsche, the famous philosopher, there was a magazine called the Economist, a leading intellectuall mag read around the world by people who are serious about intellectual inquiry, and finally, [a religious book on the principles of philosophy]. Now, Asher had already graduated, he wasn’t studying for classes. he wasn’t going to grad school so he wasn’t prepping for the next year. This was Asher. This was Asher, on a noble quest for the truth.”

“the musician who knew exactly what music to choose to match a person’s mood lives on”

“the seeker who cared more about hearing the truth than winning an argument lives on”

“the compassionate soul who reached out to everyone, including the homeless, lives on”

“some said Asher was never quite at home in this world, with its fast-pace, shallow friendship, and quick answers”

bless that Reverend’s soul, he did a great job commemorating Asher’s beautiful life!