Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 113 of 288 · 20 per page

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  258The History of Christianity II õPaul VI named him archbishop of Kraków in 1964, and named him a cardinal three years later. When Wojtyla was elected as pope himself in 1978 and became John Paul II, it’s fair to say that on matters of church doctrine, Wojtyla was known as a conservative. But he became a freedom fighter. õAt the end of his four-hour installation Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the Polish pope held up his cross and told the crowd, “Be not afraid!” Those three words summed up John Paul II’s message not just to Catholics, but to all people struggling under communist regimes. He was a stubborn advocate for human rights, preaching about it in his sermons. õDissidents in Eastern Europe and secular Westerners came to see him as a man of principle who challenged the moral legitimacy of totalitarian regimes wherever he found them, not just the head of a big church who was looking out only for the privileges of his own f lock. õJohn Paul II’s first pilgrimage back to Poland was, from the point of view of the communists, a public relations disaster. As he stepped out onto the tarmac at the military airport near Warsaw, he dropped to his knees and kissed the ground. About 2 million people were screaming and cheering as a convertible drove him into the city. At Victory Square, 250,000 people were waiting for him to celebrate Mass. õAfter the Mass he spoke for about 15 minutes. He did not explicitly denounce communism, but he stressed the role of Christianity in Polish history and identity. He linked it to a period of suffering and oppression: World War II, during which 6 million Poles—about 1 in 5— died, according to some estimates. õHe told the crowd that his celebration of the Eucharist that day embraced “the history of the motherland shaped for a thousand years by the succession of generations.” It was almost as if he was calling the Poles to have faith that this time of oppression, too, would not last forever.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  While I know nothing of my dad’s life before me, thanks to my mom and just from the time I have been able to spend with him, I do have a sense of who he is as a person. He’s very Swiss, clean and particular and precise. He’s the only person I know who checks into a hotel room and leaves it cleaner than when he arrived. He doesn’t like anyone waiting on him. No servants, no housekeepers. He cleans up after himself. He likes his space. He lives in his own world and does his own everything. I know that he never married. He used to say that most people marry because they want to control another person, and he never wanted to be controlled. I know that he loves traveling, loves entertaining, having people over. But at the same time his privacy is everything to him. Wherever he lives he’s never listed in the phone book. I’m sure my parents would have been caught in their time together if he hadn’t been as private as he is. My mom was wild and impulsive. My father was reserved and rational. She was fire, he was ice. They were opposites that attracted, and I am a mix of them both. One thing I do know about my dad is that he hates racism and homogeneity more than anything, and not because of any feelings of self-righteousness or moral superiority. He just never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. “Africa is full of black people,” he would say. “So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black people so much, why did you move into their house?” To him it was insane. Because racism never made sense to my father, he never subscribed to any of the rules of apartheid. In the early eighties, before I was born, he opened one of the first integrated restaurants in Johannesburg, a steakhouse. He applied for a special license that allowed businesses to serve both black and white patrons. These licenses existed because hotels and restaurants needed them to serve black travelers and diplomats from other countries, who in theory weren’t subject to the same restrictions as black South Africans; black South Africans with money in turn exploited that loophole to frequent those hotels and restaurants. My dad’s restaurant was an instant, booming success. Black people came because there were few upscale establishments where they could eat, and they wanted to come and sit in a nice restaurant and see what that was like. White people came because they wanted to see what it was like to sit with black people. The white people would sit and watch the black people eat, and the black people would sit and eat and watch the white people watching them eat. The curiosity of being together overwhelmed the animosity keeping people apart. The place had a great vibe.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: In Holy Scripture the air is sometimes called the heavens—for instance, “The birds of the heavens [Douay: ‘air’] and the fishes of the sea.” Reply to Objection 2: The angels of heaven, by reason of their very office, come down to us, being “sent to minister.” But the stars of heaven do not change their position. Wherefore there is no comparison. Reply to Objection 3: As the star did not follow the course of the heavenly stars, so neither did it follow the course of the comets, which neither appear during the daytime nor vary their customary course. Nevertheless in its signification it has something in common with the comets. Because the heavenly kingdom of Christ “shall break in pieces, and shall consume all the kingdoms” of the earth, “and itself shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:44). Whether it was becoming that the Magi should come to adore Christ and pay homage to Him?Objection 1: It would seem that it was unbecoming that the Magi should come to adore Christ and pay homage to Him. For reverence is due to a king from his subjects. But the Magi did not belong to the kingdom of the Jews. Therefore, since they knew by seeing the star that He that was born was the “King of the Jews,” it seems unbecoming that they should come to adore Him. Objection 2: Further, it seems absurd during the reign of one king to proclaim a stranger. But in Judea Herod was reigning. Therefore it was foolish of the Magi to proclaim the birth of a king. Objection 3: Further, a heavenly sign is more certain than a human sign. But the Magi had come to Judea from the east, under the guidance of a heavenly sign. Therefore it was foolish of them to seek human guidance besides that of the star, saying: “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” Objection 4: Further, the offering of gifts and the homage of adoration are not due save to kings already reigning. But the Magi did not find Christ resplendent with kingly grandeur. Therefore it was unbecoming for them to offer Him gifts and homage. On the contrary, It is written (Is. 60:3): “[The Gentiles] shall walk in the light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.” But those who walk in the Divine light do not err. Therefore the Magi were right in offering homage to Christ. I answer that, As stated above (A[3], ad 1), the Magi are the “first-fruits of the Gentiles” that believed in Christ; because their faith was a presage of the faith and devotion of the nations who were to come to Christ from afar. And therefore, as the devotion and faith of the nations is without any error through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so also we must believe that the Magi, inspired by the Holy Ghost, did wisely in paying homage to Christ.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  They let me sleep over weekends on their soft old couch. Jacqueline cooked eggs at 4:00 A.M. while Al taught me. It was always the same lesson: toughen up. Al never said exactly what was coming, It was never spelled out. But I got the feeling it was awful. I knew she was worried about my surviving it. I wondered if I was ready. Al’s message was: Youre not! That was not encouraging, But I knew it was the urgency Al felt to prepare me for such a difficult life that gave her lessons a sharp edge. She never meant to cut me. She nurtured my butch strength the best way she knew how. And, she reminded me frequently, no one had ever done that when she was a baby butch, and she had survived. That was strangely reassuring, I had Butch Al for a mentor. Aland Jackie groomed me. Literally. Jacqueline gave me haircuts in their kitchen. They took me to get my first sports coat and tie at the secondhand stores. Al combed the racks, pulling out sports coats, one after another. I tried on each one. Jackie would tilt her head, then shake it. Finally, Jackie smoothed my lapels and nodded in approval. Al gave a low whistle of appreciation. I had died and gone to butch heaven! Then came the tie. Al picked it out for me. A narrow black silk tie. “You can’t go wrong with a black tie,’ she informed me solemnly. And, of course, she was right. It was fun alright. But the issue of sex was pressing on me from within and without, and Al knew it. One night at the kitchen table Al pulled out Stone Butch Blues 27 a catdboard box and handed it over to me to open. Inside was a rubber dildo. I was shocked. “You know what that is?” she asked me. “Sure,” I said. “You know what to do with it?” “Sure,” I lied. Jacqueline rattled the dishes. “Al, for Christsakes. Give the kid a break, will your” “A butch has gotta know these things,” Al insisted. Jackie threw down her dishtowel and left the kitchen in exasperation. This was to be our butch “father to son” talk. Al talked, I listened. “Do you understand?” she pressed. “Sure,” I said, “sure.” Al was satisfied she had imparted enough information by the time Jackie returned to the kitchen. “One mote thing, kid,” Al added, “don’t be like those bulldaggers who put this on and strut their stuff. Use a little decorum, you know what I mean?” “Sure,” I said. I didn’t. Al left the room to take a shower before bed. Jacqueline dried the dishes long enough that the blush drained from my face and my temples stopped pounding. She sat down on a kitchen chair next to 28 Leslie Feinberg me. “Did you understand what Al was telling you, honey?” “Sure,” I said, and vowed to never say that again. “Is there anything you don’t understand?”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  206The History of Christianity II õDarwin’s father paid his way. He was a wealthy doctor who first wanted his son to be a doctor too, and then a priest, and now was close to giving up up hope that Charles would amount to anything. õBefore the Beagle voyage, Darwin dabbled in divinity at Cambridge. As a divinity student, he studied and admired the Anglican bishop William Paley’s Natural Theology, published in 1802. The book was required reading for any would-be minister in those days, and even if Darwin didn’t much go in for church or have a deep passion for theology, he loved this book. õThis is a bit of a surprise for people used to thinking of Darwin as the godfather of atheistic evolution. But Darwin himself did not think about his work in that way. Even at the end of his life, he was sincerely torn about the ramifications of his discoveries for religious belief. õPaley’s book is a methodical examination of the natural world for proof that an intelligent designer must lie behind the miraculous complexities of, for example, the air bladder of a fish. Animals’ adaptations are suited to their environments. Darwin appreciated Paley’s careful examination of nature, and he was fascinated by this idea of species adaptation. SCIENCE AND NATURAL THEOLOGY õDarwin returned from the Beagle’s voyage in the fall of 1836, and thanks to a nice allowance from his dad, he could afford to live in London and work on his book. Even though he did not have a formal university appointment, he was embedded in the growing intellectual network of professional scientists working throughout Britain and abroad. õTo be clear about Darwin’s key idea: On the Origin of Species put forward the theory of natural selection. This is the idea that in each generation of a plant or animal species, chance variants make one

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  We started getting booked for gigs in other townships, other hoods. Thanks to my computer and modem I was getting exclusive tracks few people had access to, but that created a problem for me. Sometimes I’d play the new music at parties and people would stand around going, “What is this? How do you dance to it?” For example, if a DJ plays a song like “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)”—yes, it’s a catchy song, but what is a whip? What is a nae nae? For that song to be popular you have to know how to do the whip and the nae nae; new music works at parties only if people know how to dance to it. Bongani decided we needed a dance crew to show people the steps to the songs we were playing. Because we spent our days doing nothing but listening to CDs and coming up with dance moves, our crew from the corner already knew all the songs, so they became our dancers. And hands down the best, most beautiful, most graceful dancer in the crew was Bongani’s neighbor, Hitler. Hitler was a great friend of mine, and good Lord could that guy dance. He was mesmerizing to watch. He had a looseness and a fluidity that defied physics—imagine a jellyfish if it could walk on land. Incredibly handsome, too, tall and lithe and muscular, with beautiful, smooth skin, big teeth, and a great smile, always laughing. And all he did was dance. He’d be up in the morning, blasting house music or hip- hop, practicing moves the whole day. In the hood, everybody knows who the best dancer in the crew is. He’s like your status symbol. When you’re poor you don’t have cars or nice clothes, but the best dancer gets girls, so that’s the guy you want to roll with. Hitler was our guy. There were parties with dance competitions. Kids from every neighborhood would come and bring their best dancers. We’d always bring Hitler, and he almost always won. When Bongani and I put together a routine for our dance crew, there was no question who was going to be the star attraction. We built the whole set around Hitler. I’d warm the crowd up with a few songs, then the dancers would come out and do a couple of numbers. Once they’d gotten the party started, they’d fan out to form a semicircle around the stage with a gap in the back for Hitler to enter. I’d crank up Redman’s “Let’s Get Dirty” and start whipping the crowd up even more. “Are you ready?! I can’t hear you! Let me hear you make some noise!” People would start screaming, and Hitler would jump into the middle of the semicircle and the crowd would lose it. Hitler would do his thing while the guys circled around him, shouting him on. “Go Hit-ler!

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: As Chrysostom says on Mat. 14:19, “He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and, looking up to heaven, He blessed and brake: It was to be believed of Him, both that He is of the Father and that He is equal to Him . . . Therefore that He might prove both, He works miracles now with authority, now with prayer . . . in the lesser things, indeed, He looks up to heaven”—for instance, in multiplying the loaves—“but in the greater, which belong to God alone, He acts with authority; for example, when He forgave sins and raised the dead.” When it is said that in raising Lazarus He lifted up His eyes (Jn. 11:41), this was not because He needed to pray, but because He wished to teach us how to pray. Wherefore He said: “Because of the people who stand about have I said it: that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” Reply to Objection 3: Christ cast out demons otherwise than they are cast out by the power of demons. For demons are cast out from bodies by the power of higher demons in such a way that they retain their power over the soul: since the devil does not work against his own kingdom. On the other hand, Christ cast out demons, not only from the body, but still more from the soul. For this reason our Lord rebuked the blasphemy of the Jews, who said that He cast out demons by the power of the demons: first, by saying that Satan is not divided against himself; secondly, by quoting the instance of others who cast out demons by the Spirit of God; thirdly, because He could not have cast out a demon unless He had overcome Him by Divine power; fourthly, because there was nothing in common between His works and their effects and those of Satan; since Satan’s purpose was to “scatter” those whom Christ “gathered” together [*Cf. Mat. 12:24–30; Mk. 3:22; Lk. 11:15–32]. Whether Christ began to work miracles when He changed water into wine at the marriage feast?Objection 1: It would seem that Christ did not begin to work miracles when He changed water into wine at the marriage feast. For we read in the book De Infantia Salvatoris that Christ worked many miracles in His childhood. But the miracle of changing water into wine at the marriage feast took place in the thirtieth or thirty-first year of His age. Therefore it seems that it was not then that He began to work miracles. Objection 2: Further, Christ worked miracles by Divine power. Now He was possessed of Divine power from the first moment of His conception; for from that instant He was both God and man. Therefore it seems that He worked miracles from the very first.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. (non occ.) Great and noble leaders provoke the mighty in arms to deeds of valour, not only by promising them the honours of victory, but by declaring that suffering is in itself glorious. Such we see is the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. For He had foretold to His disciples, that He must needs suffer the accusations of the Jews, be slain, and rise again on the third day. Lest then they should think that Christ indeed was to suffer persecution for the life of the world, but that they might lead a soft life, He shews them that they must needs pass through similar struggles, if they desired to obtain His glory. Hence it is said, And he said unto all. BEDE. He rightly addressed Himself to all, since He treats of the higher things (which relate to the belief in His birth and passion) apart with His disciples. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. 55. in Matt.) Now the Saviour of His great mercy and lovingkindness will have no one serve Him unwillingly and from constraint, but those only who come of their own accord, and are grateful for being allowed to serve Him. And so not by compelling men and putting a yoke upon them, but by persuasion and kindness, He draws unto Him every where those who are willing, saying, If any man will, &c. BASIL. (in Cons. Mon. cap. 4.) But He has left His own life for an example of blameless conversation to those who are willing to obey Him; as He says, Come after me, meaning thereby not a following of His body, for that would be impossible to all, since our Lord is in heaven, but a due imitation of His life according to their capacities. BEDE. Now unless a man renounces himself, he comes not near to Him, who is above him; it is said therefore, Let him deny himself. BASIL. (in reg. fus. int. 6.) A denial of one’s self is indeed a total forgetfulness of things past, and a forsaking of his own will and affection. ORIGEN. (in Matt. tom. 12.) A man also denies himself when by a sufficient alteration of manners or a good conversation he changes a life of habitual wickedness. He who has long lived in lasciviousness, abandons his lustful self when he becomes chaste, and in like manner a forsaking of any crimes is a denial of one’s self. BASIL. (ubi sup.) Now a desire of suffering death for Christ and a mortification of one’s members which are upon the earth, and a manful resolution to undergo any danger for Christ, and an indifference towards the present life, this it is to take up one’s cross. Hence it is added, And let him take up his cross daily. THEOPHYLACT. By the cross, He speaks of an ignominious death, meaning, that if any one will follow Christ, he must not for his own sake flee from even an ignominious death.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  293Lecture 30—The Gospel and Global Civil Rights MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. õ African Americans have been protesting white supremacy almost as long as they have been on the North American continent, but this long fight began to pick up new momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. In the United States, activists began to protest the segregation-enforcing Jim Crow laws with more vigor. A coalition of black pastors and committed laypeople turned theology into action. õ The activist Martin Luther King Jr. towers over his colleagues in fame, but in many respects he was very ordinary. He represents a character that we encounter throughout the civil rights movement: the clergyman-activist. His father and grandfather were Baptist preachers like him. He came from a long tradition of African American pastors whose job included negotiating their community’s relationship with white institutions and power. 294 The History of Christianity II õ King was also a lifelong student of the broad tradition of liberation theology—black and white, Christian and non-Christian. Liberation theology sees the church as an agent for social change here and now— for economic and political liberation in this world, not just for spiritual liberation in the next. õ King went to seminary, then earned a Ph.D. in theology from Boston University in 1955. While he was in school, he read the work of Social Gospel thinkers like Walter Rauschenbusch, and he was heavily influenced by Rauschenbusch’s message that sin is not just personal; it’s institutional and cultural. Moreover, it’s a Christian’s job to work to reshape depraved features of their community, to help bring about the Kingdom of God. õ King also read Jewish ethics and the work of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian activist who opposed British rule there. He was particularly persuaded by Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, It was fitting for the mystery of the Incarnation to be announced to the Mother of God by an angel, for three reasons. First, that in this also might be maintained the order established by God, by which Divine things are brought to men by means of the angels. Wherefore Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. iv) that “the angels were the first to be taught the Divine mystery of the loving kindness of Jesus: afterwards the grace of knowledge was imparted to us through them. Thus, then, the most god-like Gabriel made known to Zachary that a prophet son would be born to him; and, to Mary, how the Divine mystery of the ineffable conception of God would be realized in her.” Secondly, this was becoming to the restoration of human nature which was to be effected by Christ. Wherefore Bede says in a homily (in Annunt.): “It was an apt beginning of man’s restoration that an angel should be sent by God to the Virgin who was to be hallowed by the Divine Birth: since the first cause of man’s ruin was through the serpent being sent by the devil to cajole the woman by the spirit of pride.” Thirdly, because this was becoming to the virginity of the Mother of God. Wherefore Jerome says in a sermon on the Assumption [*Ascribed to St. Jerome but not his work]: “It is well that an angel be sent to the Virgin; because virginity is ever akin to the angelic nature. Surely to live in the flesh and not according to the flesh is not an earthly but a heavenly life.” Reply to Objection 1: The Mother of God was above the angels as regards the dignity to which she was chosen by God. But as regards the present state of life, she was beneath the angels. For even Christ Himself, by reason of His passible life, “was made a little lower than the angels,” according to Heb. 2:9. But because Christ was both wayfarer and comprehensor, He did not need to be instructed by angels, as regards knowledge of Divine things. The Mother of God, however, was not yet in the state of comprehension: and therefore she had to be instructed by angels concerning the Divine Conception. Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says in a sermon on the Assumption (De Assump. B.V.M. [*Work of another author: among the works of St. Augustine]) a true estimation of the Blessed Virgin excludes her from certain general rules. For “neither did she ‘multiply her conceptions’ nor was she ‘under man’s, i.e. her husband’s,’ power (Gn. 3:16), who in her spotless womb conceived Christ of the Holy Ghost.” Therefore it was fitting that she should be informed of the mystery of the Incarnation by means not of a man, but of an angel. For this reason it was made known to her before Joseph: since the message was brought to her before she conceived, but to Joseph after she had conceived.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  JEROME. I am at a loss what first to admire in this passage; whether the foreknowledge, or the mighty power of the Saviour. His foreknowledge, in that He knew that a fish had a stater in its mouth, and that that fish should be the first taken; His mighty power, if the stater were created in the fish’s mouth at His word, and if by His command that which was to happen was ordered. Christ then, for His eminent love, endured the cross, and paid tribute; how wretched we who are called by the name of Christ, though we do nothing worthy of so great dignity, yet in respect of His majesty, pay no tribute, but are exempt from tax as the King’s sons. But even in its literal import it edifies the hearer to learn, that so great was the Lord’s poverty, that He had not whence to pay the tribute for Himself and His Apostle. Should any object that Judas bore money in a bag, we shall answer, Jesus held it a fraud to divert that which was the poor’s to His own use, and left us an example therein. CHRYSOSTOM. Or He does not direct it to be paid out of that they had at hand, that He might shew that He was Lord also of the sea and the fish. GLOSS. (non occ.) Or because Jesus had not any image of Cæsar, (for the prince of this world had nothing in Him,) therefore He furnished an image of Cæsar, not out of their own stock, but out of the sea. But He takes not the stater into His own possession, that there should never be found an image of Cæsar upon the Image of the invisible God. CHRYSOSTOM. Observe also the wisdom of Christ; He neither refuses the tribute, nor merely commands that it be paid, but first proves that He is of right exempt, and then bids to give the money; the money was paid to avoid offence to the collectors; the vindication of His exemption was to avoid the offence to the disciples. Indeed in another place He disregards the offence of the Pharisees, in disputing of meats; teaching us herein to know the seasons in which we must attend to, and those in which we must slight the thoughts of, those who are like to be scandalized. GREGORY. (in Ezech. 7. 4.) For we must cast about how, as far as we may without sin, to avoid giving scandal to our neighbours. But if offence is taken from truth, it is better that offence should come, though truth be forsaken. CHRYSOSTOM. As you wonder at Christ’s power, so admire Peter’s faith, who was obedient in no easy matter. In reward of his faith he was joined with his Lord in the payment. An abundant honour! Thou shall find a stater, that take and give unto them for thee and for me.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  97Lecture 10—Eastern Orthodoxy: From Byzantium to Russia SAINTS õ In Russia, the Orthodox Church and the state worked together to recognize local holy men as national saints and fund the building of new churches and monasteries to cement the loyalty of far-flung villages. But sometimes saints developed huge followings on their own, whether the authorities approved or not. õ These saints often lived lives of radical sacrifice. They show how the spirituality of the monastery found its way into ordinary life, especially in the form of strange, charismatic characters known as holy fools. õ A holy fool was a person who rejected the comforts and standards of ordinary society in an outrageous way, perhaps by wandering around without clothes in the dead of winter, or standing in a town square and mocking aristocrats as they passed by. The point was to compel bystanders to question their own assumptions and priorities, and to reflect on the ways that Christ himself was a holy fool in 1st-century Palestine. õ One notable holy fool is Xenia of St. Petersburg, who was born in the 18th century to a wealthy family. She married a colonel in the Russian army, but he died suddenly and left her a widow when she was only 26. Most Russian women of her social rank would have immediately remarried and carried on with a life of frequent teas and balls and evenings at the theater. õ Instead, Xenia started selling off her husband’s estate and all her belongings to raise money to give to the poor. She saved his military uniform and developed the odd habit of putting it on and wandering the streets of St. Petersburg, living as a homeless person and speaking to anyone who would listen about Christ. Her family was so alarmed they hauled her into a hospital to have her head examined, but the doctors found her mentally sound. 98 The History of Christianity II õ She spent the rest of her life—nearly 50 years—living and preaching on the streets, alternately mocked as a crazy woman and venerated as a fool for Christ. After she died, her grave became a shrine. Pilgrims flocked to her grave to pray for miracles. Xenia was a saint long before the church got around to officially canonizing her in 1988. SUGGESTED READING Gillquist, Becoming Orthodox. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church . Shevzov, Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution . Ware, The Orthodox Church. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER ä What was at stake in Eastern and Western Christians’ debates over theology? Why couldn’t they just agree to disagree? ä How does the Orthodox Christianity we find in creeds and theology books compare to the faith as believers have actually experienced it? ä Despite the interest of some American evangelicals, Orthodox Christianity has won relatively few converts in the West. What might explain this?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, every doctrine that proceeds from God anew is confirmed by some signs: thus the Lord (Ex. 4) gave Moses the power of working signs; and it is written (Heb. 2:3,4) that our faith “having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him, God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders.” But it is written of John the Baptist (Jn. 10:41) that “John did no sign.” Therefore it seems that the baptism wherewith he baptized was not from God. Objection 3: Further, those sacraments which are instituted by God are contained in certain precepts of Holy Scripture. But there is no precept of Holy Writ commanding the baptism of John. Therefore it seems that it was not from God. On the contrary, It is written (Jn. 1:33): “He who sent me to baptize with water said to me: ‘He upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit,’” etc. I answer that, Two things may be considered in the baptism of John—namely, the rite of baptism and the effect of baptism. The rite of baptism was not from men, but from God, who by an interior revelation of the Holy Ghost sent John to baptize. But the effect of that baptism was from man, because it effected nothing that man could not accomplish. Wherefore it was not from God alone, except in as far as God works in man. Reply to Objection 1: By the baptism of the New Law men are baptized inwardly by the Holy Ghost, and this is accomplished by God alone. But by the baptism of John the body alone was cleansed by the water. Wherefore it is written (Mat. 3:11): “I baptize you in water; but . . . He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost.” For this reason the baptism of John was named after him, because it effected nothing that he did not accomplish. But the baptism of the New Law is not named after the minister thereof, because he does not accomplish its principal effect, which is the inward cleansing. Reply to Objection 2: The whole teaching and work of John was ordered unto Christ, who, by many miracles confirmed both His own teaching and that of John. But if John had worked signs, men would have paid equal attention to John and to Christ. Wherefore, in order that men might pay greater attention to Christ, it was not given to John to work a sign. Yet when the Jews asked him why he baptized, he confirmed his office by the authority of Scripture, saying: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” etc. as related, Jn. 1:23 (cf. Is. 40:3). Moreover, the very austerity of his life was a commendation of his office, because, as Chrysostom says, commenting on Matthew (Hom. x in Matth.), “it was wonderful to witness such endurance in a human body.”

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  That’s how it was with a white man and a black woman. If a black man was caught having sex with a white woman, he’d be lucky if he wasn’t charged with rape. If you ask my mother whether she ever considered the ramifications of having a mixed child under apartheid, she will say no. She wanted to do something, figured out a way to do it, and then she did it. She had a level of fearlessness that you have to possess to take on something like she did. If you stop to consider the ramifications, you’ll never do anything. Still, it was a crazy, reckless thing to do. A million things had to go right for us to slip through the cracks the way we did for as long as we did. — Under apartheid, if you were a black man you worked on a farm or in a factory or in a mine. If you were a black woman, you worked in a factory or as a maid. Those were pretty much your only options. My mother didn’t want to work in a factory. She was a horrible cook and never would have stood for some white lady telling her what to do all day. So, true to her nature, she found an option that was not among the ones presented to her: She took a secretarial course, a typing class. At the time, a black woman learning how to type was like a blind person learning how to drive. It’s an admirable effort, but you’re unlikely to ever be called upon to execute the task. By law, white-collar jobs and skilled-labor jobs were reserved for whites. Black people didn’t work in offices. My mom, however, was a rebel, and, fortunately for her, her rebellion came along at the right moment. In the early 1980s, the South African government began making minor reforms in an attempt to quell international protest over the atrocities and human rights abuses of apartheid. Among those reforms was the token hiring of black workers in low-level white-collar jobs. Like typists. Through an employment agency she got a job as a secretary at ICI, a multinational pharmaceutical company in Braamfontein, a suburb of Johannesburg. When my mom started working, she still lived with my grandmother in Soweto, the township where the government had relocated my family decades before. But my mother was unhappy at home, and when she was twenty-two she ran away to live in downtown Johannesburg.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  Pink-coated, he rode to hounds in England or Italy; fur-coated, he attempted to motor from St. Petersburg to Pau; wearing an opera cloak, he almost lost his life in an airplane crash on a beach near Bayonne. (When I asked him how did the pilot of the smashed Voisin take it, Uncle Ruka thought for a moment and then replied with complete assurance: “Il sanglotait assis sur un rocher.”) He sang barcaroles and modish lyrics (“Ils se regardent tous deux, en se mangeant des yeux …” “Elle est morte en Février, pauvre Colinette! …” “Le soleil rayonnait encore, j’ai voulu revoir les grands bois.…” and dozens of others). He wrote music himself, of the sweet, rippling sort, and French verse, curiously scannable as English or Russian iambics, and marked by a princely disregard for the comforts of the mute e’s. He was extremely good at poker. Because he stammered and had difficulty in pronouncing labials, he changed his coachman’s name from Pyotr to Lev; and my father (who was always a little sharp with him) accused him of a slaveowner’s mentality. Apart from this, his speech was a fastidious combination of French, English and Italian, all of which he spoke with vastly more ease than he did his native tongue. When he resorted to Russian, it was invariably to misuse or garble some extremely idiomatic or even folksy expression, as when he would say at table with a sudden sigh (for there was always something amiss—a spell of hay fever, the death of a peacock, a lost borzoi): “Je suis triste et seul comme une bylinka v pole [as lonesome as a ‘grass blade in the field’].” He insisted that he had an incurable heart ailment and that, when the seizures came, he could obtain relief only by lying supine on the floor. Nobody took him seriously, and after he did die of angina pectoris, all alone, in Paris, at the end of 1916, aged forty-five, it was with a quite special pang that one recalled those after-dinner incidents in the drawing room—the unprepared footman entering with the Turkish coffee, my father glancing (with quizzical resignation) at my mother, then (with disapproval) at his brother-in-law spread-eagled in the footman’s path, then (with curiosity) at the funny vibration going on among the coffee things on the tray in the seemingly composed servant’s cotton-gloved hands.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  He wrote prolifically, mainly on political and criminological subjects. He knew à fond the prose and poetry of several countries, knew by heart hundreds of verses (his favorite Russian poets were Pushkin, Tyutchev, and Fet—he published a fine essay on the latter), was an authority on Dickens, and, besides Flaubert, prized highly Stendhal, Balzac and Zola, three detestable mediocrities from my point of view. He used to confess that the creation of a story or poem, any story or poem, was to him as incomprehensible a miracle as the construction of an electric machine. On the other hand, he had no trouble at all in writing on juristic and political matters. He had a correct, albeit rather monotonous style, which today, despite all those old-world metaphors of classical education and grandiloquent clichés of Russian journalism has—at least to my jaded ear—an attractive gray dignity of its own, in extraordinary contrast (as if belonging to some older and poorer relative) to his colorful, quaint, often poetical, and sometimes ribald, everyday utterances. The preserved drafts of some of his proclamations (beginning “Grazhdane!”, meaning “Citoyens!”) and editorials are penned in a copybook-slanted, beautifully sleek, unbelievably regular hand, almost free of corrections, a purity, a certainty, a mind-and-matter cofunction that I find amusing to compare to my own mousy hand and messy drafts, to the massacrous revisions and rewritings, and new revisions, of the very lines in which I am taking two hours now to describe a two-minute run of his flawless handwriting. His drafts were the fair copies of immediate thought. In this manner, he wrote, with phenomenal ease and rapidity (sitting uncomfortably at a child’s desk in the classroom of a mournful palace) the text of the abdication of Grand Duke Mihail (next in line of succession after the Tsar had renounced his and his son’s throne). No wonder he was also an admirable speaker, an “English style” cool orator, who eschewed the meat-chopping gesture and rhetorical bark of the demagogue, and here, too, the ridiculous cacologist I am, when not having a typed sheet before me, has inherited nothing.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Or else, his father was borne down with years, and he thought he was doing an honourable act in proposing to pay the kind offices which were due to him, according to Exodus, Honour thy father and thy mother. (Exod. 20:12.) Hence when calling him to the ministry of the Gospel, our Lord said, Follow me, he sought for a time of respite, which should suffice for the support of his decrepit father, saying, Permit me first to go and bury my father, not that he asked to bury his deceased father, for Christ would not have hindered the wish to do this, but he said, Bury, that is, support in old age even till death. But the Lord said to him, Let the dead bury their dead. For there were other attendants also bound by the same tie of relationship, but as I consider dead, because they had not yet believed Christ. Learn from this, that our duty to God is to be preferred to our love for our parents, to whom we shew reverence, because through them have we been born. But the God of all, when as yet we were not, brought us into being, our parents were made the ministers of our introduction. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Ev. l. ii. c. 23.) Our Lord spoke this to the man to whom He had said, Follow me. But another disciple put himself forward, to whom no one had spoken any thing, saying, I will follow thee, O Lord; but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at home, lest perchance they look for me as they are wont. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Now this promise is worthy of our admiration and full of all praise, but to bid farewell to those who are at home, to get leave from them, shews that he was still somehow divided from the Lord, in that he had not yet resolved, to make this venture with his whole heart. For to wish to consult relations who would not agree to his proposal betokens one somewhat wavering. Wherefore our Lord condemns this, saying, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. He puts his hand to the plough who is ambitious to follow, yet looks back again who seeks an excuse for delay in returning home, and consulting with his friends. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 100.) As if he said to him, The East calls thee, and thou turnest to the West.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 4: As Chrysostom says (Hom. ii in Matth. [*From the supposititious Opus Imperfectum]): “If the Magi had come in search of an earthly King, they would have been disconcerted at finding that they had taken the trouble to come such a long way for nothing. Consequently they would have neither adored nor offered gifts. But since they sought a heavenly King, though they found in Him no signs of royal pre-eminence, yet, content with the testimony of the star alone, they adored: for they saw a man, and they acknowledged a God.” Moreover, they offer gifts in keeping with Christ’s greatness: “gold, as to the great King; they offer up incense as to God, because it is used in the Divine Sacrifice; and myrrh, which is used in embalming the bodies of the dead, is offered as to Him who is to die for the salvation of all” (Gregory, Hom. x in Evang.). And hereby, as Gregory says (Hom. x in Evang.), we are taught to offer gold, “which signifies wisdom, to the new-born King, by the luster of our wisdom in His sight.” We offer God incense, “which signifies fervor in prayer, if our constant prayers mount up to God with an odor of sweetness”; and we offer myrrh, “which signifies mortification of the flesh, if we mortify the ill-deeds of the flesh by refraining from them.” OF CHRIST’S CIRCUMCISION, AND OF THE OTHER LEGAL OBSERVANCES ACCOMPLISHED IN REGARD TO THE CHILD CHRIST (FOUR ARTICLES)We must now consider Christ’s circumcision. And since the circumcision is a kind of profession of observing the Law, according to Gal. 5:3: “I testify . . . to every man circumcising himself that he is a debtor to do the whole Law,” we shall have at the same time to inquire about the other legal observances accomplished in regard to the Child Christ. Therefore there are four points of inquiry: (1) His circumcision; (2) The imposition of His name; (3) His presentation; (4) His Mother’s purification. Whether Christ should have been circumcised?Objection 1: It would seem that Christ should not have been circumcised. For on the advent of the reality, the figure ceases. But circumcision was prescribed to Abraham as a sign of the covenant concerning his posterity, as may be seen from Gn. 17. Now this covenant was fulfilled in Christ’s birth. Therefore circumcision should have ceased at once. Objection 2: Further, “every action of Christ is a lesson to us” [*Innoc. III, Serm. xxii de Temp.]; wherefore it is written (Jn. 3:15): “I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.” But we ought not to be circumcised; according to Gal. 5:2: “If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.” Therefore it seems that neither should Christ have been circumcised.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I was real proud that in all those years I never hit another butch woman. See, I loved them too, and I understood their pain and their shame because I was so much like them. I loved the lines etched in their faces and hands and the curves of their work- weary shoulders. Sometimes I looked in the mirror and wondered what I would look like when I was their age. Now I now! In their own way, they loved me too. They protected me because they knew I wasnt a “Saturday-night butch.” The weekend butches were scared of me because I was a stone he-she. Tf only they had known how powerless I really felt inside! But the older butches, they knew the whole road that lay ahead of me and they wished I didn’t have to go down it because it hurt so much. When I came into the bar in drag, kind of hunched over, they told me, “Be proud of what you are,” and then they adjusted my tie sort of likeyou did. I was like them; they knew I didnt have a choice. So I never fought them with my fists. We clapped each other on the back in the bars and watched each other’s backs at the factory. But then there were the times our real enemies came in the front door: drunken gangs of sailors, Klan-type thugs, sociopaths and cops. You abvays knew when they walked in because someone thought to pull the plug on the jukebox. No matter how many times it happened, we all still went “Aw ...” when the music stopped and then realized it was time to get down to business. When the bigots came in, it was time to fight, and fight we did. Fought hard—femme and butch, women and men together. Tf the music stopped and it was the cops at the door, someone plugged the music back in and we switched dance partners. Us in our suits and ties paired off with our drag queen sisters in their dresses and pumps. Hard to remember that it was illegal then for tyo women or hyo men to sway to music together. When the music ended, the butches bowed, our femme partners curtsied, and we returned to our seats, our lovers, and our drinks to await our fates. Thats when I remember your hand on my belt, up under my suit jacket. Thats where your hand stayed the whole time the cops were there. “Take it easy, honey. Stay with me baby, cool off,” youd be cooing in my ear like a special lover’s song sung to warriors who need to pick and choose their battles in order to SUTVIVE. We learned fast that the cops alvays pulled the police van right up to the bar door and left snarling dogs inside so we couldnt get out. We were trapped, alright.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  Jianhua was assigned to them as a reporter. It was an exciting job. As they encountered the enemy in town, battles with slingshots erupted. Then the Corps captured one of the Rebel guerrillas, named Heping. A few days later, he was discovered in a hospital, dead. The Corps had taken him for a ride in a jeep in the desert, with a sock in his mouth, and he had suffocated along the way. Now even Mengzhe had had enough and vowed revenge for this horrible deed. Jianhua could only agree with him. As the skirmishes spread throughout the town, citizens fled and entire buildings were abandoned, and looters scoured them for goods. The Red Rebels were soon on the offensive. Working with local craftsmen, they manufactured the highest-quality swords and spears. Casualties mounted. Finally the Rebels encircled the Corps’s stronghold in town and prepared for a final offensive. The Corps fled, leaving behind a small band of student soldiers in the building. The Rebels demanded their surrender, and suddenly, from a third-floor window, there was the young student Yulan screaming out, “I’d rather die than surrender to you!” With the Corps’s bright red flag in her hand, she shouted, “Long live Chairman Mao!” and jumped. Jianhua found her lifeless body wrapped up in the flag on the ground. Her devotion to the cause astounded and impressed him. Now in control, the Red Rebels established their headquarters at the school and prepared their defenses for a counteroffensive from the Corps. They built a makeshift munitions factory on campus. Some students had learned how to make grenades and various powerful explosive devices. An inadvertent explosion killed several of them, but the work went on. Zongwei, the artist, had had enough; somehow the noble origins of the Red Rebels had been lost, and he feared the expanding violence; he fled Yizhen for good. Jianhua lost respect for his friend. How could Zongwei forget those who had been injured or died for their cause? To give up now would be to say it was all in vain. He would not be a coward like his friend. Besides, the East-Is-Red Corps was downright evil and was capable of doing anything to take power. They had betrayed the revolution. As life at the school settled down and the Red Rebels built up their defenses, Jianhua visited his family, whom he had not seen for a while. When he finally returned one night to school, however, he could not believe his eyes: his Red Rebel comrades were nowhere in sight; their flag was no longer flying above the school. Everywhere there were armed soldiers.