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.

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• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  This was much later: before the unlucky complex of misfortunes had engulfed us we did not know each other well enough to talk as freely as this. I also remember him saying, once — this was at the summer villa near Bourg El Arab: ‘It will puzzle you when I tell you that I thought Justine great, in a sort of way. There are forms of greatness, you know, which when not applied in art or religion make havoc of ordinary life. Her gift was misapplied in being directed towards love. Certainly she was bad in many ways, but they were all small ways. Nor can I say that she harmed nobody. But those she harmed most she made fruitful. She expelled people from their old selves. It was bound to hurt, and many mistook the nature of the pain she inflicted. Not I.’ And smiling his well-known smile, in which sweetness was mixed with an inexpressible bitterness, he repeated softly under his breath the words: ‘Not I.’ * * * * * Capodistria … how does he fit in? He is more of a goblin than a man, you would think. The flat triangular head of the snake with the huge frontal lobes; the hair grows forward in a widow’s peak. A whitish flickering tongue is forever busy keeping his thin lips moist. He is ineffably rich and does not have to lift a finger for himself. He sits all day on the terrace of the Brokers’ Club watching the women pass, with the restless eye of someone endlessly shuffling through an old soiled pack of cards. From time to time there is a flick, like a chameleon’s tongue striking — a signal almost invisible to the inattentive. Then a figure slips from the terrace to trail the woman he had indicated. Sometimes his agents will quite openly stop and importune women on the street in his name, mentioning a sum of money. No one is offended by the mention of money in our city. Some girls simply laugh. Some consent at once. You never see vexation on their features. Virtue with us is never feigned. Nor vice. Both are natural.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  He would be gone before His disciples woke up sometimes. Often nobody could find Him—neither the disciples nor the crowds—because He was wandering the hills or some nearby olive orchard, just praying. On this occasion, when Jesus finished praying, His disciples were waiting for Him. There was something about His prayer life that captivated them. There was a massive difference between Jesus’ private, authentic walk with God and the public, all-for-show prayers that often characterized the religious leaders of the day. I think they wanted the same peace, passion, and power they saw in their Lord, and they realized that His prayer life was the catalyst for all of that. It was the secret sauce, the missing ingredient—and they wanted to know more. When Jesus walked up to the group, one of them blurted out what they were all thinking: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Frequently, when people asked Jesus a question or tried to get an easy rule to follow, He would reply with another question or with a parable. He wasn’t being difficult, but rather requiring them to engage with the topic and explore it more in depth—not settle for superficial answers. Jesus could have responded that way. He could have said, “Just do it. Learn as you go,” or, “Study the Scriptures and figure it out for yourself.” But He didn’t. He didn’t roll His eyes or dodge their question. I think their hunger to pray thrilled His heart. So Jesus taught them to pray. Think about that. Jesus, the perfect, divine teacher, put whatever plans He had on hold for that day just so He could teach His crew how to do what He did best: pray. He gave them a simple, specific prayer. We call it the Lord’s Prayer, but it was more than an empty formula to recite. It was a sample prayer. A template to follow. A starter pack for prayer newbies, if you will. Why did Jesus take time to teach prayer? Because although prayer is vital to the Christian experience, it’s easy to neglect, and it’s not always intuitive. On a basic level, prayer is not hard. Anyone can talk to God. That’s why there are no atheists in foxholes, as the saying goes. But the nuances and intricacies of prayer take time to understand. We often have misconceptions that hinder our prayer. We have perspectives of God that are not healthy. We expect the wrong things from prayer or try to use it the wrong way. When God spoke to me that morning by the lake, I started thinking back over my own prayer journey. I realized that I had specific moments when I learned to pray—sometimes on my own, and sometimes through the teaching and example of leaders in the faith. I realized that prayer is a learned skill.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  A. Patrick worked under almost impossible conditions. 1. He had learned to speak the Irish language at least passably while a slave. 2. He had a strong sense of vocation. B. Patrick had to be “creative” in dealing with the numerous kings in Ireland. 1. On occasion, Patrick had to bribe local rulers so that he could preach. 2. Even so, Patrick was subject to being detained and even imprisoned. 3. On at least one occasion, he faced the wrath of a local king when the king’s daughter decided to dedicate her life to Christ in virginity. C. Patrick baptized numerous Irish people and ordained many priests. D. Patrick’s letter to the soldiers of Coroticus reminds us of other dangers to the bishop’s flock. 1. A raid by Christian slavers took place one day after Patrick had baptized a group of Irish. 2. The letter is an excommunication of the men who carried out this raid. E. Patrick composed his Confession to respond to detractors of his mission back in England; an old accusation about an unknown evil that Patrick had done as a young man was raised against him. VII. Patrick was motivated by his belief that the end times were near. A. Paul too, the earliest Christian writer, had shaped his ministry in part with the view that the second coming of Christ was imminent. B. Patrick believed he was fulfilling Christ’s call to preach and teach to the ends of the Earth. VIII. Many of the stories people most associate with Patrick today are not recorded in any contemporary or near-contemporary documents. A. One is Patrick teaching about the Trinity using a shamrock. B. A second is his dramatic showdown with the forces of the pagans in Ireland at Tara. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 32 C. Patrick may have visited the islands in Lough Derg, which have been known for their purgatorial pilgrimages since the Middle Ages, but there is no documented connection of Patrick with these islands or with his purgatorial experience there. IX. Although Patrick’s name is associated with the great feast of “Irish- ness,” he was a great Christian because of his life and ministry. A. He dedicated his life to work among a people where he had once been a slave. B. He faithfully carried out a ministry for many years with little help from, or connection with, the larger church. C. Although he was not the first or the only missionary in Ireland, his cult developed, making him the great saint of Ireland. Essential Reading: St. Patrick, “Confession” and “Letter to Coroticus,” in Thomas O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick. Supplementary Reading: Noel O’Donoghue, Aristocracy of Soul: Patrick of Ireland. Thomas O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  Scope: Although the age of martyrdom ended in the 4th century, there have always been Christians who have died because of their fidelity to their Christian belief and vocation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister who was placed in a concentration camp by the Nazis and died there shortly before the camp’s liberation in 1945. Documents that he wrote in captivity, had smuggled out, and were later published as Letters and Papers from Prison form a moving collection of thoughts about what it means to be a Christian and live in a world with so much evil. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest, sacrificed his life at Auschwitz to save that of a man who was the father of young children. He has been formally canonized by the Catholic Church. The stories of Bonhoeffer and Kolbe give us glimpses of modern people willing to sacrifice everything for the truth as they understand it. Outline I. Although the so-called age of martyrdom ended for Christians in the 4th century with the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, there have been martyrs all over the world and in every age. A. Over the centuries, many men and a few women who tried to bring Christianity to areas where it was not established have been martyred. 1. We find such people in central Europe and Scandinavia as Christianity expanded beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire. 2. Especially beginning in the 16 th century, there have been martyrs in the New World, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. a. The Catholic Church has canonized groups of martyrs in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Uganda. b. A good example in what is now the United States is the Jesuit Isaac Jogues, martyred in upstate New York in 1646. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 90

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Similarly, the pomp and ceremony surrounding such an individual make him more admirable and less like the common herd, increasing both his selfconfidence and the confidence of his subjects. The phenomenon is found not only with individual leaders, but with entire movements.' Some modern-day dictators have been identified as cult leaders, not only due to the adulation required from the general public in their respective countries, but also due to the controlling and corrupt dynamics of their inner circle of top lieutenants and sycophants. Certainly Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot fit into this cult leader/dictator parallel. An authoritarian personality, however, is just one aspect of a cult leader. There are other traits and characteristics to consider. Who Becomes a Cult Leader?Frequently, at gatherings of former cult members, a lively exchange takes place when participants compare their respective groups and leaders. As people begin to describe their special, enlightened, and unique leader-whether a pastor, therapist, political leader, teacher, lover, or swami-those present are often surprised to learn that their once-revered leaders are actually quite similar in temperament and personality. It seems as if these leaders come from a common mold, sometimes light-heartedly called the "Cookie-Cutter Messiah School." In some cases, the similarities and behavioral patterns noted in cult leaders of all stripes appear to be rooted in troubling personality traits commonly associated with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder (or sociopathy). Psychiatrists, medical doctors, clinical psychologists, and oth ers have studied these traits and diagnostic criteria for more than half a century, and their research provides fascinating insights into this type of authoritarian and abusive personality. Usually cult groups originate with a living leader who is believed to be a god or godlike by a cadre of dedicated believers. Along with a dramatic and convincing talent for self-expression, these leaders have an intuitive ability to sense their followers' needs and draw them closer with seductive promises. Gradually the leader inculcates the group with his own private ideology (and sometimes his bizarre inclinations or predilections). Then he creates conditions so that his followers cannot or dare not test his claims. (How can you prove that someone is not the Messiah? ... Or that the world won't end on such-and-such date? ... Or that humans are not possessed by aliens from another dimension?) Through social-psychological influence and control, cult leaders manipulate their followers into accepting a new ideology, and then prevent them from testing or disproving it. It's clear that mature and psychologically healthy individuals can be induced into dependency on a leader; this is all the more true in a group setting. Jerrold Post, a leader in the field of political psychology and personality profiling, writes: The skillful charismatic leader intuitively shapes and induces these states in his followers. Some may be attracted to the charismatic religious cults .... others to the path of terrorism .... and especially in times of societal stress, some may be attracted to the banner of the charismatic political leader....

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Ben nods and we realize that there is a lot for us to understand about these permissible tears, about fathers, sons, and the intermingling of vulnerability and masculinity. Ben tells me about his father, who was born in Iraq and escaped with his family to Israel in the 1950s. Having parents who fled to Israel from Iran and Syria around the same time as Ben’s father, I am familiar with the complexities of that immigration. Israel of the early 1950s was a new country. It was built on the trauma of the Holocaust. At the end of World War II, many Holocaust survivors found homes in Israel, where they joined the Eastern European immigrants who had left their families in Europe and moved there before the war. The immigrants who had moved before the war were Zionists and were considered “real Sabras” (or Tzabarim in Hebrew), named after the prickly pear, which has a thick skin and spikes on the outside but is soft and sweet on the inside. This term started to be used in the 1930s to differentiate the old European Jew from the new Zionist one. The Sabras were thought to be tough, physically active, and shameless, the opposite of the old stereotypical Jews, who were considered soft and passive. The new Jews were not religious and didn’t study Torah; instead they were devoted to working the land, and they learned how to fight, first in the resistance movement and then in the Israeli army. After the Holocaust and mostly as a reaction to it, the Israeli state was founded and became the home for Jews from all over the world. The first wave of immigrants were traumatized survivors who had lost everything in Europe. The next immigration, in the fifties, was from the Middle Eastern countries: Morocco, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia, among others. Over the years, the new country of Israel consistently privileged native-born members over the more recently arrived immigrants. The goal was to create a new culture, and immigrants were encouraged to abandon their original identity and adopt the identity of the Sabra Jew. From a psychological perspective, we can see how this was a way to cope with the massive trauma of persecution. The new Jew, a fighter, represented a transformation from a passive victim into an active victor, from a weak minority into a strong nation. My parents, as well as Ben’s parents, were part of the 1950s wave of Sephardic Jewish immigration. They came from a different culture; they spoke Arabic and were considered uneducated and even primitive. The traumatized white European hegemony discriminated against those immigrants and treated them as an inferior minority group.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Nessim was at odds with the city, but since his enormous fortune brought him daily into touch with the business men of the place they eased their constraint by treating him with a humorous indulgence, a condescension such as one would bestow upon someone who was a little soft in the head. It was perhaps not surprising if you should walk in upon him at the office — that sarcophagus of tubular steel and lighted glass — and find him seated like an orphan at the great desk (covered in bells and pulleys and patent lights) — eating brown bread and butter and reading Vasari as he absently signed letters or vouchers. He looked up at you with that pale almond face, the expression shuttered, withdrawn, almost pleading. And yet somewhere through all this gentleness ran a steel cord, for his staff was perpetually surprised to find out that, inattentive as he appeared to be, there was no detail of the business which he did not know; while hardly a transaction he made did not turn out to be based on a stroke of judgement. He was something of an oracle to his own employees — and yet (they sighed and shrugged their shoulders) he seemed not to care! Not to care about gain, that is what Alexandria recognizes as madness. I knew them by sight for many months before we actually met — as I knew everyone in the city. By sight and no less by repute: for their emphatic, authoritative and quite conventionless way of living had given them a certain notoriety among our provincial city-dwellers. She was reputed to have had many lovers, and Nessim was regarded as a mari complaisant. I had watched them dancing together several times, he slender and with a deep waist like a woman, and long arched beautiful hands; Justine’s lovely head — the deep bevel of that Arabian nose and those translucent eyes, enlarged by belladonna. She gazed about her like a half-trained panther.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  ©2007 The Teaching Company. 47 Lecture Eleven Francis of Assisi Scope: A recent book refers to Francis as the “last Christian,” and he has even been called the “only Christian.” The story of how this son of a rich merchant underwent a radical conversion and chose a life of extreme poverty is the stuff of countless books, at least three movies, and even a comic book. In this lecture, we will not just examine his extraordinary life but try to explain how Francis understood Christ and how that understanding led him to poverty and to his fabled love of animals and his warm embrace of lepers and others who lived on the margins of society in 13 th-century Italy. We will also discuss the stigmatization of Francis, the imprinting of the wounds of Christ on the little poor one from Assisi, and how that provided, for many, proof of his unique likeness to Christ. Outline I. Francis has probably had more superlatives attached to his name than anyone who has ever lived. A. He has been called the “last Christian.” B. A modern Brazilian theologian called him a “model for human liberation.” C. The bestselling work of all time about Francis, a Marvel comic, refers to Francis as “brother of the universe.” D. He is probably the most widely known and venerated non-biblical saint by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox alike. II. Francis had a vision in a crumbling church outside the walls of Assisi that he was being called by God to rebuild the church. A. At first, Francis took this call quite literally, gathering stones to fix up little San Damiano and, later, other churches. B. Eventually, he and others, including Pope Innocent III, understood this call as a rebuilding of the institutional church. C. As Francis’s earliest biographer emphasized, Francis was called to rebuild an old church, not to establish a new one. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 48

• From The Fermata (1994)

  When the dangling and tugging and hopping had ceased and they stood naked in front of her, Marian couldn’t help whistling in amazement. Their bodies were so simple and perfect. Sylvie’s flattish slanting breasts, with sharp confident little suck-tips, were especially good for the soul. Kevin’s white straight penis lobbed and loitered below his tight brown balls; he had a Dennis-the-Menace touch of hair around each of his nipples. Marian had to turn the Pollenex on and point it up her dress in order to recover her seducer’s concentration. “Now show us,” said Sylvie challengingly, conscious that her revealed beauty gave her power. She ran her fingers over her stomach and brushed the side of her hand casually against Kevin’s cock. “Show us what’s up your …” “Ah, you’re such a beautiful couple,” said Marian. “You’re made to fuck each other. I’ll show you when it’s the right time. Right now, I need you to show me how pretty you are together. Show me how you like to suck cock, Sylvie honey. I want to see your pretty lips on that hot cockmeat. Kiss it for me.” Sylvie, compelled by the conviction in Marian’s voice, knelt and kissed a path down Kevin’s cock until she came to its head, and then she opened her lips and let it fill her mouth. As he watched her and moaned, Kevin’s mouth mirrored Sylvie’s. He was standing with his hands crossed lightly at the wrists behind his back, his hips pushed forward, looking down at his girlfriend. As he firmed up, Sylvie’s jaw was forced open wider and her tongue was pushed down, and Marian was pleased to see her develop a cocksucker’s temporary double chin, which, because in reality the girl had nothing approaching a double chin, only made her face look younger and more captivatingly innocent. “That’s so nice, so pretty, that pretty sucking,” said Marian, letting her showerhead do the talking for her. Areas of grass near her legs were getting a marshy gleam. Sylvie turned and looked at her. Her eyes were dreamy with confused arousal. “Please show me and Kev what you have up your fanny,” she said again. She added rhetorical weight to her request by stroking three times on Kevin’s cock. Marian pulled her dress up so that it was very high on her thighs, but not so high that anything was revealed. She lifted her weight onto her hands for a moment and then swiveled her hips. “It’s all slicked up with lubricant. It feels so snazzy in there. I want it in there always. I want to show it to you as it fucks my butt, but I need some inspiration.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  B. Several monastic movements advocated a return to the earliest form of monastic life—the eremitical life of the desert fathers. 1. The earliest of these somewhat hybrid eremitical monasteries was Camaldoli, founded by St. Romauld in the mountains of Tuscany. 2. Another was Vallombrosa, founded by a Florentine in the hills south of Florence. 3. The most successful was La Grande Chartreuse, founded near Grenoble, France, by St. Bruno in 1084. a. In the 12 th through 14th centuries, many so-called Carthusian monasteries were founded in Europe; these are called charterhouses in English. b. The Carthusians were known for their austerity and had something of a motto: “Never reformed because never deformed.” C. Cluny did not separate itself enough from “the world,” and even for many devout and zealous Christians the hermit orders separated themselves too much. III. By far, the most popular and important monastic movement in this period was the founding and development of the Cistercian Order, established at Citeaux (Cistercium in Latin), France, in 1098. A. The basic idea of Citeaux was for monks to “get back to basics,” which included manual labor and, more generally, Benedictine simplicity. B. Although Citeaux was unlike Benedict’s Montecassino in several ways (it is impossible simply to transpose an exact pattern of life to a group of monks removed by more than 500 years), the Cistercians became a wildly successful “solution” to the problems of monasticism at the time. C. When the Cistercians established daughter houses, they were expected to conform strictly to the life at Citeaux; hence, it is fair to refer to Cistercians as the first monastic order, governed by a constitution and involving meetings of superiors to refine the Cistercian life. IV. In 1112, a young man named Bernard entered the monastery of Citeaux along with 30 of his relatives; three years later, Bernard was sent to be the founding abbot of a new monastery of Clairvaux. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 44

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Here at least, thought Nessim, building something with my own hands will keep me stable and unreflective — and he studied the horny old hands of the Greek with admiring envy as he thought of the time they had killed for him, of the thinking they had saved him. He read into them years of healthy bodily activity which imprisoned thought, neutralized reflection. And yet … who could say? Those long years of school-teaching: the years in the monastery: and now the long winter solitude which closed in around the oasis, when only the boom and slither of the sea and the whacking of palm-fronds were there to accompany one’s thoughts.… There is always time for spiritual crises, he thought, as he doggedly mixed cement and dry sand in a wooden mortar. But even here he was not to be left alone for Justine, with that maddening guilty solicitude which she had come to feel for the man whom she loved, and yet was trying to destroy, appeared with her trio of Arabs and took up her summer quarters at the oasis. A restless, moody, alert familiar. And then I, impelled by the fearful pangs her absence created in me, smuggled a note to her telling her either that she must return to the city or persuade Nessim to invite me out to the Summer Palace. Selim duly arrived with the car and motored me out in a sympathetic silence into which he did not dare to inject the slightest trace of contempt. For his part Nessim received me with a studied tenderness; in fact, he was glad to see us again at close quarters, to detach us from the fictitious framework of his agents’ reports and to judge for himself if we were … what am I to say? ‘In love?’ The word implies a totality which was missing in my mistress, who resembled one of those ancient goddesses in that her attributes proliferated through her life and were not condensed about a single quality of heart which one could love or unlove. ‘Possession’ is on the other hand too strong: we were human beings not Brontë cartoons. But English lacks the distinctions which might give us (as Modern Greek does) a word for passion-love.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  The constitution of the Cabal consisted of an inner circle of initiates (Balthazar would have winced at the word but I do not know how else to express it) and an outer circle of students to which Nessim and Justine belonged. The inner circle consisted of twelve members who were widely scattered over the Mediterranean — in Beirut, Jaffa, Tunis and so on. In each place there was a small academy of students who were learning to use the strange mental-emotional calculus which the Cabbala has erected about the idea of God. The members of the inner Cabal corresponded frequently with one another, using the curious old form of writing, known as the boustrophedon; that is to say a writing which is read from right to left and from left to right in alternate lines. But the letters used in their alphabet were ideograms for mental or spiritual states. I have said enough. On that first evening Justine sat there between us, her arms linked lightly in ours, listening with a humility and concentration that were touching. At times the speaker’s eye rested on her for a moment with a glance of affectionate familiarity. Did I know then — or was it afterwards I discovered — that Balthazar was perhaps her only friend and certainly the only confidant she had in the city? I do not remember. (‘Balthazar is the only man to whom I can tell everything. He only laughs. But somehow he helps me to dispel the hollowness I feel in everything I do.’) And it was to Balthazar that she would always write those long self-tortured letters which interested the curious mind of Arnauti. In the diaries she recorded how one moonlight night they gained access to the Museum and sat for an hour among the statues ‘sightless as nightmares’ listening to him talk. He said many things which struck her then but later when she came to try and write them down they had vanished. Yet she did remember him saying in a quiet reflective voice something about ‘those of us who are bound to submit our bodies to the ogres,’ and the thought penetrated her marrow as a reference to the sort of life she was leading. As for Nessim, I remember him telling me that once, when he was in a great agony of mind about Justine, Balthazar remarked dryly to him: ‘Omnis ardentior amator propriae uxoris adulter est.’ Adding as he did so: ‘I speak now as a member of the Cabal, not as a private person. Passionate love even for a man’s own wife is also adultery.’ * * * * *

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  Some of the figures we will examine are among the most famous Christians. It would be hard to find a person seriously interested in Christianity who does not know Paul or Augustine or Francis of Assisi or Martin Luther or his namesake Martin Luther King. Some names will be familiar but probably only as names, for example, Saint Patrick, the apostle to Ireland, and San Bernardino of Siena, who is known better for a city in California that bears his name than for his life in 15 th-century Italy. Some of the figures will be better known to one group of Christians than to another. Not too many Protestants recognize the name Maximilian Kolbe, and most Catholics are unfamiliar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both died in Nazi concentration camps. Few who are not Orthodox are familiar with the 1,000-year history of monasticism on Mount Athos in northern Greece. One of the clearest lessons to be learned from these portraits is that there is no such thing as the model of the Christian life. Certainly, all Christians seek to live the life modeled and prescribed by Jesus during his earthly ministry. However, it is obvious that to imitate Christ does not mean wandering through modern Israel as an itinerant preacher. Once we dismiss this very literal notion of imitation, exactly how one strives to be a true Christian becomes difficult to discern. If we asked any of the people featured in this course about the way they lived their lives, all their answers would soon turn to their attempts to follow in Christ’s footsteps. Yet some of these have chosen physical isolation from “the world,” be it the desert of Egypt or a mountaintop in Italy or a peninsula populated only by monks in Greece. On the other hand, Gustavo Gutierrez spent a lot of time in the barrios of Lima and Mother Teresa searched the streets of Calcutta for people to comfort. Some of our great Christians died peaceful deaths surrounded by friends and family, while others bore the cross of martyrdom, perhaps at the hands of Roman imperial officials or officers of the Third Reich. Some preached and some held church offices. Others lived lives of constant prayer interspersed with simple activities, such as making baskets or altar cloths. Several scholars are found among the great Christians I have chosen, while others were barely literate. Hence, we will see the Christian life from many perspectives, and we will see how people in radically different political and social circumstances have tried to use their strengths and address their weaknesses in light of their call to the gospel life. Just as one can look at a great work of art, such as Michelangelo’s David, from many different angles and in different light ©2007 The Teaching Company. 2

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  No mythology of the city would be complete without its Scobie, and Alexandria will be the poorer for it when his sun-cured body wrapped in a Union Jack is finally lowered into the shallow grave which awaits him at the Roman Catholic cemetery by the tramline. His exiguous nautical pension is hardly enough to pay for the one cockroach-infested room which he inhabits in the slum-area behind Tatwig Street; he ekes it out with an equally exiguous salary from the Egyptian Government which carries with it the proud title of Bimbashi in the Police Force. Clea has painted a wonderful portrait of him in his police uniform with the scarlet tarbush on his head, and the great fly-whisk, as thick as a horse’s tail, laid gracefully across his bony knees. It is Clea who supplies him with tobacco and I with admiration, company, and weather permitting, brandy. We take it in turns to applaud his health, and to pick him up when he has struck himself too hard on the chest in enthusiastic demonstration of it. Origins he has none — his past proliferates through a dozen continents like a true subject of myth. And his presence is so rich with imaginary health that he needs nothing more — except perhaps an occasional trip to Cairo during Ramadan when his office is closed and when presumably all crime comes to a standstill because of the fast. Youth is beardless, so is second childhood. Scobie tugs tenderly at the remains of a once handsome and bushy torpedo-beard — but very gently, caressingly, for fear of pulling it out altogether and leaving himself quite naked. He clings to life like a limpet, each year bringing its hardly visible sea-change. It is as if his body were being reduced, shrunk, by the passing of the winters; his cranium will soon be the size of a baby’s. A year or two more and we will be able to squeeze it into a bottle and pickle it forever. The wrinkles become ever more heavily indented. Without his teeth his face is the face of an ancient ape; above the meagre beard his two cherry-red cheeks known affectionately as ‘port’ and ‘starboard’, glow warm in all weathers.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  As a doctor he spends much of his working-time in the government clinic for venereal disease. (He once said dryly: ‘I live at the centre of the city’s life — its genito-urinary system: it is a sobering sort of place.’) Then, too, he is the only man whose paederasty is somehow no qualification of his innate masculinity of mind. He is neither a puritan nor its opposite. Often I have entered his little room in the Rue Lepsius — the one with the creaking cane chair — and found him asleep in bed with a sailor. He has neither excused himself at such a time nor even alluded to his bedfellow. While dressing he will sometimes turn and tenderly tuck the sheet round his partner’s sleeping form. I take this naturalness as a compliment. He is a strange mixture; at times I have heard his voice tremble with emotion as he alludes to some aspect of the Cabal which he has been trying to make comprehensible to the study-group. Yet once when I spoke enthusiastically of some remarks he had made he sighed and said, with that perfect Alexandrian scepticism which somehow underlay an unquestionable belief in and devotion to the Gnosis: ‘We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.’ At another time after a long and tiresome argument with Justine about heredity and environment he said: ‘Ah! my dear, after all the work of the philosophers on his soul and the doctors on his body, what can we say we really know about man? That he is, when all is said and done, just a passage for liquids and solids, a pipe of flesh.’ He had been a fellow-student and close friend of the old poet, and of him he spoke with such warmth and penetration that what he had to say always moved me. ‘I sometimes think that I learned more from studying him than I did from studying philosophy. His exquisite balance of irony and tenderness would have put him among the saints had he been a religious man. He was by divine choice only a poet and often unhappy but with him one had the feeling that he was catching every minute as it flew and turning it upside down to expose its happy side. He was really using himself up, his inner self, in living. Most people lie and let life play upon them like the tepid discharges of a douche-bag. To the Cartesian proposition: “I think, therefore I am”, he opposed his own, which must have gone something like this: “I imagine, therefore I belong and am free”.’ Of himself Balthazar once said wryly: ‘I am a Jew, with all the Jew’s bloodthirsty interest in the ratiocinative faculty. It is the clue to many of the weaknesses in my thinking, and which I am learning to balance up with the rest of me — through the Cabal chiefly.’ * * * * *

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  B. Leo condemned the buying and selling of church offices, the practice of simony, which was largely responsible for worldly and political men holding so many bishoprics. V. After Leo IX’s death in 1054, the popes and their officials worked hard to make permanent the changes established by Leo. A. During this time, the cardinals were established as papal electors. B. A decree was issued that banned the practice of lay investiture. 1. Lay investiture is the practice of laymen, such as the emperor, investing a bishop with the spiritual symbols of office. 2. This practice essentially allowed laymen to select bishops, usually for reasons not related to their pastoral abilities. VI. In 1073, Cardinal Hildebrand, the sole remaining cardinal from the pontificate of Leo IX, was elected pope and took the name Gregory VII. A. Gregory struggled aggressively for authority over the church. 1. He took up the issue of lay investiture. 2. He even claimed the power to depose an emperor. B. Gregory came into conflict with the emperor Henry IV. 1. The specific issue was lay investiture. 2. The larger issue was the leadership of Christian society. C. In a dramatic moment, after Gregory suspended Henry from his position as emperor, Gregory met with Henry IV at Canossa. 1. Henry came as a penitent sinner. 2. As a priest, Gregory offered forgiveness and reinstated the emperor. D. Ultimately, this agreement did not hold. 1. The pope again deposed Henry. 2. The emperor refused to recognize Gregory as pope. 3. The German nobles supported Gregory, while most German bishops supported the emperor. E. In the ensuing struggles, Henry took the city of Rome, and Gregory fled to Salerno, where he died. VII. The so-called Investiture Contest was eventually settled in a compromise that was closer to the papal than to the imperial position. ©2007 The Teaching Company. 41 VIII. This period of church reform left lasting legacies. A. It reestablished the universal jurisdiction of the popes. B. The idea that an emperor was God’s chief representative on Earth and that he had responsibility for the church, a position that had been held for almost 300 years, was essentially dismissed. C. From time to time, popes enlisted the laity to enforce their pronouncements; for example, congregants were told not to attend a mass said by a married priest. Later, there would be lay-led movements for greater reform, some declared heretical and others incorporated into the church. IX. Leo IX and Gregory VII were savvy leaders who understood political, as well as moral, authority. A. Both were courageous leaders, recognizing that the status quo was unacceptable to God. B. Both were willing to take on incredibly powerful forces and risked rebellion from clerics who were comfortable with the way things were. C. Whatever their mistakes, Leo and Gregory were relentless in freeing the church from secular domination. Essential Reading: Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State, 1050–1300, to p. 95.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Prince’ Nessim is of course a joke; at any rate to the shopkeepers and black-coated commerçants who saw him drawn soundlessly down the Canopic way in the great silver Rolls with the daffodil hub-caps. To begin with he was a Copt, not a Moslem. Yet somehow the nickname was truly chosen for Nessim was princely in his detachment from the common greed in which the decent instincts of the Alexandrians — even the very rich ones — foundered. Yet the factors which gave him a reputation for eccentricity were neither of them remarkable to those who had lived outside the Levant. He did not care for money, except to spend it — that was the first: the second was that he did not own a garçonnière, and appeared to be quite faithful to Justine — an unheard of state of affairs. As for money, being so inordinately rich he was possessed by a positive distaste for it, and would never carry it on his person. He spent in Arabian fashion and gave notes of hand to shopkeepers; night-clubs and restaurants accepted his signed cheques. Nevertheless his debts were punctually honoured, and every morning Selim his secretary was sent out with the car to trace the route of the previous day and to pay any debts accumulated in the course of it. This attitude was considered eccentric and high-handed in the extreme by the inhabitants of the city whose coarse and derived distinctions, menial preoccupations and faulty education gave them no clue to what style in the European sense was. But Nessim was born to this manner, not merely educated to it; in this little world of studied carnal moneymaking he could find no true province of operation for a spirit essentially gentle and contemplative. The least assertive of men, he caused comment by acts which bore the true stamp of his own personality. People were inclined to attribute his manners to a foreign education, but in fact Germany and England had done little but confuse him and unfit him for the life of the city. The one had implanted a taste for metaphysical speculation in what was a natural Mediterranean mind, while Oxford had tried to make him donnish and had only succeeded in developing his philosophic bent to the point where he was incapable of practising the art he most loved, painting. He thought and suffered a good deal but he lacked the resolution to dare — the first requisite of a practitioner.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  But most of all, inseparable from caring what people think is, simply, caring about people. Think of the Hallmark slogan, “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best.” By caring enough, you send into the world your best efforts. By caring enough, you offer the world incredible strength and value. So while it’s important to turn down the dimmer switch of social anxiety to the point where it no longer freaks you out or gets in the way of living the life you want, don’t lose your care and concern for others. We care about people. We make wonderful friends and partners for the people who are lucky enough to know us. Ironically, the individuals I work with who experience social anxiety—the same people who think they’re inadequate, awkward failures—are, time and again, the most interesting, beautiful, and kind people one could ever hope to meet. I love working with people who experience social anxiety because they are invariably brave and amazing, and I am privileged to help them discover exactly that. For the introverts among us, your true self may be quiet and contemplative. For the extroverts, your true self may be vocal and gregarious. I maintain that who you are when you’re not afraid is your authentic self. Remember Gandhi’s appreciation of his social anxiety? “It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of the truth.” Go forth and do. Stretch. Grow. And in doing so, you will find your truth—your authentic self. My Quiet Road to How to Be Yourself: A Conversation with Susan Cain Quiet came into my life in 2012, the year it was published. How it happened was unremarkable—I don’t remember if it was a gift or a purchase, whether it came recommended or was an impulse buy. But what it sparked was remarkable, not only to introverts the world over, but also, on a very different scale, to me. That year, my family and I had uprooted ourselves from our longtime New England community and moved to the opposite coast to finish my husband’s education. We were juggling a four-year-old and a one-year-old and felt overwhelmed by our jobs and unsettled by starting over in a new city. Nightly, I would lie in bed and think, I need to figure out what I’m doing. Ostensibly, this was a career conundrum, but I realize now it was deeper and more existential.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Despite his flexibility with others, Rogers could be hard on himself. In 1979, after more than a decade on the air, Rogers rolled a piece of paper into his typewriter and tapped out his thoughts in a clickety-clack stream of consciousness: “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again? … Why don’t I trust myself? … AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, IT’S JUST AS BAD AS EVER. I wonder if every creative artist goes through the tortures of the damned trying to create? GET TO IT, FRED!” But what truly pushed Fred Rogers was something much deeper than self-castigation. The reporter Tom Junod profiled Rogers for a 1998 cover story in Esquire. In the process, he watched Rogers in action on set and commented, “Fred, of course, was an amazing perfectionist who didn’t—I wouldn’t say he drove those people, that’s the wrong word—but absolutely knew what he wanted when he wanted [it] and would not leave that day until he saw it.” His staff could sense the intensity, too. “There wasn’t a spontaneous bone in that man’s body,” observed Seamans. “He hated to go into anything unprepared.” But both Junod and the Neighborhood staff also understood innately that Rogers’s intensity was in service of something greater than a good show. He was driven by his high but flexible standards, commitment to guided drift, his unshakable service to children, but most of all, his energy was funneled into one thing: human connection. He forged connections quickly and deeply, with everyone. Ten-year-old Jeff Erlanger came on the show to explain how his electric wheelchair worked and why he used it. Nearly twenty years later, Jeff rolled onstage in a tuxedo at the Television Hall of Fame induction ceremony to introduce Rogers. Rogers, who had kept in touch but not seen his old friend since the original taping, leaped to his feet and clambered straight onstage, a huge smile on his face. Rogers connected with François Clemmons, the Black, gay actor who for twenty-five years played Officer Clemmons on the show; together, they quietly broke the color barrier by cooling their feet in a shared plastic wading pool—a revolutionary act in 1969. In his memoir, Clemmons remembers, “There was something serious yet comforting and disarming about him. His eyes hugged me without touching me.” Rogers once connected with an empty-eyed boy fiercely wielding a toy sword in Penn Station, who was forced into saying hello by his starstruck mother. Rogers leaned in and whispered, “Do you know you’re strong on the inside, too?” The boy, caught off guard at being given something he did not know he needed, nodded nearly imperceptibly. Rogers even connected with Koko, the gorilla who had been taught American Sign Language. It turned out she was a fan of the show. Upon meeting, she hugged him and wouldn’t let go. Then, in tribute to the opening sequence of the show she adored, she lovingly removed his shoes.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Naomi and Isabella met when they were nine years old and both joined a musical theater group after school in the small town where they grew up. “Isabella was one of those girls you couldn’t miss,” Naomi told me in one of our first sessions. “She was beautiful even as a little girl and behaved as if she knew she was talented and attractive and didn’t need others for reassurance. We all wanted to be close to her, tried to be her friends, wished to be her.” In fourth grade, the musical theater group performed Aladdin, and Isabella got the lead role of Jasmine. “No one was surprised,” Naomi said, amused but also a bit annoyed. “Isabella wasn’t only talented; even as a young girl, she, like Jasmine, was a princess who believed in love and fought against injustices. All of us were envious of her freedom to express her opinions; she wasn’t afraid of adults and didn’t obey authority.” Isabella refused to accept the lead role. She stood up to the director and said it wasn’t fair for her to play Jasmine because she was a new student and the role should go to the kids who had been there longer. “She wasn’t scared,” Naomi said again, and I knew that she couldn’t recognize Isabella’s fear that was hidden in that act of rejecting the lead role. In thinking about her own life, comparing herself to Isabella, Naomi could only see her friend’s boldness. She felt paralyzed, unable to own her life. It is not always clear who gets the lead role in Naomi’s life. Sometimes it feels as though she gave that role to her mother, sometimes to Isabella, as she silently accepts the supporting role. When speaking of her childhood, Naomi describes her parents as a perfect couple and her mother as good, charming, beautiful, and caring. It often feels as though she is left to witness her parents’ love from the outside. She admires her mother and her parents’ relationship. Naomi finds a way to play out that childhood dynamic with Isabella, whom she idealizes. Naomi had decided to start therapy because she felt unhappy but didn’t have any idea why. During our first session she described how she grew up in a loving and stable family and told me about Isabella, who—unlike Naomi—was raised by a single mother in a volatile household. She told me that Isabella was the one who constantly searched for answers, while she, Naomi, didn’t even have any questions. Now she was looking for something but she didn’t know what. Even in Naomi’s own treatment, at times Isabella became more important than Naomi. In my writing of Naomi’s story, once again, Isabella’s story often takes over.