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 The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The second story is that of the seven brothers (4 Maccabees 8–14). They, too, were given the same choice and confronted with the same threats. They were confronted with ‘wheels and joint-dislocators, rack and hooks and catapults and caldrons, braziers and thumb-screws and iron claws and wedges and bellows’. The first brother refused to eat the unclean things. They lashed him with whips and tied him to the wheel until he was dislocated and fractured in every limb. ‘They spread fire under him, and while fanning the flames they tightened the wheel further. The wheel was completely smeared with blood, and the heap of coals was being quenched by the drippings of gore, and pieces of flesh were falling off the axles of the machine.’ But he withstood their tortures and died faithful. The second brother they bound to the catapults. They put on spiked iron gloves. ‘These leopardlike beasts tore out his sinews with the iron hands, flayed all his flesh up to his chin and tore away his scalp.’ He, too, died faithful. The third brother was brought forward. Enraged by the man’s boldness, the officers ‘disjointed his hands and feet with their instruments, dismembering him by prying his limbs from their sockets and breaking his fingers and arms and legs and elbows’. In the end, they tore him apart on the catapult and flayed him alive. He, too, died faithful. They cut out the tongue of the fourth brother before they submitted him to similar tortures. The fifth brother they bound to the wheel, bending his body round the edge of it, and then fastened him with iron fetters to the catapult and tore him in pieces. The sixth they broke upon the wheel ‘and he was roasted from underneath. To his back they applied sharp spits that had been heated in the fire, and pierced his ribs so that his entrails were burned through.’ The seventh brother they roasted alive in a gigantic brazier. These, too, died faithful. These are the things of which the writer to the Hebrews is thinking; and these are things which we do well also to remember. It was due to the faith of these men that the Jewish religion was not completely destroyed. If that religion had been destroyed, what would have happened to the purposes of God? How could Jesus have been born into the world if Judaism had ceased to exist? In a very real way, we owe our Christianity to these martyrs of the times when Antiochus made his deliberate attempt to wipe out the Jewish religion.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say that it was precisely because the great heroes of the faith lived on that principle that they were approved by God. Every one of them refused what the world calls greatness and staked everything on God – and history proved them right. The writer to the Hebrews goes further. He says that it is an act of faith to believe that God made this world, and adds that the things which are seen emerged from the things which are not seen. This was aiming a blow at the prevailing belief that God created the world out of existing matter which, being necessarily imperfect, meant that from the beginning this was an imperfect world. The writer to the Hebrews insists that God did not work with existing material but created the world from nothing. When he argued like this, he was not interested in the scientific side of the matter; he wanted to stress the fact that this is God’s world. If we can grasp the fact that this is God’s world and that God is responsible for it, two things follow. First, we will use it as such. We will remember that everything in it is God’s and will try to use it as God would have us use it. Second, we will remember that, even when it may not look like it, somehow God is in control. If we believe that this is God’s world, then into our lives comes a new sense of responsibility and with it a new power of acceptance, for everything belongs to God and all is in his hands. THE FAITH OF THE ACCEPTABLE OFFERINGHebrews 11:4 It was by faith that Abel offered to God a fuller sacrifice than Cain and so gained the verdict of being a just man, for God himself witnessed to that fact on the grounds of the gifts he brought; and, although he died because of his faith, he is still speaking to us.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (2) The destined empire belongs to Jesus. The New Testament writers never doubted his ultimate triumph. Think of it. They were thinking of a Galilaean carpenter who was crucified as a criminal on a cross on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem. They themselves faced savage persecution and were the humblest of people. As the Yorkshire poet Sir William Watson said of them: So to the wild wolf Hate were sacrificed The panting, huddled flock, whose crime was Christ. And yet they never doubted the eventual victory. They were quite certain that God’s love was backed by his power and that in the end the kingdoms of the world would be the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. (3) The creative action belongs to Jesus. The early Church held that the Son had been God’s agent in creation, that in some way God had originally created the world through him. They were filled with the thought that the one who had created the world would also be the one who redeemed it. (4) The sustaining power belongs to Jesus. These early Christians had a tremendous grip of the doctrine of providence . They did not think of God as creating the world and then leaving it to itself. Somehow and somewhere, they saw a power that was carrying the world and each life on to a destined end. They believed, as Tennyson wrote in In Memoriam : That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete. (5) To Jesus belongs the redemptive work. By his sacrifice, he paid the price of sin; by his continual presence, he liberates from sin . (6) To Jesus belongs the exaltation as mediator. He has taken his place on the right hand of glory; but the tremendous thought of the writer to the Hebrews is that he is there not as our judge but as one who makes intercession for us, so that, when we enter into the presence of God, we go not to hear his justice prosecute us but to hear his love plead for us. ABOVE THE ANGELS Hebrews 1:4–14 He was the superior to the angels, in proportion as he had received a more excellent rank than they. For to which of the angels did God ever say: ‘It is my Son that you are; it is I who this day have begotten you’? And again: ‘I will be to him a Father, and he will be to me a Son.’ And again, when he brings his honoured one into the world of men, he says: ‘And let all the angels of God bow down before him.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The early Church father Clement of Rome quotes her as an outstanding example of one who was saved ‘by faith and hospitality’. When the writer to the Hebrews cites her as an example, the point he wants to make is this: Rahab, in the face of all the facts, believed in the God of Israel. She said to the spies whom she welcomed and hid: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land … The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below’ (Joshua 2:9–11). At the moment when she was speaking, there seemed not one chance in a million that the children of Israel could capture Jericho. These nomads from the desert had no artillery and no siege-engines. Yet Rahab believed – and staked her whole future on the belief – that God would make the impossible possible. When common sense pronounced the situation hopeless, she had the uncommon sense to see beyond the situation. The real faith and the real courage are those which can take God’s side when it seems doomed to defeat. As the hymn-writer F. W. Faber had it: Thrice blest is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell That God is on the field when he Is most invisible .

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power . The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance. This book is dedicated to MY SON, GUY JOHNSON, AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS OF PROMISE who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Actors would act with increased intensity if they knew that one of the greatest of their profession was sitting in the stalls watching them. Athletes would double their efforts if they knew that the stadium was full of famous Olympic athletes watching their performance. It is of the very essence of the Christian life that it is lived in the gaze of the heroes of the faith who lived, suffered and died in their day and generation. How can anyone avoid the struggle for greatness when an audience like that is looking down on us? (3) In the Christian life, we have a handicap. If we are encircled by the greatness of the past, we are also encircled by the handicap of our own sin. No one would attempt to climb Mount Everest weighed down with a whole load of unnecessary baggage. If we want to travel far, we must travel light. There is in life an essential duty to discard things. There may be habits, pleasures, self-indulgences or associations which hold us back. We must shed them as athletes take off their tracksuits when they go to the starting blocks; and often we will need the help of Christ to enable us to do so. (4) In the Christian life, we have a means. That means is steadfast endurance. The word is hupomonē, which means not the patience which sits down and accepts things but the patience which takes charge of them. It is not some romantic notion which lends us wings to fly over the difficulties and the hard places. It is a determination, unhurrying and yet un-delaying, which goes steadily on and refuses to be deflected. Obstacles do not daunt it and discouragements do not take its hope away. It is the steadfast endurance which carries on until, in the end, it gets there. (5) In the Christian life, we have an example. That example is Jesus himself. For the goal that was set before him, he endured all things; to win it meant the way of the cross. The writer to the Hebrews has a flash of insight – despising the shame, he says. Jesus was sensitive; never had any individual so sensitive a heart. A cross was a humiliating thing. It was for criminals, for those whom society regarded as the dregs of humanity – and yet he accepted it. The sixteenth-century saint Philip of Neri encourages us ‘to despise the world, to despise ourselves, and to despise the fact that we are despised’ (spernere mundum, spernere te ipsum, spernere te sperni). If Jesus could endure like that, so must we.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Each page revealed insights and feelings I had never been able to articulate. I thought, Here’s a woman who knows me, who understands. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings became my talisman. As a teenager, I tried convincing everyone I knew to read it. Its author was now my favorite author, someone I idolized from afar. I knew it was Providence when, more than ten years later, as a young reporter in Baltimore, I was given the opportunity to interview Maya Angelou after her lecture at a local college. “I promise,” I insisted, "I promise if you’ll just let me speak with you, I won’t take more than five minutes of your time." As good as my word, at 4:58 I told the cameraman, "Done." Which was when Maya Angelou turned her head, angled it to the side, and with a twinkle in her eye smiled at me and asked, "Who are you, girl?" First we became friendly, then we became sister friends. When she finally told me I was her daughter, I knew I had found home. Sitting at her kitchen table on Valley Road in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, listening to her read poetry, the poetry of my childhood—Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes"—that was my favorite place to be: at the kitchen table, or sitting at her feet, leaning over her lap, laughing out loud for real. Soaking up all the knowledge, all the things she had to teach—the grace, the love, all of it—my heart was full when I was with her. Rarely did we ever have a phone conversation during which I didn’t take notes. She was always teaching. "When you learn, teach," she said frequently. "When you get, give." I was a devoted student, learning from her up to the moment of our very last conversation, on the Sunday before she died. "I am a human being," she would always say, "therefore nothing human is alien to me." Maya Angelou lived what she wrote. She understood that sharing her truth connected her to the greater human truths—of longing, abandonment, security, hope, wonder, prejudice, mystery, and, finally, self-discovery: the realization of who you really are and the liberation that love brings. And each of those timeless truths unfolds in this first autobiographical account of her life. I’m so pleased (and I know she is, too) that an entire new generation of readers will get to know Maya Angelou’s story and be better empowered to realize their own. If you’re a first timer (as I was so many years ago) or revisiting an old friend (which is how I feel, returning to these pages), you’ll notice that even as a young writer, Maya delivered the theme that prevails throughout this book, the theme that became her siren call, a mantra that would resonate throughout all her speeches, her poems, her works—and her life. She spoke proudly, bodaciously, and often: “We are more alike than we are unalike!"

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  29Our house was a fourteen-room typical San Franciscan post-Earthquake affair. We had a succession of roomers, bringing and taking their different accents, and personalities and foods. Shipyard workers clanked up the stairs (we all slept on the second floor except Mother and Daddy Clidell) in their steel-tipped boots and metal hats, and gave way to much-powdered prostitutes, who giggled through their make-up and hung their wigs on the doorknobs. One couple (they were college graduates) held long adult conversations with me in the big kitchen downstairs, until the husband went off to war. Then the wife who had been so charming and ready to smile changed into a silent shadow that played infrequently along the walls. An older couple lived with us for a year or so. They owned a restaurant and had no personality to enchant or interest a teenager, except that the husband was called Uncle Jim, and the wife Aunt Boy. I never figured that out. The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education. I was prepared to accept Daddy Clidell as one more faceless name added to Mother's roster of conquests. I had trained myself so successfully through the years to display interest, or at least attention, while my mind skipped free on other subjects that I could have lived in his house without ever seeing him and without his becoming the wiser. But his character beckoned and elicited admiration. He was a simple man who had no inferiority complex about his lack of education and, even more amazing, no superiority complex because he had succeeded despite that lack. He would say often, “I been to school three years in my life. In Slaten, Texas, times was hard, and I had to help my daddy on the farm.” No recriminations lay hidden under the plain statement, nor was there boasting when he said, “If I'm living a little better now, it's because I treats everybody right.” He owned apartment buildings and, later, pool halls, and was famous for being that rarity “a man of honor.” He didn't suffer, as many “honest men” do, from the detestable righteousness that diminishes their virtue. He knew cards and men's hearts. So during the age when Mother was exposing us to certain facts of life, like personal hygiene, proper posture, table manners, good restaurants and tipping practices, Daddy Clidell taught me to play poker, blackjack, tonk and high, low, Jick, Jack and the Game. He wore expensively tailored suits and a large yellow diamond stickpin. Except for the jewelry, he was a conservative dresser and carried himself with the unconscious pomp of a man of secure means. Unexpectedly, I resembled him, and when he, Mother and I walked down the street his friends often said, “Clidell, that's sure your daughter. Ain't no way you can deny her.”

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  But they talked, and from the side of the building where I waited for the ground to open up and swallow me, I heard the soft-voiced Mrs. Flowers and the textured voice of my grandmother merging and melting. They were interrupted from time to time by giggles that must have come from Mrs. Flowers (Momma never giggled in her life). Then she was gone. She appealed to me because she was like people I had never met personally. Like women in English novels who walked the moors (whatever they were) with their loyal dogs racing at a respectful distance. Like the women who sat in front of roaring fireplaces, drinking tea incessantly from silver trays full of scones and crumpets. Women who walked over the “heath” and read morocco-bound books and had two last names divided by a hyphen. It would be safe to say that she made me proud to be Negro, just by being herself. She acted just as refined as whitefolks in the movies and books and she was more beautiful, for none of them could have come near that warm color without looking gray by comparison. It was fortunate that I never saw her in the company of powhitefolks. For since they tend to think of their whiteness as an evenizer, I'm certain that I would have had to hear her spoken to commonly as Bertha, and my image of her would have been shattered like the unmendable Humpty-Dumpty. One summer afternoon, sweet-milk fresh in my memory, she stopped at the Store to buy provisions. Another Negro woman of her health and age would have been expected to carry the paper sacks home in one hand, but Momma said, “Sister Flowers, I'll send Bailey up to your house with these things.” She smiled that slow dragging smile, “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I'd prefer Marguerite, though.” My name was beautiful when she said it. “I've been meaning to talk to her, anyway.” They gave each other age-group looks. Momma said, “Well, that's all right then. Sister, go and change your dress. You going to Sister Flowers.'” The chifforobe was a maze. What on earth did one put on to go to Mrs. Flowers' house? I knew I shouldn't put on a Sunday dress. It might be sacrilegious. Certainly not a house dress, since I was already wearing a fresh one. I chose a school dress, naturally. It was formal without suggesting that going to Mrs. Flowers' house was equivalent to attending church. I trusted myself back into the Store. “Now, don't you look nice.” I had chosen the right thing, for once. “Mrs. Henderson, you make most of the children's clothes, don't you?” “Yes, ma'am. Sure do. Store-bought clothes ain't hardly worth the thread it take to stitch them.” “I'll say you do a lovely job, though, so neat. That dress looks professional.” Momma was enjoying the seldom-received compliments. Since everyone we knew (except Mrs.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Mother's brothers, Uncles Tutti, Tom and Ira, were well-known young men about St. Louis. They all had city jobs, which I now understand to have been no mean feat for Negro men. Their jobs and their family set them apart, but they were best known for their unrelenting meanness. Grandfather had told them, “Bah Jesus, if you ever get in jail for stealing or some such foolishness, I'll let you rot. But if you're arrested for fighting, I'll sell the house, lock, stock and barrel, to get you out!” With that kind of encouragement, backed by explosive tempers, it was no wonder they became fearsome characters. Our youngest uncle, Billy, was not old enough to join in their didoes. One of their more flamboyant escapades has become a proud family legend. Pat Patterson, a big man, who was himself protected by the shield of a bad reputation, made the mistake of cursing my mother one night when she was out alone. She reported the incident to her brothers. They ordered one of their hangers-on to search the streets for Patterson, and when he was located, to telephone them. As they waited throughout the afternoon, the living room filled with smoke and the murmurs of plans. From time to time, Grandfather came in from the kitchen and said, “Don't kill him. Mind you, just don't kill him,” then went back to his coffee with Grandmother. They went to the saloon where Patterson sat drinking at a small table. Uncle Tommy stood by the door, Uncle Tutti stationed himself at the toilet door and Uncle Ira, who was the oldest and maybe everyone's ideal, walked over to Patterson. They were all obviously carrying guns. Uncle Ira said to my mother, “Here, Bibbi. Here's this nigger Patterson. Come over here and beat his ass.” She crashed the man's head with a policeman's billy enough to leave him just this side of death. There was no police investigation nor social reprobation. After all, didn't Grandfather champion their wild tempers, and wasn't Grandmother a near-white woman with police pull? I admit that I was thrilled by their meanness. They beat up whites and Blacks with the same abandon, and liked each other so much that they never needed to learn the art of making outside friends. My mother was the only warm, outgoing personality among her siblings. Grandfather became bedridden during our stay there, and his children spent their free time telling him jokes, gossiping with him and showing their love. Uncle Tommy, who was gruff and chewed his words like Grandfather, was my favorite. He strung ordinary sentences together and they came out sounding either like the most profane curses or like comical poetry. A natural comedian, he never waited for the laugh that he knew must follow his droll statements. He was never cruel. He was mean.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  You may hear the bells of temple Taiji By raising your head from the pillow, But to see the snows of Mount Koro You must unroll the blind before the door. Sasanosuke had considerable tact and intelligence, and he gave his master great pleasure by imitating this famous lady. From that time he became one of the Lord's favourites. When the Lord departed for Yedo to pay his respects to the Shyôgun, Sasanosuke Stayed in the Province and was free to do as he pleased. One day he went with three other pages to hunt birds in the fields. They walked for a long time without finding even a sparrow for their trouble, and decided to return home. But behind a clump of bamboos there was a hut where the country folk used to shelter their melons from birds and thieves during the summer, and, as the young men passed this, a pheasant flew out from it. With the help of their bamboos the pages caught the bird; and then several more pheasants flew from the hut. The young men were delighted with such a stroke of luck. But one of them was surprised to see so many pheasants, and made his way into the hut. There he saw two men hiding with a big cage full of these birds. He rebuked the men severely.'You are committing a crime against the Lord's law. Do you not know that it is forbidden by edict for a man of the people to catch birds?' While he was questioning the men, one of them escaped, hiding his face with his big rush Straw hat. But the other was seized by the pages and Stood in some danger, for the youths were very angry. But Sasanosuke interceded for the wretched man, saying: 'Perhaps these poor fellows caught the birds for food. Let us have mercy, and pardon him at least this time.' They released the man and returned to their houses, rejoicing at this easy capture. And they tied the birds to plum tree branches. But Sasanosuke, pretending that his foot hurt him, Stayed behind and, when the others were out of sight, insistently questioned the man: 'I shall not let you go until you tell me why you and your accomplice hid yourselves in this place. Be frank, and confess that something Strange underlies the matter.' The terrified man at once confessed: 'I am the slave of Hayemon Banno. My master escaped before you seized me.' 'I know Hayemon. He is, in fad:, known everywhere. Why did he run away? It is very Strange.' The slave answered: 'My master said to me this morning: "To-day Sasanosuke Yamawaki will come this way to hunt birds; but, after all the samurai who have birded here lately, he will find them very scarce and be disappointed. I am going to provide his sport with some of my own birds." That is why my master and I loosed these birds for your pleasure.'

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  That story left an indelible mark upon the memory of Israel. Centuries after this, Judas Maccabaeus and his men were facing the city of Caspis, so secure in its strength that its defenders laughed from their position of safety. ‘But Judas and his men, calling upon the great Sovereign of the world, who without battering rams or engines of war overthrew Jericho in the days of Joshua, rushed furiously upon the walls. They took the city by the will of God’ (2 Maccabees 12:15–16). The people never forgot what great things God had done for them; and, when some great effort was called for, they nerved themselves for it by remembering them. Here is the very point the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make. The taking of Jericho was the result of an act of faith. It was taken by men who thought not of what they could do but of what God could do for them. They were prepared to believe that God could turn their obvious weakness into strength that could accomplish an incredible task. After the destruction of the Spanish Armada, there was erected on Plymouth Hoe a monument with the inscription: ‘God sent his wind and they were scattered.’ When the people of England saw how the storm and the gale had shattered the Spanish Armada, they said: ‘God did it.’ When we are faced with any great and demanding task, God is the ally we must never leave out of the reckoning. The things which we find it impossible to accomplish alone are always possible with God. (2) The second story the writer to the Hebrews takes is that of Rahab. It is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and has its sequel in Joshua 6:25. When Joshua sent out spies to spy out the situation in Jericho, they found a lodging in the house of Rahab, a prostitute. She protected them and enabled them to make their escape; and in return, when Jericho was taken, she and her family were saved from the general slaughter. It is extraordinary how Rahab became imprinted on the memory of Israel. James (2:25) quotes her as a great example of the good works which demonstrate faith. The Rabbis were proud to trace their ancestry to her. And, amazingly, she is one of the names which appear in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). The early Church father Clement of Rome quotes her as an outstanding example of one who was saved ‘by faith and hospitality’.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The wonder of the Christian life is that we press on surrounded by the saints, oblivious to everything but the glory of the goal and always in the company of the one who has already made the journey and reached the goal, and who waits to welcome us when we reach the end. THE STANDARD OF COMPARISON Hebrews 12:3–4 Consider him who steadfastly endured such opposition at the hands of sinners, and compare your lives with his, so that you may not faint and grow weary in your souls. You have not yet had to resist to the point of blood in your struggle against sin. T HE writer to the Hebrews uses two very vivid words when he speaks of fainting and growing weary . They are the words which Aristotle uses of an athlete who flings himself on the ground in a state of collapse after he has surged past the winning post of the race. So, this passage is in effect saying: ‘Don’t give up too soon; don’t collapse until the winning post is passed.’ To urge his readers to that, the writer uses two arguments. (1) For them, the struggle of Christianity has not yet become a mortal struggle. When he speaks of resisting to the point of blood, he uses the very phrase used by the Maccabaean leaders when they called on their troops to fight to the death. When the writer to the Hebrews says that his people have not yet resisted to the point of blood, as James Moffatt puts it, ‘he is not blaming them, he is shaming them’. When they think of what the heroes of the past went through to make their faith possible, surely they cannot drift into lethargy or flinch from conflict. (2) He pleads with them to compare what they have to suffer with what Jesus suffered. He gave up the glory which was his; he came into all the narrowness of the life of humanity; he faced hostility; in the end, he had to die upon a cross. So, the writer to the Hebrews in effect demands: ‘How can you compare what you have to go through with what he went through? He did all that for you – what are you going to do for him?’ These two verses stress the essential costliness of Christian faith. It cost the lives of the martyrs; it cost the life of the one who was the Son of God. A thing which cost so much cannot be discarded lightly. A heritage like that is not something that can be handed down tarnished. These two verses make the demand that comes to every Christian: ‘Show yourself worthy of the sacrifice that others and God have made for you.’

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  We were served formally, and she apologized for having no orchestra to play for us but said she'd sing as a substitute. She sang and did the Time Step and the Snake Hips and the Suzy Q. What child can resist a mother who laughs freely and often, especially if the child's wit is mature enough to catch the sense of the joke? Mother's beauty made her powerful and her power made her unflinchingly honest. When we asked her what she did, what her job was, she walked us to Oakland's Seventh Street, where dusty bars and smoke shops sat in the laps of storefront churches. She pointed out Raincoat's Pinochle Parlor and Slim Jenkins' pretentious saloon. Some nights she played pinochle for money or ran a poker game at Mother Smith's or stopped at Slim's for a few drinks. She told us that she had never cheated anybody and wasn't making any preparations to do so. Her work was as honest as the job held by fat Mrs. Walker (a maid), who lived next door to us, and “a damn sight better paid.” She wouldn't bust suds for anybody nor be anyone's kitchen bitch. The good Lord gave her a mind and she intended to use it to support her mother and her children. She didn't need to add “And have a little fun along the way.” In the street people were genuinely happy to see her. “Hey, baby. What's the news?” “Everything's steady, baby, steady.” “How you doing, pretty?” “I can't win, 'cause of the shape I'm in.” (Said with a laugh that belied the content.) “You all right, Momma?” “Aw, they tell me the whitefolks still in the lead.” (Said as if that was not quite the whole truth.) She supported us efficiently with humor and imagination. Occasionally we were taken to Chinese restaurants or Italian pizza parlors. We were introduced to Hungarian goulash and Irish stew. Through food we learned that there were other people in the world. With all her jollity, Vivian Baxter had no mercy. There was a saying in Oakland at the time which, if she didn't say it herself, explained her attitude. The saying was, “Sympathy is next to shit in the dictionary, and I can't even read.” Her temper had not diminished with the passing of time, and when a passionate nature is not eased with moments of compassion, melodrama is likely to take the stage. In each outburst of anger my mother was fair . She had the impartiality of nature, with the same lack of indulgence or clemency. Before we arrived from Arkansas, an incident took place that left the main actors in jail and in the hospital. Mother had a business partner (who may have been a little more than that) with whom she ran a restaurant-cum-gambling casino. The partner was not shouldering his portion of the responsibility, according to Mother, and when she confronted him he became haughty and domineering, and he unforgivably called her a bitch.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  And, of course, female Vestal Virgins were part of Rome’s sacred landscape. But advocating both male and female celibate asceticism would have been an affront to Roman patriarchy and would witness to another and different world clashing bodily and physically, socially and politically with Roman normalcy. “A License for Women’s Teaching and Baptizing”I CONCLUDE THIS CHAPTER with something that also would have appalled Rome’s patriarchal presumptions that young women would be passed from a father’s to a husband’s control with very little say of their own. It also would have appalled the anti-Paul writer of 1 Timothy, who commanded that women be silent in the assembly. By the early second century CE , as we have just seen, Christian leaders had to be men rather than women and married parents rather than ascetic celibates. What, then, about Saint Thecla of Iconium, who was both a female leader and an ascetic celibate in that same century? At that time, Thecla was more important than even Mary, mother of Jesus, and devotion to her spread all around the Mediterranean. Her story is told in the Acts of Thecla, which is probably still extant only because it was included among the first chapters of the Acts of Paul . Around 200 CE , the North African theologian Tertullian complained, “The writings which wrongly go under Paul’s name [that is, the Acts of Paul ] claim Thecla’s example as a license for women’s teaching and baptizing” (On Baptism 17). In 2001, Stephen Davis’s book The Cult of St. Thecla was subtitled A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity. In other words, Thecla was never simply about Thecla alone. She was a programmatic model and normative exemplar for other women. When 1 Timothy and Titus react against female leaders, Thecla and/or her disciples would have been perfect cases in point. Thecla was a nubile virgin, a teenager soon after first menses around thirteen years of age. As such, she was often depicted with breasts uncovered and hair unveiled; also, in these images we see that she listened to Paul’s ideal of celibate asceticism not in public outside her home, but in private, inside, from her window. She decided to reject her fiancé and remain celibate. That, however, was not mere domestic disobedience to family plans but a complete rejection of patriarchal dictates. Accordingly, in these tales she was not simply confined to her room but condemned to die in the arena. But no matter what mode of execution was attempted against her—being burned alive or torn apart by wild bulls—God always saved her miraculously. Two features are of very special, if not extraordinary, importance among those stories. First, since Paul had refused to baptize her, she cast herself into a huge vat of water filled with lethal sea creatures. She baptized herself, and God approved by destroying the dangerous marine animals. Second, there occurs one scene, not of early Christian femin-ism but of early Christian female-ism.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The thing that always impresses me about human beings is our diversity. Even when we are brought up in similar environments, we still somehow gravitate toward very different careers, hobbies, politics, manners of speaking and acting, aesthetic preferences, and so forth. Maybe this diversity is due to genetic variation. Or maybe, being naturally curious and adaptive creatures, we invariably tend to scatter all over the place, exploiting every niche we can possibly find. Either way, it’s fairly obvious that we also end up all over the map when it comes to gender and sexuality. That being the case, if we take the subversivist route and focus our energies on deriding stereotypically feminine and masculine genders, we will inevitably disparage some (perhaps many) people for whom those genders simply feel right and natural. Furthermore, by critiquing those gender expressions in an entitled way, we actively create new gender expectations that others may feel obliged to meet (which is exactly what’s now starting to happen in the queer/trans community). That is why I suggest that we turn our energies and attention away from the way that individuals “do” or “perform” their own genders and instead focus on the expectations and assumptions that those individuals project onto everybody else. By focusing on gender entitlement rather than gender performance, we may finally take the next step toward a world where all people can choose their genders and sexualities at will, rather than feeling coerced by others. Notes Trans Woman Manifesto 1 Viviane K. Namaste, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 145, 215-216; Viviane Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005), 92-93. 2 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2000), 574-575. 3 Jacob Anderson-Minshall, “Michigan or Bust: Camp Trans Flourishes for Another Year,” San Francisco Bay Times, August 3, 2006, and my open letter in response to that article (www.juliaserano.com/frustration.html). For more on how lesbian attitudes toward trans women tend to be far more negative than toward trans men, see Michelle Tea, “Transmissions from Camp Trans,” The Believer, November 2003; Julia Serano, “On the Outside Looking In,” On the Outside Looking In: A Trans Woman’s Perspective on Feminism and the Exclusion of Trans Women from Lesbian and Women-Only Spaces (Oakland: Hot Tranny Action Press, 2005); Zachary I. Nataf, “Lesbians Talk Transgender,” The Transgender Reader, Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 439-448.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But as they passed from border to border, his brow cleared: ‘I’ve spent over three hundred,’ he said proudly, ‘never saw such a mess as this garden was in when I bought the place—had to dig in fresh soil for the roses just here, these are all new plants; I motored half across England to get them. See that hedge of York and Lancasters there? They didn’t cost much because they’re out of fashion. But I like them, they’re small but rather distinguished I think—there’s something so armorial about them.’ She agreed: ‘Yes, I’m awfully fond of them too;’ and she listened quite gravely while he explained that they dated as far back as the Wars of the Roses. ‘Historical, that’s what I mean,’ he explained. ‘I like everything old, you know, except women.’ She thought with an inward smile of his newness. Presently he said in a tone of surprise: ‘I never imagined that you’d care about roses.’ ‘Yes, why not? We’ve got quite a number at Morton. Why don’t you come over to-morrow and see them?’ ‘Do your William Allen Richardsons do well?’ he inquired. ‘I think so.’ ‘Mine don’t. I can’t make it out. This year, of course, they’ve been damaged by green-fly. Just come here and look at these standards, will you? They’re being devoured alive by the brutes!’ And then as though he were talking to a friend who would understand him: ‘Roses seem good to me—you know what I mean, there’s virtue about them—the scent and the feel and the way they grow. I always had some on the desk in my office, they seemed to brighten up the whole place, no end.’ He started to ink in the names on the labels with a gold fountain pen which he took from his pocket. ‘Yes,’ he murmured, as he bent his face over the labels, ‘yes, I always had three or four on my desk. But Birmingham’s a foul sort of place for roses.’ And hearing him, Stephen found herself thinking that all men had something simple about them; something that took pleasure in the things that were blameless, that longed, as it were, to contact with Nature. Martin had loved huge, primitive trees; and even this mean little man loved his roses. Angela came strolling across the lawn: ‘Come, you two,’ she called gaily, ‘tea’s waiting in the hall!’ Stephen flinched: ‘Come, you two—’ the words jarred on and she knew that Angela was thoroughly happy, for when Ralph was out of earshot for a moment she whispered: ‘You were clever about his roses!’ At tea Ralph relapsed into sulky silence; he seemed to regret his erstwhile good humour. And he ate quite a lot, which made Angela nervous—she dreaded his attacks of indigestion, which were usually accompanied by attacks of bad temper.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  She was admired even by the heathen, and the famous rhetorician Libanius, on hearing of her consistency and devotion, felt constrained to exclaim: "Ah! what wonderful women there are among the Christians."2015 She gave her son an admirable education, and early planted in his soul the germs of piety, which afterwards bore the richest fruits for himself and for the church. By her admonitions and the teachings of the Bible he was secured against the seductions of heathenism. He received his literary training from Libanius, who accounted him his best scholar, and who, when asked shortly before his death (395) whom he wished for his successor, replied: "John, if only the Christians had not carried him away." After the completion of his studies he became a rhetorician. He soon resolved, however, to devote himself to divine things, and after being instructed for three years by bishop Meletius in Antioch, he received baptism. His first inclination after his conversion was to adopt the monastic life, agreeably to the ascetic tendencies of the times; and it was only by the entreaties of his mother, who adjured him with tears not to forsake her, that he was for a while restrained. Meletius made him reader, and so introduced him to a clerical career. He avoided an election to the bishopric (370) by putting forward his friend Basil, whom he accounted worthier, but who bitterly complained of the evasion. This was the occasion of his celebrated treatise On the Priesthood, in which, in the form of a dialogue with Basil, he vindicates his not strictly truthful conduct, and delineates the responsible duties of the spiritual office.2016 After the death of his mother he fled from the seductions and tumults of city life to the monastic solitude of the mountains near Antioch, and there spent six happy years in theological study and sacred meditation and prayer, under the guidance of the learned abbot Diodorus (afterwards bishop of Tarsus, † 394), and in communion with such like-minded young men as Theodore of Mopsuestia, the celebrated father of Antiochian (Nestorian) theology († 429). Monasticism was to him a most profitable school of experience and self-government; because he embraced this mode of life from the purest motives, and brought into it intellect and cultivation enough to make the seclusion available for moral and spiritual growth. In this period he composed his earliest writings in praise of monasticism and celibacy, and his two long letters to the fallen Theodore (subsequently bishop of Mopsuestia), who had regretted his monastic vow and resolved to marry.2017 Chrysostom regarded this small affair from the ascetic stand-point of his age as almost equal to an apostasy from Christianity, and plied all his oratorical arts of sad sympathy, tender entreaty, bitter reproach, and terrible warning, to reclaim his friend to what he thought the surest and safest way to heaven.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He wrote in the departments of exegesis and psychology, but it is as a poet he has enduring fame. Gautier, Neale and Trench have agreed in pronouncing him the "foremost among the sacred Latin poets of the Middle Ages"; but none of his hymns are equal to Bernard’s hymns,2096 the Stabat mater, or Dies irae. Many of Adam’s poems are addressed to Mary and the saints, including Thomas à Becket. A deep vein of piety runs through them all.2097 Hymns of a high order and full of devotion we owe to the two eminent theologians, Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas. Of Bonaventura’s sacred poems the one which has gone into many collections of hymns begins, —

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Individualism pushed aside the claims of birth, and it so happened in the 14th and 15th centuries that the heads of these states were as frequently men of illegitimate birth as of legitimate descent. In our change-loving Italy, wrote Pius II., "where nothing is permanent and no old dynasty exists, servants easily rise to be kings."987 It was in the free republic of Florence, where individualism found the widest sphere for self-assertion, that the Renaissance took earliest root and brought forth its finest products. That municipality, which had more of the modern spirit of change and progress than any other mediaeval organism, invited and found satisfaction in novel and brilliant works of power, whether they were in the domain of government or of letters or even of religion, as under the spell of Savonarola. There Dante and Lionardo da Vinci were born, and there Machiavelli exploited his theories of the state and Michelangelo wrought. The Medici gave favor to all forms of enterprise that might bring glory to the city. After Nicolas V. ascended the papal throne, Rome vied with its northern neighbor as a centre of the arts and culture. The new tastes and pursuits also found a home in Ferrara, Urbino, Naples, Milan and Mantua. Glorious the achievement of the Renaissance was, but it was the last movement of European significance in which Italy and the popes took the lead. Had the current of aesthetic and intellectual enthusiasm joined itself to a stream of religious regeneration, Italy might have kept in advance of other nations, but she produced no safe prophets. No Reformer arose to lead her away from dead religious forms to living springs of spiritual life, from ceremonies and relics to the New Testament. In spreading north to Germany, Holland and England, the movement took on a more serious aspect. There it produced no poets or artists of the first rank, but in Reuchlin and Erasmus it had scholars whose erudition not only attracted the attention of their own but benefited succeeding generations and contributed directly to the Reformation. South of the Alps, culture was the concern of a special class and took on the form of a diversion, though it is true all classes must have looked with admiration upon the works of art that were being produced. It was, then, the mission of the Renaissance to start the spirit of free inquiry, to certify to the mind its dignity, to expand the horizon to the faculties of man as a citizen of the world, to recover from the dust of ages the literary treasures and monuments of ancient Greece and Rome, to inaugurate a style of fresh description, based on observation, in opposition to the dialectic circumlocution of the scholastic philosophy, to call forth the laity and to direct attention to the value of natural morality and the natural relationships of man with man. To the monk beauty was a snare, woman a temptation, pleasure a sin, the world vanity of vanities.