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

  But you can still notice that under Claudius and Nero, his texts always admit that the leaders were “prophets,” and then he contents himself by calling them “imposters” or “deceivers” or “charlatans,” or by saying that they had, compared with the violent rebels, “purer hands but more impious intentions.” Still, against that unqualified condemnation from a Jewish historian at the end of the first century CE ; here is a much more qualified one from a Roman historian at the start of the second century: “Antonius Felix [52–60] practiced every kind of cruelty and lust, wielding the power of a king with all the instincts of a slave. . . . Still the Jews’ patience lasted until Gessius Florus [64–66] became procurator: in his time war began” (Tacitus, Histories 5.9–10). Notice, by the way, that same accusation by both Josephus and Tacitus: “Felix practiced every kind of cruelty and lust.” Let us look for a moment at that program of nonviolent resistance started by Judas the Galilean and Saddok the Pharisee against the Roman census in 6 CE . It combined three elements creatively and powerfully—namely, eschatological vision, nonviolent resistance, and an acceptance of martyrdom, if necessary or inevitable. Josephus even admits that theology despite himself: They [the Jews] think little of submitting to death in unusual forms and permitting vengeance to fall on kinsmen and friends if only they may avoid calling any man master. Inasmuch as most people have seen the steadfastness of their resolution amid such circumstances, I may forgo any further account. For I have no fear that anything reported of them will be considered incredible. The danger is, rather, that report may minimize the indifference with which they accept the grinding misery of pain. (JW 18:23–24) Josephus invidiously combines all and any resistance to Rome into one massa damnata . It takes a very careful reading of his texts to distinguish clearly between, say, violent rural bandits and urban terrorists on the one hand and nonviolent prophetic martyrs on the other. Still, repeatedly, from Judas and Saddok in 6 CE until it was finally too late in 66 CE , certain Jews “with high devotion in their hearts, stood firm and did not shrink from the bloodshed [or hardship] that might be necessary” (JA 18:5) if nonviolent resistance resulted in martyrdom. “We Are, As You See, Without Any Weapons”I CHOOSE THE INCIDENT under Caligula regarding the placement of his divine statue in the Jerusalem Temple as a paradigmatic example of the ongoing program of massed nonviolent resistance between 4 BCE and 66 CE . I do so because we have reports about it from three separate sources: Josephus (twice), Philo, and Tacitus. Imagine it as a program involving these five component elements. The first element is the Roman situation. During the winter of 39–40, Caligula ordered the Syrian governor Petronius to take two of his four legions south to Jerusalem and place a statue of Caligula’s imperial divinity in the Temple.

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

  But, when we come to the end of conjecture, we are compelled to say, as Origen said 1,800 years ago, that only God knows who wrote Hebrews. To us, the author must remain a voice and nothing more; but we can be thankful to God for the work of this great nameless individual who wrote with incomparable skill and beauty about the Jesus who is the way to reality and the way to God. HEBREWS THE END OF FRAGMENTS Hebrews 1:1–3 It was in many parts and in many ways that God spoke to our fathers in the prophets in time gone past; but in the end of these days he has spoken to us in One who is a Son, a Son whom he destined to enter into possession of all things, a Son by whose agency he made the universe. He was the very effulgence of God’s glory; he was the exact expression of God’s very essence. He bore everything onwards by the word of his power; and, after he had made purification for the sins of men, he took his royal seat at the right hand of the glory in the heights. THIS is the most stylistically impressive piece of Greek in the whole New Testament. It is a passage that any classical Greek orator would have been proud to write. The writer of Hebrews has brought to it every possible skill and form of word and rhythm that the beautiful and flexible Greek language could provide. In Greek, the two adverbs which we have translated in many parts and in many ways are single words, polumerōs and polutropōs. Polu- in such a combination means many, and it was a habit of the great Greek orators, like Demosthenes, the greatest of them all, to weave such sonorous words into the first paragraph of a speech. The writer to the Hebrews felt that, since this letter was to speak of the supreme revelation of God, the ideas must be clothed in the noblest language that it was possible to find. There is something of interest even here. The person who wrote this letter must have been trained in Greek oratory. When he became a Christian, he did not throw his training away. He used the talent he had in the service of Jesus Christ. The lovely legend of the acrobatic tumbler who became a monk is familiar to many. He felt that he had so little to offer. One day, someone saw him go into the chapel and stand before the statue of the Virgin Mary. He hesitated for a moment and then began to go through his acrobatic routine. When he had completed his tumbling, he knelt in adoration; and then, says the legend, the statue of the Virgin Mary came to life, stepped down from her pedestal and gently wiped the sweat from the brow of the acrobat who had offered all he had to give.

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

  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. The day came when the situation ignited. The agents of Antiochus had gone to a town called Modein and had erected an altar there to make the inhabitants sacrifice to the Greek gods. The emissaries of Antiochus tried to persuade a certain Mattathias to set an example by offering sacrifice, for he was a distinguished and influential man. He refused in anger. But another Jew, seeking to gain approval and to save his own life, came forward and was about to sacrifice.

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

  This phrase does not mean that Jesus was not really fully human. He was different from sinners in that, although he underwent every temptation, he conquered them all and emerged without sin. The difference between him and other men and women lies not in the fact that he was not fully human, but in the fact that he was the highest and best of all humanity. (5) He says that Jesus was made higher than the heavens . In this phrase, he is thinking of the exaltation of Jesus. If the last phrase stresses the perfection of his humanity, this one stresses the perfection of his godhead. He who was truly one with us is also exalted to the right hand of God. The writer to the Hebrews now introduces another aspect in which the priesthood of Jesus is far superior to the Levitical priesthood. Before the high priest could offer sacrifice for the sins of the people, he had first to offer sacrifice for his own sins , for he was a sinful man. The writer is thinking particularly of the Day of Atonement. This was the great day when atonement was made for all the sins of the people, the day on which the high priest performed his supreme function. Usually, it was the only day in the year when he personally carried out the sacrifices. On ordinary days, they were left to the subordinate priests; but, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest himself officiated. The very first item in the ritual of that day was a sacrifice for the sins of the high priest himself. He washed his hands and his feet; he put aside his gorgeous robes; he clothed himself in spotless white linen. A bullock that he had purchased with his own money was brought to him. He laid both hands on the bullock’s head to transfer his sin to it; and he made confession in these words: ‘Ah, Lord God, I have committed iniquity; I have transgressed; I have sinned – I and my house. O Lord, I beseech you, cover over the iniquities, the transgressions and the sins which I have committed, transgressed and sinned before you, I and my house.’ The greatest of all the Levitical sacrifices began with a sacrifice for the sins of the high priest. That was a sacrifice Jesus never needed to make, for he was without sin.

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

  (1) In the Christian life, we have a goal . Christians are not people who stroll along the byways of life in a completely unconcerned manner; they travel on the high road. They are not tourists, who return each night to the place from which they started; they are pilgrims who are always travelling on the way. The goal is nothing less than the likeness of Christ. The Christian life is going somewhere, and at each day’s ending we would do well to ask ourselves: ‘Am I any further on?’ (2) In the Christian life, we have an inspiration . We have the thought of the unseen cloud of witnesses; and they are witnesses in a double sense, for they have witnessed their confession to Christ and they are now witnesses of our performance. Christians are like runners in some crowded stadium. As they press on, the crowd looks down; and the crowd looking down are those who have already won the crown. The first-century writer Pseudo-Longinus, in his great work On the Sublime , has a recipe for greatness in literary endeavour. ‘It is a good thing’, he writes, ‘to form the question in our souls, “How would Homer perhaps have said this? How would Plato or Demosthenes have lifted it up to sublimity? How would Thucydides have put it in his history?” For when the faces of these people come before us in our emulation, they will, as it were, illumine our road and will lift us up to those standards of perfection which we have imagined in our minds. It would be still better if we were to suggest this to our minds, “What would this that I have said sound like to Homer, if he were standing by, or to Demosthenes, or how would they have reacted to it?” In truth it is a supreme test to imagine such a judgment court and theatre for our own private productions, and, in imagination, to submit an account of our writings to such heroes as judges.’ 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 .

• 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).

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

  The expression used for shutting the mouths of lions is that used of Daniel in Daniel 6:18, 23. The phrase about quenching the power of fire goes straight back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 3:19–28. To speak about escaping the edge of the sword was to direct people’s thoughts to the way in which Elijah escaped threatened assassination in 1 Kings 19:1ff., as did Elisha in 2 Kings 6:31ff. The trumpet-call about being strong in warfare and routing the ranks of aliens would immediately make people think of the unforgettable glories of the Maccabaean days. The phrase about being made strong out of weakness might conjure up a number of pictures. It might paint the mental picture of the extraordinary healing of Hezekiah after he had turned his face to the wall to die (2 Kings 20:1–7). Perhaps more likely in the time in which the writer to the Hebrews wrote, it would remind his hearers of that epic but bloodthirsty incident told in the Book of Judith, one of the apocryphal books. There was a time when Israel was threatened by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar led by his general Holofernes. The Jewish town of Bethulia had determined to surrender in five days’ time, for its supplies of food and water were at an end. In the town, there was a widow called Judith. She was wealthy and beautiful, but she had lived in lonely mourning since her husband Manasses had died. She dressed in all her finery, persuaded her people to let her out of the town and went straight to the camp of the Assyrians. She gained entry into the presence of Holofernes and persuaded him that she was convinced of the defeat of her people as a punishment for their sins. She offered him a way into Jerusalem by stealth; and then, having gained his confidence, she killed him in his drunken sleep with his own dagger, cut off his head and carried it back to her people. The traitors within the camp were silenced, and looming defeat was turned into tumultuous victory. A woman’s weakness had become strength to save her country. The writer to the Hebrews is here seeking to inspire new courage and a new sense of responsibility by making his readers remember their past. He does it not blatantly but with infinite subtlety. He does not so much tell them what to remember as by delicate hints compel them to remember for themselves. When the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, was arranging for the education of his son Richard, he said: ‘I would have him learn a little history.’

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

  When Origen was young, it was said of him: ‘Not only was he at the side of the holy martyrs in their imprisonment and until their final condemnation but, when they were led to death, he boldly accompanied them into danger.’ Sometimes, Christians were condemned to the mines – which was almost like being sent to Siberia in the former Soviet Union. The Apostolic Constitutions laid it down: ‘If any Christian is condemned for Christ’s sake to the mines by the ungodly, do not overlook him but from the proceeds of your toil and sweat send him something to support himself and to reward the soldier of Christ.’ The Christians sought out their fellow Christians even in the remotest parts. There was actually a little Christian church in the mines at Phaeno. Sometimes, Christians had to be ransomed from robbers and bandits. The Apostolic Constitutions laid it down: ‘All monies accruing from honest labour do ye appoint and apportion to the redeeming of the saints ransoming thereby slaves and captives and prisoners, people who are sore abused or condemned by tyrants.’ When the Numidian robbers carried off their Christian friends, the Church at Carthage raised sufficient money to ransom them and promised more. There were actually cases where Christians sold themselves as slaves to find money to pay the ransom for their friends. They were even prepared to bribe their way into prison. The Christians became so notorious for their help to those in prison that, at the beginning of the fourth century, the Emperor Licinius passed new legislation that ‘no one was to show kindness to sufferers in prison by supplying them with food and that no one was to show mercy to those starving in prison’. It was added that those who were discovered to be doing this kind of thing would be compelled to suffer the same fate as those they tried to help. These instances are taken from Adolf von Harnack’s book The Expansion of Christianity , and many others could be added. In the early days, no Christians who found themselves in trouble for the faith were ever neglected or forgotten by their fellow Christians. (4) There is purity . First, the marriage bond is to be universally respected. This may mean either of two almost opposite things. (a) There were some people who despised marriage. Some even went to the lengths of castrating themselves to secure what they thought was purity. Origen, for instance, took that course. Even someone like Galen, the Greek physician, noted of the Christians that ‘they include men and women who refrain from cohabiting all their lives’. The writer to the Hebrews insists against those who argued for abstinence that the marriage bond is to be honoured and not despised. (b) There were those who were always in danger of lapsing into immorality. The writer to the Hebrews uses two words.

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

  She dressed in all her finery, persuaded her people to let her out of the town and went straight to the camp of the Assyrians. She gained entry into the presence of Holofernes and persuaded him that she was convinced of the defeat of her people as a punishment for their sins. She offered him a way into Jerusalem by stealth; and then, having gained his confidence, she killed him in his drunken sleep with his own dagger, cut off his head and carried it back to her people. The traitors within the camp were silenced, and looming defeat was turned into tumultuous victory. A woman’s weakness had become strength to save her country. The writer to the Hebrews is here seeking to inspire new courage and a new sense of responsibility by making his readers remember their past. He does it not blatantly but with infinite subtlety. He does not so much tell them what to remember as by delicate hints compel them to remember for themselves. When the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, was arranging for the education of his son Richard, he said: ‘I would have him learn a little history.’ When we are discouraged, let us remember and take heart again. God’s power has not grown less. What he did once he can do again, for the God of history is the same God whom we worship today. THE DEFIANCE OF SUFFERING Hebrews 11:35–40 Women received back their own folk as if they had been raised from the dead. Others were crucified because they refused to accept release, for they were eager to obtain a better resurrection. Others went through scoffing and scourging, yes, and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned; they were sawn asunder; they underwent every kind of trial; they died by the murder of the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, they were in want, they were oppressed, they were maltreated – the world was not worthy of them – they wandered in desert places and on the mountains, they lived in caves and in holes of the earth. All these, though they were attested through their faith, did not receive the promise, because God had some better plan for us, that they, without us, should not find all his purposes fulfilled. I N this passage, the writer to the Hebrews is mixing together different periods of history. Sometimes he takes his illustrations from the Old Testament period; but more often he takes them from the Maccabaean period, which falls between the Old and the New Testaments.

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

  T HE writer to the Hebrews has finished describing the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek in all its glory. He has described it as the priesthood which is forever, without beginning and without end; the priesthood that God confirmed with an oath; the priesthood that is founded on personal greatness and not on any legal appointment or racial qualification; the priesthood which death cannot touch; the priesthood which is able to offer a sacrifice that never needs to be repeated; the priesthood which is so pure that it has no need to offer sacrifice for any sins of its own. Now he makes and underlines his great claim. ‘It is’, he says, ‘a priest precisely like that that we have in Jesus.’ He goes on to say two things about Jesus. (1) He took his seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens. That is the final proof of his glory . As words from Thomas Kelly’s great hymn ‘The head that once was crowned with thorns’ express it: The highest place that heaven affords Is his, is his by right, The King of kings, and Lord of lords, And heaven’s eternal light. There can be no glory greater than that of the ascended and exalted Jesus. (2) He says that Jesus is a minister of the sanctuary. That is the proof of his service . He is unique both in majesty and in service. Jesus never looked on majesty as something to be selfishly enjoyed. One of the greatest of the Roman emperors was Marcus Aurelius; as an administrator he was unsurpassed. He died at the age of 59, having worked himself to death in the service of his people. He was one of the Stoic saints. When chosen to succeed in due course to the imperial power, his biographer Capitolinus tells us, ‘he was appalled rather than overjoyed, and when he was told to move to the private house of Hadrian, the Emperor, it was with reluctance that he departed from his mother’s villa. And when the members of the household asked him why he was sorry to receive the royal adoption, he enumerated to them the toils which sovereignty involved.’ Marcus Aurelius saw kingship in terms of service and not of majesty. Jesus is the unique example of divine majesty and divine service combined. He knew that he had been given his supreme position, not jealously to guard it in splendid isolation, but rather to enable others to attain to it and to share it.

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

  A man who owned his land and the big many-windowed house with a porch that clung to its sides all around the house. An independent Black man. A near anachronism in Stamps. Bailey was the greatest person in my world. And the fact that he was my brother, my only brother, and I had no sisters to share him with, was such good fortune that it made me want to live a Christian life just to show God that I was grateful. Where I was big, elbowy and grating, he was small, graceful and smooth. When I was described by our playmates as being shit color, he was lauded for his velvet-black skin. His hair fell down in black curls, and my head was covered with black steel wool. And yet he loved me. When our elders said unkind things about my features (my family was handsome to a point of pain for me), Bailey would wink at me from across the room, and I knew that it was a matter of time before he would take revenge. He would allow the old ladies to finish wondering how on earth I came about, then he would ask, in a voice like cooling bacon grease, “Oh Mizeriz Coleman, how is your son? I saw him the other day, and he looked sick enough to die.” Aghast, the ladies would ask, “Die? From what? He ain't sick.” And in a voice oilier than the one before, he'd answer with a straight face, “From the Uglies.” I would hold my laugh, bite my tongue, grit my teeth and very seriously erase even the touch of a smile from my face. Later, behind the house by the black-walnut tree, we'd laugh and laugh and howl. Bailey could count on very few punishments for his consistently outrageous behavior, for he was the pride of the Henderson/Johnson family . His movements, as he was later to describe those of an acquaintance, were activated with oiled precision. He was also able to find more hours in the day than I thought existed. He finished chores, homework, read more books than I and played the group games on the side of the hill with the best of them. He could even pray out loud in church, and was apt at stealing pickles from the barrel that sat under the fruit counter and Uncle Willie's nose. Once when the Store was full of lunchtime customers, he dipped the strainer, which we also used to sift weevils from meal and flour, into the barrel and fished for two fat pickles. He caught them and hooked the strainer onto the side of the barrel where they dripped until he was ready for them. When the last school bell rang, he picked the nearly dry pickles out of the strainer, jammed them into his pockets and threw the strainer behind the oranges. We ran out of the Store.