Anger

Passages

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

Page 244 of 447 · 20 per page

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Toan n.m,*?" violence, wrong — abs. ‘n Gn 6" + 44t.; 09. DON Jug™+ 7t.; sf. ‘DOM Gn 16° Je 51% (in both = wrong done to me); DON Y 777; pl. DDO 2 ₪5 22% + 3 t.:—-violence, specif. of physical violence Ju g* 2 ₪ 22° (not || 18%), Ob”, 11 לד‎ Je51* (of Chaldeans), Hb 27 Jo4% 72"; but also wrong, incl. in- jurious language, harsh treatment, 666. Gn 16° (J, of wrong done to Sarah by Hagar), Jb 19’ Mal 2"; in gen. of rude wickedness of men, their noisy, wild, ruthlessness Mi 6” Hb 17 Zp 1° Pr 10%" 13? 26° + Ez 7" (si vera 1, v. Co), שד||‎ Am 3” Hb 1° Je 67 208 Ez 45° Is 60% “27 55, עָסל||‎ 7% [|B 738, TO 1 (|| 98), denied, of servant of ' Is 53°, ח' בארץ‎ Je 51% cf. Gn 68 (P), Ez 87 129% מָלָאוּ‎ TiN) מחשכִידאָרֶץ‎ y 74", מִלְאָה ח'‎ WT Ex 73 28, שָבֶת ה'‎ Am 6% is (prob.) enthrone- ment of violence; 7M 3 Gn 49° (poem) znstru- ments, weapons, of violence ;—other phrases are: DYN2 ח'‎ Jon 3° 10 127 cf. Jb 16”, DID Ty 58? and פעל ח' בְּכַפִיהֶם‎ Is 398; עד ח'‎ 1.6. a witness that promotes violence and wrong Ex 23! (JE), Dt 19% "מב ץ עדי ח'‎ ; WY עדי‎ Don MAN שנאת ח' ;"27 ץ‎ y 25 == 8 characterized by violence; DON &*S=violent man 18" )2 ₪ 22% has the later ",א' חמסים‎ ef, infr.) 140” Pr 3% 16%; איש חמסים‎ (later) ץש‎ 140% 2 8 22%; DDN יין‎ Pr 4” 1.6. wine gained by violence רְשַע||)‎ Dn). name of male ostrich, acc.‏ | . גנ ]. בנ תחמסז to 130"*** Thes (Thes der. fr. violence of this‏ bird, cf. Ar. sib violence, also ostrich; other‏ conject.are: owl GB; swallow, Saad: v. also‏ Kn in Di)—mentioned as unclean Ly 11” (P)‏ Dina.‏ ple חמץ‎ vb. be sour, leavened (NH id., Pi. Hiph. make sour, leaven; Ar. acs be sour; Aram. YON be sour, leavened, ,בצ‎ be leavened)—Qal Pf. Yeo Ex 12%; Lmpf. יחמץ‎ Ex 12%; Inf. sf. INYO Ho 7*;—be leavened, of dough (P¥3), Ex ד‎ 2% (E), cf. Ho *ץ‎ Hithp. be soured, embittered, 737 (|| AWS *nD3), Tyan n.m.™**° that which is leavened —’n Ex12” + 10 t.—forbidden at Passover Ex 12% (P), 13%” (JE), Dt 16% in all sacrifices Ex 235 34% (both JE); cf. Am 4°; Lv 2" 6°(P; appos.); exceptions are’/N pnd of peace-offer- ing Ly ל ך‎ (P), and the wave-loaves ח")‎ appos.) Ly 23"7 (H).—v. RSSem28 07902, 5, yon / yan n.m, vinegar—N abs. Pr1o* + 36.; estr. Nu 6*3;—a common condiment Ru 2", forbidden to Nazirite ח' יין)‎ and 12% (ח'‎ Nu 63" (P), offered (in cruelty) to a thirsty man 69” (fig. for harshness, lack of sympathy); in sim. of sluggard ps0 כּחמץ‎ Pr 10%, ח' עַלְנְתַר‎ Pr 25°° vinegar on nitre (sim. of merry songs for the heavy-hearted).

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  1 נקְמַה‎ n.f. vengeance (on format. cf Tag ®*) נ"--;‎ Je 46" + 3 t.; estr. וא נקְמַת‎ 31° + 7t.; sf NOP] Ez asi + 7. sfs.; pi נְקָמוּת‎ Ju +*זז‎ 5 t.; נְסָמת‎ 28 22%;--1. ven. geance of God, abs. Ez 2 2 נקם נ'‎ Je 51% nop Diy 79"; ning עת כ/ ;יצ אל‎ Je 5% 20 Je 460s יהוה‎ 73 Roe ee bon ‘5 50% pri 0. 2 of adversary, “3 jn) Ez 25"; “5 שה‎ Ez 25"; 6. כ[‎ of adversary נתן נ'‎ 2S שה נ'*4‎ Juri; DMD W223 161 1" 20"; 0. 2 for whe 3 נתן‎ 2S 22% =y % 2. of Israel and it chiefs נקם נ' מן‎ Nu ג‎ (P); «23, נתן‎ ₪ 31° (P); /רעשה נ'‎ 1497. 3. enemies of Is srae abs. 18 3; עשה בנקמה‎ Ez 25"; of Jeremis לקח נ' מן‎ Je 20™. vb. be [severed, 06. alienate‏ [נקע]ז estranged (cf. Ar. 2&5 split, rend, sacri‏ RS Sem. i. 471f. ; 2d ed. = Eth. 1P0: split up, 0‏ (intranis.) Di; NH vp) cleft, Syr. Xa? id)‏ ‘WEI NYP] Ez 23" my 8‏ מַעַל —Qal Pf. 3 fs.‏ was estranged from her sister (|| YE), cf. v®‏ .(מִן .6 (both‏ pL. [נקף]‎ vb. strike off (NH strike, wount Aram. 52) ?0.; Ar. > 223 fregit caput, 1 cerebrum appareret ; Vulg. Ar. snap with fl finger (Dozy""™*); As.nakpw prob.= mutilate Eth. #4: peel, flay Di™);—Niph. Pf. 3 m win ‘32D וְכַּף‎ consec. Is 10“ and the thicke of the forest shall be struck away (on sg. vl cf. Ges ל‎ 1% DaS™* 5155 oy rd. 35)3;—form 1 Pi., but ef. Di Du 606". Pi. Pf 3 pl. 7 MND? עלרי‎ Tb 10” after my skin, which th (Ges'™®) have struck off (alluding to rava of his disease)—this ! but text dub.; Ba ף‎ כָּזאת‎ (Niph.) which has been thus 7 off. n.{m.] striking off ;—only estr. "i?‏ נקף1 as (at) the striking of olive-trees Is 17° 24‏ זית judgment),‏ 5'י' (sim. of fewness of people after‏ ioe [נקף]‎ vb. go around (intrans.), (E lu 45° Hiph. ויקיפהו‎ swrround something wit (2 806.(; Pf. 3 fs. הקיפה‎ 43° (ace.+3 instr.) NH Hiph. הַקִיף‎ = BH; 8180 = cling to, be ₪ tached, joined to, and so Aram. אקיף‎ (Aph.), 28) ;—Qal Impf. 3P2 ON Is 29! (fig.) Le feasts go around, i.e. ‘run the round (of the he year). Hiph. Pf. הקיף‎ Jb 19°; 3 fs. MP0 Is 15°; 3 pl. DPT Jb 1° y 88"8, 32°97) cons 2 Ch 237, sf. ‘352 ש‎ 22%; 2 mpl. OA נקפה

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  .רבד .11 .+ מרבדּים 597 מרדך בלאדן MDW +. an.‏ , מַרבָּה Mav,‏ Ya V9 +. pn. pao +. pn.‏ ILyn. ]תּולגרמ[ +. bn.‏ .+ מרגוע . רגע ot A‏ מַרְגְעַה v. om.‏ מרְגְּמָה. vb. rebel (NH id; Ar. 355 be‏ [מרד 1 bold and audacious in acts of rebellion or dis- obedience ; Eth. 022: run strenuously, attack ; ané.:; rebellion, Pri®ettiset-44- Sab. מרד‎ re- bellion Hal**:!® Sab.Denkm.*® Hom Chest 27; Aram. 9330, 12; rebel);—Qal Pf. 3 ms. 179 2 Ch 36", 2ms. AMO 2 K 18% ==18 36°, etc.; Impf. TD") 2K 18+ 3 6, וַמְרֶר"‎ 2K 24' Ez 17”, etc.; Inf. cstr. 71D Jos 22”, a9? Ne 6°; Pé, pl. מרדים‎ Ne 2” Ez 20%, 10 Ez 2°; estr. מרדי‎ Jb 24°;—rebel, revolt : 1. against human king, c. 2 pers. 2 K 18°" =1336°, 2 K 24°? = Je 52°, cf. Ez 17” 2 Ch 36%, Neg”; less oft. (late) 6. by pers. 2 Ch 13° Ne 2”; abs. Gn 14* 6 6% 2. against God, c. 2 Nu14°(JE), Jos 2216181929 (all P), Ez 2? ))20 (מָר‎ , Dn 9°; abs. Ez . 25 (pt. Co ,(מורים‎ 20% Dng*. 38. poet., against light, only אור‎ "379 Jb 24". < TI. 119 n.[m. | rebellion, revolt, against”, ביהוה‎ Sypa-py} D2 DN Jos 225 (P; ef. TW 2). fir. מרד‎ n.pr.m. name in Judah acc. to 1 Ch 4”, 122 v*. G 110008, Nwpond, A Mapai, Map76, & L Bapad, Mapo. 1 מרדוּת‎ n.f. rebellion, rebelliousness, rebellious girl, cf. @ B Th We Dr HPS; > Lag 95 Bu (cf. also Dr Kit) der. מ"‎ fr. ,רדה‎ and, retaining MT, rd. ₪ woman gone astray (v. II. MY) from discipline (Aram. sense: +/ 877). 1 מרדך‎ u.pr.div. chief god of Babylon in Nebuchadrezzar’s time (As. Mar(u)duk(u) Schr COT Gloss Tiele Bab.-Ass. Gesch. 530 ff. Say Rel. Rab. 96 ff. : ef. Muss- Arnolt 222 = 18%: 164 5( — wean baa 7323 70 nna ba Je50° (G Mavwdak), tarda JIN u.pr.m. king of Babylon (As. Marduk-abal-idinna, Marduk has given a son Schr??**.”)-__Ts 39! (> van d, H JIN ,ב'‎ v. Baer’s n.) = 2 K 20” (where read מרדך‎ for ;(בראדך‎ G (in both) Mapwdax(x) Bad(a)day ; ef. also .בּלְאָדֶן‎ מרדכי 1 מרדכי‎ (van 6082הצסזד. מז עסמ (מַרְדכי0.11‎ | ‘1 be not a rebellious person Ez 2°; רי יבקש‎ (perh. fr.n. div. Marduk (112), Zim74¥ 186 ef. further Wild (citing Jensen) °™™ #178") ;__ 2 Ezr 2° Est 2* + ; (371) Est 2”+4;—1. com- panion of Zerub., acc. to Ezr27= Ney’. ₪ Mapayatos, 1100800000 etc. 2. cousin and adoptive father of Esther Est 2°7°+ 55 t. Est. G MapSoxatos, TV v. .רדה , רדף‎ vb. be contentious, Tetbactory,‏ מרהז

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  שד orig. VY We‏ ;120% כ גדשד p.pr.‏ (=Ar. 3\2 rule) acc. to Thes Baud*™- Rel).‏ DI al.; > Ar. sx» (10, rv azd), Hom7™6 tae),‏ nay‏ לשָרִים לא against this Zim" ©); TDN‏ 9 Dt 32” (cf. Dr), y 106% (human sacrifice).‏ שדד v.‏ שד .1 Vb. deal violently with, despoil,‏ ,, [שדד] stop‏ בג id., Niph.; Ar.‏ ד devastate, ruin (N‏ up, obstruct, arrest, make firm; Eth. ALL:‏ expel; As. sadddu is draw, drag) ;—Qal Pf.‏ y 17°;‏ שדונִי 85 ;32% Ez‏ [שךד pl. consec.‏ 3 Impf. 3 ms. 1. (metapl., cf. Ges*4 Bae) 91%‏ (ושדם sf, DIV (Ges!) Prix® Qr (Kt Pf.‏ DTW Je 5°; Imv. mpl. 77H (Ges?) 49%;‏ Inf. abs. WO Mi 2°; estr. 11% Je47*(Ges'*®),‏ Je 6% +, etc.;‏ שרד Ho 10"; Pt. act.‏ שד cf. also‏ pass. WY Ju 5% + , 1. TW y137°;—violently‏ destroy, pers.,=slay Ju 5” (pass.), Je 5° (wolf‏ subj.; || 737); 800. Philistines 47* (|| 1°37), v*‏ (subj. ); =devastate, acc. 023 (subj.*) Je 51°,‏ We Du, cf. Ew Hi‏ השדְדֶה cf. 137° (rd. prob.‏ TTIW y. Kot); Dy ANN Ez 3 2°(|| 12),‏ Je 25°° (subj. *), abs. Is‏ אֶתִדמַרְעִיתֶם ,10% cf. Ho‏ (on use of pt. v. Ges'™>), pass.‏ )33 ,)123 ||( 217 TTY AN Je 4° (Gf Ba*®™, but dub.;‏ ,)723 ||( יצ =desporl, acc. pers. Je 49°;‏ ;)1 טכ > =bring pers. to ruin Mi 2* (Inf. abs. + Niph.‏ q-v.), Pr 11°; weaker, assail 117°; elsewhere‏ Pt. act. as subst. devastator (despoiler?): of‏ national foes 18 16* 217 33' Je 67+ 8 1. Je;‏ Ob’ )|| 21233) del. Now GASm; per-‏ שוררי mb‘‏ sonal foe Jb15°'; representing wicked in gen.‏ (JON TID). +Niph. Pf x pl. ww Tw‏ 125 K6"?") we are utterly ruined, + Pi.‏ 7% ל 308)) Pr 24” assault not‏ אַלִדִתִּשָבָּר 27 Impf. 2 ms.‏ Pt. as subst.‏ ; (אלִתּאָרב ||( his dwelling-place‏ he who assaults, maltreats (his)‏ 0% ד ANTI Pr‏ father (|| O8 D2). +Pu. Pf 3 ms. TW Is‏ fs. ATW Je 4% + , ATW Na 37 (Ges‏ 3 ,+'15 etc.;—be devastated, of city Is15'1 2 at‏ ,)4 Je 48' 49° Na 3’, country or nation Je 4”, 1‏ ,”10 47 16 (אהָל) vg 48°" 49”, dwellings‏ strength‏ ץע .01 (09.5 1 682% trees 2201 1? (del.‏ of ships Is 23", field (by drought) Jo 1", crop‏ vy". +Po'el violently destroy: Impf. 3 ms.‏ |Y"). + Hoph.‏ מִזְבְּחתֶם ||( :10 TI) Ho‏ מִצבותֶם Impf. (or Qal pass. Impf.? cf. Ges'*") be‏ Ho ro” (of‏ בּלמְבְצְרִיף 18 devastated: 3 ms.‏ ms. TAN Ts 33! (subj.‏ 2 ; (יושדו Ephr., > We pl.‏ THY, v. Qal).‏ 994 שדי

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Dt 12'°+, 660.; Jmv. ms. שפוךּ‎ Ju 67+, “av ץ‎ 69”; fs. שְפּבִי‎ La 2", ete.; Inf. estr. “a 1K 183+, yeu) Is 59'+, etc.; Pt. act. JD? Gn 9+, 5 nav Ez 22°, etc.; pass. ל פד שפוף‎ שפוּכה‎ Ez 20°;—1. lit.: a. pour out, pour water Ex 4° (J; 806. 106.(, 1 8 7° (+% "2D, unique, symb. of contrition), a BUY (subj. (י"‎ Am 5% 9%; blood like water (to flow away and be absorbed), pry Dt ra ne") chs Sage 17% (H) Ez 24°; 3150 + אֶל‎ loc. Ex 29! Ly 47% 5.5034. + על‎ pers. reflex. 1 K 18°; pour out bese Ju 6% libation (992, to (5) false gods) Is 57°; dust Lv 14"! (P; bs loc.); ¢. acc. ‘bbb mound (in siege), =make by pouring (earth, orig. from baskets, see esp. As. Sapdku 1([ ¥?°?” Jen Bosmol-at), עַל-‎ of city 2K 10%==1837%, Je 6° Ez 47 2.68, אלד‎ 2$20"; abs. Ez1y7” *ד2‎ Dnrr™s TVW ושי מָעָיו‎ 8 20% (by a sword-thrust in the belly), ef. NID yixd יש'‎ Jb 16" (metaph., subj.). b. techn., acc. ד‎ shed blood Gn 37” (E) 9°(P) tS 25% Ez 22 +4 ot. Ez, + 15 t. (pass. +79”) -+Ez36(c.PINTOY), 1 Ch 228 (c. AY); acc. DOI +1 K 2% 1Ch 28° ךֶ9")םִיִמַּכ‎ 2. fig.: a. subj., pour out anger, etc.: אֶש'‎ pinoy may pes 110 5%; ש' חַמָתִי על‎ ₪ 14" 4 8 t. Ez, Je 10% Ts 42° ץ‎ 79° 5 by | et : (עַל‎ ace. ’M om. Je 6"; -c. ב‎ loc. La 24; ABAY ’N Ez 20%; ace. SAN JIN La 4"; ace. ‘by ‘by pers.) Ez21°+ 3t.; Jb 127 = 107" pour their own wickedness עלִיהֶם‎ 16 14% )6 requite it); pour out עַל‎ A Ez 39%, 01 Bere? Jo3'*. b. hum. subj. pour out one’s heart, etc., qad Od La 2”, D239 1285 y- 62° (ie. bef. ), a ab WIN 1S 1, sby Saad על .ץצ‎ 1 ₪ פב 1 ;42° ץ‎ MUNN ש‎ 102' (title), ef. 142°; in bad sense, by PUAN =) 21223) Ez 16", ef. 23%. +Niph. Ff. 3 ms, נַשֶפֶף‎ La2", etc.; Impf. 3 ms. ישפף‎ Gn 9°+, etc.; Inf. estr. השפף‎ Ez 16% ;—be poured out: of 0 1K 13*°, blood עַל)‎ loc.) Dt 127; be shed, of blood Gn 9° (P) Dt 19"; in fig. La 2" my liver is powred j" WS? (cf. Qal1a ad fin.); ~22" I am poured out like water (nerveless, helpless); subj. qAwn3 Ez 16% (y. .זז‎ [NYN2]; ef. "צ‎ Qal2b). +Pu. Pf. 3 ms. consec. |שפף‎ Zp 1” be poured out 72Y3, of blood; שפף‎ Nu 35°(P) be shed, of blood ; 3 fs. MIBY y73° Kt my steps were caused to slip (Qr 28Y). +Hithp. Impf, 3 fs. עָלי‎ WEI FBAVN Jb 30" my soul pours itself out upon me (v.Qal 2b); 3 fpl. PIP 2AS תְּשְתִּפכְנָה‎ acc. בג‎ contempt, עַל‎ pers.,

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Cara. Yes, I have a copy of it. I’m going send it to you when I unpack these boxes from my move.39 It’s so cool. It’s so young and ripe, I should say. My early writing days. Lorraine Hansberry was the narrator. And it traced, oh, you’ll appreciate this, there’s a Black queer woman of mixed ancestry trying to understand her sexuality, gender identity, race and ethnicity in relationship to a world full of violence against Black women. And she has a chorus of Black women very much informed by James Baldwin’s play The Amen Corner.40 His character gets visited by a choir in the bathtub while he’s in the bathroom. I realized I often felt like I had this choir of Black women in my ear. So at the time, I was also studying international lesbians of color. Very informed by South Asian women of color doing some badass shit in India around sex work. My world was just getting blown apart. But I was like, where is my relationship to my own Blackness? And historically, who are the Black bodies, the Black women bodies, female bodies, that have taken violence, taken on violence, and experience it? And where is their resiliency? And how do you speak to that? And so Lorraine Hansberry was guiding the story for the mixed-race Black girl trying to find herself and listening to a chorus of Black women ancestors who had all been vilified and violated by state violence—starting with the Hottentot Venus all the way up to a Black woman sex worker who had just been murdered in Boston by her john, whose father came out publicly and said she deserved to die because she was a sex worker. And that was 1991, girl! And I thought, what the fuck? She had been stabbed like fifty-two times by her john. And (her father) basically stood in front of that camera and said she was expendable. And don’t pay no mind, she deserved it. So I took it all the way from Hottentot to her story, in relationship to this Black woman trying to find herself. And it was very much about acknowledging and empowering a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our lived experience as Black women. amb. And so you’re moving in this creative mode. You’re writing. Cara. On fire. amb. A performance artist. And you’re waking up into this political sense of wholeness. And your whole self. And then you come into your healing. What’s the awakening? Cara. I don’t know where she is now, but Andrea Hairston [note: amb squealed] was also one of my teachers. She was at Smith College. How do you know her? amb. I know her because she writes Black speculative fiction. She wrote a couple of books I thought were amazing. She does this really gorgeous Black and Indigenous love story stuff.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need—the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love. But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting.27 It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel. As women, we need to examine the ways in which our world can be truly different. I am speaking here of the necessity for reassessing the quality of all the aspects of our lives and of our work, and of how we move toward and through them. The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects—born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives. There are frequent attempts to equate pornography and eroticism, two diametrically opposed uses of the sexual. Because of these attempts, it has become fashionable to separate the spiritual (psychic and emotional) from the political, to see them as contradictory or antithetical. “What do you mean, a poetic revolutionary, a meditating gunrunner?” In the same way, we have attempted to separate the spiritual and the erotic, thereby reducing the spiritual to a world of flattened affect, a world of the ascetic who aspires to feel nothing. But nothing is farther from the truth. For the ascetic position is one of the highest fear, the gravest immobility. The severe abstinence of the ascetic becomes the ruling obsession. And it is one not of self-discipline but of self-abnegation. The dichotomy between the spiritual and the political is also false, resulting from an incomplete attention to our erotic knowledge. For the bridge which connects them is formed by the erotic—the sensual—those physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us, being shared: the passions of love, in its deepest meanings.28 Beyond the superficial, the considered phrase, “It feels right to me,” acknowledges the strength of the erotic into a true knowledge, for what that means is the first and most powerful guiding light toward any understanding. And understanding is a handmaiden which can only wait upon, or clarify, that knowledge, deeply born. The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Maybe it really was that simple for him. I imagined my father sitting at his desk in Nairobi, a big man in government, with clerks and secretaries bringing him papers to sign, a minister calling him for advice, a loving wife and children waiting at home, his own father’s village only a day’s drive away. The image made me vaguely angry, and I tried to set it aside, concentrating instead on the sound of salsa coming from an open window somewhere down the block. The same thoughts kept returning to me, though, as persistent as the beat of my heart. Where did I belong? My conversation with Regina that night after the rally might have triggered a change in me, left me warm with good intentions. But I was like a drunk coming out of a long, painful binge, and I had soon felt my newfound resolve slipping away, without object or direction. Two years from graduation, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, or even where I would live. Hawaii lay behind me like a childhood dream; I could no longer imagine settling there. Whatever my father might say, I knew it was too late to ever truly claim Africa as my home. And if I had come to understand myself as a black American, and was understood as such, that understanding remained unanchored to place. What I needed was a community, I realized, a community that cut deeper than the common despair that black friends and I shared when reading the latest crime statistics, or the high fives I might exchange on a basketball court. A place where I could put down stakes and test my commitments. And so, when I heard about a transfer program that Occidental had arranged with Columbia University, I’d been quick to apply. I figured that if there weren’t any more black students at Columbia than there were at Oxy, I’d at least be in the heart of a true city, with black neighborhoods in close proximity. As it was, there wasn’t much in L.A. to hold me back. Most of my friends were graduating that year: Hasan off to work with his family in London, Regina on her way to Andalusia to study Spanish Gypsies.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  You have slaughtered with such fury as reaches to heaven. And now you propose to reduce these children of Judah and Jerusalem to being your serving men and women! And are you not all the while the ones who are guilty before Yahweh your God? Now listen to me—release the prisoners you have taken of your brothers, for the fierce anger of Yahweh hangs over you.147 The troops immediately released the captives and relinquished all their booty; specially appointed officials “saw to the relief of the prisoners. From the booty, they clothed all those of them who were naked; they gave them clothing and sandals, and provided them with food, drink and shelter. They mounted all those who were infirm on donkeys, and took them back to their kinsmen in Jericho.”148 These priests were probably monotheists; in Babylonia, paganism had lost its allure for the exiles. The prophet who had hailed Cyrus as the messiah also uttered the first fully monotheistic statement in the Bible: “Am I not Yahweh?” he makes the God of Israel demand repeatedly. “There is no other god beside me.”149 Yet the monotheism of these priests had not made them intolerant, bloodthirsty, or cruel; rather, the reverse is true. Other postexilic prophets were more aggressive. Inspired by Darius’s ideology, they looked forward to a “day of wonder” when Yahweh would rule the entire world and there would be no mercy for nations who resisted: “Their flesh will moulder while they are still standing on their feet; their eyes will rot in their sockets; their tongues will rot in their mouths.”150 They imagined Israel’s former enemies processing meekly each year to Jerusalem, the new Susa, bearing rich gifts and tribute.151 Others had fantasies of the Israelites who had been deported by Assyria being carried tenderly home,152 while their former oppressors prostrated themselves before them and kissed their feet.153 One prophet had a vision of Yahweh’s glory shining over Jerusalem, the center of a redeemed world and a haven of peace—yet a peace achieved only by ruthless repression.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  It could be—but it might not be, either. Starting to get curious (and even a little cautious) about the data your brain is trying to give you is going to help you stay afloat in your water that much longer. The sooner we can realize this, the more liberated we are to engage with our experiences and relationships. We are no longer a victim to the mind and what it’s trying to tell us. In other words, the jig is up, and the brain can get in line because you’re no longer buying the BS. WHY POSITIVE THINKING CAN TAKE A WALK Speaking of BS, I’m calling out positive thinking, changing your thoughts, or “training” your brain. Because as much as we may want to control our minds, our brains can be unruly. That’s why, for example, mindfulness is a practice that’s about building awareness of our thoughts—it’s never an act of mastery. You may have found yourself especially frustrated because you’ve tried all the “brain hacks” to change your thinking and it’s just not cutting it. People can get into some really dangerous territory because they have been told that if only they could “think positively,” they would feel better. Or they have been told that they can pray it away, ignore it, or change it (and you know how this goes thanks to meta-worrying); that tends to only amplify the thoughts and corresponding distress when we can’t in fact change our thoughts. So, let me say this loud and clear: there’s nothing wrong with you if you have anxious or obsessive thoughts. We all have them from time to time. For some, it just happens to be a little (or a lot) more frequent. This isn’t by happenstance, either. There are literally mechanisms in the brain that contribute to people experiencing ruminating thoughts. Specifically, with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), we see overactivity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and caudate nucleus. 29 So, while you may be feeling like you’re responsible for giving yourself these upsetting thoughts that just won’t seem to go away, it’s actually your brain doing the work for you. How kind. Now, I know. I’m going to put it simply: this plain sucks. This is the part of the acceptance work that’s the struggle. Many of us go through a period where we resent our minds, compare ourselves to others, and say, “Why me? Why do others seem so unbothered by their minds and I’m over here losing sleep, second-guessing everything, and feeling miserable?”

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Industrialization also gave birth to the nation-state. 112 Agrarian empires had lacked the technology to impose a uniform culture; the borders and territorial reach of premodern kingdoms could be only loosely defined and the monarch’s authority enforced in a series of overlapping loyalties. 113 But during the nineteenth century, Europe was reconfigured into clearly defined states ruled by a central government. 114 Industrialized society required standardized literacy, a shared language, and a unified control of human resources. Even if they spoke a different language from the ruler, subjects now belonged to an integrated “nation,” an “imaginary community” of people who were encouraged to feel a deep connection with persons they knew nothing about. 115 Religiously organized agrarian societies had often persecuted “heretics”; in the secularized nation-state, it was “minorities” who had either to assimilate or disappear. In 1807 Jefferson had instructed his secretary of war that the Native Americans were “backward peoples” who must either be “exterminated” or driven “beyond our reach” to the other side of the Mississippi “with the beasts of the forest.” 116 In 1806 Napoleon made Jews full citizens of France, but two years later he issued the “Infamous Decrees” ordering them to take French names, privatize their faith, and ensure that at least one in every three marriages per family was with a gentile. 117 This forcible integration was regarded as progress. Surely, argued the British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–73), it was better for a Breton to accept French citizenship “than to sulk on his own rocks, the half-savage remnant of past times, revolving in his own little mental orbit, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world.” 118 But the English historian Lord Acton (1834–1902) deplored the notion of nationality, fearing that the “fictitious” general will of the people that it promoted would crush “all natural rights and all established liberties for the purpose of vindicating itself.” 119 He could see that the desire to preserve the nation could become an absolute used to justify the most inhumane policies. Even worse, By making the State and the nation commensurate with each other in theory, [nationality] reduces practically to a subject condition all other nationalities that may be within the boundary.... According, therefore, to the degree of humanity and civilization in that dominant body which claims all the rights of the community, the inferior races are exterminated or reduced to servitude, or put in a condition of dependence. 120 His reservations about nationalism would prove to be all too well grounded. The new nation-state would labor under a fundamental contradiction: the state (the governmental apparatus) was supposed to be secular, but the nation (“the people”) aroused quasi-religious emotions.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Adam had two sons: Cain, the farmer, and Abel, the herdsman—the traditional enemy of the agrarian state. Both dutifully brought offerings to Yahweh, who somewhat perversely rejected Cain’s sacrifice but accepted Abel’s. Baffled and furious, Cain lured his brother into the family plot and killed him, his arable land becoming a field of blood that cried out to Yahweh for vengeance. “Damned be you from the soil, which opened up its mouth to receive your brother’s blood!”3 Yahweh cried. Henceforth Cain would wander in the land of Nod as an outcast and fugitive. From the start, the Hebrew Bible condemns the violence at the heart of the agrarian state. It is Cain, the first murderer, who builds the world’s first city, and one of his descendants is Tubal the Smith (Kayin), “ancestor of all metal-workers in bronze and iron,” who crafts its weapons.4 Immediately after the murder, when Yahweh asks Cain, “Where is your brother, Abel?” he replies, “Am I my brother’s guardian?”5 Urban civilization denied that relationship with and responsibility for all other human beings that is embedded in human nature. The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, did not reach its final form until about the fourth century BCE. For the historians, poets, prophets, priests, and lawyers of Israel, it became the organizing narrative around which they constructed their worldview. Over the centuries, they would change that story and embroider it, adding or reinterpreting events in order to address the particular challenges of their own time. This story began in about 1750 BCE, when Yahweh commanded Abraham, Israel’s ancestor, to turn his back on the agrarian society and culture of Mesopotamia and settle in Canaan, where he, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob would live as simple herdsmen. Yahweh promised that their descendants would one day possess this land and become a nation as numerous as the sands on the seashore.6 But Jacob and his twelve sons (founders of the tribes of Israel) were forced by famine to leave Canaan and migrate to Egypt. At first they prospered, but eventually the Egyptians enslaved them, and they languished in serfdom until about 1250 BCE, when Yahweh brought them out of Egypt under Moses’s leadership. For forty years the Israelites wandered in the Sinai wilderness before reaching the Canaanite border, where Moses died, but his lieutenant, Joshua, led the Israelites to victory in the Promised Land, destroying all the Canaanite cities and killing their inhabitants.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Heat began in my back teeth, igniting the wick of my tongue. A light lanterned my mouth and I named it rage. I ringed my arms around my father’s waist and dangled from him, trying to weaponize the weight of my body. My brother tried to kick back at him, but his foot flung out and kicked the side-view mirror instead, freeing our faces from it. The mirror shattered, turning our faces multifaceted as diamonds, and before its shards hit the asphalt, I saw in it how small I was, how my arms barely circled the width of my father’s waist. From another angle, it might have looked like I was trying to dance with him, dip him back in my arms. I let go of his waist and stood, my spine hammered straight, welded to wound. Beneath my skirt, my tail tautened between my legs, tethering me to the ground. I walked up behind my father, low and crouched, my knees hinged with a strength that was my mother’s: practiced at bending and rising, learning all the angles of prayer. My brother’s head lolled to the side as my father shook him again, spit whipping out of my brother’s mouth, sparkling in the air. Coiling his arms in, he retracted my brother to his chest, and I thought he was either going to hug him or throw him. I stood behind my father, standing in his shadow while my tail wrapped around his ankle, yanking so quick his leg buckled beneath him. He collapsed on one knee and cried out, the asphalt burning his kneecap bald, gravel gritting into it. My brother, let go, stumbled and leaned against the SUV, looking at my tail as if it might strangle his ankle too: It dangled slack between my legs again, sated. Wringing the sweat from its fur, I tucked it back into my underwear. I stepped back from my father’s kneeling body, his shadow truncated at the waist. He moaned a sound too low and gutted for even the car engines to comprehend, his lip metallic where he’d bitten it. He stood up halfway, cradling his skinned-open knee like a geode: Beneath the broken dullness of his skin, he was rubied with blood, pearled with tendon. Looking up at me through the black blades of his hair, he said my name, his mouth unstitched by it. It wasn’t the pain of his knee that kept him from following us: It was my face, my face that was my mother’s, my face that made the sun swivel around and witness it, my face backlit and blurred into the sky’s blue, resembling what couldn’t be touched.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Now that you are dead you can see why I never wanted you to live. See how much lighter you are now? barren of a body mother to nothing? You darkest of my daughters in skin in smoke. I burned you this ash is yours rebuild it into anything you want me to be. This letter is not apology . I am not writing for a response a bullet doesn’t ask to be given back. My second husband the soldier lives by the law of loss kill what you cannot carry marry what you cannot bury writing will wring lies from the white open a gate to our griefs. I have no need to grieve what I named . I’m here shitting my pants. The zhongyi says sphincter loose as a sleeve says it’s because of my age I suspect it’s your father the first man I married for his soldier’s pension for a future the color of tendon one night I woke to him between my legs tongue out weeding my pubic hair with his teeth balding me said he could see the lice on me the size of pearls stuffed me with what he plucked I birthed hairballs the size of your head rehearsed birth until you born drilling my body into wind You my littleplum I raised you braised in my blood let me begin the river is noodled with snakes the river is not to blame I once saw soldiers throw prisoners into the river the fish for weeks were shaped like boys they say the babies here born gilled bladed or hammerheaded evolution is the body becoming its best weapon. What feeds on your body without permission is a parasite children are no exception. The only cure is to survive what lives off you

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

  Less important, but still noteworthy and peculiar, is the apologetic work of the Gallic presbyter, Salvianus, on providence and the government of the world.127 It was composed about the middle of the fifth century (440–455) in answer at once to the charge that Christianity occasioned all the misfortunes of the times, and to the doubts concerning divine providence, which were spreading among Christians themselves. The blame of the divine judgments he places, however, not upon the heathens, but upon the Christianity of the day, and, in forcible and lively, but turgid and extravagant style, draws an extremely unfavorable picture of the moral condition of the Christians, especially in Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Africa. His apology for Christianity, or rather for the Christian faith in the divine government of the world, was also a polemic against the degenerate Christians. It was certainly unsuited to convert heathens, but well fitted to awaken the church to more dangerous enemies within, and stimulate her to that moral self-reform, which puts the crown upon victory over outward foes. "The church," says this Jeremiah of his time, "which ought everywhere to propitiate God, what does she, but provoke him to anger?128 How many may one meet, even in the church, who are not still drunkards, or debauchees, or adulterers, or fornicators, or robbers, or murderers, or the like, or all these at once, without end? It is even a sort of holiness among Christian people, to be less vicious." From the public worship of God, he continues, and almost during it, they pass to deeds of shame. Scarce a rich man, but would commit murder and fornication. We have lost the whole power of Christianity, and offend God the more, that we sin as Christians. We are worse than the barbarians and heathen. If the Saxon is wild, the Frank faithless, the Goth inhuman, the Alanian drunken, the Hun licentious, they are by reason of their ignorance far less punishable than we, who, knowing the commandments of God, commit all these crimes. He compares the Christians especially of Rome with the Arian Goths and Vandals, to the disparagement of the Romans, who add to the gross sins of nature the refined vices of civilization, passion for theatres, debauchery, and unnatural lewdness. Therefore has the just God given them into the hands of the barbarians and exposed them to the ravages of the migrating hordes. This horrible picture of the Christendom of the fifth century is undoubtedly in many respects an exaggeration of ascetic and monastic zeal. Yet it is in general not untrue; it presents the dark side of the picture, and enables us to understand more fully on moral and psychological grounds the final dissolution of the western empire of Rome. CHAPTER III.ALLIANCE OF CHURCH AND STATE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON PUBLIC MORALS AND RELIGION.SOURCES.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  I read the last letter aloud in my yard. Ben sat in front of me with her legs forked open in the soil, her hand petting the 口. Reading aloud to the holes, I mispronounced all the silences, rewrote them with my own prayer. She’s getting ready to bury him, Ben said. She’s baiting us. My tail curled in on itself, fit in my hand like a stone. I wanted a window. I wanted to see something shatter because of me. I said I wasn’t going to let her bury anything. The bone in my tail was wincing down to a wick, preparing for me to light it. Its marrow was memory. When my mother came home from the foot spa that night, I said I was volunteering to be her weapon. She softened the knots of her hands in a bowl of hot water, said she was tired. But I said it anyway: Ama is going to hurt Agong. She turned away from the window, her face wiped of light. The sink behind her was full, the water silver with knives. You think I don’t know? she said, and I knew she was mocking me, her voice stretched out of shape over the words. Everything in my mouth sounded already wrong, gone sour. I looked down at the bruised tile floor, at her shadow grazing on mine, eating it whole. I know about the river, I said, looking up. I think it’s time to dam her. My mother’s knees must have come unscrewed: She knelt down, her back against the wall, her hands snagging in her hair when she tried to shift it out of her face. I moved forward through the dim of the kitchen, tugged down on her left ear like she always did for me when I was having a bad dream. When she jerked her head away from me, I told her she didn’t have to be afraid of Ama. While I untangled the hair from around her fingers, I imagined loosing my tail like an arrow, shortcutting it through Ama’s body, her ribs making a fist around her heart. Do you remember that story I told you? my mother said. I asked her which one, and she told me about the women who hanged themselves with their own hair when the mountains were mowed over. Once, we lived inside the ground. The sun swung like a bucket of our blood. When I asked her why they hanged themselves, she said the only way to own your body is to die inside it. I said that wasn’t true anymore. She stood up and tugged her own ear, checking to see if we were dream-speaking. Steaming her hands over the bowl of water, she said, You’re not listening. The steam opened her fists like flowers. The story about the women, she said, was a story about choice. How we had one. How we chose to be dead in our own bodies than alive without our language.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  I’m dying, he said, performing a wound in his side, and instead of offering my bare calf, I ran from the kitchen and into the living room, left him to paddle around in his own pretend blood. Between my buttocks, my tail burned like a fuse, heat clawing up to the root, a pain pinned to my lower back. I bent forward, hunching until my palms were pressed to the hardwood and I was on all fours, my tail flicking between my legs. I could hear my father in the kitchen behind me, standing with his back to me, and I got to my feet, watched the back of his neck where his veins were alive as snakes. My mother once told me that snakes were the severed fingers of a god who lived on the moon, a god who snipped off her own fingers and littered them on earth as self-punishment for trying to steal the sun. Every snake, I thought, must be roaming for blood, seeking the hand it was severed from. When I looked at my father, my tail unfurled like a whip and patrolled the air, licking my legs forward. It butted between my knees and sang and begged: Fasten my maw to his neck, unspool his veins with my teeth. Bury his hands in the yard for pickpocketing my mother from me. Instead, I considered how best to cook my knees and cure him. His blood may have been made of snakes, but saving him was still my story. When he turned around and saw me kneading my knees, crouching low enough to tongue my shadow off the floor, he smiled and asked if I was praying. Tired-lines gathered in a stanza above his eyebrows. Sweat sheening his skin like an oil spill. In the back of his mouth, his molars were silver-capped, cupping the light inside them, and I looked away. Remembered how he once untangled my kite-string when it got noosed around a tree: He told me that cutting the line wouldn’t save the kite. It would only flee me. So he climbed the tree instead, unsnagging the string from the bark until I could finally tug it back, easing the kite out of the sky’s fist. Running to the bathroom, I sat on the toilet and let my tail dangle into the bowl, its ache receding as the water stroked it. In the mirror above the sink, a shadow striped my face into halves, and my tail curled around my thigh like a hand, choking me above the knee. It wouldn’t release my leg until I promised to let it hunt for me, hurt for me.

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

  § 27. Restriction of Religious Freedom, and Beginnings of Persecution of Heretics. Sam. Eliot: History of Liberty. Boston, 1858, 4 vols. Early Christians, vols. i. and ii. The most important facts are scattered through the sections of the larger church histories on the heresies, the doctrinal controversies, and church discipline. An inevitable consequence of the union of church and state was restriction of religious freedom in faith and worship, and the civil punishment of departure from the doctrine and discipline of the established church. The church, dominant and recognized by the state, gained indeed external freedom and authority, but in a measure at the expense of inward liberty and self-control. She came, as we have seen in the previous section, under the patronage and supervision of the head of the Christian state, especially in the Byzantine empire. In the first three centuries, the church, with all her external lowliness and oppression, enjoyed the greater liberty within, in the development of her doctrines and institutions, by reason of her entire separation from the state. But the freedom of error and division was now still more restricted. In the ante-Nicene age, heresy and schism were as much hated and abhorred indeed, as afterward, yet were met only in a moral way, by word and writing, and were punished with excommunication from the rights of the church. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and even Lactantius were the first advocates of the principle of freedom of conscience, and maintained, against the heathen, that religion was essentially a matter of free will, and could be promoted only by instruction and persuasion not by outward force.241 All they say against the persecution of Christians by the heathen applies in full to the persecution of heretics by the church. After the Nicene age all departures from the reigning state-church faith were not only abhorred and excommunicated as religious errors, but were treated also as crimes against the Christian state, and hence were punished with civil penalties; at first with deposition, banishment, confiscation, and, after Theodosius, even with death.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  That’s supposed to be funny because our society thinks that women having unwanted sex is just one of the “inconveniences of marriage.” For centuries, the marriage vow has functioned as an irrevocable, blanket sexual consent—by women, for men. So why aren’t we talking about how one in ten women will be raped by their husbands? Another 13 percent of women say they’ve had sex because they were “bullied or humiliated” into it by their current husbands. About a third of married women have complied with their husbands’ demands for sex because it was expected after he spent money on her, even though the sexual act was unwanted. The majority of married women report that they experience coercion to have sex from their current husband. Marriage remains the site of the most widespread rape and sexual exploitation in our society.44 Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Whore? In a sense, women and femmes are all forced to be sexual laborers—to please men and masculine people with our bodies. But we are never allowed to admit that this giving of pleasure is real work and that sometimes it is forced work. We are certainly never allowed to take control of this work and negotiate to receive something in exchange for it. Because asking for money makes a woman or femme a whore. And—surprise!—our culture tells us this is the very worst thing we can be. Whores are degraded! Unlovable! Rape-able! Better off dead! We use the term “whore” to refer to the feminine sin of demanding too much. “Attention whore,” “fame whore,” “money whore”: a whore commits the sin of wanting—whether it’s money, sex, or attention. Instead, women and femmes are supposed to treat sexual pleasure like good wives doing the housework: do it for straight men, mostly at home, invisibly, with a smile and, of course, for free. Make him happy. Don’t ask for too much. Wouldn’t want to see women and femmes actually get something in return, would we? Much of our culture’s fear about selling sex is exaggerated and misunderstood. This is because the imaginary sex industry is used as a mirror of our larger problems with sex and with work. Tell me what you fear about sex work, and I’ll tell you what makes you anxious about your own sex life—and your own working life. The stories we tell about sex work are about our culture’s hidden realities—that, even in the “safety” of love and marriage, sex can be a lot of work; sometimes we don’t have much choice about it; nonconsensual domination and violence are common (including among queers); sex is still tied to economic survival and class mobility for many people (especially women); and under capitalism, all of us “sell our bodies” in one way or another.45 Selling Our Bodies

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

  Addressing the clergy, he devotes nearly a hundred pages of his Truth of Scripture to an elaboration of this principle. Not even the most trifling sin is permissible as a means of averting a greater evil, either for oneself or one’s neighbor. Under no circumstances does a good intention justify a falsehood. The pope himself has no right to tolerate or practice misrepresentation to advance a good cause. To accomplish a good end, the priest dare not even make a false appeal to fear. All lying is of itself sin, and no dispensation can change its character.594 The friars called forth the Reformer’s keenest thrusts, and these increased in sharpness as he neared the end of his life. Quotations, bearing on their vices, would fill a large volume. Entire treatises against their heresies and practices issued from his pen. They were slavish agents of the pope’s will; they spread false views of the eucharist; they made merchandise of indulgences and letters of fraternity which pretended to give the purchasers a share in their own good deeds here and at the final accounting. Their lips were full of lies and their hands of blood. They entered houses and led women astray; they lived in