Confusion

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 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  is not the infallible, inerrant book it was once thought to be (and is still thought to be by some), in what way is it reliable, or even serviceable at all? This crisis reaches far beyond questions of historicity and reaches most fundamentally to questions of divine revelation and ethical teaching. But historical questions have played an especially important part in bringing it on. In the modern world, there is often a tendency to equate truth with historical fact. This tendency may be naïve and unsophisticated, but it is widespread and we cannot ignore it. If we are to arrive at a more sophisticated conception of biblical truth, we must first clarify the complex ways in which these books relate to history. CHRONOLOGY Approximate dates implied in Bible for early history: Modern chronology: 4000 B.C.E. Creation (Scientists estimate the age of the earth is 4.5 billion years.) 2400 Flood 2401 2100 Abraham The historical value of the stories of the patriarchs is uncertain. Modern scholars have often proposed a date of 1800 B.C.E. for Abraham. 1875 Descent into Egypt 1445 Exodus 1250 B.C.E. (approx.) Exodus from Egypt (disputed). 1250–1000 Emergence of Israel in the highlands of Canaan. 1000 David 1000–960 (approx.) King David. Beginning of monarchy in Jerusalem (disputed). 960–922 (approx.) King Solomon. Building of Jerusalem temple (disputed). (From 922 on, the implied biblical dates are generally compatible with those of modern scholarship.) 922 Division of kingdom: Israel in the north, Judah in the south. 722/721 Destruction of Samaria, capital of Israel, by the Assyrians. End of kingdom of Israel. 621 Reform of Jerusalem cult by King Josiah. Promulgation of “the book of the law” (some form of

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  pharaoh in the exodus story by hardening his heart. The solution is provided by a “spirit” that volunteers to be a lying spirit in the mouths of the prophets. We saw in 1 Samuel how the Lord sent an evil spirit upon King Saul. Here he sends a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets. Micaiah does not deny that his fellow prophets are inspired. The problem is that the spirit of inspiration may be deceitful. The four hundred prophets who prophesied success for the king relied on their ecstatic behavior as evidence that they were inspired. But if inspiration itself can be deceitful, whom should the king believe? Both he and Micaiah adopt an attitude of “wait and see.” The king does not have Micaiah killed on the spot, as he might have had, but has him imprisoned, pending the outcome of the battle. Micaiah agrees that if the king returns from the battle, “the L ORD has not spoken through me.” In the event, Micaiah is vindicated, but it is too late by then for the king to do anything about it. The story of Micaiah ben Imlah illustrates both the way prophecy worked in Israelite society and the problems that were inherent in it. The prophets claimed to speak the word of the Lord, and this is what made their utterances powerful. But sometimes they disagreed and contradicted each other. How then could one decide which one was right? We shall revisit this problem when we discuss the book of Jeremiah. Ultimately, the only satisfactory way to know whether a prophecy was right was to wait and see, and that might well be too late, as it was in the case of Ahab. The king would have been better advised to decide whether to go to war on the merits of the case: was this a necessary war, that he should risk his life to pursue it? The fact that prophets told him he would be successful (or that he would be killed) was not sufficiently reliable to be the basis for his decision. Elijah and Elisha Narratives.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  I imagined her as a person out in the world, beyond the red fence. But there was a more sinister meaning to Father’s story that morning, and it would have an imminent significance on the trajectory of my life. The weather that day was sunny, and the air was brisk. After second breakfast, we bundled up in our homemade sweaters and mittens and headed out to play in the yard. As I climbed the willow tree with Leonard and Mariam, we were oblivious to the several Big Brothers who had entered our apartment house. When sometime later they emerged carrying my parents’ bed and my favorite upholstered chair—the one my mother sat in as she nursed my baby sister—I was aghast. In stunned silence, we watched as the furniture from our homes was carried off, piece by piece. What did it mean? Confused, we whispered among ourselves. At lunchtime, I looked for my parents to ask them what was happening, but they had left with Father and most of the other adults to go to Boston Common. Even Mariam, who was quick to share her superior knowledge on nearly every matter, seemed stumped. It wasn’t until after dinner when we were playing in the yard that my mother explained in cryptic fashion what was happening. “You and Mary Catherine and David are big girls and boys now, and you’re going to live with the other children who are your age” was how she put it in a gentle and encouraging tone of voice. “Don’t worry, darling, we’ll still be nearby,” she said as she gave me a kiss, “just across the yard in St. John’s House.” The reality of her words sank in slowly. We aren’t going to live together as a family anymore? I bit my lip to keep from crying. My mother was right that St. John’s House was nearby. But as far as I was concerned, it might as well have been outside the red fence. I did my best to put on a brave face. As the oldest, at six, I felt a sudden sense of responsibility for my little sister, Mary Catherine. Only four years old, she seemed bewildered, while David, my three-year-old brother, was oblivious to the change he was about to face. When the bell rang indicating the end of evening recreation, my parents kissed me goodnight. “Little Sisters and Brothers, please stand in line along the side of the house, in order of age and in silence.” The order came from Sister Matilda, herself the mother of five of the children. She directed the Little Sisters to face the front door and the Little Brothers the side door. Her broad shoulders displayed an air of authority. The tone of her voice was anything but motherly. I took my place, third in line among the twelve Little Sisters. In drill sergeant fashion, Sister Matilda walked from the head of the line to the end.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  fervently believed Sister Catherine now had a place of special importance next to God and the Blessed Mother. This is holiness? I thought to myself. Where is the charity that is meant to imbue religious life? Much as I was happy to be living out in the world, I still wanted to think of the Center with warmth, as my childhood home with many happy memories, a place where good people lived and prayed and shared the love of God. But with Sister Catherine’s demise and the subsequent internal feud, it struck me that she alone had been the glue that kept nearly one hundred highly intelligent human beings together as members of a religious order. Had it been out of their respect, their fear, or their love for her? I could only surmise, but, if their blind obedience to her had been grounded in deep spirituality, why would it fall apart so catastrophically when she was gone? I thought back to the rules Sister Catherine instituted that forced separation between men and women, boys and girls. I remembered how she had told us Little Sisters that we must never trust a man. Now as the place I had called home for so long seemed on the edge of disintegration, I wondered if it wasn’t she herself who had planted the seeds of its destruction. Within days of Sister Catherine’s burial, my brother David, who was seventeen and completing his junior year in high school, and my youngest sister, Veronica, who was about to finish middle school, informed Sister Teresa (Sister Catherine’s successor as overseer of the children) that they wished to leave and move to Cambridge with my mother and me. Over the course of the next twelve months, my father decided that if his children wanted to leave, it was his obligation to accompany them into the world. My father with my Grandmother McKinley, on the day of my brother’s graduation from high school, just hours before he left the Center as Brother James Aloysius and became once again Jim Walsh–June 1969.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  “A sandwich would be lovely,” I replied, and she set out to make me one. I took it, thanked her, and sat down across from her at the table, engaging her in conversation as I nibbled away. Like the gardener, she responded, but in a subdued and almost timid way. When a few minutes later my mother and her aunt walked into the house, I could tell in an instant, from the look on my aunt’s face, that something was wrong. Sheepishly I left the kitchen to discover the source of her ire. “Don’t you know you never eat with the help?” she hissed at me. I looked at my mother for her reaction, but she remained silent. I was stunned. What kind of a rule was that? The “help,” as she referred to her cook and butler, were off-limits for conversation? Why? It was increasingly evident to me that the world was far more complex than I had anticipated. I was but a neophyte, struggling to learn the rules—rules that in this case seemed both incomprehensible and vile. I sensed, too, that my mother wanted nothing to upset her rediscovered bond with her family. They seemed to adore her; she wanted to keep it that way. Whatever they said was fine. I felt alone, uncertain, anxious. 55 The Gift of Christmas 1966 C hristmas was only days away. A full six months had elapsed since my expulsion from the Center. That banishment had come with an unstated stipulation—I was not to be seen or heard within the community. As far as I knew, that meant forever. Four months earlier, as August was coming to an end and my mother and I were making our way north from our family visit in Maryland, I had felt increasingly rudderless, having not a clue as to what I would do when we returned. In a moment of panic, I had applied to a secretarial school in Boston, an option Sister Catherine sanctioned. That long ride back to New England with my mother might have provided the opportunity to seek advice from her, but after a childhood in which she had never played the role of parent or advisor, I was uncomfortable confiding in her. She and my father were still entwined in the life of the Center—it was their home. I was now on the outside, and they could do nothing to change that. So it came as a shock when my mother broke the news to me at the end of our long ride north. “Dahling,” she said, “Sister Catherine has said that you may stay at St. Joseph’s House while you attend secretarial school this fall. And then when you finish the course, you can take up residence at the YWCA in Boston.” St. Joseph’s House was a recently purchased guesthouse on the Center’s property, but far enough from the hub of activity to be out of sight. She went on.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation190 ● It’s clear that the details here are important, but the writer stops short of explaining what they mean. Instead, he relates each detail to a passage from the Old T estament and lets readers reflect on the implications. ● For example, the writer connects the piercing of Jesus’s side with a passage from the book of Zechariah that says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” What are we supposed to see? One might expect a wound to produce blood, but the gospel adds that water also came out, which is peculiar. And that’s apparently the point. For John, the death of Jesus goes beyond the ordinary. ● Elsewhere in the gospel, water is understood to bring life. And life has been a theme since chapter 1. There, the writer identified Jesus as the Word of God, who brings life. Later, he is called the bread of life and the resurrection and the life. If we keep reading, we find him portrayed as the source of living water, which leads to eternal life. Thus, the water flowing from Jesus’s side suggests that even in death, he is a source of life. The Dynamics of Faith ‹ In the final chapters of John, we again find people struggling to discern the meaning of what they see. The action starts in chapter 20, when Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb in which Jesus’s body had been laid and sees that it is open. She assumes that if the tomb has been opened, it’s an instance of grave robbery, and she tells two other disciples that the body of Jesus has been taken. ‹ When the disciples arrive at the tomb, the question of interpretation continues. They see that the linen cloth that had been wrapped around the body of Jesus is still there, which would make grave robbery unlikely. Then, the disciples simply leave the scene, without saying anything. ‹ Mary Magdalene looks into the tomb and sees two angels inside, but that doesn’t impress her. She tells them that Jesus’s body has been stolen, then turns away without waiting for their response. Next, she sees the risen Jesus standing in front of her, but she believes him to be a gardener and asks for information about the missing body.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  214 LECTURE 32 Paul’s Letters to a Community in Conflict I n this lecture, we’ll focus on two letters of the apostle Paul that appear in the New Testament as 1 and 2 Corinthians. Both were written to the Christians at Corinth in the mid-50s of the 1 st century, each dealing with the challenge of creating and maintaining a community. Paul lived in Corinth for about a year and a half and worked as a tentmaker there. Together with his associates Aquila, Priscilla, and Apollos, he later worked in Ephesus, although he continued to stay in touch with the community at Corinth. We’ll look at four issues dealt with in the letters: the cross, Spirit, resurrection, and reconciliation. The Cross ‹In the middle of 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says that he has received oral reports about conflict in the congregation. He has heard that various groups there each identify with a particular church leader. To portray the situation, Paul mimics the different groups: “I belong to Paul,” “I belong to Apollos,” “I belong to Cephas [Peter],” and “I belong to Christ.” As Paul portrays it, the Corinthians had turned Christ into someone associated with a particular faction, rather than the unifying center of the congregation. ‹In Paul’s eyes, the community’s fragmentation reflects misplaced loyalties. He wants the readers to see that Paul, Apollos, and Cephas are the bearers of a message, but none of them can be the focus of the community’s identity. He insists that Christ must be the focus, because it is through the message of Christ that God calls them to faith. ‹Paul’s argument is that neither he nor the others could bring anyone to faith through their preaching. He reminds the Corinthians that his message was about God bringing salvation through the crucified Jesus. Such an idea might

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 182 time, Jesus’s mother comments that the wine has run out. But Jesus replies, “Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” ‹The reference to Jesus’s hour is cryptic. We will eventually learn that it refers to the hour or time of his death and resurrection. But here, Jesus’s mother focuses on the immediate situation and directs the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them. He, in turn, transforms six stone jars filled with water into wine. ‹What does the gift of wine mean? John says that it reveals Jesus’s glory (Greek: doxa), possibly connoting the power and presence of God. In this context, a sign is an action that reveals divine power in a manner accessible to the senses. To do so by a lavish gift of wine displays divine favor. For the disciples, the gift confirms their conviction that Jesus is the agent of God. Feeding the Multitudes ‹John is keenly aware that actions are ambiguous, and people often interpret actions differently. He helps readers engage the interpretive process by bringing the struggle over meaning into the narrative itself. ‹A good example is the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people, which appears in all four gospels. What makes John’s version unique is the attention to what this action means. ●For example, the crowd initially interprets the sign in the framework of the Passover tradition. They call Jesus a prophet, a new Moses, who miraculously feeds them, and they want to make this prophet their king. But instead of allowing it, Jesus slips away. ●The problem here concerns the nature of Jesus’s kingship. In the Roman world, an aspiring ruler could attract supporters by giving away free food and providing entertainment; John portrays the crowd this way. After enjoying the free food Jesus provides, they are eager to make him king, with the assumption that free food will keep coming in the future. ●Thus, later in the chapter, Jesus offers a different interpretation. The crowd follows him to a synagogue in the town of Capernaum, where he says that they have failed to see what the sign actually meant. He tells them they

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 27—John on the Word Made Flesh 181 ● Indeed, John says that what the logos brings is life, and he describes such life as a kind of light for human beings. In a basic sense, life has a physical dimension. It involves heartbeats and breathing. And it was common for ancient writers to identify life with the radiance of light and to equate darkness with death. ● Yet John also recognizes that true life—authentic life—is more than that. Philosophers of his day insisted that true life emerged as one moved out of the darkness of ignorance into the light of understanding. In this process, a person would turn from the darkness of evil to the light of good. ● Up to a point, the author of John would agree. But he argues that life must be seen in more theological or relational terms. For him, darkness is not only ignorance but alienation—human alienation from the God who made us. Thus, light not only means coming to know God but being restored in relationship with God. For John, that is where true life is found. ‹ That relational aspect informs the pivotal statement in verse 14: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The idea is that the Word of God, which creates all things and gives life, now encounters people in embodied form. According to John, Jesus is the embodied Word of God, who conveys the creative will of God by what he says, by what he does, and by who he is. And the goal of God’s Word becoming flesh is restoring human beings to life in relationship with the God who made them. Turning Water into Wine ‹ In the next section of John, Jesus conveys divine reality to people through actions, called signs. They include miraculous gifts of food and drink, healings, and even the raising of the dead. The author of John was keenly aware that actions are ambiguous and can be construed in different ways. Thus, his challenge was to create a narrative context in which meaning could be discerned. ‹ The first sign occurs when Jesus turns water into wine. The disciples go with Jesus to a wedding in the town of Cana in Galilee, where Jesus’s mother is also present. In John’s gospel, we often find that people talk past each other, and that is the case here. When the wedding celebration has been going on for some

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  11 Those who had lived under Egyptian rule in the Canaanite cities may have felt that they had indeed been liberated from Egypt – but in their own country. 12 J and E were not modern historical accounts. Like Homer and Herodotus, the authors included legends about divine figures and mythological elements that try to explain the meaning of what had happened. Their narratives are more than history. From the very beginning, there was no single, authoritative message in what would become the Bible. The J and E authors interpreted the saga of Israel very differently, and later editors made no attempt to iron out these inconsistencies and contradictions. Subsequently historians would feel at liberty to add to the JE narrative and make radical alterations. In both J and E, for example, very different views of God were expressed. J used anthropomorphic imagery that would embarrass later exegetes. Yahweh strolls in the Garden of Eden like a Middle Eastern potentate, shuts the door of Noah’s ark, gets angry and changes his mind. But in E there was a more transcendent view of Elohim, who scarcely even ‘speaks’ but prefers to send an angel as his messenger. Later Israelite religion would become passionately monotheist, convinced that Yahweh was the only God. But neither the J or E authors believed this. Originally Yahweh had been a member of the Divine Assembly of ‘holy ones’, over which El, the high god of Canaan, had presided with his consort Asherah. Each nation of the region had its own patronal deity, and Yahweh was the ‘holy one of Israel’. 13 By the eighth century, Yahweh had ousted El in the Divine Assembly, 14 and ruled alone over a host of ‘holy ones’, who were warriors in his heavenly army. 15 None of the other gods could measure up to Yahweh in his fidelity to his people. Here he had no peers, no rivals. 16 But the Bible shows that right up to the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586, Israelites also worshipped a host of other deities. 17 Abraham, a man of the south, not Moses, was the hero of J’s history. His career and the covenant God made with him looked forward to King David. 18 But E was more interested in Jacob, a northern character, and his son Joseph, who was buried in Shechem. E did not include any of the primeval history – the creation of the world, Cain and Abel, the Flood and the rebellion at the Tower of Babel – that was so important to J. E’s hero was Moses, who was more widely revered in the north than the south.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Oh, Glen, don’t say that.” Mama’s voice was thin and shaky, as if she were afraid he was right. “Bone loves you, honey.” She kissed his cheek, put her hands on either side of his face, and kissed his lips. “She loves you. We all love you.” Daddy Glen pulled her down to him and sighed softly as she kissed his eyelids and then rubbed her cheeks against his. I ran outside. Dinner would be late, or we’d wind up going out for hamburgers. Whenever they started kissing on the couch, they’d go in the bedroom and shut the door for an hour at least. When they came out Daddy Glen would be smiling and easy in his body. Mama would be sleepy-eyed and soft all over, the pink in her face fresh and delicate. “They sure like to do it a lot,” Reese told Alma disgustedly. But Alma just laughed. “Everybody does, girl, everybody does.” She swatted lightly at the seat of Reese’s jeans and hugged me to her side. “Don’t make no mistake about that. Love is just about the best thing we’ve got that don’t cost money or make you sick to your stomach. You’ll see. Wait till you get a little bigger. You’ll see.” Reese grimaced and wiggled uncomfortably. “Mushy stuff,” she yelled as she ran off. “All that mushy stuff. I an’t gonna have none of it.” Aunt Alma laughed carelessly. I pulled away from her and went after Reese. It was mushy. Mama and Daddy Glen always hugging and rubbing on each other, but it was powerful too. Sex. Was that what Daddy Glen had been doing to me in the parking lot? Was it what I had started doing to myself whenever I was alone in the afternoons? I would imagine being tied up and put in a haystack while someone set the dry stale straw ablaze. I would picture it perfectly while rocking on my hand. The daydream was about struggling to get free while the fire burned hotter and closer. I am not sure if I came when the fire reached me or after I had imagined escaping it. But I came. I orgasmed on my hand to the dream of fire. [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] Daddy Glen didn’t do too well at RC Cola. He kept getting transferred to different routes or having to pay for breakage, and no matter how hard he and Mama worked, there never seemed to be enough money to pay the bills. He kept telling Mama that sooner or later his brother would pay him for all the work he’d done, but even after the offices of James Waddell, D.D.S., were open and busy, James never mentioned it. “Maybe you better ask James for that money he was gonna give you,” Mama finally suggested the day Daddy Glen came home to say he’d been laid off.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  I looked out into the dark night, past Raylene’s hip and the porch railing. What had she done? I shook my head and swallowed. I knew nothing, understood nothing. Maybe I never would. Who had Mama been, what had she wanted to be or do before I was born? Once I was born, her hopes had turned, and I had climbed up her life like a flower reaching for the sun. Fourteen and terrified, fifteen and a mother, just past twenty-one when she married Glen. Her life had folded into mine. What would I be like when I was fifteen, twenty, thirty? Would I be as strong as she had been, as hungry for love, as desperate, determined, and ashamed? My eyes were dry, the night a blanket that covered me. I wasn’t old. I would be thirteen in a few weeks. I was already who I was going to be. I tucked the envelope inside my pocket. When Raylene came to me, I let her touch my shoulder, let my head tilt to lean against her, trusting her arm and her love. I was who I was going to be, someone like her, like Mama, a Boatwright woman. I wrapped my fingers in Raylene’s and watched the night close in around us. Afterword [image file=image_rsrc2PR.jpg] “You told my story,” the man in the Peterbilt cap said to me. His face was stern, the skin worn and lined, his eyes implacable and black under the brim of that cap. “Oh. I am sorry.” He nodded. “I wanted you to know,” he said, “you made sense of what did not make sense.” I breathed in as slowly as I could, trying to think what to say. His hands came over and took hold of mine. He nodded intently twice, as if that were a whole conversation. His hands pumped my own. When he let go of me, I rocked on my feet. Then he was walking away. I wanted to call after him, but that would have drawn attention to both of us, and he had waited a long time to come up to speak to me. People were still milling around the gymnasium that night at the town meeting—his neighbors, most likely—and I doubted any of them would have known what he said. There were probably very few people in the world who knew his story, and that seemed to be the way he wanted it. I understood that. It was the second heartbreaking moment of that long day.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] Daddy Glen didn’t like us listening to all those stories Granny and Aunt Alma were always telling over and over again. “I’ll tell you who you are,” he said. “You’re mine now, an’t just Boatwrights.” He told us about his daddy, Mr. Bodine Waddell, who owned the Sunshine Dairy, and about his brothers. His oldest brother, Daryl, had lost his bid for district attorney, but his law firm was building a reputation as the one to hire if you wanted a city contract. His older brother, James, was about to open up his dental office, and starting next year we’d go to him to get our teeth fixed. “Granny says we got good teeth,” I told Daddy Glen. “She says the one thing God gave the Boatwrights is hard, sharp teeth.” “And you believe everything she says, don’t you?” His eyes sank into the wrinkles of his squint, shiny as mica in sunlight, while his mouth twisted so that one side of his grin was drawn up. He looked as if he was about to laugh, but instead he just pursed his lips and spat. “Your granny is the worst kind of liar. That old woman wouldn’t tell the truth if she knew it.” He put his hand under my chin, his big, blunt fingers pressing once lightly and then pulling away. “You stay clear of that old woman. I’ll tell you what’s true. You’re mine now. You and Reese just keep your distance from her.” [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] I didn’t trust Daddy Glen, didn’t believe him when he said all Granny’s stones were lies, but I never could be sure which of the things she told me were true and which she just wished were true, stories good enough to keep even if they were three-quarters false. All the Boatwrights told stories, it was one of the things we were known for, and what one cousin swore was gospel, another swore just as fiercely was an unqualified lie. Raylene was always telling people that we had a little of the tarbrush on us, but the way she grinned when she said it could have meant she was lying to make somebody mad, or maybe she just talked that way because she was crazy angry to start out. “What’s it mean?” I asked Ruth’s youngest boy, Butch. “Means we got some colored people somewhere back up the line.” He grinned at me. “Means Raylene’s a pisser. She’ll say anything, and everybody knows it.” I thought about that a while, and then asked anyway. “Do we?” I watched his smile widen slowly into a smirk. Butch was just one year older than me, and I knew I could ask him anything—not like Garvey or Grey or Aunt Ruth’s other boys. They were always trying to pretend they were more grown-up than they were, and I could never tell what might start them acting weird. Butch was different—a little soft, not put together too tightly, some people said.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  I could easily credit the whole enterprise to my odd but acceptable lust for gospel music. Shannon knew the words to every song in the Baptist hymnal and spoke familiarly of every gospel group that toured the Opry circuit. Gospel was her family’s life, and she knew all there was to know about it, though she didn’t seem to feel the music’s impact the way I did. Shannon made fun of preachers and choir singers, telling her most devastating jokes about the hallelujah jumpers, who completely lost consciousness of themselves when they sang and began to spring up on the balls of their feet, swinging their arms in the air. I could never have told her my secret ambition, never have told her that I cried when I listened to tent shows on the radio late at night. “Those eyes of yours could break the heart of God,” Mrs. Pearl told me as she patted my black hair fiercely. I blinked and tried to tear up for her. “Lashes, oh! Bob, look at the lashes on this child. You grow up you can do Maybelline commercials on the television, honey. ‘Course, not that you’re going to want to. You don’t ever let anybody talk you into putting any of that junk on you. Your eyes are a gift from God !” She leaned close to my shoulder and put one hand on the top of my head, turning me so that I looked directly into her eyes. Her caramel-brown pupils were enormous flat surfaces that reflected nothing; her voice was honey-coated and sincere. I could not tell if she was making fun of me or speaking from her heart. “Mama has more ways of saying ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ than any preacher I’ve ever heard.” Shannon blinked her pink eyelids at me. “She’s got a talent for it, talking real soft and low one minute, saying ‘Gawd’ so that you see him in your mind like some kind of old family relation, all quiet and well-mannered like an old man. Or she can drag it out long and loud, ‘ Gaaaaad ,’ and just shock you senseless. When she really gets going she’s got this hollow-sounding moan that just about rocks you off your feet. “Her ‘Jesus’ is even better. Everybody says ‘Jesus’ so much round here, you forget sometimes who he was supposed to be, but Mama rations her Jesuses. You hear her say ‘Jesus’ the way she does and you know for sure that Jesus was a real person, that little boy used to bring doves back to life, that quiet young man never known to curse or fornicate. You can just see him—a man, like your daddy maybe, aged by the sins of the world, a life sacrificed for you personally.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Garvey had come up too, and was just as eager to get his hands on the hooks as Grey was. He was always fighting with his brother, always challenging anything Grey said. “Mountain climbing, it’s for mountain climbing,” Grey told us. I didn’t believe that any more than Garvey, but Grey was so insistent we kept quiet while we ran our fingers along the rusty points of the hooks. “Look at the edge on them points. They’d sink into rock with no trouble at all.” “You don’t need nothing like that to climb the mountains around here.” Garvey pulled at the chain dangling down. “You don’t need nothing.” “Oh hell, probably some Yankee brought them down, didn’t know what our mountains were like.” Grey was adamant. Nothing would serve but that we agree that the hooks were for climbing, no matter how silly it was to imagine Yankees coming down to climb our mountains with those hooks. But Garvey wasn’t going to give in so easily. “You an’t got the sense you was born with,” he spat. “Even Yankees an’t that dumb.” “You calling me stupid?” “Aw, for Jesus’ sake.” I grabbed the hooks then, before somebody got himself stabbed with one. They were heavy, but not so heavy that I couldn’t swing one around and throw it if I had to. Grey was right about one thing. Those barbs were sharp under the rust, and not only at the points but all along the edges that curled back on themselves. Gray-green algae hid most of the metal shine, but it came off easy with a little scraping. The rust was harder, but it too came off when I ran my pocket knife up and down the prongs. In the center of each hook where the four points came together, there was a packed mass of gluey river mud, weeds, and fish pieces. I set to scraping it all clean and got the boys interested enough to stop fighting for a while. They used a tire iron to pop the chain and separate the two hooks, each taking one as if they intended to keep them. “Once we get them cleaned up, I’ll show you how mountain climbers use them.” Grey was still determined to convince us that he knew what the hooks were all about. Garvey laughed at him. “You try throwing that son of a bitch up in a tree and you gonna put somebody’s eye out when the chain catches on a branch.” “I an’t gonna throw it up no tree.” Grey looked disgusted. “I’m gonna use it to pull myself right up the side of the house.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  My hands were small, the tendons blue and fine under pale skin, like Alma’s and Mama’s. We all had small hands. I looked back down the hall to the bedroom. I could just see the smashed and tumbled bed frame. No, I thought, you just can’t tell with women. Might be you can’t even tell with girls. “I never realized before how much you look like Alma.” It was so late it was almost morning. Mama’s voice came out of the darkness from the direction of the doorway. “But when we were sitting on those steps together and you were standing in the yard, I saw it so clear. I saw what you’re gonna look like when you’re full-grown. You’re gonna be as pretty as Alma was when she was a girl, prettier than you can imagine.” I said nothing. I was wrapped in a blanket, sitting on Little Earle’s mattress up against the wall where we had dragged it earlier in the evening. Aunt Alma had finally gone to sleep, and Mama had decided it was safe for us to try to get some rest. But for an hour she had been sitting propped up on her pillow, smoking, and I had been staring into the dark, listening to the cows move around in the pasture near the house. Mama shifted restlessly, turning toward me. “Bone,” she said softly. “What is it you think about all the time?” “Nothing much.” I looked at the cigarette’s burning tip. My eyes had adjusted to the dark so that I could make out the shape of her body, her shoulders pushed up on the pile of old pillows, her arms lying on top of the blanket. “Nothing I could explain.” “You’re always so quiet, always watching.” Mama’s voice was soft, and sounded more relaxed than I had heard in a long time. “I can tell when you’re mad, you know. You get that storm-cloud look on your face, and you’ve had that enough lately.” She shifted in her blanket, put the cigarette out in a saucer on the floor. “The thing is, if you’re not mad, I can’t tell what’s happening inside you. You never look happy. You look like you’re waiting. What are you waiting for, Bone?” For you to go back to Daddy Glen, I thought, and hugged my blanket tighter around my shoulders. “Bone?” I touched the backs of my fingers to my throat, felt the warmth there, the pulse in the hollow beneath my chin. “Bone? You’re not asleep?” “No.” “You don’t want to talk to me?” My fingers were wet, my chin, the edge of the blanket. I remembered Aunt Alma’s direct look this afternoon when she’d talked about loving Wade, about wanting to kill him. I didn’t understand that kind of love. I didn’t understand anything. I swallowed and tried not to make a sound. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?” Mama sounded like she wanted to cry.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  I hit them with things that they haven’t been programmed to respond to.” Patrick further explained, “When the mind gets to a certain point, they can see through all the lies that they’ve been programmed to believe.” He concluded that his process of asking such challenging questions results in effectively stimulating the mind “to start working again.”767 No one doing cult-intervention work today advocates involuntary deprogramming with adults, such as what Patrick did decades ago. But his basic approach of asking thought-provoking questions in the context of a voluntary intervention as a catalyst for critical thinking remains an effective tool contemporary cult-intervention specialists still use. I then moved the focus of our conversation to the Call of God, asking if it was possible to question the leader of that group. Had he ever admitted to making a mistake? Had anyone ever questioned his authority or revelations? Had members of the Call of God ever expressed doubts or disagreements regarding the contents of any of his letters from God? The young woman responded generally that of course her leader made mistakes and that everyone in the group was free to question him. When I asked her to please be specific and cite certain examples to illustrate this fact, however, she demurred and was unable to offer a single example. She couldn’t describe a particular instance when the leader had admitted to making a serious substantial mistake or had admitted that it was potentially possible for an error or contradiction to exist in one of his revelations or letters from God. We then discussed the fact that, despite the leader’s reluctance to admit mistakes or faults in his teachings, there had historically been disagreements in the group, and these had led to some people leaving. It appears when any disagreement with the leader persisted, this situation would eventually end in the exit or expulsion of a member. Disagreements with the leader weren’t really tolerated. I asked what the group response was like when someone left. What was the attitude of group members toward the person who left? She said that when people left, the exit was typically seen as something negative; the former member had somehow spiritually failed and disobeyed God. I asked whether it was possible to disagree with the leader and yet still remain faithful and obedient to God. Was it possible or even conceivable that someone in the group might specifically call into question the pronouncements or behavior of the leader but still be considered godly and not antagonistic toward God? The young woman seemed perplexed and said she couldn’t imagine why anyone would question the revelations the leader of the group had received. But I suggested that by setting himself up as the exclusive spokesperson or mediator for God through his ongoing revelation, the leader of the group had achieved a position not only of singular importance but also of absolute power and unquestionable authority.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  We would accomplish this by turning off and storing all cell phones and terminating all Internet connections. We rehearsed how this step would be taken and agreed that it must be accomplished by the end of the first day. The young woman would be asked to promise that she wouldn’t communicate with the cultic group or anyone associated with the group until the intervention was over. This commitment would encompass the few days when the intervention would take place. I also asked the parents whether it would be possible for her to stay at their home during the intervention so there would be no distractions and so there would be confidence that all means of communication she might use remained shut down. Her husband agreed that this would be best. Before the intervention began, I suggested that once we had the young woman’s agreement about outside communication, the mother would politely ask for her cell phone. It would then be locked up, assuring everyone that she couldn’t use it during the intervention to contact the cult group. These precautions would be taken to rule out any coaching or interference from the leader or group members, who might otherwise seek to sabotage the intervention effort. The Beginning of the Intervention On the following day the young woman arrived at her parents’ home for a special, planned visit. Her parents had pleaded with her that a meeting was necessary so they could better understand the reasoning behind her recently announced decision to cut them off. She expected to share her beliefs and explain to them more about the Call of God. During our preparation for the intervention, we had discussed how such a meeting would provide the necessary and important initial access for them to begin the intervention. My presence at the meeting was a complete surprise. The young woman also didn’t expect her sibling and her sibling’s spouse to be there. But everyone had gathered together with her husband’s full knowledge and cooperation. The couple’s small children had been placed with a caregiver. As agreed, pending her arrival, all phones and Internet access in the family’s home were disconnected. She was polite but confused about the purpose of my presence and why others she hadn’t expected to see were also present. Her parents quickly introduced me as a professional consultant they had invited to attend the meeting. They explained that much of what had happened regarding the Call of God was confusing to them, so they had sought outside assistance from an expert consultant. I apologized for the surprise meeting but explained that I had advised the family not to tell her about my inclusion or about others attending the meeting to ensure there would be no interference or coaching by anyone associated with the group. She accepted this apology. After the initial introduction our conversation first focused on concerns the family expressed.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  Only after leaving that influence did they both return to their normal lives. The cult persona Hearst and Smart had once been manipulated to embrace then became a historical anomaly. Cognitive Dissonance In his description of “Milieu Control,” Lifton notes that such an environment “never succeeds in becoming absolute, and its own human apparatus can, when permeated by outside information—become subject to discordant ‘noise.’”618 The source of that outside information, which can permeate a controlled environment, could potentially be the Internet, television, radio, newspapers, or people outside the group, such as old friends and family. This influence could include anything that might provide an outside frame of reference. How then do destructive cults bent on psychological and emotional control shut out or deal with uncontrollable “discordant noise,” which can create profound internal conflict in the minds of their adherents? Cognitive dissonance is a term used in psychology and is often included in the paradigm of cultic persuasion and control. This theory is frequently the basis for understanding how cult-involved individuals can continue to cling to beliefs even when facts contradict them. Cognitive dissonance theory explains that cult members can resolve such conflicts by essentially spinning or accepting rationalizations. It is this spinning process that then reconciles the dissonance between their cultic beliefs and reality. For example, a mother in a faith healing group may reconcile the needless death of her child by proclaiming that it was somehow “God’s will” rather than admit the death was, in fact, the result of medical neglect. Leon Festinger first used the description of cognitive dissonance in his book When Prophecy Fails . 619 The book tells the story of a UFO cult led by a woman named Dorothy Martin (1900–1992), also known as “Marian Keech,” who predicted the end of the world but foretold that aliens from another planet would rescue her followers on a precise date (December 21, 1954). When her prophecy failed, members of the group, who had given up everything to follow Keech, nevertheless remained loyal and committed believers. Festinger proposes five factors that provide a basis for cognitive dissonance to be successfully implemented to resolve such a failure, which he calls “unequivocal disconfirmation.”620 There must be a deep conviction concerning the belief.There must be commitment to this conviction.The belief must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation.Such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur.Social support must be available after the disconfirmation.Deep conviction is a common attribute among cult members. This commitment can be expressed through years of hard work, surrender of assets, isolation from family and old friends, and the renouncing of previously held goals and ambitions in favor of a group or leader’s agenda. What this means is that cult members may have a considerable amount of literal and emotional equity in the group and its beliefs. It is because of this considerable personal investment that deeply committed members are likely to accept whatever rationalization or explanation is offered to obviate the “unequivocal disconfirmation” or some failure in the group.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  But Augustine’s case can lead to a wider set of reflections. Thinking that we know something of Augustine because we know that he was a Christian goes along with thinking that we know what Christianity was in his time. The “triumph of Christianity” in the Roman empire is a familiar enough story and underlies many of the narratives we inherit. A small community struggles, resists persecution, grows quietly and irresistibly, and eventually wins over the rich and powerful of the earth. It is a story literally too good to be true. For the organizational idea of Christianity, the idea that Jesus left behind a community that has self-reproduced, grown, diversified, but remained in some fundamental aspects the same—that idea is a theological proposition, not a historical one, and can be reconciled with history only with the greatest difficulty. The historian has the obligation to ask why one would bother. My sketch of the history of “Glunchism” earlier in this chapter made that point in one way. We have reached a moment where we should look more closely at how the story of Christianity of Augustine’s time can and should be revised. The history of Christianity is not as a musical score prescribing a continuo accompanied by melodies and variations that come and go. Rather, it is a room full of musicians, quarrelsome and opinionated, many of whom come and go, tooting their instruments randomly at times, at other times seeking to make music together in smaller or larger groups that never quite fill the space. Even at its greatest geographical extent and social penetration, the orchestra of Christianity never played as one.