Despair

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 Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  46My disdain for sports and, now, exercise remains pure and constant. It feels like a waste of my time, moving around, sweating and hoping that something good will rise from that effort. Certainly, there are moments after a workout when I feel refreshed and powerful and healthy, but it is very easy to forget those moments when I need to change into workout clothes and go to the gym or go for a walk, or do whatever it takes to move my body. I generally dread exercise, all of it, and then I feel terrible about myself for being lazy, unmotivated, utterly lacking in discipline or self-regard, because intellectually, I know exercise is good for me. My hatred of exercise is unfortunate because exercise is necessary for the human body. It is a key component of losing weight and good health. I know the math. In order to maintain your body weight, you need to eat 11 calories for every pound you weigh. In order to lose a pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories. If you’re a 150-pound woman, thirty minutes of aerobic exercise burns about 220 calories. Thirty minutes of elliptical training burns about 280 calories. Running at a brisk pace will burn 120 calories for each mile. A brisk walk will burn 100 calories for each mile. I should take some consolation in knowing that at my size, I burn way more calories than the 150-pound woman, but alas, I do not. In the corner of my bedroom sits my recumbent exercise bike. When I am feeling particularly motivated about losing weight, I will ride the bike for up to an hour a day. It’s a good time to sweat and catch up on reading. I own a few hand weights that I’ll flex and curl when I remember to. I have a large inflatable ball upon which I sit to do abdominal exercises and squats and the like. I do not suffer from ignorance where exercise is related. I suffer from inertia. Over the years, I have joined countless gyms. I have worked with personal trainers, though grudgingly, given that I hate being told what to do and that hatred multiplies when I am told what to do by someone who is thin and impossibly fit and usually gorgeous and charging me a significant amount of money on an hourly basis. I have a membership to Planet Fitness, though I have never visited the local facility. Basically, I donate $19.99 a month to their corporate existence and the idea that I can walk into a Planet Fitness, anywhere in the country, should I feel like working out.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  After Christopher came, he switched places with the boy who was holding my arms down. I fought, but my fighting didn’t do much more than make those boys laugh. The friend held me down, his lips shiny, his beer breath in my face. To this day, I cannot stand beer breath. I thought I would break beneath the weight of those boys. I was already so sore. Christopher refused to look at me. He just held my wrists, spat on my face. I told myself, I still tell myself, he was just trying to impress his friends. I tell myself he didn’t mean it. He laughed. All those boys raped me. They tried to see how far they could go. I was a toy, used recklessly. Eventually, I stopped screaming, I stopped moving, I stopped fighting. I stopped praying and believing God would save me. I did not stop hurting. The pain was constant. They took a break. I huddled into myself and shook. I couldn’t move. I could not believe what was happening. I literally had no capacity for understanding my story as it was being written. I don’t remember their names. Other than Christopher, I don’t remember distinct details about them. They were boys who were not yet men but knew, already, how to do the damage of men. I remember their smells, the squareness of their faces, the weight of their bodies, the tangy smell of their sweat, the surprising strength in their limbs. I remember that they enjoyed themselves, and laughed a lot. I remember that they had nothing but disdain for me. They did things I’ve never been able to talk about, and will never be able to talk about. I don’t know how. I don’t want to find those words. I have a history of violence, but the public record of it will always be incomplete. When it was all over, I pushed my bike home and I pretended to be the daughter my parents knew, the good girl, the straight-A student. I don’t know how I hid what happened, but I knew how to be a good girl, and I guess I played that part exceptionally well that night. Later, those boys told everyone at school what happened or, rather, a version of the story that made my name “Slut” for the rest of the school year. I immediately understood that my version of the story would never matter, so I kept the truth of what happened a secret and tried to live with this new name.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  I worked the graveyard shift at a phone sex company in downtown Phoenix with a bunch of other lost girls. I mostly sat in my booth and did crossword puzzles while I talked to lonely men who wanted nothing more than the fantasy of a woman who might listen to them for ten minutes or an hour or two. Around four in the morning, on our lunch break, we would get food, greasy terrible food, from a Jack in the Box across the street. I was fat and I continued to eat to get fatter and I talked to men without having to be touched by men. When my shift was over, I went home and sometimes invited my coworkers over, and we sat around the pool at this man’s house, sleeping with our sunglasses on as the Arizona sun burned into our skin. One day the man who brought me to Arizona taught me to shoot a gun with wax bullets. It was exhilarating, holding a gun in my hand, the power of pulling the trigger, even if the bullets only hit an inanimate target with a quiet splat. I thought about turning the gun on the boys who had hurt me. I thought about turning the gun on myself. Most of the choices I made during my lost year were ill advised. I was reckless. I did not care about my body because my body was nothing. I let men, mostly, do terrible things to my body. I let them hurt me because I had already been hurt and so, really, I was looking for someone to finish what had already been started. Bottomless. Fearless. This is the reputation I developed in my social circle. One of those things was true. I went home with strangers. One man invited me over while his wife slept on the floor next to the bed where we lay. His floor was covered in cat litter. I can still remember the crunch of it beneath my bare feet as I snuck out the next morning, walked to a pay phone, and called the man I lived with to come get me. I started dating women because I naïvely thought that with women, I might be safe. I thought women would be easier to understand. For a couple of months, I lived with the man, and later, I got an apartment with a couple who would end up taking my share of the rent money and never paying the rent. When we were evicted, rather abruptly, a few months after I’d moved in, I was the only one who was shocked.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  When I went home for that first Thanksgiving holiday, my parents were shocked, as if I were unrecognizable, and maybe, to them, I was. They saw me plainly while looking right through me. I had gained at least thirty pounds in only two and a half months. Suddenly, I was very round, my cheeks and gut and thighs fleshy in ways they had never been. My clothes, the ones that did fit, strained at the seams. Though I didn’t want to go, my parents took me to a doctor who charitably declared that I was blossoming when so much more was happening to my body. He didn’t seem overly concerned, likely attributed my weight gain to being away from home for the first time. My parents had no idea what to do, but they were incredibly alarmed and immediately began to treat my body as something of a crisis. They tried to help me without realizing that this early weight gain was only the beginning of the problem my body would become. They had no idea at all about what created the problem. They knew nothing of my determination to keep making my body into what I needed it to be—a safe harbor rather than a small, weak vessel that betrayed me. 17During the first two years of high school, I ate and ate and ate and I became more and more lost. I started high school as nothing and then became less than nothing. I only had to pretend to be the girl I had been when I spoke to my parents on the phone or when I went home for breaks. The rest of the time, I didn’t know who I was. Mostly, I was numb. I was awkward. I was trying to be a writer. I was trying to forget what happened to me. I was trying to stop feeling those boys on and in my skin, how they laughed at me, how they laughed as they ruined me. I remember so little from high school, but in the past few years, as my profile as a writer has gotten more visible, I’ve started to hear from the kids I went to high school with and, oddly enough, they all remember me distinctly. They reach out via e-mail, or Facebook, or at events, and ask me, eagerly, if I remember them too. They share anecdotes that make me seem like I was interesting and not as unbearable as I remember myself. I don’t know what to make of the memories of other people or how to reconcile their memories with mine. I do know that I developed a sharp tongue in high school. I was quiet, but I could cut someone with words when I put my mind to it.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  A psychiatrist talked to those of us assembled about how to prepare for the surgery, how to deal with food once our stomachs became the size of a thumb, how to accept that the “normal people” (his words, not mine) in our lives might try to sabotage our weight loss because they were invested in the idea of us as fat people. We learned how our bodies would be nutrient-deprived for the rest of our lives, how we would never be able to eat or drink within half an hour of doing one or the other. Our hair would thin, maybe fall out. Our bodies could be prone to dumping syndrome, a condition whose name doesn’t require a great deal of imagination to decipher. And of course, there were the surgical risks. We could die on the operating table or succumb to infection in the days following the procedure. It was a good news/bad news scenario. Bad news: our lives and bodies would never be the same (if we even survived the surgery). Good news: we would be thin. We would lose 75 percent of our excess weight within the first year. We would become next to normal. What those doctors offered was so tempting, so seductive: this notion that we could fall asleep for a few hours, and within a year of waking up, most of our problems would be solved, at least according to the medical establishment. That is, of course, if we continued to delude ourselves that our bodies were our biggest problem. After the presentation there was a question-and-answer session. I had neither questions nor answers, but the woman to my right, the woman who clearly did not need to be there because she was no more than forty or so pounds overweight, dominated the session, asking intimate, personal questions that broke my heart. As she interrogated the doctors, her husband sat next to her, smirking. It became clear why she was there. It was all about him and how he saw her body. There is nothing sadder, I thought, choosing to ignore why I was sitting in that same room, choosing to ignore that there were a great many people in my own life who saw my body before they ever saw or considered me.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  77More often than not, I feel hopeless. I give up. I cannot overcome myself, my body, these hundreds of pounds shrouding my body. It is easier, I think, to be miserable, to remain mired in self-loathing. I don’t hate myself the way society expects me to until I have a bad day and then I do hate myself. I disgust myself. I cannot stand my weakness, my inertia, my inability to overcome my past, to overcome my body. This hopelessness is paralyzing. Working out and eating well and trying to take good care of myself start to feel futile. I look at my body, and I live in my body, and I think, I will never know anything but this. I will never know anything better than this. And then I think, If I am really this miserable, if my life really is this hard, why do I still do nothing? All too often, I look at myself in the mirror and all I can do is ask myself, Why? and What is it going to take for you to find the strength to change? 78One of the many things I have always loved about writing (not to be confused with publishing) is that all you need is your imagination. It doesn’t matter who you are, you can write. Your looks, especially, don’t matter. As a naturally shy person, I loved the anonymity of writing before my career took off. I loved how my stories didn’t care about my weight. When I started publishing that writing, I loved that, to my readers, what mattered were the words on the page. Through writing, I was, finally, able to gain respect for the content of my character. That changed when I started gaining a national profile, going on book tours, doing speaking engagements and publicity and television appearances. I lost my anonymity. It’s not that my looks mattered but my looks mattered.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation6 ● Here, the narrative shows the struggle to make sense of national tragedy. The writer wants to affirm that founding the kingdom was congruent with the will of God. But that makes it difficult to understand how God could let the kingdom be destroyed and the people deported. ● The plotline traces patterns of human disobedience that seem to bring about this devastating result, yet it also holds onto more hopeful elements. Other Old T estament books continue the story by recounting the return of some of the people to Jerusalem, where they rebuild. ‹ Along with the narratives, the Old T estament includes prophetic writings. A common theme in theses texts is the call for a just society. Yet the prophets also have distinctive emphases, and they often convey their messages through poetic imagery. ‹ The final collection of material in the Old T estament consists of psalms and wisdom writings. The psalms are songs and poems that probe the depths of despair and rise to exuberant joy. The wisdom writings ask what it means to live a good life. The New Testament ‹ The New T estament also begins with narratives. Here, the variety is clear at the outset. Each of the four gospels tells the story of Jesus in a distinctive way, giving us four portraits of Jesus, not just one. ‹ Mark’s gospel is the shortest of the four; from the outset, it portrays Jesus engaged in conflict. The narrative begins when Jesus is baptized and tested by Satan in the desert. After that, Jesus announces God’s kingdom, then he goes to a synagogue, where he encounters a man possessed by a demonic spirit. Jesus’s first action is performing an exorcism; thus, our initial impression is that he is the agent of God confronting the forces of evil. ‹ Luke’s gospel is rather different. It begins with angels promising a child to an elderly couple, then telling a young woman named Mary that she will give birth to Jesus. Luke speaks of Jesus being born in a barn, where he is visited Lecture 1—The Bible as Dialogue 7 In the New T estament, our impressions of Jesus are formed by the interplay among the four gospels.

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

  Lecture 14—Elijah, the T roubler of Israel 95 ‹ The prophets of Baal call out and do a ritual dance around the altar, but there is no fire from heaven. As the hours pass, Elijah taunts them. His satirical comments bring no response from Baal, and neither do the prayers of his worshippers. The scene depicts Baal as an impotent deity, incapable of answering either his supporters or his detractors. ‹ Elijah then has people pour buckets of water over the sacrifice he’s about to offer. Only then, when asking for fire seems hopeless, Elijah calls on God. And the response is dramatic. Lightning comes from sky, and the sacrifice is consumed by fire. The spectators immediately call out, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” ‹ This is Elijah’s moment of triumph, yet he manages to turn his stunning victory into defeat by overstepping his bounds. He has all the prophets of Baal herded down to the base of the mountain, where he slaughters them. The bloodbath ignites a new cycle of opposition, because Jezebel vows that Elijah will pay for it with his life. From triumph on the mountain, Elijah must flee again. Elijah’s Inner Struggle ‹ In the third phase of the story (1 Kings 19), the focus shifts from Elijah’s struggle against the rulers and their gods to his own struggle against despair. This part begins with a journey from Mount Carmel in the northern part of the country to Mount Horeb or Sinai in the far south. Elijah enters the vastness of the desert alone. He tells God that he’s ready to die, but he trudges on until he reaches Mount Sinai. There, he spends the night in a cave. ‹ God then speaks to Elijah, asking him why he is hiding out in the middle of nowhere. And the prophet has a ready answer: “I’ve been absolutely devoted to the Lord, the sovereign God. Because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. And now, I’m the only one left, and they want to kill me too.” ‹ God responds to Elijah’s tirade by telling him to stand on the mountain before him. When Elijah does so, a massive gust of wind shatters the rocks all around, an earthquake shakes the ground, and a blazing fire appears. Yet with each

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation50 fantasize again about a past that never existed. They picture their former lives as slaves as a time when they feasted on fish, fruit, and vegetables. ● As readers, we can see that this is fantasy, but it’s generating conflict that calls the future into question. Instead of moving forward, the people are looking back, and the journey has ground to a halt. The divine response takes the form of a judgment, in which the people get what they want, and it becomes their undoing. ‹ In chapters 13 and 14, Moses sends spies into Canaan to bring back a report about the richness of the land. When they return, they describe the place as a land flowing with milk and honey. For those who have been traveling through the desert, it’s like a dream come true. But then the spies add that other groups are living in Canaan—and everything comes apart. The people refuse to move forward. They are certain that continuing the journey into the land will end in disaster; thus, they decide to turn back to Egypt. ‹ It’s important to read this episode within the large narrative arc, which began with Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. The Exodus occurred because the people were enslaved and wanted freedom, and God gave them freedom. Then they complained about food, and God gave them manna. Now they are complaining about life in the desert, so God promises to lead them into the land of milk and honey. But they refuse to go and want to return to the land of slavery. ‹ In response, God must deal with his own explosive anger. He asks Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of everything I’ve done for them?” As readers, we’re challenged to see and even feel things from God’s perspective. ‹ As he did at Mount Sinai, Moses reminds God that God has committed himself to this people and he needs to forgive them. And remarkably, God agrees. But he adds that he will also do what the people have asked. They have said they’d rather die in the desert than move ahead to the land of Canaan. Thus, God will let them die in the desert; he will take the next generation into the Promised Land. ‹ This is the pivotal moment in the story. It’s crucial to see the correlation between what the people ask for and what they receive. If they’d rather die in the desert,

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

  120 LECTURE 18 Babylonian Conquest and Exile T he fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 B.C. was a pivotal moment in the story of the people of Israel and Judah. These events also raised larger questions about human responses to the trauma of loss, to which the Bible does not offer simple answers. In this lecture, we’ll look at three perspectives that appear in writings from the period just before and after the fall of Jerusalem. First, the book of 2 Kings tries to explain the loss; second, Lamentations expresses the loss; and third, the book of Habakkuk offers a way through the loss, by finding a way to live with unanswered questions. Explaining Loss: 2 Kings ‹ The final episodes in the story of the monarchy in Israel are narrated in 2 Kings. Earlier, the books of Joshua and Judges told of Israel’s movement from the desert into Canaan. Then, 1 and 2 Samuel recounted the establishment of the monarchy under Saul and David. The book of 1 Kings continued the story, from the brutal grandeur of King Solomon to the shattering of national unity under his son and the ongoing struggles of a divided kingdom. Now, 2 Kings brings the tale to its tragic conclusion, recounting the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians and the destruction of the southern kingdom by the Babylonians. ‹ The writings in this Deuteronomistic history, as it is known, use exclusive loyalty to Israel’s God as the lens through which they interpret the rise and fall of the monarchy. They regard Israel’s entry into the land of Canaan and the establishment of the Davidic dynasty as gracious acts of God. And they try to make sense of the tragic end of the northern and southern kingdoms by insisting that these events happened because Israel was unfaithful to God. Because they turned away from God, God handed the people over to the invading armies that destroyed their cities and took them into exile.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 208 uproar. The writer wants us to ask: Who really poses a threat to the social order? Is it the disciples, who are simply trying to make a case for their beliefs? Or is it their opponents, who claim to be pro-Roman, but who are disturbing the peace and attacking innocent people? ‹From the writer’s perspective, the opponents are clearly the troublemakers. But what makes the issue more complex is that Paul’s message does have a subversive aspect. The mob is correct in saying that Paul claims that there is another king named Jesus. That means that Jesus’s followers do not give their highest loyalty to the emperor or the Roman state. They have a higher loyalty. Does that threaten the Roman order or not? 1 Thessalonians ‹The letter called 1 Thessalonians was composed around 50 A.D. and is Paul’s oldest extant letter. It was written to encourage the congregation at Thessalonica after Paul had gone on to Athens and, probably, Corinth. ‹In 1 Thessalonians 1:9, Paul says that the people had turned to God from idols and now served the living and true God. That means that the Thessalonian Christians had formerly worshipped the gods of Greece and Rome. The issues they faced arose after they left that former pattern of worship and accepted the message of Jesus. ‹Paul responds to the Thessalonian situation by affirming many conventional values. In chapter 2, he insists that his own life is characterized by integrity and hard work and that he is not spreading the message of Jesus to enrich himself. In chapter 4, Paul continues in the same vein, urging the Christians of Thessalonica to abide by conventional values, as well. He tells the Thessalonians to show respect for family life and not to engage in sexual immorality, to live quietly and work with their hands, to love others in the community and to behave decently toward outsiders. ‹In chapter 5, we note a more subversive subtext. Here, Paul emphasizes the theme of hope. He envisions a time when those who have died will be raised up to life again. His argument is that the Christian message is centered on Jesus,

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

  120 LECTURE 18 Babylonian Conquest and Exile T he fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 B.C. was a pivotal moment in the story of the people of Israel and Judah. These events also raised larger questions about human responses to the trauma of loss, to which the Bible does not offer simple answers. In this lecture, we’ll look at three perspectives that appear in writings from the period just before and after the fall of Jerusalem. First, the book of 2 Kings tries to explain the loss; second, Lamentations expresses the loss; and third, the book of Habakkuk offers a way through the loss, by finding a way to live with unanswered questions. Explaining Loss: 2 Kings ‹The final episodes in the story of the monarchy in Israel are narrated in 2 Kings. Earlier, the books of Joshua and Judges told of Israel’s movement from the desert into Canaan. Then, 1 and 2 Samuel recounted the establishment of the monarchy under Saul and David. The book of 1 Kings continued the story, from the brutal grandeur of King Solomon to the shattering of national unity under his son and the ongoing struggles of a divided kingdom. Now, 2 Kings brings the tale to its tragic conclusion, recounting the conquest of the northern kingdom by the Assyrians and the destruction of the southern kingdom by the Babylonians. ‹The writings in this Deuteronomistic history, as it is known, use exclusive loyalty to Israel’s God as the lens through which they interpret the rise and fall of the monarchy. They regard Israel’s entry into the land of Canaan and the establishment of the Davidic dynasty as gracious acts of God. And they try to make sense of the tragic end of the northern and southern kingdoms by insisting that these events happened because Israel was unfaithful to God. Because they turned away from God, God handed the people over to the invading armies that destroyed their cities and took them into exile.

• From Trash (1988)

  “It’s just the pain,” the midwife told Tucker, but neither of them really believed that. Tucker believed this was the time when Shirley told him the whole truth. The midwife did squeeze Tucker’s arm once and say, “Do you notice how she don’t really scream?” The baby finally came in two pieces covered in a stinking bloody scum. Tucker borrowed a car and wrapped Shirley in three blankets to take her to the county hospital. The midwife wrapped up the baby in flour sacks to carry in with her, but Shirley became hysterical when they tried to put it in the car. They had to put it in the trunk before she would calm down. “Don’t you think I knew it was dead?” Shirley curled her fists around Tucker’s wrists so tight he thought the little bones would crack. “I told you. You put death in me.” “No telling what causes this kind of thing,” the doctor told Tucker. “But she’s had her last child, that’s for sure.” “You’ve had your last poke at me,” Shirley whispered to Tucker when she could talk again. “I never wanted it, and if you come to me for it again, I’ll cut your thing off and feed it to these damn brats you pulled out of me.” Tucker said nothing. The doctor had told him he’d have to be very gentle with Shirley for a while, that she was gonna be weak for a good long time. “You don’t know Shirley,” Tucker told him. “She might be sick, but she an’t never gonna be weak.” It was October when the baby was born dead. Shirley Boatwright would not go back to work till May. The pennies saved up over the summer were gone by then, as were the canned goods Tucker’s sisters had sent over in the fall. By February, half the Boatwright children were wearing strips of sacking tied around their broken shoes. Every morning they’d stand still while Shirley directed Mattie in tying the sacking correctly. It was Bo’s birthday, the eleventh of that month, when she caught hold of Mattie’s sleeve as she headed for the door with the other children. “No,” Shirley said. “You’re thirteen now, no need to waste your time in school. You either, Bo.” All the children stood still for a moment, and then Mattie and Bo stepped back and let the others go. It took Shirley half an hour to get herself dressed, shaking off Mattie’s hand when she came to help. It took them all another hour to walk the eight blocks together to the mill. Neither Bo nor Mattie spoke. Both of them just kept looking up to their mother with swollen frightened eyes.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 162 ●The Jewish leaders bring Jesus to Pilate because he has the authority to pronounce the sentence and carry out the execution. Pilate’s perspective is political. He wants to know whether Jesus claims to be the king of the Jews, because for Pilate, someone with royal aspirations would presumably foment insurrection. Despite the accusations, Pilate finds no convincing evidence that Jesus poses a threat to Roman rule. ●Because it’s a holiday, Pilate offers to release Jesus, but his tactic backfires. The people demand that he release another prisoner and crucify Jesus. ●Pilate repeats that he can find no grounds for convicting Jesus, but in the end, he capitulates. The most powerful man in the province pronounces the death sentence, knowing that he has no legitimate grounds for doing so. The Crucifixion ‹The crucifixion brings the conflicting claims about Jesus to their narrative climax. For the opponents, the crucifixion shows that Jesus’s kingship is a sham. The would-be Messiah is now condemned and becomes the object of ridicule. But for Mark, the crucifixion shows that Jesus’s kingship is authentic; it completes the redefinition of kingship in terms of self-giving and suffering. ‹After Pilate pronounces the death sentence, he has Jesus whipped. The Roman soldiers then stage a mock coronation before taking Jesus to the place of execution. Bystanders there ridicule Jesus by repeating the accusations that were made at the trial and about his claim to be the Messiah. As a healer, he may have saved others, but now he’s unable to save himself. They challenge this would-be Messiah to come down from the cross, so they might believe in him. ‹The pivotal moment comes when Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These words of anguish go to the heart of the matter: Does Jesus’s suffering negate any notion of his kingship, or does it define the character of his kingship? From Mark’s perspective, the words are deeply consistent with the path Jesus has chosen. The words are actually a quotation from Psalm 22, which expresses the depth of human suffering; by voicing the psalm, Jesus shows that he shares fully in that experience of suffering. Lecture 24—Mark on the Crucifixion and Resurrection 163 In one sense, Jesus’s death can be seen as a pointless tragedy— something brought about by the political maneuvering of those in power; yet his death has also been seen as an action that carries out the will of God.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 96 spectacular display, we are told that God is not present. God is not in the wind, the earthquake, or even the fire. Instead, Elijah hears God speak in a still, small voice—a quiet whisper. ‹God tells Elijah to go back north, toward Damascus, and anoint three people, who will orchestrate a military coup in the northern kingdom of Israel. The first new leader is Jehu, who will be king over Israel. The second is Hazael, who will be king over the neighboring region of Aram or Syria. And the third will be Elisha, the prophet who will take Elijah’s place. ‹Elijah has become convinced that everything depends on him, that he’s the only responsible person left, but before he leaves the mountain, God tells Elijah that he’s kidding himself. The prophet is so self-absorbed that he has overlooked the fact that he’s not alone. There are thousands of people in Israel who have not adopted the ways of Baal. ‹This is the climax of the middle phase of Elijah’s story. Here, he’s not confronted by the king, the queen, or the prophets of Baal but by his own God. Elijah is being summoned to move beyond the perspectives that have driven him into hiding in order to do the work to which he is called. Return to Center Stage ‹In the fourth part of the story (1 Kings 21), Elijah again confronts Ahab and Jezebel, this time, about the abuse of political authority. The scene is the town of Jezreel, where Ahab and Jezebel had a second palace. The man next door was named Naboth, and he had a vineyard that Ahab wanted to buy, but Naboth wouldn’t sell. ‹There seems to have been a clash of principles involved. The king thought that everything had its price, and you got what you wanted by paying people what they asked. But Naboth wouldn’t sell the land because it belonged to his family. ‹Ahab responds to the inability to get his way by sulking and pouting, but Jezebel comes on the scene, representing yet another set of principles. She believes that those in authority should get what they want. If Naboth won’t sell the land, she

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

  93 LECTURE 14 Elijah, the Troubler of Israel I n this lecture, we begin an exploration of the prophets of the Old Testament, starting with Elijah. As we follow Elijah’s story, we will first see him defy the powers that be, then flee to the margins, where he hangs on by a thread. Next, he comes back to challenge the claims made about the god Baal, which the reigning king and queen of Israel used to support their regime. In the middle, Elijah faces a different kind of drama, when he must contend with his own sense of isolation and despair. Finally, he returns to challenge the abuse of power by the royal house before a whirlwind carries him off to an unseen realm above. Elijah on the Margins ‹At the end of 1 Kings 16, we learn that city of Samaria in the northern kingdom of Israel had become the capital, under the rule of a king named Ahab. Ahab had married a woman named Jezebel, who came from the city of Sidon. She and Ahab promoted the worship of the god Baal and the goddess Asherah, and this worship was seen as giving support to their regime. But in the eyes of such people as Elijah, the establishment of the cult of Baal was a betrayal of the faith that gave Israel its identity. It sparked conflict over the question of religious truth and the legitimacy of the government itself. ‹The conflict came to a head over the issue of rainfall, of which Baal was the god. People believed that during the wet season of the year, Baal replenished the earth with the rain. In 1 Kings 17, Elijah issues a direct challenge to this idea. He speaks for the God of Israel and announces that the annual cycle of rain and dryness will stop, and there will be drought for several years. If people think Baal can make it rain on schedule, then Elijah will show them this is not the case. ‹Elijah understands that his act of defiance puts him in opposition to the ruling power. Thus, he slips away to the region east of the Jordan River, just beyond the reach of Ahab and Jezebel. Later, he goes to the village of Zarephath, which

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

  Lecture 17—Jeremiah on Anguish and Compassion 117 ‹Jeremiah puts his pathos into the poetic form of a lament (Jer. 20:7–13), taking people on a journey from despair into hope. The opening lines here are a seething expression of anger and despair directed at God, because God has made Jeremiah’s life miserable. Jeremiah appears to say that God has deceived him into serving as a prophet. ‹In verses 8 and 9, Jeremiah says that he has dutifully spoken out against destructive social and religious practices, but people think he’s laughable. He no longer wants to be a prophet. The problem is that his internal sense of calling persists. ‹To be true to his convictions, he must overcome his shame. He needs a sense of purpose that comes from something higher than public opinion. And for Jeremiah, that’s where God comes in. The poem pictures God as a warrior, doing battle for the prophet. It’s Jeremiah’s sense that God’s truth will win out that enables him to continue speaking. ‹However, there’s another lament in verses 14 to 18, and it begins, “Cursed be the day that I was born.” In this lament, there is no movement toward hope, only a relentless march into despair. Here, there is no word of praise at the end, only the haunting question: “Why did I ever come out of the womb, to see trouble and grief, and end my days in shame?” This poem gives no answer. It voices only the pathos. ‹The juxtaposition of these two laments in chapter 20 shows us a life in which grief and hope exist side by side. The hopeful conclusion of the first lament does not silence the grief expressed in the second. But neither does the grief mean that hope has no place. Jeremiah’s ability to engage both of them together marks the pathos of this prophet. Hope Rising from Collapse ‹This kind of tension persists in the final section of the book, which narrates the country’s collapse yet asks how hope might rise from the ashes. In 597 B.C., the Babylonians raided the temple in Jerusalem and carried off sacred objects. They also deported some of the leading citizens, including the king, and replaced him with a king of their own choosing.

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 90 and still suffer. He cannot see that God is fair and just. His suffering makes no sense at all. ●The dialogues between Job and his friends go on, with point and counterpoint. When Job’s friends insist that suffering comes to those who do wrong, Job says that he sees wicked people thriving and good people suffering. Job is speaking now as a religious rebel, who challenges God to meet him in court, so he can finally have a fair trial and vindicate himself. The book of Job takes up the problem of human suffering in ways that fit within Israel’s tradition but also go beyond it; the question was significant for people throughout the ancient world, as it continues to be for people today.

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

  Lecture 14—Elijah, the Troubler of Israel 95 ‹The prophets of Baal call out and do a ritual dance around the altar, but there is no fire from heaven. As the hours pass, Elijah taunts them. His satirical comments bring no response from Baal, and neither do the prayers of his worshippers. The scene depicts Baal as an impotent deity, incapable of answering either his supporters or his detractors. ‹Elijah then has people pour buckets of water over the sacrifice he’s about to offer. Only then, when asking for fire seems hopeless, Elijah calls on God. And the response is dramatic. Lightning comes from sky, and the sacrifice is consumed by fire. The spectators immediately call out, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.” ‹This is Elijah’s moment of triumph, yet he manages to turn his stunning victory into defeat by overstepping his bounds. He has all the prophets of Baal herded down to the base of the mountain, where he slaughters them. The bloodbath ignites a new cycle of opposition, because Jezebel vows that Elijah will pay for it with his life. From triumph on the mountain, Elijah must flee again. Elijah’s Inner Struggle ‹In the third phase of the story (1 Kings 19), the focus shifts from Elijah’s struggle against the rulers and their gods to his own struggle against despair. This part begins with a journey from Mount Carmel in the northern part of the country to Mount Horeb or Sinai in the far south. Elijah enters the vastness of the desert alone. He tells God that he’s ready to die, but he trudges on until he reaches Mount Sinai. There, he spends the night in a cave. ‹God then speaks to Elijah, asking him why he is hiding out in the middle of nowhere. And the prophet has a ready answer: “I’ve been absolutely devoted to the Lord, the sovereign God. Because the Israelites have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. And now, I’m the only one left, and they want to kill me too.” ‹God responds to Elijah’s tirade by telling him to stand on the mountain before him. When Elijah does so, a massive gust of wind shatters the rocks all around, an earthquake shakes the ground, and a blazing fire appears. Yet with each

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 64 step in David’s rise and Saul’s downfall comes when David achieves renown by killing the giant Philistine named Goliath. Finally, Saul’s rage gets out of control; he throws a spear at David, who must run for his life. The Philistine Goliath dares the Israelites to send one of their best soldiers to take him on in single combat, but no one is willing— until David says that he will fight and, of course, wins the seemingly impossible contest. Lecture 9—Saul, the Tragic King 65 ‹David flees to the desert, where he becomes the leader of an outlaw band. From Saul’s perspective, David has become a kind of charismatic gang boss. Saul makes a desperate attempt to capture David, but he fails. Eventually, Saul must give up the chase, because the Philistines are on the march again and are threatening to bring down Saul’s kingdom. ‹As we approach the end of the story, Saul is a failed king, who is running out of options. The Philistine armies are encircling his kingdom. As he faces the greatest battle of his career, Saul can see that his army has no chance. In the blackness of night, he makes a final plea for help from the spirit world. He makes his way to the home of a woman who claims to be able to consult the spirits of the dead. ‹Saul asks the woman to bring up the spirit of Samuel, who had died some years before. The woman says that she sees a figure who looks like an old man. Saul believes it to be Samuel’s ghost and pleads with the spirit of the dead man for help. Saul tells the spirit that God no longer answers him. But the spirit responds by saying that Saul has brought this on himself, because Saul is the one who turned away from God, and God is now letting Saul’s destructive decision take its course. The spirit warns that in battle the following day, the end will come. Saul and his sons will soon join Samuel in the realm of the dead. ‹On the day of battle, the spirit’s words come true. The Philistine army overwhelms Saul, and Saul is mortally wounded. In an act of self-assertion, he commands his armor-bearer to kill him so that his enemies might not have the pleasure of doing so. But the armor-bearer refuses, and Saul falls on his own sword. Having set this course of self-destruction, Saul follows it out to the end. Interpreting 1 Samuel ‹One major approach to interpreting this tragedy is to see Saul as a negative moral example. We see how bad decisions lead to bad results, and we trace the way his early acts of decisive leadership became tainted by arrogance and jealousy. We must guard against the sins of pride and envy, because they inevitably lead to a person’s downfall.