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

  For you are well aware of how when he afterwards wanted to claim the blessing he ought to have inherited, he was rejected – for he had no opportunity to change his mind – although he sought that blessing with tears. WITH this passage, the writer to the Hebrews comes to the problems of everyday Christian life and living. He knew that sometimes it is given to us to rise up with inspiration as if we had the wings of eagles; he knew that sometimes we are able to run and not grow weary in the pursuit of some great moment of endeavour; but he also knew that, of all things, it is hardest to continue to walk day after day and not to faint. Here, he is thinking of the daily struggle of the Christian way. (1) He begins by reminding them of their duties. In every congregation and in every Christian society, there are those who are weaker and more likely to go astray and to abandon the struggle. It is the duty of those who are stronger to put fresh vigour into listless hands and fresh strength into failing feet. The phrase used for slack hands is the same as is used to describe the children of Israel in the days when they wanted to abandon the harsh demands of the journey across the wilderness and to return to the ease and the fleshpots of Egypt. The Odes of Solomon (6:14ff.) have a description of the work of those who are true servants and ministers: They have refreshed the dry lips, And have raised up the will that was paralysed ... And limbs that were fallen They have straightened and raised up. One of life’s greatest glories is to be an encourager of those who are near to despair and a strengthener of those whose strength is failing. To help these people, we have, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, ‘to make their paths straight’. Christians have a double duty; they have a duty to God and a duty to other people. The Testament of Simeon (5:2–3) has an illuminating description of the duty of those who would strive for goodness. ‘Make your heart good in the sight of the Lord; and make your ways straight in the sight of men; so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord and of men.’ To God, individuals must present a clean heart; to others, they must present an upright life. To show others the right way to walk, by personal example to keep them on the right road, to remove from the path something that would make them stumble, to make the journey easier for faltering and lagging feet, is a Christian duty.

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

  Dugard was discovered living in the backyard of Phillip Garrido’s home in Antioch, California, east of San Francisco. And she was the mother of two children ages eleven and fifteen, whom Garrido had both fathered. The convicted rapist had created a family he completely controlled. Dugard and her children lived in a makeshift compound accessible through a maze of tarps and sheds. “All of the sheds had electricity by cords, rudimentary outhouse and shower, as if you were camping,” said Fred Kollar, El Dorado County sheriff.421 Jaycee Dugard’s formal education effectively ended at the time of her kidnapping. Dugard’s two daughters never attended school. A source close to the investigation told the press, “Some type of brainwashing clearly occurred.” Similar to the situation of Elizabeth Smart, Duggard seemed physically able to escape. “There were moments in the 18 years when she could have called attention to who she was. She hadn’t forgotten her real identity. In fact, she remembers a remarkable amount about her old life,” a source told the press. But like Elizabeth Smart and Patty Hearst, the same source attributed “mind games” as the cause of Dugard’s inaction and seeming inability to escape. “It sounds simplistic, but the real prison was her brain,” a source told reporters.422 Phillip Garrido, like Brian Mitchell, had a female accomplice. Her name was Nancy Bocanegra, and she married Phillip Garrido in Leavenworth, Kansas, when he was still an inmate in prison. Garrido served eleven years for the kidnapping and rape of his previous victim. He was released in 1988. Nancy Garrido was with her husband when he kidnapped Jaycee Dugard, and she was criminally charged like Wanda Barzee, Mitchell’s accomplice. Nancy Garrido was also a certified nurse assistant, which probably explains how Phillip Garrido managed to deliver two babies and provide some level of medical care for Dugard and her children, without seeing doctors.423 Garrido’s brother, Ron, described Nancy Garrido as “a robot.” He said in an interview, “She would do anything he asked her to…It’s no different from [Charles] Manson.”424 Many who knew Phillip Garrido gave him the nickname “creepy Phil,” but examining psychologists found him to be “very coherent.” He owned a print shop, where Jaycee Dugard and her children worked. Customers described the mother and daughters as “polite” and “well mannered,” though one customer commented, “Obviously, there was some brainwashing going on.” Dugard went by the name “Alissa,” and her two children were called “Angel” and “Starlet.” “They were not dressed like average teenage girls. They were dressed very conservatively,” one print shop customer remarked.425 Phillip Garrido later told police, “We raised them right. They don’t know anything bad about the world.”426 Like Brian Mitchell, Garrido believed he was special and chosen by God.

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

  In this environment participants experience what has been called “love bombing,” which is a term used to describe the seemingly unconditional affection church members direct toward them. However, this “love” is actually highly conditional and based on their growing acceptance of Unification Church principles and corresponding progress in the group. This contrived but intense experience in the context of a controlled group environment can produce the desired commitment. After recovering from her experience under the control of the political cult called the Symbionese Liberation A Army, the heiress Patty Hearst commented that she had been told how to think. Upon reflection Hearst compared the process she endured to something like “the disciplining of your mind.”567 Conway and Siegelman notably include such practices as “group encounter, guided fantasy [and] meditation” as a means of implementation. The authors conclude, “By tampering with basic distinctions between reality and fantasy, right and wrong, past, present and future, or simply by stilling the workings of the mind over time, these intense communication practices may break down vital faculties of mind.” The authors also point out that there is growing evidence that such abuses may ultimately “impair crucial working connections in the brain’s underlying synaptic networks and neurochemical channels,” which may potentially “destroy long-standing information processing pathways in the brain.” 568 Such changes in the brain were the focus of the book Craving for Ecstasy by professors Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, which examines how addiction and behavior affect the brain. Milkman and Sunderwirth, who specialize in brain chemistry, reinforce Conway and Siegelman’s observations. They write, “Individuals can change their brain chemistry through immersion in salient mood-altering activities as well as through ingesting intoxicating substances.” The researchers add, “If our synaptic chemistry changes dramatically we seem to possess altogether different personalities.”569 The authors specifically cite the power of “cults,” which they say “may be used to short-circuit the usual course of an addictive process.” They then offer “the tragic example of Jonestown, blind devotion to a religious cult,” which “burned a path straight to the suicidal vortex.”570 The comparison of cults to chemical addiction may explain the seemingly addictive pattern of behavior often evident in cultic involvement. This analogy may also explain why discontinuing that involvement, especially after years of reinforcement, is frequently difficult. Conway and Siegelman have identified “four distinct varieties of information disease” we can see by observing an affected individual. “Ongoing altered state of awareness”—characterized as a “state of narrowed or reduced awareness.” This can be brought on by an encapsulated environment controlled by a group and/ or leader that virtually excludes any other focus or outside frame of reference.“Delusional phase”—“vivid delusions [and] hallucinations” that lead to “irrational, violent and self-destructive behavior,” which can be brought on through techniques of sensory deprivation and/or overload“Not thinking”—“literally shutting off the mind”“Not feeling”—“actively suppressing one’s emotional responses” that may “ultimately numb a person’s capacity for human feeling”571Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, prohibited his followers from watching television and strictly regulated their reading.

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

  He wrote in a journal before his death, “What have I done with my life? Wasted it in the insanity of some maniacal bunch of pathological deviates…Some things are worse than death, and my continued existence in this unspeakable state is one of them.”208 The most reported-about death of a second-generation ex-member was the demise of Oscar-nominated actor River Phoenix, the brother of actor Joaquin Phoenix. He died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of twenty-three.209 Details Magazine reported that River Phoenix said he lost his virginity in COG at the age of four. “I blocked it all out,” he said and later claimed that “I was completely celibate from 10 to 14.” The Phoenix family reportedly left the group before River Phoenix turned seven.210 After his death Phoenix was posthumously quoted, offering his opinion of COG. “They’re disgusting…They’re ruining people’s lives,” the actor said.211 COG has repeatedly claimed that it abandoned its abusive practices. In 2007 a spokesperson for the group said its “policy for the protection of minors was adopted in 1986. We regret that prior to the adoption of this policy, cases occurred where minors were exposed to sexually inappropriate behavior between 1978 and 1986.”212 In a 2005 news report, however, ex-members raised in the group refuted such claims. Kristina Jones, who was twenty-eight in 2005, stated, “By the time I was 12, I’d had sexual relations, against my will, with about 20 men and older boys. I was told it was ‘sharing God’s love.’ That’s how life was for me—adults having sex with children. It was the cult’s Law of Love policy, the only life I’d ever known, and I didn’t question it.” Other former members provided similar testimony of the ongoing sexual abuse of minor children after 1986.213 Andrew Stone, a former member of the Family, explained, “This is essentially an organization that to this day is still composed of people who committed crimes against children.” Former members say the Family has also established front organizations to launder its money. Stone claimed that leaders like Rodriquez’s mother, Karen Zerby, live in the “lap of luxury.”214 In a 1995 British court ruling that involved child custody tied to the group, Lord Justice Alan Ward wrote that the leaders of the Family must “denounce David Berg.” Ward further wrote that they should “acknowledge that through his writings [Berg] was personally responsible for children in The Family having been subjected to sexually inappropriate behavior; that it is now recognized that it was not just a mistake to have written as he did but wrong to have done so; and that as a result children have been harmed by their experiences.”215 The Family leadership has never officially denounced David Berg publicly. 2005—Colonia Dignidad Arrest of Cult Leader for Child Abuse In March 2005 the former leader of a “German-Chilean religious cult” was arrested in a fashionable suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now there were days when Stephen herself would long for some palliative, some distraction; when her erstwhile success seemed like Dead Sea fruit, her will to succeed a grotesque presumption. Who was she to stand out against the whole world, against those ruthless, pursuing millions bent upon the destruction of her and her kind? And she but one poor, inadequate creature. She would start to pace up and down her study; up and down, up and down, a most desolate pacing; even as years ago her father had paced his quiet study at Morton. Then those treacherous nerves of hers would betray her, so that when Mary came in with David—he a little depressed, sensing something amiss—she would often turn on the girl and speak sharply. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ ‘Only out for a walk. I walked round to Jamie’s, Barbara’s not well; I sent her in a few tins of Brand’s jelly.’ ‘You’ve no right to go off without letting me know where you’re going—I’ve told you before I won’t have it!’ Her voice would be harsh, and Mary would flush, unaware of those nerves that were strained to breaking. As though grasping at something that remained secure, they would go to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, but less often than they had done in the past, for a feeling of guilt would come upon Stephen. Looking at the gentle and foal-like face with its innocent eyes behind the strong glasses, she would think: ‘We’re here under false pretences. If she knew what we were, she’d have none of us, either. Brockett was right, we should stick to our kind.’ So they went less and less to see Mademoiselle Duphot. Mademoiselle said with her mild resignation: ‘It is natural, for now our Stévenne is famous. Why should she waste her time upon us? I am more than content to have been her teacher.’ But the sightless Julie shook her head sadly: ‘It is not like that; you mistake, my sister. I can feel a great desolation in Stévenne-and some of the youngness has gone from Mary. What can it be? My fingers grow blind when I ask them the cause of that desolation.’ ‘I will pray for them both to the Sacred Heart which comprehends all things,’ said Mademoiselle Duphot. And indeed her own heart would have tried to understand—but Stephen had grown very bitterly mistrustful. And so now, in good earnest they turned to their kind, for as Puddle had truly divined in the past, it is ‘like to like’ for such people as Stephen. Thus when Pat walked in unexpectedly one day to invite them to join a party that night at the Ideal Bar, Stephen did not oppose Mary’s prompt and all too eager acceptance.

• From The Girls (2016)

  — Gwen’s hands had been tied loosely—as soon as the blade sank into Scotty, she jerked free and ran out the front door. Screaming with a cartoon recklessness that sounded fake. She was almost to the gate when she tripped and fell on the lawn. Before she could get to her feet, Donna was already on her. Crawling over her back, stabbing until Gwen asked, politely, if she could die already. — They killed the mother and son last. “Please,” Linda said. Plainly. Even then, I think, hoping for some reprieve. She was very beautiful and very young. She had a child. “Please,” she said, “I can get you money.” But Suzanne didn’t want money. The amphetamines tightening her temples, an incantatory throb. The beautiful girl’s heart, motoring in her chest—the narcotic, desperate rev. How Linda must have believed, as beautiful people do, that there was a solution, that she would be saved. Helen held Linda down—her hands on Linda’s shoulders were tentative at first, like a bad dance partner, but then Suzanne snapped at Helen, impatient, and she pressed harder. Linda’s eyes closed because she knew what was coming. — Christopher had started to cry. Crouching behind the couch; no one had to hold him down. His underwear saturated with the bitter smell of urine. His cries were shaped by screams, an emptying out of all feeling. His mother on the carpet, no longer moving. Suzanne squatted on the floor. Holding out her hands to him. “Come here,” she said. “Come on.” This is the part that isn’t written about anywhere, but the part I imagine most. How Suzanne’s hands must have already been sprayed with blood. The warm medical stink of the body on her clothes and hair. And I can picture it, because I knew every degree of her face. The calming mystic air on her, like she was moving through water.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Stephen must tell her the cruel truth, she must say: ‘I am one of those whom God marked on the forehead. Like Cain, I am marked and blemished. If you come to me, Mary, the world will abhor you, will persecute you, will call you unclean. Our love may be faithful even unto death and beyond—yet the world will call it unclean. We may harm no living creature by our love; we may grow more perfect in understanding and in charity because of our loving; but all this will not save you from the scourge of a world that will turn away its eyes from your noblest actions, finding only corruption and vileness in you. You will see men and women defiling each other, laying the burden of their sins upon their children. You will see unfaithfulness, lies and deceit among those whom the world views with approbation. You will find that many have grown hard of heart, have grown greedy, selfish, cruel and lustful; and then you will turn to me and will say: “You and I are more worthy of respect than these people. Why does the world persecute us, Stephen?” And I shall answer: “Because in this world there is only toleration for the so-called normal.” And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: “I cannot protect you, Mary, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you.” ’ And now Stephen was trembling. In spite of her strength and her splendid physique, she must stand there and tremble. She felt deathly cold, her teeth chattered with cold, and when she moved her steps were unsteady. She must climb the wide stairs with infinite care, in case she should inadvertently stumble; must lift her feet slowly, and with infinite care, because if she stumbled she might wake Mary. 4Ten days later Stephen was saying to her mother: ‘I’ve been needing a change for a very long time. It’s rather lucky that a girl I met in the Unit is free and able to go with me. We’ve taken a villa at Orotava, it’s supposed to be furnished and they’re leaving the servants, but heaven only knows what the house will be like, it belongs to a Spaniard; however, there’ll be sunshine.’ ‘I believe Orotava’s delightful,’ said Anna. But Puddle, who was looking at Stephen, said nothing. That night Stephen knocked at Puddle’s door: ‘May I come in?’ ‘Yes, come in do, my dear. Come and sit by the fire—shall I make you some cocoa?’ ‘No, thanks.’ A long pause while Puddle slipped into her dressing-gown of soft, grey Viyella. Then she also drew a chair up to the fire, and after a little: ‘It’s good to see you—your old teacher’s been missing you rather badly.’ ‘Not more than I’ve been missing her, Puddle.’ Was that quite true? Stephen suddenly flushed, and both of them grew very silent.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  For God’s sake keep the girl, and get what happiness you can out of life.’ ‘No, I can’t do that,’ said Stephen dully. Valérie got up: ‘Being what you are, I suppose you can’t—you were made for a martyr! Very well, I agree’; she finished abruptly, ‘though of all the curious situations that I’ve ever been in, this one beats the lot!’ That night Stephen wrote to Martin Hallam. 2 Two days later as she crossed the street to her house, Stephen saw Martin in the shadow of the archway. He stepped out and they faced each other on the pavement. He had kept his word; it was just ten o’clock. He said: ‘I’ve come. Why did you send for me, Stephen?’ She answered heavily: ‘Because of Mary.’ And something in her face made him catch his breath, so that the questions died on his lips: ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ he murmured. ‘It’s so simple,’ she told him, ‘it’s all perfectly simple. I want you to wait just under this arch—just here where you can’t be seen from the house. I want you to wait until Mary needs you, as I think she will . . . it may not be long . . . Can I count on your being here if she needs you?’ He nodded: ‘Yes—yes!’ He was utterly bewildered, scared too by the curious look in her eyes; but he allowed her to pass him and enter the courtyard. 3 She let herself into the house with her latchkey. The place seemed full of an articulate silence that leapt out shouting from every corner—a jibing, grimacing, vindictive silence. She brushed it aside with a sweep of her hand, as though it were some sort of physical presence. But who was it who brushed that silence aside? Not Stephen Gordon . . . oh, no, surely not . . . Stephen Gordon was dead; she had died last night: ‘A l’heure de notre mort . . .’ Many people had spoken those prophetic words quite a short time ago—perhaps they had been thinking of Stephen Gordon. Yet now some one was slowly climbing the stairs, then pausing upon the landing to listen, then opening the door of Mary’s bedroom, then standing quite still and staring at Mary. It was some one whom David knew and loved well; he sprang forward with a sharp little bark of welcome. But Mary shrank back as though she had been struck—Mary pale and red-eyed from sleeplessness—or was it because of excessive weeping? When she spoke her voice sounded unfamiliar: ‘Where were you last night?’ ‘With Valérie Seymour. I thought you’d know somehow . . . It’s better to be frank . . . we both hate lies . . .’ Came that queer voice again: ‘Good God—and I’ve tried so hard not to believe it! Tell me you’re lying to me now; say it, Stephen!’ Stephen—then she wasn’t dead after all; or was she?

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Goethe was the nearest approach, but Goethe was a stuffed shirt, by comparison. Goethe was a respectable citizen, a pedant, a bore, a universal spirit, but stamped with the German trade-mark, with the double eagle. The serenity of Goethe, the calm, Olympian attitude, is nothing more than the drowsy stupor of a German burgeois deity. Goethe is an end of something, Whitman is a beginning. After a discussion of this sort I would sometimes put on my things and go for a walk, bundled up in a sweater, a spring overcoat of Fillmore’s and a cape over that. A foul, damp cold against which there is no protection except a strong spirit. They say America is a country of extremes, and it is true that the thermometer registers degrees of cold which are practically unheard of here; but the cold of a Paris winter is a cold unknown to America, it is psychological, an inner as well as an outer cold. If it never freezes here it never thaws either. Just as the people protect themselves against the invasion of their privacy, by their high walls, their bolts and shutters, their growling, evil-tongued, slatternly concierges, so they have learned to protect themselves against the cold and heat of a bracing, vigorous climate. They have fortified themselves: protection is the keyword. Protection and security. In order that they may rot in comfort. On a damp winter’s night it is not necessary to look at the map to discover the latitude of Paris. It is a northern city, an outpost erected over a swamp filled in with skulls and bones. Along the boulevards there is a cold electrical imitation of heat. Tout Va Bien in ultraviolet rays that make the clients of the Dupont chain cafés look like gangrened cadavers. Tout Va Bien! That’s the motto that nourishes the forlorn beggars who walk up and down all night under the drizzle of the violet rays. Wherever there are lights there is a little heat. One gets warm from watching the fat, secure bastards down their grogs, their steaming black coffees. Where the lights are there are people on the sidewalks, jostling one another, giving off a little animal heat through their dirty underwear and their foul, cursing breaths. Maybe for a stretch of eight or ten blocks there is a semblance of gaiety, and then it tumbles back into night, dismal, foul, black night like frozen fat in a soup tureen. Blocks and blocks of jagged tenements, every window closed tight, every shopfront barred and bolted. Miles and miles of stone prisons without the faintest glow of warmth; the dogs and the cats are all inside with the canary birds. The cockroaches and the bedbugs too are safely incarcerated. Tout Va Bien. If you haven’t a sou why just take a few old newspapers and make yourself a bed on the steps of a cathedral. The doors are well bolted and there will be no draughts to disturb you.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  through the desert. Later I sat beside the moat surrounding the fortress. In the distance, beyond the penal colony, the fence and the watchtowers, I saw the high-rise blocks of Mechelen encroaching further and further on the fields and the countryside. A gray goose was swimming on the dark water, going a little way in one direction and then a little way back in the other. After a while it scrambled up on the bank and settled on the grass not far from me. I took the book Austerlitz had given me on our first meeting in Paris out of my rucksack. It was by Dan Jacobson (a colleague of his, although unknown to him all these years, Austerlitz had said), and it described the author’s search for his grandfather Rabbi Yisrael Yehoshua Melamed, known as Heshel. All that had come down from Heshel to his grandson was a pocket calendar, his Russian identity papers, a worn spectacle case containing not only his glasses but a faded and already disintegrating piece of silk, and a studio photograph of Heshel in a black coat with a black velour top hat on his head. His one eye, or so at least it looks on the cover of the book, is shaded; in the other it is just possible to make out a white fleck, the light of life extinguished when Heshel died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-three soon after the First World War. It was this premature death which made Menuchah, the rabbi’s wife, decide in 1920 to emigrate with her nine children from Lithuania to South Africa, and that was also the reason why Jacobson himself spent most of his childhood in the town of Kimberley, near the diamond mines of the same name. Most of the mines, so I read as I sat there opposite the fortifications of Breendonk, were already disused at the time, including the two largest, the Kimberley and De Beers mines, and since they were not fenced off anyone who liked could venture to the edge of those vast pits and look down to a depth of several thousand feet. Jacobson writes that it was truly terrifying to see such emptiness open up a foot away from firm ground, to realize that there was no transition, only this dividing line, with ordinary life on one side and its unimaginable opposite on the other. The chasm into which no ray of light could penetrate was Jacobson’s image of the vanished past of his family and his people which, as he knows, can never be brought up from those depths again. On his travels in Lithuania, Jacobson finds scarcely any trace of his forebears, only signs everywhere of the annihilation from which Heshel’s weak heart had preserved his immediate family when it stopped beating. Of the town of Kaunas, where Heshel had his photograph taken all those years ago, Jacobson tells us that the Russians built a ring of twelve fortresses around it in the late nineteenth century, which then in 1914, despite the elevated positions on which they had been constructed, and for all the great number of their cannon, the thickness of their walls, and their labyrinthine corridors, proved entirely useless. Some of the forts, writes Jacobson, fell into disrepair later;

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It’s too terribly upsetting and sad for me; if I hadn’t been so fond of you both—but you know how attached I had grown to Mary . . .’ and so it went on; a kind of wail full of self-importance combined with self-pity. As Stephen read she went white to the lips, and Mary sprang up. ‘What’s that letter you’re reading?’ ‘It’s from Lady Massey. It’s about . . . it’s about . . .’ Her voice failed. ‘Show it to me,’ persisted Mary. Stephen shook her head: ‘No—I’d rather not.’ Then Mary asked: ‘Is it about our visit?’ Stephen nodded: ‘We’re not going to spend Christmas at Branscombe. Darling, it’s all right—don’t look like that . . .’ ‘But I want to know why we’re not going to Branscombe.’ And Mary reached out and snatched the letter. She read it through to the very last word, then she sat down abruptly and burst out crying. She cried with the long, doleful sobs of a child whom some one has struck without rhyme or reason: ‘Oh . . . and I thought they were fond of us . . .’ she sobbed, ‘I thought that perhaps . . . they understood, Stephen.’ Then it seemed to Stephen that all the pain that had so far been thrust upon her by existence, was as nothing to the unendurable pain which she must now bear to hear that sobbing, to see Mary thus wounded and utterly crushed, thus shamed and humbled for the sake of her love, thus bereft of all dignity and protection. She felt strangely helpless: ‘Don’t—don’t,’ she implored; while tears of pity blurred her own eyes and went trickling slowly down her scarred face. She had lost for the moment all sense of proportion, of perspective, seeing in a vain, tactless woman a kind of gigantic destroying angel; a kind of scourge laid upon her and Mary. Surely never before had Lady Massey loomed so large as she did in that hour to Stephen. Mary’s sobs gradually died away. She lay back in her chair, a small, desolate figure, catching her breath from time to time, until Stephen went to her and found her hand which she stroked with cold and trembling fingers—but she could not find words of consolation. 5 That night Stephen took the girl roughly in her arms. ‘I love you—I love you so much . . .’ she stammered; and she kissed Mary many times on the mouth, but cruelly so that her kisses were pain —the pain in her heart leapt out through her lips: ‘God! It’s too terrible to love like this—it’s hell—there are times when I can’t endure it!’ She was in the grip of strong nervous excitation; nothing seemed able any more to appease her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2 After their return to Paris in the autumn, Jamie sometimes joined the nocturnal parties; going rather grimly from bar to bar, and drinking too much of the crème-de-menthe that reminded her of the bull’s eyes at Beedles. She had never cared for these parties before, but now she was clumsily trying to escape, for a few hours at least, from the pain of existence. Barbara usually stayed at home or spent the evening with Stephen and Mary. But Stephen and Mary would not always be there, for now they also went out fairly often; and where was there to go to except the bars? Nowhere else could two women dance together without causing comment and ridicule, without being looked upon as freaks, argued Mary. So rather than let the girl go without her, Stephen would lay aside her work—she had recently started to write her fourth novel. Sometimes, it is true, their friends came to them, a less sordid and far less exhausting business; but even at their own house the drink was too free: ‘We can’t be the only couple to refuse to give people a brandy and soda,’ said Mary, ‘Valérie’s parties are awfully dull; that’s because she’s allowed herself to grow cranky!’ And thus, very gradually just at first, Mary’s finer perceptions began to coarsen. 3 The months passed, and now more than a year had slipped by, yet Stephen’s novel remained unfinished; for Mary’s face stood between her and her work—surely the mouth and the eyes had hardened? Still unwilling to let Mary go without her, she dragged wearily round to the bars and cafés, observing with growing anxiety that Mary now drank as did all the others—not too much perhaps, but quite enough to give her a cheerful outlook on existence. The next morning she was often deeply depressed, in the grip of a rather tearful reaction: ‘It’s too beastly—why do we do it?’ she would ask. And Stephen would answer: ‘God knows I don’t want to, but I won’t let you go to such places without me. Can’t we give it all up? It’s appallingly sordid!’ Then Mary would flare out with sudden anger, her mood changing as she felt a slight tug on the bridle. Were they to have no friends? she would ask. Were they to sit still and let the world crush them? If they were reduced to the bars of Paris, whose fault was that? Not hers and not Stephen’s. Oh, no, it was the fault of the Lady Annas and the Lady Masseys who had closed their doors, so afraid were they of contamination! Stephen would sit with her head on her hand, searching her sorely troubled mind for some ray of light, some adequate answer. 4 That winter Barbara fell very ill. Jamie rushed round to the house one morning, hatless, and with deeply tormented eyes: ‘Mary, please come —Barbara can’t get up, it’s a pain in her side. Oh, my God—we quarrelled . . .’

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  even more thoroughly than Hitler’s victims, since they at least belong to blessed memory, and their murders cry out for public memorial, while the boy has vanished into the private obscurity and ordinary silence that will befall most of us. In Sebald’s work, then, and in this book especially, we experience a vertiginous relationship to a select number of photographs of humans—these pictures are explicitly part of the story that we are reading, which is about saving the dead (the story of Jacques Austerlitz), and they are also part of a larger story that is not found in the book (or only by implication), which is also about saving the dead. These people stare at us, as if imploring us to rescue them from the banal amnesia of existence. But if Jacques Austerlitz certainly cannot save his dead parents, then we certainly cannot save the little boy. To “save” him would mean saving every person who dies, would mean saving everyone who has ever died in obscurity. This, I think, is the double meaning of Sebald’s words about the boy: it is Jacques Austerlitz, but it is also the boy from Stockport (as it were), who stares out at us asking us to “avert the misfortune” of his demise, which of course we cannot do.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The good news is that human beings are generally flexible and resilient: we are ordinarily able to learn from and integrate a variety of life experiences. These experiences, whether uplifting or downbeat, flow easily through our body/mind stream of consciousness as long as we are not chronically over- or underaroused. The body/mind keeps flowing through new encounters with vitality, bouncing back into the stream of things unless there is a significant disruption. In this case, the person is knocked off that normal course—whether it is from a single episode, such as a disaster, an accident, surgery or rape, or from a chronic stressor, such as abuse or ongoing marital stress. When such disruptions fail to be fully integrated, the components of that experience become fragmented into isolated sensations, images and emotions. This kind of splitting apart occurs when the enormity, intensity, suddenness or duration of what happened cannot be defended against, coped with or digested. Personal vulnerability, such as age, genetics and gender also account for this psychic implosion. The result of this inability for the body/mind to integrate is trauma, or at the very minimum, disorientation, a loss of agency and/or a lack of direction. Trapped between feeling too much (overwhelmed or flooded) or feeling too little (shut down and numb) and unable to trust their sensations, traumatized people can lose their way. They don’t “feel like themselves” anymore; loss of sensation equals a loss of a sense of self. As a substitute for genuine feelings, trauma sufferers may seek experiences that keep them out of touch—such as sexual titillation or succumbing to compulsions, addictions and miscellaneous distractions that prevent one from facing a now dark and threatening inner life. In this situation, one cannot discover the transitory nature of despair, terror, rage and helplessness and that the body is designed to cycle in and out of these extremes.* Helping clients cultivate and regulate the capacity for tolerating extreme sensations, through reflective self-awareness, while supporting self-acceptance, allows them to modulate their uncomfortable sensations and feelings. They can now touch into intense sensations and emotions for longer periods of time as they learn how to control their arousal. Once a client has the experience of “going within and coming back out” without falling apart, his or her window of tolerance builds upon itself. This happens through achieving a subtle interplay between sensations, feelings, perceptions and thoughts. I believe that the people who are most resilient, and find the greatest peace in their lives, have learned to tolerate extreme sensations while gaining the capacity for reflective self-awareness. Although this capacity develops normally when we are very young, one can learn it at any time in life, thankfully.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  W 11 At Last Rewarded for his Constancy HEN HIDEYOSHI RULED JAPAN AFTER THE Ashikaya dynasty had died out, he lived at Fushimi; and all the Lords and Princes of all the Provinces of Japan were obliged to live near him. At that time the Lord of the Province of Izumi had a page named Inosuke Murola who was most beautiful and very brave. He was as graceful and delicate as the cherry flower, but his soul was as fearless as the god of war. At first sight you would have taken him for a charming Princess of royal blood. The Lord preferred him to all his other pages. But another page was jealous of the favours shown to Inosuke, and made a completely false and outrageous accusation against him, which he wrote on paper and left in the hall of the palace. The overseer of the palace found the paper and took it to his master, since it was his duty to report even the most insignificant thing to him; and the Lord was furious at his favourite's scandalous behaviour. He was so angry that he dismissed Inosuke from his service, without inquiring whether the accusation were well founded, and banished him from Fushimi without giving him any reason for his disgrace. He ordered his courtiers to keep a Strict watch over him, and not to let him Stir one Step from his house, Inosuke, the victim of false testimony, was confined in a little cottage with his old mother, and was Strictly guarded. The doors were locked, and not even his relatives were allowed to come to see him. His mother and he were completely ignorant of the cause of their disgrace; therefore Inosuke could not commit Hara-kiri, which would otherwise have been the only expedient for a samurai reduced to such a pass. All the servants, anxious for their own interest, abandoned him one after another, fearing to place themselves in the wrong by remaining with a samurai disgraced. Then came times of great hardship for Inosuke and his mother. Grieving for her son's sorrow, she cooked his meals, a thing which she had never done. And her son was pained to see his mother compelled to such base and menial labour. He used to go and fetch water from a well in the garden, and help her in the kitchen. In this miserable manner they dragged on their lives. The days passed, and the months; even the years went by and the Spring seasons returned. Mother and son were astonished by the quick passage of time. Then their means of existence grew scant, and they sold their last possessions. At last they were at the end of their resources. One evening the mother said despairingly to her son: 'Dear Inosuke, we have nothing more to live on, and, indeed, to continue this existence is merely to prolong our suffering. I think that it is better to die than to remain in such a pitiable Sate.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Whatever she did, wherever she went, she would see them together, Angela and Roger. . . . She would think: ‘I’m going mad! I can see them as clearly as though they were here before me in the room.’ And then she would cover her eyes with her hands, but this would only strengthen the pictures. Like some earth-bound spirit she would haunt The Grange on the pretext of taking Tony for a walk. And there, as likely as not, would be Ralph wandering about in his bare rose garden. He would glance up and see her perhaps, and then—most profound shame of all—they would both look guilty, for each would know the loneliness of the other, and that loneliness would draw them together for the moment; they would be almost friends in their hearts. ‘Angela’s gone up to London, Stephen.’ ‘Yes, I know. She’s gone up to fit her new dress.’ Their eyes would drop. Then Ralph might say sharply: ‘If you’re after the dog, he’s in the kitchen,’ and turning his back, he might make a pretence of examining his standard rose-trees. Calling Tony, Stephen would walk into Upton, then along the mist-swept bank of the river. She would stand very still staring down at the water, but the impulse would pass, and whistling the dog, she would turn and go hurrying back to Upton. Then one afternoon Roger came with his car to take Angela for a drive through the hills. The New Year was slipping into the spring, and the air smelt of sap and much diligent growing. A warm February had succeeded the winter. Many birds would be astir on those hills where lovers might sit unashamed—where Stephen had sat holding Angela clasped in her arms, while she eagerly took and gave kisses. And remembering these things Stephen turned and left them; unable just then to endure any longer. Going home, she made her way to the lakes, and there she quite suddenly started weeping. Her whole body seemed to dissolve itself in weeping; and she flung herself down on the kind earth of Morton, shedding tears as of blood. There was no one to witness those tears except the white swan called Peter. 5 Terrible, heart-breaking months. She grew gaunt with her unappeased love for Angela Crossby. And now she would sometimes turn in despair to the thought of her useless and unspent money. Thoughts would come that were altogether unworthy, but nevertheless those thoughts would persist. Roger was not rich; she was rich already and some day she would be even richer. She went up to London and chose new clothes at a West End tailor’s; the man in Malvern who had made for her father was getting old, she would have her suits made in London in future. She ordered herself a rakish red car; a long-bodied, sixty horse power Métallurgique. It was one of the fastest cars of its year, and it certainly cost her a great deal of money.

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

  Lecture 13—Biblical Wisdom Literature 91 ● When the three friends run out of arguments, a fourth friend named Elihu takes up their cause. He argues that Job may claim to be innocent, but no one can really claim to be innocent before God. Job claims that God is not fair, but Elihu insists that God is fair. If God sends suffering, the goal is that people repent and return to the ways of God. ‹ It’s at this point that God finally breaks his silence. In Job 38–41, God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, but he gives no answers or explanations. Instead, God replies to Job’s questions with more questions, and he introduces a third perspective: Rather than trying to explain suffering, God reframes the issue and places it in a larger context. ● Initially, God’s questions seem to have nothing to do with Job’s suffering at all. Instead, they draw Job out of a worldview that is defined by his own experience of loss and place him in the context of a world so vast that it defies his understanding. ● God asks where Job was when the world was created, whether he understands the secrets of the sea or comprehends the origins of snow and rain. The point is that even as Job rails against God, the ocean waves continue to wash against shore, and dawn comes each morning. While Job denounces God’s unfairness, God ensures that life goes on. ‹ At the center of Job’s worldview is his experience of loss. But God describes a world in which human beings are not the defining element. These chapters give attention to all the wild creatures that God has made, none of which is particularly useful to human beings, yet God provides for them all. And Job himself belongs to that world. Strangely, he wouldn’t be able to rage at God’s unfairness unless God had given him the breath to do so. ‹ In the final chapter of the book, God blesses Job and restores his fortunes. But not even there do we find a satisfying explanation for all the suffering that Job endured. At some level, it remains incomprehensible—and that’s essential to the story. When something tragic happens, people want an explanation. But the debates in the book of Job show that some situations defy all attempts at easy explanation. Instead of giving answers, the book enables people to live with the questions. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation92 Suggested Reading Crenshaw, Reading Job. Murphy, The Tree of Life. Questions to Consider 1. Ecclesiastes juxtaposes observations about the futility of life with the possibility of finding enjoyment in one’s work. Do you discern genuine hope in this book, or is the message essentially one of resignation? What distinguishes those two attitudes? 2. The book of Job challenges common attempts to find explanations for suffering. The book shows how life goes on even as the questions remain unanswered. How is that approach helpful? What are its limitations?

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

  Lecture 19—Ezekiel on Abandonment and Homecoming 129 other hand, the prophet can’t accept it; he must protest. It’s unconscionable to think that God would act in this way. He has to wonder how such carnage can really be the will of God. The Shepherd as a Leader ‹ In Ezekiel 33:21, the prophet receives word that the city of Jerusalem has fallen. But once the worst has happened, he can now see things from a different angle. Instead of construing the tragic events as divine punishment, he can see them arising from the failures of human leadership. Here, he focuses on the fact that the self-serving practices of people in authority had brought about these devastating consequences. In light of that reframing of the issue, the new question is how God will respond to human failure and how God’s commitment to the renewal of life and well-being will take shape. ‹ Chapter 34 introduces this remarkable change in perspective by using the image of a shepherd. In the ancient world, this image was a common metaphor for a king or other leader, who both protected and disciplined his flock. The book of Ezekiel uses the shepherd metaphor to offer a pointed critique of the failures of leadership in Israel. ‹ In the opening lines, Ezekiel reports that God has castigated the leaders of Israel, who have used their positions to enrich themselves while neglecting the welfare of others. God compares them to shepherds who eat the fat, take the wool, and slaughter the sheep for their banquets but fail in their duty to care for the flock. Because of their failure, much of the flock has been devoured by predators, and the survivors have been scattered across the earth. ‹ This image represents a different perspective on what has happened to Ezekiel’s people. The nation is being punished not because the people have turned away from God, but because the self-serving practices of Israel’s kings have impoverished it. Their political decisions have left the country vulnerable to destruction. As they have remained preoccupied with themselves, their people have either fled as refugees or been forcibly deported. ● In response, God identifies himself as the true shepherd. In verses 11 and following, he says that as the shepherd, he will gather those who have been

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

  Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation162 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. ‹ In what follows, there are also direct narrative responses to the taunts about the temple and kingship. Mark says that at the moment Jesus dies, the curtain in the temple (separating the inner and outer parts of the sanctuary) is torn apart. 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 Revelation66 ‹ A second approach is to consider Saul as a tragic victim of circumstances. From this perspective, Saul had good intentions, but he made mistakes, and those mistakes set in motion a downward spiral of events that went far beyond his control. His unthinking actions led to tragic alienation from God, and once that course was set, Saul was trapped, with no way out. ‹ The book of 1 Samuel makes clear that Saul’s story ended badly. But it does not offer an easy explanation of why. It might be convenient simply to say that it was all Saul’s fault, yet such an answer is scarcely adequate when dealing with tragedy of this magnitude. Saul turned away from God unwittingly. Did he really deserve his terrible fate? And it might be equally convenient to say that it was all the will of God, as if the writer envisions God as some inexorable force of destiny, against which people can only struggle. But that answer, too, is inadequate. ‹ Saul’s choices seem to have played a significant role in his downfall. Instead of offering simple answers, this book draws us more deeply into the questions. Instead of resolving the tensions, the writer presses us to encounter them more deeply. Enabling us to do so may be this book’s most enduring legacy. Suggested Reading Green, King Saul’s Asking. McKenzie and McMurray, “Saul, Son of Kish.” Questions to Consider 1. The lecture began by asking why tragedy has had such an enduring place in world literature. What factors do you think contribute most to tragedy’s importance? 2. Saul is sometimes understood quite negatively as willful and arrogant, yet some view him more sympathetically as a person struggling against God and himself. How would you describe Saul’s character?