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 History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  235Lecture 24—Apocalyptic Faith in the 1800s and Beyond õMiller began studying the Bible intently, and he became convinced that he’d hit on the true way to interpret biblical prophecy. He claimed that he’d discovered the date when Jesus would return to Earth. The Second Coming was to occur between March 1843 and March 1844. William Miller was a master of self-promotion, and at the peak of Miller’s career, he had probably 50,000 followers nationwide. õ But there was a problem: March 1844 came and went, and Jesus failed to show up. In response to the confusion, one of Miller’s followers took another look at the calculations and concluded that he’d been off by a year. õMiller announced a new date: He promised that Jesus would definitely return on October 22, 1844. And his followers threw themselves into evangelism, printing tracts and preaching about the end times with more zeal than ever. But the world failed to end again, and his followers were crushed. NEW APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES õHowever, the Millerite movement was not really over. A Millerite named Hiram Edson initially felt deep despair. But he eventually experienced a vision convincing him that Christ had, indeed, returned on the date Miller predicted. õThis return had been a heavenly event, not an earthly one, and Edson believed that the Bible’s end-time prophecies were still to come. A group of ex-Millerites, who called themselves Adventists, took heart in Edson’s vision and explanation of the prophecy. They later organized as the Seventh-day Adventist denomination in 1863. õAnother apocalyptic movement that emerged about a generation after Miller’s predictions is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are best known today for their determined door-to-door missionary work. They are dogged in their work because they believe we are in the end times and Armageddon is close at hand.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “We're all at this same crossroads, not just you,” I reminded her. “If you can’t open up to your friend, who the hell can you talk tor” Ed sighed. “I know I’ve got to talk about it.” “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on around here?” Grant wailed. Ed sighed. “I started on male hormones. I got them from this creepy quack.” “Holy shit,’ Grant said. “Wow. Hey, how the hell did you know, Jess?” I shrugged. “Your voice is changing, Ed. Just a little bit. I can hear it. Besides, I oughta know, ’m wrestling with the same shit myself.” Grant rapped the table with her fist in time to the music playing on the jukebox. “Hey, Ed. Can you give me the name of that doctor? I’m not saying I’m gonna do anything. I wouldn’t mind having some options, though. You know what I mean?” Ed nodded. 156 = Leslie Feinberg I thumped the table in frustration. “I wish I could talk to Rocco. Does anybody know where she is?” Heads shook no. “What happens? Does it just last for a little while? I mean can you go back to being a butch later, when it’s safe to come out?” Grant smiled sadly. “I saw this movie once. It was about this guy with a disease there was no cure for. So these scientists froze him. Later in the future they found a cure for the disease so these other doctors brought him back and cured him. The only thing was, he was from the past. He didn’t fit anymore.” I fought back tears. “Yeah, but we’re not sick.” Jan nodded her head. “Yeah, and what makes you think itll ever be safe again? It may be over for people like us. We may be stuck out here forever.” Jan’s head dropped low. “My sister says I can move out to Olean with her and her husband. They run a little dairy. The thing is, they said it’s only OK if I move out there alone, without Katie. They said they don’t want their daughters to see anything perverted.” Jan banged her fist on the table. “I’m forty-four fucking years old and my little sister’s treating me like she’s my mother. It’s not right. None of this is right.” I nodded. “What are you gonna do?” She shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m supposed to be the old bull. But now I wish I had someone older to talk to. I wish Butch Ro was still alive. She’d know what we should do.” I smiled sadly. “I don’t think so, Jan. I don’t think any of us knows what to do.” Grant stood up. “I’m going to buy a case of beer and go home to watch TV. You guys wanna come over?” I shook my head. Grant and Jan left together.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) As we see Christians called to the heavenly feast, where is the bread of righteousness, the drink of wisdom; so we see the Jews in reprobation. The children of the kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness, that is, the Jews, who have received the Law, who observe the types of all things that were to be, yet did not acknowledge the realities when present. JEROME. Or the Jews may be called the children of the kingdom, because God reigned among them heretofore. CHRYSOSTOM. Or, He calls them the children of the kingdom, because the kingdom was prepared for them, which was the greater grief to them. AUGUSTINE. (cont. Faust. xvi. 24.) Moses set before the people of Israel no other God than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christ sets forth the very same God. So that so far was He from seeking to turn that people away from their own God, that He therefore threatened them with the outer darkness, because He saw them turned away from their own God. And in this kingdom He tells them the Gentiles shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for no other reason than that they held the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To these Fathers Christ gives His testimony, not as though they had been converted after death, or had received justification after His passion. JEROME. It is called outer darkness, because he whom the Lord casts out leaves the light. HAYMO. What they should suffer there, He shews when He adds, There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Thus in metaphor He describes the sufferings of the tormented limbs; the eyes shed tears when filled with smoke, and the teeth chatter together from cold. This shews that the wicked in hell shall endure both extreme cold and extreme heat: according to that in Job, They shall pass from rivers of snow to the scorching heat. (Job 24:19.) JEROME. Weeping and gnashing of teeth are a proof of bones and body; truly then is there a resurrection of the same limbs, that sank into the grave. RABANUS. Or; The gnashing of teeth expresses the passion of remorse; repentance coming too late and self-accusation that he has sinned with such obstinate wickedness. REMIGIUS. Otherwise; By outer darkness, He means foreign nations; for these words of the Lord are a historical prediction of the destruction of the Jews, that they were to be led into captivity for their unbelief, and to be scattered over the earth; for tears are usually caused by heat, gnashing of teeth by cold. Weeping then is ascribed to those who should be dispersed into the warmer climates of India and Ethiopia, gnashing of teeth to those who should dwell in the colder regions, as Hyrcania and Seythia.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  359. For it is for these reasons that both Empedocles and Democritus and, we may probably say, every one of the other philosophers became involved in such opinions. For Empedocles also says that when men change their condition they change their knowledge, “ for understanding varies in men in relation to what is seen, ” according to him. And elsewhere he says, “ Insofar as they are changed into a different nature, to that extent it is proper for them always to think other thoughts. ” And Parmenides also speaks in the same way: “ For just as each has his mixture of many-jointed limbs, so intellect is present in men; for it is the same thing, the nature of the limbs, which exercises discretion in men—in all and in each; for that which is more is intellect. ” Anaxagoras is also recorded as saying to some of his companions that things were such to them as they thought them to be. And men also say that Homer maintained this view, because he made Hector, after he was stunned by the blow, think other thoughts; implying that people of sound and unsound mind both think but not the same thoughts. It is evident, then, that if both of these states of mind are forms of knowledge, beings must also be so and not so at the same time. 360. Hence their conclusion happens to be the most serious one. For if those who have seen most clearly the truth which it is possible for us to have (and these are those who seek and love it most), maintain such opinions and express such views about the truth, how is it unfitting that those who are trying to philosophize should abandon the attempt? For to seek the truth will be like chasing birds. 361. Now the reason these men held this opinion is that, while they investigated the truth about beings, they thought that sensible things alone exist; and in these much of the nature of the indeterminate, i.e., the kind of being which we have described (355), is present. Hence, while they speak in a plausible way, they do not say what is true; for it is more plausible to speak as they do than as Epicharmus did to Xenophanes.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I hated the thought of putting my Harley away for the winter. It was dangerous for me to ride—Td been driving without a license for three years—but I lived to cruise on that bike. It was my joy and my freedom. There were only two things I looked forward to every day: pumping iron at the nearby YMCA and whipping into the wind astride my motorcycle. When my alarm jangled in the morning, I awoke feeling small and terrified. I couldn’t find myself in my own life—there was no memory of me that I could grasp. There was no place outside of me where I belonged. So every morning I willed myself back into existence. I went to the gym already dressed in sweat clothes. That’s where I brought my tension and frustration, my rage and my fear. I put it all into my workout. I thought about my body a lot as I pressed against the resistance of cold iron. I enjoyed getting leaner and harder. Was that a goal the world had taught me? Probably. I thought of my femme lovers who cursed each thickness and fold in their bodies— the beautiful flesh I loved. But as I watched myself clench my muscles while I pumped, I found the weight and shape of my own body that pleased me. I concentrated on my discipline and endurance. I tried, in the best way I knew how, to love myself. I learned that strength, like height, is measured by who you're standing next to. I was considered a scrawny guy in the gym. That opinion was written on the faces of men whose muscles were bigger than mine. And all the while the lifetime of cruel judgments about my body and myself throbbed like unhealed wounds. Yet sometimes when I stood in front of my own mirror at home, I saw a powerful me. I couldn’t hold onto the image, though. It slipped like a globule of mercury from under my index finger. Maybe that was the lesson I tried to teach myself with each repetition—that power is something qualitatively more than strength. And that the world was wrong about me. I had a right to live. Every day the men around me came to exercise their bodies; I came to exorcise my demons. Euphoria was my reward for the tenacious workout that autumn morning. It was Saturday. There was nowhere to go, there was nothing to do. I turned up the collar on my leather jacket. Fall was here and winter was just behind it. The sky was overcast. The clouds were low, flat-bottomed, and dark as a bruise. I revved my bike without knowing where I was headed. I had money in my wallet and a whole weekend to ride as far as gasoline would take me. When the first raindrops plopped on my gas tank, I pulled over and put on my gear. Bolts of

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Stone Butch Blues TH1 didn’t want to see again. I thought about the time my parents caught me dressed in my father’s clothes. Warm memories flooded over me: butch friends, drag queen confidants, femme lovers. I couldn’t find them now. I was alone at this crossroads. I couldn’t bring myself to sink the needle into my thigh. Then I pictured my Norton, all smashed to smithereens in the pizzeria parking lot. I stabbed my thigh with the needle and injected the hormone. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I felt a wave of excitement—the possibility that something was going to change, that an enormous weight might be lifted from me. Maybe now I could finally be myself and just live. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the tile wall. After a while I stood up and put my chinos back on. I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Still me, looking back at me. Nothing happened for the first two months. My voice hadn’t deepened. I knew that for a fact because every day I called telephone information and the operators still called me ma’am. The only changes I could notice were not what I’d hoped for. My skin broke out. My 178 = Leslie Feinberg body plumpened. My moods swung. Whatever was going to emerge wasn’t here yet, but it was coming. I'd have to say goodbye to Kim and Scotty soon. Gloria would never let me see the kids once I started to change. On a wintry Saturday I arranged to take them to the zoo. It was snowing so hard that the bus ride to Gloria’s house seemed to take forever. “T’m going away,” I told Gloria. “You want more coffee?” she asked. I covered my cup with one hand and shook my head. Gloria sat down next to me. “You tell the kids yet?” I shook my head. “Those kids think the sun rises and sets with you—I don’t get it.” Her words wounded me. “I’m loveable, Gloria, what can I tell your” She shook her head. “Be careful when you tell them, OK? They’re still shook up about their father and me.” I nodded. Scotty and Kim practically knocked each other overt running into the kitchen to greet me. They were both so bundled up I could only see their eyes between their hats and their scarves. Gloria tossed me the keys to her car. She looked upset. “Be careful, driving in the snow.” I didn’t think that’s what she was concerned about. “Don’t worry about us,” I told her. By the time we got to the zoo the snow was deep and fat flakes continued to fall. There weren’t many people out, just a few parents with their kids. “Let’s make snow angels,’ Kim suggested. “Not yet,’ I told her. “Let’s not get wet till we’re ready to leave.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Theresa slapped the tabletop. “It’s always been hard. When has it ever been easier?” “T don’t fucking believe it!” I shouted. “Pm trying to tell you I can’t take it anymore, and you’re saying ’m going under?” Theresa leaned back in her chair and searched my face with her eyes. “Jess, I didn’t say you were going under.” The words echoed in the silence of the kitchen. I stood up and walked toward the bedroom. “Jess, wait a minute. Where are you going?” “To bed,” I told her. “I’m really tired.” Stone Butch Blues 151 When I arrived at the temp agency at dawn, I saw two men leaning up against the entrance to the labor office on Chippewa Street. “Hey, bulldagger,” the dark-haired man called to me. His friend laughed. They were both drunk. There must not be any jobs inside again. The blond man squeezed his crotch. “I got some work here for you, bulldagger. It’s a big job, you think you can handle it?” I pushed past their laughter. “Hi, Sammy.” I called out to the dispatcher. He smiled apologetically. “You want to wait around, Jess? Maybe by 10:30 we'll need a couple of guys.” I wondered if I fit into that work category— one of the guys. I looked around at the men who were waiting for work. Some stared into space, their non-filter cigarettes burning dangerously close to their tobacco- stained fingers. Others glared at me with heavy-lidded anger. I had done nothing to them, but at the moment I was the nearest person to hate. “Naw, Sammy. Call me later if you got anything. OK?” Sammy nodded and waved. “Maybe tomorrow, Jess.” “Yeah, maybe tomorrow.” I began to shore myself up to walk past the two men who I knew were waiting for me outside. As I 152 = Leslie Feinberg passed them, the dark-haired man hurled an empty pint bottle of rum at my feet. I fell backward, against the brick wall, startled. “You fucking he-shes. You stole our jobs,” he shouted as I hurried away. I wondered who I could blame. That night I awoke from a dream. Moonlight illuminated our bedroom. I wanted to go back to the dream, but I was wide awake. I was still immersed in the feel of it. In the dream I was walking through a town. All the windows were shattered. There was no sign of life: I couldnt find people. No dogs barked. Everything was silent. The town was surrounded by fields and woods. I followed a trail of wispy smoke in the sky above the forest. I found a hut in a small clearing. A small fire burned inside. I crawled inside the hut on all fours. I pressed my cheek to the warm earth floor near the fire and waited.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  215Lecture 22—The Social Gospel THE SECOND GENERATION õTo trace the work of this second generation, it’s helpful to move from Britain to North America and jump ahead to the late 1800s—a time known to historians as the Gilded Age. õDuring this time, a tiny number of tycoons were incredibly wealthy while masses of farmers and factory workers struggled to get by. New immigrants crowded into city slums with sanitation systems only slightly better than the sewers of the Middle Ages. The threat of violence in the United States and Canada was constant: There were clashes between striking workers and soldiers, confrontations that pitted activists against police, and rampant mob crime in the cities. õIt was in this context that a new generation of socially conscious Christians emerged. Among them was Walter Rauschenbusch, perhaps the most famous American prophet of the Social Gospel. õRauschenbusch grew up near Rochester, NY, as the son of a German preacher. The younger Rauschenbusch grew up steeped in the evangelical pietist tradition. He inherited a sense that the world was full of injustice but might be on the verge of massive change if the Holy Spirit moved in people’s hearts. õAs an adult, Rauschenbusch became a Baptist pastor. He ministered in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City for a time, but the neighborhood’s misery—alcoholism, women forced into prostitution to support themselves, and poverty—led him to leave for Europe in 1891 during a spiritual crisis. 216The History of Christianity II õHe went to Berlin, back to his German roots, and studied the Bible and modern sociology. He got to know religious and secular groups that were working for social change in Europe, particularly the Salvation Army movement. õRauschenbusch met Christian socialists who had worked with Frederick Maurice as well as more secular reformers. He got to know the famous English socialist couple Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and they convinced him that the traditional approach to poverty—relying on private charities and a small public relief system for the so-called deserving poor—was just not enough. õBy the time Rauschenbusch returned to New York in the winter of 1891, he had concluded that traditional Christians obsessed over individual sin but ignored the big picture: institutionalized, “social” sin built into everything from the tax code to the wretched state of public education in much of America.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  My home is not in this world, nor in the next. I am a man without a home, without a friend, without a wife. I am a monster who belongs to a reality which does not exist yet. Ah, but it does exist, it will exist, I am sure of it. I walk now rapidly, head down, muttering to myself. I’ve forgotten about my rendezvous so completely that I never even noticed whether I walked past her or not. Probably I did. Probably I looked right at her and didn’t recognize her. Probably she didn’t recognize me either. I am mad, mad with pain, mad with anguish. I am desperate. But I am not lost. No, there is a reality to which I belong. It’s far away, very far away. I may walk from now till doomsday with head down and never find it. But it is there, I am sure of it. I look at people murderously. If I could throw a bomb and blow the whole neighborhood to smithereens I would do it. I would be happy seeing them fly in the air, mangled, shrieking, torn apart, annihilated. I want to annihilate the whole earth. I am not a part of it. It’s mad from start to finish. The whole shooting match. It’s a huge piece of stale cheese with maggots festering inside it. Fuck it! Blow it to hell! Kill, kill, kill: Kill them all, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, good and bad. . . . I grow light, light as a feather, and my pace becomes more steady, more calm, more even. What a beautiful night it is! The stars shining so brightly, so serenely, so remotely. Not mocking me precisely, but reminding me of the futility of it all. Who are you, young man, to be talking of the earth, of blowing things to smithereens? Young man, we have been hanging here for millions and billions of years. We have seen it all, everything, and still we shine peacefully every night, we light the way, we still the heart. Look around you, young man, see how still and beautiful everything is. Do you see, even the garbage lying in the gutter looks beautiful in this light. Pick up the little cabbage leaf, hold it gently in your hand. I bend down and pick up the cabbage leaf lying in the gutter. It looks absolutely new to me, a whole universe in itself. I break a little piece off and examine that. Still a universe. Still unspeakably beautiful and mysterious. I am almost ashamed to throw it back in the gutter. I bend down and deposit it gently with the other refuse.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Ts it dangerous?” I asked. Grant leaned forward to hear his answer. Dr. Monroe ripped the script off the pad. “It’s just hormones. Your body produces hormones naturally. Do you want this or not?” he asked, as he waved it back and forth. I nodded and took it. He ripped off a second and handed it to Grant. She looked unsure, but she put it in her pocket. Dr. Monroe counted our money, slipped it into his desk drawer, and bid us adieu. “One more thing,” I said. The doctor sighed heavily. “I need a referral for breast surgery.” He scribbled on a piece of paper. “Two thousand dollars,” he told me, handing me a name and phone number. Stone Butch Blues 15 It was over and we were back on the street. “C’mon.” I slapped Grant on the shoulder. “We'll go to the pharmacy, then I’ll buy you a beer.” She reluctantly agreed. We sat at the bar in the middle of the day. The bartender seemed to barely tolerate us. We each put out big brown paper bag filled with boxes of syringes and vials of hormones on the bar in front of us. “We'll have two beers and two shots,” I told the bartender. “No pun intended,’ I added as an aside to Grant, but she wasn’t listening. “What’s up, Grant?” “My whole fucking life is turning upside down,” she said. I could sure relate to that. “It’s a big deal, what we’re doing.” I agreed. She nodded, but there was something else on her mind. We ordered another round, and then another. Grant started to open up a little.“How’s it going to be with women? I mean, who would ever go out with us?” I wished she hadn’t said that out loud. “T’m forty-one years old,” she told me. “My life is so fucked up. There’s no place left for us. I just don’t know what to do.” Her tears plopped on the bar. We both looked around to see if any of the guys noticed she was crying. We picked up our packages and quickly moved over to a booth. Grant broke into silent sobs. It scared me to see her cry that way. 176 = Leslie Feinberg I leaned across the table and stroked Grant’s hair. “It’s gonna be OK,” I reassured het. “Oh yeah?” she said angrily. “Bullshit. It’s different for you.” “Are you kidding? Why’s it any different for me?” Grant blew her nose on a bar napkin. “There’s things about me you don’t know. Things I can’t tell anybody.” I tossed back a shot of whiskey. It burned my throat and warmed me all over. “Grant,” my voice sounded gentle, “there’s nothing you can’t tell me.” She studied my face. “I’m not a real butch,” she said. I looked at her blankly. “What?” I laughed incredulously. “Well, you could have fooled me.” She shook her head. “You don’t really know me.”

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Life is drifting by the show window. I lie there like a floodlit ham waiting for the ax to fall. As a matter of fact, there is nothing to fear, because everything is cut neatly into fine little slices and wrapped in cellophane. Suddenly all the lights of the city are extinguished and the sirens sound their warning. The city is enveloped in poison gas, bombs are bursting, mangled bodies flying through the air. There is electricity everywhere, and blood and splinters and loudspeakers. The men in the air are full of glee; those below are screaming and bellowing. When the gas and the flames have eaten all the flesh away the skeleton dance begins. I watch from the show window which is now dark. It is better than the sack of Rome because there is more to destroy. Why do the skeletons dance so ecstatically, I wonder. Is it the fall of the world? Is it the dance of death which has been so often heralded? To see millions of skeletons dancing in the snow while the city founders is an awesome sight. Will anything ever grow again? Will babes come out of the womb? Will there be food and wine? There are men in the air, to be sure. They will come down to plunder. There will be cholera and dysentery and those who were above and triumphant will perish like the rest. I have the sure feeling that I will be the last man on earth. I will emerge from the show window when it is all over and walk calmly amidst the ruins. I will have the whole earth to myself. Long distance calling! To inform me that I am not utterly alone. Then the destruction was not complete? It’s discouraging. Man is not even able to destroy himself; he can only destroy others. I am disgusted. What a malicious cripple! What cruel delusions! So there are more of the species about and they will tidy up the mess and begin again. God will come down again in flesh and blood and take up the burden of guilt. They will make music and build things in stone and write it all down in little books. Pfui! What blind tenacity, what clumsy ambitions! I am on the bed again. The old Greek world, the dawn of sexual intercourse— and Hymie! Hymie Laubscher always on the same level, looking down on the boulevard across the river. There is a lull in the nuptial feast and the clam fritters are brought in. Move over just a little, he says. There, like that, that’s it! I hear frogs croaking in the swamp outside my window. Big cemetery frogs nourished by the dead. They are all huddled together in sexual intercourse; they are croaking with sexual glee. I realize now how Hymie was conceived and brought into being. Hymie the bullfrog! His mother was at the bottom of the pack and Hymie, then an embryo, was hidden away in her sac.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  The heavier my body becomes the lighter the atmosphere of the room; I am going to spread and spread until I fill the room with one solid mass of stiff jelly. I shall fill up even the cracks in the wall; I shall grow through the wall like a parasitic plant, spreading and spreading until the whole house is an indescribable mass of flesh and hair and nails. I know that this is death, but I am powerless to kill the knowledge of it, or the knower. Some tiny particle of me is alive, some speck of consciousness persists, and, as the inert carcass expands, this flicker of life becomes sharper and sharper and gleams inside me like the cold fire of a gem. It lights up the whole gluey mass of pulp so that I am like a diver with a torch in the body of a dead marine monster. By some slender hidden filament I am still connected with the life above the surface of the deep, but it is so far away, the upper world, and the weight of the corpse so great that, even if it were possible, it would take years to reach the surface. I move around in my own dead body, exploring every nook and cranny of its huge, shapeless mass. It is an endless exploration, for with the ceaseless growth the whole topography changes, slipping and drifting like the hot magma of the earth. Never for a minute is there terra firma, never for a minute does anything remain still and recognizable: it is a growth without landmarks, a voyage in which the destination changes with every least move or shudder. It is this interminable filling of space which kills all sense of space or time; the more the body expands the tinier becomes the world, until at last I feel that everything is concentrated on the head of a pin. Despite the floundering of this enormous dead mass which I have become, I feel that what sustains it, the world out of which it grows, is no bigger than a pinhead. In the midst of pollution, in the very heart and gizzard of death, as it were, I sense the seed, the miraculous, infinitesimal lever which balances the world. I have overspread the world like a syrup and the emptiness of it is terrifying, but there is no dislodging the seed; the seed has become a little knot of cold fire which roars like a sun in the vast hollow of the dead carcass. When the great plunder-bird returns exhausted from her flight she will find me here in the midst of my nothingness, I, the imperishable schizerino, a blazing seed hidden in the heart of death. Every day she thinks to find another means of sustenance, but there is no other, only this eternal seed of light which by dying each day I rediscover for her. Fly, O devouring bird, fly to the limits of the universe!

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  265Lecture 27—Rebellion and Reform in Latin America õThey understood their actions as both a religious revolt and a political act. When they marched on Mexico City in 1810, they marched under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Their movement was never very organized, and morphed from a campaign for greater political liberty into a brawl between Indians, mestizos, and white Mexicans. õIn 1811 royal authorities captured Hidalgo and his aides and executed them. But other parish priests came along to take his place as leaders in the Mexican independence movement, and Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Though he did not live to see that day, Hidalgo is commonly revered in Mexico. õIndependence, however, came with a cost. It cast Mexico into an era of political chaos. Power changed hands 35 times between 1822 and 1855. People were desperate for order, even if it meant repression, and local strongmen called caudillos stepped forward to fill this power vacuum. The most famous caudillo in Mexico was Antonio López de Santa Anna, who began as a soldier for the Spanish king battling the rebels, but switched sides to support the independence movement in the 1820s. õGenerally, church authorities figured it was in their best interest to stay on the caudillos’ good side. For example, in Argentina, many clergy supported Juan Manuel de Rosas—they put his picture on church altars and denounced his opponents as enemies of Jesus Christ himself. THE CHURCH AND LIBERAL REFORMERS õEventually, Argentinians got fed up with Rosas’s reign of terror and forced him to f lee the country for exile in England. The political reformers who overthrew the caudillos across Latin America often campaigned under the banner of liberalism. õIn the 19 th century, Latin American liberals considered themselves loyal products of the Enlightenment who defended the liberty of the individual against the unjust forces of tradition and superstition, 266The History of Christianity II particularly the monarchy and the Catholic Church. Liberals thought the Catholic Church could be a force for good as long as it stuck to spiritual matters and left politics in the hands of secular authorities. õThose who opposed the liberals called themselves conservatives. These were people in the upper classes who wanted to keep the social hierarchy just as it had been in colonial times. To them, the church played a crucial role in keeping the poor in their place and preserving social order, although in truth they wanted to control the church almost as much as the liberals did. õConservatives helped the church resist liberal reforms. Sometimes they did this overtly, for example, by withholding the right to a church marriage or burial to anyone who supported Mexico’s liberal constitution of 1857. Sometimes they found a roundabout way to resist, like finding ways to help church authorities keep some control over property they were required to transfer to the government.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  different hue across the wilderness: salmon, rose, lavender. The scent of sage was overpowering. Even before I saw the golden eagle gliding in the updraft above me, I heard it scream, as clearly as if it had come from my own throat. I longed to soar in flight with the eagle, but I felt rooted to the earth. The mountains rose to meet me. I walked toward them, seeking sanctuary, but something held me back. “Buck it,’ Mulroney spat. “Turn her over, her cunt’s too fuckin’ loose.” “Jeez Lieutenant, how come these fuckin’ bulldaggers don’t fuck men and they got such big cunts?” “Ask your wife,’ Mulroney said. The other cops laughed. I panicked. I tried to return to the desert but I couldn’t find that floating opening between the dimensions I’d passed through before. An explosion of pain in my body catapulted me back. I was standing on the desert floor again, but this time the sands had cooled. The sky was overcast, threatening to storm. The air pressure was unbearable. It was hard to breathe. From a distance I heard the eagle scream again. The sky was growing as dark as the mountains. Wind blew through my hair. 66 Leslie Feinberg I closed my eyes and turned my face up to the desert sky. And then, finally it released—the welcome relief of warm rain down my cheeks. THE RING WAS GONE. The only tangible proof it had ever existed were the blood blisters on my ring finger; the cops must have pried it off while my hands were cuffed and swollen. The ring was gone. I sat in my apartment and stared out the window. I couldn’t tell how long I'd been awake. Justine and Peaches had bailed me out. I recalled they told me there were no charges filed against any of us. Justine wanted to come upstairs with me when I got home, but I was adamant: I wanted to be alone. The first thing I did was take a bath. I put my head back and tried to luxuriate in the tub. Then I noticed the water turning deeper shades of pink and a current of red water between my legs. I instantly recalled the feel of the hard piece of shit against my tongue and I climbed out of the bathtub in panic, just making it to the toilet in time. Now I was tranquil. I didn’t feel much of anything at all. But even through this blessed serenity I grieved for the ring that would have protected me, ot at least offered me its wisdom. The ring was gone. There was nothing to hope for now. The ring was gone. Betty knocked on the door and let herself in. She noticed the plate of fried chicken she’d brought me last night was untouched. The chicken looked like human limbs, and I couldn’t bring myself to bite into flesh. The thought had sent me flying into the bathroom, retching,

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  I thought I had found a living volcano, a female Vesuvius. I never thought of a human ship going down in an ocean of despair, in a Sargasso of impotence. Now I think of that black star gleaming through the hole in the ceiling, that fixed star which hung above our conjugal cell, more fixed, more remote than the Absolute, and I know it was her, emptied of all that was properly herself: a dead black sun without aspect. I know that we were conjugating the verb love like two maniacs trying to fuck through an iron grate. I said that in the frantic grappling in the dark I sometimes forgot her name, what she looked like, who she was. It’s true. I overreached myself in the dark. I slid off the flesh rails into the endless space of sex, into the channel-orbits established by this one and that one: Georgiana, for instance, of only a brief afternoon, Thelma, the Egyptian whore, Carlotta, Alannah, Una, Mona, Magda, girls of six or seven; waifs, will-o’-the-wisps, faces, bodies, thighs, a subway brush, a dream, a memory, a desire, a longing. I could start with Georgiana of a Sunday afternoon near the railroad tracks, her dotted Swiss dress, her swaying haunch, her Southern drawl, her lascivious mouth, her molten breasts; I could start with Georgiana, the myriad branched candelabra of sex, and work outwards and upwards through the ramification of cunt into the nth dimension of sex, world without end. Georgiana was like the membrane of the tiny little ear of an unfinished monster called sex. She was transparently alive and breathing in the light of the memory of a brief afternoon on the avenue, the first tangible odor and substance of the world of fuck which is in itself a being limitless and undefinable, like our world the world. The whole world of fuck like unto the ever-increasing membrane of the animal we call sex, which is like another being growing into our own being and gradually displacing it, so that in time the human world will be only a dim memory of this new, all- inclusive, all-procreative being which is giving birth to itself.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  In the midst of my explanation it suddenly seemed so profoundly tragic and ridiculous that Hymie shouldn’t know what ovaries were that I became drunk, as drunk I mean as if I had had a quart of whisky under my belt. From the idea of diseased ovaries there germinated in one lightning-like flash a sort of tropical growth made up of the most heterogeneous assortment of odds and ends in the midst of which, securely lodged, tenaciously lodged, I might say, were Dante and Shakespeare. At the same instant I also suddenly recalled my whole private train of thought which had begun about the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge and which suddenly the word “ovaries” had broken. I realized that everything Hymie had said up till the word “ovaries” had sieved through me like sand. What I had begun, in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, was what I had begun time and time again in the past, usually when walking to my father’s shop, a performance which was repeated day in and day out as if in a trance. What I had begun, in brief, was a book of the hours, of the tedium and monotony of my life in the midst of a ferocious activity. Not for years had I thought of this book which I used to write every day on my way from Delancey Street to Murray Hill. But going over the bridge, the sun setting, the skyscrapers gleaming like phosphorescent cadavers, the remembrance of the past set in . . . remembrance of going back and forth over the bridge, going to a job which was death, returning to a home which was a morgue, memorizing Faust looking down into the cemetery, spitting into the cemetery from the elevated train, the same guard on the platform every morning, an imbecile, the other imbeciles reading their newspapers, new skyscrapers going up, new tombs to work in and die in, the boats passing below, the Fall River Line, the Albany Day Line, why am I going to work, what will I do tonight, the warm cunt beside me and can I work my knuckles into her groin, run away and become a cowboy, try Alaska, the gold mines, get off and turn around, don’t die yet, wait another day, a stroke of luck, river, end it, down, down, like a corkscrew, head and shoulders in the mud, legs free; fish will come and bite, tomorrow a new life, where, anywhere, why begin again, the same thing everywhere, death, death is the solution, but don’t die yet, wait another day, a stroke of luck, a new face, a new friend, millions of chances, you’re too young yet, you’re melancholy, you don’t die yet, wait another day, a stroke of luck, fuck anyway, and so on over the bridge into the glass shed, everybody glued together, worms, ants, crawling out of a dead tree and their thoughts crawling out the same way. . . .

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Edna sniffled and nodded. “I’m in deep freeze, Jess. And somehow I have to save myself. You can’t do it for me. And I don’t know how. I’m so scared.” 238 = Leslie Feinberg I reached for her out of instinct. She held me at an arm’s length with a light touch. Tears filled my eyes, but I reined myself in, knowing I had many nights ahead of me to grieve. “Why?” I asked her. “I just don’t understand why you can’t try.” She bit her lower lip. “I am trying, Jess. I have tried. I just don’t know what’s happening, I’m just as lonely as you are. I need so much. That’s what scares me, that and how much you need me.” “Oh, Edna. Isn’t there something I can do to keep you from leaving me? Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?” Edna shook her head. Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Jess. I love you so much. Please believe mer” I was relieved when she came into my arms to cry, until I realized she was letting me hold her for the last time. A wave of panic almost drowned me. I could feel in my gut what my life was like before Edna came back into it. “Edna,” I whispered. She covered my lips with her fingertips. “I can’t,” she said. Edna held my face in both her hands and looked into my eyes. “What will you do, Jess? Oh god, I wish I was strong enough to save us both.” I looked away from her. “Dll be fine,’ I heard myself say. We both laughed out loud. “That was a very butch thing to say, wasn’t it?” I admitted. “Oh, very,” Edna laughed. We slipped back over the boundary of our laughter to our tears. I wondered if she would have left me if there had been more inside of me to love, or if I just could have needed less. Edna kissed me on the mouth. If I had moved toward her she would have pulled away. And so I held very still and her kiss lingered a moment longer. She stood up. “I’m so sorry, Jess.” If pleading would have kept her in my life I would have dropped to my knees, but I knew she wouldn’t stay. “Can I drive you home?” I asked, hoping for time to try to change her mind. She shook her head. I stood up and let my lips memorize her forehead, her cheeks, her chin. I loved the way age had softened her face. “Can't I see you sometime? Talk to your” She put her hand on my chest. “Maybe at some point. Not now.” Her lips were close to mine. I kissed her hesitantly. She didn’t draw away from me. For a moment I felt her need, then she pulled back. I watched Edna walk away from me. Stone Butch Blues

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. He is tormented also because to the luxurious man it is a punishment to be without his pleasures; water is also a refreshment to the soul which is set fast in sorrow. GREGORY. But what means it, that when in torments he desires his tongue to be cooled, except that at his feasts having sinned in talking, now by the justice of retribution, his tongue was in fierce flame; for talkativeness is generally rife at the banquet. CHRYSOSTOM. His tongue too had spoken many proud things. Where the sin is, there is the punishment; and because the tongue offended much, it is the more tormented. CHRYSOSTOM. Or, in that he wishes his tongue to be cooled, when he was altogether burning in the flame, that is signified which is written, Death and life are in the hands of the tongue, (Prov. 18:21.) and with the mouth confession is made to salvation; (Rom. 10:10.) which from pride he did not do, but the tip of the finger means the very least work in which a man is assisted by the Holy Spirit. AUGUSTINE. (de Orig. Anim. 4. 16.) Thou sayest that the members of the soul are here described, and by the eye thou wouldest have the whole head understood, because he was said to lift up his eyes; by the tongue, the jaws; by the finger, the hand. But what is the reason that those names of members when spoken of God do not to thy mind imply a body, but when of the soul they do? It is that when spoken of the creature they are to be taken literally, but when of the Creator metaphorically and figuratively. Wilt thou then give us bodily wings, seeing that not the Creator, but man, that is, the creature, says, If I take not the wings in the morning? (Ps. 139:9.) Besides, if the rich man had a bodily tongue, because he said, to cool my tongue, in us also who live in the flesh, the tongue itself has bodily hands, for it is written, Death and life are in the hands of the tongue. (Prov. 18:21.) GREGORY OF NYSSA. (Orat. 5. de Beat.) As the most excellent of mirrors represents an image of the face, just such as the face itself which is opposite to it, a joyful image of that which is joyful, a sorrowful of that which is sorrowful; so also is the just judgment of God adapted to our dispositions. Wherefore the rich man because he pitied not the poor as he lay at his gate, when he needs mercy for himself, is not heard, for it follows, And Abraham said unto him, Son, &c.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  A deer might, for example, avoid certain rocky outcroppings where it had previously escaped the lunging attack of a mountain lion. Humans, in contrast to animals, frequently remain stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life after experiencing threat as overwhelming terror or horror. In addition, they exhibit a propensity for freezing in situations where a non-traumatized individual might only sense danger or even feel some excitement. Rather than being a last-ditch reaction to inescapable threat, paralysis becomes a “default” response to a wide variety of situations in which one’s feelings are highly aroused. For example, the arousal of sex may turn unexpectedly from excitement to frigidity, revulsion or avoidance. Toward a Biology of Trauma In an attempt to understand the episode with Nancy, I was pulled in several new directions. First, I realized that, if not for trusting my gut instincts and a little bit of blind luck, I might just as easily have inadvertently “retraumatized” Nancy, leading to a worsening of her already severe symptoms. In addition, like the gambler who hits the jackpot early in his career, I would soon find out that such dramatic—one-time —“cures” would not always be the case. I was drawn into a consuming journey to uncover just what had transpired that summer day in 1969. As I discovered, it was crucial to “titrate” (gradually access) these physiological reactions so that they were not overwhelming. Just exposing a client to his or her traumatic memories and having the person relive them was, at best, unnecessary (reducing integration and feelings of mastery and goodness) and at worst retraumatizing for the individual. I also learned that the shaking and trembling, which constitute the discharge reactions, were often so subtle as to be barely noticeable to an outside observer. Often the manifestation of the discharge was a gentle muscular fasciculation (minute muscular trembling and quivers) or temperature change—such as going from very cold to very hot. These changes are generally monitored by observing color changes in the hands and face. Over the following decades, I explored the biological basis of trauma from a comparative study of animals and their nervous systems. This, I felt, would help me develop a systematic approach to healing trauma that could be reproduced reliably and systematically, as well as being sufficiently safe. This journey also fulfilled an early dream of mine: I became a (small) part of the space adventure. While still a Berkeley graduate student in medical biophysics, I was given a fellowship as a stress consultant at NASA for a year. My primary task—to help prepare our astronauts for the first space shuttle flight—gave me a unique opportunity to study people whose stress resilience was unusually robust. These observations inspired me to reflect back on my session with Nancy some years earlier: on her profound lack of resilience and her spontaneous transformation.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. Otherwise according to the first exposition. The Jews were indeed ignorant of Christ, but of the Holy Ghost they had had a sufficient communication, for the Prophets spake by Him. What He here saith then is this; Be it that ye have stumbled at Me because of the flesh which is around Me; but can ye in the same manner say of the Holy Spirit, We know Him not? Wherefore this blasphemy cannot be forgiven you, and ye shall be punished both here and hereafter, for since to cast out dæmons and to heal diseases are of the Holy Spirit, you do not speak evil against Me only, but also against Him; and so your condemnation is inevitable both here and hereafter. For there are who are punished in this life only; as they who among the Corinthians were unworthy partakers of the mysteries; others who are punished only in the life to come, as the rich man in hell; but those here spoken of are to be punished both in this world, and in the world to come, as were the Jews, who suffered horrible things in the taking of Jerusalem, and shall there undergo most heavy punishment. GLOSS. (ap. Anselm. vid. infra in cap. 25. 46.) This passage destroys that heresy of Origen, who asserted that after many ages all sinners should obtain pardon; for it is here said, this shall not be forgiven either in this world, or in the world to come. GREGORY. (Dial. iv. 39.) Hence we may gather that there are some sins that are remitted in this world, and some in the world to come; for what is denied of one sin, must be supposed to be admitted of others. And this may be believed in the case of trifling faults; such as much idle discourse, immoderate laughter, or the sin of carefulness in our worldly affairs, which indeed can hardly be managed without sin even by one who knows how he ought to avoid sin; or sins through ignorance (if they be lesser sins) which burden us even after death, if they have not been remitted to us while yet in this life. But it should be known that none will there obtain any purgation even of the least sin, but he who by good actions has merited the same in this life. 12:33–3533. Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. 34. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.