Fear

Passages

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

Page 195 of 529 · 20 per page

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Violent resisters often won the first round against the local trip-wire troops, but massacre ensued when imperial reinforcements arrived. But, I insist once again, for both Israel and Ireland nonviolent and violent resistance were both in play. I knew that from Ireland, and it helped me to recognize it—but not to invent it—for Israel. I certainly look, therefore, at Jesus and his first-century Jewish context with Irish eyes unsmiling, and I do so in these three narrowing circles of context. In the wider context, Jesus lived in the lull between two violent rebellions against imperial oppression in his Jewish homeland. The first one was under Augustus at the start of the Julio-Claudian imperial dynasty in 4 BCE . The second was under Nero at its dismal end in 66 CE. In the narrower context, Jesus lived in the midst of a series of nonviolent reactions to Roman control. Those involved the census for taxation in 6 CE, the provocative actions of Pilate in 26 CE, and the attempt by Caligula to have his divine statue erected in Jerusalem’s Temple in 40 CE. In the narrowest context of all, we are back where this chapter started. Jesus was born around 4 BCE and grew up in Nazareth, a village that would have “survived” the legionary attack on its adjacent city, Sepphoris. The Roman Empire, with its military power, was not some distant quasi-mythical entity as Jesus grew up in Nazareth. I cannot imagine that Rome’s legionary incursion was not the main topic of song and story, legend and interpretation among the villagers. That is, of course, beyond proof or disproof, but I would wager my sense of history on its accuracy. I imagine that legionary attack as establishing a terribly clear date in reference to which all other events were labeled “before,” “during,” or “after” in a world that did not run by our ticking clocks and turning calendars. I imagine—that is to say, I cannot not imagine —those villagers speaking about the “Year of the Romans” and Jesus listening and learning. I propose, therefore, that Jesus, growing up in the years after that military incursion around Nazareth in 4 BCE , would have heard over and over again about the year the Romans came . From all that talk, what did the young Jesus decide about God and Rome, homeland and empire, rebellion and resistance, violence and nonviolence? Where was Israel’s God on the day of Rome’s revenge? Was the biblical and covenantal God of Israel violent or nonviolent? In Chapter 5 I asked you to hear the word “sin” and see what content came exclusively, primarily, or just especially to your mind. If “sin” meant for you a list of “sins,” what was your list and were there priorities within it? I now ask you to do the same with the word “temptation.” When you hear it, what content comes immediately to mind?

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Once again, in considering the life of a late medieval man, we must set our modern, materialistic prejudices aside, and not only those prejudices but the equally anachronistic idea that if God is to be considered, it is always as a benevolent and loving figure. In Luther’s day, far more emphasis was put on God as an eternal judge, one whose holiness was almost always offended by us, so that if we were especially lucky, we might find ourselves in purgatory instead of hell. But even if we found ourselves in purgatory, we might face a steep and painful climb of literally thousands or perhaps even millions of years until we were properly purged of our deep-rooted sinfulness. Who knew what steep and half-infinite climb one might face? We know that Luther was too smart not to consider these things deeply and soberly and too sensitive not to have been bothered by them, often to the point of debilitating depression, which he called Anfechtungen. In fact, the word Anfechtung really has no English equivalent. It has as its root the verb fechten, which means “to fence with” or “to duel with.” Fecht is also obviously etymologically related to the word “fight.” So Luther’s Anfechtungen meant to do battle with one’s own thoughts and with the devil. But for him this was something so horrible that it’s difficult for us to fully comprehend.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  That sounded like an invitation—not to substitution by Jesus for them, but to participation with Jesus by them . That sounded initially like a challenge to come to Jerusalem and get crucified alongside Jesus. But, by the end of Mark’s triple sequence, that fellowship in the horror of Roman crucifixion was reinterpreted for the Twelve as a fellowship in the paradox of servant-style leadership. There were, for Mark, other ways of dying to imperial normalcy than by execution. No doubt “taking the cross” might still mean martyrdom for them as leaders of the kingdom movement. But what Jesus emphasized now was less about how they were to die as criminal leaders than how they were to live as servant leaders. In its two-thousand-year history, by the way, Christianity has always had more of the former than the latter among its leadership. Jesus’s challenge still holds true for us today. I turn now to the second point in this chapter’s third section. It concerns Mark’s positive challenge, set over against that preceding sequence of three negatives. If those named “apostles” or “disciples” all fail seriously, are there any ideal or even successful Christians—and Christian leaders—in Mark’s story? If all the named leaders—Peter, James, and John—fail dismally, is the author of the gospel the only proper, correct, adequate leader? In what follows, watch the dialectic between the named and the nameless, between failure and success, between rejection and reception, and, evenhandedly, between female and male. Also remember, of course, that “Mark” is the name tradition gave to the anonymous author of the first gospel. That author is also nameless. The last major section in Mark’s gospel is framed by deliberately similar, but very surprising language. Each frame starts with Jesus “going ahead” of the disciples and ends with “they were afraid”: Galilee to Jerusalem: They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid . (10:32a) Jerusalem to Galilee: “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid . (16:7–8) The opening frame involves twelve named males, while the closing frame involves three named females . The latter are specified like this: There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt. 3:7–10) Luke, for example, had two serious problems with that account of John’s message. First of all, he found it so negative that he added his own more positive message after it: The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” (3:10–14) But that was only Luke’s first problem. His second problem was even more serious. In our present New Testament, John’s message about the advent of God was turned into one about the advent of Christ. But Christ did not act like an avenging presence, did not look like the wrath to come. Metaphors of cutting down trees and burning chaff with fire did not seem appropriate for him. So, once again, Luke created a conversation to remedy the discrepancy. John’s disciples reported to him in prison that Jesus had just healed the Capernaum centurion’s slave and raised the Nain widow’s son (7:1–18). So John sent them to Jesus with this question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (7:19). Jesus tells them: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” (7:22–23). John was an apocalyptic eschatologist, that is, a prophet with a revelation of the imminence of God’s avenging advent, God’s punitive intervention to transform a world grown old in evil. I emphasize once more that John did not advocate human violence or armed rebellion. Any eschatological violence was the prerogative of God. John’s own nonviolent resistance is certified by Herod Antipas, who both executed John—because he was rebellious—and refrained from rounding up his followers—because he was nonviolent. That was how Romans or Romanizers handled nonviolent resistance to imperial law and order. We must, however, start with—and always remember—this: John’s prophetic vision was as incorrect as it was persuasive. For what intervened was not an avenging God, but an avenging tetrarch; what came was not the kingdom of God, but the cavalry of Antipas.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  But very soon he had to lead two other legions to its aid. That meant twelve thousand more elite troops accompanied by two thousand auxiliary cavalry and fifteen hundred auxiliary infantry. He was also accompanied by “Aretas of Petra,” from the Transjordanian Nabateans, “who, in his hatred of Herod, also sent a considerable force of infantry and cavalry” (Jewish Antiquities 17.287). When Varus reached his staging area at Ptolemais on the Mediterranean coast near modern Haifa, he divided his command. He himself led the main force southward to Jerusalem, where “the number of those who were crucified on the charge of revolt was two thousand” (Jewish Antiquities 17.295). But, for my present purpose, Varus had first “turned over part of his army to his son and to one of his friends, and sent them out to fight against the Galileans who inhabit the region adjoining Ptolemais. His son attacked all who opposed him and routed them, and after capturing Sepphoris, he reduced its inhabitants to slavery and burnt the city” (17.288–89). From the tiny hamlet of Nazareth you went first up over the ridge and then around ancient swamps on the valley floor four or five miles to reach the city of Sepphoris. Josephus does not tell us what happened to Nazareth when that legion destroyed nearby Sepphoris in 4 BCE . But we can easily imagine it from the account in his Jewish War of what happened to other small villages as the Roman legions and their Arab allies continued south toward Jerusalem: They encamped near a village called Arous [in Samaria, which was] sacked by the Arabs. Thence Varus advanced to Sappho [in Judea], another fortified village, which they likewise sacked, as well as the neighboring villages which they encountered on their march. The whole district became a scene of fire and blood and nothing was safe against the ravages of the Arabs. Emmaus, the inhabitants of which had fled, was burnt to the ground by the orders of Varus. (2.69–70) That is what would have happened to Nazareth and to any of Sepphoris’s adjacent villages in 4 BCE . Grain, produce, and livestock would have been taken, and farms, houses, and trees destroyed. Those unable to hide successfully would have been killed if male, raped if female, and enslaved if young. In a review of one of my books, a fellow scholar said: “The model that seems always to have been in Crossan’s mind when discussing Jesus is that of Ireland, his own country, which the British conquered and colonized, exploiting the indigenous population.”1 I freely admit that I am unable not to see certain parallels between the attempts of those two small battered peoples—Israel in the first century and Ireland in the nineteenth—to maintain dignity and identity against those great empires that attempted to control them. Here is one such fundamental parallel. Both peoples resisted nonviolently as well as violently. Nonviolent resisters often died as unarmed martyrs.

• From Come As You Are (2015)

  I think that’s right. If women’s sexuality is a garden, I think of love as the rain and stress as the sun, drawing the garden upward, nourishing and challenging at once. It wouldn’t do to have too much of either, but in the right balance—when we are “just safe enough”—the garden thrives. Some plants want lots of water, some want less; some gardens are shady, while others are full of bright sun all day. Olivia, with her sensitive accelerator, has a sunny garden full of plants that delight in the sun—she’s practically a desert, with Joshua trees and blackfoot daisies thriving under a hot, cloudless sky. But even for her, too much of a good thing can cause her garden to wilt and fade. Camilla, by contrast, with her relatively insensitive accelerator, has a montane forest of broadleaf ferns and mosses that require less light and more time to grow lush. Meanwhile, Merritt’s sensitive brakes make her garden wilt in the mildest drought, and Laurie’s garden feels like it’s been subjected to global warming, stripped of its native climate faster than she and her plants can adapt, and she fears the whole garden is dying. And she’s afraid that if she loses her garden, she might lose her partner. Listening to and respecting the fundamental messages that your body is trying to send you—“I am at risk,” “I am broken,” “I am lost”—is essential to creating the right context for sexual pleasure to thrive. Allowing time and space for your body to move all the way through the cycle, to discharge stress and to connect wholly with your partner, is an essential part of creating a context that grants maximum access to pleasure. Western culture does not make this easy; it builds walls of shame and doubt between us and our essential selves, between “at risk” and “safe,” between “broken” and “whole,” between “lost” and “home.” In the garden metaphor, the cultural messages about women’s sexuality are very often the weeds, encroaching in ways no one chose but that everyone has to manage. And that’s what chapter 5 is about. tl;drStress reduces sexual interest in 80–90 percent of people and reduces sexual pleasure in everyone—even the 10–20 percent of people for whom it increases interest. The way to deal with stress is to allow your body to complete the stress response cycle. Trauma survivors’ brains sometimes learn to treat “sex-related” stimuli as threats, so that whenever the accelerator is activated, the brakes are hit, too. Practicing mindfulness is an evidence- based strategy for decoupling the brakes and accelerator. In the right context, sex can attach us emotionally to new partners or reinforce emotional bonds in unstable relationships. In other words, sex and love are closely linked in our brains—but only in the right context.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Now I knew why he’d been Sir Galahad with the door. He downshifted, and the car’s loose hull rattled around us. His solvent breath was so strong, one match and he’d belch out dragon flames. He said, It’s the truth that saves us, but some people’s truth is bitter gall. You’re a woman, Mary, with the curse of Eve on you. I wondered where were the ubiquitous squad cars that had plagued my friends and me. The doughnut-munching bastards. You wanna see my truth? Sam asked. I firmly doubted I had a choice. I said of course I’d be honored to see his truth, wise in the arcana as he seemed to be. Then I waited for him to raise up the hatchet or samurai sword with which he would surely split my skull to the gizzard. With some ceremony, Sam drew from under his shirt a suede pouch on a leather cord slung around his neck. Opening it, he drew out a thin object a few inches long and wrapped in red silk with tiny Chinese ideograms on it. On his lap, he unfolded it with one hand— a small brownish-black burnt-looking thing like an umbilicus. A root or charm, I thought. That’s my twin brother’s finger, he said. I looked at him, white stuff at the sides of his mouth, flecks of tobacco on his bottom lip. I felt my right hand on the floppy door handle. Sam had been on a tarmac bagging bodies unloaded from a helicopter fresh from the carnage of the Tet Offensive. He’d peeled back one tarp and looked down into his own face. Which was his brother’s, of course. Mary, he said, pray the Lord you never see a face like that. One half was like the inside of a roast you left outside. Just blown slap off. His ear had stayed perfect, though. I wanted something of my brother’s power. And I’d had a vision before I got shipped in-country. In a big cathedral, he was, wearing his dress blues. He was praying over my casket. That’s what was supposed to of happened. Instead, he got his face shot off. The wind eked in the window seals, and the car shook. What scared me most was the crying part of Sam had been cauterized already. He was a living scar. All my life I’d met people bearing wounds far deeper than my own. I’d thought California would change me, heal me, free me from attracting all that. And now I’d flagged it down and climbed in a car with it. We rounded the curve into Dana Point. The car lunged up to a light. It shuddered and died. I jammed my skinny arm through the window slot, slick as a length of licorice, and yanked the door open. I didn’t so much jump from the car as eject myself out on the roadside slope. The effort launched me downward, sliding. Over gravel and scrub oak, rocks scraping my shins.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Therefore the Holy Spirit through the pope is kind to us insofar as the pope in his decrees always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.Those priests act ignorantly and wickedly who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penalties for purgatory.Those tares of changing the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory were evidently sown while the bishops slept (Mt 13:25).In former times canonical penalties were imposed, not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.The dying are freed by death from all penalties, are already dead as far as the canon laws are concerned, and have a right to be released from them.Imperfect piety or love on the part of the dying person necessarily brings with it great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater the fear.This fear or horror is sufficient in itself, to say nothing of other things, to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ the same as despair, fear, and assurance of salvation.It seems as though for the souls in purgatory fear should necessarily decrease and love increase.Furthermore, it does not seem proved, either by reason or by Scripture, that souls in purgatory are outside the state of merit, that is, unable to grow in love.Nor does it seem proved that souls in purgatory, at least not all of them, are certain and assured of their own salvation, even if we ourselves may be entirely certain of it.* Therefore the pope, when he uses the words “plenary remission of all penalties,” does not actually mean “all penalties,” but only those imposed by himself.Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.As a matter of fact, the pope remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to canon law, they should have paid in this life.If remission of all penalties whatsoever could be granted to anyone at all, certainly it would be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to very few.For this reason most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.That power which the pope has in general over purgatory corresponds to the power which any bishop or curate has in a particular way in his own diocese and parish.The pope does very well when he grants remission to souls in purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.* They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.*

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther had intended to stay at the Wartburg and finish this monumental work, along with a number of sermons—or postils—that he had been working on. In fact, even when he planned to return at Easter, he was not expecting to resume his pastoral duties, but rather hoped to hide away in or near Wittenberg so that he could finish polishing the German New Testament with the help of his linguistic superior Melanchthon—and after that to leap into taking on the Old Testament, with the help of Melanchthon and numerous others. But the news from home stirred his pastor’s heart and made him think that an earlier return must be considered. He saw that the church in Wittenberg sorely needed him in this official capacity. The city council included his dear friend Lucas Cranach and the goldsmith Christian Döring, and when they summoned him, he saw it as nothing less than a call from God himself. For Luther, of course, that was everything. He would not fear what man could do, neither Duke George nor the emperor nor the pope. If God called, God would protect him, and if God did not protect him, that would be God’s business. His business was to obey. On February 24, he wrote to Frederick. In his inimitably jolly way, Luther joked that with all of these new troubles the elector—who was so extremely enamored of relics—was to be congratulated on now getting the biggest relic of them all, and at no cost whatsoever. It was “the whole cross, together with nails, spears, and scourges.”18 Ha-ha. It was Luther’s firm belief that those who supported the Gospel would suffer and be attacked and would in their way be crucified. It is not clear whether the elector appreciated the joke. And he certainly did not think it safe or wise for Luther to return. On February 28, a bailiff was dispatched to the Wartburg, to apprise Luther of Frederick’s sincere request that he not return to Wittenberg. Frederick did not think Luther deserved to be turned over to the imperial or papal authorities, despite the Edict of Worms, because Frederick felt that Luther had not yet gotten the fair hearing and disputation that his honest concerns merited. But if Luther returned, Frederick would feel pressure to hand him over. Frederick hoped to avoid these political problems for some time yet. And no matter what, Luther’s life would be endangered if he left his redoubt “among the birds.” But by now Luther had made up his mind that God wished him to return, and he could not be dissuaded. CHAPTER FOURTEENLuther ReturnsMen can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit wine and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and stars have been worshiped. Shall we then pluck them out of the sky? —Martin Luther

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Appearance at Augsburg, 1518, Aetatis 34Luther was grateful not to be on his way to Rome, but the threat of what might happen to him in Augsburg was no less grave. It was every bit as important as any meeting in Rome could be, because at Augsburg Luther would at last face the very representative of the Holy Father himself, a cardinal who had all of the power of the pope in his hands to do what he liked with this monk who had brought shame to the church far and wide. Luther well knew that he might in a few days be condemned to death. His faith was strong, but from time to time deeply troubling thoughts coursed through his mind too. Years later he recalled his thoughts as he walked on the road to what might have been his own execution. “Now I must die,” he had thought. “What a disgrace I shall be to my parents!”2 Cardinal Cajetan, who represented the pope at the diet, was a brilliant and illustrious theologian of that time. He was born Jacopo de Vio in the then-Neapolitan city of Gaeta, but as so often is the case with figures from this period, the nomenclature referring to him is complicated. When at the age of fifteen he took holy orders, Jacopo took the name Tommaso and was thenceforth known as Tommaso de Vio. But because people were often referred to by their place of origin, he was also known as Gaetanus—or by a version of that, Cajetan. So he is now mainly remembered as Thomas Cajetan or Cardinal Cajetan. What makes him particularly interesting as the figure chosen to deal with Luther at Augsburg is that during the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17), Cajetan played a leading role and was the one to bring about a decree claiming that the pope’s authority was indeed superior to that of church councils. After this, Pope Leo X made him a cardinal, and he remained a powerful and important figure in the church for many years.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  During dinner on that night—in what would be his last meal—the conversation rather macabrely and presciently turned to whether friends would be able to recognize each other in the next life. Luther held that they would. Following dinner, he retired to his chamber to pray at the window and this time brought his two younger sons to join him. But very soon thereafter, he experienced serious chest pains and coldness. Pastor Coeleus and Jonas quickly went to him and, knowing this was serious, rubbed him with hot towels. Meanwhile, Aurifaber went to find Count Albrecht and his wife, Anna, who arrived quickly, bearing what was believed to be a unicorn’s horn, which at that time was associated with divine salvation and with the purity of Mary. In fact, it was the horn of a narwhal, which in those days was still taken for the actual horn of a unicorn. Count Albrecht grated some of the horn into a glass of wine, for it was thought to be a particularly powerful restorative, and one of his councillors, Conrad von Wolfframsdorf, took a spoonful of it, perhaps to allay Luther’s fears that it did not contain poison, for his fears of being poisoned were now with him always. The wine and narwhal horn were administered to him, and then Luther rested, sleeping for an hour or so on a daybed in the sitting room. When he awoke, he was surprised to see that he was not alone and that others were still sitting up, although of course they were doing so only because of their concern for him. He arose and walked unaided to the bathroom, saying, “Into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, God of truth.” This prayer from Psalm 31:5 was often spoken by those who believed themselves to be dying, not least because these were the last words Jesus himself spoke from the cross before he died (Luke 23:46). After this he shook everyone’s hands and bade them goodnight, returning to his bedchamber. But Jonas and Luther’s sons Martin and Paul sat in the room with him, as did his servant Ambrosius Rutfelt.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  And the further Luther looked into this specific issue of papal primacy in preparation for the debate, the more horrified he became. In March 1519, he focused especially on the subject, tracing it carefully in canon law and church history, and the more he uncovered, the more convinced he was that he must pull this pernicious lie out root and branch. Because during this time he wasn’t yet sure that Duke George would allow him to debate, he published his Resolution on the Thirteenth Thesis Concerning the Power of the Pope. He was sure the papacy was not against God’s will, but neither did he think it was ordained by God, as the church now maintained. All he read made it clearer and clearer that it was a human institution. It was not possible from Scripture to find any evidence that it had been divinely ordained. This was the issue, and by declaring otherwise, the current pope—and such as Cajetan and Eck—had put the papacy on impossibly rotten foundations. If one loved the church, one must fix this, and Luther would do so. That month seems to have been a turning point for Luther. It was on March 13 that he whispered to Spalatin, “I know not whether the pope is the Antichrist himself or whether he is his apostle, so miserably is Christ (that is, the truth) corrupted and crucified by the pope in the decretals.”7 It is clear that the fire of this growing crisis and now the specific pressure to prepare for this debate were forcing Luther theologically forward into places he had never intended to go. But in it all, he somehow understood that the Lord’s hand was pushing him along. And Luther’s years of teaching the Bible gave him an unwavering confidence as he proceeded. He had started with indulgences but was now confronting the thorniest of all issues, that of papal authority itself. He came to see that the Roman church, while certainly an institution of God, could not plausibly claim utter authority as it had been doing for four hundred years. And certainly not from Scripture. For Luther, it was faith (pace Romans 1:7) that created the Christian and the body of Christians, called the church. Wherever faith existed in Christ, all followed, including beyond the Roman church, which is to say in the Eastern Greek church as well.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Their journey next took them through Thuringia to Luther’s beloved Eisenach. But that evening, Luther suddenly became very ill, with a high fever. It seemed so serious that his friends were concerned for his life. A doctor was called and did what doctors often did in those days when they had no real idea of what malady they were treating: he bled Luther and then prescribed a hearty dose of schnapps. Evidently, however, these things did the trick, and eventually Luther felt at least well enough to continue the journey. But he was convinced that all of these things were the work of the enemy of mankind and truth who was raging against God’s purposes, and these disturbances only confirmed to him that nothing must prevent him from getting to Worms. Myconius, who wrote a chronicle of Luther’s journey in 1541, said that Luther roared defiantly that even if the fires against him should reach from Wittenberg and Rome up to heaven itself, he would still answer the summons and appear at Worms, and once there he would not fail to “kick the Behemoth in the mouth between his big teeth.”2 He was well aware that he was a man on a mission. When they arrived at Frankfurt, Luther was feeling rather well again, and played the lute for his companions. Spalatin was by this time already in Worms, and having taken in the atmosphere there, he was gravely concerned for Luther. So he wrote to his friend advising him not to come, saying that condemnation and then death seemed the only possible outcome. But Luther was resolute. He had set his face toward Worms; replying to Spalatin from Frankfurt, he defiantly wrote, I am coming, my Spalatin, although Satan has done everything to hinder me with more than one disease. All the way from Eisenach to here I have been sick; I am still sick in a way which previously has been unknown to me. Of course I realize that the mandate of Charles has also been published to frighten me. But Christ lives and we shall enter Worms in spite of all the gates of hell and the powers in the air. I enclose copies of the Emperor’s letters. It is not wise to write further letters until I first see in person what has to be done, so that we may not encourage Satan, whom I have made up my mind to frighten and despise. So prepare the lodging. Farewell.3 Spalatin later wrote, “He wants to come to Worms. Even if there be as many Devils there as tiles on the roof!”4

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  15 Journey of the Magi Who is there? I. Who is I? Thou. And that is the awakening—the Thou and the I. —Paul Valéry Women in my bloodline don’t pop out babies like pieces of toast. We’re narrow-hipped. Birthing tends to drag on—long days of false labor followed by a good twenty hours of exorcism-quality dismay. We’re less known for patience than drive, and being flat on our back is anathema. Lecia’s own son took so long to find daylight that his father—during a grisly period called transition that involves much howling—excused himself, sending Mother into the room as backup. Lecia had been cursing him and God and most of the nurses. Mother stood bedside a few minutes, then—as Lecia huffed for air—held up her handbag, saying, Look at this cute little purse I bought. At which, my sister screamed, Get her the fuck out of here! Mother, later outraged at Lecia’s overreaction, said, I was just trying to take her mind off it. In my case, delivery takes a full twenty-two hours—forty-four if you count the false labor that kept me manically rocking in a chair all night like some bulbous figure in a horror movie. At the hospital, they inject various mickeys into my IV, telling me I’ll be asleep in a minute, but that’s only one of many lies—like banning the word pain in favor of discomfort, conveniently reducing the hospital’s need to deal with it while treating the mother like a piece of furniture. In natural childbirth classes, with women sprawled around the room on wrestling mats, the men had seemed mystified by the process. One night in the car going home, Warren said, When are we supposed to learn the stuff that stops the pain? We already have, I said. That’s what the breathing exercises are. My God, he said, that won’t accomplish anything. Almost two days into my own marathon, I enter the half-drugged, hallucinogenic state that causes the room I lie in to bulge like a fishbowl around me. Staring at the calico curtains hung against the vomit-green walls to make the birthing room look homey, I keep echoing Oscar Wilde’s last words: Either this wallpaper goes, or I do. The big disappointment? The needle painfully jabbed into my spine to block pain quote-unquote didn’t take. This is the breezy parlance of the anesthesia dude. He stands in the door with clip-on sunglasses flipped up from his specs. He’s clearly on his way out. Whaddayou mean, I roar at him, whaddayou MEAN it didn’t take! I’m incapable of speaking without exclamation points and italics and any available typographical inflation. In between cogent sentences, the nurse with the tiny white head and gargantuan blue eyes—real crocodile-sized peepers—leans over me, saying, Breathe... Warren’s head appears alongside hers, his face bulging forward like a drop of water squeezed from a turkey baster. Breathe... I holler, DO IT AGAIN! The nurse is telling me it’s too late. You didn’t say it might not take, I say.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Before Lightning StrikesAfter taking his master’s degree, Luther was prepared to begin the study of law. Until this juncture in his life, he had been precisely fulfilling his father’s expectations, and now, by entering the study of law, he would take the final step toward becoming a lawyer. But perhaps something about having arrived at this point gave him pause. Perhaps the finality of it struck him. But whether the idea to enter a monastery had ever been in his head, as we guess it must have been, it must have been jarred loose to swim into his ken at this juncture. In any case, the mythic notion that his idea of entering the monastery was exclusively delivered by a lightning bolt from the sky near Stotternheim can hardly be the whole story. Like much else in the more fanciful and idealized versions of his life, it is far more folk legend than fact. That one day he was fear stricken and blurted a vow, and by some powerful sense of obligation decided to see it through, can hardly be the whole truth. Luther had been planning on studying the law and becoming a lawyer and had now at last stepped through this final door. He had purchased his Corpus Juris—the expensive book every law student must have to study—and was now seemingly incorrigibly on his way. But in addition to Luther’s apprehending the finality of his life’s course at this time, we may imagine that other things affected him now too. It is easy for the modern mind to forget that at all times in history before our own the imminence of sudden death loomed heavily, especially for anyone thoughtful or sensitive, and Luther was both. Already at Erfurt the Anfechtungen* that would famously affect him as a monk began to rear its hopeless head, causing him to wonder disturbingly about his own eternal fate and whether, were he to die suddenly, he would be welcomed into the loving arms of God or, more likely, be condemned to fall everlastingly into the taloned clutches of grotesque devils.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  18 Ivy Beleaguered Monday Me. Tuesday Me. Wednesday Me. Thursday Me. —Witold Gombrowicz, Diary In my thirty-fourth year to heaven, I find myself at the copy machine of an exalted, ivy-embroidered university, pressing down on the spine of a memoir by Vladimir Nabokov. The green light under my hands slides over the book’s face, and the spillage from the edges scalds through my shut eyelids. It’s seven-thirty a.m., and I can feel the corpse tint of my face: Frankenstein-monster green. The machine goes whap...whap at slower intervals than the throb in my head, which sounds like thunk. The whaps stab me. The thunks make my eyes bulge in their sockets like a squeezed rubber doll’s. It’s my first year teaching six classes, which has freed me from the deeply respectable but non-writer-esque telecom consulting I could spend eighty hours a week at. Not a new-mom job by any stretch, that work. The sole vestige of the career? I’m on retainer freelancing for a business mag whose editor has left two strongly worded messages on our machine. I’m late with my article on the new Russian perestroika. Whap...thunk. The image of my blond three years’ son this morning, sobbing and holding out his arms to me while Warren strapped him into the child seat, is a hot stove I can’t stop touching. Warren drops him off at daycare now for reasons that are complex. Sure, I need to get in early to copy course materials illicitly—an infraction the secretary, who comes in at nine—warned adjunct teachers about back in the August training session, copies being too costly for the sniveling, no-hope-of-tenure human I am. Also, on the snowy road here some mornings, I stop to puke out the car door, releasing into a snow bank an acidic coffee bile that stays on my teeth despite brushing vigorously enough to bloody my gums, leaving a bile taste no mint can mask. At the daycare center, mommy-vomiting is frowned on. But even if I didn’t want to vomit before I got to the daycare center—which resembles a modest colonial parson’s house like in The Scarlet Letter—the perky bustle of the place would incline me in a vomitous direction. The last time I did the morning dropoff was right after Christmas break. The director had waved me into her office, walls tacked with the bespattered finger paintings of Harvard’s budding geniuses. I’d sat on a stiff chair while she told me Dev was so anxious he couldn’t fall asleep at naptime. Is everything okay at home? she asked. She had front teeth like fence pickets, and the reflection on her octagonal wire-rims was my puffy face. Of course everything was great. I was great and my husband was great. Happiness was the currency we paid to get our kid accepted here.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Just as Saint Martin’s stand at Worms (Borbetomagus) in the fourth century may be viewed as an odd augury of Luther’s life a thousand years in the future, so Hilten’s apocalyptic statements can be similarly prophetic and unsettling. Hilten predicted in his apocalyptic writings that a man would arise in the year 1516 who would fight to reform the church—and who would succeed—and who would end the centuries-long reign of the monks. We do not know whether Luther was aware of Hilten’s writings at this time, but we do know that in the years ahead Luther would indeed identify himself as that figure Hilten had prophesied. This would certainly have strengthened him in his battle, bolstering the faith and courage that would become his greatest weapons in that battle. Hilten also prophesied that within a hundred years the Muslims would have overtaken Christendom, so for Luther in the decades ahead—given Hilten’s accuracy in predicting Luther’s own ascent and successes, if indeed he had done this—it must have been impossible not to feel that Hilten was right about the rest of it, that they were indeed all living in the Last Days of the world, and that the Antichrist was indeed abroad spreading destruction and in his final throes would wreak such unimaginable havoc that “even the elect” might be deceived. Hilten died as a prisoner in the monastery in 1500, at the age of seventy-five, most likely of starvation, which might or might not have been self-imposed. But in his story we may again see that the idea of a holy man standing against the church was not at all a foreign one. We must not tolerate a simplistic view of church history, as though there had been no dissent until the Great Day of Martin Luther. Many others had done as much to bring the church back to its true and only roots and had failed. That the church was lacking in many ways and that many monks and priests and other ecclesiastics were greedy, hypocritical, and odious were hardly new ideas. And apart from what had been done about it or hadn’t been done about it, the laypeople saw it and expressed their thoughts on the subject, both privately and not so privately. But in all of these things, they had lacked a champion who would fight and win.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther’s odd and unexpected request for more time must have an answer, so von der Ecken conferred with the diet and the emperor. Then he returned to speak. But before he gave the court’s yea or nay, he must first express his prickly dismay and astonishment that a theological professor should be unable to quickly give the simple answer for which he had come to this diet. Such things were hardly to be endured. Then he said, And therefore [you] do not deserve to be granted a longer time for consideration, yet, out of innate clemency, his imperial majesty grants one day for your deliberation so that you may furnish an answer openly tomorrow at this hour—on this condition: that you do not present your opinion in writing, but declare it by word of mouth.13 It seems the diet feared that Luther—whose ensorcelling powers of persuasion via the printed page had brought them to this difficult pass—might have asked for time so that he could repair to his room to summon from his pen yet another mesmerizing manifesto that would doubtless be printed over and over and read far and wide and cause much further damage to the Holy Church. Was that the Saxon fox’s plan? And even before that, the manifesto would drag them all into an open disputation with this clever fellow, which is precisely what they had worked so hard to avoid in structuring things as they had done. If he could bamboozle them into responding to a lengthy piece of writing, their whole reason for being here would have been for naught, and Aleander’s fears that this whole tawdry German affair was giving Luther yet another platform—and the best platform yet—to spread his pernicious ideas would be shown to be disturbingly well-founded. So they sent Luther from the chamber. In his communiqué to papal headquarters, Aleander—who had criticized Luther’s cheerful countenance upon his entry into the chamber—now smirked: “When [Luther] left he no longer seemed so cheerful.”14 Back at his quarters, many nobles visited Luther to encourage him not to fear for his life, that all would be well. But Luther was not observed to waver from his stance at all. Afterward, he found time to write a letter, in which he declared, “With Christ’s help, however, I shall not in all eternity recant the least particle!”15 Later that evening, Luther met with Spalatin to talk about what he should say the next day. It is probable that Amsdorf was there that evening, as well as Justus Jonas and Schurff. What they discussed, we cannot know. And though it well might go without saying, we know that in the time he had to do so, Luther prayed with his customary ardor.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  My head cants like a blue tick hound’s. Maybe I owe myself a drink. I’ve been dug in on Warren’s one-or-two-beer policy, part of re-forming myself to fit him. As for doing with so little alcohol, so safely squirreled away do I feel in our book-lined rooms, undergoing my willed overhaul, that I could almost subsist on his breath alone. In my old life, I never kept liquor in my apartment, for—while I could go without for weeks—I never knew when I’d wind up draining anything around. And around the punk bars where I hung out in grad school, if I got lured into the alley and offered cocaine, I could snuffle up the stuff, but I lacked both the money and the recklessness to be a bona fide cokehead. Only once did I incur a debt, and having to sell a TV to pay it back curbed future coke binges. At a few all night parties, I sat among half-strangers in a screaming sweat on a sagging couch—jaw clenched, eyelids stapled to my forehead— while some leering dealer suggested I go back to his place. A small point of pride: I never said yes. The scene scared me. I scared me. I wouldn’t call my pre-Warren drinking out of control because I had control. So long as I didn’t leave my apartment, I didn’t drink. In Cambridge, that person no longer exists. With an invisible eraser, I’m internally rubbing hard at the core of her, and Warren’s steady, unwavering gaze is lasering away her external edges. Soon she’ll be mist. I stand at the bar, its tiered bottles like a shiny choir about to burst into song. With only five or six dollars in tips, how much trouble can I get in? Warren will pick me up soon, and the bar’s on the cusp of closing early. At one end, a man in evening clothes with long gray hair swept back sits behind a sherry glass. On the stool next to him, a tipped violin case. Across from him is the despicable waiter, cradling a brandy snifter. His normally pony-tailed

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  It took weeks to finally convince the leaders they were safe, but in one meeting North American President Mark Fields took a chance and admitted a new vehicle launch under his purview would be delayed. Other executives looked on nervously. Mulally said, “I could see it in people’s eyes that they thought doors would open up behind Mark and two large human beings would remove him. ‘Bye-bye Mark.’” Instead, Mulally began a round of applause and said, “Mark, thank you so much. That is great visibility.” Then he asked the group, “Is there anything we can do to help Mark out?” Within seconds, ideas were flying around the room. Said Mulally, the moment passed in the blink of an eye but changed everything. As he frequently told his leaders, “You have a problem; you are not the problem.” Method 4: Regularly Check In on ProgressWhile micromanaging is definitely to be avoided, we advise managers that they must keep good track of the progress their team members are making, and this is especially important for perfectionists. Leaders can help them understand that their work is going just fine and uncover procrastination or wrong turns, if that’s the case. A great example of creating a system for checking on progress is that of managers at SpaceX, who found a way to make faster decisions for their biggest client—NASA. Until recently, NASA sent a fax (seriously) whenever they had a query, and once a week SpaceX brought together a fifty-person team to address each question before sending responses back. Using collaborative technology, SpaceX has now given NASA direct visibility into each project so they can identify the SpaceX engineers who are working on which components. NASA can directly talk with those engineers and make decisions in real time. This collaboration has allowed SpaceX to cut its average wait time for defining product requirements by 50 percent and eliminate the costly weekly four-hour status meeting. The key in making check-ins less anxiety-inducing is to put more control of these conversations in the hands of employees. Ambiguity creates anxiety, so instead of subjective measures, use individual and team roadmaps to evaluate how people are coming on hitting their goals. Also, make check-ins regular. When they become an expected part of work life, versus surprise inspections, anxiety about reporting in is reduced substantially. Finally, when managers go out of their way to offer up support with problems or missed deadlines during check-ins—and they come from a place of understanding—it can help create a relationship where people know they will be held accountable, but in positive ways.