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.

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• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The ministers began selecting people to be representatives in the courtroom. They told Minnie, Armelia, Walter’s children, and several others to go on in. When the ministers called out Mrs. Williams, everyone seemed to smile. Mrs. Williams, an older black woman, stood up and prepared herself to enter the courtroom. She took great care in fixing her hair just right. On top of her gray hair she wore a small hat whose placement she precisely adjusted. She then pulled out a long blue scarf that she delicately wrapped around her neck. Only then did she slowly begin to make her way to the courtroom door where the line of McMillian supporters had formed. I found her dignified ritual riveting, but when the spell was broken I realized that I needed to get going myself. I hadn’t spent the morning preparing for witnesses as I had intended but had instead been drawn into this foolish mistreatment of McMillian’s supporters. I walked past the line of patient people and went inside to begin preparing for the hearing. I was standing at counsel’s table when out of the corner of my eye I saw that Mrs. Williams had made it to the courtroom door. She was quite elegant in her hat and scarf. She wasn’t a large woman, but there was something commanding about her presence—I couldn’t help but watch her as she moved carefully through the doorway toward the metal detector. She walked more slowly than everyone else, but she held her head high with an undeniable grace and dignity. She reminded me of older women I’d been around all my life—women whose lives were hard but who remained kind and dedicated themselves to building and sustaining their communities. Mrs. Williams glanced at the available rows to see where she would sit, and then turned to walk through the metal detector—and that’s when she saw the dog. I watched all her composure fall away, replaced by a look of absolute fear. Her shoulders dropped, her body sagged, and she seemed paralyzed. For over a minute she stood there, frozen, and then her body began to tremble and then shake noticeably. I heard her groan. Tears were running down her face and she began to shake her head sadly. I kept watching until she turned around and quickly walked out of the courtroom. I felt my own mood shift. I didn’t know exactly what had happened to Mrs. Williams, but I knew that here in Alabama, police dogs and black folks looking for justice had never mixed well. —

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

  I answer that, As was said ([4085]AA[2],3), in Christ according to His human nature there is a twofold will, viz. the will of sensuality, which is called will by participation, and the rational will, whether considered after the manner of nature, or after the manner of reason. Now it was said above (Q[13], A[3], ad 1; Q[14], A[1], ad 2) that by a certain dispensation the Son of God before His Passion “allowed His flesh to do and suffer what belonged to it.” And in like manner He allowed all the powers of His soul to do what belonged to them. Now it is clear that the will of sensuality naturally shrinks from sensible pains and bodily hurt. In like manner, the will as nature turns from what is against nature and what is evil in itself, as death and the like; yet the will as reason may at time choose these things in relation to an end, as in a mere man the sensuality and the will absolutely considered shrink from burning, which, nevertheless, the will as reason may choose for the sake of health. Now it was the will of God that Christ should undergo pain, suffering, and death, not that these of themselves were willed by God, but for the sake of man’s salvation. Hence it is plain that in His will of sensuality and in His rational will considered as nature, Christ could will what God did not; but in His will as reason He always willed the same as God, which appears from what He says (Mat. 26:39): “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” For He willed in His reason that the Divine will should be fulfilled although He said that He willed something else by another will. Reply to Objection 1: By His rational will Christ willed the Divine will to be fulfilled; but not by His will of sensuality, the movement of which does not extend to the will of God—nor by His will considered as nature which regards things absolutely considered and not in relation to the Divine will. Reply to Objection 2: The conformity of the human will to the Divine regards the will of reason: according to which the wills even of friends agree, inasmuch as reason considers something willed in its relation to the will of a friend. Reply to Objection 3: Christ was at once comprehensor and wayfarer, inasmuch as He was enjoying God in His mind and had a passible body. Hence things repugnant to His natural will and to His sensitive appetite could happen to Him in His passible flesh.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  He raced along Oxford Road, the lanes empty, no other cars out. I was sitting closest to the minibus’s sliding door. My mother sat next to me, holding baby Andrew. She looked out the window at the passing road and then leaned over to me and whispered, “Trevor, when he slows down at the next intersection, I’m going to open the door and we’re going to jump.” I didn’t hear a word of what she was saying, because by that point I’d completely nodded off. When we came to the next traffic light, the driver eased off the gas a bit to look around and check the road. My mother reached over, pulled the sliding door open, grabbed me, and threw me out as far as she could. Then she took Andrew, curled herself in a ball around him, and leaped out behind me. It felt like a dream until the pain hit. Bam! I smacked hard on the pavement. My mother landed right beside me and we tumbled and tumbled and rolled and rolled. I was wide awake now. I went from half asleep to What the hell?! Eventually I came to a stop and pulled myself up, completely disoriented. I looked around and saw my mother, already on her feet. She turned and looked at me and screamed. “Run!” So I ran, and she ran, and nobody ran like me and my mom. It’s weird to explain, but I just knew what to do. It was animal instinct, learned in a world where violence was always lurking and waiting to erupt. In the townships, when the police came swooping in with their riot gear and armored cars and helicopters, I knew: Run for cover. Run and hide. I knew that as a five-year-old. Had I lived a different life, getting thrown out of a speeding minibus might have fazed me. I’d have stood there like an idiot, going, “What’s happening, Mom? Why are my legs so sore?” But there was none of that. Mom said “run,” and I ran. Like the gazelle runs from the lion, I ran. The men stopped the minibus and got out and tried to chase us, but they didn’t stand a chance. We smoked them. I think they were in shock. I still remember glancing back and seeing them give up with a look of utter bewilderment on their faces. What just happened? Who’d have thought a woman with two small children could run so fast? They didn’t know they were dealing with the reigning champs of the Maryvale College sports day. We kept going and going until we made it to a twenty-four-hour petrol station and called the police. By then the men were long gone.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She nodded to silence me. “Yes, I do know, but it came out just fine.” We both noticed Duffy standing nearby, waiting to congratulate me. “You were right, Jess,” he told me, as he pumped my hand. “The union did win the game. My first instincts were wrong, I’m sorry.” I got myself an ice-cold beer and a piece of fried chicken and sat down alone under a tree. The air was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt on top of the world. 96 Leslie Feinberg JIM BONEY DIDN’T SHOW UP for work on Monday. I was glad. I wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone, but I was still scared of him. So when he called in sick Monday morning I walked around the plant feeling a little smug. Jack pulled me off the line and led me to a die cutter, which punched school flashcards into the shape of decks. Normally one of the guys used a powerful air hose to blow away the trim before it jammed the machine. “The air hose is being fixed,” Jack shouted over the roar of the machinery. “You assist Jan when she needs help loading her skids. Every once in a while, you brush the shit off the press, like this.” He ran his hand across the face of the die cutter in the split second between punches. “Don’t let it jam,” he warned me, before he walked away. Jan looked at the machine and back at me. “Be cateful,” she cautioned. I watched the die cutter punch the decks, trying to learn its rhythm like a song. My hand darted out and quickly brushed some of the trim away. I got most of it. My hands were trembling. When you work around machines you grow to respect their mesmerizing power. I tried to stay in sync with the punch press. Just once my hand was slow. Just once was all it took. It happened so fast. One moment my fingers were all connected to me. The next moment I could feel my ring finger lying against my palm. My blood spurted in an arc across the machine, the decks of catds stacked on skids, and the wall in front of me. I tried not to look at my left hand, but I did. My stomach heaved before my mind could even understand what my eyes saw. I couldn’t have been heard over the thunder of the machines, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t make a sound. Everything took place in slow motion. Jan waved her arms and shouted. People came near but froze in horror. It occurred to me I should go to the hospital. I knew I couldn’t drive my motorcycle. As I walked to the door I wondered if I had enough bus fare. Walter and Duffy ran after me. The next thing I remember was being in a car. Walter had his arm around me. Duffy was driving and

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Perhaps the “sister,” in searching for the kerosene can, might overturn the jar of prunes which were being stewed and thus endanger all our lives by robbing us of the required calories in the morrow’s meal. A severe beating would have to be given, not in anger, because that would disturb the digestive apparatus, but silently and efficiently, as a chemist would beat up the white of an egg in preparation for a minor analysis. But the “sister,” not understanding the prophylactic nature of the punishment, would give vent to the most bloodcurdling screams and this would so affect the old man that he would go out for a walk and return two or three hours later blind drunk and, what was worse, scratching a little paint off the rolling doors in his blind staggers. The little piece of paint that had been chipped off would bring on a battle royal which was very bad for my dream life, because in my dream life I frequently changed places with my sister, accepting the tortures inflicted upon her and nourishing them with my supersensitive brain. It was in these dreams, always accompanied by the sound of glass breaking, of shrieks, curses, groans and sobs, that I gathered an unformulated knowledge of the ancient mysteries, of the rites of initiation, of the transmigration of souls and so on. It might begin with a scene from real life—the sister standing by the blackboard in the kitchen, the mother towering over her with a ruler, saying two and two makes how much? and the sister screaming five . Bang! no , seven , Bang! no , thirteen , eighteen , twenty! I would be sitting at the table, doing my lessons, just as in real life during these scenes, when by a slight twist or squirm, perhaps as I saw the ruler come down on the sister’s face, suddenly I would be in another realm where glass was unknown, as it was unknown to the Kickapoos or the Lenni-Lenape. The faces of those about me were familiar—they were my uterine relatives who, for some mysterious reason, failed to recognize me in this new ambiance . They were garbed in black and the color of their skin was ash gray, like that of the Tibetan devils. They were all fitted out with knives and other instruments of torture: they belonged to the caste of sacrificial butchers. I seemed to have absolute liberty and the authority of a god, and yet by some capricious turn of events the end would be that I’d be lying on the sacrificial block and one of my charming uterine relatives would be bending over me with a gleaming knife to cut out my heart. In sweat and terror I would begin to recite “my lessons” in a high, screaming voice, faster and faster, as I felt the knife searching for my heart.

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

  JEROME. This word is not found in the Old Scriptures, but it is first used by the Saviour. Let us enquire then into its origin. We read in more than one place that the idol Baal was near Jerusalem, at the foot of Mount Moriah, by which the brook Siloc flows. This valley and a small level plain was watered and woody, a delightful spot, and a grove in it was consecrated to the idol. To so great folly and madness had the people of Israel come, that, forsaking the neighbourhood of the Temple, they offered their sacrifices there, and concealing an austere ritual under a voluptuous life, they burned their sons in honour of a dæmon. This place was called Gehennom, that is, The valley of the children of Hinnom. These things are fully described in Kings and Chronicles, and the Prophet Jeremiah. (2 Kings 23:10. 2 Chron. 28:3. Jer. 7:32; 32:35.) God threatens that He will fill the place with the carcases of the dead, that it be no more called Tophet and Baal, but Polyandrion, i. e. The tomb of the dead. Hence the torments and eternal pains with which sinners shall be punished are signified by this word. AUGUSTINE. (De Civ. Dei, xiii. 2.) This cannot be before the soul is so joined to the body, that nothing may sever them. Yet it is rightly called the death of the soul, because it does not live of God; and the death of the body, because though man does not cease to feel, yet because this his feeling has neither pleasure, nor health, but is a pain and a punishment, it is better named death than life. CHRYSOSTOM. Note also, that He does not hold out to them deliverance from death, but encourages them to despise it; which is a much greater thing than to be rescued from death; also this discourse aids in fixing in their minds the doctrine of immortality. 10:29–3129. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. CHRYSOSTOM. Having set aside fear of death, that the Apostles should not think that if they were put to death they were deserted by God, He passes to discourse of God’s providence, saying, Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them does not fall to the ground without your Father? JEROME. If these little creations fall not without God’s superintendence and providence, and if things made to perish, perish not without God’s will, you who are immortal ought not to fear that you live without His providence.

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  The New Testament scholar James Moffatt writes: After the Neronic wave had passed over the capital, the wash of it was felt on the far shores of the provinces; the dramatic publicity of the punishment must have spread the name of Christian urbi et orbi, far and wide, over the entire empire; the provincials would soon hear of it, and when they desired a similar outburst at the expense of the loyal Christians, all that they needed was a proconsul to gratify their wishes and some outstanding disciple to serve as a victim. Forever after, the Christians were to live under threat. The mobs of the Roman cities knew what had happened in Rome, and the slanderous stories against the Christians persisted. There were times when the mob loved blood, and there were many governors ready to pander to their blood lust. It was not Roman law but lynch law which threatened the Christians. From now on, Christians were in peril of their lives. For years, nothing might happen; then some spark might set off the explosion, and the terror would break out. That is what lies behind i Peter; and it is confronted by that situation that Peter calls his people to hope and to courage and to that lovely Christian living which alone can give the lie to the slanders with which they are attacked and which are the grounds for taking measures against them. First Peter was not written to meet theological heresy; it was written to strengthen men and women who were in danger of losing their lives. The Doubts We have set out in full the arguments which go to prove that Peter is really the author of the first letter which bears his name. But, as we have said, a number of first-class scholars have felt that it cannot have been his work. We ourselves accept the view that Peter is the author of the letter; but in fairness we set out the other side, largely as it is presented in the chapter on i Peter in The Primitive Church by B. H. Streeter. Strange Silences Charles Bigg writes in the introduction to his commentary: `There is no book in the New Testament which has earlier, better, or stronger attestation [than i Peter].' It is true that Eusebius, the great fourth-century scholar and historian of the Church, classes i Peter among the books universally accepted in the early Church as part of Scripture (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3:25:2).

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  It was just before dinner, and my father was upset about something that had happened to him at work. I could hear him yelling in the living room while my mother tried to comfort him. He yelled, “I’d rather work in a circus! In one of those things where you put your head through a hole and people pay to throw garbage at you!” “No circus has that anymore,” said my mother. “Stop it, Shep.” By the time I went down to eat dinner, everything was as usual. I looked at my father and felt a sickening sensation of love nailed to contempt and panic. The last time I made a typing error and the lawyer summoned me to his office, two unusual things occurred. The first was that after he finished spanking me he told me to pull up my skirt. Fear hooked my stomach and pulled it toward my chest. I turned my head and tried to look at him. “You’re not worried that I’m going to rape you, are you?” he said. “Don’t. I’m not interested in that, not in the least. Pull up your skirt.” I turned my head away from him. I thought, I don’t have to do this. I can stop right now. I can straighten up and walk out. But I didn’t. I pulled up my skirt. “Pull down your panty hose and underwear.” A finger of nausea poked my stomach. “I told you I’m not going to fuck you. Do what I say.” The skin on my face and throat was hot, but my fingertips were cold on my legs as I pulled down my underwear and pantyhose. The letter before me became distorted beyond recognition. I thought I might faint or vomit, but I didn’t. I was held up by a feeling of dizzying suspension, like the one I have in dreams where I can fly, but only if I get into some weird position. At first he didn’t seem to be doing anything. Then I became aware of a small frenzy of expended energy behind me. I had an impression of a vicious little animal frantically burrowing dirt with its tiny claws and teeth. My hips were sprayed with hot sticky muck. “Go clean yourself off,” he said. “And do that letter again.” I stood slowly, and felt my skirt fall over the sticky gunk. He briskly swung open the door and I left the room, not even pulling up my panty hose and underwear, since I was going to use the bathroom anyway. He closed the door behind me, and the second unusual thing occurred. Susan, the paralegal, was standing in the waiting room with a funny look on her face.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I thought about it for a moment. “That’s true. It was like that. But in the dream it wasn’t about being gay. It was about being a man or a woman. Do you know what I mean? I always feel like I have to prove Tm like other women, but in the dream I didn’t feel that way. ’m not even sure I felt like a woman.” Stone Butch Blues 153 The moonlight illuminated Theresa’s frown. “Did you feel like a man?” I shook my head. “No. That’s the strange part. I didn’t feel like a woman ot a man, and I liked how I was different.” Theresa didn’t respond right away. “You're going through a lot of changes right now, Jess.” “Yeah, but what do you think about my dream?” Theresa tossed a pillow at me. “TI think we should go back to sleep.” Whatever kind of response Pd wanted from Theresa, that wasn’t it. But the subject wasn’t put to rest so easily. Toward the end of the summer Edwin and Grant came over to our house. Jan dropped by later with some shopping bags. Jan and her new lover, Katie, looked real uncomfortable, like they’d been fighting, “This is a real crisis,’ Grant stressed. “We either got to change how we look or we’te gonna starve to death! Katie got some wigs and some makeup. There’s a few jobs, like in the department stores. Jesus, I don’t know about you, but I need work. It’s only for a while, until the plants reopen.” Katie and Theresa retreated to the kitchen. Four stone butches trying on fashion wigs. 154 = Leslie Feinberg It was like Halloween, only it was creepy and painful. The wigs made us look like we were making fun of ourselves. Grant told me, “I put one on, now it’s your turn, Jess.” Edwin shook her head while she held up a mirror for me to see. I threw the wig on the floor. “I look more like a he-she with the wig on than with a goddamn DA.” “Well, have it your own damn way,” Grant yelled. “Leave me alone, Grant,’ I shouted back at her. “You think you’re the only one who’s scared?” Grant faced me nose to nose. “What the fuck am I gonna do if I get evicted, huh?” I didn’t want to fight with her. “Look, Grant. If it works for you then do it. But nobody’s gonna hire me with that fucking wig on. And makeup’s not gonna do it, either. I need a bushel basket to hide who Tam.” Jan got up and left, just like that. Ed went into the kitchen to tell Katie that Jan had left. Grant and I grudgingly shook hands. “Honey,” I said to Theresa, “if you don’t mind, Ed and Grant and I are gonna look for Jan and maybe gtab a couple of beers, OK?” I knew Theresa wanted me to stay, but Katie was real upset, too, so Theresa

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

  353Lecture 36—The Challenge of 21 st -Century Christianity õWhen Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda collaborators murdered thousands of people in the attacks on September 11, 2001, it seemed like an all-out declaration of war on Western/Christian civilization. ENCOUNTERS IN AFRICA õHuntington’s thesis has some uses, but it also has some problems. Consider the clashes between Christians and Muslims in Africa. During the decades following World War II, nationalism became increasingly appealing to Africans. õAs they pushed for independence from the colonial powers of Europe, some people came to see Christianity as a foreign, imperialist ideology, while Islam became associated with African independence from white rule. And later on, Islam could imply a kind of tactical and ideological neutrality from the two sides of the Cold War. õYet by the mid-1990s, the Cold War was over. Most African countries had been independent for a quite a while. Christianity on the continent was thoroughly Africanized; it would be hard to walk into, for example, Daniel Olukoya’s Mountain of Fire and Miracles church in Lagos and say it was an instrument of Western imperialism. Meanwhile, African Muslims were increasingly aware of themselves as part of a global Muslim community, the Ummah. õIn a place like Sudan, the Muslim Brotherhood was now less associated with Sudanese nationalism and linked more closely with transnational networks of theologically conservative, politically radical Muslims. This ideological self-awareness informed the government of president Omar al-Bashir in the early 2000s. õWhen a largely Muslim militia, the Janjaweed, started murdering huge numbers of Sudanese Christians in the South, religion became a primary lens for outsiders trying to understand the genocide. But this was also a story of nomads who made a living herding camels and cattle (the Muslims) taking out their economic frustrations on a largely sedentary farming population (the Christians).

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  I thought you were a stranger. We’re good then.” It became a tool that served me my whole life. One day as a young man I was walking down the street, and a group of Zulu guys was walking behind me, closing in on me, and I could hear them talking to one another about how they were going to mug me. “Asibambe le autie yomlungu. Phuma ngapha mina ngizoqhamuka ngemuva kwakhe.” “Let’s get this white guy. You go to his left, and I’ll come up behind him.” I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t run, so I just spun around real quick and said, “Kodwa bafwethu yingani singavele sibambe umuntu inkunzi? Asenzeni. Mina ngikulindele.” “Yo, guys, why don’t we just mug someone together? I’m ready. Let’s do it.” They looked shocked for a moment, and then they started laughing. “Oh, sorry, dude. We thought you were something else. We weren’t trying to take anything from you. We were trying to steal from white people. Have a good day, man.” They were ready to do me violent harm, until they felt we were part of the same tribe, and then we were cool. That, and so many other smaller incidents in my life, made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people. I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. If you spoke to me in Zulu, I replied to you in Zulu. If you spoke to me in Tswana, I replied to you in Tswana. Maybe I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you. — As apartheid was coming to an end, South Africa’s elite private schools started accepting children of all colors. My mother’s company offered bursaries, scholarships, for underprivileged families, and she managed to get me into Maryvale College, an expensive private Catholic school. Classes taught by nuns. Mass on Fridays. The whole bit. I started preschool there when I was three, primary school when I was five. In my class we had all kinds of kids. Black kids, white kids, Indian kids, colored kids. Most of the white kids were pretty well off. Every child of color pretty much wasn’t. But because of scholarships we all sat at the same table. We wore the same maroon blazers, the same gray slacks and skirts. We had the same books. We had the same teachers. There was no racial separation. Every clique was racially mixed. Kids still got teased and bullied, but it was over usual kid stuff: being fat or being skinny, being tall or being short, being smart or being dumb. I don’t remember anybody being teased about their race. I didn’t learn to put limits on what I was supposed to like or not like. I had a wide berth to explore myself. I had crushes on white girls.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  He or she must learn to hear the “unspoken voice” of the body so that clients can safely learn to hear and see themselves. This book is a master class in how to listen to the unspoken voice of the body. “In the particular methodology I describe,” Levine writes, “the client is helped to develop an awareness and mastery of his or her physical sensations and feelings.” The key to healing, he argues, is to be found in the “deciphering of this nonverbal realm.” He finds the code in his synthesis of the seemingly—but only seemingly—disparate sciences that study evolution, animal instinct, mammalian physiology and the human brain, and in his hard-won experience as a therapist. Potentially traumatic situations are ones that induce states of high physiological arousal but without the freedom for the affected person to express and get past these states: danger without the possibility of fight or flight and, afterward, without the opportunity to “shake it off,” as a wild animal would following a frightful encounter with a predator. What ethologists call tonic immobility—the paralysis and physical/emotional shutdown that characterize the universal experience of helplessness in the face of mortal danger—comes to dominate the person’s life and functioning. We are “scared stiff.” In human beings, unlike in animals, the state of temporary freezing becomes a long-term trait. The survivor, Peter Levine points out, may remain “stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life.” In circumstances where others sense no more than a mild threat or even a challenge to be faced, the traumatized person experiences threat, dread and mental/physical listlessness, a kind of paralysis of body and will. Shame, depression and self-loathing follow in the wake of such imposed helplessness. The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) “deals in categories, not in pain,” in the incisive words of psychiatrist and researcher Daniel Siegel. Central to Peter Levine’s teaching is that trauma cannot be reduced to the diagnostic traits compiled by the DSM under the rubric of PTSD, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Trauma is not a disease, he points out, but rather a human experience rooted in survival instincts. Inviting the full, if carefully graded, expression of our instinctive responses will allow the traumatic state to loosen its hold on the sufferer. Goodness, the restoration of vitality, follows. It springs from within. “Trauma is a fact of life,” Levine writes. “It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.” In our suffering lies also our salvation. As he shows, the same psychophysiological systems that govern the traumatic state also mediate core feelings of goodness and belonging. Peter’s astonishing awareness of and attention to nuanced detail as he observes and describes his clients’ “unfreezing” are at the heart of his teaching, as are his techniques to guide and facilitate his process.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: Melchisedech is described as “without father, without mother, without genealogy,” and as “having neither beginning of days nor ending of life,” not as though he had not these things, but because these details in his regard are not supplied by Holy Scripture. And this it is that, as the Apostle says in the same passage, he is “likened unto the Son of God,” Who had no earthly father, no heavenly mother, and no genealogy, according to Is. 53:8: “Who shall declare His generation?” and Who in His Godhead has neither beginning nor end of days. OF ADOPTION AS BEFITTING TO CHRIST (FOUR ARTICLES)We must now come to consider whether adoption befits Christ: and under this head there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether it is fitting that God should adopt sons? (2) Whether this is fitting to God the Father alone? (3) Whether it is proper to man to be adopted to the sonship of God? (4) Whether Christ can be called the adopted Son? Whether it is fitting that God should adopt sons?Objection 1: It would seem that it is not fitting that God should adopt sons. For, as jurists say, no one adopts anyone but a stranger as his son. But no one is a stranger in relation to God, Who is the Creator of all. Therefore it seems unfitting that God should adopt. Objection 2: Further, adoption seems to have been introduced in default of natural sonship. But in God there is natural sonship, as set down in the [4109]FP, Q[27], A[2]. Therefore it is unfitting that God should adopt. Objection 3: Further, the purpose of adopting anyone is that he may succeed, as heir, the person who adopts him. But it does not seem possible for anyone to succeed God as heir, for He can never die. Therefore it is unfitting that God should adopt. On the contrary, It is written (Eph. 1:5) that “He hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children of God.” But the predestination of God is not ineffectual. Therefore God does adopt some as His sons.

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

  Accordingly there is a twofold contrariety in the passions of the soul: one, according to contrariety of objects, i.e. of good and evil; the other, according to approach and withdrawal in respect of the same term. In the concupiscible passions the former contrariety alone is to be found; viz. that which is based on the objects: whereas in the irascible passions, we find both forms of contrariety. The reason of this is that the object of the concupiscible faculty, as stated above [1214](A[1]), is sensible good or evil considered absolutely. Now good, as such, cannot be a term wherefrom, but only a term whereto, since nothing shuns good as such; on the contrary, all things desire it. In like manner, nothing desires evil, as such; but all things shun it: wherefore evil cannot have the aspect of a term whereto, but only of a term wherefrom. Accordingly every concupiscible passion in respect of good, tends to it, as love, desire and joy; while every concupiscible passion in respect of evil, tends from it, as hatred, avoidance or dislike, and sorrow. Wherefore, in the concupiscible passions, there can be no contrariety of approach and withdrawal in respect of the same object. On the other hand, the object of the irascible faculty is sensible good or evil, considered not absolutely, but under the aspect of difficulty or arduousness. Now the good which is difficult or arduous, considered as good, is of such a nature as to produce in us a tendency to it, which tendency pertains to the passion of “hope”; whereas, considered as arduous or difficult, it makes us turn from it; and this pertains to the passion of “despair.” In like manner the arduous evil, considered as an evil, has the aspect of something to be shunned; and this belongs to the passion of “fear”: but it also contains a reason for tending to it, as attempting something arduous, whereby to escape being subject to evil; and this tendency is called “daring.” Consequently, in the irascible passions we find contrariety in respect of good and evil (as between hope and fear): and also contrariety according to approach and withdrawal in respect of the same term (as between daring and fear). From what has been said the replies to the objections are evident. Whether any passion of the soul has no contrariety?Objection 1: It would seem that every passion of the soul has a contrary. For every passion of the soul is either in the irascible or in the concupiscible faculty, as stated above [1215](A[1]). But both kinds of passion have their respective modes of contrariety. Therefore every passion of the soul has its contrary. Objection 2: Further, every passion of the soul has either good or evil for its object; for these are the common objects of the appetitive part. But a passion having good for its object, is contrary to a passion having evil for its object. Therefore every passion has a contrary.

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

  GLOSS. Otherwise; The sky is red and lowring; that is, the Apostles suffer after the resurrection, by which ye may know that I shall judge hereafter; for if I spare not the good who are mine from present suffering, I shall not spare others hereafter; Ye can therefore discern the face of the sky, but the signs of the times ye cannot. RABANUS. The signs of the times He means of His own coming, or passion, to which the evening redness of the heavens may be likened; and the tribulation which shall be before His coming, to which the morning redness with the lowring sky may be compared. CHRYSOSTOM. As then in the sky there is one sign of fair weather, and another of rain, so ought ye to think concerning me; now, in this My first coming, there is need of these signs which are done in the earth; but those which are done in heaven are reserved for the time of the second coming. Now I come as a physician, then as a judge; now I come in secret, then with much pomp, when the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. But now is not the time of these signs, now have I come to die, and to suffer humiliations; as it follows, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) This Matthew has already given; whence we may store up for our information, that the Lord spoke the same things many times, that where there are contradictions which cannot be explained, it may be understood that the same sayings were uttered on two different occasions. GLOSS. (interlin.) He says, Evil and adulterous generation, that is, unbelieving, having carnal, and not spiritual understanding. RABANUS. To this generation that thus tempted the Lord is not given a sign from heaven, such as they sought for, though many signs are given on the earth; but only to the generation of such as sought the Lord, in whose sight He ascended into heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit. JEROME. But what is meant by the sign of Jonas has been explained above. CHRYSOSTOM. And when the Pharisees heard this, they ought to have asked Him, What it was He meant? But they had not asked at first with any desire of learning, and therefore the Lord leaves them, as it follows, And he left them, and went his way. JEROME. That is, leaving the evil generation of the Jews, He passed over the strait, and the people of the Gentiles followed Him. HILARY. Observe, we do not read here as in other places, that He sent the multitudes away and departed; but because the error of unbelief held the minds of the presumptuous, it is said that He left them. 16:5–125. And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Reading this manuscript, I was impressed by how often I experienced “aha” moments as I recalled my own observations in my work with traumatized and often addicted people. I could now understand and interpret these observations in a new way—and not only my clinical observations, but also my own personal experience. And that’s important, for, as Peter recognizes, the therapist’s attuning to his or her own experience serves as an essential guiding light leading the healing process along the right path. Peter Levine and the reader complete their mutual journey with an exploration of spirituality and trauma. There is, he writes, “an intrinsic and wedded relationship” between the two. For all our rootedness in a physical body, we humans are spiritual creatures. As the psychiatrist Thomas Hora astutely pointed out, “all problems are psychological, but all solutions are spiritual.” With this book Peter Levine secures his position in the forefront of trauma healing, as theorist, practitioner and teacher. All of us in the therapeutic community—physicians, psychologists, therapists, aspiring healers, interested laypeople—are ever so much richer for this summation of what he himself has learned. GABOR MATÉ, MD Author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction PART I Roots: A Foundation to Dance On We must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made ... —I Ching, Hexagram #34 “The Well” (circa 2500 BC) N CHAPTER 1 The Power of an Unspoken Voice When a man has learned within his heart what fear and trembling mean, he is safeguarded against any terror produced by outside influences. —I Ching, Hexagram #51 (circa 2500 BC) O MATTER HOW SELF-ASSURED WE ARE, in a fraction of a second, our lives can be utterly devastated. As in the biblical story of Jonah, the unknowable forces of trauma and loss can swallow us whole, thrusting us deep into their cold dark belly. Entrapped yet lost, we become hopelessly frozen by terror and helplessness. Early in the year 2005, I walked out of my house into a balmy Southern California morning. The gentle warmth and soft sea breeze gave a lift to my step. Certainly, this was the kind of winter morning that makes everyone in the rest of the country (with the possible exception of Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon) want to abandon their snow shovels and move to the Southland’s warm, sunny beaches. It was the beginning of a perfect kind of day, a day when you feel certain that nothing can go wrong, when nothing bad can possibly happen. But it did. A Moment of Truth I walked along, absorbed in happy anticipation of being with my dear friend Butch for the celebration of his sixtieth birthday. I stepped out into a crosswalk ... ...

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The subway cat was crowded. I had never had the opportunity to observe people this way. Most of the riders looked asleep on their feet, their eyes glazed over. Others buried their noses in newspapers and books. I suddenly realized that at least a few people were doing exactly what I was doing, They were looking at people; they were looking at me. The woman sitting across from me stared as though I was from another planet. She nudged her boyfriend. “Is that a guy or a girl?” He looked at me from head to toe. “How should I know?” I hoped we would arrive at 42°* Street soon. “Hey,” he demanded, “are you a guy or what?” I stared back at him with my flat face on. “Hey, I asked you a fucking question. Are you deaf?” I didn’t answer. He got up and stood over me, holding the straps for support. He leaned near my face. I could smell beer. “I’m asking you one more time, you motherfucker. What the fuck are you?” The train stopped at 42 Street and the doors opened. He was blocking my escape. “C’mon, hon,” his girlfriend tugged at him. I stood up. We both squared off nose-to-nose. I clenched my fists at my side. “C’mon, hon,” she cajoled. “You promised me you wouldn’t get in a fight again today.” They both turned to get off the train. I decided to stay on. “You fucking faggot,” he shouted at me. “Fuck you,” I yelled back at him. “It’s a guy,” he told his girlfriend. I got off at the next station and walked back down 8* Avenue toward 42" Street. If I made enough money, maybe I’d go back to Buffalo. At that moment I believed it. “Looking for fun, honey?” A woman stepped out in front of me on the sidewalk and opened her fake leopard coat to show me her black bustier. “Let me take good care of you,” she pursed her lips and hooked her arm through mine. I remembered coming out as a baby butch and being nurtured by the strength of pros like her. Once I had been on their side in the world. Now I was seen as a trick. I pulled away from her in horrot. “Fuck you,” she spat on the sidewalk in front of me. I noticed a squad car parked diagonally across the intersection. I heard sirens racing up behind me. I neared a small throng of cops. One of them pushed a Black drag queen in fishnet stockings up against a squad car and cuffed her hands behind her back. She turned her face toward me. He/p me, she asked wordlessly. I dont know how, my eyes answered. Two cops were hovering over another drag queen who was sprawled on the asphalt. The blood bubbled out of a wide crack in her forehead. One Stone Butch Blues 251

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The next moment, paralyzed and numb, I’m lying on the road, unable to move or breathe. I can’t figure out what has just happened. How did I get here? Out of a swirling fog of confusion and disbelief, a crowd of people rushes toward me. They stop, aghast. Abruptly, they hover over me in a tightening circle, their staring eyes fixed on my limp and twisted body. From my helpless perspective they appear like a flock of carnivorous ravens, swooping down on an injured prey—me. Slowly I orient myself and identify the real attacker. As in an old-fashioned flashbulb photo, I see a beige car looming over me with its teeth-like grill and shattered windshield. The door suddenly jerks open. A wide-eyed teenager bursts out. She stares at me in dazed horror. In a strange way, I both know and don’t know what has just happened. As the fragments begin to converge, they convey a horrible reality: I must have been hit by this car as I entered the crosswalk. In confused disbelief, I sink back into a hazy twilight. I find that I am unable to think clearly or to will myself awake from this nightmare. A man rushes to my side and drops to his knees. He announces himself as an off-duty paramedic. When I try to see where the voice is coming from, he sternly orders, “Don’t move your head.” The contradiction between his sharp command and what my body naturally wants —to turn toward his voice—frightens and stuns me into a sort of paralysis. My awareness strangely splits, and I experience an uncanny “dislocation.” It’s as if I’m floating above my body, looking down on the unfolding scene. I am snapped back when he roughly grabs my wrist and takes my pulse. He then shifts his position, directly above me. Awkwardly, he grasps my head with both of his hands, trapping it and keeping it from moving. His abrupt actions and the stinging ring of his command panic me; they immobilize me further. Dread seeps into my dazed, foggy consciousness: Maybe I have a broken neck, I think. I have a compelling impulse to find someone else to focus on. Simply, I need to have someone’s comforting gaze, a lifeline to hold onto. But I’m too terrified to move and feel helplessly frozen. The Good Samaritan fires off questions in rapid succession: “What is your name? Where are you? Where were you going? What is today’s date?” But I can’t connect with my mouth and make words. I don’t have the energy to answer his questions. His manner of asking them makes me feel more disoriented and utterly confused. Finally, I manage to shape my words and speak. My voice is strained and tight. I ask him, both with my hands and words, “Please back off.”

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

  Whether fear makes one tremble?Objection 1: It would seem that trembling is not an effect of fear. Because trembling is occasioned by cold; thus we observe that a cold person trembles. Now fear does not seem to make one cold, but rather to cause a parching heat: a sign whereof is that those who fear are thirsty, especially if their fear be very great, as in the case of those who are being led to execution. Therefore fear does not cause trembling. Objection 2: Further, faecal evacuation is occasioned by heat; hence laxative medicines are generally warm. But these evacuations are often caused by fear. Therefore fear apparently causes heat; and consequently does not cause trembling. Objection 3: Further, in fear, the heat is withdrawn from the outer to the inner parts of the body. If, therefore, man trembles in his outward parts, through the heat being withdrawn thus; it seems that fear should cause this trembling in all the external members. But such is not the case. Therefore trembling of the body is not caused by fear. On the contrary, Cicero says (De Quaest. Tusc. iv, 8) that “fear is followed by trembling, pallor and chattering of the teeth.” I answer that, As stated above [1401](A[1]), in fear there takes place a certain contraction from the outward to the inner parts of the body, the result being that the outer parts become cold; and for this reason trembling is occasioned in these parts, being caused by a lack of power in controlling the members: which lack of power is due to the want of heat, which is the instrument whereby the soul moves those members, as stated in De Anima ii, 4. Reply to Objection 1: When the heat withdraws from the outer to the inner parts, the inward heat increases, especially in the inferior or nutritive parts. Consequently the humid element being spent, thirst ensues; sometimes indeed the result is a loosening of the bowels, and urinary or even seminal evacuation. Or else such like evacuations are due to contraction of the abdomen and testicles, as the Philosopher says (De Problem. xxii, 11). This suffices for the Reply to the Second Objection. Reply to Objection 3: In fear, heat abandons the heart, with a downward movement: hence in those who are afraid the heart especially trembles, as also those members which are connected with the breast where the heart resides. Hence those who fear tremble especially in their speech, on account of the tracheal artery being near the heart. The lower lip, too, and the lower jaw tremble, through their connection with the heart; which explains the chattering of the teeth. For the same reason the arms and hands tremble. Or else because the aforesaid members are more mobile. For which reason the knees tremble in those who are afraid, according to Is. 35:3: “Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and confirm the trembling [Vulg.: ‘weak’] knees.”

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. He had not enjoined them to punish the false prophets, and therefore shews them the terrors of that punishment that is of God, saying, Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down, and cast into the fire. In these words He seems to aim also at the Jews, and thus calls to mind the word of John the Baptist, denouncing punishment against them in the very same words. For he had thus spoken to the Jews, warning them of the axe impending, the tree that should be cut down, and the fire that could not be extinguished. But if one will examine somewhat closely, here are two punishments, to be cut down, and to be burned; and he that is burned is also altogether cut out of the kingdom; which is the harder punishment. Many indeed fear no more than hell; but I say that the fall of that glory is a far more bitter punishment, than the pains of hell itself. For what evil great or small would not a father undergo, that he might see and enjoy a most dear son? Let us then think the same of that glory; for there is no son so dear to his father as is the rest of the good, to be deceased and to be with Christ. The pain of hell is indeed intolerable, yet are ten thousand hells nothing to falling from that blessed glory, and being held in hate by Christ. GLOSS. (non occ.) From the foregoing similitude He draws the conclusion to what He had said before, as being now manifest, saying, Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 7:21–2321. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. JEROME. As He had said above that those who have the robe of a good life are yet not to be received because of the impiety of their doctrines; so now on the other hand, He forbids us to participate the faith with those who while they are strong in sound doctrine, destroy it with evil works. For it behoves the servants of God that both their work should be approved by their teaching and their teaching by their works. And therefore He says, Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, enters into the kingdom of heaven. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxiv.) Wherein He seems to touch the Jews chiefly who placed every thing in dogmas; as Paul accuses them, If thou art called a Jew, and restest in the Law. (Rom. 2:17.)