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 266 of 529 · 20 per page

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  63 The concept of purgatory arose from practices of prayer for the dead. In an inÀ uential passage Augustine prays that his readers will join him in praying for his dead mother—which means her soul must be neither in heaven nor hell, but a state in which it can be helped. Purgatory is a place of temporal punishment, in contrast to the eternal punishment in hell. It has the character of purgation or puri¿ cation, cleansing the soul from sinful habits and desires to make it worthy of God. In the most important interpretations of purgatory, it is a good place, where souls embrace their painful puri¿ cation to cleanse their souls. In the late Middle Ages, the doctrine of Purgatory invited abuses. Purgatory was painted as hellish, inhabited by devils as torturers. Fear of purgatory was used as a way of raising money by selling masses and “indulgences,” sort of like time off from purgatory. Abusing the doctrine of purgatory eventually triggered the Reformation. Ŷ Augustine, Confessions, bk. 9 (concludes with Augustine asking his readers to pray for his mother’s soul). Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory, The Spiritual Dialogues. Dante, The Divine Comedy. 1. How closely does the picture of the afterlife in this lecture resemble what you think of as the traditional view of life after death? 2. Is the concept of purgatory, as a place of purgation for imperfect souls advancing toward heaven, an attractive one to you? Questions to Consider Suggested Reading

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  93 This split becomes most evident in the work of Spener’s protégé, August Hermann Francke, who had found Protestant scholasticism leading him toward atheism. Francke narrates his own conversion experience, which freed him not only from fear of hell but from atheism—a new problem for Christian theologians beginning in the 18 th century. In a striking divergence from Luther, Francke contends that it is not enough to say, “I am baptized. I am a Christian.” Instead, he advocates turning into one’s heart to ¿ nd piety. Different from Francke’s classic Pietism is the Moravian theology developed by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700– 1760). Zinzendorf was both a Lutheran minister and a German count, who offered asylum on his estate at Herrnhut to Moravian Protestants À eeing persecution in their own land. Under Zinzendorf’s leadership as bishop, the Moravians came to be known for their emotional heart religion. The emotional focus, however, was not the experience of conversion but the wounds of Christ. Thus unlike other forms of Pietism, Moravian heart religion was not a turn to inner experience but a turn to the À esh of Christ. Perhaps the most characteristic piece of Moravian theology was a liturgy of devotion to the wounds of Christ on the cross. Especially characteristic is devotion to the “side-hole,” where Jesus was pierced near the heart. Ŷ Arndt, True Christianity. Erb, The Pietists. Portrait of German Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who offered refuge to Moravian Protestants. © Photos.com/Thinkstock. Suggested Reading 94 Lecture 26: Pietists and the Turn to Experience 1. What kind of certainty is appropriate to go along with faith? 2. Do you think Francke is right in saying that “I have been baptized” is not a good answer to the question, “Are you really a Christian?” Questions to Consider

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  vb. move gently, glide, glide‏ [דבב]ז walk‏ ככ flow slowly, drop; Ar.‏ דבב over (N H‏ leisurely, gently, &3\5 any animal that walks‏ As. dababu, plot, plan, COT‏ ; דב .61 or creeps,‏ ef. 271)—only Qal Pr. DIV ‘NaY IIT‏ ₪ Ct 7°, of wine gliding over the lips of sleepers;‏ my lips and teeth © S Aq‏ .1.6 ד' (3vA ‘NaY‏ Gei Urschrift =‏ nom", 255.9 0606 bear (from soft‏ דבז or gliding motion, NH 7id., Eth. &-f; As.dabii(?)‏ Ar. &5, 333, 18 how-‏ ; ?כ] ,8337 Aram.‏ ;15% Am‏ דב ever a loan-word cf. Hom*§™ *) ;—abs.‏ 1S 17% 2 5; pl. OSI 2K 2%‏ דוב ;5 5 +55 דד על 28178 "2 Is 59";—bear, female 2 K‏ undetermined 1 S17**°37 Am‏ ;1817 376% 110 Pr 28” 18 597 La 3” (on art. 1 5 17% Am‏ 5° iii cf. RSs ea‏ Tra n.f. whispering, defamation, evil report (? as that which glides stealthily) —abs. טא ד'‎ 14% Pr ro; estr. NAT 76 20%+ 4 t.; sf. W2IT Pr 25° O37 Gn 37°;—1. whispering 31"Je20" (Hi Hup De Gf VB; yet cf. Che’). 2. defamation Prio™® (c. .(הוציא‎ 3. evil report, specif. a (true) report of evil doing Gn 377 (P) אֶתדדַּבָּתֶם רְעָה‎ N34; cf. also Pr 20" & Ez 36° DYNA jive על"שפת‎ sym, unfavour- able report of spies Nu 13° 14°” (all P & all 6. 8S; adj. רעה‎ only 14%). םיִנּויִבְּד‎ n.{m.] so Qr; דב יונים=‎ 58 dung(?) 2K 6* for Kt חרייונים‎ ; G -+ק>ח טסקה6<‎ שסק6דס‎ (Klo gives conject. emend.) (Ar. 3 collect, also make into lumps,‏ דבל gobbets (Lane); Eth. & cogn. in deriv.)‏ n.f. lump of pressed figs, pressed‏ ִּבָלֶהז = , %כ-צא] Aram. id.,‏ ְּבִילָה (fig-) cake (NH‏ Greek madd6n; Ar. 453 lump, large gobbet or‏ mouthful; cf. As. dublu, foundation, & Heb.‏ estr,‏ ;"50 £5 7937 הזכ synon. AWS‏ EB 25° Pek‏ ְּבָלִים nda3 21 20'—= 1s 38%% ple‏ —used as food 1 ₪ 28% 30” 1 Ch 12%;‏ ;”12 as application to boil, or eruption‏ ִּבָלֶת מְּאָנִים 9 ]= יס ו 179 דבק loc. ANOS‏ ה ₪ קופס pete.‏ [דבלה]+ Ez.6" but rd. M993) JDMich Hi Sm Co Da.‏ n.pr-m. father of Gomer wife of‏ דּבַלִיִם]1 Hosea Day Ho 1°.‏ SAP in n.pr.loe. עלמן ד' ,בית ד' .זי‎ (possibly fr. 4/5375 in sense of collect, assemble, Eth. TAAA: m1. 3 se colligere, dO. LNA: coctus, chorus, conventus, concilium)—JI 6 485 ; דְּבְלְתַיְמָה‎ Nu as

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Tayn, and, by transpos., WY (Di Dt 28° cf. Sta’™*) n.f. a trembling, i.e. object of trembling, terror: 1 Is 28”, also Kt Je 15'+4t.; MY Dt 28” Ez 23” (also Qr Je 15" + 4 t.);—object of trembling, terror, fright ; mynd והיית‎ Dt 28” and thow shalt become a terror to all (25) the kingdoms of the earth; ל1/ וו'‎ BYADN Je 15 29%, 347 (\| Maes אלה‎ MEATS MPW!), also 121/19 DANA ג‎ 4° (|| BMD nDepe MMW vind), Ex23 5 0 29. = Ty n.pr.m. a Gadite, 1 Ch5", G Zove, Zea. Gn 36%=1 Ch 1”.‏ 1101166 ג n.pr.m.‏ זעון1 jk [Wi] vb. be 3 stranger (Ar. Bs (med. ,) encline toward, repair to, visit; 11. honour as visitor or guest; 1x. decline, turn aside, PS visilor; Aram. זור‎ , oft. = Heb. סוּר‎ 266 זור turn aside, turn aside to visit)—Qal Pf. 3 pl. זרו‎ y 58‘ (Ko'*), "Ty 78” Ib 19% Pt. WY Ex 30% + 27 t.; f. MM Ex 30°+ 7 t.; mpl, O° Hos? +30 1; fpl. זרות‎ Pr 22" 29% 1 א זי‎ 1. Pf. become estranged מן .0 8% ץר‎ from Jb 19% ץ‎ 78". 2. Pt. as adj. strange, or as noun stranger: a. to the family, of another household, 1% איש‎ Dt 25°, elsewhere זר‎ 1 K 3% Jb 19% Pr 6! 11% 20% ל םד‎ ae 517; ,בנים זרים‎ children of another household than God’s Ho 5’; especially of another family than priests’ 1 איש‎ Lv 22”(H) Nury® (P); זר‎ Ly 228 (H) Ex 29% 30" Na ae (Ee not belonging to the tribe of Levi, Nu 1" 18* (P). |b. to the person, another Jb 197 Pr 14” 277; Tt (AWN) strange woman, harlot Pr 2" 520 45 2214 23%. ¢. to the land, foreign, זרים‎ foreigners (as such usu. enemies) Ho 7° 87 Is 177 2555 29° 61° Je5™ 30% 51>! Las? Ezy”! 11 16% 28710 204 ane Jo ai Ob ll Jb15° ך‎ Gye זר‎ by foreigngod W 447 81°= Is 43”; so ON Dt 32" and (in fig.) Je 2" 3%; מים זְרִים‎ foreign waters 2 K 19% Je 18%; זֶר‎ Mid} Is 17” vine-slip of a stranger ; נְחשבוּ‎ aimed) Ho8” they are regarded i as foreign; YY Is 28" lis work 18 foreign (as if dealing with enemies). 4d. strange to the law; M1 Nb? strange incense Ex 30° (P); NW US strange fire Ly 10' Nu 3* 26" (P). Niph. Pf. 112 Is 1‘ Ez 14°; be estranged Is 14, pregn., sq. אַחלר‎ (cf. RV);. Dy Ez 14°. Hoph. Pt. W estranged w 69°. +11. ,זוּר]‎ VT] vb. be loathsome, Bo!" (Ar. gs fastidivit, abhorruit; As. zdru, resist, Iinpf. izirw, D1** Schr °° )__only 3 fs. 77 Jb19” לְאֶשְתִּי‎ MIN my breath is loathsome to my wife וחפתי ל‎ in || 61.( ; >most, who derive fr. 1. זור‎ , become strange and so repugnant. TR n.[f.] loathsome thing, 'צא‎ wwe עַד‎

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Je 481; 3 pl. Is 37" + 4 t., AN consec.‏ וְחִתָּה Ts20° + 2t., 717) consec. Je 50°; Impf. (Ko"™)‏ אֶחַתָּה ו Is 78 30", nm Jb 39”, nn.‏ יחת Jb 21% +‏ יחתוּ nn 18 24 3 are‏ 7% וחתו Jos 10” + 2 6 fa Imw.‏ תִחַתוּ--; נָחַת Is 8°°°; 1. be shattered, broken, fig. of nations‏ under divine judgment Is 7° 30°"; so prob. also‏ Ts 8% (but del. in v2), and perh. (of ’"’s foes in‏ gen.) 15 2” (song’;—others render dismayed in‏ all exe. Is 78); fig. of *’s righteousness Is51° (=‏ he abolished, annihilated) ; lit. of bows Je 51°°,‏ ace. to Gie’srdg. 00, v. Pi. 2. be dismayed,‏ Dt 1” 31° Jos 8! 10” (all D),‏ ירא || usu. a. abs.:‏ PO 17" Je23* 30° 467 Ez 2° 3° x Ch22" 28”‏ Is 20° 34%= 2 K 19”‏ בוש || ;307 207 Ch‏ 2 Je 89 17318 481039 5622 (others assign 487‏ dismayed‏ האדמה to 1); fig. of the ground‏ 50° of the husband-‏ בוש ||) ‘14 for lack of rain Je‏ men); no ||Je50° Ob*° Jb39”. b. be dismayed‏ at, by reason of, sq. [5 Is 31*° 517 (\|S)‏ ro’, Niph. Pf. only 3 ms. ‘325‏ 1617 Mal 2° and at my name he is put in‏ שמִי NM)‏ 369 nD (v. Qal 1). מחתה awe (|| Y)- Pi. Pf. dismay, scare, 2 ms. sf. בחלמות‎ ARM (K6**") consee. Jb 7 and thow scarest. me es dreams (\|NY2); 3 fs. THA Je51” (of bows) is intrans. | inchoat. Ew’ = Gf. al., be shattered, but txt. prob. erron. 6 Hiph. Pf 2 ms. DANI 189%; 1s. HAN Je 49% (Ko); Imrf. 3 ms. sf. 3. Jb 31% sf. 3 fpl. יָחִיתֶן‎ Hb 27 (Ko*™; put G YS Ew Ol Sta We? JAM); 1s. sf. JANN Jer (sq. .(לפניהם‎ —1. shatter 6. acc. Isg*. 4 cause to be dismayed Je 49” sq. "IBD. b. dismay, terrify, sq. sf. Jb 31% Hb 2”. + ] הזה‎ [ n.m.%*? terror, fear—N0 Jb 41”, DAN Gn .6---;%ף‎ sf. as obj. gen., Gn 9? terror of you )|| (מוּראַכֶם‎ ; in description of crocodile 6. neg., nna3? WY 10 41° one made for fear- lessness. ti. | דזר‎ | adj. shattered, dismayed—mpl. DN :—1. shattered ’N O33 NYP 1S 2‘ (song; on pl. חַתִּים‎ vy. Dr); so fig. Ez 32" ace. to G Codd. Co ("AN for MT pn) broken in their might, of Sidonians in ₪601. 2. dismayed Je 46° of Egyptians defeated by Nebuchadrezzar. 71.000 n.[m. ]terror—only*8 1M) תִרְאוּח'‎ Jb 6* (> Baer 387" for IN) ye see a terror, and fear (note paronomasia in Heb.; v. Di). Tiana] n.f. terror—O" Yay אלהים‎ nan Gn 35° a terror of (=from) God was upon the cities. fu. 0 n.pr.m. son of Othniel and grandson of Kenaz (brother of Caleb), חתת‎ t Cha}. חַתְחתִּים n.[m.] terror, only pl.‏ [התחת]ז (ירא ||( Ec 12° terrors are in the way‏ 772

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Just as that spate of publicity prompted my publisher’s interest a decade ago, so has this fresh round of news clippings encouraged the book’s re-publication. For the first time in many years, I’ve pulled out a copy and read a few chapters to see how much my voice may have changed over time. I confess to wincing every so often at a poorly chosen word, a mangled sentence, an expression of emotion that seems indulgent or overly practiced. I have the urge to cut the book by fifty pages or so, possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity. I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine—that I would tell the story much differently today than I did ten years ago, even if certain passages have proven to be inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research. What has changed, of course, dramatically, decisively, is the context in which the book might now be read. I began writing against a backdrop of Silicon Valley and a booming stock market; the collapse of the Berlin Wall; Mandela—in slow, sturdy steps—emerging from prison to lead a country; the signing of peace accords in Oslo. Domestically, our cultural debates—around guns and abortion and rap lyrics—seemed so fierce precisely because Bill Clinton’s Third Way, a scaled-back welfare state without grand ambition but without sharp edges, seemed to describe a broad, underlying consensus on bread-and-butter issues, a consensus to which even George W. Bush’s first campaign, with its “compassionate conservatism,” would have to give a nod. Internationally, writers announced the end of history, the ascendance of free markets and liberal democracy, the replacement of old hatreds and wars between nations with virtual communities and battles for market share. And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured. It’s beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow—the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” 2 That picture of Peter with singular focus on the face of Christ, baby-stepping over those cresting whitecaps—I can’t quit thinking about it. That scene is what inspired part 2 of this book, in fact—this idea that regardless of the wind and the rain and the uncertainty and the fear, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we travel on top of, not under, those waves. When we shift from the thoughts that distract and choose to fix our thoughts single-mindedly on Him, everything shifts! But it wasn’t Peter’s strength or willpower that kept him afloat; it was the object of his gaze: Jesus’s face. The enemy is trying to disrupt our single-mindedness. Winning is focusing on Christ. If we think on Christ, if we zoom in and are consumed with Him, then everything else grows strangely dim. But the enemy wants you to focus on anything but Jesus. Because we get really dangerous when we get single minded. Peter did. Peter would flail a bit between that lesson on the water and Jesus’s ascension, but a time would come when his life would snap into complete focus. His spirals of self-importance and anxiety would lessen, and he aimed himself fully toward his mission. And when that happened, the church was launched into existence, thousands and thousands were saved and began to follow Jesus, countries were evangelized, and generations were changed forever. I know you might be thinking, Jennie, that’s great. But I just need to quit feeling so anxious. I know. But part of quitting feeling anxious is finding an altogether different reason to live. When Christ is our prize and heaven is our home, we get less anxious because we know our mission, our hope, our God cannot be taken from us.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  Just as we have to accept pain, we have to accept death. This is so hard to sit with. In a world where surviving is assumed to be the ideal, some of us can even force others to keep living—whether or not it’s what they want for themselves. Even when a person is ready to pass, we don’t always want to allow it because we don’t want to sit with the stillness of our own pain. Like I said, anxiety can make us selfish sometimes. Ask yourself what scares you so much about death. Is it the unknown? The permanence of it? That it is an ending before you feel ready? The injustice of it? These are all plausible fears. None of which can prevent a final outcome that may just be what it is. I don’t mean for this to sound callous. I’m just naming the reality of what our anxiety is murmuring to many of us every single day. We fear death so much that we ruin our living years worrying about what could be. I realize that you may be thinking I’m cruel at this point. Why on earth would I be bringing all this up when I know it hurts? Because even just reading about death, including your death and the death of your loved ones, or the possibility of “emotional death,” is a form of exposure therapy. It’s a form of processing and preparing. Avoiding the ultimate reality of death only enhances our fears surrounding it. This is where empowered acceptance is warranted. When we can acknowledge this universal truth about death, we can learn to live that much more fully. We no longer have to live in fear of the possibility of dying because we’ve accepted that it’s not a possibility but a reality. There is power in owning this truth rather than running away from it. Your empowerment lies in how you choose to live your life. Death will be waiting for you either way, as will the death of experiences, people, and seasons of life that you hold dear. Don’t let the impending goodbyes stop you from the hellos and all that comes in between. Goodbyes wouldn’t matter so much if we didn’t allow ourselves to love one another so deeply. Don’t stop yourself from leaning in because you’re afraid of the fallout that will be waiting on the other side. COMING BACK STRONGER THAN EVER AFTER A WIPEOUT There are a lot of things in life that can break us for a time. But like starfish, we can grow back from our wounds. One of the best ways to not let our anxiety win is to not allow it to keep us down.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  It no longer has power over our generation! So let’s train our minds to think on that truth. The Well-Trained Mind I talked with an astronaut recently. He goes up into space from time to time and hangs out. My jaw was dropped for the entirety of our conversation. His normal everyday reality is that cool. His name is Shane Kimbrough, and my favorite thing about him is that he is afraid of heights. Or he used to be afraid of heights. (Does anyone ever really get over a fear of heights? Evidently, Shane did, because the last time he was set for a space mission, he was so relaxed that he fell asleep on the launch pad. I’m not even kidding. His fellow astronaut people had to nudge him and say, “Hey. Shane. We’re about to blast off, man.”) Shane said that his whole life is spent either preparing for a space mission, participating in a space mission, or “cooling off” from a mission, as he calls it. I asked what a mission is like, and here are some tidbits from what he said. When you’re about to launch into space, you are strapped into a capsule that is attached to rocket boosters that will blast to 17,500 miles per hour in a jiffy and get you to outer space in eight and a half minutes. You get to space and look back and see planet Earth in all her glory—the whole big round ball. You then proceed to work twelve-hour days for ten days straight, collecting samples, conducting experiments, taking walks—you know, in space. At the end of your day, you retire to soundproof sleeping quarters that are the size of a telephone booth, and you strap yourself to your bed, lest you float around all night. You peek out your window and see the oceans, the continents, the moon, the stars, before drifting off to sleep. Now, not only is it hard on an astronaut’s body to be in space (on average, astronauts lose about 1 percent of their bone mass per month spent in space), but it’s also hard on their minds. They are separated from friends and family and normal earthly routines for days—sometimes months—on end. Despite the wonderful aspects of their job, they know that life is going on without them back home. They can feel isolated. Emotions can run dark. Shane told me about an extended mission he was on last year, when he really had to mind his mind. “We launched in September and were scheduled to be

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  “Now, with the drugs, the guns—all that’s disappeared. Don’t take a whole lot of kids carrying a gun. Just one or two. Somebody says something to one of ’em, and—pow!—kid wastes him. Folks hear stories like that, they just stop trying to talk to these young cats out here. We start generalizing about ’em just like the white folks do. We see ’em hanging out, we head the other way. After a while, even the good kid starts realizing ain’t nobody out here gonna look out for him. So he figures he’s gonna have to look after himself. Bottom line, you got twelve-year-olds making their own damn rules.” Johnnie took a sip of his beer, the foam collecting on his mustache. “I don’t know, Barack. Sometimes I’m afraid of ’em. You got to be afraid of somebody who just doesn’t care. Don’t matter how young they are.” After I was back in my own apartment, I thought about what Johnnie had said. Was I afraid? I didn’t think so … at least not in the way Johnnie had meant it. Wandering through Altgeld or other tough neighborhoods, my fears were always internal: the old fears of not belonging. The idea of physical assault just never occurred to me. Same thing with the distinction Johnnie made between good kids and bad kids—the distinction didn’t compute in my head. It seemed based on a premise that defied my experience, an assumption that children could somehow set the terms of their own development. I thought about Bernadette’s five-year-old son, scampering about the broken roads of Altgeld, between a sewage plant and a dump. Where did he sit along the spectrum of goodness? If he ended up in a gang or in jail, would that prove his essence somehow, a wayward gene … or just the consequences of a malnourished world? And what about Kyle: How did one explain what he was going through? I leaned back in my chair, thinking about Ruby’s son. He had just turned sixteen; the two years since my arrival had given him several inches, added bulk, and the shadow above his upper lip, first efforts at a mustache. He was still polite to me, still willing to talk about the Bulls—this’d be the year Jordan took ’em to the finals, he said. But he was usually gone whenever I stopped by, or on his way out with his friends. Some nights, Ruby would call me at home just to talk about him, how she never knew where he was anymore, how his grades had continued to drop in school, how he hid things from her, the door to his room always closed.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Even in the relatively benign atmosphere of the United States, Protestant fundamentalists became xenophobic and fearful of modernity. The horrors of Nasser’s prison polarized the vision of Sayyid Qutb; his former liberalism was transformed into a paranoid vision that saw enemies everywhere. Khomeini too frequently spoke of conspiracies of Jews, Christians, and imperialists. The Deobandis, bruised by the British abolition of the Moghul Empire, created a rigid, rule-bound form of Islam and gave us the Taliban travesty, a noxious combination of Deobandi rigidity, tribal chauvinism, and the aggression of the traumatized war orphan. In the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, the alien ideology of nationalism transformed traditional religious symbols and myths and gave them a violent dimension. But the relationship between modernity and religion has not been wholly antagonistic. Some movements, such as the two Great Awakenings and the Muslim Brotherhood, have actually helped people to embrace modern ideals and institutions in a more familiar idiom. Modern religious violence is not an alien growth but is part of the modern scene. We have created an interconnected world. It is true that we are dangerously polarized, but we are also linked together more closely than ever before. When shares fall in one region, markets plummet all around the globe. What happens in Palestine or Iraq today can have repercussions tomorrow in New York, London, or Madrid. We are connected electronically so that images of suffering and devastation in a remote Syrian village or an Iraqi prison are instantly beamed around the world. We all face the possibility of environmental or nuclear catastrophe. But our perceptions have not caught up with the realities of our situation, so that in the First World we still tend to put ourselves in a special privileged category. Our policies have helped to create widespread rage and frustration, and in the West we bear some responsibility for the suffering in the Muslim world that Bin Laden was able to exploit. “Am I my brother’s guardian?” The answer must surely be yes. War, it has been said, is caused “by our inability to see relationships. Our relationship with our economic and historical situation. Our relationship with our fellow-men. And above all our relationship to nothingness. To death.” 4 We need ideologies today, religious or secular, that help people to face up to the intractable dilemmas of our current “economic and historical situation” as the prophets did in the past. Even though we no longer have to contend with the oppressive injustice of the agrarian empire, there is still massive inequality and an unfair imbalance of power.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Like a koshare , John the Baptist stands out in the crowd. He is memorable by both his costume and his behavior. He stays in the mind of all who see him. His presence breaks the normal pattern. His unsettling actions toward the religious hierarchy is shocking. In this way, John, as a sacred clown, introduces an element of chaos into order. This is precisely the theological task of the koshare . John invites people to participate in a solemn ceremony, baptism, designed to bring them life. At the same time, he reminds them of imminent death and destruction. The ambivalence, the tension makes us want to shudder in fear and sigh in relief. John mixes our emotions in the same way a koshare scrambles reality. From the theological vantage point of the Native Covenant there are important reasons for this to happen. Native tradition maintains a dynamic understanding of the nature of creation. God has not created a static system, but one that flows and fluctuates according to discernable patterns. The seasons come and go; the sun and moon rise and set. However, within these ordered patterns are unexpected moments of chaos. Rain becomes flash floods; winds create tornadoes. The Native Covenant includes chaos theory in its spiritual equation. Life progresses not only because of constant repetition, but also because it is shocked by energies that cannot be contained. Like sex. Like death. The koshare embodies the chaos of God. It is earthy, seminal, disruptive, and energetic. It weaves through a more stately ceremonial of evolution, like strands of DNA, holding life together, but always capable of producing the unexpected. Sacred clowns are the electric energy that arises when order meets chaos. They are spiritual synapses, firing off the creative power between life and death. They stand in exactly the same place John the Baptist occupies by the banks of the Jordon, with one foot in life and the other in destruction. John’s call to repentance is more than a call to change. It is a call to face the reality of existence, the exact point where to be and not to be meet. In Native theology this is the hinge point, the turning point, between life and death. John is the forerunner for Jesus because he stands on this edge. Like a sacred clown, he is a reminder that the power of the sacred can either sweep away the status quo or birth a new reality. John is fully a koshare in his appearance and his message. He looks like chaos. He predicts chaos. But he is a sign of hope because he offers the water of life. His actions leave people in a place of uncertainty and expectation, teetering between extremes, which is exactly where a sacred clown wants them to be.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  behalf, as Augustine likewise supposed, and assumes the responsibility of the education of the baptized child to Christian majority.977 As to infant baptism: there was in this period a general conviction of its propriety and of its apostolic origin. Even the Pelagians were no exception; though infant baptism does not properly fit into their system; for they denied original sin, and baptism, as a rite of purification, always has reference to the forgiveness of sins. They attributed to infant baptism an improving effect. Coelestius maintained that children by baptism gained entrance to the higher stage of salvation, the kingdom of God, to which, with merely natural powers, they could not attain. He therefore supposed a middle condition of lower salvation for unbaptized children, which in the above quoted second canon of the council of Carthage—if it be genuine—is condemned. Pelagius said more cautiously: Whither unbaptized children go, I know not; whither they do not go, I know. But, notwithstanding this general admission of infant baptism, the practice of it was by no means universal. Forced baptism, which is contrary to the nature of Christianity and the sacrament, was as yet unknown. Many Christian parents postponed the baptism of their children, sometimes from indifference, sometimes from fear that they might by their later life forfeit the grace of baptism, and thereby make their condition the worse. Thus Gregory Nazianzen and Augustine, though they had eminently pious mothers, were not baptized till their conversion in their manhood. But they afterward regretted this. Gregory admonishes a mother: "Let not sin gain the mastery in thy child; let him be consecrated even in swaddling bands. Thou art afraid of the divine seal on account of the weakness of nature. What weakness of faith! Hannah dedicated her Samuel to the Lord even before his birth; and immediately after his birth trained him for the priesthood. Instead of fearing human weakness, trust in God." Many adult catechumens and proselytes likewise, partly from light-mindedness and love of the world, partly from pious prudence and superstitious fear of impairing the magical virtue of baptism, postponed their baptism until some misfortune or severe sickness drove them to the ordinance. The most celebrated example of this is the emperor Constantine, who was not baptized till he was on his bed of death. The postponement of baptism in that day was equivalent to the postponement of repentance and conversion so frequent in ours. This custom was resisted by the most eminent church teachers, but did not give way till the fifth century, when it gradually disappeared before the universal introduction of infant baptism. Heretical baptism was now generally regarded as valid, if performed in the name of the triune God.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  93 This split becomes most evident in the work of Spener’s protégé, August Hermann Francke, who had found Protestant scholasticism leading him toward atheism. Francke narrates his own conversion experience, which freed him not only from fear of hell but from atheism—a new problem for Christian theologians beginning in the 18 th century. In a striking divergence from Luther, Francke contends that it is not enough to say, “I am baptized. I am a Christian.” Instead, he advocates turning into one’s heart to ¿ nd piety. Different from Francke’s classic Pietism is the Moravian theology developed by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700– 1760). Zinzendorf was both a Lutheran minister and a German count, who offered asylum on his estate at Herrnhut to Moravian Protestants À eeing persecution in their own land. Under Zinzendorf’s leadership as bishop, the Moravians came to be known for their emotional heart religion. The emotional focus, however, was not the experience of conversion but the wounds of Christ. Thus unlike other forms of Pietism, Moravian heart religion was not a turn to inner experience but a turn to the À esh of Christ. Perhaps the most characteristic piece of Moravian theology was a liturgy of devotion to the wounds of Christ on the cross. Especially characteristic is devotion to the “side-hole,” where Jesus was pierced near the heart. Ŷ Arndt, True Christianity. Erb, The Pietists. Portrait of German Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who offered refuge to Moravian Protestants. © Photos.com/Thinkstock. Suggested Reading 94 Lecture 26: Pietists and the Turn to Experience 1. What kind of certainty is appropriate to go along with faith? 2. Do you think Francke is right in saying that “I have been baptized” is not a good answer to the question, “Are you really a Christian?” Questions to Consider

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  He must be terribly sick, I thought. A radiation victim, maybe, or an albino—I had seen one of those on the street a few days before, and my mother had explained about such things. Except when I read the words that went with the picture, that wasn’t it at all. The man had received a chemical treatment, the article explained, to lighten his complexion. He had paid for it with his own money. He expressed some regret about trying to pass himself off as a white man, was sorry about how badly things had turned out. But the results were irreversible. There were thousands of people like him, black men and women back in America who’d undergone the same treatment in response to advertisements that promised happiness as a white person. I felt my face and neck get hot. My stomach knotted; the type began to blur on the page. Did my mother know about this? What about her boss—why was he so calm, reading through his reports a few feet down the hall? I had a desperate urge to jump out of my seat, to show them what I had learned, to demand some explanation or assurance. But something held me back. As in a dream, I had no voice for my newfound fear. By the time my mother came to take me home, my face wore a smile and the magazines were back in their proper place. The room, the air, was quiet as before. We had lived in Indonesia for over three years by that time, the result of my mother’s marriage to an Indonesian named Lolo, another student she had met at the University of Hawaii. His name meant “crazy” in Hawaiian, which tickled Gramps to no end, but the meaning didn’t suit the man, for Lolo possessed the good manners and easy grace of his people. He was short and brown, handsome, with thick black hair and features that could have as easily been Mexican or Samoan as Indonesian; his tennis game was good, his smile uncommonly even, and his temperament imperturbable. For two years, from the time I was four until I was six, he endured endless hours of chess with Gramps and long wrestling sessions with me. When my mother sat me down one day to tell me that Lolo had proposed and wanted us to move with him to a faraway place, I wasn’t surprised and expressed no objections. I did ask her if she loved him—I had been around long enough to know such things were important. My mother’s chin trembled, as it still does when she’s fighting back tears, and she pulled me into a long hug that made me feel very brave, although I wasn’t sure why.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  He snaked along the floor into the deep end, weaving between legs with his eyes shut. He slithered between calves, nose-bumped someone’s ankle. Up on the surface, someone said, My god, there’s something down here, and the pool was evacuated by the lifeguard, who mistook my father’s submerged body for some kind of escaped reptile. Years ago in California, my father taught us to swim this way: He plugged the sink with a cucumber, filled it to the brim, pushed both our heads in. I heard my brother exhale underwater, his lungs orphaning their air, my tongue swelling into a mouth-plug. When we struggled, he pushed our heads in deeper, one hand holding my brother’s wrists behind his back, his weaker hand holding mine. My brother buckled first, dropped to his knees, water ribboning out of his lungs. I buried my breath deeper in my belly. When I finally came up, my wrists were free. My father stood behind me, my brother kneeling beside him, wet from the neck up. I kneeled beside my brother. Longer next time, my father said. The longer you can hold it, the farther you’ll go. He twisted a kitchen towel into a rope, wet it in the sink, whipped us until it was dry. _ The night bruised its kneecap moon. My brother woke up and saw a white kite leaning on the wall beside the bed. My father had left it there for me, so that I’d wake and see it before light: the kite he’d packed and brought all the way from California. Maybe he thought it would remind me of when we flew together, or maybe he thought I’d mistake the wingspan of white paper for a ghost and leave sooner. When my brother saw the kite there, he tore it apart. He snapped the frame made of disposable chopsticks. Stop, please stop, I said, and ran forward to save what I could, which was nothing. I crouched on the carpeted floor and brushed the kite-confetti into a neat pile at my knees. Above me, my brother’s breath was backfiring, unable to leave his lungs. I asked my brother why, looking up at his shadow-battered face. My brother didn’t answer. He just said, Why did he bring that here? I wanted to tell him, Because he missed me and not you. Because he knows that I can fly, too. But instead, I bent and plucked paper from between the floorboards. I didn’t want my father to find the pieces and think it was me. Go back to bed, I said, but my brother just looked at me. The apartment was still black, but the sky outside was beginning to dull into a dime-colored day.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  I could see my mother squinting back and forth between me and the window, calculating if she could toss me in too, but then all the lights in the house opened their eyes. The hole in the window filled with Ama’s face. She stood looking out at us, our faces reflected next to hers in the glass. Barefoot and bathrobed, hair in pink curlers, her face was narrower than my mother’s, cheekbones hanging their shadows. She looked at us through the hole in the window as if we were the weather forecast, expected. The air had tattled on us, and now she darted her tongue in and out of her mouth, licking at our evaporated sweat, tasting the hard kernels of rain inside our veins. The knife in her left fist was upright, like some flower she had just picked for us. My brother walked back to the car and started it, a sound we thought was far away in someone else’s night. Let’s go home, he said, and my mother didn’t turn her head. Ama opened the door, beckoned us in with her blade. The night beat us inside, stars sprinkling themselves like salt all over her carpet. I’d slit a hole in my skirt for the tail to slide out, a knife to draw on her throat before she could use her own. Tapping at the root of my tail, I told it to get ready. My mother shouldered past Ama. We followed her to the left, my brother running back to join us, the car still running. We went down the hall so narrow we walked sideways, comical as crabs. There was a smell like singed hair, Ama’s curlers filling with smoke. All the walls were exposed brick, rough and dark as scabs. My mother told me that one summer, Ama had asked Agong to paint the interior a color closer to the sky, any color but white. Agong went to the store for paint and came back with a hammer instead. Ama threw the hammer at him, its silver head gouging the brick wall behind him. Now, as we walked toward Agong, my mother petted each wall as we passed it, trying to find that old injury, that hole in the brick where she used to hide cigarettes, coins, a highway map. She’d planted pieces of her past inside the wall, waiting for the house to grow a future worth staying for. We stopped before the bedroom door, Ama behind my left shoulder, walking so close to my tail that I wanted to turn and bind her wrists together with it. We could smell Agong behind the bedroom door, a mulch of shit and sweat. Our mother opened the door and the smell coiled back, hit like a fist.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  Anywhere and anyone could be a target. This unpredictability—and this exceedingly public display of trauma—changed our sense of stability forevermore. And even though Generation Z might not have as much conscious recollection of the experience, they’ve now grown up in a world where their parents had to internalize such brutal terrorism. I’ve had so many clients report that 9/11 was a transformative event that changed how they viewed the world. It was the first time their anxiety really kicked into high gear. We lost our sense of control (which was never exactly there to begin with). Even now, I see clients go into panic attacks when they hear that Kim Jong-un is testing missiles again. Folks feel chaos when they hear that Putin continues to invade Ukraine. In the United States, it’s rare that we go a week without hearing of some mass shooting—the only questions are how close was it this time and how many people died or were wounded. The unpredictability of violence is enough to unnerve us all. So it makes sense that we’ve got more anticipatory anxiety than before—we never know whether this will be the last time we’re hugging our loved ones. When it comes to loss, especially unexpected and tragic loss, it’s practically impossible to know when that day will come. This is where we have a choice to make, though—and this is where your empowerment lies. We can choose to constantly fight the idea that we might lose our loved ones tragically or experience a profound loss. Or, we can choose to accept the reality that anything is possible. This doesn’t mean that we operate devoid of logic. While anything can happen, we can keep in mind that the likelihood of our worst fears coming true is actually fairly low. For example, you’re more likely to die from an accidental opioid overdose than a car crash. The odds of dying from gun violence is, on average, 0.0045 percent. And dying from being a passenger on an airplane? According to the National Safety Council, there were too few deaths in 2020 to even calculate the odds. 194,195 At the same time, we have to acknowledge that we live in a world with disease, natural disasters, and heartbreak. One in six will die from heart disease and one in seven will die from cancer. A statistic that floored me was learning that in 2020, one in twelve people died from COVID-19. 196 In addition, in 2021 the Emergency Events Database reported that there were 432 natural disasters throughout the world, impacting 101.8 million people, with 10,492 people dying. 197 And the reality that we will all, at some point, lose someone we love dearly? One hundred percent. Even though it’s inevitable, it can be hard to accept nonetheless.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  Through all the panic attacks, shaking, relentless ruminating, and checking behaviors—I was doing it. I was still here, getting through each day. It may not have been a pretty picture and I could shame myself for not handling my anxiety “better.” But the fact of the matter is this: I am facing my fear. I have to—and that is the choice I am bravely making. If that isn’t working through anxiety, I don’t know what is. And sure enough, when I did in fact get sick, I saw how I survived through it. It wasn’t comfortable, and I’m in no rush to do it again, but it became clear that my fear of the possibility of throwing up was much worse than the actual reality. Exposure therapy at its best. I don’t know what the future will hold. I’m only nine weeks pregnant as I write this, and I know that I have many waves to still ride through. Some may knock the wind out of me. But I will still keep facing forward. Wave after wave, I choose bravery. I hope you will choose your bravery, too. Some days you may resent that you need to be brave and some days you may wonder what small crevice inside of you will hold your last stockpile of it. But your bravery is there, just as much as, if not more than, the anxiety that also lies within. Both coexist. As we face our fears, we can see our ultimate strength. And if you feel like you haven’t chosen bravery? I’d rethink that. Saying no to plans, taking time to rest when we are pressured to always do more, and lying low can also be brave. Being still enough to sit with your thoughts, rather than run yourself ragged into busyness, is brave. In my case, if I had chosen to not have a child, that would have been a brave decision as well. When you say no it doesn’t mean you’re making that choice out of fear. There can be just as much power in refraining. Sometimes our fear does win, though. We all have operated out of anxiety and when that happens, the best thing we can do is bravely love ourselves, even if we feel frustrated toward ourselves at the same time. When you feel like you have failed yourself, decide to give yourself compassion rather than shame. If you’ve been hiding away from yourself, now is the time to be extra kind. You are not going to find your bravery by mentally beating yourself up. Maybe you have been running away today, but that doesn’t mean that tomorrow, this next hour— this next minute—can’t bring a different choice for you.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  But these tuppenyha’ penny impersonators - Fannie Leslie, Fanny Robina, Bessie Bonehill, Millie Hylton - they look about as natural in their dinner-jackets as I would, clad in a crinoline or a bustle. It makes me rage’ - he was seated in our little parlour as he spoke, and here he slapped the arm of his chair, so that the ancient seams gave a fart of dust and hair - ‘it makes me rage to see girls with a tenth of your talent getting all the bookings that should be yours - and worse! all the fame.’ He stood, and placed his hands upon Kitty’s shoulders. ‘You are on the very edge of stardom,’ he said, giving her a little push so that she had to grasp his arms to stop herself from falling. ‘There must be something, something that we can do to just propel you over - something we can add to your act to set it apart from that of all those other prancing schoolgirls!’But, however hard we worked, we could not find it; and meanwhile Kitty continued at the lesser theatres, in the humbler districts - Islington, Marylebone, Battersea, Peckham, Hackney - circling Leicester Square, crossing the West End on her nightly trips from hall to hall, but never entering those palaces of her and Walter’s dreams: the Alhambra, and the Empire.To be honest, I didn’t much mind. I was sorry, for Kitty’s sake, that her great new London career was not quite so great as she had hoped for; but I was also, privately, relieved. I knew how clever and charming and lovely she was, and while a part of me wanted, like Walter, to share the knowledge with the world, a greater part longed only to hug it to myself, to keep it secret and secure. For I was sure that, were she truly famous, I would lose her. I didn’t like it when her fans sent flowers, or clamoured at the stage door for photographs and kisses; more fame would bring more flowers, more kisses - and I could not believe that she would go on laughing at the gentlemen’s invitations, could not believe that one day, amongst all those admiring girls, there wouldn’t be one she would like better then me ...If she were famous, too, then she would also be richer. She might buy a house - we should have to leave Ginevra Road and all our new friends in it; we should have to leave our little sitting-room; we should have to leave our bed, and take separate chambers. I could not bear the thought of it. I had grown used, at last, to sleeping with Kitty at my side. I no longer trembled, or grew stiff and awkward, when she touched me, but had learned to lean into her embraces, to accept her kisses, chastely, nonchalantly - and even, sometimes, to return them. I had grown used to the sight of her slumbering or undressed.