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

  vb. (mostly poet. and fig.) seek‏ הקהז refuge (Ar. (> M1. is set aside; v. go aside,‏ --(ס = )1 apart ; = shelter, protection 5 but‏ ;7 +דחָסִיתִיד סיה 35 ;64% שיח ג Dt 32%; Impf. MBN‏ חָסִיי ב Zp‏ "37 ש חָסי pl.‏ NBD y 91+, NBME / 57° (see Baer 134"),‏ ,34% ¥ 2t.; pl. WM Is 14%, POM y 36°;‏ +*18 ץ NOMS‏ t.; pe.‏ 118543 ץ חסות Jug”; Inf.‏ חסו .טאו t.;‏ 17743 ץ חוסים ,145 ע NOW Ts 578, ADA‏ Pr 30° 2S 22% (see Baer Pr 30°), ‘Pin‏ חסִים (DA Na 17:—seek refuge, c. 3: 232 in‏ ”5 2% ש D3 Is 30°;‏ מצרים the shadow of a tree Ju g®,‏ Wa Is 14% in Zion, in gods Dt 327 (poem),‏ elsewhere in God 2S 22%= 18%; Nar’ p2”‏ p02 G4 yy!‏ "37 24923 372% 25% !16 )11 72 52 מגן הוא ל(כל ה)חופים בו ;157% ,1442 141° ?118° a shield is he to (all) who seek refuge in him‏ =y18", Pr 30°; “2 is probably to be‏ 227 28 supplied in thought at least: מושיע חוסים‎ - saviour of those seeking refuge (in thee);‏ '17 ץצ Pr 14” a righteous man in‏ הסה במותו צדיק בשם יי" his death seeketh refuge (in Yahweh),‏ in the shadow of thy wings‏ בצל כנפיף ,”3 Zp‏ under‏ תחת כנפיו ,61° 4 בסתר כנפיך ;36°57° ¥ 9t*= Ru 2”.‏ ?ו his wings‏ n.pr.m. (refuge)—name of one‏ .1 חסהז of the Levitical doorkeepers of the temple‏ Ch 16% 267% | 2. n.pr.loc. place in the‏ 1 tribe of Asher Jos19™; site unknown; © 10046‏ A 20000 GL Qoa.‏ 1 חסוּת‎ af. refuge;—D 3p bya monn Ts 30° (|| AYIB (ְמָעוּז‎ Tren n.m.*** refuge, shelter ;—abs. 2 טנ‎ 24*+ 5%; TONY 4674 2 6.; estr. NBN Ts 28"; sf.°BMD ש‎ 625+ 5 t.; ץ מכחסי‎ 717 Je 17”, IBID y 14°, VID 15 28°;—shelter: a. from. rain and storm 15 4° 25‘ 170 24% b. from danger 340 pon pay MBM) pydp rocks a refuge for conies מחסה כזב ;104% ץ‎ refuge of falsehood 18 28%; DN כזב‎ falsehood our refugels 28"; elsewhere of God as the refuge of his people ~ 14° 46% 61* 625° 717 73” g1?* 947 142° Prig” 6 ו‎ Jo 1% Tron n.pr.m. )' 78 6 refuge) ancestor of Baruch and Seraiah Je32™ (Baer DMD) 51%, Tf DIT] vb. finish off, consume (Aram. חִפָל‎ come to an end, Aph. bring to an end)— Qal הָאַרְבָּה זע‎ 320M Dt 28° of locusts destroying crops. | thon n.m. a kind of locust (sg. coll.), alw. abs. “n, and alw. as destructive; 1 K 8% = 2 01 6* y78* (all |[ TZ), 70 1* 2% (||P, MAW, OY); ef. 07 DN Is 334 the gathering of the locust, in sim. of despoiling of Assyria ) || 5°22).

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

  Barnabas introduced him to the disciples, who at first were afraid of him, but when they heard of his marvellous conversion they "glorified God" that their persecutor was now preaching the faith he had once been laboring to destroy.412 He did not come to learn the gospel, having received it already by revelation, nor to be confirmed or ordained, having been called "not from men, or through man, but through Jesus Christ." Yet his interview with Peter and James, though barely mentioned, must have been fraught with the deepest interest. Peter, kind-hearted and generous as he was, would naturally receive him with joy and thanksgiving. He had himself once denied the Lord—not malignantly but from weakness—as Paul had persecuted the disciples—ignorantly in unbelief. Both had been mercifully pardoned, both had seen the Lord, both were called to the highest dignity, both could say from the bottom of the heart: "Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." No doubt they would exchange their experiences and confirm each other in their common faith. It was probably on this visit that Paul received in a vision in the temple the express command of the Lord to go quickly unto the Gentiles.413 Had he stayed

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

  36 Considered a first-line intervention for OCD (and many other anxious presentations, such as social anxiety, panic disorder, and phobias, among others), ERP is all about helping us expose ourselves to what we fear and then not engaging in the compulsive behaviors that have previously, though temporarily, alleviated our distress. An example would be having the thought that you could be developing psychosis (a common one I see in folks who have family members with psychosis and/or mania) and then choosing not to google potential symptoms of psychosis onset for the third time today. Another example is confirming one time that you locked the door, instead of five times, when you’re on your way to work. If this sounds hard—it is. ERP can be very challenging, but it’s one of the most effective modalities. Here’s why: when you choose to sit with the discomfort of facing your obsessive thoughts, you learn that they no longer have to hold power over you. Over time, you start to see your compulsive behaviors are no longer necessary to make yourself feel better. Why? Because you’re learning to trust yourself. Each time you don’t check, wash, or put things in order, you see that time goes on and you survived. The world didn’t fall apart. You are learning that you can live with the anxiety, even if the waters you’re in feel chilly. This is where I love to pull in some of the skills from dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT. Initially developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan for borderline personality disorder treatment, one of the core tenets of DBT includes “distress tolerance skills,” where we learn how to get comfortable being uncomfortable. 37 Yep, it’s as simple (and difficult) as it sounds. When we understand that we don’t have to run away from our pain, we learn that the pain isn’t often as bad as our brains have built it up to be. We start to see that getting our blood drawn when we have a needle phobia, letting down a friend when we have social anxiety, or, yes, even having a panic attack is survivable. They’re not a good time, but we still can endure, as much as our anxiety would like us to believe otherwise. This is something Luís really struggled with at first. He was afraid of letting go of his compulsive behaviors because he felt that they were keeping a protective layer over him. He worried that without his excessive handwashing, circling the block, and text-message checking, things really would fall apart. I told him we would take it slow. If you’re starting to do this work yourself, I suggest that you take it slow, too.

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

  Sometimes they do, but even then God remains our unfailing hope. Cancer can come against us, yet by God’s power, it will not win, at least not in the end. A spouse may be unfaithful, yet by God’s power, infidelity won’t define our lives. Financial crisis can come against us, yet by God’s power, we can move forward. Disillusionment and doubt can come against us, yet by God’s power, they won’t have the last word. My sister-in-law, Ashley, reads Corrie ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place every year. She says it reminds her that, no matter what the coming months hold for her and her family, God is enough. Recently, as I confided in her some of my fears about one of my kids, she reminded me of this story Corrie told in the book: Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. “Corrie,” he began gently, “when you and I go to Amsterdam—when do I give you your ticket?” I sniffed a few times, considering this. “Why, just before we get on the train.” “Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need—just in time.”20 We always have exactly what we need, when we need it. Do we believe that? If we believe we have a choice to trust instead of fear, then how will choosing to trust cause us to live? We will live in what is true of us, which is that we have the mind of Christ. Paul declared this to be true in Philippians 2:5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus”! So what do we do when we start to spin? We do the work. We risk telling someone, even if what we’re worrying about sounds silly. We actively choose to close the curtain on fearful, untrue thoughts. We remind ourselves who God is, and we cast our anxieties on Him.21 You may have to do this a hundred times a day. And we claim the peace of God as our promise. After my recent Sunday evening bout with anxiety, I “phoned a friend.” Callie listened as I said it all, even that last 2 percent that made me feel ashamed. And then she laughed a little and said, “Okay, Jennie. That is a lie from the devil. And you are not going to let this paralyze you anymore!” She fought for me, and when I couldn’t pull myself out, she lifted me out.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I have to do it. It’s time for her to drop all her feathers, one by one, and grow new ones. She needs to be fat and full of food to grow her new plumage, so all week I’ve been giving her as much quail and pheasant as she can eat. She’s round as a turkey now, and part of me has been waiting for her to get wild. A fat goshawk is a wild goshawk, say the books. They are wrong. Of course they are. Mabel’s less willing to tolerate strangers in this fed-up state, but she’s still as tame as a kitten with me. This morning we played throw and catch with paper balls, and for the last hour she’s been snoozing on my fist while I watch bad TV. ‘Right, Mabel,’ I say. ‘Bedtime.’ I put her on her perch in the other room, switch off the light and go upstairs to bed. Some things are too terrifying to comprehend. Seconds can pass in disbelief as the world you live in turns into a lie. At just past one in the morning I’m having one of the worst nightmares of my life. My dreams lately have been small and full of light, but in this one, someone – something, for it cannot be human – has taken hold of the end of my bed and is shaking it, shaking it hard, trying to pitch me to the floor. It is the feeling in the dream that terrifies me most of all. It is not like a nightmare. It is worse. I wake with a start. Something is still shaking my bed. I can see it move, hear it creaking. There is no one in the room. Every inch of my skin crawls with terror. I am shaking and unable to move. The wrongness is indescribable. The fear is falling through a thousand feet of air. The bed is still shaking, senselessly, violently, horribly, impossibly. Then it stops. For a few seconds I lie there, stricken. I have not been breathing, I realise. I take a vast gulp of shuddering air. The lampshade above me is swinging in circles still. Then a flash of understanding. An earthquake. It was an earthquake. Here, in England. They hardly ever happen here, do they? Was it definitely an earthquake? It must have been. Yes. I still can’t quite believe it. I jump out of bed and peer through the curtains. Lights are on in all the houses. People in the street are wandering fearfully in pyjamas. The phone rings, and I pick it up, and it is Christina. ‘Earthquake!’ she yells. ‘Did you feel it?’

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  41 good will to produce meritorious works of love. Although all our good works are outgrowths of grace, our salvation requires merit as well as grace. This is possible because the initial gift of grace, called “operative grace,” works a change in our hearts, turning our wills toward the good. Augustine taught that grace and free will were compatible, but not everyone agrees that his doctrine of grace really is compatible with an adequate concept of free will. He insists that this is not coercion, for it does not mean overcoming the unwilling but inwardly causing the unwilling to become willing. Hence on Augustine’s view, God can cause us to will freely in a different way than we had before. This view of free will is deemed inadequate by those who think a truly free will is one that is ultimately in its own control. Augustine’s notorious doctrine of predestination grows out of his doctrine of grace. Since the initial gift of grace does not depend in any way on our good will or merits, it is up to God who receives it. It is therefore God’s choice that ultimately differentiates between the saved and the damned; this idea is known as the doctrine of “election.” Augustine argues that this divine choice or “election” treats people unequally but not unjustly, because no one gets worse than they deserve (since all are born deserving damnation), and some get undeserved mercy. This divine choice is not made in response to unfolding events but is, like all God’s choices, an eternal and unchanging plan that he carries out when the time comes. The name for this unchanging plan of God concerning how he will distribute the gifts of grace is predestination. Why God chooses to save one person rather than another is, by Augustine’s own account, an unsearchable and frightening mystery. Augustine’s view of grace is supported by his view of evil as a kind of nonbeing; evil is a form of privation like darkness, lack, absence, or disorder. He ¿ gures that since God created all things, whatever exists is good. Since nothing God creates is evil, evil must not be a created thing, and therefore not a thing at all, but a lack of something. This does not mean evil is unreal, Grace causes the will to fall in love with what makes us truly, eternally happy—our one true love.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  It was more ghastly than the image of the jeering hall; more ghastly than the prospect of being laughed and hissed off a thousand, thousand stages... So when Kitty stood in the wing of the theatre that night, waiting for the chairman’s cry, I stood beside her, sweating beneath a layer of grease-paint, biting my lips so hard I thought they would bleed. My heart had beat fast for Kitty before, in apprehension and passion; but it had never thudded as it thudded now - I thought it would burst right out of my breast, I thought I should be killed with fright. When Walter came to whisper to us, and to fill our pockets with coins, I could not answer him. There was a juggling turn upon the stage. I heard the creaking of the boards as the man ran to catch his batons, the clap-gasp-clap-gasp- cheer of the audience as he finished his set; and then came the clack of a gavel, and the juggler ran by us, clutching his gear. Kitty said once, very low, ‘I love you!’ - and I felt myself half-pulled, half-thrust beneath the rising curtain, and knew that I must somehow saunter and sing.At first, so blinded was I by the lights, I couldn’t see the crowd at all; I could only hear it, rustling and murmuring - loud, and close, it seemed, on every side. When at last I stepped for a second out of the glare of lime, and saw all the faces that were turned my way, I almost faltered and lost my place - and would have done, I think, had not Kitty at that moment pressed my arm and murmured, ‘We have them! Listen!’ under cover of the orchestra. I did listen then - and realised that, unbelievably, she was right: there were claps, and friendly shouts; there was a rising hum of expectant pleasure as we worked towards our chorus; there was, finally, a bubbling cascade of cheers and laughter from gallery to pit.The sound affected me like nothing I had ever known before. At once, I remembered the foolish dance that I had failed, all day, to learn, and left off leaning on my stick to join Kitty in her stroll before the footlights. I understood, too, what Walter had wanted of us in the wing: as the new song drew to a close I advanced with Kitty to the front of the stage, drew out the coins that he had tipped into my pocket - they were only chocolate sovereigns, of course, but covered in foil to make them glitter - and cast them into the laughing crowd.

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

  Il. ON adv. of negation (so Ph. e.g. CIS 15458 BAram., Sab. (DH M74"), and in the Eth. AAO; albo, is not), denying however, not objectively as a fact (like לא‎ ov), but sub- jectively as a wish (like py), expressing there- fore a deprecation or prohibition: a. (a) with a verb, which is then always an impf. (never an imperative), by preference in the cohort. or jussive mood, where this is in use, and may be of any person or number; Gn 15) and often אַלִדִתִּירָא‎ fear not! 22° יר‎ novin-by put not forth thy hand, 37” אלְדִתְּהַירבו‎ I) and let not our hand 26 upon him, 21" ANTON let me not look upon the death of the lad! 25? אַלַהאָבוּשָה‎ let me not be ashamed; with 1 pl. (rare) 2813*Je18*Jon1™. In animprecation: Gn אַלְתוּתַר *ף4‎ have not thou the excellency! צ‎ 109" Jb3**. :נָא‎ Gn 13° 18% al. (6) without a verb, (a) 2S "ד‎ let (there be) not dew & not rain upon you! Is62°y83'. (8) used absol., in deprecation Gn 19% 2813” (v. sub TNS) 2 K 3% 4% 67 (v. RVm: but possibly to be expl. by Dr§*?""; so Th Ke: hardly as Ew5***) Ru 18°33 OS Na Ys my daughters, cf. Jurg™; (y) after a preceding imper. Am 5% Jo 2° Pr 8”, a juss. 277, an inf. “abs. 27°. (c) in poetry אל‎ sometimes expresses vividly the emotion or sympathy of the poet (v. Dr'**); Is 2° ond ְאַלִדְתִּטָא‎ and forgive them not ! (with a touch of passion), ¥ 41° Pr 3” Jb 55; 34° (but ₪ S Ew Che here rd. 03°355, prob. rightly); 50°* may our God come “ON יחרש‎ and not be silent! (the psalmist identify- ing himself with a spectator of the scene 21%ז (9ל%?צ‎ (contrast v* (לא‎ 16 46++., b. once ז ע'1‎ 25 joined closely to a subst. (cf. 89 20( to express with emph. its negation: In the way of righteousness is life, and in the path- way thereof אַלִִמָוָת‎ there is no-death! i.e. immortality. ¢. once Jb 24” used poet. as a subst., And bring my words DND to nought ! —N.B. ז‎ S 27” אַלְדפְּשַמְתֶּם הָיוּם‎ ON with the pf. is against all analogy; and either אלמי‎ (with GY), or better jS whither? (with GT: v. 1 ₪ 1o™) must be read. N (nearly always followed by Makkeph), Sometimes strengthened by |

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

  Another fall, another winter. I had recovered from the disappointments of the asbestos campaign, developed other issues and found other leaders. Johnnie’s presence had helped relieve my workload, and our budget was stable; what I’d lost in youthful enthusiasm I made up for in experience. And in fact, it may have been that growing familiarity with the landscape, the counsel of time, that gave me the sense that something different was going on with the children of the South Side that spring of 1987; that an invisible line had been crossed, a blind and ugly corner turned. There was nothing definite I could point to, no hard statistics. The drive-by shootings, the ambulance sirens, the night sounds of neighborhoods abandoned to drugs and gang war and phantom automobiles, where police or press rarely ventured until after the body was found on the pavement, blood spreading in a glistening, uneven pool—none of this was new. In places like Altgeld, prison records had been passed down from father to son for more than a generation; during my very first days in Chicago I had seen the knots of young men, fifteen or sixteen, hanging out on the corners of Michigan or Halsted, their hoods up, their sneakers unlaced, stomping the ground in a desultory rhythm during the colder months, stripped down to T-shirts in the summer, answering their beepers on the corner pay phones: a knot that unraveled, soon to reform, whenever the police cars passed by in their barracuda silence. No, it was more a change of atmosphere, like the electricity of an approaching storm. I felt it when, driving home one evening, I saw four tall boys walking down a tree-lined block idly snapping a row of young saplings that an older couple had just finished planting in front of their house. I felt it whenever I looked into the eyes of the young men in wheelchairs that had started appearing on the streets that spring, boys crippled before their prime, their eyes without a trace of self-pity, eyes so composed, already so hardened, that they served to frighten rather than to inspire. That’s what was new: the arrival of a new equilibrium between hope and fear; the sense, shared by adults and youth alike, that some, if not most, of our boys were slipping beyond rescue. Even lifelong South Siders like Johnnie noticed the change. “I ain’t never seen it like this, Barack,” he would tell me one day as we sat in his apartment sipping beer. “I mean, things were tough when I was coming up, but there were limits. We’d get high, get into fights. But out in public, at home, if an adult saw you getting loud or wild, they would say something. And most of us would listen, you know what I’m saying?

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

  Others affirmed her perspective. They were a little worried that if they didn’t keep their guard up, people would see their naivete and they would be targeted. That’s fair, I thought. I’ll never forget what Elizabeth, another of our team, then said, “So what? Wouldn’t you be happier?” Elizabeth is made of sunshine and sweetness, always smiling, always kind; of course she’d say something like this. Yet something about her response rang true. She was right: the alternative to a life unguarded is self-preservation and debilitating pessimism. Who wants to live that way? The Transforming Power of Awe Cynicism has become esteemed in our culture, as if we’ve concluded the cynics know something the rest of us don’t. They are prepared and guarded and aware at a level that the rest of us are too flighty to grasp. But at its core, cynicism isn’t so wonderful. In fact, it’s not wonderful at all. Cynicism is always driven by fear of the future or by anger regarding the past. Either we’re afraid of something that might not ever occur, or we project something that has occurred onto all the days that are to come. We buy into the lie that it’s too risky to be vulnerable or hope for good things. Brené Brown calls this foreboding joy. “Scarcity and fear drive foreboding joy,” she wrote in her book Daring Greatly. We’re afraid that the feeling of joy won’t last, or that there won’t be enough, or that the transition to disappointment (or whatever is in store for us next) will be too difficult. We’ve learned that giving in to joy is, at best, setting ourselves up for disappointment and, at worst, inviting disaster.1 The enemy’s strategy is to flood our thoughts with visions of all that is wrong in this broken, fallen world to the point we don’t even think to look for the positive anymore. Cynicism just becomes the way we think, and we don’t even notice. Here are some questions to ask yourself to see whether cynicism has invaded your headspace: Do you get annoyed when people are optimistic? When someone is nice to you, do you wonder what that person wants? Do you constantly feel misunderstood? When things are going well, are you waiting for the bottom to fall out? Do you quickly notice people’s flaws? Do you worry about getting taken advantage of? Are you guarded when you meet someone new? Do you wonder why people just can’t get it together? Are you often sarcastic? Cynicism is destroying our ability to delight in the world around us and fully engage with others. God has an abundance of joy and delight for us, and we’re missing it with arms crossed. What if there was another way to live?

• 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)

  prophecy should be a science based on biblical data. The Dispensationalists are famous for their literalism, but they do not take the imagery of the book of Revelation literally. Rather, they take the numbers in prophetic books of the Bible as precise indications of the date of future events. Thus biblical interpretation follows the commonsense model of science: First gather the facts or data, then work out the best theory to fit them. Dispensationalism is most noted for its premillennialism, an eschatology of the imminent return of Christ prior to a millennium of Christian rule on earth. The millennium is a golden age coming at the end of history, mentioned in Revelation 20:4. The predominant view among Dispensationalists is that the rapture, when Christians will be taken secretly to heaven, will occur before the tribulation, to spare them. During the tribulation many Jews, living in their homeland, will be converted to Christ and then persecuted. The tribulation will be ended by the return of Christ and the beginning of the millennium on earth. In the premillennialist view, Christ will come before the millennium, putting an end to a period of tribulation described in the book of Revelation. = 113 Protestantism after Modernity Lecture 32 Nn We need to trace a trajectory for Protestant theology after modernity. Of course, I am thinking of the intellectual movement, the intellectuals in the West who tend to think that we are now post-modern, that we are living in an era after modernity. That is an interesting question to raise. Are we living in an era after modernity? odernity has an intimate relationship with Protestantism. Protestantism helps beget modernity in part by dividing Christendom against itself. Christendom is a society and politics that sees itself as Christian, with specifically Christian responsibilities. In a divided Christendom, it is hard for members of society to discern their Christian responsibilities. Modernity is secular in part because the Christian religion was no longer effective as the ground of unity in much of the West after the Reformation. Christendom secularizes itself as Christians find increasingly weighty reasons not to want an established church, thus generating an increasingly secular politics. In the Enlightenment, Deists advocate natural religion, which is in effect a secularized version of Christianity. The early Deists’ idea that natural religion was the true and original Christianity is historically preposterous. But equally preposterous is the idea that it represents natural and universal reason, when it is obviously a set of Western ideas derived from Christianity—as any non-Westerner can easily see. The Deists thus make the typically modern mistake of regarding distinctively Western Christian ideas as natural truths of reason. The mistake is easy to make, because what modern secularism secularizes is always some aspect of Christendom, which means what is left after the secularization is some residue of Christianity. A fully postmodern society will be fully post-Christian, no longer mistaking residues of Western Christian thought for universal truths of reason.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Then she turned; and soon I lost her to the crowd. I turned then, too, and headed back into the tent. I saw Zena first, making her way out into the sunshine, and then Ralph and Mrs Costello, walking very slowly side by side. I didn’t stop to speak to them; I only smiled, and stepped purposefully towards the row of chairs in which I had left Florence.But when I reached it, Florence was not there. And when I looked around, I could not see her anywhere.‘Annie,’ I called - for she and Miss Raymond had drifted over to join the group of toms beside the platform - ‘Annie, where’s Flo?’Annie gazed about the tent, then shrugged. ‘She was here a minute ago,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see her leave.’ There was only one exit from the tent; she must have passed me while I was gazing after Kitty, too preoccupied to notice her ...I felt my heart give a lurch: it seemed to me suddenly that if I didn’t find Florence at once, I would lose her for ever. I ran from the tent into the field, and gazed wildly about me. I recognised Mrs Macey in the crowd, and stepped up to her. Had she seen Florence? She had not. I saw Mrs Fryer again: had she seen Florence? She thought perhaps she had spotted her a moment before, heading off, with the little boy, towards Bethnal Green ...I didn’t stop to thank her, but hurried away - shouldering my way through the crush of people, stumbling and cursing and sweating with panic and haste. I passed the Shafts stall again - did not turn my head, this time, to see whether Diana was still at it, with her new boy - but only walked steadily onwards, searching for a glimpse of Florence’s jacket or glittering hair, or Cyril’s sash.At last I left the thickest crowd behind, and found myself in the western half of the park, near the boating-lake. Here, heedless of the speeches and the debates that were taking place within the tents and around the stalls, boys and girls sat in boats, or swam, shrieking and splashing and larking about. Here, too, there were a number of benches; and on one of them - I almost cried out to see it! - sat Florence, with Cyril a little way before her, dipping his hands and the frill of his skirt into the water of the lake. I stood for a moment to get my breath back, to pull off my hat and wipe at my damp brow and temples; then I walked slowly over.Cyril saw me first, and waved and shouted.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  The concept of purgatory arose from practices of prayer for the dead. In an influential 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 purification, 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 purification 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. = Suggested Reading 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. Questions to Consider 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? PDF created by Rajesh Arya - Gujarat Lecture 19: Luther and Protestant Theology Luther and Protestant Theology Lecture 19 [Martin Luther] doesn’t mean to begin a Reformation; at least, he doesn’t mean to cause a split in the church. He does mean to improve the church like any other good Christian, but he starts a new Christian movement that he hadn’t intended. he transition from medieval theology to Protestantism is marked most importantly by a single famous figure, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Luther was a monk upholding the authority of the pope. He did not set out to create a split in the church. He criticized the sale of indulgences because they detracted from true inward penance of the heart. In 1517, he put his 95 Theses on a church door. These criticisms were meant as an invitation for disputation. Luther’s theology matured in the next several years, at the same time as his growing conflict with the pope. The most distinctive theme in Luther’s theology is the contrast between two forms of the word of God: Law and Gospel. The Law is God telling us what we are to do, whereas the Gospel is God telling us what Christ does for us. The Law of God comes in two forms or uses. The first use of the Law, called the “civil” use, is concerned with a outward deeds, prohibiting murder, portrait of Martin Luther, who theft, etc. criticized indulgence in his 95 Theses.

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

  Her efforts now redoubled. Five days a week, she came into my room at four in the morning, force-fed me breakfast, and proceeded to teach me my English lessons for three hours before I left for school and she went to work. I offered stiff resistance to this regimen, but in response to every strategy I concocted, whether unconvincing (“My stomach hurts”) or indisputably true (my eyes kept closing every five minutes), she would patiently repeat her most powerful defense: “This is no picnic for me either, buster.” Then there were the periodic concerns with my safety, the voice of my grandmother ascendant. I remember coming home after dark one day to find a large search party of neighbors that had been assembled in our yard. My mother didn’t look happy, but she was so relieved to see me that it took her several minutes to notice a wet sock, brown with mud, wrapped around my forearm. “What’s that?” “What?” “That. Why do you have a sock wrapped around your arm?” “I cut myself.” “Let’s see.” “It’s not that bad.” “Barry. Let me see it.” I unwrapped the sock, exposing a long gash that ran from my wrist to my elbow. It had missed the vein by an inch, but ran deeper at the muscle, where pinkish flesh pulsed out from under the skin. Hoping to calm her down, I explained what had happened: A friend and I had hitchhiked out to his family’s farm, and it started to rain, and on the farm was a terrific place to mudslide, and there was this barbed wire that marked the farm’s boundaries, and…. “Lolo!” My mother laughs at this point when she tells this story, the laughter of a mother forgiving her child those sins that have passed. But her tone alters slightly as she remembers that Lolo suggested we wait until morning to get me stitched up, and that she had to browbeat our only neighbor with a car to drive us to the hospital. She remembers that most of the lights were out at the hospital when we arrived, with no receptionist in sight; she recalls the sound of her frantic footsteps echoing through the hallway until she finally found two young men in boxer shorts playing dominoes in a small room in the back. When she asked them where the doctors were, the men cheerfully replied “We are the doctors” and went on to finish their game before slipping on their trousers and giving me twenty stitches that would leave an ugly scar. And through it all was the pervading sense that her child’s life might slip away when she wasn’t looking, that everyone else around her would be too busy trying to survive to notice—that, when it counted, she would have plenty of sympathy but no one beside her who believed in fighting against a threatening fate.