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 354 of 529 · 20 per page

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

  I started making up some excuse. “Oh, I, uh, forgot to bring the form home—” “Don’t lie to me. Why did you forge your mom’s signature?” I started stammering out more bullshit, oblivious to what was coming, and then out of nowhere it came. The first blow hit me in the ribs. My mind flashed: It’s a trap! I’d never been in a fight before, had never learned how to fight, but I had this instinct that told me to get in close. I had seen what those long arms could do. I’d seen him take down my mom, but more important, I’d seen him take down grown men. Abel never hit people with a punch; I never saw him punch another person with a closed fist. But he had this ability to hit a grown man across his face with an open hand and they’d crumple. He was that strong. I looked at his arms and I knew, Don’t be on the other end of those things. I ducked in close and he kept hitting and hitting, but I was in too tight for him to land any solid blows. Then he caught on and he stopped hitting and started trying to grapple and wrestle me. He did this thing where he grabbed the skin on my arms and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and twisted hard. Jesus, that hurt. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I had never been that scared before, ever. Because there was no purpose to it—that’s what made it so terrifying. It wasn’t discipline. Nothing about it was coming from a place of love. It didn’t feel like something that would end with me learning a lesson about forging my mom’s signature. It felt like something that would end when he wanted it to end, when his rage was spent. It felt like there was something inside him that wanted to destroy me. Abel was much bigger and stronger than me, but being in a confined space was to my advantage because he didn’t have the room to maneuver. As he grappled and punched I somehow managed to twist and wriggle my way around him and slip out the door. I was quick, but Abel was quick as well. He chased me. I ran out of the house and jumped over the gate, and I ran and I ran and I ran. The last time I turned around he was rounding the gate, coming out of the yard after me. Until I turned twenty-five years old, I had a recurring nightmare of the look on his face as he came around that corner. The moment I saw him I put my head down and ran. I ran like the Devil was chasing me. Abel was bigger and faster, but this was my neighborhood. You couldn’t catch me in my neighborhood. I knew every alley and every street, every wall to climb over, every fence to slip through.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Similar erosion of a core sense of dignity is also found in adults who have been tortured, on whom pain, disorientation, terror and other violations have been deliberately inflicted. 39 While the principles of uncoupling fear from immobility discussed in this chapter apply to these cases, the therapeutic process is generally much more complex. It requires a broader skill for negotiating the therapeutic relationship so that the therapist does not get tangled up in taking on the (projected) role of the perpetrator(s) or rescuer. As They Go In, So They Come Out: The Rage Connection When a pigeon that is blithely pecking at some grain is quietly approached from behind, gently picked up, and then turned upside down, it becomes immobilized. The pigeon will, like the guinea pigs I saw in Brazil, or Picasso’s dove in the play, remain in that position, with its feet stuck straight up in the air. In a minute or two, it will come out of this trancelike state, right itself, and hop or fly away. The episode is resolved. However, if the pecking pigeon is first frightened by the approaching person, it will try to fly away. When it is caught after a frantic pursuit, and then forcibly held upside down, it will again succumb to immobility. This time, however, the terrified animal will not only remain frozen much longer, but when it comes out of its trance, it will likely be in a state of “frantic agitation.” It may thrash about wildly, pecking, biting or clawing randomly, or it may scurry away in a frenzy of undirected movement. 40 When all else fails, this last-ditch (and disorganized) form of defense may yet save its life. Similarly, when a well-fed household cat catches a mouse, the latter, restrained by the cat’s paws, stops moving and becomes limp. Without resistance from the mouse, the cat becomes bored and will sometimes gently bat the inert animal, seemingly trying to revive it and restart the game anew (not unlike Jimmy Stewart slapping his swooning heroine to bring her out of her faint). With each reawakening, chasing and reactivated terror, the mouse goes deeper and longer into immobility. When it does eventually revive, it frequently darts away so quickly (and unpredictably) that it may even startle the cat. This sudden, non-directed burst of energy could just as easily cause it to run at the cat, as well as away from it. I have even seen a mouse ferociously attack the nose of an astounded cat. Such is the nature of exit from immobility, where induction has been repetitive and accompanied by fear and rage. Humans, in addition, reterrorize themselves out of their (misplaced) fear of their own intense sensations and emotions.

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

  32. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. CHRYSOSTOM. The Lord had refuted the Pharisees by explaining His own actions, and He now proceeds to terrify them. For this is no small part of correction, to threaten punishment, as well as to set right false accusation. HILARY. He condemns by a most rigorous sentence this opinion of the Pharisees, and of such as thought with them, promising pardon for all sins, but refusing it to blasphemy against the Spirit; Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. REMIGIUS. But it should be known that they are not forgiven to all men universally, but to such only as have performed due penitence for their guiltinesses. So by these words is overthrown the error of Novatian, who said that the faithful could not rise by penitence after a fall, nor merit pardon of their sins, especially they who in persecution deniedb. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 71. 13.) For what difference does it make to the purpose, whether it be said, The spirit of blasphemy shall not be forgiven, or, Whose shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven him. (Luke 12:10) as Luke speaks; except that the same sense is expressed more clearly in the one place than in the other, the one Evangelist not overthrowing but explaining the other? The spirit of blasphemy it is said shortly, not expressing what spirit; to make which clear it is added, And whoso shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him. After having said the same of all manner of blasphemy, He would in a more particular way speak of that blasphemy which is against the Son of Man, and which in the Gospel according to John He shews to be very heavy, where He says concerning the Holy Ghost, He shall convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me. That then which here follows, He who shall speak a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come, is not said because the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity greater than the Son, which no heretic ever affirmed. HILARY. And what is so beyond all pardon as to deny that in Christ which is of God, and to take away the substance of the Father’s Spirit which is in Him, seeing that He performs every work in the Spirit of God, and in Him God is reconciling the world unto Himself.

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

  AMBROSE. Or, He sends to the highways and about the hedges, because they are fit for the kingdom of God, who, not absorbed in the desire for present goods, are hastening on to the future, set in a certain fixed path of good will. And who like a hedge which separates the cultivated ground from the uncultivated, and keeps off the incursion of the cattle, know how to distinguish good and evil, and to hold up the shield of faith against the temptations of spiritual wickedness. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 112.) The Gentiles came from the streets and lanes, the heretics come from the hedges. For they who make a hedge seek for a division; let them be drawn away from the hedges, plucked asunder from the thorns. But they are unwilling to be compelled. By our own will, say they, will we enter. Compel them to enter, He says. Let necessity be used from without, thence arises a will. GREGORY. (in Hom. 36.) They then who, broken down by the calamities of this world, return to the love of God, are compelled to enter. But very terrible is the sentence which comes next. For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper. Let no one then despise the call, lest if when bidden he make excuse, when he wishes to enter he shall not be able. 14:25–2725. And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, 26. If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. 27. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. GREGORY. (in Hom. 37. in Ev.) The mind is kindled, when it hears of heavenly rewards, and already desires to be there, where it hopes to enjoy them without ceasing; but great rewards cannot be reached except by great labours. Therefore it is said, And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned to them, and said, &c. THEOPHYLACT. For because many of those that accompanied Him followed not with their whole heart, but lukewarmly, He shews what kind of a man his disciple ought to be.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. li) This act of our Lord’s is pointed to in the Prophets, though the malignant rulers of the Jews did not see in it any fulfilment of prophecy: As it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion, behold thy King cometh sitting on an ass’s colt. Yea, in that nation though reprobate, though blind, there remained still the daughter of Sion; even Jerusalem. To her it is said, Fear not, acknowledge Him whom thou praisest, and tremble not when He suffers. That blood it is which shall wipe away thy sins, and redeem thy life. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvi. 1) Or thus: Whereas they had had wicked kings, who had subjected them to wars, He saith to them, Trust Me, I am not such as they, but gentle and mild: which He shewed by the manner of His entrance. For He did not enter at the head of an army, but simply riding on an ass. And observe the philosophy (φιλοσοφίαν) of the Evangelist, who is not ashamed of confessing his ignorance at the time of what these things meant: These things understood not the disciple at the first, but when Jesus was glorified. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. li) i. e. When He shewed the power of His resurrection, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him, i. e. those things that were written of Him. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lvi. 1) Our Lord had not then revealed these things to them. Indeed it would have been a scandal to them had they known Him to be King at the time of His sufferings. Nor would they have understood the nature of His kingdom, but have mistaken it for a temporal one. THEOPHYLACT. (non occ.) See then the consequences of our Lord’s passiona. It was not to no purpose that He had reserved His greatest miracle for the last. For the resurrection of Lazarus it was that made the crowd believe in Him. The people therefore that was with Him when He called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met Him, for that they heard that He had done this miracle. Hence the spite and plotting of the Pharisees: The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold the world is gone after Him. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. li. 7) The crowd was disturbed by the crowd. (Turba turbavit turbam) But why grudgeth that blind crowd, that the world should go after Him, by Whom the world was made? CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvi. 2) The world means here the crowd. This seems to be the speech of that part who were sound in their faith, but dared not profess it. They try to deter the rest by exposing the insuperable difficulties they would have to contend with.

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

  The Hillbrow police station looks exactly like every other police station in South Africa. They were all built by the same contractor at the height of apartheid—separate nodes in the central nervous system of a police state. If you were blindfolded and taken from one to the other, you probably wouldn’t even know that you’d changed locations. They’re sterile, institutional, with fluorescent lights and cheap floor tile, like a hospital. My cop walked me in and sat me down at the front booking desk. I was charged and fingerprinted. In the meantime, they’d been checking out the car, which wasn’t going well for me, either. Whenever I borrowed cars from Abel’s workshop, I tried to take the junkers rather than a real client’s car; I thought I’d get in less trouble that way. That was a mistake. The Mazda, being one of Abel’s junkers, didn’t have a clear title of ownership. If it had had an owner, the cops would have called the owner, the owner would have explained that the car had been dropped off for repairs, and the whole thing would have been sorted out. Since the car didn’t have an owner, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t stolen it. Carjackings were common in South Africa at the time, too. So common you weren’t even surprised when they happened. You’d have a friend coming over for a dinner party and you’d get a call. “Sorry. Got carjacked. Gonna be late.” “Ah, that sucks. Hey, guys! Dave got carjacked.” “Sorry, Dave!” And the party would continue. And that’s if the person survived the carjacking. Often they didn’t. People were getting shot for their cars all the time. Not only could I not prove I hadn’t stolen the car, I couldn’t prove I hadn’t murdered someone for it, either. The cops were grilling me. “You kill anyone to get that car, boy? Eh? You a killer?” I was in deep, deep trouble. I had only one lifeline: my parents. One call would have fixed everything. “This is my stepfather. He’s a mechanic. I borrowed his car when I shouldn’t have.” Done. At worst I’d get a slap on the wrist for driving a car that wasn’t registered. But what would I be getting at home?

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

  The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.” — When we first met Abel, he smoked a lot of weed. He drank, too, but it was mostly weed. Looking back, I almost miss his pothead days because the weed mellowed him out. He’d smoke, chill, watch TV, and fall asleep. I think subconsciously it was something he knew he needed to do to take the edge off his anger. He stopped smoking after he and my mom got married. She made him stop for religious reasons—the body is a temple and so on. But what none of us saw coming was that when he stopped smoking weed he just replaced it with alcohol. He started drinking more and more. He never came home from work sober. An average day was a six-pack of beer after work. Weeknights he’d have a buzz on. Some Fridays and Saturdays he just didn’t come home. When Abel drank, his eyes would go red, bloodshot. That was the clue I learned to read. I always thought of Abel as a cobra: calm, perfectly still, then explosive. There was no ranting and raving, no clenched fists. He’d be very quiet, and then out of nowhere the violence would come. The eyes were my only clue to stay away. His eyes were everything. They were the eyes of the Devil. Late one night we woke up to a house filled with smoke. Abel hadn’t come home by the time we’d gone to bed, and I’d fallen asleep in my mother’s room with her and Andrew, who was still a baby. I jerked awake to her shaking me and screaming. “Trevor! Trevor!” There was smoke everywhere. We thought the house was burning down. My mom ran down the hallway to the kitchen, where she discovered the kitchen on fire. Abel had driven home drunk, blind drunk, drunker than we’d ever seen him before. He’d been hungry, tried to heat up some food on the stove, and passed out on the couch while it was cooking. The pot had burned itself out and burned up the kitchen wall behind the stove, and smoke was billowing everywhere. She turned off the stove and opened the doors and the windows to try to air the place out. Then she went over to the couch and woke him up and started berating him for nearly burning the house down. He was too drunk to care. She came back into the bedroom, picked up the phone, and called my grandmother.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Basically, Jackson observed that when the brain is injured or stressed, it reverts to a less refined, evolutionarily more primitive level of functioning. If there is subsequent recovery, this regression will reverse, returning the individual to the more refined functions. This is an example of “bottom-up processing,” so important in trauma therapy. Evolutionary Roots Figure 6.2b This shows the neural control of the three phylogenetic systems: primitive vagus, sympathetic/adrenal and “smart” (mammalian) vagus. The more primitive the operative system, the more power it has to take over the overall function of the organism. It does this by inhibiting the more recent and more refined neurological subsystems, effectively preventing them from functioning. In particular, the immobilization system all but completely suppresses the social engagement/attachment system. When you are “scared to death,” you have few resources left to orchestrate the complex behaviors that mediate attachment and calming; social engagement is essentially hijacked. The sympathetic nervous system also blocks the social engagement system, but not as completely as does the immobilization system (the most primitive of the three defenses). Polyvagal Theory: Phylogenetic Stages of Nervous Control Figure 6.2c This summarizes the phylogenetic stages of the sympathetic and polyvagal systems. Immobility and hyperarousal are, as I have explained, organismic responses to threat and prolonged stress. When they are operative, danger (in the case of fight or flight) and doom (with immobility) are what an individual perceives—regardless of the reality of the external situation. The human nervous system does not readily discriminate between a potential source of danger in the environment, such as an abruptly moving shadow, or distress about a situation long past. a Where the distress is generated internally (by muscles and viscera), one experiences an obsessive pressure to locate the source of threat or (when that’s not possible) to manufacture one as a way of explaining to oneself that there is an identifiable source of threat. Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system. On the other hand, acutely traumatized people (often by a single recent event and without a history of repeated trauma, neglect or abuse) are generally dominated by the sympathetic fight/flight system. They tend to suffer from flashbacks and racing hearts, while the chronically traumatized individuals generally show no change or even a decrease in heart rate.

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

  JEROME. Because He had said, If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen, and a publican, whereupon the brother so contemned might answer, or think within himself, If you despise me, I also will despise you; if you condemn me, you shall be condemned by my sentence. He therefore confers powers upon the Apostles, that they may be assured that when any are condemned after this manner, the sentence of man is ratified by the sentence of God. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose upon the earth shall be loosed in heaven. ORIGEN. He said not in the heavens (in cœlis), as when He spoke to Peter, but in heaven (in cœlo), for they are not yet attained to the like perfection with Peter. HILARY. To hold out a great and terrible fear, by which all men should be reached in this present life, He pronounces that the judgment of the Apostles should be ratified, so that whosoever they bound on earth, i. e. left entangled in the noose of sin, and whosoever they loosed, i. e. accorded the pardon of God’s mercy to their salvation, that these should be bound and loosed in heaven. CHRYSOSTOM. And be it noted, that He said not to the Primate1 of the Church, Bind such a man; but, If ye shall bind him, the bonds shall be indissoluble; leaving the other to his discretion. And see how He has set the incorrigible person under the yoke of a twofold necessity; to wit, the punishment that is here, namely, the casting forth out of the Church, when He said, Let him be to thee as a heathen; and the future punishment, saying, that he shall be bound in heaven; thus by the weight of his penalties lessening his brother’s wrath against him. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Otherwise; When you begin to hold your brother as a publican you bind him on earth, but take heed that you bind him with just cause; for an unjust cause breaks rightful bonds. But when you have corrected him, and agreed with him, you have loosed him upon earth, and when you have loosed him upon earth, he shall be loosed also in heaven. You confer a great boon not on yourself, but on him, as he had done the hurt not to you but to himself.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  If these myths seem too remote, we need only look at children throughout the world playing “statue.” How many countless generations of kids have used this game to help them master the primordial terror (often lurking in their dreams) of being scared stiff? To these stories we can add our contemporary myth of the “disease” that psychiatry has named posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Indeed, when compared with historical mythologies, modern science has certain advantages and disadvantages in accurately comprehending the universal human experience of terror, horror, injury and loss. The indigenous peoples throughout South America and Mesoamerica have long understood both the nature of fear and the essence of trauma. What’s more, they seemed to know how to transform it through their shamanic healing rituals. After colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese, the indigenous peoples borrowed their word susto to describe what happens in trauma. Susto translates graphically as “fright paralysis” and as “soul loss.” 10 Anyone who has suffered a trauma knows, first, paralyzing fright, followed by the bereft feeling of losing your way in the world, of being severed from your very soul. When we hear the term fright paralysis, we may think of a startled deer, stunned motionless by oncoming headlights. Humans react similarly to trauma: thus Nancy, her startled face wide-eyed and frozen in fear. The ancient Greeks also identified trauma as being paralyzing and corporeal. Zeus and Pan were invoked to instill terror and paralysis in the enemy during times of war. Both had the capacity to “freeze” the body and induce “pan-ic.” And in the great Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, trauma was portrayed as ruthlessly destructive to self and families. By the time of the American Civil War—when young men were suddenly exposed to their comrades being blown into pieces by cannon fire; to the noise and terror of chaos; and to stinking, rotting corpses far beyond anything they were prepared for—the term used to describe traumatic post-combat breakdown was soldier’s heart. * This name conveyed both the anxious, arrhythmic heart, pounding in sleepless terror, as well as the heartbreak of war, the killing of brothers by brothers. Another term from the Civil War era was nostalgia, perhaps a reference to the unending weeping and inability to remain oriented to the present and go on with life. Shortly before World War I, Emil Kraepelin, in an early diagnostic system published around 1909, called such stress breakdown “fright neurosis.” 11 After Freud, he recognized trauma as a condition arising from an overwhelming stress. Freud had defined trauma as “a breach in the protective barrier against stimulation [(over)stimulation—my addition], leading to feelings of overwhelming helplessness.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Rather than pretense, though, it is a deadly serious innate biological tactic. With a slow, small animal like the opossum, flight or fight is unlikely to be successful. By passively resisting, in the grand tradition of Gandhi, the animal’s inertness tends to inhibit the predator’s aggression and reduce its urge to kill and to eat. In addition, a motionless animal is frequently abandoned (especially when it also emits a putrid odor like rotting meat) and not eaten by such predators as the coyote—unless, of course, this animal is very hungry. a With such “death feigning,” the opossum may live to escape, plodding along into another day. Similarly, the cheetah may drag its motionless prey to a safe place, removed from potential competitors, and return to her lair to fetch her cubs (so as to share the kill with them). While she is gone, the gazelle may awaken from its paralysis and, in an unguarded moment, make a hasty escape. Second, immobility affords a certain degree of invisibility: an inert body is much less likely to be seen by a predator. Third, immobility may promote group survival: when hunted by a predator pack, the collapse of one individual may distract the pack long enough for the rest of the herd to escape. Last, but by no means least, a fourth biological function of immobility is that it triggers a profoundly altered state of numbing. In this state, extreme pain and terror are dulled: so if the animal does survive an attack it will be, even though injured, less encumbered by debilitating pain and thus possibly able to escape if the opportunity arises. This “humane” analgesic effect is mediated by the flooding of endorphins, the body’s own profound morphine pain-relief system. 21 For the gazelle, this means that it will not have to suffer the full agony of being torn apart by the cheetah’s sharp teeth and claws. The same is most likely true for a rape or accident victim. 22 In this state of analgesia, the victim may witness the event as though from outside his or her body, as if it were happening to someone else (as I observed in my accident). Such distancing, called dissociation, helps to make the unbearable bearable. The African explorer David Livingstone graphically recorded such an experience in his encounter with a lion on the plains of Africa: I heard a shout. Startled, in looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat.

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

  Objection 3: Further, the bodily vision of a spiritual substance stupefies the beholder; thus we sing of the Virgin herself: “And the Virgin seeing the light was filled with fear” [*Feast of Annunciation, B.V.M. ii Resp. Brev. O.P.]. But it was better that her mind should be preserved from being thus troubled. Therefore it was not fitting that this announcement should be made in a bodily vision. On the contrary, Augustine in a sermon (De Annunt. iii) pictures the Blessed Virgin as speaking thus: “To me came the archangel Gabriel with glowing countenance, gleaming robe, and wondrous step.” But these cannot pertain to other than bodily vision. Therefore the angel of the Annunciation appeared in a bodily vision to the Blessed Virgin. I answer that, The angel of the Annunciation appeared in a bodily vision to the Blessed Virgin. And this indeed was fitting, first in regard to that which was announced. For the angel came to announce the Incarnation of the invisible God. Wherefore it was becoming that, in order to make this known, an invisible creature should assume a form in which to appear visibly: forasmuch as all the apparitions of the Old Testament are ordered to that apparition in which the Son of God appeared in the flesh. Secondly, it was fitting as regards the dignity of the Mother of God, who was to receive the Son of God not only in her mind, but in her bodily womb. Therefore it behooved not only her mind, but also her bodily senses to be refreshed by the angelic vision. Thirdly, it is in keeping with the certainty of that which was announced. For we apprehend with greater certainty that which is before our eyes, than what is in our imagination. Thus Chrysostom says (Hom. iv in Matth.) that the angel “came to the Virgin not in her sleep, but visibly. For since she was receiving from the angel a message exceeding great, before such an event she needed a vision of great solemnity.” Reply to Objection 1: Intellectual vision excels merely imaginary and merely bodily vision. But Augustine himself says (De Annunt. iii) that prophecy is more excellent if accompanied by intellectual and imaginary vision, than if accompanied by only one of them. Now the Blessed Virgin perceived not only the bodily vision, but also the intellectual illumination. Wherefore this was a more excellent vision. Yet it would have been more excellent if she had perceived the angel himself in his substance by her intellectual vision. But it was incompatible with her state of wayfarer that she should see an angel in his essence. Reply to Objection 2: The imagination is indeed a higher power than the exterior sense: but because the senses are the principle of human knowledge, the greatest certainty is in them, for the principles of knowledge must needs always be most certain. Consequently Joseph, to whom the angel appeared in his sleep, did not have so excellent a vision as the Blessed Virgin.

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

  ORIGEN. I suppose also that he gains the world who does not deny himself, nor loses Ms own life as to carnal pleasures, and thence suffers the loss of his soul. These two things being set before us, we must rather choose to lose the world, and gain our souls. CHRYSOSTOM. But if you should reign over the whole world, you would not be able to buy your soul; whence it follows, Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? As much as to say, if you lose goods, you may have it in your power to give other goods to recover them; but if you lose your soul, you can neither give another soul, nor any thing else in ransom for it. And what marvel is it if this happen in the soul, when we see the same happen in the body; for if you should surround a body afflicted with an incurable disease with ten thousand diadems, they would not heal it. ORIGEN. And at first sight indeed the ransom of the soul might be supposed to be in his substance, that a man should give his substance to the poor, and so should save his soul. But I suppose that a man has nothing that giving as a ransom for his soul he should deliver it from death. God gave the ransom for the souls of men, namely the precious blood of His Son. GREGORY. (Hom. in Ev. xxxii. 4.) Or the connexion may be thus; The Holy Church has a period of persecution, and a period of peace; and our Redeemer accordingly distinguishes between these periods in His commands; in time of persecution the life is to be laid down; but in time of peace, those earthly lusts which might gain too great power over us are to be broken through; whence He says, What does it profit a man? JEROME. Having thus called upon His disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross, the hearers were filled with great terror, therefore these severe tidings are followed by more joyful; For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy Angels. Dost thou fear death? Hear the glory of the triumph. Dost thou dread the cross? Hear the attendance of the Angels. ORIGEN. As much as to say; The Son of Man is now come, but not in glory; for He ought not to have been ordained in His glory to bear our sins; but then He shall come in His glory, when He shall first have made ready His disciples, being made as they are, that He might make them as He is Himself, in the likeness of His glory.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The other cop began shouting at Ed. “You think you're a guy, huh? You think you can take it like a guy? We'll see. What’s these?” he said. He yanked up her shirt and pulled her binder down around her waist. He grabbed her breasts so hard she gasped. “Leave her alone,’ I yelled. “Shut up, you fuckin’ pervert,” the cop behind me shouted and bashed my face against the wall. I saw a kaleidoscope of colors. Ed and I spun around and looked at each other for a split second. Funny, it seemed as though we 58 Leslie Feinberg had plenty of time to consult. There are times, the old bulls told me, when it’s best to take your beating and hope the cops will leave you on the ground when they’re done with you. Other times your life may be in danger, or your sanity, and it’s worth it to try to fight back. It’s a tough call. In the blink of an eye, Ed and I decided to fight. We each punched and kicked the nearest cop. For just a moment things started looking up for us. I kicked the cop in front of me in the shins over and overt again. Ed got the other cop in the groin and was hitting him on the head with both her fists. As one cop lunged at me, the point of his nightstick caught me squarely in the solar plexus. I crashed against the wall, unable to breathe. Then I heard a sickening thud as a nightstick connected with Ed’s skull. I vomited. The cops beat us until I found myself wondering through the pain why they weren’t exhausted from the effort. Suddenly we heard voices shouting nearby. “C’mon,” one cop said to the other. Ed and I were on the ground. I could see the boot of the cop standing over me pull back. “You fuckin’ traitor,” he spat, as his boot cracked my rib for punctuation. The next thing I remember was a light glowing in the sky beyond the alley. The pavement felt cold and hard against my cheek. Ed was lying next to me, her face turned away. I stretched out my fingers to touch her, but I couldn’t reach. My hand rested in the pool of blood around her head. “Ed,” I whispered, “Ed, please wake up. Oh god, please don’t be dead.” “What,” she moaned. “We got to get out of here, Ed.” “OK,” she said, “you pull the car up.” “Don’t make me laugh,” I told her. “TI can hardly breathe.” I passed out again.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Yeah, but you can bet the rich are still gettin’ richer.” “It wasn’t just Nixon—they’re all a bunch of crooks. This new peanut man in the White House isn’t going to change anything.” They talked about the layoffs that had abruptly altered their lives. Harrison, Chevrolet, Anaconda. Fifteen years seniority, twenty years, thirty years. “T gave Chevy my whole life,” Ben told me. “When I got laid off I figured it was a vacation. But to tell you the truth, ’m scared shitless that ’m never going back. My whole life’s in that plant, you know what I mean?” I nodded. Ben nudged me. “We'll still get paid today for last week. Let’s go cash our checks at the bar and have a drink.” I shook my head. “Naw, I better get home.” “Jesus, Jesse. You always have something you gotta do. You’re gonna have a drink with me and that’s that. Unless you think you’re too good for me.” I sighed. “Just one drink.” Ben smiled and thumped my thigh with his gloved hand. Someone played “Stand By Your Man” on the bar jukebox. I was lost in my own past as Ben talked to me about growing up without his father. “How about you, Jesse?” he asked. “Did you grow up with your dad around?” I nodded. “Were you close to him?” I shook my head. “No.” “Why note” I shrugged. “Oh, it’s a long story. I don’t really like to talk about it.” “Where'd you grow up” he asked, signaling the waitress for another round. “Different places.” I worried that I couldn’t keep up with this evasion for a third round. The waitress brought two shots and two beers. Ben smiled warmly at her. “Thank you, darlin’.”’ Ben turned his attention back to me. “You know, I’m curious about you.” I tensed. “I told my wife about you. I told her there’s this guy I really like.” Ben stopped and held up one hand. “Don’t get me wrong.” I waved away his momentary fear that I might think he was sexually attracted to me. His speech was a little slurred. “I told her that every time I try to get to know this guy, he clams up. You know what my wife said? She says ’m the same way with her. She says that’s what she’s always complaining about.” Ben leaned forward. “Are you in trouble, Jesse? ’Cause if you ate, you can tell me. I’m not much in life. But I’m a good mechanic and a good friend. All my buddies worked at Chevy with me. I miss those guys.” I nodded, thinking about my old friends. “Are you running from the law?” he asked me. Stone Butch Blues 197 “Cause if you ate, I understand.” His voice dropped. “T was in jail. Two years.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I felt woozy with fear. It reminded me of when my parents had me committed, or the cops opened my cell door. So many people in the world had so much power to control and hurt me. I shrugged as though it wasn’t important to me. “Look, Duffy, it’s overt. Besides, the contract’s up in two months. We got other things to worry about.” Duffy looked at me like I was crazy, but when he spoke his voice was calm. “No, Jess. We’re going to worry a lot about this. We’re going to prove what Jack did to you and we’re going to tell management either he’s out or we all walk out.” I marveled at the idea that straight people would stand up for me, or for any he-she. “You know,” Duffy added, “TI don’t think I really realized how hard it is for you. I know what jerks the guys at work can be sometimes.” He leaned up against the sink and folded his arms. “But when I went to the hospital with you, I saw how they treated you, how they talked about you,” he rubbed his face. When he looked back up at me, I saw tears in his eyes. “T felt so helpless, you know? I kept yelling at them that you were a human being, that you mattered, and it was like they weren’t even listening to me. I couldn’t do anything to help you and I couldn’t make them take cate of you the way I wanted, you know.” I nodded. I did know. And now I knew that Duffy did too. Jan drove me to Abba’s on Friday night. Everyone cheered when I walked in. They hung a sign on the wall in the backroom that read: Get Well, Jess! Frankie and Grant and Johnny told me Duffy organized a union investigation of the “accident.” I was watching Jan. She looked so sad. “Where’s Ednar” I whispered to Grant. Grant drew an index finger across her throat. I waited till I saw Jan sitting alone in the back. I brought over two beers. “Can I sit with you?” She gestured towards an empty chair. Stone Butch Blues 99 “You're my friend, Jan,” I told her, “and I love you.” She looked surprised when I said that. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s OK with me. But I can’t pretend I don’t know you're hurting.” Jan leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “TI lost her. I love her and I lost her. What else is there to say?” I shrugged. “I know you both loved each other a lot.” Jan took a swig of her beer. “Sometimes love just isn’t enough,” she said. I hoped she was wrong, She sighed. “The worst part is, it’s my fault. I knew she was going to leave me and I just couldn’t change fast enough to stop her. Who knows, maybe I’m just too old to change at all.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Remember the night you stayed home with me when I was so sick? That was the night—you remember. The cops picked out the most stone butch of them all to destroy with humiliation, a woman everyone said “wore a raincoat in the shower.” We heard they stripped her, slow, in front of everyone in the bar, and laughed at her trying to cover up her nakedness. Later she went mad, they said. Later she hung herself: What would I have done if I had been there that night? I'm remembering the busts in the bars in Canada. Packed in the police vans, all the Saturday-night butches giggled and tried to fluff up their hair and switch clothing so they could get thrown in the tank with the femme women—said it would be like “dyin’ and goin’ to heaven.” The law said we had to be wearing three pieces of women’s clothing. We never switched clothing. Neither did our drag queen sisters. We knew, and so did you, what was coming. We needed our sleeves rolled up, our hair slicked back, in order to live through it. Our hands were cuffed tight behind our backs. Yours were cuffed in front. You loosened my tie, unbuttoned my collar, and touched my face. I saw the pain and fear for me in your face, and I whispered it would be alright. We knew it wouldnt be. I never told you what they did to us down there—queens in one tank, stone butches in the next—but you knew. One at a Stone Butch Blues 3 time they would drag our brothers out of the cells, slapping and punching them, locking the bars behind them fast in case we lost control and tried to stop them, as if we could. They d handcuff a brother’s wrists to his ankles or chain his face against the bars. They made us watch. Sometimes wed catch the eyes of the terrorized victim, or the soon-to-be, caught in the vise of torture, and wed say gently, “T’m with you, honey, look at me, its OK, well take you home.” We never cried in front of the cops. We knew we were next. The next time the cell door opens it will be me they drag out and chain spread-eagle to the bars. Did I survive? I guess I did. But only because I knew I might get home to you. They let us out last, one at a time, on Monday morning. No charges. Too late to call in sick to work, no money, hitch- hiking, crossing the border on foot, rumpled clothes, bloody, needing a shower, hurt, scared. I knew youd be home if I could get there. You ran a bath for me with sweet-smelling bubbles. You laid out a fresh pair of white BVDs and a T-shirt for me and left me alone to wash off the first layer of shame.

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

  Hundreds of rioters in the street. My mom would edge the car slowly through the crowds and around blockades made of flaming tires. Nothing burns like a tire—it rages with a fury you can’t imagine. As we drove past the burning blockades, it felt like we were inside an oven. I used to say to my mom, “I think Satan burns tires in Hell.” Whenever the riots broke out, all our neighbors would wisely hole up behind closed doors. But not my mom. She’d head straight out, and as we’d inch our way past the blockades, she’d give the rioters this look. Let me pass. I’m not involved in this shit. She was unwavering in the face of danger. That always amazed me. It didn’t matter that there was a war on our doorstep. She had things to do, places to be. It was the same stubbornness that kept her going to church despite a broken-down car. There could be five hundred rioters with a blockade of burning tires on the main road out of Eden Park, and my mother would say, “Get dressed. I’ve got to go to work. You’ve got to go to school.” “But aren’t you afraid?” I’d say. “There’s only one of you and there’s so many of them.” “Honey, I’m not alone,” she’d say. “I’ve got all of Heaven’s angels behind me.” “Well, it would be nice if we could see them,” I’d say. “Because I don’t think the rioters know they’re there.” She’d tell me not to worry. She always came back to the phrase she lived by: “If God is with me, who can be against me?” She was never scared. Even when she should have been. — That carless Sunday we made our circuit of churches, ending up, as usual, at white church. When we walked out of Rosebank Union it was dark and we were alone. It had been an endless day of minibuses from mixed church to black church to white church, and I was exhausted. It was nine o’clock at least. In those days, with all the violence and riots going on, you did not want to be out that late at night. We were standing at the corner of Jellicoe Avenue and Oxford Road, right in the heart of Johannesburg’s wealthy, white suburbia, and there were no minibuses. The streets were empty. I so badly wanted to turn to my mom and say, “You see? This is why God wanted us to stay home.” But one look at the expression on her face, and I knew better than to speak.

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

  On the third day, the cops brought in the largest man I’d ever seen. This guy was huge. Giant muscles. Dark skin. Hardened face. He looked like he could kill all of us. Me and the other prisoners who’d been acting tough with one another—the second he walked in our tough-guy routines were over. Everyone was terrified. We all stared at him. “Oh, fuck…” For whatever reason this guy was half naked when the cops picked him up. He was wearing clothes the police had scrounged up for him at the station, this torn-up wifebeater that was way too small, pants so short on him they looked like capris. He looked like a black version of the Incredible Hulk. This guy went and sat alone in the corner. Nobody said a word. Everyone watched and waited, nervously, to see what he would do. Then one of the cops came back and called the Hulk over; they needed information from him. The cop started asking him a bunch of questions, but the guy kept shaking his head and saying he didn’t understand. The cop was speaking Zulu. The Hulk was speaking Tsonga. Black person to black person, and neither could understand the other—the Tower of Babel. Few people in South Africa speak Tsonga, but since my stepfather was Tsonga I had picked it up along the way. I overheard the cop and the other guy going back and forth with nothing getting across, so I stepped in and translated for them and sorted everything out. Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else’s language, even if it’s just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, “I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being.” That is exactly what happened with the Hulk. The second I spoke to him, this face that had seemed so threatening and mean lit up with gratitude. “Ah, na khensa, na khensa, na khensa. Hi wena mani? Mufana wa mukhaladi u xitiela kwini xiTsonga? U huma kwini?” “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Who are you? How does a colored guy know Tsonga? Where are you from?”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  It caused a sort of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivore; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent creator for lessening the pain of death. [italics mine] 23 While Livingstone attributes this gift to his “benevolent creator,” one need not invoke “intelligent design” to appreciate the biologically adaptive function of diminishing the sharp edges of serious pain, terror and panic. If one is able to stay broadly focused and perceive things in slow motion, one is more likely to be able to take advantage of a potential escape opportunity or think of an ingenious strategy to evade the predator. For example, a friend of mine told me about a time when he was withdrawing money from an ATM for an international trip. As he turned from the machine, a group of thugs grabbed him, holding a knife to his throat. As in a dream, he serenely told them that it was their lucky day, and that he had just withdrawn a lot of money for a trip he was taking the next day. The astonished muggers calmly took the money and slipped away into the darkness. I am sure that some degree of dissociation helped him to survive his ordeal without being so terrified as to be unable to strategically deal with this dreadful situation. Indeed, the adaptive and benevolent value of dissociation is illustrated by another riveting tale, this time by the adventurer Redside, from the jungles of the Indian subcontinent: [He had] stumbled when crossing a swift stream, dropping his cartridge belt into the water ... now out of ammunition, he noticed a large tigress stalking him. Turning pale and sweating with fright, he began retreating ... But it was already too late. The tigress charged, seized him by the shoulder and dragged him a quarter of a mile to where her three cubs were playing. As he recalled it afterward, Redside was amazed that his fear vanished as soon as the tigress caught him and he hardly noticed any pain while being dragged and intermittently mauled while the tigress played “cat and mouse” with him for perhaps an hour.