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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yet from time to time she turned her head quickly as though some one must surely be there at her side. Her mind was a prey to the strangest fancies. She pictured her father very grave and anxious, not gay and light-hearted as had been his wont when they rode to a Meet in the old days. And because this day was so vibrant with living it was difficult for Stephen to tolerate the idea of death, even for a little red fox, and she caught herself thinking: ‘If we find, this morning, there’ll be two of us who are utterly alone, with every man’s hand against us.’ At the Meet she was a prey to her self-conscious shyness, so that she fancied people were whispering. There was no one now with bowed, patient shoulders to stand between her and those unfriendly people. Colonel Antrim came up. ‘Glad to see you out, Stephen.’ But his voice sounded stiff because he was embarrassed—every one felt just a little embarrassed, as people will do in the face of bereavement. And then there was something so awkward about her, so aloof that it checked every impulse of kindness. They, in their turn, felt shy, remembering Sir Philip, remembering what his death must have meant to his daughter, so that more than one greeting remained unspoken. And again she thought grimly: ‘Two of us will be alone, with every man’s hand against us.’ They found their fox in the very first cover and went away over the wide, bare meadows. As Raftery leapt forward her curious fancies gained strength, and now they began to obsess her. She fancied that she was being pursued, that the hounds were behind her instead of ahead, that the flushed, bright-eyed people were hunting her down, ruthless, implacable untiring people—they were many and she was one solitary creature with every man’s hand against her. To escape them she suddenly took her own line, putting Raftery over some perilous places; but he, nothing loath, stretched his muscles to their utmost, landing safely—yet always she imagined pursuit, and now it was the world that had turned against her. The whole world was hunting her down with hatred, with a fierce, remorseless will to destruction—the world against one insignificant creature who had nowhere to turn for pity or protection. Her heart tightened with fear, she was terribly afraid of those flushed, bright-eyed people who were hard on her track. She, who had never lacked physical courage in her life, was now actually sweating with terror, and Raftery divining her terror sped on, faster and always faster. Then Stephen saw something just ahead, and it moved. Checking Raftery sharply she stared at the thing.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Don’t you see what a sacred thing it is?’ Sin is the failure to realize the sacredness of that sacrifice upon the cross. (3) Sin is the insult to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks within us, telling us what is right and wrong, seeking to check us when we are on the way to sin and to spur us on when we are drifting into lethargy. To disregard these voices is to insult the Spirit and to grieve the heart of God. All through this, one thing comes out. Sin is not disobedience to an impersonal law; it is the wrecking of a personal relationship and the wounding of the heart of the God whose name is Father. The writer to the Hebrews finishes his appeal with a threat. He quotes Deuteronomy 32:35–6, where the sternness of God is clearly seen. At the heart of Christianity, there is always a threat. To remove that threat is to diminish the effectiveness of the faith. Ultimately, it is not the same for the good and the bad alike. No one can evade the fact that, in the end, judgment comes. THE DANGER OF DRIFTING Hebrews 10:32–9 Remember the former days. Remember how, after you had been enlightened, you had to go through a hard struggle of suffering, partly because you yourselves were held up to insult and involved in affliction and partly because you had become partners with people whose life was like that. For you gave your sympathy to those in prison; you accepted the pillaging of your goods with joy; for you knew that you yourselves hold a possession which is better and which lasts. Do not throw away your confidence, for it is a confidence that has a great reward. You need fortitude so that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. For, in a short time, a very short time, ‘He who is to come will come and he will not delay. And my just man shall live by faith; but, if he shrinks back, my soul will not find pleasure in him.’ We are not men to shrink back from things and so to come to disaster, but we are men of a faith which will enable us to possess our souls. THERE had been a time when those to whom this letter was written had experienced fierce opposition to their beliefs. When they had first become Christians, they had known persecution and plundering of their goods; and they had learned what it was to become involved with those who were under suspicion and unpopular. They had met that situation with gallantry and with honour; and now, when they were in danger of drifting away, the writer to the Hebrews reminds them of their former loyalty.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  She explains that this tactical process is used to “develop in the person a dependence on the organization, and thereby turn the person into a deployable agent of the organization.”627 Zablocki defines a deployable agent as “one who is uncritically obedient to directives perceived as charismatically legitimate. A deployable agent can be relied on to continue to carry out the wishes of the collectivity regardless of his own hedonic interests and in the absence of any external controls.” He explains, “Deployability can be operationalized as the likelihood that the individual will continue to comply with hitherto ego-dystonic demands of the collectivity (e.g., mending, ironing, mowing the lawn, smuggling, rape, child abuse, murder) when not under surveillance.”628 Many cults repeatedly claim that their members are “free to leave whenever they want.” But the insidious tactics of thought reform often render its victims psychologically and emotionally unable to escape. This is what sociologist Benjamin Zablocki describes as “the paradox of feeling trapped in what is nominally a voluntary association.”629 Zablocki has also answered the question: why isn’t everyone exposed to cultic coercive persuasion and influence techniques trapped? He explains, “Often it is assumed that a demonstration that not all a cult movement’s members were brainwashed is equivalent to proof that none were brainwashed. But why does this follow? No leader needs that many deployable agents. The right question to ask is not whether all Moonies [Unification Church members] are brainwashed, but whether any Moonies w were brainwashed.”630 Zablocki adds, “A common misconception about turnover data in cults stems from confusion between the efficiency of brainwashing and the efficacy of brainwashing…But nothing in the brainwashing conjecture predicts that it will work on everybody, and it says nothing at all about the proportion of recruits who will become agents.” Zablocki points out, “For the system to perpetuate itself, the yield need only produce a sufficient number of deployable agents to compensate it for resources required to maintain the brainwashing process.” Rather than seeing the dropout rate of destructive cults as somehow providing proof that brainwashing doesn’t work, Zablocki observes, “In general, dropout rates tell us only about the rigor of the program, not about its effectiveness for those who stick it through to the end.”631 What is commonly called “cult brainwashing” is actually a composite of coercive persuasion and undue influence techniques used in an interconnecting process. The various facets of this process and how its pieces fit together and enable each other are best understood through the detailed explanation of thought reform and coercive persuasion. Both information and emotional control are powerful tools used in this context. The foundation of the process is built on basic principles of influence and is continually reinforced in large part by the human tendency to defer to authority. This chapter includes some of the seminal research done that forms the framework, but there is much more evidence that reflects an innate human vulnerability to such schemes when people are ignorant or unaware that they are being used.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But small Colonel Antrim, who was not always kind, would retort if he heard them: ‘Damn it, no, it’s the riding. The girl rides, that’s the point; as for some of you others—’ And then he would let loose a flood of foul language. ‘If some bloody fools that I know rode like Stephen, we’d have bloody well less to pay to the farmers,’ and much more he would say to the same effect, with rich oaths interlarding his every sentence—the foulest-mouthed master in the whole British Isles he was said to be, this small Colonel Antrim. Oh, but he dearly loved a fine rider, and he cursed and he swore his appreciation. Even in the presence of a sporting bishop one day, he had failed to control his language; indeed, he had sworn in the face of the bishop with enthusiasm, as he pointed to Stephen. An ineffectual and hen-pecked little fellow—in his home he was hardly allowed to say ‘damn.’ He was never permitted to smoke a cigar outside of his dark, inhospitable study. He must not breed Norwich canaries, which he loved, because they brought mice, declared Mrs. Antrim; he must not keep a pet dog in the house, and the ‘Pink ’Un’ was anathema because of Violet. His taste in art was heavily censored, even on the walls of his own water-closet, where nothing might hang but a family group taken sixteen odd years ago with the children. On Sundays he sat in an uncomfortable pew while his wife chanted psalms in the voice of a peacock. ‘Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord,’ she would chant, as she heartily rejoiced in the strength of her salvation. All this and a great deal more he endured, indeed most of his life was passed in endurance—had it not been for those red-letter days out hunting, he might well have become melancholic from boredom. But those days, when he actually found himself master, went far to restore his anæmic manhood, and on them he would speak the good English language as some deep-seated complex knew it ought to be spoken—ruddily, roundly, explosively spoken, with elation, at times with total abandon—especially if he should chance to remember Mrs. Antrim would he speak it with total abandon. But his oaths could not save Stephen now from her neighbours, nothing could do that since the going of Martin—for quite unknown to themselves they feared her; it was fear that aroused their antagonism. In her they instinctively sensed an outlaw, and theirs was the task of policing nature.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The hand that was shading his pale face trembled, for he felt a great trembling take hold of his spirit. His spirit shrank back and cowered in his body, so that it dared not look out on Stephen. She was waiting, and now she was asking again: ‘Father, is there anything strange about me? I remember when I was a little child—I was never quite like all the other children—’ Her voice sounded apologetic, uncertain, and he knew that the tears were not far from her eyes, knew that if he looked now he would see her lips shaking, and the tears making ugly red stains on her eyelids. His loins ached with pity for this fruit of his loins—an insufferable aching, an intolerable pity. He was frightened, a coward because of his pity, as he had been once long ago with her mother. Merciful God! How could a man answer? What could he say, and that man a father? He sat there inwardly grovelling before her: ‘Oh, Stephen, my child, my little, little Stephen.’ For now in his pity she seemed to him little, little and utterly helpless again—he remembered her hands as the hands of a baby, very small, very pink, with minute perfect nails—he had played with her hands, exclaiming about them, astonished because of their neat perfection: ‘Oh, Stephen, my little, little Stephen.’ He wanted to cry out against God for this thing; he wanted to cry out: ‘You have maimed my Stephen! What had I done or my father before me, or my father’s father, or his father’s father? Unto the third and fourth generations. . . .’ And Stephen was waiting for his answer. Then Sir Philip set the lips of his spirit to the cup, and his spirit must drink the gall of deception: ‘I will not tell her, You cannot ask it—there are some things that even God should not ask.’ And now he turned round and deliberately faced her; smiling right into her eyes he lied glibly: ‘My dear, don’t be foolish, there’s nothing strange about you, some day you may meet a man you can love. And supposing you don’t, well, what of it, Stephen? Marriage isn’t the only career for a woman. I’ve been thinking about your writing just lately, and I’m going to let you go up to Oxford; but meanwhile you mustn’t get foolish fancies, that won’t do at all—it’s not like you, Stephen.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The Jewish BackgroundBut the writer to the Hebrews also had a Jewish background. To the Jews, it was always dangerous to come too near to God. ‘No one’, said God to Moses, ‘shall see me and live’ (Exodus 33:20). It was Jacob’s astonished exclamation at Peniel: ‘I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved’ (Genesis 32:30). When Manoah realized who his visitor had been, he said in terror to his wife: ‘We shall surely die, for we have seen God’ (Judges 13:23). The great day of Jewish worship was the Day of Atonement. That was the one day of the whole year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies where the very presence of God was held to dwell. No one ever entered in except the high priest, and he only on that day. When he did, the law laid it down that he must not linger in the Holy Place for long ‘lest he put Israel in terror’. It was dangerous to enter the presence of God; and, if anyone stayed there too long, that person might be struck dead. In view of this, the idea of a covenant entered into Jewish thought. God, in his grace and in a way that was quite unmerited, approached the nation of Israel and offered them a special relationship with himself. But this unique access to God was conditional on the observance by the people of the law that he gave to them. We can see this relationship being entered into and this law being accepted in the dramatic scene in Exodus 24:3–8. So, Israel had access to God, but only if the people kept the law. To break the law was sin, and sin put up a barrier which stopped the way to God. It was to take away that barrier that the system of the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices was constructed. The law was given; the people sinned; the barrier was up; the sacrifice was made; and the sacrifice was designed to open the way to God that had been closed. But the experience of life was that this was precisely what sacrifice could not do. It was proof of the ineffectiveness of the whole system that sacrifice had to go on and on and on. It was a losing and ineffective battle to remove the barrier that sin had erected between men and women and God.

• From The Girls (2016)

  My first night back was nothing like the old nights. The old nights had been alive with a juvenile sweetness in our faces—I’d pet the dog, who’d nose around for love, give him a hearty scratch behind his ears, my coursing hand urging me into a happy rhythm. And there had been strange nights, too, when we’d all taken acid or Russell would have to get in some drunk motorcycle guy’s face, using all his flip-flop logic on him. But I had never felt scared. That night was different, by the ring of stones with the barest of fires going. No one paid any attention when the flames dissolved to nothing, everyone’s roiling energy directed at Russell, who moved like a rubber band about to snap. “This right here,” Russell said. He was pacing, dinking out a quick song. “I just made it up and it’s already a hit.” The guitar was out of tune, twanging flat notes—Russell didn’t seem to notice. His voice rushed and frantic. “And here’s another one,” he said. He fussed with the tuning pegs before letting loose a jangle of strums. I tried to catch Suzanne’s eye, but she was trained on Russell. “This is the future of music,” he said over the din. “They think they know what’s good ’cause they got songs on the radio, but that’s not shit. They don’t have true love in their hearts.” No one seemed to notice his words unraveling around the borders: they all echoed what he said, their mouths twisting in shared feeling. Russell was a genius, that’s what I’d told Tom—and I could picture how Tom’s face would have moved with pity if he were there to see Russell, and it made me hate Tom, because I could hear it, too, all the space in the songs for you to realize they were rough, not even rough, just bad: sentimental treacle, the words about love as blunt as a grade-schooler’s, a heart drawn by a chubby hand. Sunshine and flowers and smiles. But I could not fully admit it, even then. The way Suzanne’s face looked as she watched him—I wanted to be with her. I thought that loving someone acted as a kind of protective measure, like they’d understand the scale and intensity of your feelings and act accordingly. That seemed fair to me, as if fairness were a measure the universe cared anything about. — There were dreams I had sometimes, and I’d wake from the tail end assuming some image or fact to be true, carrying forward this assumption

• From The Girls (2016)

  Another attempt to head straight back in, more useless swimming. The sun kept beating down, the horizon line wavered: it was all utterly indifferent. The end—here it was. This was punishment, she was certain of it. Strange, though, how this terror didn’t last. It only passed through her, appearing and disappearing almost instantly. Something else took its place, a kind of reptile curiosity. She considered the distance, considered her heart rate, made a calm assessment of the elements in play. Hadn’t she always been good at seeing things clearly? Time to change course. She swam parallel to the shore. Her body took over, remembering the strokes. She didn’t allow for any hesitation. At some point, the water started resisting her with less force, and then she was moving along, getting closer to shore, and then close enough that her feet touched the sand. She was out of breath, yes. Her arms were sore, her heartbeat juddered out of sync. She was much farther down the beach. But fine—she was fine. The fear was already forgotten. No one on the shore noticed her, or looked twice. A couple walked past, heads bent, studying the sand for shells. A man in waders assembled a fishing pole. Laughter floated over from a group under a sun tent. Surely, if Alex had been in any real danger, someone would have reacted, one of these people would have stepped in to help. — SIMON’S CAR WAS FUN to drive. Frighteningly responsive, frighteningly fast. Alex hadn’t bothered to change out of her swimsuit, and the leather upholstery cooked her thighs. Even at a good speed, the car windows down, the air was thick and warm. What problem did Alex need to solve at this moment? Nothing. No variables to calculate, the painkiller still doing its good work. Compared to the city, this was heaven.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  THE writer to the Hebrews has just been attempting to prove the unique supremacy of Jesus, and now he replaces argument with exhortation. He presses upon his hearers the inevitable consequence of this unique supremacy. If Jesus is so uniquely great, it follows that complete trust and complete obedience must be given to him. If they harden their hearts and refuse to give him their obedient trust, the consequences are bound to be terrible. The way in which he supports his argument is very difficult for us to understand because it contains two specific allusions. He begins by quoting from Psalm 95:7–11. That Psalm appeals to those who hear it not to be like the children of Israel but, as the Authorized Version renders it, to ‘Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation.’ Now, the two phrases the provocation and the day of temptation translate two Hebrew words which are place names – Massah and Meribah. The whole is a reference to the story told in Exodus 17:1–7 and Numbers 20:1–13. These passages tell of a rebellious incident in the pilgrimage of the children of Israel. They were thirsty in the desert and turned on Moses, expressing their regret that they had ever left Egypt and renouncing their trust in God. In the Numbers version of the story, God told Moses to speak to the limestone rock, and water would gush forth. But Moses in his anger did not speak to the rock; he struck it. The water came forth; but, for this act of distrust and disobedience, God declared that Moses would never be allowed to lead the people into the promised land. ‘Very certainly they shall not enter into my rest’ means: ‘Very certainly they will not enter into the promised land.’ To wanderers in the desert, the promised land was the place of rest, and it was often called the rest (cf. Deuteronomy 12:9). The point is that the disobedience and the distrust of Israel cut them off from the blessings of God that they might have enjoyed. The writer to the Hebrews says to his people: ‘Beware that you do not show the same disobedience and distrust of God that your ancestors showed, and that you do not for that reason lose the blessings you might have had, just as they lost theirs.’ In effect, he says: ‘While there is still time, while you can still speak of “today”, give God the trust and the obedience that he must have.’ For the individual, ‘today’ means ‘while life lasts’, and the writer to the Hebrews is saying: ‘While you have the chance, give God the submission you ought to give.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. To Claudio, the worst and bitterest experiences of life were to be preferred to death. W. S. Gilbert wrote in The Yeomen of the Guard: Is life a boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene’er he call, Must call too soon. Robert Burns wrote of the early death of Highland Mary: But oh! fell death’s untimely frost That nipt my flower sae early! There are those who have seen only the grim terrorizer and despoiler in death. (5) Many have seen in death release. Weary of the world and of life, they have seen it as escape. In ‘The Eve of Saint Agnes’, Keats said that he had been ‘half in love with easeful death’. Shakespeare in one of his sonnets cried: Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry. The seventeenth-century poet and dramatist Nicholas Rowe wrote: ‘Death is the privilege of human nature.’ The Stoics held that the gods had given people the gift of life and the still greater gift of taking their own lives away. Swinburne, best of all, caught this mood of world- weariness in ‘The Garden of Proserpine’: From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives forever, That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light; Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight; Nor wintry leaves nor vernal Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal n an eternal night. There are those for whom death is good because it is the end of life. (6) Some have seen in death transition – not an end, but a stage on the way; not a door closing, but a door opening. In ‘Resignation’, Longfellow wrote: There is no Death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call death. The nineteenth-century novelist and poet George Meredith wrote: Death met I too, And saw the dawn glow through. To these and others like them, death has always been a call to come up higher, a crossing from the dark to the dawn. (7) Some have seen death as an adventure. As J. M. Barrie made Peter Pan say: ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’ Charles Frohman, who had known Barrie so well, went down when the Lusitania sank in the disaster of 7 May 1915. His last words were: ‘Why fear death?

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The priest turned to the slain bullock and goat and prepared them for sacrifice. Still in his linen garments, he read Scripture – Leviticus 16, 23:27–32, and repeated by heart Numbers 29:7–11. He then prayed for the priesthood and the people. Once more, he cleansed himself in water and dressed himself again in his gorgeous robes. He sacrificed first a young goat for the sins of the people; then he made the normal evening sacrifice; then he sacrificed the already prepared parts of the bullock and the goat. Then once again he cleansed himself, took off his robes, and put on the white linen; and for the fourth and last time he entered the Holy of Holies to remove the censer of incense which still burned there. Once again he cleansed himself in water; once again he put on his vivid robes; then he burned the evening offering of incense, trimmed the lamps on the golden lamp stand, and his work was done. In the evening, he held a feast because he had been in the presence of God and had come out alive. That was the ritual of the Day of Atonement, the day designed to cleanse all things and all people from sin. That was the picture in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews – and he was to make much of it. But there were certain things of which he was thinking at the time. Every year, this ceremony had to be gone through again. Everyone but the high priest was barred from the presence, and even he entered in terror. The cleansing was a purely external one by baths of water. The sacrifice was that of bulls and goats and animal blood. The whole thing failed because such things cannot atone for sin. In it all, the writer to the Hebrews sees a pale copy of the reality, a ghostly pattern of the one true sacrifice – the sacrifice of Christ. It was a noble ritual, a thing of dignity and beauty; but it was only a shadow which could not succeed in its purpose. The only priest and the only sacrifice which can open the way to God for all men and women is Jesus Christ. THE SACRIFICE WHICH OPENS THE WAY TO GOD Hebrews 9:11–14 But when Christ arrived upon the scene, a high priest of the good things which are to come, by means of a tabernacle which was greater and better able to produce the results for which it was meant, a tabernacle not made by the hands of men – that is, a tabernacle which did not belong to this world order – and not by the blood of goats and bullocks but by his own blood, he entered once and for all into the holy place because he had secured for us an eternal redemption.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews goes on to draw out another thought. When the law was given, the earth was shaken. ‘Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently’ (Exodus 19:18). ‘Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord’ (Psalm 114:7). ‘The earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God’ (Psalm 68:8). ‘The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lit up the world; the earth trembled and shook’ (Psalm 77:18). The writer to the Hebrews finds another reference to the shaking of the earth in Haggai 2:6. There, the Greek version of the Old Testament says: ‘Once again, in a little while [the Hebrew says “very soon”], I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.’ The writer to the Hebrews takes this to be an announcement of the day when this earth shall pass away and the new age will begin. In that day, everything that can be shaken will be destroyed; the only things to remain will be the things which can never be shaken; and chief among them is our relationship with God. All things may pass away; the world as we know it may be uprooted; life as we experience it may come to an end; but one thing stands eternally sure – the relationship of every Christian to God. If that is so, there is a great obligation laid upon us. We must worship God with reverence and serve him with fear; for nothing must be allowed to disturb that relationship which will be our salvation when the world passes away. So, the writer to the Hebrews finishes with one of those threatening quotations which he so often flings like a thunderbolt at his readers. It is a quotation from Deuteronomy 4:24. Moses is telling the people that they must never break their agreement with God and lapse into idolatry, for he is a jealous God. They must worship only him, or they will find that he is a consuming fire. It is as if the writer to the Hebrews was saying: ‘There is a choice before you. Remain steadfastly true to God, and in the day when the universe is shaken into destruction your relationship with him will stand safe and secure. Be false to him, and the God who might have been your salvation will be to you a consuming fire of destruction.’ It is a grim thought; but in it there is the eternal truth that, if we are true to God, we gain everything; and, if we are untrue to God, we lose everything. In this present time and in eternity, nothing really matters except loyalty to God. THE MARKS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFEHebrews 13:1–6 Let brotherly love be always with you.

• From The Girls (2016)

  from the parking lot. There was no one else around but me and this man. The cliff, starkly outlined, each striation and pulse of lichen. The wind lashing my hair across my face, dislocating and vulnerable. Rearranging the sand into furrows. I kept walking toward him. Forcing myself to keep my gait. The distance between us fifty yards, now. His arms were honeycombed with muscle. The brute fact of his naked skull. I slowed my pace, but it didn’t matter—the man was still heading briskly in my direction. His head was bouncing as he walked, an insane rhythmic twitch. A rock, I thought crazily. He’ll pick up a rock. He’ll break open my skull, my brain leaking onto the sand. He’ll tighten his hands around my throat until my windpipe collapses. The stupid things I thought of: Sasha and her briny, childish mouth. How the sun had looked in the tops of the trees lining my childhood driveway. Whether Suzanne knew I thought of her. How the mother must have begged, at the end. The man was bearing down on me. My hands were limp and wet. Please, I thought. Please. Who was I addressing? The man? God? Whoever handled these things. And then he was in front of me. Oh, I thought. Oh. Because he was just a normal man, harmless, nodding along to the white headphones nested in his ears. Just a man walking on the beach, enjoying the music, the weak sun through the fog. He smiled at me as he passed, and I smiled back, like you would smile at any stranger, any person you didn’t know. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Kate Medina and Bill Clegg for invaluable guidance. Thank you also to Anna Pitoniak, Derrill Hagood, Peter Mendelsund, Fred and Nancy Cline, and my brothers and sisters: Ramsey, Hilary, Megan, Elsie, Mayme, and Henry. BY EMMA CLINE The Girls Daddy The Guest PHOTO: MEGAN CLINE EMMA CLINE is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Girls and the short story collection Daddy. The winner of the Plimpton Prize, she has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the First Novel Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sunday Times Story Award. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Prize and was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Cling to your honour for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this—it would be a really great life-work, Stephen.’ But the resolution waned because of Anna, who would surely join hands with the conspiracy of silence. She would never condone such fearless plain-speaking. If it came to her knowledge she would turn Puddle out bag and baggage, and that would leave Stephen alone. No, she dared not speak plainly because of the girl for whose sake she should now, above all, be outspoken. But supposing the day should arrive when Stephen herself thought fit to confide in her friend, then Puddle would take the bull by the horns: ‘Stephen, I know. You can trust me, Stephen.’ If only that day were not too long in coming— For none knew better than this little grey woman, the agony of mind that must be endured when a sensitive, highly organized nature is first brought face to face with its own affliction. None knew better the terrible nerves of the invert, nerves that are always lying in wait. Super- nerves, whose response is only equalled by the strain that calls that response into being. Puddle was well acquainted with these things—that was why she was deeply concerned about Stephen. But all she could do, at least for the present, was to be very gentle and very patient: ‘Drink this cocoa, Stephen, I made it myself—’ And then with a smile, ‘I put four lumps of sugar!’ Then Stephen was pretty sure to turn contrite: ‘Puddle—I’m a brute—you’re so good to me always.’ ‘Rubbish! I know you like cocoa made sweet, that’s why I put in those four lumps of sugar. Let’s go for a really long walk, shall we, dear? I’ve been wanting a really long walk now for weeks.’ Liar—most kind and self-sacrificing liar! Puddle hated long walks, especially with Stephen who strode as though wearing seven league boots, and whose only idea of a country walk was to take her own line across ditches and hedges—yes, indeed, a most kind and self-sacrificing liar! For Puddle was not quite so young as she had been; at times her feet would trouble her a little, and at times she would get a sharp twinge in her knee, which she shrewdly suspected to be rheumatism. Nevertheless she must keep close to Stephen because of the fear that tightened her heart—the fear of that questioning, wounded expression which now never left the girl’s eyes for a moment. So Puddle got out her most practical shoes—her heaviest shoes which were said to be damp-proof—and limped along bravely by the side of her charge, who as often as not ignored her existence. There was one thing in all this that Puddle found amazing, and that was Anna’s apparent blindness.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  THE TERROR OF THE WORD Hebrews 4:11–13 Let us then be eager to enter into that rest, lest we follow the example of the Israelites and fall into the same kind of disobedience. For the word of God is instinct with life; it is effective; it is sharper than a two-edged sword; it pierces right through to the very division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it scrutinizes the desires and intentions of the heart. No created thing can ever remain hidden from his sight; everything is naked to him and is compelled to meet the eyes of him with whom we have to reckon. THE point of this passage is that the word of God has come, and is such that it cannot be disregarded. The Jews always had a very special idea about words. Once a word was spoken, it had an independent existence. It was not only a sound with a certain meaning; it was a power which went out and did things. Isaiah heard God say that the word which went out of his mouth would never be ineffective; it would always do whatever he designed it to do (Isaiah 45:23). We can understand something of this if we think of the tremendous effect of words in history. A leader coins a phrase and it becomes a trumpet-call which inspires people to crusades or to crimes. Some great individual sends out a manifesto and it produces action which can make or destroy nations. Over and over again in history, the spoken word of some leader or thinker has gone out and done things. If that is so of human words, how much more is it so of the word of God? The writer to the Hebrews describes the word of God in a series of great phrases. The word of God is instinct with life. Certain issues are no longer of vital importance; certain books and words have no living interest whatever. Plato was one of the world’s supreme thinkers, but it is unlikely that there would be a huge public interest in Daily Studies in Plato. The great fact about the word of God is that it is a living issue for all people of all times. Other things may pass quietly into oblivion; other things may acquire an academic or historical interest; but the word of God is something that everyone must face, and its offer is something we must accept or reject. The word of God is effective.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  you should scream as loud as possible; maybe the whipper will become embarrassed or else some sympathetic soul might come to your rescue. Our savior came for neither of these reasons, but because Bailey yelled so loud and disturbed what was left of the service, the minister's wife came out and asked Uncle Willie to quiet us down. Laughter so easily turns to hysteria for imaginative children. I felt for weeks after that I had been very, very sick, and until I completely recovered my strength I stood on laughter's cliff and any funny thing could hurl me off to my death far below. Each time Bailey said “Preach it” to me, I hit him as hard as I could and cried.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  He placed his hands on its head and, standing there in the full sight of the people, confessed his own sin and the sin of his family: Ah, Lord God, I have committed iniquity; I have transgressed; I have sinned – I and my house. O Lord, I entreat thee, cover over [atone for] the iniquities, the transgressions and the sins which I have committed, transgressed and sinned before you, I and my house, even as it is written in the law of Moses, thy servant, ‘For in that day, he will cover over [atone] for you to make you clean. From all your transgressions before the Lord, you shall be cleansed.’ For the time being, the bullock was left in front of the altar. And then followed one of the unique ceremonies of the Day of Atonement. Two goats were standing by, and beside the goats was an urn with two lots in it. One lot was marked For Yahweh ; the other was marked For Azazel , which is the phrase the Authorized Version translates as the Scapegoat . The lots were drawn and laid one on the head of each goat. A tongue-shaped piece of scarlet was tied to the horn of the scapegoat. And for the moment the goats were left. Then the high priest turned to the bullock which was beside the altar and killed it. Its throat was slit and the blood caught in a basin by a priest. The basin was kept in motion so that the blood would not coagulate, for soon it was to be used. Then came the first of the great moments. The high priest took coals from the altar and put them in a censer; he took incense and put it in a special dish; and then he walked into the Holy of Holies to burn incense in the very presence of God. It was laid down that he must not stay too long ‘lest he put Israel in terror’. The people literally watched with bated breath; and, when he came out from the presence of God still alive, there went up a sigh of relief like a gust of wind. When the high priest came out from the Holy of Holies, he took the basin of the bullock’s blood, went back into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled it seven times up and seven times down. He came out, killed the goat that was marked For Yahweh , with its blood re-entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled again. Then he came out and mixed together the blood of the bullock and the goat and seven times sprinkled the horns of the altar of the incense and the altar itself.

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

  Literature: Anselm: de casu diaboli, Migne, 158. 326–362.—P. Lombardus: Sent., II. 7 sqq.—Alb. Magnus: In Sent., Borgnet’s ed., XXVII. etc.—Th. Aquinas: Summa, I. 51 sqq., II. 94–96, Migne, I. 893 sqq., II. 718 sqq., etc. Popular statements, e.g. P. Damiani, Migne, 144, 145. Peter the Venerable: de mirac., Migne, 189. 850–954. —John of Salisbury: Polycraticus, Migne, 199. 405 sqq.—Walter Map—Caesar of Heisterbach: Dial. mirac. Strange’s ed., 2 vols. Bonn, 1851, especially bk. V.—Thos. A Chantimprè: Bonum universale de apibus, Germ. Reprod. by A. Kaufmann, Col. 1899.—Jac. De Voragine: Golden Legend, Temple Class. ed. —Etienne de Bourbon, especially Part IV.—*T. Wright: Narrative of Sorcery and Magic, 2 vols. Lond., 1851.—*G. Roskoff: Gesch. des Teufels, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1869.—*W. G. Soldau: Gesch. der Hexenprocesse, Stuttg., 1843; new ed., by Heppe, 2 vols. Stuttg., 1880.—*Lea: Hist. of the Inquis., III. 379–550.—Lecky: Hist. of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, chap. 1.—Döllinger-Friedrich: D. Papstthum, Munich, 1892.—A. D. White: Hist. of the Warfare of Science and Theol. in Christendom, 2 vols. N. Y., 1898.—*Joseph Hansen : Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprocess im Mittelalter und die Entstehung der grossen Hexenverfolgung, Munich, 1900; *Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Gesch. des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im MtA., Leip., 1901.—Graf von Hoensbroech: D. Papstthum in seiner sozialkulturellen Wirksamkeit, Leipzig, 2 vols. 1900; 4th ed., 1901, vol. I. 207–380. For special lit. on Witchcraft, 1300–1500, see next volume. At no point do the belief and experience of our own age differ so widely from the Middle Ages as in the activity of the devil and the realm of evil spirits. The subject has already been touched upon under monasticism and the future state, but no history of the period would be complete which did not give it separate treatment. For the belief that the satanic kingdom is let loose upon mankind was more influential than the spirit of monasticism, or than the spirit which carried on the Crusades. The credulity of monk and people and the theology of the Schoolmen peopled the earth and air with evil spirits. The writings of popular authors teem with tales of their personal appearances and malignant agency, and the scholastic definitions are nowhere more precise and careful than in the department of satanology. After centuries of Christian culture, a panic seized upon Europe in the first half of the thirteenth century about the fell agency of such spirits, a panic which continued powerfully to influence opinion far beyond the time of the Reformation. The persecution to which it led, was one of the most merciless forms of cruelty ever practised. The pursuit and execution of witches constitute a special chapter in the history, but it is not fully opened till the fifteenth century. Here belong the popular and scholastic conceptions of the devil and his agency before the witch-craze set in.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The Greek for repentance is metanoia, which literally means a change of mind. It is better to say that it was now impossible for Esau to change his mind. It is not that he was barred from the forgiveness of God. It is just the grim fact that there are certain choices which cannot be unmade and certain consequences which not even God can take away. Once a choice has been made, it stands. God can and will forgive, but he cannot turn back the clock. We do well to remember that there is a certain finality in life. If, like Esau, we take the way of this world and make physical things our ultimate good, if we choose the pleasures of the present in preference to the joys of eternity, God can and will still forgive; but something has happened that can never be undone. There are certain things in which we cannot change our minds but must live our lives by the choice that we have made. THE TERROR OF THE OLD AND THE GLORY OF THE NEW Hebrews 12:18–24 It is not to something that can be touched that you have come, to a flaming fire, to mist and gloom and storm blast, and to the blare of a trumpet, and to a voice which spoke such words that those who heard it begged that not another word should be further spoken unto them, for they could not bear the command: ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.’ So terrifying was the apparition that Moses said: ‘I am in utter fear and trembling.’ But you have come to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to ten thousands of angels gathered in glad assembly, to the assembly of the honoured ones whose names are in the registers of heaven, to that God who is judge of all, to the spirits of just men who have come to that goal for which they were created, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the sprinkled blood which has a message greater than the blood of Abel. THIS passage is a contrast between the old and the new. It is a contrast between the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the new covenant of which Jesus is the mediator. Down to verse 21, it has echo after echo of the story of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Deuteronomy 4:11 describes that first law-giving: ‘you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  It may come from conscience; it may come from some direct word of God to our souls; it may come from the advice or the rebuke of some good and godly person; it may leap out at us from the pages of the Bible or challenge us in some sermon. Wherever it comes from, we neglect it at our peril. (2) Noah was not deterred by the mockery of others . When the sun was shining, his conduct must have looked like that of a fool. Who in their right mind would build a great hulk of a ship on dry land far from the sea? Those who take God’s word may often have to adopt a course of action which looks like madness. We have only to think of the early days of the Church. One man meets a friend. He says to him: ‘I have decided to become a Christian.’ The other man replies: ‘Do you know what happens to Christians? They are outlaws. They are imprisoned, thrown to the lions, crucified, burned.’ The first man replies: ‘I know.’ And the other says: ‘You must be mad.’ It is one of the hardest challenges of Christianity that we have to be prepared sometimes to be a fool for Jesus’ sake. We should never forget that there was a day when Jesus’ friends came and tried to get him to go home because they thought that he was mad. The wisdom of God is so often foolishness to the world. (3) Noah’s faith was a judgment on others . That is why, at least in one sense, it is dangerous to be a Christian. It is not that Christians are self-righteous; it is not that they are censorious; it is not that they go about finding fault with other people; it is not that they say: ‘I told you so.’ It often happens that, simply by being themselves, Christians pass judgment on other people. Alcibiades, that brilliant but wild young man of Athens, used to say to Socrates: ‘Socrates, I hate you, for every time I meet you, you show me what I am.’ One of the finest men who ever lived in Athens was Aristides, who was called ‘the just’. But they voted to banish him. One man, asked why he had voted in that way, answered: ‘Because I am tired of hearing Aristides called “the just”.’ There is danger in goodness, for in its light evil stands condemned. (4) Noah was righteous through faith . It so happens that he is the first man in the Bible to be called dikaios , righteous (Genesis 6:9).