Gratitude

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 Educated (2018)

  Gashes the size of football fields would appear at the mountain base, leaving a desolation of broken roots and upturned trees where once there had been a forest. He was probably chanting, “Got to be self-reliant” the day he climbed into a crawler and tore into the fields of satin wheat. —GRANDMA-OVER-IN-TOWN DIED ON MOTHER’S Day. I was doing research in Colorado when I heard the news. I left immediately for Idaho, but while traveling realized I had nowhere to stay. It was then that I remembered my aunt Angie, and that my father was telling anyone who would listen that she had put his name on a terrorist watch list. Mother had cast her aside; I hoped I could reclaim her. Angie lived next door to my grandfather, so again I parked along the white picket fence. I knocked. Angie greeted me politely, the way Grandpa had done. It was clear that she had heard much about me from my mother and father in the past five years. “I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “I’ll forget everything my dad has said about you, if you’ll forget everything he’s said about me.” She laughed, closing her eyes and throwing back her head in a way that nearly broke my heart, she looked so much like my mother. I stayed with Angie until the funeral. In the days before the service, my mother’s siblings began to gather at their childhood home. They were my aunts and uncles, but some of them I hadn’t seen since I was a child. My uncle Daryl, who I barely knew, suggested that his brothers and sisters should spend an afternoon together at a favorite restaurant in Lava Hot Springs. My mother refused to come. She would not go without my father, and he would have nothing to do with Angie. It was a bright May afternoon when we all piled into a large van and set off on the hour-long drive. I was uncomfortably aware that I had taken my mother’s place, going with her siblings and her remaining parent on an outing to remember her mother, a grandmother I had not known well. I soon realized that my not knowing her was wonderful for her children, who were bursting with remembrances and loved answering questions about her. With every story my grandmother came into sharper focus, but the woman taking shape from their collective memories was nothing like the woman I remembered. It was then I realized how cruelly I had judged her, how my perception of her had been distorted, because I’d been looking at her through my father’s harsh lens. During the drive back, my aunt Debbie invited me to visit her in Utah. My uncle Daryl echoed her. “We’d love to have you in Arizona,” he said. In the space of a day, I had reclaimed a family—not mine, hers. The funeral was the next day. I stood in a corner and watched my siblings trickle in.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  of that moon, I begin to make a list. A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I’ve spent a fair portion of my life in debt. As a young entrepreneur I became distressingly familiar with that feeling of going to sleep each night, waking up each day, owing many people a sum far greater than I could repay. Nothing, however, has made me feel quite so indebted as the writing of this book. Just as there’s no end to my gratitude, there seems no proper, logical place to begin to express it. And so. At Nike, I wish to thank my assistant, Lisa McKillips, for doing everything—I mean everything—perfectly, cheerfully, and always with her dazzling smile; old friends Jeff Johnson and Bob Woodell for making me remember, and being patient when I remembered it different; historian Scott Reames for deftly sifting facts from myths; and Maria Eitel for applying her expertise to weightiest matters. Of course, my biggest and most emphatic thanks to the 68,000 Nike employees worldwide for their daily efforts and their dedication, without which there would be no book, no author, no nothing. At Stanford, I wish to thank the mad genius and gifted teacher Adam Johnson for his golden example of what it means to be a working writer and a friend; Abraham Verghese, who instructs as he writes—quietly, effortlessly; and numberless graduate students I met with while sitting in the back row of writing classes— each inspired me with his or her passion for language and craft. At Scribner, thanks to the legendary Nan Graham for her steadfast support; Brian Belfiglio, Roz Lippel, Susan Moldow, and Carolyn Reidy for their bracing, energizing enthusiasm; Kathleen Rizzo for keeping production moving smoothly forward while always maintaining a sublime calm; above all, thanks to my supremely talented and razor-sharp editor, Shannon Welch, who gave me the affirmation I needed, when I needed it, without either of us fully appreciating how much I needed it. Her early note of praise and analysis and precocious wisdom was everything. Randomly, in no order, thanks to the many pals and colleagues who were so lavish with their time, talent, and advice, including super agent Bob Barnett, poet- administrator extraordinaire Eavan Boland, Grand Slam memoirist Andre Agassi, and number artist Del Hayes. A special and profound thank-you to memoirist- novelist-journalist-sportswriter-muse-friend J. R. Moehringer, whose generosity and good humor and enviable storytelling gifts I relied on through the many, many drafts of this book. Last, I wish to thank my family, all of them, but particularly my son Travis, whose support and friendship meant—and mean—the world. And, of course, a full- throated, full-hearted thanks to my Penelope, who waited. And waited. She waited while I journeyed, and she waited while I got lost. She waited night after night while I made my maddeningly slow way home—usually late, the dinner cold—and she waited the last few years while I relived it all, aloud, and in my head, and on the page, even though there were parts she didn’t care to relive. From the start, going on half a century, she’s waited, and now at last I can hand her these hard-fought pages and say, about them, about Nike, about everything: “Penny, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  It was a faint hope, at best, an impossible dream. But still. So I picked Athena. The Greek goddess who brings nike . Athena Corp. And thus I preserved the unmapped, unnumbered Road to Heaven. Or a shoe dog’s idea of heaven. A country with two billion feet. I SENT GORMAN home ahead of me. Before leaving Asia, I told him, I needed to make one quick stop in Manila. Personal errand, I said vaguely. I went to Manila to visit a shoe factory, a very good one. Then, closing an old loop, I spent the night in MacArthur’s suite. You are remembered for the rules you break. Maybe. Maybe not. IT WAS THE Bicentennial Year, that strange moment in America’s cultural history, that 365-day lollapalooza of self-examination and civics lessons and seminightly fireworks. From January 1 to December 31 of that year, you couldn’t change the channel without hitting upon a movie or documentary about George Washington or Ben Franklin or Lexington and Concord. And invariably, embedded in the patriotic programming, there would be yet another “Bicentennial Minute,” a public service announcement in which Dick Van Dyke or Lucille Ball or Gabe Kaplan would recount some episode that took place on this date during the Revolutionary era. One night it might be Jessica Tandy talking about the felling of the Liberty Tree. The next night it might be President Gerald Ford exhorting all Americans to “keep the Spirit of ’76 alive.” It was all somewhat corny, a little bit sentimental—and immensely moving. The yearlong swell of patriotism brought out an already strong love of country in me. Tall ships sailing into New York Harbor, recitations of the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, fervent talk of liberty and justice—it all refreshed my gratitude about being an American. And being free. And not being in jail. AT THE 1976 Olympic Trials, held again that June in Eugene, Nike had a chance, a fantastic chance, to make a good show. We’d never had that chance with Tiger, whose spikes weren’t top caliber. We’d never had that chance with the first generation of Nike products. Now, at last, we had our own stuff, and it was really good: top-quality marathon shoes and spikes. We were buzzing with excitement as we left Portland. Finally, we said, we’re going to have a Nike-shod runner make an Olympic team. It was going to happen. It needed to happen. Penny and I drove to Eugene, where we met up with Johnson, who was photographing the event. Despite our excitement about the trials, we talked most about Pre as we took our seats in the packed bleachers. It was clear that Pre was on everyone else’s mind, too. We heard his name coming from every direction, and his spirit seemed to hover like the low clouds roiling above the track. And if you were tempted to forget him, even for a moment, you got another bracing reminder when you looked at the runners’ feet.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  For their patience, warmth and expertise during my research visit to the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin, I’d like to thank Jean M. Cannon, Pat Fox, Margi Tenney, and Richard Workman. And in Buckinghamshire, particular thanks to William Goldsmith, who showed me around Stowe School. The greatest of love and thanks to my mother, brother, Cheryl, Aimee, Bea, and the rest of my family, of course, for letting me tell this story without even a flicker of worry about what I might say. And love and gratitude also to Christina McLeish, the best of friends and superb underfalconer, who was a fount of support after my father’s death and during the writing of this book, and Olivia Laing, whose own books are a constant inspiration and whose wise counsel and good humour kept me writing; and to Stuart Fall and Amanda Lingham, who helped me through very dark times, and my surrogate American family: Erin Gott, Paige Parkhill, Jim and Harriet Gott, Wyatt and Curran Gott, who always make me feel at home. So many people helped me with friendship, love, inspiration, encouragement, or in other ways while I wrote this book. Thanks are due to them all: Pat Baylis, Steve Bodio, Lee Brindley, Tim Button, Tracy Carmichael, Jake Daum, Tim Dee, Steve Delaney, John Gallagher, Andrew Hunter, Tony James, Polly Appleby and Archie James, Conor Jameson, Boris Jardine, Nick Jardine, Bill Jones, Lauren Kassell, Tim Lewens and Emma Gilby, Josh Lida, Greg Liebenhals, John Loft, Robert Macfarlane and Julia Lovell, Robert and Margaret Mair, Scott McNeff, Gordon Mellor, Toby Metcalf, Patricia Monk, Adam Norrie, Rebecca O’Connor, Ian Patterson, Robert Penney, John Pittman, Marzena Pogorzaly, Joanna Rabiger, Mike Rampey, Joe Ryan for his chaffinches, Katharine Stubbs, and Lydia Wilson. Special thanks to Andrew Metcalf and to Fiona Mozley. And to Chris Wormell for his exquisite cover image. And last of all, and most of all, I would like to thank my father, who taught me how to love the moving world, and to my beautiful hawk who taught me how to fly in it after he was gone. Mabel flew for many more seasons before a sudden, untreatable infection with Aspergillosis – an awful airborne fungus – carried her from her aviary to the dark woods where dwell the lost and dead. She is much missed. [image file=image_rsrc1P2.jpg]

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  He delivered himself of a long, rambling, semi-internal monologue, saying that the Santa Monica store practically ran itself, so he could train his replacement in one day, and he’d already set up a store in a remote location once, so he could do it again, fast, and we needed it done fast, with the shoes on the water and back-to-school orders about to roll in, and then he looked off and asked the walls or the shoes or the Great Spirit why he shouldn’t just shut up and do it, do whatever I asked, and be down-on-his-knees grateful for the damn opportunity, when anyone could see that he was—he searched for the exact words—“a talentless fuck.” I might have said something like, “Oh no you’re not. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” I might have. But I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut and waited. And waited. “Okay,” he said, at last, “I’ll go.” “Great. That’s great. Terrific. Thank you.” “But where ?” “Where what?” “Do you want me to go?” “Ah. Yes. Well. Anywhere on the East Coast with a port. Just don’t go to Portland, Maine.” “Why?” “A company based in two different Portlands? That’ll confuse the heck out of the Japanese.” We hashed it out some more and finally decided New York and Boston were the most logical places. Especially Boston. “It’s where most of our orders are coming from,” one of us said. “Okay,” he said. “Boston, here I come.” Then I handed him a bunch of travel brochures for Boston, playing up the fall foliage angle. A little heavy-handed, but I was desperate. He asked how I happened to have these brochures on me, and I told him I knew he’d make the right decision. He laughed. The forgiveness Johnson showed me, the overall good nature he demonstrated, filled me with gratitude, and a new fondness for the man. And perhaps a deeper loyalty. I regretted my treatment of him. All those unanswered letters. There are team players, I thought, and then there are team players, and then there’s Johnson. AND THEN HE threatened to quit. Via letter, of course. “I think I have been responsible for what success we have had so far,” he wrote. “And any success that will be coming in for the next two years at least.” Therefore, he gave me a two-part ultimatum. Make him a full partner in Blue Ribbon. Raise his salary to six hundred dollars a month, plus a third of all profits beyond the first six thousand pairs of shoes sold. Or else, he said, good-bye. I phoned Bowerman and told him that Full-time Employee Number One was staging a mutiny. Bowerman listened quietly, considered all the angles, weighed the pros and cons, then rendered his verdict. “Fuck him.” I said I wasn’t sure “fucking him” was the best strategy. Maybe there was some middle way of mollifying Johnson, of giving him a stake in the company.

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

  I must again express my profound obligation to my friend, the Rev. Dr. Yeomans, of Rochester, for his invaluable assistance in bringing these volumes before the public in a far better English dress than I could have given them myself. I have prepared the work in German, and have sent the copy to Leipsic, where a German edition will appear simultaneously with the American. Some portions I have myself reproduced in English, and have made considerable additions throughout in the final revision of the copy for the press. But the body of the work has been translated from manuscript by Dr. Yeomans. He has performed his task with that consummate union of faithfulness and freedom which does full justice both to the thought of the author and the language of the reader, and which has elicited the unqualified praise of the best judges for his translation of my History of the Apostolic Church, and that of the first three centuries. The work has been, for the translator as well as for the author, truly a labor of love, which carries in it its own exceeding great reward. For what can be more delightful and profitable than to revive for the benefit of the living generation, the memory of those great and good men who were God’s own chosen instruments in expounding the mysteries of divine truth, and in spreading the blessings of Christianity over the face of the earth? It is my wish and purpose to resume this work as soon as other engagements will permit, and to complete it according to the original plan. In the mean time I have the satisfaction of having finished the first great division of the history of Christianity, which, in many respects, is the most important, as the common inheritance of the Greek, Latin, and Evangelical churches. May God bless it as a means to promote the cause of truth, and to kindle that devotion to his service which is perfect freedom. Philip Schaff. 5 Bible House, New York, Nov. 8, 1866. ——————————— THIRD PERIOD FROM CONSTANTINE THE GREAT TO GREGORY THE GREAT. a. d. 311–590. SOURCES. I. Christian Sources: (a) The Acts Of Councils; in the Collectiones conciliorum of Hardouin, Par. 1715 sqq. 12 vols. fol.; Mansi, Flor. et Ven. 1759 sqq. 31 vols. fol.; Fuchs: Bibliothek der Kirchenversammlungen des 4ten und 5ten Jahrh. Leipz. 1780 sqq.; and Bruns: Biblioth. eccl. vol. i. Canones Apost. et Conc. saec. iv.–vii. Berol. 1839. (b) The Imperial Laws and Decrees referring to the church, in the Codex Theodosianus, collected A.D. 438, the Codex Justinianeus, collected in 529, and the Cod. repetitae praelectionis of 534. (c) The Official Letters of popes (in the Bullarium Romanum), patriarchs, and bishops.

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

  Yet six days a week, she made the twenty-minute drive from her apartment to the Anthropologie store where she worked, fuming all the while about how far her life was from what she had envisioned for herself. Then she heard something that opened her eyes to the real problem with her life. “I remember the day I started listening to Scripture in my car,” she told me. Barely two minutes into the audio stream, a passage caught her off guard. The text being read was Philippians 1: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,” Paul said, “always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”1 Paul was thankful—so thankful. He was thankful for his fellow believers, thankful for the diligence of his coworkers, thankful for where he was stationed even though he was under house arrest. The man was minding his mind. As Brooke drove to work and listened to these words from Philippians, she couldn’t help but be struck by the contrast between Paul and her. Paul had been imprisoned for preaching the gospel, yet despite this unjust treatment, he saw fit to give thanks. He saw fit to keep praying, to keep ministering, to keep striving alongside fellow believers for the hearts of women and men. What had she seen fit to do? According to her: complain. But her thinking shifted that day. “Jennie,” she said to me, “I saw my life in a new way.” She realized she could choose how she viewed her work. As she entered the store that morning, she saw her coworkers with fresh eyes. She decided to forge real relationships with them, watching for ways to care for and serve them. She began interacting differently with customers, seeing them not as nameless strangers but as real people with real stories who might need real grace. She began using her drive time to pray. A month into these new practices, she told me that she no longer despised her job. In fact, she loved it. Instead of fixating on the unfairness of her circumstance and stewing over how she deserved something better, something that used her skills and education to best effect, she began to see her less-than-fulfilling job as an opportunity to advance the kingdom. God had set her in a strategic place to love others, and now she was excited to be part of His plan. Instead of looking for things to complain about, my friend was now looking for reasons to give thanks. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was doing herself far greater favors than merely ensuring a more pleasant drive to and from work and deeper satisfaction through her workday.

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

  Haven’t the blessings that have come Hannah’s way this past year felt sweeter than they would have if she had not felt their lack? Don’t you and I look back on the roughest of times and see that they have brought the most profound growth? “We rejoice in our sufferings,” Paul said, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”14 Endurance and character and Spirit-enabled hope—these are marks of ones who choose gratitude. Recently I went to throw pottery with a couple of friends for a girls’ night out. Given how many potters I happen to follow on Instagram, I thought I would be an awesome potter! Surprisingly—to me, anyway—I was not. I went in with visions of creating a stunning Anthropologie-style hand-painted vase but emerged with a misshapen, muddy-hued mug. I told one of my potter friends about this disappointment, asking why on earth she loves throwing pottery so much when it can yield such a devastating result. “That’s the thing!” she said. “You work so hard and then put the piece into the fire, having no idea how it will turn out. Later, you open that kiln and hold your breath, wondering if it will have broken into a million pieces or will be the most beautiful thing you’ve seen.” Those really are the only two options, aren’t they? Not only for pottery but also for us. When we walk through the fires we inevitably find in life, will we emerge fortified or falling apart? Heavenly Father, help us choose wisely here. May we be found standing in our flames, praising You. [image file=Image00049.jpg] 14 Run Your Race I Choose to Seek the Good of Others Zac is out of town, and this morning, in the scramble of trying to get the kids to school, it was my turn to panic. Cooper headed toward the door with his backpack, ready for school—in his stocking feet. He just was going to walk out to the car and, I assume, into school with no shoes. We were already late and older siblings were stressed. He has several pairs of shoes, mind you, but he couldn’t find the ones he wanted to wear, which was making the whole lot of us late. I thought, You’re making us late, Cooper. It’s all your fault that your siblings are late. I thought, It’s selfish to make everyone else run later because you don’t like the shoes that are available to wear.

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

  So I guess I need to thank God for calling you because He knew I could not do ministry without you. You are my Aaron holding up my arms as I do this scary mission. Your fingerprints are all over this book. Thank you for helping me shape it into something helpful, usually in the middle of the night. Lysa TerKeurst, you and your team helped me believe in the message of this book! I walked out of your offices that day focused and certain God could use this book to help people. Thanks for taking time with us. Ashley Wiersma, I was scared to allow someone into the writing process with me. But I knew in every other part of my life, team makes us better. I knew being alone with my thoughts and computer wasn’t the best way to produce this book. Thank you for making me a better writer and for patiently watching as God built the thing He wanted to exist here. Laura Barker, I always say you should be on the cover of my books as a coauthor, because that’s how serious your editing is. It’s always painful when we’re in the middle of it, but you make me a better writer, and you made this book clearer and stronger. Obviously, this is not simply a job to you. You are so passionate, and I’m honored to have worked with you on this project. Curtis, Karen, and Yates & Yates, you aren’t primarily my agent; you are our friends. Zac and I trust you and appreciate you more and more every year. You saw the hand of God on my life when barely anyone else did. You believed in me and threw in completely, and I’ll never get over God’s provision in giving me a team like you. Caroline Parker, you held together some of the most important parts of our lives so this book could exist. Thank you for endlessly serving our family and making us more sane. Thank you for transcribing a lot of my words so I didn’t have to start this book from scratch and for researching and talking through so many of these ideas with me. You make life and work more fun! IF:Gathering team (Brooke, Jordyn, Amy, Lisa, Aly, Kali, Katy, Traci, Hannah M., Kristen, Kayley, Caroline, Morgan, Hannah R., and others), you helped me live this out and cheered me on and prayed for me while I was away writing. Thank you for letting me constantly work out these truths among you. Thank you for forgiving me and allowing me to be an imperfect leader. And for keeping IF:Gathering up and running while I was drowning in writing. To my home church, Watermark, thank you for allowing me to teach this on the ground with you.

• From Educated (2018)

  Though our perspectives may have differed in some particulars, their willingness to verify the facts of this story enabled me to write it. Professor David Runciman encouraged me to write this memoir and was among the first to read the manuscript. Without his confidence in it, I might never have had confidence in it myself. I am grateful to those who make books their life’s work and who gave a portion of that life to this book: my agents, Karolina Sutton and Anna Stein; and my editors, Hilary Redmon and Andy Ward at Random House, and Jocasta Hamilton at Hutchinson; as well as the many other people who worked to edit, typeset and launch this story. Most notably, Boaty Boatwright was a tireless champion. Special thanks are owed to Ben Phelan, who was given the difficult task of fact-checking this book, and who did so rigorously but with great sensitivity and professionalism. I am especially grateful to those who believed in this book before it was a book, when it was just a jumble of home-printed papers. Among those early readers are Simone Haysom, Dr. Marion Kant, Dr. Paul Kerry, Annie Wilding, Livia Gainham, Sonya Teich, Dunni Alao, N Quentin Woolf and Suraya Sidhi Singh. My aunts Debbie and Angie came back into my life at a crucial moment, and their support means everything. For believing in me, always, thanks to Professor Jonathan Steinberg. For granting me haven, emotional as well as practical, in which to write this book, I am indebted to my dear friend, Drew Mecham. [image "A Note on the Text" file=Image00045.jpg] Certain footnotes have been included to give a voice to memories that differ from mine. The notes concerning two stories—Luke’s burn and Shawn’s fall from the pallet—are significant and require additional commentary. In both events, the discrepancies between accounts are many and varied. Take Luke’s burn. Everyone who was there that day either saw someone who wasn’t there, or failed to see someone who was. Dad saw Luke, and Luke saw Dad. Luke saw me, but I did not see Dad and Dad did not see me. I saw Richard and Richard saw me, but Richard did not see Dad, and neither Dad nor Luke saw Richard. What is one to make of such a carousel of contradiction? After all the turning round and round, when the music finally stops, the only person everyone can agree was actually present that day, is Luke. Shawn’s fall from the pallet is even more bewildering. I was not there. I heard my account from others, but was confident it was true because I’d heard it told that way for years, by many people, and because Tyler had heard the same story. He remembered it the way I did, fifteen years later. So I put it in writing. Then this other story appeared.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  For their patience, warmth and expertise during my research visit to the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin, I’d like to thank Jean M. Cannon, Pat Fox, Margi Tenney, and Richard Workman. And in Buckinghamshire, particular thanks to William Goldsmith, who showed me around Stowe School. The greatest of love and thanks to my mother , brother , Cheryl, Aimee, Bea, and the rest of my family, of course, for letting me tell this story without even a flicker of worry about what I might say. And love and gratitude also to Christina McLeish, the best of friends and superb underfalconer , who was a fount of support after my father’s death and during the writing of this book, and Olivia Laing, whose own books are a constant inspiration and whose wise counsel and good humour kept me writing; and to Stuart Fall and Amanda Lingham, who helped me through very dark times, and my surrogate American family: Erin Gott, Paige Parkhill, Jim and Harriet Gott, Wyatt and Curran Gott, who always make me feel at home. So many people helped me with friendship, love, inspiration, encouragement, or in other ways while I wrote this book. Thanks are due to them all: Pat Baylis, Steve Bodio, Lee Brindley, Tim Button, Tracy Carmichael, Jake Daum, Tim Dee , Steve Delaney , John Gallagher , Andrew Hunter , Tony James, Polly Appleby and Archie James, Conor Jameson, Boris Jardine, Nick Jardine, Bill Jones, Lauren Kassell, Tim Lewens and Emma Gilby, Josh Lida, Greg Liebenhals, John Loft, Robert Macfarlane and Julia Lovell, Robert and Margaret Mair, Scott McNeff, Gordon Mellor , Toby Metcalf, Patricia Monk, Adam Norrie, Rebecca O’Connor , Ian Patterson, Robert Penney, John Pittman, Marzena Pogorzaly, Joanna Rabiger , Mike Rampey, Joe Ryan for his chaffinches, Katharine Stubbs, and Lydia Wilson. Special thanks to Andrew Metcalf and to Fiona Mozley. And to Chris Wormell for his exquisite cover image. And last of all, and most of all, I would like to thank my father , who taught me how to love the moving world, and to my beautiful hawk who taught me how to fly in it after he was gone. Mabel flew for many more seasons before a sudden, untreatable infection with Aspergillosis – an awful airborne fungus – carried her from her aviary to the dark woods where dwell the lost and dead. She is much missed. 1 Patience Forty-five minutes north-east of Cambridge is a landscape I’ve come to love very much indeed. It’s where wet fen gives way to parched sand. It’s a land of twisted pine trees, burned-out cars, shotgun-peppered road signs and US Air Force bases. There are ghosts here: houses crumble inside numbered blocks of pine forestry.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I felt a flood of gratitude. There’d been weeks of panic, of not knowing what to say in my father’s memorial address, and now I knew this story would be at the heart of it. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ I breathed. In White’s little grey notebook with the snake on its cover there are nightmares of aeroplanes too. They loom ‘ silver -gold through the blue haze’ towards him; he dives underwater, looks for cellars to hide in, but they can always find him, always know where he is. They drop high explosives and poison gas, step-dive down to render him dead. They were the dream-terrors of a boy who grew up at the mercy of violent authority: his father, his schoolmasters, the prefects, and now the dictators dragging the world to war. In England Have My Bones White explained that he had learned to fly because he was scared of aeroplanes. Perhaps his fear was not only of falling; perhaps his lessons were an attempt to conquer his fear of persecution by assuming for his own the airman’s eye. And just as he’d fought with his fear of the aeroplane, so he had tussled with Gos. For Gos was the dark and immoral child of ancient German forests. He was a murderer . He had all the glamour of the dictator . His laws were those of Hitler and Mussolini; he was the violence and irrationality of fascism made flesh. ‘He was a Hittite ,’ White wrote later; ‘a worshipper of Moloch. He immolated victims, sacked cities, put virgins and children to the sword.’ I began to see, now, how you could read The Goshawk with a different eye: as something like a war. Siegfried Sassoon had seen it, recognised the battle that raged in its pages. When it was published White sent him a copy but he confessed that he could not read it. He had started to, but flunked it. ‘ I now flinch from anything frightful,’ he explained, ‘and what I read was agonising.’ White’s politics were deeply unfortunate. He loathed capitalism, and while he’d flirted with Communism at Stowe, loving its revolutionary fervour , he began to fear it, for if the revolution came, it would take away his individuality and he was sure that was all he had. Now he wondered if he might be a fascist. He was not sure. He hated nationalism, but certainly did not believe people were equal. He did not like Hitler . But he did not like the British government either . He had a child’s vision of apocalyptic redemption: he believed that war, when it came, would bring waste and murder and the ruin of civilisation, but that war would be worthwhile if we could emerge from the ruins with wisdom. One had to choose one’s side. Democracy against fascism.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  It was. A ritual burn, a ceremony of strange, protective magic. Bad things had fled from that burning tree. We laugh all the way back to the house, leaving the skeleton upright in the snow. And later that day Mum and I fly back to London. I drive her home, promise to see her soon, then make my way to Cambridge, and Stuart and Mandy’s house. I run to their door. I cannot wait to see my hawk. There she is, perched in their garden, fat and happy in a crowd of pointers with wagging tails. I thank Stuart for looking after her while I was gone. He stands by the patio doors, strangely drawn and tired. ‘No worries,’ he says. ‘I’ve not done much with her, to be honest. I’ve had flu. It’s been terrible. I’ve been in bed all Christmas. Just thrown her food.’ ‘Poor Stu,’ Mandy says, coming towards the table with three cups of coffee and a packet of open biscuits. ‘He’s really been in the wars.’ I look at my friends and my heart crumples. They have spent so many hours helping me, have shown me so much love. And I had taken it all for granted. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘I love you guys. I really do.’ I say it with as much feeling as I can. I am not just thanking them for looking after my hawk. I get up to give Stuart a hug. ‘Don’t catch it,’ he says, backing away. I hug him anyway. On this breezy August day in 1939 White is in Ireland hiding from the war. He knows he ought to enlist, but he’s persuaded himself his flight here is not mere cowardice. He’d be wasted as a soldier, he thinks. He has a more important thing to do – finishing his epic about the Matter of Britain that will solve the problem of why humans fight at all. And that is why he has come here to County Mayo, and rented Sheskin Lodge to write in, a crumbling aristocratic bungalow with a glassed-in winter garden set amid acres of feral rhododendron and pine.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  Sitting there in the grass, listening to distant engines under a misty October sky, I thought of my father standing on the bombsite in my dream. He had stood and waited, as a boy. Had been patient and the planes had come. And I remembered, then, a story he’d told us one Saturday morning over breakfast. It was a good story. In a small way, it made my dad a hero. I felt a flood of gratitude. There’d been weeks of panic, of not knowing what to say in my father’s memorial address, and now I knew this story would be at the heart of it. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ I breathed. In White’s little grey notebook with the snake on its cover there are nightmares of aeroplanes too. They loom ‘silver-gold through the blue haze’ towards him; he dives underwater, looks for cellars to hide in, but they can always find him, always know where he is. They drop high explosives and poison gas, step-dive down to render him dead. They were the dream-terrors of a boy who grew up at the mercy of violent authority: his father, his schoolmasters, the prefects, and now the dictators dragging the world to war. In England Have My Bones White explained that he had learned to fly because he was scared of aeroplanes. Perhaps his fear was not only of falling; perhaps his lessons were an attempt to conquer his fear of persecution by assuming for his own the airman’s eye. And just as he’d fought with his fear of the aeroplane, so he had tussled with Gos. For Gos was the dark and immoral child of ancient German forests. He was a murderer. He had all the glamour of the dictator. His laws were those of Hitler and Mussolini; he was the violence and irrationality of fascism made flesh. ‘He was a Hittite,’ White wrote later; ‘a worshipper of Moloch. He immolated victims, sacked cities, put virgins and children to the sword.’ I began to see, now, how you could read The Goshawk with a different eye: as something like a war. Siegfried Sassoon had seen it, recognised the battle that raged in its pages. When it was published White sent him a copy but he confessed that he could not read it. He had started to, but flunked it. ‘I now flinch from anything frightful,’ he explained, ‘and what I read was agonising.’

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

  It has special value for the theologian and minister of the gospel, as the key to the present condition of Christendom and the guide to successful labor in her cause. The present is the fruit of the past, and the germ of the future. No work can stand unless it grow out of the real wants of the age and strike firm root in the soil of history. No one who tramples on the rights of a past generation can claim the regard of its posterity. Church history is no mere curiosity shop. Its facts are not dry bones, but embody living realities, the general principles and laws for our own guidance and action. Who studies church history studies Christianity itself in all its phases, and human nature under the influence of Christianity as it now is, and will be to the end of time. Finally, the history of the church has practical value for every Christian, as a storehouse of warning and encouragement, of consolation and counsel. It is the philosophy of facts, Christianity in living examples. If history in general be, as Cicero describes it, "testis temporum, lux veritatis, et magistra vitae," or, as Diodorus calls it, "the handmaid of providence, the priestess of truth, and the mother of wisdom," the history of the kingdom of heaven is all these in the highest degree. Next to the holy scriptures, which are themselves a history and depository of divine revelation, there is no stronger proof of the continual presence of Christ with his people, no more thorough vindication of Christianity, no richer source of spiritual wisdom and experience, no deeper incentive to virtue and piety, than the history of Christ’s kingdom. Every age has a message from God to man, which it is of the greatest importance for man to understand. The Epistle to the Hebrews describes, in stirring eloquence, the cloud of witnesses from the old dispensation for the encouragement of the Christians. Why should not the greater cloud of apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, fathers, reformers, and saints of every age and tongue, since the coming of Christ, be held up for the same purpose? They were the heroes of Christian faith and love, the living epistles of Christ, the salt of the earth, the benefactors and glory of our race; and it is impossible rightly to study their thoughts and deeds, their lives and deaths, without being elevated, edified, comforted, and encouraged to follow their holy example, that we at last, by the grace of God, be received into their fellowship, to spend with them a blessed eternity in the praise and enjoyment of the same God and Saviour. § 6. Duty of the Historian.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  Sitting there in the grass, listening to distant engines under a misty October sky, I thought of my father standing on the bombsite in my dream. He had stood and waited, as a boy. Had been patient and the planes had come. And I remembered, then, a story he’d told us one Saturday morning over breakfast. It was a good story. In a small way, it made my dad a hero. I felt a flood of gratitude. There’d been weeks of panic, of not knowing what to say in my father’s memorial address, and now I knew this story would be at the heart of it. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ I breathed. In White’s little grey notebook with the snake on its cover there are nightmares of aeroplanes too. They loom ‘silver-gold through the blue haze’ towards him; he dives underwater, looks for cellars to hide in, but they can always find him, always know where he is. They drop high explosives and poison gas, step-dive down to render him dead. They were the dream-terrors of a boy who grew up at the mercy of violent authority: his father, his schoolmasters, the prefects, and now the dictators dragging the world to war. In England Have My Bones White explained that he had learned to fly because he was scared of aeroplanes. Perhaps his fear was not only of falling; perhaps his lessons were an attempt to conquer his fear of persecution by assuming for his own the airman’s eye. And just as he’d fought with his fear of the aeroplane, so he had tussled with Gos. For Gos was the dark and immoral child of ancient German forests. He was a murderer. He had all the glamour of the dictator. His laws were those of Hitler and Mussolini; he was the violence and irrationality of fascism made flesh. ‘He was a Hittite,’ White wrote later; ‘a worshipper of Moloch. He immolated victims, sacked cities, put virgins and children to the sword.’ I began to see, now, how you could read The Goshawk with a different eye: as something like a war. Siegfried Sassoon had seen it, recognised the battle that raged in its pages. When it was published White sent him a copy but he confessed that he could not read it. He had started to, but flunked it. ‘I now flinch from anything frightful,’ he explained, ‘and what I read was agonising.’

• From Educated (2018)

  the phone with him and Stefanie, who became a sister to me. They were available whenever I needed to talk, and back then I needed to talk quite a lot. Tyler paid a price for that letter, though the price is hard to define. He was not disowned, or at least his disownment was not permanent. Eventually he worked out a truce with my father, but their relationship may never be the same. I’ve apologized to Tyler more times than I can count for what I’ve cost him, but the words are awkwardly placed and I stumble over them. What is the proper arrangement of words? How do you craft an apology for weakening someone’s ties to his father, to his family? Perhaps there aren’t words for that. How do you thank a brother who refused to let you go, who seized your hand and wrenched you upward, just as you had decided to stop kicking and sink? There aren’t words for that, either. — WINTER WAS LONG THAT YEAR, the dreariness punctuated only by my weekly counseling sessions and the odd sense of loss, almost bereavement, I felt whenever I finished one TV series and had to find another. Then it was spring, then summer, and finally as summer turned to fall, I found I could read with focus. I could hold thoughts in my head besides anger and self-accusation. I returned to the chapter I had written nearly two years before at Harvard. Again I read Hume, Rousseau, Smith, Godwin, Wollstonecraft and Mill. Again I thought about the family. There was a puzzle in it, something unresolved. What is a person to do, I asked, when their obligations to their family conflict with other obligations—to friends, to society, to themselves? I began the research. I narrowed the question, made it academic, specific. In the end, I chose four intellectual movements from the nineteenth century and examined how they had struggled with the question of family obligation. One of the movements I chose was nineteenth-century Mormonism. I worked for a solid year, and at the end of it I had a draft of my thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813–1890.” The chapter on Mormonism was my favorite. As a child in Sunday

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

  lun Jos LGN ae G& Apo, A Evvabo6, OL 30000 ; site unknown ; acc. to Conder=Talm, Caphar 337 חנף Hanania (Nbr&“8 7***( on the border of Upper and Lower Galilee, mod. Kefr’ Anan, Survey WPi. 203.207 n.f. favour, supplication for‏ התחנה .ד ך favour ;—’nJos11°°+ 4t.; estr. NINA 1 K 8%:‏ 2Ch 6 etc. + vou‏ תִּחִנּתִיהֶם t.;‏ 5 +"637% תִּחְנָּתִי sf. 1 Lee, ee by ‘Israel Jos 1 PD);‏ Ezrg®. 2. supplication for favour,‏ מאת יהוה nban‏ ד 2.Ch'33" qh‏ 87-75 1 ד from, God)‏ 1K 88=2Ch6™, 6" תפלה (ו)תחנה ;מ‎ 1 K © 8845.49.54 — 9 Ch 6785.59 1 K 93; אנת'אשר התפלל‎ g (= החנון‎ 2 Ch 6%); ת' לפנ‎ SBM Let the sup- plication fall before, Yahweh Je 36’, the king Je37™, Jeremiah Je 42°; ת' לפני‎ ban present supplication before, Yahweh Je 42° Dn 9”, the king Je 38”. Trane nn n.pr.m. one in the line of Judah Teh 4 |), 1 [תחנון]‎ n.[m.]|only pl.abstr. supplica- tion for favour; abs. תחנונים‎ Pr 18%+44t.; estr. תחנוני‎ Je 37 260 67% sf.rs. INA y287 etc.,+-gt. sf; also תחנונותי‎ y 86°;—1. made to men: (a poor man to the rich) Pr 18”; by ת'‎ supplica- tion unto (crocodile to man) J b 40”; elsewhere 2. to God: || תפלה‎ W143! Dng*"; ת' אשר התפלל‎ 2 Ch 6* תחנה==)‎ 1 K 8"); ת'‎ dip סט‎ of sup- plication 287° 31% 86° 130° 140% also 116” (for קולי‎ is old case- -ending, and cstr. as & 9 Che Bae al.); ||'22 Je 31°; “N ‘32 Je 33 MYL רוח‎ Zee אנְחֶנוּ מַפילִים תי לפנִיך‎ Dn 9* we are presenting our ‘stipplications befor e thee ; ְּתְחָלַת ת'‎ Dn 9” at the beginning of thy sup- plication. 7 Les [חנן‎ be loathsome (cf. Ary 5 3 foetorem emisit (puteus); Syr. [4-49 rancid); —only בְמָנִי‎ 1930 nan) Jb 19” and I am loath- some to the sons of my womb (|| ,(זור.זז .צ זָרָה‎ so RVm Ew De Dial. (On the tone v. De. ) => ךז‎ n.pr.loc. Is 30% in ו‎ Egypt, on island in Nile, = Egypt. Hnnstn [*Hnéns?], a 7 ; Herodot. #7 “Avvows, afterward Heracleopolis magna, now Ahnds; v. Steindorff 8" ™, vb. be polluted, profane (Ar.‏ [חנף] ך+ 1 ineline, decline, hence 22> inclining to a right state, but in Heb. of inclining away from right, irreligion, profaneness, cf. 22> havea Ris. i.e,distortion of foot; Syr.in deriv. 2 may : חנף be profane, etc.; NH Hiph., Aram. Aph. act falsely toward, flatter, הנופה‎ hypocrisy; As. hanpu, ruthlessness; handpu, exercise ruthless- ness toward, Tel Amarna Zim74™-'**)-?°)__Qal Pf. 3 fs. 137 15 24°; 3 pl. 3520 ue 23"; Impf. 3 fs. FN Je 3'; תתנף‎ Mi 4"; nA) Je 3°

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  One by one, my parents, my wife, and I called them forward to receive a gift. My parents had made the long drive from Oklahoma to attend the service. They brought a carload of assorted gifts (blankets, baskets, beadwork) with them to hand out to everyone who was part of my honoring day. Our gifts were only tokens, but they were crucial expressions of kinship. As part of my ordination, I performed the give-away. In Native tradition, when a person is called to a place of honor, they do not receive gifts. They give gifts.8 This expectation is the reverse of what is common in European-based cultures. To receive gifts would be a focus on the individual, on the “I” instead of the “we.” Native people give back to the community on their honoring day to keep the focus on kinship, on the eternal “we” of community. When I was ordained in the spirit of the Native Covenant, I understood the sacrificial nature of my calling. I made a public witness to that commitment by giving away for the sake of others. While this might be seen as only a gesture on my part, the theological implications for how Native Americans understand the Jesus message are profound. In European-based interpretations of Christianity, economic justice may be a subject of theory rather than practice. Certainly Latin and Central American liberation theologies saw economic justice in real terms, but in North America the interpretation can be far more muted. However, for Native American theology it is an issue for literal interpretation. Kinship and give-away combine to create a forceful theology of economic justice. In understanding the Native viewpoint, it is important to remember that Jesus talked about money as much as about love. As the Native Messiah, Jesus spoke directly about the need to keep the give-away central to community life. His messages were not theoretical, but entirely pragmatic. He warned those who withheld what they had from the give-away that they would not find eternal life. He blessed those who gave what they had, even if it was very little. He connected discipleship to stewardship. He told his followers that they were to be servants of all. From the Native viewpoint, Jesus was a strong advocate for keeping the bonds of kinship real through the actual distribution of wealth. To recognize how powerful that concept is in Native theology, imagine the CEOs of American corporations celebrating their rise to the top of the corporate ladder by giving away their wealth to the workers in the company. Native American Christian theology is unambiguous in its call to economic justice. Ideas like fair housing, adequate health care, and the rights of all working people are not sentimental hopes in the Native Covenant. They are clear responsibilities. They represent kinship. Community is not possible without kinship, and therefore, without economic justice. As the Native Messiah, Jesus expected his followers to live out the give-away in real terms.

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

  Holy Terror 13. Global Jihad Afterword Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index A Note about the Author Other Books by This Author Part One BEGINNINGS Part Two KEEPING THE PEACE Part Three MODERNITY Acknowledgments This book is dedicated to Jane Garrett, my friend as well as my editor at Knopf for twenty years. From the very beginning, your encouragement and enthusiasm gave me the strength to persevere with the daily jihad of writing; it was a privilege and a joy to work with you. I am also blessed with my editors George Andreou and Jorg Hensgen, whose stringent, meticulous work on the manuscript helped me to push the book into another dimension, for which I am sincerely grateful. My thanks also to all the people who have worked on the book with such skill and expertise—at The Bodley Head: Stuart Williams (editor), Beth Humphries (copy editor), Joe Pickering (publicist), James Jones (jacket designer), Mary Chamberlain (proofreader), and Katherine Ailes (assistant editor); at Knopf: Roméo Enriquez (production manager), Ellen Feldman (production editor), Kim Thornton (publicist), Oliver Munday (jacket designer), Cassandra Pappas (text designer), Janet Biehl (copy editor), and Terezia Cicelova (editorial assistant); and at Knopf Canada: Louise Dennys (editor) and Sheila Kaye (publicist). Many of you I have never met, but be assured I appreciate all you do for me. As always, I must thank my agents Felicity Bryan, Peter Ginsberg, and Andrew Nurnberg for their tireless support, loyalty, and, above all, their continued faith in me; this time, I really could not have managed without you. Thanks too to Michele Topham, Jackie Head, and Carole Robinson in Felicity Bryan’s office for helping me so cheerfully through the day-to-day crises of a writer’s life, from bookkeeping to computer meltdowns. And my sincere gratitude to Nancy Roberts, my assistant, for dealing so patiently with my correspondence and for her adamantine firmness in ensuring that I have time and space to write. A big thank-you to Sally Cockburn, whose paintings helped me to understand what my book was, in part, about. And, finally, thanks to Eve, Gary, Stacey, and Amy Mott, and Michelle Stevenson at My Ideal Dog, for looking after Poppy so devotedly during her last years and enabling me to do my work. This book is also in loving memory of Gary, who always saw to the heart of things and would, I think, have approved its contents. aaknopf.com What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now. _140631327_ A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR K AREN A RMSTRONG is the author of numerous books on religion, including The Case for God, A History of God, The Battle for God, Holy War, Islam, Buddha, and The Great Transformation, as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase. Her work has been translated into forty-five languages.