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 Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Nenna. I have done many things, but what I am most focused on is continuing to cultivate a unique space called Feelmore Adult Gallery. The idea of opening an adult store came to me in a dream. Feelmore gives me a unique platform to stand upon in order to be a verified source when I point out opportunities in my community. No one really listens unless you have a stake in the game. Being the founder has given me compassion, understanding, and a responsibility to inform so many others in so many ways that help my community. Feelmore’s motto, “It’s More Than Just Sex,” is honest and real. There are so many issues that come up because of sex and intimacy in the world that I wanted to create a place that just lets others reset and educate themselves on their own desires. It was a challenge to have a unique sex shop, aka sacred space, in Oakland that is truly welcoming to all. Second, I am just myself. I had to work on loving all that I am in order to encourage and empower others. amb. Can you tell us how you came to be on this path? Nenna. Life is truly an adventure. The path came to me by simply looking at the industry and viewing it through a gap analysis lens. It was missing me … my ideas, my freshness. For now, this is what I have desired to put my everything into. It isn’t easy, and days are long, but I am grateful. But I want more. amb. You say the idea came to you in a dream—were you already in the practice of pleasure or adult films? When did you know this was a calling? Nenna. When I had the dream, that was day zero for me. I had never been “in the practice of pleasure or adult films.” My producing adult films came after. It isn’t a calling, per se. I am just maximizing my time and doing good things with my gifts and talents while in this industry. amb. What are some of the challenges you have run into on this path? (Family, financial, societal opinion, gentrification, homophobia?) Nenna. Most of the challenges have been financial. Given that I am Black and female, there is already a great deal that America can help you unpack given its historical policies on financial lending. Other than financial challenges, another has been zoning, as adult stores have to be in certain areas. I have always wanted Feelmore to be a part of a community, and am grateful that so many are believing in Oakland and helping to bring new customers to our area. amb. Why is it important that you are specifically creating erotic material? Nenna. Material of any kind is what people can hold onto … what they can interpret … what they can critique. If it doesn’t exist, it isn’t real.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  amb: I was texting a babysitting friend while working on this book. He sent me this message: “Finally got the kids quiet and lights out when the older one comes and says ‘It’s so hot in the room, and I need to masturbate.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, knock yourself out, son, that’s normal.’ But he’s like, ‘but I’m too hot, is there a fan?’ So I turn on the ceiling fan to facilitate my nephew’s pleasure and sleep going, and, wow, for parenting with a sexual liberation lens.” I was so impressed by this that I had to interview the parent/s who created this result. It turns out it’s Zahra Ala, who I have known and admired for over a decade. Here is what Zahra had to say: Being a parent who is in touch with one’s own pleasure is vital to raising children toward pleasure: mind, body, spirit pleasure. Inquire about what makes them feel good, mind, body, spirit. Encourage what brings them pleasure. Talk about it, inquire about it, laugh about it. Have age-appropriate anatomy conversation on an ongoing basis. Normalize the conversation about pleasure. Have it with people who are a part of our tribe to demonstrate that everyone is talking about it, particularly sexual pleasure. Have conversations about age-appropriate ways to show love and care. Exclaim that we all deserve to feel good in our bodies and always check in about consent: is anyone is inappropriately touching their body, et cetera? I also do not hide anything from them. I am affectionate in front of them. They know that I openly relate to and love many people; they meet my loves, I chat with them before I enter a relationship, et cetera. Sub-sectionThe Politics of Liberated Relationships Chile, we need all the small shared pleasures. —Kiese Laymon Radical Gratitude Spella spell to cast upon meeting a stranger, comrade, or friend working for social and/or environmental justice and liberation: you are a miracle walking i greet you with wonder in a world which seeks to own your joy and your imagination you have chosen to be free, every day, as a practice. i can never know the struggles you went through to get here, but i know you have swum upstream and at times it has been lonely i want you to know i honor the choices you made in solitude and i honor the work you have done to belong i honor your commitment to that which is larger than yourself and your journey to love the particular container of life that is you you are enough your work is enough you are needed your work is sacred you are here and i am grateful Liberated Relationships, ExpandedIn my previous book, Emergent Strategy, I offered some principles in development for liberated relationships, relationships that center the freedom and transformation of all partners, romantic, platonic, political, familial, or some combination of these. Here they are, as a reminder:

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “He looked like a great man, and not like a bad one. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the Court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect. A high and intellectual forehead; a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face on which was written as legibly as under the great picture in the Council Chamber of Calcutta, _Mens aequa in arduis_: such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.” “Have you learned all this by heart?” cried the Doctor laughing. “I don’t have to learn stuff like that”, I replied, “one reading is enough.” He stared at me. “I was surely right in bringing you down here”, he began, “I wanted to get you a berth in the Intermediate; but there’s no room: if you could put up with that sofa, I’d have the steward make up a bed for you on it.” “Oh, would you!” I cried, “how kind of you, and you’ll let me read your books?” “Everyone of ’em”, he replied, adding, “I only wish I could make as good use of them.” The upshot of it was that in an hour he had drawn some of my story from me and we were great friends. His name was Keogh. “Of course he’s Irish”, I said to myself, as I went to sleep that night: “no one else would have been so kind.” The ordinary man will think I am bragging here about my memory. He’s mistaken. Swinburne’s memory especially for poetry was far, far better than mine, and I have always regretted the fact that a good memory often prevents one thinking for oneself. I shall come back to this belief of mine when I later explain how want of books gave me whatever originality I possess. A good memory and books at command are two of the greatest dangers of youth and form by themselves a terrible handicap, but like all gifts a good memory is apt to make you friends among the unthinking, especially when you are very young. As a matter of fact, Doctor Keogh went about bragging of my memory and power of reciting, until some of the Cabin passengers became interested in the extraordinary schoolboy. The outcome was that I was asked to recite one evening in the First Cabin and afterwards a collection was taken up for me and a first-class passage paid and about twenty dollars over and above was given to me. Besides, an old gentleman offered to adopt me and play second father to me, but I had not got rid of one father to take on another, so I kept as far away from him as I decently could.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  I was just recently watching the old Slick Rick “Children’s Story” music video and found it so interesting that in a moment when the lyrics were talking about the horrors of police violence, the visual story was one in which Slick Rick was outwitting the cops and getting free, and I was so grateful to watch him do that, I needed to see him win. That didn’t negate the reality he was speaking to, but, paired with the reality, [it] gave this feeling of power and comedy and slickness that the cops literally couldn’t even handle. Una. Yeah, totally! So, what current burlesque/organizing projects are you excited about that we’re working on? Michi. That feels like a leading question. Una. We spend so much time working on it, I thought we should mention it here … Michi. True, fine. COMPOST BIN! Una. COMPOST BIN!, the sexiest name we could think of for a monthly burlesque/cabaret show! Why do you think it’s important? Michi. Well, I think, as people living in a world with so much injustice, in a city where we spend so much of our energy working to afford to live, many of us compartmentalize to be able to hold the pain and contradictions, to be able to keep going. As queer people, as people of color, as activists and organizers, we face the injustice and work day after day holding the pain, anger, and stress of these realities. So, as artists, we have created COMPOST BIN! as a space for our communities to both dream and create the world we wish to live in. While in COMPOST BIN!, our minds are opened to ideas and visions of liberation, and our bodies feel what it is to live in a world where we are all loved, valued, and free. Leaving the show, our bodies have the physical memory of existing in a world that holds all the contradictions with fierce love, reminding us of the world we work for. In COMPOST BIN!, storytelling is a cathartic transformation shared between incredible artists and inspiring audience members, each working outside of that space as teachers and organizers. Una. Yes! See, that’s exactly why I wanted you to talk about it!

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Alexis’s note: I have read and written about the work of Toni Cade Bambara for decades. I have sifted through her archival papers at Spelman College (which, by the way, consist of ideas written on napkins, candy wrappers, coupons, and receipts). But when I thought about what I knew about Toni Cade Bambara and pleasure, I realized I knew it best through my own lived experience, my own incredible fortune of having been loved, mentored, and taught by five Black women who create joy and clarity in the tradition of Toni Cade Bambara. So this offering is gratitude and celebration for the lessons of Toni Cade Bambara, not through her texts but through my personal witness of the impact of her self-identified students, loved ones, mentees, and collaborators: scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin, filmmaker and activist Aishah Shahidah Simmons, artist and abolitionist Kai Lumumba Barrow, healer and organizer Cara Page, and editor and intellectual activist Cheryll Y. Greene. With love. Alexis. The Gift for Farah Jasmine Griffin Those of us that have been taught by Farah Griffin have felt cherished. Not precious. Not perfect. Not without growing to do. But necessary. And dreamt of. And held. And when she helps us. When she reads our work. When she writes us recommendations. When we turn back to thank her, she says: “Oh, it’s my pleasure.” And we believe her. Farah Griffin is grace. Gifted from the practiced mouths and lungs, the practiced muscles and lines of Black women who believed in freedom diligently enough to call out for it. Farah Jasmine Griffin writes about Black women, in relation, connected to generations of other Black women, connected to multi-gendered communities of possibility. Connected to her own self in a way that has space for critique but is never expendable. For Toni Cade Bambara, Farah Jasmine Griffin is a daughter of Philadelphia, one of the several Black cities in which Bambara lived and loved. In the tradition of Toni Cade Bambara, Farah Griffin is a daydreamer and nightdreamer of Harlem. A celebrant, curator, and critical participant in the Black culture of sound, spirit, and word happening in Harlem now, documenting a legacy of generations. For Toni Cade Bambara, Farah Griffin is a disciple willing to follow her not only to Cuba but also to the dangerous and hopeful places of Black girl possibility, perspective, and precarity.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession. For besides that she never ransacked her customers, whose tastes too she ever studiously consulted, she never racked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she called them, under the contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the seduction for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster objects of compassion: among these, indeed, she picked out such as suited her views and taking them under her protection, rescued them from the danger of the public sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or for them, well or ill, in the manner you have seen. Having then settled her affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most tender leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instructions, recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal. In short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently reconciled to myself for suffering her at any rate to go without me; but fate had, it seems, otherwise disposed of me. I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant convenient house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from its smallness, which I furnished neatly and modestly. There, with a reserve of eight hundred pounds, the fruit of my deference to Mrs. Cole’s counsels, exclusive of clothes, some jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in purse for a long time, to wait without impatience for what the chapter of accidents might produce in my favour. Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose husband was gone to sea, I had marked me out such lines of life and conduct, as leaving me a competent liberty to pursue my views either out of pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless strictly within the rules of decency and discretion: a disposition, in which you cannot escape observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.

• From Philosophy and Religion in the West (1999)

  # Great Course - Philosophy and Religion in the West # Source: sources/books-inbox/Great Course - Philosophy and Religion in the West.pdf # Extracted via pypdf (ASN-512, 2026-04-22) # Pages: 208 (empty: 0) Course Guidebook Religion & Theology T opic Christianity Subtopic Philosophy and Religion in the West Professor Phillip Cary Eastern University PUBLISHED BY: THE GREAT COURSES Corporate Headquarters 4840 Westfields Boulevard, Suite 500 Chantilly, Virginia 20151-2299 Phone: 1-800-832-2412 Fax: 703-378-3819 www.thegreatcourses.com Copyright © The Teaching Company, 1999 Printed in the United States of America This book is in copyright. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of The Teaching Company. Phillip Cary, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, Eastern College Prof. Phillip Cary is Director of the Philosophy Program at Eastern College, as well as Scholar in Residence at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He received his undergraduate training in Philosophy at Washington University (MO) and earned his Master’s degree and Ph.D. in Religion at Yale University, where he studied under Professor George Lindbeck. He has previously taught at Yale University, the University of Hartford and the University of Connecticut. He was the George Ennis Post-Doctoral Fellow at Villanova University, where he taught in Villanova’s nationally acclaimed Core Humanities program. He has published several scholarly articles on Augustine, the doctrine of the Trinity and interpersonal knowledge. His book, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self is due to be published by Oxford University Press in 2000. Professor Cary produced the popular Teaching Company course, Augustine: Philosopher and Saint. Prof. Cary would like to express his gratitude to his colleagues at Villanova for years of stimulating conversations about the history of Christian thought, and to his colleagues at Eastern (especially Prof. Raymond Van Leeuwen) for instructive discussions about the relation between Biblical and philosophical traditions of wisdom. ©1999 The Teaching Company. i Table of Contents Philosophy and Religion in the West

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

  Umar also invited Jews, who had been forbidden permanent residence in Judea since the Bar Kokhba revolt, to return to the City of the Prophet Daud (David). 48 In the eleventh century, a Jerusalem rabbi still recalled with gratitude the mercy God had shown his people when he allowed the “Kingdom of Ishmael” to conquer Palestine. 49 “They did not inquire about the profession of faith,” wrote the twelfth-century historian Michael the Syrian, “nor did they persecute anybody because of his profession, as did the Greeks, a heretical and wicked nation.” 50 The Muslim conquerors tried at first to resist the systemic oppression and violence of empire. Umar did not allow his officers to displace the local peoples or establish estates in the rich land of Mesopotamia. Instead, Muslim soldiers lived in new “garrison towns” (amsar, singular: misr) built in strategic locations: Kufah in Iraq, Basra in Syria, Qum in Iran, and Fustat in Egypt; Damascus was the only old city to become a misr. Umar believed that the ummah, still in its infancy, could retain its integrity only by living apart from the more sophisticated cultures. The Muslims’ ability to establish and maintain a stable, centralized empire was even more surprising than their military success. Both the Persians and the Byzantines imagined that after their initial victories, the Arabs would simply ask to settle in the empires they had conquered. This, after all, was what the barbarians had done in the western provinces, and they now ruled according to Roman law and spoke Latin dialects. 51 Yet when their wars of expansion finally ceased in 750, the Muslims ruled an empire extending from the Himalayas to the Pyrenees, the largest the world had yet seen, and most of the conquered peoples would convert to Islam and speak Arabic. 52 This extraordinary achievement seemed to endorse the message of the Quran, which taught that a society founded on the Quranic principles of justice would always prosper. Later generations would idealize the Conquest Era, but it was a difficult time. The failure to defeat Constantinople was a bitter blow. By the time Uthman, the Prophet’s son-in-law, became the third caliph (r. 644–56), Muslim troops had become mutinous and discontented. The distances were now so vast that campaigning was exhausting, and they were taking less plunder. Far from home, living perpetually in strange surroundings, soldiers had no stable family life. 53 This disquiet is reflected in the hadith (plural: ahadith) literature, in which the classical doctrine of jihad began to take shape. 54 The ahadith (“reports”) recorded sayings and stories of the Prophet not included in the Quran.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Taja. I’m just so grateful to be able to do the work that I’m doing in the times that we’re in. Figuring out how to be a multidimensional human being inside of a system that wants us to choose just one aspect of ourselves. Being able to be an artist and put a lot of time into that. Cultivating such beautiful communities who are reflections of me in different ways, and I’m just so grateful that I get to be alive during this time. I remember thinking in high school when I would read about the civil rights movement and just being like, damn, I think I was born at the wrong time. amb. Yes! I totally felt that! Taja. I was like, dammit, I think I was supposed to come down here earlier, what’s going on? And then: now I look around, and I’m, like, “girlll.” amb. You were not late for your whole life. Taja. Right, not late at all. There is so much more work to do, and I’m grateful to just be alive and doing that work. 105 Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Life to Higher Creativity (New York: TarcherPerigree, 1992).106 Collins, Black Feminist Thought.107 Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-education of the Negro (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998); Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1965).Burlesque and LiberationMichi Osato and Una Osato [image file=image_rsrc3M5.jpg] Michi Ilona Osato and Una Aya Osato are sisters, performers, writers, and educators who use burlesque to explore their identities as queer femmes of color. They are co-founders, with Dawn Crandell (aka Miss AuroraBoobRealis), of brASS Burlesque: Brown RadicalAss Burlesque, a multidisciplinary performance troupe based in New York City. brASS uses their unique perspectives as femmes of color as a lens to the myriad issues they are faced with in society. Through celebrations of their politicized bodies, they are making politics sexy and empowering audiences to value their own stories and use their creativity toward collective action. Una, aka exHOTic other, aka Norms, is a queer femme Japanese self-loving anti-Zionist Jew. She is a performer, writer, and educator from the far, far east … of NYC. Her love for fully embodying her politics led her to burlesque. ExHOTic other has performed in dozens of venues, from New York City’s iconic Joe’s Pub to the bright lights of Vegas for the Miss Exotic World and Burlesque Hall of Fame competitions. Una is also an award-winning actor and playwright who tours her work nationally and internationally, while, duh, eating orientalism for brunch. Since graduating from Wesleyan University, she has created six award-winning shows that she performs in theaters, festivals, conferences, clubs, universities, community organizations, classrooms, and prisons.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Nenna. I have done many things, but what I am most focused on is continuing to cultivate a unique space called Feelmore Adult Gallery. The idea of opening an adult store came to me in a dream. Feelmore gives me a unique platform to stand upon in order to be a verified source when I point out opportunities in my community. No one really listens unless you have a stake in the game. Being the founder has given me compassion, understanding, and a responsibility to inform so many others in so many ways that help my community. Feelmore’s motto, “It’s More Than Just Sex,” is honest and real. There are so many issues that come up because of sex and intimacy in the world that I wanted to create a place that just lets others reset and educate themselves on their own desires. It was a challenge to have a unique sex shop, aka sacred space, in Oakland that is truly welcoming to all. Second, I am just myself. I had to work on loving all that I am in order to encourage and empower others. amb. Can you tell us how you came to be on this path? Nenna. Life is truly an adventure. The path came to me by simply looking at the industry and viewing it through a gap analysis lens. It was missing me … my ideas, my freshness. For now, this is what I have desired to put my everything into. It isn’t easy, and days are long, but I am grateful. But I want more. amb. You say the idea came to you in a dream—were you already in the practice of pleasure or adult films? When did you know this was a calling? Nenna. When I had the dream, that was day zero for me. I had never been “in the practice of pleasure or adult films.” My producing adult films came after. It isn’t a calling, per se. I am just maximizing my time and doing good things with my gifts and talents while in this industry. amb. What are some of the challenges you have run into on this path? (Family, financial, societal opinion, gentrification, homophobia?) Nenna. Most of the challenges have been financial. Given that I am Black and female, there is already a great deal that America can help you unpack given its historical policies on financial lending. Other than financial challenges, another has been zoning, as adult stores have to be in certain areas. I have always wanted Feelmore to be a part of a community, and am grateful that so many are believing in Oakland and helping to bring new customers to our area. amb. Why is it important that you are specifically creating erotic material? Nenna. Material of any kind is what people can hold onto … what they can interpret … what they can critique. If it doesn’t exist, it isn’t real.

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

  The scapegoat ritual was an attempt to sever the community’s relationship with its misdeeds; it cannot be a solution for us today. 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. Notes INTRODUCTION 1. Leviticus 16:21–22. Unless otherwise stated, all biblical quotations—in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—are from The Jerusalem Bible (London, 1966). 2. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore, 1977), p. 251. 3. Stanislav Andreski, Military Organization in Society (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1968); Robert L. O’Connell, Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War (New York and Oxford, 1995), pp. 6–13, 106–10, 128–29; O’Connell, Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggression (New York and Oxford, 1989), pp. 22–25; John Keegan, A History of Warfare (London and New York, 1993), pp.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Write up your pleasure activism lineage! Who awakened your senses? Who politicized your experiences of body, identity, sensation, feeling good? If they are still living, have you thanked them properly? If yes, good, do it again. If not, reach out. If they are ancestors, honor them with a pleasure altar covered in sticky fruit, sweet smells, sacred water, and thick earth, centered around fire. Gratitude is part of pleasure too. 18 Yes, I said “heard”—get your life by searching for the video in which you can hear Audre Lorde read the essay while looking at her incredible face.19 See Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” this volume, p. 27.20 Learn more about my facilitation and training work at www.alliedmedia.org/esii.21 “An Interview with Toni Cade Bambara,” by Kay Bonetti, in Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara, ed. Thabiti Lewis, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 35–47.Uses of the EroticThe Erotic as Power Audre Lorde There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise.22 The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.23 In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives. We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence. It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power. As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and nonrational knowledge. We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth of feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men, but which fears this same depth too much to examine the possibilities of it within themselves. So women are maintained at a distant/inferior position to be psychically milked, much the same way ants maintain colonies of aphids to provide a life-giving substance for their masters. But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough.

• From Philosophy and Religion in the West (1999)

  B. Philosophy Criticizing Religion 1. Like proofs for God, disproofs of religion have persuaded very few philosophers. 2. Much more widely accepted are arguments like Hume’s, to the effect that religion has no strong philosophical basis. 3. Probably the most challenging criticisms of the religious traditions now come from disciplines other than philosophy, such as sociology, psychology and especially history. 4. Where philosophy has been most helpful to the religious traditions (in my view) is in providing a tradition of critical inquiry which religions can adopt so as to maintain themselves in the face of such challenges as self-critical traditions rather than forms of irrational prejudice. II. Religious Traditions and the Experience of Meeting God A. An Externalist Approach to Religious Experience 1. William James tried to find aspects of religious experience that eluded psychological explanations, and thus could serve as evidence for the existence of God or “something More” beyond ordinary experience. 2. One of the great virtues of epistemological externalism, on the contrary, is that it suggests how the religious experience of ordinary people rationally supports their beliefs—even if these experiences are non-mystical and psychologically explainable. 3. Hence, instead of James’ examples of mystical perception, suppose we focus on the experiences of ordinary believers: e.g., at a church or synagogue service. 4. According to Reformed epistemology, an individual’s feelings of devotion and gratitude at such times does provide rational support for her religious beliefs. 5. For according to epistemological externalism, if religious traditions accurately point out the “places” to meet God, then an individual’s experience of meeting God in those places leads to rational beliefs, even if she can give no arguments in their support—and even if the experience was not miraculous or mystical. 6. But such experiences are unlikely to persuade people outside the particular religious tradition in which they arise: their truth is dependent on whether God actually did choose to meet people at such “places.” ©1999 The Teaching Company. 162

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  At the peak of the first book’s selling cycle, when it hovered at number two on The New York Times bestseller list for months (no, it never made number one), I got four hundred to five hundred letters a week, now dwindled to between twenty and sixty per year based on Lord knows what. How many of those letters began, “I’ve never told anybody this, but…”? I didn’t count. A bunch. Okay, there were a lot of jailhouse marriage proposals—felons who would let me ghostwrite their riveting story of unjust incarceration while they held out the possible bonus of conjugal visits. But most letters came from average people pouring out tales of their kin in lengthy missives. I got other folks’ school photos and news clippings and death announcements, even (in one case) a Xeroxed order of protection. Many psychiatrists wrote to claim they’d given my book to clients and found it useful for therapy about childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism, and early trauma. Reading Liars’ Club seemed to crowbar open something in people. “Your book just dredged up so many memories…” Or, “After reading Liars’ Club , my brother and I have reconciled…” Or, “I’ve been writing down some of what we went through when my father came back from Vietnam…” Or, “I never knew how my mother’s cancer death has kept rotting inside me…” This is a writer’s dream response, what I’d hankered for as a kid setting crayon to cardboard on Mother’s Day—to plug a reader into some wall outlet deep in the personal psychic machine that might jumpstart him or her into a more feeling way of life. Last week, in a midtown deli in Manhattan, I got blindsided by what we in my family call a Liars’ Club moment. I’d just swapped names with some new acquaintances after yoga class when the subject of memoir cropped up. One woman stopped using the mustard knife mid-smear and turned to me all keyed up. “You should read The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr.” She was a big-deal Broadway actress, and her face had all the zeal of an infomercial maestro. I said, I am Mary Karr. At which point, she burst into tears, saying sorry and dabbing under her eyes with a napkin. “Your book changed my life,” she said. Maybe this sounds like a lot of bragging and big talk, but it’s a common enough phenomenon to warrant mention. So many readers have started crying when they meet me that I used to bring a box of tissues to book signings. I even cooked up a tensionbreaking joke about being such a disappointment in person. And when somebody said (as this woman did) that her psychiatrist had given her the book, I suggested she sue for malpractice as the book renders no champions of mental health. On the way out of the restaurant, the actress slipped me her card. “I have a lot of stories to tell you.” she said.

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

  Thus ended the council of Nicaea. It is the first and most venerable of the ecumenical synods, and next to the apostolic council at Jerusalem the most important and the most illustrious of all the councils of Christendom. Athanasius calls it "a true monument and token of victory against every heresy;" Leo the Great, like Constantine, attributes its decrees to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and ascribes even to its canons perpetual validity; the Greek church annually observes (on the Sunday before Pentecost) a special feast in memory of it. There afterwards arose a multitude of apocryphal orations and legends in glorification of it, of which Gelasius of Cyzicus in the fifth century collected a whole volume.1332 The council of Nicaea is the most important event of the fourth century, and its bloodless intellectual victory over a dangerous error is of far greater consequence to the progress of true civilization, than all the bloody victories of Constantine and his successors. It forms an epoch in the history of doctrine, summing up the results of all previous discussions on the deity of Christ and the incarnation, and at the same time regulating the further development of the Catholic orthodoxy for centuries. The Nicene creed, in the enlarged form which it received after the second ecumenical council, is the only one of all, the symbols of doctrine which, with the exception of the subsequently added filioque, is acknowledged alike by the Greek, the Latin, and the Evangelical churches, and to this, day, after a course of fifteen centuries, is prayed and sung from Sunday to Sunday in all countries of the civilized world. The Apostles’ Creed indeed, is much more generally used in the West, and by its greater simplicity and more popular form is much better adapted to catechetical and liturgical purposes; but it has taken no root in the Eastern church; still less the Athanasian Creed, which exceeds the Nicene in logical precision and completeness. Upon the bed of lava grows the sweet fruit of the vine. The wild passions and the weaknesses of men, which encompassed the Nicene council, are extinguished, but the faith in the eternal deity of Christ has remained, and so long as this faith lives, the council of Nicaea will be named with reverence and with gratitude. § 121. The Arian and Semi-Arian Reaction, A.D. 325–361.

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

  The privilege of interceding with the secular power for criminals, prisoners, and unfortunates of every kind had belonged to the heathen priests, and especially to the vestals, and now passed to the Christian ministry, above all to the bishops, and thenceforth became an essential function of their office. A church in Gaul about the year 460 opposed the ordination of a monk to the bishopric, because, being unaccustomed to intercourse with secular magistrates, though he might intercede with the Heavenly Judge for their souls, he could not with the earthly for their bodies. The bishops were regarded particularly as the guardians of widows and orphans, and the control of their property was intrusted to them. Justinian in 529 assigned to them also a supervision of the prisons, which they were to visit on Wednesdays and Fridays, the days of Christ’s passion. The exercise of this right of intercession, one may well suppose, often obstructed the course of justice; but it also, in innumerable cases, especially in times of cruel, arbitrary despotism, protected the interests of innocence, humanity, and mercy. Sometimes, by the powerful pleadings of bishops with governors and emperors, whole provinces were rescued from oppressive taxation and from the revenge of conquerors. Thus Flavian of Antioch in 387 averted the wrath of Theodosius on occasion of a rebellion, journeying under the double burden of age and sickness even to Constantinople to the emperor himself, and with complete success, as an ambassador of their common Lord, reminding him of the words: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you."162 6. With the right of intercession was closely connected the right of asylum in churches. In former times many of the heathen temples and altars, with some exceptions, were held inviolable as places of refuge; and the Christian churches now inherited also this prerogative. The usage, with some precautions against abuse, was made law by Theodosius II. in 431, and the ill treatment of an unarmed fugitive in any part of the church edifice, or even upon the consecrated ground, was threatened with the penalty of death.163 Thus slaves found sure refuge from the rage of their masters, debtors from the persecution of inexorable creditors, women and virgins from the approaches of profligates, the conquered from the sword of their enemies, in the holy places, until the bishop by his powerful mediation could procure justice or mercy. The beneficence of this law, which had its root not in superstition alone, but in the nobler sympathies of the people, comes most impressively to view amidst the ragings of the great migration and of the frequent intestine wars.164 § 17. Legal Sanction of Sunday. 7. The civil sanction of the observance of Sunday and other festivals of the church.

• From My People (2022)

  The Urbanite was published out of the Holman basement. I used to go back to Atlanta on weekends and help with preparing the paper in any way I could, even eventually getting out into Atlanta’s streets and reporting on things that needed to change for My People. So, after I completed a few minor tweaks that Professor Holman suggested, he approved. That meant a lot to me. And, to be sure, the last paragraph of this piece was indeed prescient, for many Black students have since walked through that Georgia corridor, and while they are still in a minority on campus, and have their own challenges, none, thankfully, have had to walk through the university’s corridors facing the same ones I faced. Thanks to the kind of guidance I received from Professor Holman when I graduated from UGA with a degree labeled ABJ (bachelor of arts in journalism), I left with two degrees—one paper and the other of confidence. Also, thanks to William Shawn, the New Yorker editor who reached out to me in Georgia when he learned of my journalistic aspirations, I landed in a wonderful environment that in time helped me realize my dreams as a reporter. But that would take a little time, so with one exception—a small piece for the Comment section—I initially tried my hand at doing what many of the veteran journalists and writers were doing: writing a memoir. The magazine not only published it, it kept my title: “A Hundred-Fifteenth-Between-Lenox-and-Fifth.” It was about the time I first encountered Harlem when I was about five years old, after traveling up on the train from Atlanta, Georgia, with my grandmother to visit my great-uncle. It was an eye-opening experience in so many ways and included meeting, for the first time, children my age who spoke in accents different from what I was used to hearing, and who played in a different way from how I was used to playing in Covington, the small South Georgia town where we lived. There were a few paved streets in our segregated Black neighborhood, but, like our segregated school playground, many of the grounds in our neighborhood were filled with red clay, hence no hopscotch when it rained. Moreover, the people who lived on that street—the street I named this piece after—identified it in a rhythmic way that stuck with me and shaped my view of the people in Harlem that would follow me many years later when I returned as a professional journalist. To be sure, Harlem was different from Covington in many ways, not least how the streets were named. Our street in Covington was Brown Street and one in another Black neighborhood was Short Street. But hearing these descriptions in Harlem was like, well, music to my little Southern ears.

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  We have our secrets and our needs to confess. We may remember how, in childhood, adults were able at first to look right through us, and into us, and what an accomplishment it was when we, in fear and trembling, could tell our first lie, and make, for ourselves, the discovery that we are irredeemably alone in certain respects, and know that within the territory of ourselves, there can only be our own footprints. —R. D. Laing, The Divided Self ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Amanda Urban, my agent at ICM, first urged me to write the proposal for this book. Nan Graham subsequently bought it for Viking. Her work as editor and dear friend and passionate enthusiast proved invaluable. Ditto for Courtney Hodell, also of Viking. My sister, Lecia Harmon Scaglione, confirmed the veracity of what I’d written. James Laughlin of New Directions also gave me a needed boost. As final readers, Tobias and Catherine Wolff worked quickly and incisively and without recompense. For all these, I’m grateful. Thanks also to the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation for a muchneeded Writers Award, and to the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College for a fellowship. My mother didn’t read this book until it was complete. However, for two years she freely answered questions by phone and mail, and she did research for me, even when she was ill. She has been unreserved in her encouragement of this work, though much in the story pains her. Her bravery in this is laudable. Her support means everything. THE L IARS’ C LUB nothing matters but the quality of the affection— in the end—that has carved the trace in the mind dove sta memoria —Ezra Pound, Canto LXXVI A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. —Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian …you were saved not in order to live you have little time you must give testimony be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous in the final account only this is important and let your helpless Anger be like the sea whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten let your sister Scorn not leave you for the informers executioners cowards—they will win they will go to your funeral and with relief throw a lump of earth the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography and do not forgive truly it is not in your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn beware however of unnecessary pride keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror repeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than I… —Zbigniew Herbert, from “The Envoy of Mr. Cogito” (translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter)

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

  A peculiar variety of such gifts, namely, memorials of miraculous cures,1229 appeared in the fifth century; at least they are first mentioned by Theodoret, who said of them in his eighth discourse on the martyrs: "That those who ask with the confidence of faith, receive what they ask, is plainly proved by their sacred gifts in testimony of their healing. Some offer feet, others hands, of gold or silver, and these gifts show their deliverance from those evils, as tokens of which they have been offered by the restored." With the worship of saints this custom gained strongly, and became in the middle age quite universal. Whoever recovered from a sickness, considered himself bound first to testify by a gift his gratitude to the saint whose aid he had invoked in his distress. Parents, whose children fortunately survived the teething-fever, offered to St. Apollonia (all whose teeth, according to the legend, had been broken out with pincers by a hangman’s servant) gifts of jawbones in wax. In like manner St. Julian, for happily accomplished journeys, and St. Hubert, for safe return from the perils of the chase, were very richly endowed; but the Virgin Mary more than all. Almost every church or chapel which has a miracle-working image of the mother of God, possesses even now a multitude of golden and silver acknowledgments of fortunate returns and recoveries. § 113. Church Poetry and Music. J. Rambach: Anthologie christl. Gesänge aus allen Jahrh. der christl. Kirche. Altona, 1817–’33. H. A. Daniel: Thesaurus hymnologicus. Hal. 1841–’56, 5 vols. Edélestand du Méril: Poésies populaires latines antérieures au douzième siècle. Paris, 1843. C. Fortlage: Gesänge der christl. Vorzeit. Berlin, 1844. G. A. Königsfeld u. A. W. v. Schlegel: Altchristliche Hymnen u. Gesaenge lateinisch u. Deutsch. Bonn, 1847. Second collection by Königsfeld, Bonn, 1865. E. E. Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds u. Kirchengesangs der christl., insbesondere der deutschen evangel. Kirche. 2d ed. Stuttgart, 1852 f. 4 vols. (i. 10–30). F. J. Mone: Latein. Hymnen des Mittelalters (from MSS.), Freiburg, 1853–’55. (Vol. i., hymns of God and angels; ii., h. of Mary; iii., h. of saints.) Bässler: Auswahl Alt-christl. Lieder vom 2–15ten Jahrh. Berlin, 1858. R. Ch. Trench: Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly lyrical, selected and arranged for use; with Notes and Introduction (1849), 2d ed. improved, Lond. and Cambr. 1864. The valuable hymnological works of Dr. J. M. Neale (of Sackville College, Oxford): The Ecclesiastical Latin Poetry of the Middle Ages (in Henry Thompson’s History of Roman Literature, Lond. and Glasgow., 1852, p. 213 ff.); Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, Lond. 1851; Sequentiae ex Missalibus, 1852; Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862, several articles in the Ecclesiologist; and a Latin dissertation, De Sequentiis, in the Essays on Liturgiology, etc., p. 359 sqq. (Comp. also J. Chandler: The Hymns of the Primitive Church, now first collected, translated, and arranged, Lond. 1837.)

• From My People (2022)

  and finally Sarah Ried, my editor at HarperCollins, whose gentle but authoritative, ever-present guidance helped me “walk on with hope in my heart,” enabling me to produce My People . About the AuthorCHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT is an Emmy-winning journalist who has been in the field for more than five decades. After starting her career at the New Yorker , Hunter-Gault joined the New York Times , where she established the Harlem Bureau, the first of its kind, and eventually joined PBS NewsHour as its first substitute anchor and national correspondent. The author of four previous books, Hunter-Gault lives in Florida and on Martha’s Vineyard. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com . Also by Charlayne Hunter-GaultIn My Place New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement Corrective Rape: Discrimination, Assault, Sexual Violence, and Murder Against South Africa’s L.G.B.T. Community [image "Bookperk sign-up advertisement" file=Image00002.jpg] CopyrightMY PEOPLE . Copyright © 2022 by Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Foreword copyright © 2022 by Nikole Hannah-Jones. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. FIRST EDITION Cover design by Robin Bilardello Cover photographs: The author with Nelson Mandela courtesy of Jacqueline Farmer. The author on assignment in Africa courtesy of Jeff Goldman. The other photographs courtesy of the author. Digital Edition OCTOBER 2022 ISBN: 978-0-06-313544-4 Version 09062022 Print ISBN: 978-0-06-313539-0 About the PublisherAustralia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Publishers Ltd Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower 22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor Toronto, Ontario, M5H 4E3 www.harpercollins.ca India HarperCollins India A 75, Sector 57 Noida Uttar Pradesh 201 301 www.harpercollins.co.in New Zealand HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive Rosedale 0632 Auckland, New Zealand www.harpercollins.co.nz United Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF, UK www.harpercollins.co.uk United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 195 Broadway New York, NY 10007 www.harpercollins.com