Grief

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 Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “I know I am a beautiful woman. I have dedicated my entire life to beauty! But that is not enough to satisfy the editors of the women’s, ha, women’s—” she paused over the word for emphasis before continuing “—magazines. How women can bear to read them is beyond me. “Anyway, I found that I was not—indeed none of us were—good enough to grace the pages of those militant catalogs of female delusion and torture. Before I could even be accepted as a candidate I discovered that I would have to submit to a number of surgical alterations and virtually stop eating. All of this I did, and at last I was chosen for the magazine of which you spoke. But would you believe, even after all I had suffered and endured, in the end I was still not beautiful enough, and the picture was altered in the final draft.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at her youngest sister. “That picture is not one of me, but of a specter—the very same specter that is being held up before women to keep them racing after perfection.” She looked around sadly at her sisters, and added, “It is the same specter that has ruined the lives of each and every one of us.” For some reason this brought their youngest sister to their attention. Almost simultaneously the women turned to her. “What has life been like for you?” asked her oldest sister. “Well, I am certainly satisfied with it,” she answered humbly, not wishing in the least to gloat over her own happiness in light of what she had just heard. “You continued your education, didn’t you?” another sister asked. “What was it you studied?” Timidly she began to tell her sisters about her studies, never at a loss for words when she spoke of the things she had learned. Yet their silence intimidated her, and her voice trailed off. No doubt they would think her life ridiculous. But her older sisters did not mock her or laugh. They questioned her with interest and, at length, she told them about her many interests and her marriage and her little daughter. Feeling guilty over her own good fortune and happiness, she refrained from telling them about the many little joys in her life; like how her husband worked so hard to keep himself in tiptop shape for her, or how he never lost interest in making love to her. The sisters were too astute not to see these things in her face, however, and could not help feeling envy for the accomplishments of their youngest sibling, despite her supposed physical defects. The third-eldest sister, being the bitterest of the four, could not help remarking, “It seems as if we would all have been better off to have been born ugly!” The eldest sister immediately jumped to her youngest sister’s defense, saying, “You’re just jealous.”

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  In all my life my heart had never before been so touched by the sight of beauty in a woman. My breast throbbed; I felt purified. The reader who has followed me this far will probably refuse to believe anything I am saying. He will doubt me because there will seem to be no difference between my artificial and unrequited love of Nukada's sister and the throbbing of the breast of which I am now speaking, because there will seem to be no apparent reason why on this occasion alone I should not have subjected my emotions to that merciless analysis I had used in the former case. If the reader persists in such doubts, then the act of writing has become a useless thing from the beginning: he will think that I say a thing simply because I want to say it so, without any regard for truth, and anything I say will be all right so long as I make my story consistent. Nevertheless, it is a very accurate part of my memory that proclaims a fundamental point of difference between the emotions I had had before this and those that the sight of Sonoko now aroused in me. The difference was that now I had a feeling of remorse. When she was almost at the bottom of the steps Sonoko noticed me and smiled. Her fresh cheeks were flushed from the cold. Her eyes—their large black pupils and rather heavy lids gave her a slightly sleepy appearance—were glistening as though trying to speak. Then, entrusting the hand of her baby sister to the second sister, she came running down the platform toward me with a graceful motion like the trembling of light. What I saw come running toward me was not a girl, not that personification of flesh which I had been forcibly picturing to myself since boyhood, but something like the herald of the morning tidings. Had it not been for this fact, I could have met her with my usual fraudulent hopes. But, to my perplexity, my instinct was forced to recognize a different quality in Sonoko alone. This gave me a profound, bashful feeling of being unworthy of Sonoko, and yet it was not a feeling of servile inferiority. Each second while I watched Sonoko approach, I was attacked by unendurable grief. It was a feeling such as I had never had before. Grief seemed to undermine and set tottering the foundations of my existence. Until this moment the feeling with which I had regarded women had been an artificial mixture of childlike curiosity and feigned sexual desire. My heart had never before been swayed, and at first glance, by such a deep and unexplainable grief, a grief moreover that was no part of my masquerade.

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

  Not placing blame on the family is also important. Mann states, “We do know that there is no connection in the research between family dysfunction, prior mental illness, or ‘looking for answers’ and cult involvement.” She points out, “Blaming historical and familial processes takes the onus of responsibility from the deception of cult recruiters, and places it on the cult member.”1191 Some people who leave cults become activists, hoping to help others. They may do so by sharing their cult experience with others in the hope that such knowledge will help others avoid destructive cults. Or former cult members may try to help those left behind in the group to leave as they have done. This may produce positive results and perhaps provide a sense of empowerment or closure in regard to their own past cult involvement. But it is practical and important to take care of personal priorities first. Former cult members are not obligated to become activists, and most do not. Most simply move on. If someone has left behind family members in a particular group, it may be more important to preserve whatever goodwill and communication is possible rather than to engage in activism against the group. Australian Jan Groenveld, a former member of controversial religious groups, began her cult education work in 1979. She said, “After 15 years wandering through the world of the cults, including time in both Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses, I finally realized that I was being controlled rather than controlling my own life. I found myself alone with no access to information that would help me recover.”1192 In an effort to “make it easier for others,” Groenveld launched a website in 1990 to share information through the Internet. Her website, Cult Awareness and Information Centre (CAIC), explains, “The Internet is the only medium where both cult members and nonmembers are on a level playing field.”1193 Groenveld, like many others who have left cultic situations, suffered through what was sometimes a painful transition back to mainstream life. She explained some of the pitfalls of this process in an article widely posted on the World Wide Web titled “It Hurts.”1194 Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton explains, “It’s an abusive relationship. Often by the time you figure that out it’s too late, because you can’t see how to extricate yourself without hurting yourself or your family. You are like a caged animal.”1195 Groenveld laments the loss. “Leaving a cult is like experiencing the death of a close relative or a broken relationship…like having been betrayed by someone with whom you were in love. You feel you were simply used.” Groenveld describes her subsequent “grieving process.” She explains, “Most people understand that a person must grieve after a death, [but] they find it difficult to understand the same applies in this situation.” This grieving process includes the recognition of painful feelings, which are the direct result of the deception and harm done by a cultic experience.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly, he let bring her, without any stir, whereas Pasquino's body lay yet, swollen as it were a tun, and himself following her thither, marvelled at the dead man and asked her how it had been; whereupon, going up to the sage-bush, she recounted to him all the foregoing story and to give him more fully to understand how the thing had befallen, she did even as Pasquino had done and rubbed one of the sage-leaves against her teeth. Then,--whilst her words were, in the judge's presence, flouted by Stramba and Atticciato and the other friends and comrades of Pasquino as frivolous and vain and they all denounced her wickedness with the more instance, demanding nothing less than that the fire should be the punishment of such perversity,--the wretched girl, who abode all confounded for dolour of her lost lover and fear of the punishment demanded by Stramba fell, for having rubbed the sage against her teeth, into that same mischance, whereinto her lover had fallen [and dropped dead], to the no small wonderment of as many as were present. O happy souls, to whom it fell in one same day to terminate at once your fervent love and your mortal life! Happier yet, an ye went together to one same place! And most happy, if folk love in the other life and ye love there as you loved here below! But happiest beyond compare,--at least in our judgment who abide after her on life,--was Simona's soul, whose innocence fortune suffered not to fall under the testimony of Stramba and Atticciato and Malagevole, wool-carders belike or men of yet meaner condition, finding her a more honourable way, with a death like unto that of her lover, to deliver herself from their calumnies and to follow the soul, so dearly loved of her, of her Pasquino.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  When this unlettered but self-possessed sister plies at her loom, she becomes so lost in it that it is difficult to distract her attention, and much more difficult to draw her eyes off her beloved loom. 167AN INSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUEFrom its very inception the Khadi movement, Swadeshi movement as it was then called, evoked much criticism from the mill-owners. The late Umar Sobani, a capable mill-owner himself, not only gave me the benefit of his own knowledge and experience, but kept me in touch with the opinion of the other mill- owners as well. The argument advanced by one of these deeply impressed him. He pressed me to meet him. I agreed. Mr. Sobani arranged the interview. The mill-owner opened the conversation. ‘You know that there has been Swadeshi agitation before now ?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied. ‘You are also aware that in the days of the Partition we, the mill- owners, fully exploited the Swadeshi movement. When it was at its height, we raised the prices of cloth, and did even worse things.’ ‘You, I have heard something about it, and it has grieved me.’ ‘I can understand your grief, but I can see no ground for it. We are not conducting our business out of philanthropy. We do it for profit, we have got to satisfy the shareholders. The price of an article is governed by the demand for it. Who can check the law of demand and supply ? The bengalis should have known that their agitation was bound to send up the price of Swadeshi cloth by stimulating the demand for it.’ I interrupted: ‘The Bengalis like me were trustful in their nature. They believed, in the fulness of their faith, that the mill-owners would not be so utterly selfish and unpatriotic as to betray their country in the hour of its need, and even to go the length, as they did, of fraudulently passing off foreign cloth as Swadeshi.’ ‘I knew your believing nature,’ he rejoined; ‘that is why I purt you to the trouble of coming to me, so that I might warn you against falling into the same error as these simple-hearted Bengalis.’ With these words the mill-owner beckoned to his clerk who wa standing by to produce samples of the stuff that was being manufactured in his mill. Pointing to it he said: ‘Look at this stuff. This is the latest variety turned out by our mill. It is meeting with a widespread demand. We manufacture it from the waste. Naturally, therefore, it is cheap. We send it as far North as the valleys of the Himalayas. We have agencies all over the country, even in places where your voice or your agents can never reach. You can thus see that we do not stand in need of more agents. Besides, you ought to know that India’s production of cloth falls far short of its requirements. The question of Swadeshi, therefore, largely resolves itself into one of production.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The prince knew the greatness of his daughter's soul, but notwithstanding believed her not altogether so firmly resolved as she said unto that which her words gave out. Wherefore, taking leave of her and having laid aside all intent of using rigour against her person, he thought to cool her fervent love with other's suffering and accordingly bade Guiscardo's two guardians strangle him without noise that same night and taking out his heart, bring it to him. They did even as it was commanded them, and on the morrow the prince let bring a great and goodly bowl of gold and setting therein Guiscardo's heart, despatched it to his daughter by the hands of a very privy servant of his, bidding him say, whenas he gave it her, 'Thy father sendeth thee this, to solace thee of the thing thou most lovest, even as thou hast solaced him of that which he loved most.' Now Ghismonda, unmoved from her stern purpose, had, after her father's departure, let bring poisonous herbs and roots and distilled and reduced them in water, so she might have it at hand, an that she feared should come to pass. The serving-man coming to her with the prince's present and message, she took the cup with a steadfast countenance and uncovered it. Whenas she saw the heart and apprehended the words of the message, she was throughly certified that this was Guiscardo's heart and turning her eyes upon the messenger, said to him, 'No sepulchre less of worth than one of gold had beseemed a heart such as this; and in this my father hath done discreetly.' So saying, she set the heart to her lips and kissing it, said, 'Still in everything and even to this extreme limit of my life have I found my father's love most tender towards me; but now more than ever; wherefore do than render him on my part for so great a gift the last thanks I shall ever have to give him.'

• From Fragments (7)

  Of heroes and heroines I shall tell, And on their virtues my song shall dwell. HELICON AND CITHAERON (2) " The goddess Rhea through a ruse From crafty Cronos then took Zeus. " Great honor won he since that day Among the gods." Thus ceased his lay. The Muses did the gods enjoin Into gold urns immediately To place their pebbles secretly. They all arose and stood in line. Most votes were for Cithaeron claimed; Loudly as victor he was named By Hermes, messenger clear-voiced, Immediately. Now wreaths were wound, With which the gods Cithaeron crowned. He greatly in his heart rejoiced. But Helicon by burning grief Was seized; and now, to find relief. Upon the smooth rock he laid hold. The mountain yielded: grievously Lanienting, he below did see It bury multitudes untold. i6i Lyric Sonffs of the Greeks THE DAUGHTERS OF ASOPUS (3) " Of Zeus and of the goddesses will she a servant be: In this will she be blessed ; but of her daughters three By Father Zeus are taken, the king of gods and men, Three others by Posidon, who o'er the seas doth reign, And two doth Phoebus marry. By Maea's goodly son, By Hermes, still another fair daughter has been won. For Eros thus, and Cypris, induced them, who had come On secret visits so far, to see them in their home. The maidens nine to marry. These some time will give birth To a race of godlike heroes, and spread o'er all the earth. Old age will find them never, as I have recently Learned from Apollo's tripod, sign of his prophecy. Midst many mighty brothers this prize alone was mine. Truthful Acraephe won I, prophet of this dread shrine. For first the son of Leto to Euonymus did grant 162 Corinna To tell among his tripods his oracles to man. Posidon's son named Hurieus him from the land did cast; The second to hold this honor, the prize to him now passed. Next was my sire Orion, his land again he won, And, leaving me for heaven, this honor gave his son. Friend of the immortals, therefore, do thou thy grief dispel; Take cheer, divine of marriage, true oracles I tell." Thus spoke the sacred prophet. Asopus did re- joice. Seizing his hands and weeping, he thus poured out his voice: BOEOTUS (4) To thee, O blessed son of Cronos, do I sing; To thee, son of Posidon, O Boeotus, king. ORION (5) Orion, victor, for might far-famed. After himself the whole land named. 163 Lyric Sonffs of the Greeks THE SHIP-WRECKED ODYSSEUS (6) On a beam o'er the waters he did glide, Exactly as one a horse would ride. A SACKER OF CITIES (7) The city in ashes he laid low As soon as he himself did show. A CONTEST (8) And now for thee as prize With Ares Hermes vies. A WARNING (9) For the envious divinity Not always thus will favor thee. A LOVING MOTHER do)

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “Now I must go to the castle that is east of the sun and west of the moon, and marry the dreadful princess,” he told her. She wept bitterly when she heard this, but neither tears nor pleading could change their fate, and they spent that evening clinging miserably to each other in the dark. The next morning the wretched lady woke up alone. The castle and the prince had both disappeared. The only thing that remained was the little bundle of rags that she had brought with her on her very first journey there. She cried until every tear she possessed was lost forever. “I must find him and get him back,” she decided at last. But where was the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon? She picked up her bundle and set out on the nearest road. After traveling only a short distance she came upon an old woman sitting by the roadside. She asked the ragged-looking woman if she knew how to get to the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon. “Are you the true love of the prince from there?” asked the woman knowingly. “Why yes,” replied the startled girl. “Do you know the way there?” “No,” cackled the hag, thinking it a great joke. But then she added more kindly, “Take this golden apple, it may be of use to you in your travels.” So the girl took the golden apple from the woman and continued down the road. In a short time she chanced to meet another old woman on the side of the road. This one she also approached for directions to the castle. “You must be the true love of the prince,” the old woman surmised, just as the other had. “I am she,” owned the girl. “Please can’t you tell me the way to his castle?” But this old woman could offer no more information on the location of the prince’s castle than the other. She gave the girl an enchanted hair comb, instructing her to wear it if she found the prince, as it would bring her good luck to do so. With still not the slightest idea of how to find her prince, the heartbroken girl continued doggedly on and, at length, met with yet another old woman along the road. With this woman she shared a similar exchange as she had with the other two. This woman advised her to seek the East Wind for the information she desired and, giving her a magic feather, instructed her to thrust it out before her and follow it to the home of the East Wind.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  How grievous, how dolorous was this to the young lady, who loved him more than her life, each one of you may conceive for herself. She bewept him sore and many a time called him in vain; but after she had handled him in every part of his body and found him cold in all, perceiving that he was altogether dead and knowing not what to do or to say, she went, all tearful as she was and full of anguish, to call her maid, who was privy to their loves, and discovered to her misery and her grief. Then, after they had awhile made woeful lamentation over Gabriotto's dead face, the young lady said to the maid, 'Since God hath bereft me of him I love, I purpose to abide no longer on life; but, ere I go about to slay myself, I would fain take fitting means to preserve my honour and the secret of the love that hath been between us twain and that the body, wherefrom the gracious spirit is departed, may be buried.' 'Daughter mine,' answered the maid, 'talk not of seeking to slay thyself, for that, if thou have lost him in this world, by slaying thyself thou wouldst lose him in the world to come also, since thou wouldst go to hell, whither I am assured his soul hath not gone; for he was a virtuous youth. It were better far to comfort thyself and think of succouring his soul with prayers and other good works, so haply he have need thereof for any sin committed. The means of burying him are here at hand in this garden and none will ever know of the matter, for none knoweth that he ever came hither. Or, an thou wilt not have it so, let us put him forth of the garden and leave him be; he will be found to-morrow morning and carried to his house, where his kinsfolk will have him buried.' The young lady, albeit she was full of bitter sorrow and wept without ceasing, yet gave ear to her maid's counsels and consenting not to the first part thereof, made answer to the second, saying, 'God forbid that I should suffer so dear a youth and one so beloved of me and my husband to be buried after the fashion of a dog or left to lie in the street! He hath had my tears and inasmuch as I may, he shall have those of his kinsfolk, and I have already bethought me of that which we have to do to that end.'

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  why she was wearing a wig, “she became angry,” he told NBC News. “Told me that was personal, none of my business.” The cops nevertheless persisted in asking if she was Elizabeth Smart, and after forty-five minutes of grilling the teen finally relented. On the brink of tears, she conceded her true identity with a biblical utterance: “Thou sayest”—Jesus’s reply to Pilate when asked if he was king of the Jews. Even after she had revealed that she was indeed Elizabeth and was sitting in the back of the squad car on her way to be reunited with her father at the police station, she continued to express concern for the well-being of Mitchell and Barzee. “The first question out of her mouth,” said Officer Jones, “was ‘What’s gonna happen to them? Are they going to be OK?’ Didn’t want them in trouble, didn’t want them to be hurt. . . . She started crying and cried all the way to the department.” Many have wondered how Brian David Mitchell managed to exert such power over the girl, and why during the nine months Elizabeth was his captive she apparently made no effort to escape. But Julie Adkison—a young Mormon woman who became acquainted with Mitchell seventeen months before he kidnapped Elizabeth Smart—has no difficulty comprehending how Elizabeth came under his sway. Adkison was twenty years old and selling shoes at Salt Lake City’s Fashion Place mall when she met Mitchell, who expressed an avid interest in sandals and began telling her about the intimate chats he regularly had with God. Not long thereafter, Mitchell handed her a written marriage proposal explaining that the Lord wished for her to become his plural wife. Adkison declined the invitation to become betrothed to Mitchell but continued to meet with him; once she sat with him in a city park for more than five hours, mesmerized as he held forth on Mormon theology. She felt strangely drawn to Mitchell, she told Newsweek magazine, because “everything he said was stuff I was raised on. . . . I wanted to leave for hours, but I just sat there.” Had she been as young and impressionable as Elizabeth Smart, Adkison admitted, “There is no telling what I would have done.” Considering the traumas to which she was subjected as Mitchell’s captive, Elizabeth appeared to be recovering with surprising grace after being rescued, according to those close to her. Although Elizabeth’s father cautioned that she faced “a long road back,” he said that she was faring remarkably well since rejoining her family. David Hamblin, the bishop of the Smarts’ LDS ward,

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Suddenly it seemed, truly suddenly, that this body, this abbreviated life, this disaster, was his. Of course he intended to give the body back. To Janey Williams, whom he loved, and her husband, to whom he was now bound in a much different way, but he would take care of the situation first. He would exercise an almost parental control over this tragedy. He left his car behind and bore this body up grimly. Its gloved hands brushed across his face. It slid out of his arms and he had to lean it against the bench on the walkway at Silver Meadow, his own matted hair and his glasses brushing against Mike’s, cheek to cheek with the frosty, dead skin of Mike Williams. He needed rest. Each step, with its meager vocabulary of progress—only ten more feet until that blacktop there—seemed interminable. The security guys rushed down the road toward him, when he got Mike heaved up over his shoulder again. They were sprinting, and, though they looked familiar, there was no way Benjamin could have known that they were the same guys who knew his daughter by name, who had chased his son from the same hillside where this catastrophe had taken place, who had chased Mike out of the bowling lanes the night before. Out of breath, their mottled, black uniform shoes covered in snow, they called out to Hood. —Is that your boy? What happened? They stood in a circle around Mike and somehow Benjamin found himself telling them the story. They tried to comfort Hood, who was shaken now and having trouble putting sentences together; at least they tried to comfort him to the degree that one male—in New Canaan—can comfort another. It was Hood’s first dead body. They didn’t pat him on the back, or hug him, or tell him it would be all right. They stood aside, each of them as far as possible from the other. Their heads bowed. —You better try to get a hold of yourself, one said. —Are the ...? Can you tell me if the phones are working? Hood said. —We’ve got radio, said the other. —Well, you ought to call an ambulance then, Hood said. Or the police ... or the paramedics. Whoever can get through on the roads. I think this boy—his name is Mike Williams and he lives just up the road ... I think he must have been burned somehow. He’s all ... he’s burned. —Whyntcha let us— Hood pointed at his house, down below the main buildings of the hospital. —I’m over there. That’s where we’ll be. 129 Valley Road.

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

  In April, A.D. 70, immediately after the Passover, when Jerusalem was filled with strangers, the siege began. The zealots rejected, with sneering defiance, the repeated proposals of Titus and the prayers of Josephus, who accompanied him as interpreter and mediator; and they struck down every one who spoke of surrender. They made sorties down the valley of the Kedron and tip the mountain, and inflicted great loss oil the Romans. As the difficulties multiplied their courage increased. The crucifixion of hundreds of prisoners (as many as five hundred a day) only enraged them the more. Even the famine which began to rage and sweep away thousands daily, and forced a woman to roast her own child,544 the cries of mothers and babes, the most pitiable scenes of misery around them, could not move the crazy fanatics. History records no other instance of such obstinate resistance, such desperate bravery and contempt of death. The Jews fought, not only for civil liberty, life, and their native land, but for that which constituted their national pride and glory, and gave their whole history its significance—for their religion, which, even in this state of horrible degeneracy, infused into them an almost superhuman power of endurance. The Destruction of the City and the Temple. At last, in July, the castle of Antonia was surprised and taken by night. This prepared the way for the destruction of the Temple in which the tragedy culminated. The daily sacrifices ceased July 17th, because the hands were all needed for defence. The last and the bloodiest sacrifice at the altar of burnt offerings was the slaughter of thousands of Jews who had crowded around it.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Snow White approached Doc then and, closing her eyes, gently kissed his lips. She opened her eyes to see her beautiful blond gentle prince standing before her. Then she went to where Grumpy stood and kissed his lips. There stood her dark, rougher prince. A tingle went through her as she kissed one dwarf after another and discovered their true identities. She led the princes to the bedroom and allowed them to slowly remove her clothing. She was shaking with desire as she stood naked before her seven princely lovers. She moved into the circle of princes and allowed herself to be drowned in pleasure. Night after night Snow White spent with the seven princes, and time passed quickly by. Now and then word would come to her from the castle of the queen, but this did not concern Snow White, for she was convinced that the dwarfs would keep all harm from her. One day, a servant came to deliver a message from the queen, who now claimed to have much remorse and distress over the past injustices done to Snow White. The servant presented Snow White with a gift from the queen, to prove her change of heart. But this servant had been fooled by the queen, for she still wished for Snow White’s death. Snow White accepted the gift with misgivings. She did not question the dubious nature of the queen’s offering, as she should have, but rather, was frightened by the prospect of leaving her handsome princes, should the queen demand that Snow White return to the castle. Thoughtfully, Snow White opened the queen’s gift. She started with delight when she saw the beautiful silk corset within. Thinking only of her princes and how they would react when they beheld her in the exotic little frippery, she rushed to try it on. But the moment it touched her skin, the corset, which was cursed by an evil spell, suddenly began to close in around her body, tightening of its own accord until Snow White could no longer draw a single breath. She fell to the floor in a swoon, and remained there, still as death. When the seven dwarfs returned to the cottage later that day, they found Snow White where she had fallen, seemingly dead. Overcome with grief, the dwarfs laid Snow White upon one of the beds, and then set out to build her a beautiful coffin of carved mahogany. The coffin took many days to finish, but at last, when the time came to bury her, she still looked so beautiful and full of life that none of them could bear to close the lid. They made her another coffin of glass, and into this they placed Snow White. Every day without fail the dwarfs visited her to pay homage, gazing upon her rapturously and grieving miserably for their untimely loss.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  The next morning, the queen once again plucked one of the roses from its vine as she left the little cottage, and she began her journey home with a light heart. But old habits die hard and, no sooner had the latch clicked in the door upon the prince’s departure, than the queen raced up to her bedchamber to learn what she would from the mirror. And a single glance in that glass caused the poor queen such anguish and disappointment that she collapsed on her bed in a heap, sobbing. After she recovered from this outburst the queen faced the mirror once more, with the following words: “Mirror, mirror, know I will— Is my lover faithless still? Did not the hairs upon the comb, Prove Snow White is in her tomb?” The mirror delayed not in responding: “Snow White lives on, with beauty rare. Her life could buy you years to spare. You must weave her death of ilk Into corset strings of silk!” The queen was delighted with this new opportunity and immediately set to work, so that by the time the prince arrived at her doorstep later that afternoon she had the corset, with its deadly laces, ready and wrapped for her victim. But on this occasion the queen did not confide her true intentions to the prince. Instead, she convinced him that she had repented of her former behavior toward Snow White and wished him to deliver this present as way of an apology. The prince, completely unable to see any evil in his beloved queen, immediately took himself off to the woods to do as she bade him, after abstracting from her the promise to spend yet another evening in his cottage. Snow White received the gift with great joy, and the prince, not suspecting any treachery from the queen, did not linger there but set forth immediately to make his return. As for Snow White, she could not resist the beautiful corset and nearly ripped her old clothes to shreds in her eagerness to try the elegant frippery on. But no sooner had the corset touched her skin, than the stays, of their own accord, began to tighten, forcing a gasp from Snow White’s lips and continuing until she was unable to take a single breath. She fell to the floor in a swoon and remained there, quite lifeless, until later that day, when she was discovered and placed in a beautiful glass coffin. But the remainder of Snow White’s tale will have to wait until another time, for the prince is about to return to his queen, and I am certain that you would like to know what became of that poor lady.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Ron’s apparent contentment, however, masked troubles that had been churning just beneath the surface since childhood. Although his father’s violent outbursts scarred all the Lafferty children to some degree, Ron—who had an especially close relationship with his perpetually downtrodden mother—seems to have suffered the greatest emotional damage. According to Richard Wootton, a psychologist who has examined Ron extensively over his nineteen years in prison, Ron remembers “seeing his mother hit by his father and being so mad that he wished he could have been big enough to have kicked his father’s ass. . . . I think that stayed with him. And it became a pattern by which he kind of handled difficult, mistrustful situations.” Ron’s anguish wasn’t apparent to outsiders. As a child, he had been popular with other kids in the community and brought home decent, if unspectacular grades. He was also an outstanding athlete who starred on his high school football team and was captain of the wrestling squad. Throughout adolescence and young adulthood he appeared to thrive. As was expected of high achievers in the Mormon faith, after graduating from high school and completing a stint in the army, he went on a two-year mission for the church, eager to spread the gospel so that others might experience the incomparable joy of being a Latter- day Saint. There is nothing easy about being a Mormon missionary. Missionaries must pay their own way, and they are required to go wherever in the world the church decides they are needed. In Ron’s case, after four weeks of indoctrination at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, he was called upon to save souls in Georgia and Florida. As an obedient Saint, he had already pledged not to drink, smoke, take illegal drugs, ingest caffeine, masturbate, or engage in premarital sex. * As a missionary, he was now also forbidden to read anything but LDS literature or listen to any music not produced by the church. Movies, television, newspapers, and magazines were strictly off-limits. He was permitted to write letters home just once per week, and he could phone his family only on Christmas and Mother’s Day. Ron dutifully followed these rules, for the most part, but he had a rebellious streak that emerged from time to time. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the warped relationship he had with his father, figures of authority provoked a complicated emotional response in Ron. Part of him was desperately eager to

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “Now I must go to the castle that is east of the sun and west of the moon, and marry the dreadful princess,” he told her. She wept bitterly when she heard this, but neither tears nor pleading could change their fate, and they spent that evening clinging miserably to each other in the dark. The next morning the wretched lady woke up alone. The castle and the prince had both disappeared. The only thing that remained was the little bundle of rags that she had brought with her on her very first journey there. She cried until every tear she possessed was lost forever. “I must find him and get him back,” she decided at last. But where was the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon? She picked up her bundle and set out on the nearest road. After traveling only a short distance she came upon an old woman sitting by the roadside. She asked the ragged-looking woman if she knew how to get to the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon. “Are you the true love of the prince from there?” asked the woman knowingly. “Why yes,” replied the startled girl. “Do you know the way there?” “No,” cackled the hag, thinking it a great joke. But then she added more kindly, “Take this golden apple, it may be of use to you in your travels.” So the girl took the golden apple from the woman and continued down the road. In a short time she chanced to meet another old woman on the side of the road. This one she also approached for directions to the castle. “You must be the true love of the prince,” the old woman surmised, just as the other had. “I am she,” owned the girl. “Please can’t you tell me the way to his castle?” But this old woman could offer no more information on the location of the prince’s castle than the other. She gave the girl an enchanted hair comb, instructing her to wear it if she found the prince, as it would bring her good luck to do so. With still not the slightest idea of how to find her prince, the heartbroken girl continued doggedly on and, at length, met with yet another old woman along the road. With this woman she shared a similar exchange as she had with the other two. This woman advised her to seek the East Wind for the information she desired and, giving her a magic feather, instructed her to thrust it out before her and follow it to the home of the East Wind.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  7. This idea would also satisfy our Christian faith in the redeeming mercy of God. In this ascending scale of beings none would be so high that he could not be drawn still closer to God, and none so low that he would be beyond the love of God. God would still be teaching and saving all. If we learned in heaven that a minority were in hell, we should look at God to see what he was going to do about it; and if he did nothing, we should look at Jesus to see how this harmonized with what he taught us about his Father; and if he did nothing, some- thing would die out of heaven. Jonathan Edwards ^ Prof. William Adams Brown, in the closing pages of his “ Christian Theology in Outline,” points out the need for progress, and explains the hold which the doctrine of purgatory has on Catholics. 234 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL demanded that we should rejoice in the damnation of those whom the sovereign election of God abandoned to everlasting torment. Very justly, for we ought to be able to rejoice in what God does. But we can not rejoice in hell. It can’t be done. At least by Christians. The more Christian Christ has made a soul, the more it would mourn for the lost brothers. The conception of a permanent hell was tolerable only while God was con- ceived as an autocratic sovereign dealing with his sub- jects; it becomes intolerable when the Father deals with his children. To-day many Protestants are allowing the physical fires of hell to go out, and make the pain of hell to consist in the separation from God. They base the continuance of hell, not on the sovereign decree of God but on the progressive power of sin which gradually ex- tinguishes all love of good and therewith all capacity for salvation. But this remains to be proven. Who has ever met a man that had no soft spot of tenderness, no homesick yearning after uprightness left in him? If God has not locked the door of hell from the outside, but men remain in it because they prefer the darkness, then there is bound to be a Christian invasion of hell. All the most Christian souls in heaven would get down there and share the life of the wicked, in the high hope that after all some scintilla of heavenly fire was still smouldering and could be fanned into life. And they would be headed by Him who could not stand it to think of ninety-nine saved and one caught among the thorns. The idea of two fixed groups does not satisfy any real requirement. Men justly feared the earlier Universal- ESCHATOLOGY 235

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  5. Peace: settled, calm, and expectant David spends several more verses talking about God’s power, faithfulness, and love. By the end of the psalm, he is in a completely different headspace and heartspace than when he began. He is confident and full of faith, with peace in his soul. That doesn’t mean anything changed in the outside world, but everything had changed in his inside world. That was what mattered most. These five things—pain, processing, prayer, proclamation, peace—are intuitive parts of prayer. They don’t always happen in this order, and they are often cyclical, not linear: you cry out, then you ask for help, then you come to a place of trust and rest . . . and then another wave of pain crashes over you, and the cycle repeats. But with each cycle, you find more stability and peace, like an upward spiral out of the depths. Again, your prayers don’t have to follow this pattern. They definitely don’t have to include so many metaphors and poetic language. But they will almost always involve some sort of process, some sort of progression. You’ll come out on the other side with greater clarity and strength than before. EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY PRAYERS Peter Scazzero writes in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality , “Christian spirituality, without an integration of emotional health, can be deadly—to yourself, your relationship with God, and the people around you.”1 He’s right. It’s not enough to just have faith or to pursue holiness or to study theology. We also have to be healthy on the inside, particularly in regard to our emotions. We are wholistic beings: body, soul, and spirit. Mind, will, and emotions. If one part of our self is hurting, sooner or later it will affect the others. Sometimes Christians are the worst at admitting emotional needs. We tend to think that faith means always being up and never being down. We don’t give ourselves space to grieve, to emote, to vent, to rage, to hurt, to cry. Life has a lot of trauma, though. If we don’t process that trauma, it can deposit layers of hurt in our souls. We often create defense mechanisms or survival techniques just to keep it all together. But deep inside, we are not in a good place. And God knows it. Here’s the thing, though: He’s not disappointed in us; He just wants to help us. We must learn to take those difficult, dark things to God in prayer. Things like pain. Guilt. Fear. Shame. Anger. Betrayal. Addictions. Abuse. Trauma. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of seasons like those. Maybe you’re in one right now. Learn to process your feelings in prayer. To sit with them and to sit with God at the same time, allowing Him to walk you through the hidden recesses of your heart and bring healing. Side note: You might want to try writing out your prayers. I do that sometimes, and it can be so clarifying.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  it to ourselves and to your mother — she’s been very patient with my unusual methods — I’m going to stand trial now, and she’ll be my judge. Help me, I’m going to need all your help; if you fail then I fail, we shall go down together. But we’re not going to fail, you’re going to work hard when your new governess comes, and when you’re older you’re going to become a fine woman; you must, dear — I love you so much that you can’t disappoint me.’ His voice faltered a little, then he held out his hand: ‘< and Stephen, come here—look me straight in the eyes—what is honour, my daughter? ’ She looked into his anxious, questioning eyes: “ You are honour,’ she said quite simply. 5 Wuen Stephen kissed Mademoiselle Duphot good-bye, she cried, for she felt that something was going that would never come back — irresponsible childhood. It was going, like Mademoiselle Duphot. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot, so foolishly loving, so easily coerced, so glad to be persuaded; so eager to believe that you were doing your best, in the face of the most obvious slacking. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot who smiled when she shouldn’t, who laughed when she shouldn’t, and now she was weeping — but weeping as only a Latin can weep, shedding rivers of tears and sobbing quite loudly. ‘ Chérie — mon bébé, petit chou!’ she was sobbing, as she clung to the angular Stephen. The tears ran down on to Mademoiselle’s tippet, and they wet the poor fur which already looked jaded, and the fur clogged together, turning black with those tears, so that Mademoiselle tried to wipe it. But the more she wiped it the wetter it grew, since her handkerchief only augmented the trouble; nor was Stephen’s large handkerchief very dry either, as she found when she started to help. The old station fly that had come out from Malvern, drove THE WELL OF LONELINESS 65 up, and the footman seized Mademoiselle’s luggage. It was such meagre luggage that he waved back assistance from the driver, and lifted the trunk single-handed. Then Mademoiselle Duphot broke out into English — heaven only knew why, perhaps from emotion. “It’s not farewell, it shall not be for ever —’ she sobbed. ‘ You come, but I feel it, to Paris. We meet once more, Stévenne, my poor little baby, when you grow up bigger, we two meet once more —’ And Stephen, already taller than she was, longed to grow small again, just to please Mademoiselle. Then, because the French are a practical people even in moments of real emo- tion, Mademoiselle found her handbag, and groping in its depths she produced a half sheet of paper. ‘ The address of my sister in Paris,’ she said, snuffling; ‘ the address of my sister who makes little bags — if you should hear of anyone, Stévenne — any lady who would care to buy one little bag —’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Stephen went and knelt down beside her, and she hid her face against Angela’s knee, and the tears that had never so much as once fallen during all the hard weeks of their separation, gushed out of her eyes. She cried like a child, with her face against Angela’s knee. Angela let her cry on for a while, then she lifted the tear- stained face and kissed it: ‘ Oh, Stephen, Stephen, get used to the world — it’s a horrible place full of horrible people, but it’s all there is, and we live in it, don’t we? So we’ve just got to do as the world does, my Stephen.’ And because it seemed strange and rather pathetic that this creature should weep, Angela was stirred to something very like love for a moment: * Don’t cry any more - don’t cry, honey,’ she whispered, ‘ we’re together; nothing else really matters.’ And so it began all over again. 5 STEPHEN stayed on to lunch, for Ralph was in Worcester. Hie came home a good two hours before teatime to find them to- gether among his roses; they had followed the shade when it left the herb-garden. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he exclaimed as his eye lit on Stephen; and his voice was so naively disappointed, so full of dismay at her reappearance, that just for a second she felt sorry for him. ‘ Yes, it’s me —’ she replied, not quite knowing what to say. He grunted, and went off for his pruning knife, with which he was soon amputating roses. But in spite of his mood he re- mained a good surgeon, cutting dexterously, always above the leaf-bud, for the man was fond of his roses. And knowing this Stephen must play on that fondness, since now it was her business to cajole him into friendship. A degrading business, but it had ta THE WELL OF LONELINESS 177 be done for Angela’s sake, lest she suffer through loving. Un- thinkable that — ‘ Could you marry me, Stephen? ’ “Ralph, look here;’ she called, ‘Mrs. John Laing’s got broken! We may be in time if we bind her with bass.’ ‘ Oh, dear, has she? ° He came hurrying up as he spoke, ‘ Do go down to the shed and get me some, will you? ’ She got him the bass and together they bound her, the pink- cheeked, full-bosomed Mrs. John Laing. ‘ There,’ he said, as he snipped off the ends of her bandage, “that ought to set your leg for you, madam! ’ Near by grew a handsome Frau Karl Druschki, and Stephen praised her luminous whiteness, remarking his obvious pleasure at the praise. He was like a father of beautiful children, always eager to hear them admired by a stranger, and she made a note of this in her mind: ‘ He likes one to praise his roses.’