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 Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  First Maccabees 2:29-38 tells of a group of pious Jews who withdrew to the wilderness to avoid the persecution. They were attacked on the Sabbath day. They refused to violate the Sabbath by defending themselves, and so they were slaughtered, calling on heaven and earth to witness that they were being killed unjustly. The invocation of heaven and earth is an allusion to Deuteronomy 32, which goes on to say, “Vengeance is mine, says the L ord ” (Deut 32:35). Those who died on the Sabbath may have hoped that God would avenge them. Their mentality may have been similar to that of the “wise” in Daniel 11, who lay down their lives but are assured of vindication in the hereafter. A clearer parallel to the martyrs in 1 Maccabees can be found in another apocalyptic writing, the Assumption (or Testament ) of Moses, where a man called Taxo and his seven sons lay down their lives in confidence that the kingdom of God is at hand. Coin of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. When Mattathias and his friends heard of the slaughter on the Sabbath, they mourned for the victims, but they resolved that they would defend themselves on the Sabbath, lest the whole Jewish people be wiped from the earth. In doing so, they resolved to break the Law for the greater good of the people. Not all pious Jews agreed with this decision. The dilemma, however, is one that has continued to confront Judaism down to modern times (cf. the Arab attack on Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973). There has always been some division of opinion within Judaism between those who insist on absolute obedience to the Law and those who take a more pragmatic approach and give priority to the survival of the people. The remainder of 1 Maccabees recounts the heroic exploits of the Maccabean family. Mattathias dies at the end of chapter 2. His son Judas, called Maccabeus, or “the hammer,” replaces him as leader. First Maccabees describes him in terms reminiscent of the divine warrior in the Hebrew Bible (1 Macc 3:3-9; cf. Isa 59:15-20). He recaptures Jerusalem and purifies the temple, three years to the day after it had been defiled (1 Macc 4:36-61), and institutes the festival of Hanukkah to commemorate the occasion. He gathers Jews from outlying areas into Judea for safekeeping. In the process he pillages Gentile towns and slaughters their inhabitants (chap. 5). Antiochus Epiphanes is shaken by the news of these exploits, realizes that he has brought ruin on his own head by attacking Jerusalem, and dies in despair (chap. 6).

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

  fu. Wal adj. verb. or pt. dry, dried, so, ms. > abs. Na 144 t.; fs.1¥2* Nu 11°; mpl. DW) © Nu 6% fpl. יבשות‎ Ez 37°4;—1. dried, lit. only > pw) עַנְבִים‎ Nu 6° dried grapes(P; opp. ond ₪ fig. mwas YD? ד‎ E) our soul (i.e. our appe- = tite)is dried up, viz. for want of fresh,juicy meat. — 2. dry, of chaff, קש‎ Na 1 in sim. of Ninevites — under impending judgment; cf. in fig. of Job . Jb 13”; of tree Ez 17 (fig. of 12871616 house; | opp: לח‎ Vy), 21" (in prediction of Judah’s:de-_ vastation by Babylon, opp. zd.); Is 56° fig. of eunuch; of the bones in Ezek.’s vision 132 377% fu. יביש ,יבש‎ n.pr.loc. et pers. 1. pr. loc. sypa יבש‎ 700680 of Gilead, & פו(10066‎ Taxaad, exact site unknown, Ju 21597028167 2 S212; 1Ch ro" (GL 1080 rs Padaad); TP} יָבִיש‎ 18 ee 311 2 ₪5 2*° (in these three’ GL asus ths Tadaaridiros) ; P21 Sire, ay 1 Ch 10”; meray ve, || nia? ז‎ 831905 2. n.pr.m. wa father of Shallum 2 K 15", teen ו בי‎ tit a 6 3 castravit, יבשה Tra? n.f. dry land, dry ground (Sab. ,יבסם‎ opp. בחרם‎ sea, DHM in MV; Palm. יבשא‎ (dry) land Vog**"*) —alw. abs. sg. 13": Ex 4° (J); of dry ground as path of Isr. through Red Sea Ex14%” 15" (all P), Neg" ץ‎ 66"; through Jordan Jos4”(D); of dry 7 opp. sea, at creation Gn 1°""(P); cf. Jon 1°; specif. of shore of sea Jon 1% 2"; 3 fig. of needy Israel, to be refreshed by ’"’s op it Is 44° (|| SP¥). Tnvas n.f. id., made by God’s hands 95°; water shall become blood nvata Ex 4° (J). been v. sub 1. גאל‎ p. 145 supr. +20] vb. till, be husbandman, only Qal +. pl. ּליגְבִים‎ priaab Je 52" 2K 25" Qr (Kt (נבים‎ ; vy. גוב‎ p. rgb supr. T[ag°] mm. field, כִּרָמִים וִיגְבִים‎ Je 39%, but text dub., vy. 52°—=2 K 25”; also ia, 1. 3A p- 155° supr. MID vy. sub 73 p. 147% supr. p. 183% supr.‏ גדל y. sub‏ דליהו TL. [ינה]‎ vb. suffer, not גג‎ 1 (cf. Ar. fe) be abraded (of the foot); of horse, have pain in the hoof )—Niph. Pt. fpl. נונות‎ (on form vy. Ké') La 1 )| D282, (מר‎ grieved, mpl, estr. 1339 (v. 1601 >( Zp 38(sq. prep., ef, oe ); of virgins of Zion La 1‘; of exiles op3°. Pi. גי‎ MAM (for TAM, v. KG + 5% 412) grieve, sq. acc. La 3° | my), Hiph. Pf. 3 ms. min Lar? 3”; sf. M7 Lar; Jmpf. 2 mpl. “PHA Tb 192; Pt. pl. sf. מוניף‎ i 51;— cause grief or sorrow, abs. La 3° (opp. DM); sq. acc. (Zion) La 1°, cf. Is 518, also La 1” (obj. om., but = אשר‎ of grief=wherewith); sq. WD) Jb 197.— .ינה .11 .ץצ }20 28 On‏

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Thanksgiving dinner at the O’Malleys, as Benjamin had often pointed out, was like waiting for the end of a ceasefire. Billy and her father would assume a guarded silence until the first drinks had been consumed. Then Billy would launch into his list of dissatisfactions beginning with, say, her father’s preposterous support for the House Un-American Activities Committee. Open disgust was not far away. Elena tried to interpret, mediate, and assuage; she tried silence and she tried slipping out to chat with the staff in the kitchen. It did no good. And then her mother would appear for dinner, having spent hours arranging herself, balancing between the spot where she couldn’t button a button because of tremors and where the double vision got the best of her. Elena’s mother would descend and the evening would really get under way. Holy mother of God, why did you even bother to attend? Will someone call for a bib, please? Or a stretcher? Maybe a stretcher is in order. Could we have a stretcher, please? At which Billy would fly into a rage. Because Billy and Elena’s mother were attached by more than drink. They were attached by their sadness and their lying and their self-pity. They died in the same year, the way lovers of long standing did. Margaret O’Malley’s liver succumbed, and Bill went down in a plane about six months later. Plaques commemorating their unhappy terms in this life adorned the stone wall in a lonely New England churchyard. And these plaques had been joined recently by one bearing her father’s name. He had supported Nixon right through Checkers, but the flimsy valves of his heart—tinkered with by the eminent cardiologists of the day—couldn’t survive Watergate. He died the day Cox was appointed special prosecutor, April 17. When Elena was small, she had played in her mother’s dressing room, where two mirrored walls faced one another. The reflections traveled back ceaselessly in that space. When Elena stepped into the purview of these mirrors, she too was reproduced innumerably. She was always trying to catch a glimpse of her incalculable selves. She stretched, she sensed, toward the origin of her family, into its pedigreed peeves and illnesses and delinquencies. But no matter how she tried to sneak around the margins of her reflection, to see the edges of that parade, her mirrored self shadowed her. In silence. So: Paul and Wendy and Benjamin. And Daisy Chain, the dog, presently sprawled—licking himself—on the library carpet. This little family had tightened around Elena. She put aside Masters and Johnson, marked with a New Canaan Bookshop bookmark—at the page concerning the onset of menopause, just by chance—and repaired to the kitchen. She threw light switches up and down the hall. Because of the oil embargo the British were working a three-day work week, but Elena was uncomfortable in darkness. Duraflame logs. She needed more. The President was pondering special powers to ration electrical resources. Sunday leisure driving was officially discouraged.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  I remember the night of the day that he moved out. By the light of my bedside lamp, I dug out an old T-shirt of my father's from the bottom drawer of my dresser. It was from a diner in Oklahoma City whose corned beef hash my mother once loved, royal blue cotton jersey with the restaurant's logo on the back. I'd taken it from my father's closet the year after he died, and it still smelled like him, a high-pitched musk. In thirteen years, I'd never worn it. I didn't want the smell to go away. But the day that Brandon moved out, I unfolded it and pulled it on, held the fabric to my nose until I was sobbing. I wanted company, and grief was it. I was free from the labor of our marriage: the tidying up after him, the keeping-track, the constant doing. After he moved out, I made a mess of the place. I left dirty dishes in the sink, threw my clothes on the rug. It was a relief to stop trying to set a shining example, to stop hoping he would follow suit. You've been begging the wrong person to see you, my therapist says. You don't have to do that anymore. I nod, not entirely sure.

• From The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (2020)

  Persephone dies anew each winter, but Christ died once for all (see Hebrews 10). {N2} His crucifixion and resurrection conquered winter ( spiritual death) and ushered in a perpetual spring (eternal life) for those who believe. That transformation is a present reality in the soul of the believer, but it will not remake the world until the new heaven and earth arrive at the end of time (see Revelation 21:1). Until that happy day arrives, the seasonal cycle of life, death, and rebirth shall continue. A pplications Ask your students how many of them enjoy singing Christmas carols. I’m sure that nearly every hand will go up. Then ask them if singing Christmas carols would be as special to them if they sang them every day of the year. I expect that most will say no.Let this interaction lead to a discussion about the seasonal cycle of the year, and why it is that we do certain things at certain times of the year, repeating them annually.Have students make a list of all the Christian holidays they can think of and the traditions that they link to each holiday. Have them do the same for secular holidays such as New Year’s Eve (and/or Day), Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Ask students to explain in what way the American Thanksgiving is both a secular and a Christian holiday.Consider discussing some (or all) of the following questions with your students:What would we lose if we lived in a world that had only one season instead of four? What can we learn from the seasonal cycle of winter, spring, summer, and fall?What would we lose if we stopped celebrating holidays? Why shouldn’t we just treat every day the same?Although many Christians do not believe that we are required to treat Sunday the same way that Jews treat Saturday (the Sabbath), what might we gain as Christians if we really treated Sunday as a Sabbath day of rest? What if, as observant Jews still do on the Sabbath, Christians did not work on Sunday but devoted the day to rest, prayer, reading, and fellowship with their family?Although the story of Demeter and Persephone is not true, what truths about the nature of our world and ourselves can it teach us? If you were a farmer, do you think the story would have a different and deeper meaning for you?Several generations ago, Americans could only get certain fruits and vegetables during specific growing seasons that occurred at certain times of the year. Today, we can get almost any food that we want at almost any time of the year. Would you think differently about your favorite fruit or vegetable if you could only have it during a brief time each year? Would it make you more grateful for food in general?In what way does Christianity fulfill the seasonal cycle of life, death, and rebirth that the ancient Greeks celebrated in the myth of Persephone?

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Second Samuel 13–20 tells a tragic family saga. It begins with the incestuous rape of David’s daughter Tamar by her brother Amnon. Another brother, Absalom, bides his time but eventually kills Amnon in revenge. Absalom then has to flee. He is eventually brought back to Jerusalem, through the good offices of Joab, but it takes another two years before he is reconciled with his father. We must assume that this experience is part of what motivates Absalom to seek the kingship by conspiracy. David has to flee from Jerusalem in mourning. Absalom enters Jerusalem and symbolizes his usurpation of David’s throne by going in to his concubines. He meets his downfall, however, by following the advice of David’s counselor, Hushai the Archite, and going into battle in person. His demise is comical—he gets caught in a tree by the long hair that was his pride. David, typically, takes no pleasure in his death but laments the loss of his son. The story shows David in a very favorable light. He does not wish the death of any of his sons, neither Amnon nor Absalom, regardless of what they have done. This portrayal may serve the interest of royal propaganda, but it is also a credible human story. The portrayal of Absalom is not unsympathetic. We can appreciate his outrage at the rape of his sister, and even his impatience with the administration of the aging king. If his intercourse with his father’s concubines seems outrageous, this is due to the advice of Ahithophel. Absalom seems naïve in his willingness to go into battle in person and in his vanity about his hair, which leads to his downfall. In the end, however, the story focuses on David rather than on Absalom. David is also portrayed as compassionate and forgiving toward his enemies. He refuses to punish Shimei, who had cursed him, and he accepts Mephibosheth’s explanation of his conduct. Yet when a man named Sheba of the tribe of Benjamin (Saul’s tribe) attempts to secede from Judah (chap. 20), David acts decisively to put down the revolt. As in several previous incidents, however, Joab and his brother Abishai, the sons of Zeruiah, are the ones who shed the blood. If there is guilt because of the violence, it can be imputed to them rather than to David. The story of the Gibeonites in chapter 21 also has a strongly apologetic character. David disposes of the heirs to the house of Saul, except for the cripple Mephibosheth. But he claims that this was necessary because of bloodguilt on the house of Saul, which was causing a famine. Moreover, David makes a show of goodwill toward the memory of Saul and Jonathan by giving them a proper burial. The action of the king is ruthless, but the story justifies it and covers it with a gloss of piety. The reputation of the king is defended and enhanced. Nonetheless, the story of Absalom should not be viewed only as political propaganda.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Has it ever happened in history that such a seven-eighths would permanently be permitted to wield seven-eighths of all political power? If we want approximate political equality, we must have approximate economic equality. If we attempt it otherwise, we shall be bucking against the law of gravitation. But when we consider what a long and sore struggle it cost to achieve political liberty; what a splendid destiny a true republic planted on this glorious territorial base of ours might have; what a mission of liberty our country might have for all the nations—it may well fill the heart of every patriot with the most poignant grief to think that this liberty may perish once more; that our birthright among the nations may be lost to us by our greed; and that already our country, instead of being the great incentive to political democracy in other nations, is a heavy handicap on the democratic movement, an example to which the opponents of democracy abroad point with pleasure and which the lovers of popular liberty pass with averted face. The tainting of the moral atmosphere Our moral character is wrought out by choosing the right when we are offered the wrong. It is neither possible nor desirable to create a condition in which the human soul will not have to struggle with temptation. But there are conditions in which evil is so dominant and its attraction so deadly and irresistible, that no wise man will want to expose himself or his children to such odds. Living in a tainted atmosphere does not increase the future capacity of the body to resist disease. Swimming is hard work and therefore good exercise, but not swimming where the undertow locks the swimmer’s limbs in leaden embrace and drags him down. We cannot conceal from ourselves that in some directions the temptations of modern life are so virulent that characters and reputations are collapsing all about us with sickening frequency. The prevalence of fraud and the subtler kinds of dishonesty for which we have invented the new term “graft,” is a sinister fact of the gravest import. It is not merely the weak who fall, but the strong. Clean, kindly, religious men stoop to methods so tricky, hard, and rapacious, that we stand aghast whenever the curtain is drawn aside and we are shown the inside facts. Every business man who has any finer moral discernment will realize that he himself is constantly driven by the pressure of business necessity into actions of which he is ashamed. Men do not want to do these things; but in a given situation they have to, if they want to survive or prosper, and the sum of these crooked actions gives an evil turn to their life. If it were proposed to invent some social system in which covetousness would be deliberately fostered and intensified in human nature, what system could be devised which would excel our own for this purpose?

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  His wife and daughter visited him immediately. After that they had to wait to the regular visiting day. On that day they came to me in great distress and said that he had been sent forward to Bellevue Hospital. I went with them and we found that he had been there only one night, and had again been sent on to the Charity Hospital on Blackwell’s Island. At both hospitals they said the case was not serious and they had shifted him to make room for graver cases. The steamer connecting Bellevue and the Island had left on its last trip that day. If the two women had been alone, they would have been helpless in their anxiety till the next day. I got them across. After hours of fear, which almost prostrated them, we found the old man. He was fairly comfortable and reported that his night at Bellevue had been spent on the floor. A few days later gangrene set in; the leg was twice amputated, and he died. I am not competent to say if this result was due to neglect or not. I know of other cases in which that first hospital shipped charity patients elsewhere without giving any notice whatever to the relatives. The agent of the street-car company promptly called on the family and offered $100 in settlement of all damages. I saw the manager on their behalf. He explained courteously that since the case resulted in death, $5000 would be the maximum allowed by New York laws, and since the man’s earnings had been small and he had but few years of earning capacity before him, the amount of damage allowed by the courts in his case would be slight. The suffering to the affections of the family did not enter into the legal aspect of the matter. The company paid its counsel by the year. If the family sued and was successful in the lower court, the manager frankly said they would carry it to the higher courts and could wear out the resources of the family at slight expense to the corporation. The president, a benevolent and venerable-looking gentleman, explained to me that the combined distance travelled by their cars daily would reach from New York to the Rocky Mountains. People were constantly being run over, and the company could not afford to be more generous. The widow concluded to submit to the terms offered. The $100 was brought to her in the usual form of single dollar bills to make it look like vast wealth to a poor person. The daughter suffered very serious organic injury through the shock received when her father had disappeared from the hospital, and this was probably one cause for her death in child-birth several years later.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  She brazenly goes to the Church of the True Cross, and even tries to enter, but she is repelled by some invisible force. Standing in the courtyard of the church, she senses that her own deeds are preventing her entrance. When she looks up, she sees an icon of the Mother of God. She prays to the chaste, pure, and undefiled virgin. “I have heard that the God who became man did so on this account, that he might call sinners to repent. Help me, for I am alone, and I have none to help me.” Mary promises that she will not only abandon her life of shame, she will renounce this world altogether if she can only see the wood of the true cross. The Mother of God extends God’s grace upon Mary the prostitute, and she is saved. Whereas Thais, Pelagia, and the niece of Abraham are shepherded to repentance through the guidance of a holy man, Mary of Egypt finds unmediated salvation. She falls into sin of her own volition, and she finds redemption without an intermediary between her and the archetypal virgin whose name she shared. 72 When Zosimas finds Mary, she has lived alone in the desert for forty-seven years. In that time she has eaten a total of three loaves of bread. She has wrestled with temptations, with the thoughts of fornication that constantly pricked the mind of the male monk. For seventeen years, the span of time she lived in wantonness in Alexandria, she suffered and struggled, as her withering body paid for her crimes. Then she spent thirty years in ascetic tranquility. She instructs Zosimas not to repeat her tale while she lives, but to return to Jerusalem and to visit her in a year with the bread and wine of the Eucharist. He comes to her again in the desert and she takes communion. Again she instructs him to return in a year. He begs her to pray, “for the church, for the empire, and for him.” When Zosimas returns the next year, he finds Mary, dead, her corpse turned to the east. He weeps over her, soaking her feet with his tears, inverting the biblical trope. In the sand he finds a message from her, revealing her name and asking for burial. A lion appears and helps dig the grave. Zosimas cries, prays, and returns to his monastery, where at last he relates the story that Mary conveyed to him, a story that was handed down by the monks through the generations. Finally the author’s voice breaks in, claiming to have inscribed the unwritten truth at the command of God: like the artful confections of the sophistic romance, the Life of Mary makes the reader aware of the frames within which the narrative is stored.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind him to every thing but her beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding years—years, which if rationally spent, give such improvement to the understanding, must have opened his eyes to her defects of education, while the same period of time, spent on her side in inferior society and more frivolous pursuits, had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity which might once have given an interesting character to her beauty. If in the supposition of his seeking to marry herself, his difficulties from his mother had seemed great, how much greater were they now likely to be, when the object of his engagement was undoubtedly inferior in connections, and probably inferior in fortune to herself. These difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not press very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the person by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness, could be felt as a relief! As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she wept for him, more than for herself. Supported by the conviction of having done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother and sisters. And so well was she able to answer her own expectations, that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object of her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the perfections of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly possessed, and whom she expected to see in every carriage which drove near their house. The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what had been entrusted in confidence to herself, though it obliged her to unceasing exertion, was no aggravation of Elinor’s distress. On the contrary it was a relief to her, to be spared the communication of what would give such affliction to them, and to be saved likewise from hearing that condemnation of Edward, which would probably flow from the excess of their partial affection for herself, and which was more than she felt equal to support. From their counsel, or their conversation, she knew she could receive no assistance, their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress, while her self-command would neither receive encouragement from their example nor from their praise. She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  (2:20). The motif of cannibalism is repeated in 4:10. This motif is common in ancient accounts of sieges and times of disaster, but the frequency of the motif does not necessarily mean that such things did not happen. The third poem is the centerpiece of Lamentations. Here the speaker is an anonymous “man who has seen affliction” (3:1). Again, the suffering is construed as punishment: “Is it not from the mouth of the L ord that good and bad come”? (3:38). In this case, however, the poet also professes confidence that “the steadfast love of the L ord never ceases” (3:22). It is good to be chastised in youth, for the Lord will not be angry forever. Therefore, the people should examine their ways and return to the Lord. This is a time-honored response to adversity in the Hebrew tradition. It scarcely addresses the situation of the thousands who perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. It is precisely this response to suffering that will be put in question in the book of Job. Here again, the poet’s submissiveness toward God does not prevent him from praying for vengeance on his earthly enemies. The fourth poem reverts to a more critical form of complaint. The chastisement of Jerusalem has been greater than that of Sodom, which at least was over quickly (4:6). Again the horrors, including cannibalism, are described in detail. Those killed in battle were better off than those left to starve. Listed among the losses is “the L ord ’s anointed, the breath of our life” (4:20). Whether the king in question was Jehoiachin or Zedekiah, it is difficult to imagine Jeremiah referring to him in such terms. In this poem the guilt of Jerusalem is qualified: “It was for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests” (4:13). Moreover, the poem concludes by announcing that the punishment of Zion is accomplished, but that of Edom is about to come. In the final poem, the confession of guilt recedes further. “Our ancestors have sinned; they are no more, and we bear their iniquities” (5:7). This sentiment comes close to the proverb, “the fathers have eaten sour grapes,” which is vehemently rejected in Ezekiel 18, and is said not to apply to the future in Jeremiah 31. In this poem the emphasis is on innocent suffering: women raped, men abused, people starving. The poet concludes by asking God to restore the people, “unless you have rejected us utterly and are angry with us beyond measure” (5:22). Here again there is a hint that this degree of suffering cannot be fully explained as just punishment from God. The book of Lamentations is cherished mainly for its poetic expression of unspeakable horror.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  The poems then are not spontaneous outpourings, but they are no less authentic for that. “Sirrush”, a mythical creature depicted on glazed brick tile, from the Ishtar Gate, Babylon. It is likely that Lamentations was used in mourning rituals from an early time. The earliest evidence for mourning rituals related to the fall of Jerusalem is in Jer 41:5, which tells how eighty men from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria shaved off their beards, tore their garments, lacerated their skin, and came to make offerings at the house of the Lord, after the murder of the governor Gedaliah. Zechariah 7:3 indicates that people mourned and fasted in the fifth month (Ab) in the years after the restoration, and a fast in that month is also mentioned in Zech 8:19. Later Jewish custom used Lamentations in the liturgy of the 9th of Ab, which marked the destruction not only of the first temple, but also that of the second temple by the Romans in 70 C.E., and also the defeat of Bar Kokhba, who led the last Jewish rebellion against Rome in 132 C.E. Lamentations was thus taken as a lament for all the disasters of Jewish history. In Christian tradition, selections from Lamentations are chanted in the Matins of Holy Week. The book consists of five poems. The first personifies Zion as a woman. The first half of the poem describes her affliction from an observer’s point of view. In the second half, beginning in v. 12, Jerusalem herself is the speaker. Noteworthy is the explanation offered for the disaster: “because the L ord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions” (1:5). Jerusalem herself attributes her suffering to “that which the L ord inflicted in the day of his fierce anger” (1:12). She confesses that “the L ord is in the right, for I have rebelled against his word” (1:18) and echoes Hosea by saying that she called to her lovers, but they deceived her (1:19). The city also complains of the gloating of her enemies and prays that a like fate may come upon them. The second poem reiterates how the Lord has destroyed Israel and Judah, and has even disowned his own sanctuary. Some of the blame is placed on prophets who saw false visions (2:14). But the confession of guilt is outweighed by the expression of suffering. The author tells of children crying for food and starving to death. The poet stops short of accusing the Lord of excess, but one might draw that inference from his question: “Look, O L ord , and consider! To whom have you done this? Should women eat their offspring, the children they have borne? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the L ord ?”

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The Church and its human material An architect might have a Parthenon before his mind’s eye, but unless he had quarries for the marble, he could not build it. A general might be a military genius, but if the recruits furnished to him were puny, spiritless, and sick with vices, he could make no forced marches nor fight long-drawn battles. Every human institution needs fit human material, as well as a great idea. Clubs and fraternal societies can pick their material; the Church cannot. It must take in all sorts and conditions of men, and has a special call to seek out and draw in the most abandoned and lost. It has to take the material furnished to it by secular society. If that material is degenerate, the work of the Church is harder and there will be disastrous breaks. The lower the previous moral condition, the more frequent the backslidings. Native workers on foreign mission fields sometimes relapse into the most revolting vices, because their bodies and imaginations were saturated with contamination. Rescue missions are familiar enough with the pitiful attempts of broken human beings to rally faith and hope, and with the swift collapse of the enfeebled will. If large sections of the population should approximate the condition of the hobo, what chance would there be for church work among them? Poverty does approximate that condition. It creates a character of its own. Constant underfeeding and frequent exhaustion make the physical tissues flabby and the brain prone to depression and vacillation, incapable of holding tenaciously to a distant aim. Mr. Jacob A. Riis says that street life develops in the child “dislike of regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, misdirected love of adventure, gambling propensities, absence of energy, an untrained will, carelessness of the happiness of others.” This characterization will apply to the human material produced by modern city poverty everywhere. Religious faith is the capacity for taking long outlooks and holding all minor aims under control to reach the highest. Poverty teaches men to live from hand to mouth, and for the moment. The experience of the Salvation Army shows that the poor need the strongest thrills of excitement and the most rigid discipline to arouse and hold them. The process of degeneration can be watched in acute form in times of industrial misery. If the decline of a social class is gradual, it escapes observation and only the final results appall us. There is an old maxim current among religious workers that times of national disaster are followed by a revival of religion, for trouble drives men to God.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  They denude the country and gather the people about the shops and mines. They invade a residence neighborhood with factories, scatter the old population, and fill the chinks between the shops and warehouses with a population of lower grade, and perhaps of alien faith and tongue. This affects the churches profoundly. Fine old country churches are left high and dry. When a trust transfers a shop to another city, some church may be left behind, like Rachel, mourning for her children. Protestant churches wake up and find themselves in an Italian or Jewish neighborhood. All the endless labor and love which pastor and people put into the erection of a new church home may serve only for a few years, and then the location will have to be abandoned and the edifice sold for second-hand building material. The interest of the Church is in stability of population. A permanent location builds up an invaluable “good-will.” People come to love the local church for the memories and traditions which cling about it and make it more beautiful than the ivy on its walls. Churches are long-lived organisms, like trees, and strike their roots deeper with the passing years. When a speculative and frantic commerce hustles the churches around, they owe it no thanks. Competitive industry sweeps the people together in the great cities. Therewith it creates the problem of the down-town church. In a community of moderate diameter the people on the outskirts can easily reach a church built in the centre. When a city grows very large, the outer fringe of homes drifts ever farther away from the ancient churches that stand in heroic loneliness like the Roman soldier dying on guard at Pompeii. Their problem is aggravated by land speculation, which usually lays a belt of sparsely settled land about the city and compels home-seekers to cross that belt to nuclei of social life still farther out. These brief suggestions will suffice to show that at the bottom of some of the gravest problems that harass churches and pastors lies the land question in its relation to the complex total of modern life. The condition of the crowded and landless people ought long ago to have aroused the Church to examine the moral basis of our land system. Let it realize in addition that its own growth and stability is impaired by the same causes. The Church and its income The income of the Church in former times and in other countries was mainly derived from landed wealth or from state subsidies. In our country the churches with few exceptions are maintained by the current contributions of their living members. It is therefore of the utmost importance to the financial welfare of the churches that their members shall have a regular and secure income, from which they can readily support their church. Thus the Church has the greatest possible interest in a just and even distribution of wealth.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  It reflects not indifference but a depth of trauma that leaves the person numb. (In the case of Ezekiel, it also leaves him temporarily dumb.) This incident throws a new light on Ezekiel’s vehement condemnations of Jerusalem. The destruction of the temple was a great trauma, not only because of his attachment to it but because his tradition taught him that YHWH loved Zion. If YHWH nonetheless destroyed it or allowed it to be destroyed, Jerusalem must have been vile to deserve such a fate. So Ezekiel could rationalize his inability to mourn. The vehemence of his denunciations of Jerusalem bespeaks his deep disillusionment and his desperate desire to vindicate what he perceived as the action of his God. CHAPTERS 1–11: GLORY AND DESTRUCTION The Opening Vision The opening vision of Ezekiel is the most complex of all prophetic visions, and it became a cornerstone of later Jewish mysticism. The vision combines two traditions. First is a storm theophany, in the tradition of Mount Sinai (cf. Judg 5:4-5; Ps 68:7-9; Hab 3:3-15; et al.). The presence of the Lord is associated with fire. (The Hebrew word hashmal, which NRSV translates “amber,” is used in Modern Hebrew for electricity.) The cloud is said to come from the north. In Jeremiah it was the foe, Babylon, that was supposed to come from the north. The more plausible association here is that the storm-god Baal was traditionally associated with Mount Zaphon (the mountain of the north), and the abode of YHWH in Zion was said to be “in the far north” in Ps 48:1. In accordance with the imagery of the storm-god, YHWH rides a chariot (Hebrew merkabah ). Later Jewish mysticism is known as Merkavah mysticism, because it is concerned with visions of the divine throne-chariot. The second tradition that informs Ezekiel’s vision is that of the divine throne in the Jerusalem temple, where YHWH was enthroned above the cherubim (cf. the vision of the divine throne in Isaiah 6). These were hybrid creatures, combining features of various animals and endowed with wings, of a type often depicted in ancient Near Eastern art. The beings seen by Ezekiel are inspired by this tradition but are exceptionally bizarre. In their midst was something like burning coals of fire. Burning coals also figured in the vision of Isaiah (Isa 6:6). The Deity is enthroned above the living creatures, separated from them by a dome. Unlike Isaiah or Micaiah ben Imlah, however, Ezekiel does not simply see the Lord. He sees “something like” a throne, on which there was “something that seemed like a human form” but that was fiery and dazzling in appearance.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  It is true that the progress of religion toward spirituality was sure to make religion more personal. But every new religious synthesis should contain all that was good and true in the old. If the religious value of the individual was being discovered, why should the religious value of the community be forgotten? As a matter of fact, this concentration of religious life in the individual was not a deliberate step of progress, freely taken, but was forced upon these men by dire necessity. Religion found the broad plains of national life destroyed and in possession of the enemy, and it retreated into the mountain fastnesses of individual soul-life. It is a triumph of religious faith if a man who is crippled for life, and confined to a hopeless bed of pain and uselessness, still keeps his faith in God intact, or even develops so strong a trust in him who has slain him that others come to his bedside to draw faith from his mere look and existence. But that is not normal religion. Religion is the hallowing of all life, and its health-giving powers are always impaired if it is denied free access to some of the organs through which it fulfils its functions. Moreover, even with the prophets of the Exile, the restoration of the nation was the controlling desire. They insisted on personal holiness, not because that was the end of all religion, but because it was the condition and guarantee of national restoration. Personal religion was chiefly a means to an end; the end was social. We can appreciate to the full the significance and value of the personal religion developed under the abnormal conditions of foreign domination and national prostration, and yet recognize frankly that this gain had involved a tremendous loss and that a religion developed under abnormal conditions is likely itself to be abnormal. This view is confirmed by the subsequent development of religious thought and life. Ezekiel, who lived during the Exile, shows the effect of the separation between the political and religious interests. He too still cherishes the national hope. At the end of his book he describes his vision of Jerusalem as he hoped it would be when restored and rebuilt. The old social convictions still persist; for instance, he takes care to provide for the just distribution of the land. And yet the political commonwealth and the king have become shadowy; the memory of them was growing dim and therefore the hope of them was vague and colorless. On the other hand the community of worshippers and the priests as their leaders were now vividly in the foreground. As a consequence the moral and religious emphasis had changed.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  So when enemies or white men succeed in stealing one of these religious treasures, this loss is considered a public calamity. This misfortune is the occasion of a rite having all the characteristics of mourning: men smear their bodies with white pipe-clay and remain in camp, weeping and lamenting, during a period of two weeks. [1269] This is a new proof that mourning is determined, not by the way in which the soul of the dead is conceived, but by impersonal causes, by the moral state of the group. In fact, we have here a rite which, in its structure, is indistinguishable from the real mourning, but which is, nevertheless, independent of every notion of spirits or evil-working demons. [1270] Another circumstance which gives occasion for ceremonies of the same nature is the distress in which the society finds itself after an insufficient harvest. "The natives who live in the vicinity of Lake Eyre," says Eylmann, "also seek to prevent an insufficiency of food by means of secret ceremonies. But many of the ritual practices observed in this region are to be distinguished from those which have been mentioned already: it is not by symbolic dances, by imitative movements nor dazzling decorations that they try to act upon the religious powers or the forces of nature, but by means of the suffering which individuals inflict upon themselves. In the northern territories, it is by means of tortures, such as prolonged fasts, vigils, dances persisted up to the exhaustion of the dancers, and physical pains of every sort, that they attempt to appease the powers which are ill-disposed towards men." [1271] The torments to which the natives submit themselves for this purpose sometimes leave them in such a state of exhaustion that they are unable to follow the hunt for some days to come. [1272] These practices are employed especially for fighting against drought. This is because a scarcity of water results in a general want. To remedy this evil, they have recourse to violent methods. One which is frequently used is the extraction of a tooth. Among the Kaitish, for example, they pull out an incisor from one man, and hang it on a tree. [1273] Among the Dieri, the idea of rain is closely associated with that of bloody incisions made in the skin of the chest and arms. [1274] Among this same people, whenever the drought is very great, the great council assembles and summons the whole tribe. It is really a tribal event. Women are sent in every direction to notify men to assemble at a given place and time.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  They are sometimes covered with a layer of down, thick enough to conceal the foundation. Thus the waninga has the appearance of a veritable flag. [347] Now the nurtunja and the waninga, which figure in a multitude of important rites, are the object of a religious respect quite like that inspired by the churinga. The process of their manufacture and erection is conducted with the greatest solemnity. Fixed in the earth, or carried by an officiant, they mark the central point of the ceremony: it is about them that the dances take place and the rites are performed. In the course of the initiation, the novice is led to the foot of a nurtunja erected for the occasion. Someone says to him, "There is the nurtunja of your father; many young men have already been made by it." After that, the initiate must kiss the nurtunja. [348] By this kiss, he enters into relations with the religious principle which resides there; it is a veritable communion which should give the young man the force required to support the terrible operation of sub-incision. [349] The nurtunja also plays a considerable rôle in the mythology of these societies. The myths relate that in the fabulous times of the great ancestors, the territory of the tribe was overrun in every direction by companies composed exclusively of individuals of the same totem. [350] Each of these troops had a nurtunja with it. When it stopped to camp, before scattering to hunt, the members fixed their nurtunja in the ground, from the top of which their churinga was suspended. [351] That is equivalent to saying that they confided the most precious things they had to it. It was at the same time a sort of standard which served as a rallying-centre for the group. One cannot fail to be struck by the analogies between the nurtunja and the sacred post of the Omaha. [352] Now its sacred character can come from only one cause: that is that it represents the totem materially. The vertical lines or rings of down which cover it, and even the cords of different colours which fasten the arms of the waninga to the central axis, are not arranged arbitrarily, according to the taste of the makers; they must conform to a type strictly determined by tradition which, in the minds of the natives, represents the totem. [353] Here we cannot ask, as we did in the case of the churinga, whether the veneration accorded to this instrument of the cult is not merely the reflex of that inspired by the ancestors; for it is a rule that each nurtunja and each waninga last only during the ceremony where they are used.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  This latter belief is so firmly rooted that when two combatants stand pitted against one another, if one sees that the other has brought churinga against him, he loses confidence and his defeat is certain. [327] Thus there is no ritual instrument which has a more important place in the religious ceremonies. [328] By means of various sorts of anointings, their powers are communicated either to the officiants or to the assistants; to bring this about, they are rubbed over the members and stomach of the faithful after being covered with grease; [329] or sometimes they are covered with a down which flies away and scatters itself in every direction when they are whirled; this a way of disseminating the virtues which are in them. [330] But they are not useful merely to individuals; the fate of the clan as a whole is bound up with theirs. Their loss is a disaster; it is the greatest misfortune which can happen to the group. [331] Sometimes they leave the ertnatulunga, for example when they are loaned to other groups. [332] Then follows a veritable public mourning. For two weeks, the people of the totem weep and lament, covering their bodies with white clay just as they do when they have lost a relative. [333] And the churinga are not left at the free disposition of everybody; the ertnatulunga where they are kept is placed under the control of the chief of the group. It is true that each individual has special rights to some of them; [334] yet, though he is their proprietor in a sense, he cannot make use of them except with the consent and under the direction of the chief.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  They need not examine how the news coverage and commentary, articles, editorials, and analyses invariably chose to view this crime through the murderers’ eyes, or through a grieving mother’s tears, for fear of what might happen if they dared to imagine themselves as Gwen, a young tranny they so desperately wanted to believe was nothing like them. Everyone chose to tiptoe around the subject because they were too afraid to put themselves in Gwen Araujo’s shoes, if only for a moment, to ask what the world looked like from her view: To imagine how frustrated you might be if you were unable to explore your own sexuality without having other people turn your body into a lightning rod for their own insecurities. To imagine how unjust it would feel to be dismissed as a fraud despite being the only nineteen-year-old in your known universe with the guts to truly be yourself. To imagine how frail masculinity would seem to you if you had seen a pack of young men in their twenties exude pure fear over one feminine transgender teen. To imagine how flat-out foolish those boys must have seemed as they confronted you with the question, “Are you a woman or a man?” And to picture the blank stares on their faces when you replied, “Isn’t it obvious?” To imagine how hollow accusations of deception would sound to you if you understood that the real question that needed to be asked was “Who’s deceiving whom?” As I said, this piece is not about hate crimes, violence, ignorance, or prejudice. It’s about self-deception. It’s about the assumptions that people like me live with on a daily basis. Because like Gwen, I was born male. I am a transgender woman. And if we were to meet and if I didn’t immediately share that information with you, would that be an act of deception? Could you accuse me of telling a lie if you were to see what you wanted to see with your own eyes and I decided to simply keep quiet? And if I were to presume things about you that were not true, could I accuse you of misleading me too? Or would such careless accusations of deception merely be expressions of callous pride, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge our own mistaken assumptions? The untold story behind Gwen’s much-publicized death is that she is only the tip of the iceberg. Gwen’s murder took place in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there are thousands of people who identify as transgender. Keep that in mind every time you walk down the street or flirt with a stranger. A certain percentage of the people you meet either appear to be a sex different from the one they were assigned at birth or identify as a gender different from the one you assume they are.