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

  The irresistible progress of the Reformation soon swept the indulgences away as an unscriptural, mediaeval tradition of men.188 The first Thesis strikes the keynote: "Our Lord and Master when he says, ’Repent,’189 desires that the whole life of believers should be a repentance."190 The corresponding Greek noun means change of mind (metavnoia), and implies both a turning away from sin in sincere sorrow and grief, and a turning to God in hearty faith. Luther distinguishes, in the second Thesis, true repentance from the sacramental penance (i.e., the confession and satisfaction required by the priest), and understands it to be an internal state and exercise of the mind rather than isolated external acts; although he expressly affirms, in the third Thesis, that it must manifest itself in various mortifications of the flesh. Repentance is a continual conflict of the believing spirit with the sinful flesh, a daily renewal of the heart. As long as sin lasts, there is need of repentance. The Pope can not remit any sin except by declaring the remission of God; and he can not remit punishments except those which he or the canons impose (Thes.5 and 6). Forgiveness presupposes true repentance, and can only be found in the merits of Christ. Here comes in the other fundamental Thesis (62): The true treasury of the church is the holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God." This sets aside the mediaeval notion about the overflowing treasury of extra-merits and rewards at the disposal of the Pope for the benefit of the living and the dead. We have thus set before us in this manifesto, on the one hand, human depravity which requires lifelong repentance, and on the other the full and free grace of God in Christ, which can only be appropriated by a living faith. This is, in substance, the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith (although not expressed in terms), and virtually destroys the whole scholastic theory and practice of indulgences. By attacking the abuses of indulgences, Luther unwittingly cut a vein of mediaeval Catholicism; and by a deeper conception of repentance which implies faith, and by referring the sinner to the grace of Christ as the true and only source of remission, he proclaimed the undeveloped principles of evangelical Protestantism, and kindled a flame which soon extended far beyond his original intentions. NOTES. THE NINETY-FIVE THESES. DISPUTATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER CONCERNING PENITENCE AND INDULGENCES. In the desire and with the purpose of elucidating the truth, a disputation will be held on the underwritten propositions at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Monk of the Order of St. Augustin, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and ordinary Reader of the same in that place.191 He therefore asks those who cannot be present, and discuss the subject with us orally, to do so by letter in their absence. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 1.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to my servant David: ‘I will establish your descendants forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said: “I have set the crown on one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people. I have found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him; my hand shall always remain with him; my arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him; and in my name his horn shall be exalted. I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’ I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm. I will establish his line forever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure.... His line shall continue forever, and his throne endure before me like the sun. It shall be established forever like the moon, an enduring witness in the skies.” But now you have spurned and rejected him; you are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins. All who pass by plunder him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors. You have exalted the right hand of his foes; you have made all his enemies rejoice.... How long, O YHWH? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?... Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples, with which your enemies taunt, O YHWH, with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed. (89:1–4, 19–29, 36–42, 46–51) But the hope persists, and psalm after psalm brings it to expression. The gods of the nations are but idols, but Israel’s God made the heavens.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  (19:11– 27) Yes, I know, some scholars have tried to make out that Jesus intended his audience to be angry with the greedy nobleman and to applaud the third servant, who refused to collaborate with his money-grubbing ways. You can just about make out a case for that—if you shut one eye to what Luke is saying. Almost at once he emphasizes the point: When [Jesus] came near and saw the city, he wept over it. “If only you’d known,” he said, “on this day—even you!—what peace meant. But now it’s hidden, and you can’t see it. Yes, the days are coming upon you when your enemies will build up earthworks all around you, and encircle you, and squeeze you in from every direction. They will bring you crashing to the ground, you and your children within you. They won’t leave one single stone on another, because you didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you.” (19:41–44) Here is the point: “You didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you.” Actually, the Greek simply says ton kairon tes episkopes sou, “the day of your visitation.” But the word “visitation” here has only one possible meaning. This is the time when God was coming back, coming back at last to see how his people had been doing with their centuries-old commission. This, for Luke, is the meaning of the parable. Jesus is telling a story about Israel’s God coming back to his people to explain what was going on when he himself was arriving in Jerusalem. No wonder the immediate sequel is Jesus’s expulsion of traders from the Temple, an acted-out parable of its destruction followed by several sayings, including a long discourse (Luke 21), in which the imminent destruction of the Temple is the mirror image of the arrival of Jesus. The Temple is God’s house, but if God is coming in person and finds the Temple turned into a symbol of Israel’s failure to be his people, there is only one possible result. This explosive scene then makes sense of the many other hints in Luke and Matthew, hints that point the same way that we saw in Mark. I remember once studying Luke 8 and being struck by one line in particular—and then going into a high-level theological discussion where that one line became suddenly relevant. One scholar was holding forth on the notion that Luke had no thought whatever of Jesus being in any sense “divine.” Luke had a human Jesus, he said, and that was a very good thing too. Somewhat daringly—I was quite young at the time—I remember pointing out Luke 8:39.

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

  (491–518), but Christ to the reign of Anastasius II. (713–719), and Jacobi with greater probability to the time of Constantinus Pogonatus (681–685).461 Theodore Of The Studium (a celebrated convent near Constantinople) is distinguished for his sufferings in the iconoclastic controversy, and died in exile, 826, on the eleventh of November. He wrote canons for Lent and odes for the festivals of saints. The spirited canon on Sunday of Orthodoxy in celebration of the final triumph of image-worship in 842, is ascribed to him, but must be of later date as he died before that victory.462 Joseph Of The Studium, a brother of Theodore, and monk of that convent, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica (hence also called Thessalonicensis), died in prison in consequence of tortures inflicted on him by order of the Emperor Theophilus (829–842). He is sometimes confounded (even by Neale) with Joseph Hymnographus; but they are distinguished by Nicephorus and commemorated on different days.463 Theoctistus Of The Studium (about 890) is the author of a "Suppliant Canon to Jesus," the only thing known of him, but the sweetest Jesus-hymn of the Greek Church.464 Joseph, called Hymnographus (880), is the most prolific, most bombastic, and most tedious of Greek hymn-writers. He was a Sicilian by birth, at last superintendent of sacred vessels in a church at Constantinople. He was a friend of Photius, and followed him into exile. He is credited with a very large number of canons in the Mencaea and the Octoechus.465 Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople (784), was the chief mover in the restoration of Icons and the second Council of Nicaea (787). He died Feb. 25, 806. His hymns are Unimportant.466 EUTHYMIUS, usually known as Syngelus or Syncellus (died about 910), is the author of a penitential canon to the Virgin Mary, which is much esteemed in the East.467 Elias, bishop of Jerusalem about 761, and Orestes, bishop of the same city, 996–1012, have been brought to light as poets by the researches of Pitra from the libraries of Grotta Ferrata, and other convents. In addition to these may be mentioned Methodius (846)468 Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (d. 891), Metrophanes of Smyrna (900), Leo VI., or the Philosopher, who troubled the Eastern Church by a fourth marriage (886–917), Symeon Metaphrastes (Secretary and Chancellor of the Imperial Court at Constantinople, about 900), Kasias, Nilus Xanthopulus, Joannes Geometra, and Mauropus (1060). With the last the Greek hymnody well nigh ceased. A considerable number of hymns cannot be traced to a known author.469 We give in conclusion the best specimens of Greek hymnody as reproduced and adapted to modern use by Dr. Neale. ’Tis the Day of Resurrection. ( jAnastavsew" hJmevra.) By St. John of Damascus. ’Tis the Day of Resurrection, Earth, tell it out abroad! The Passover of gladness, The Passover of God! From death to life eternal, From earth unto the sky, Our Christ hath brought us over, With hymns of victory.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  She had long felt it was the same with the love I gave him: never enough. I was stunned. I had convinced myself that this was mostly my fault – I wasn’t sexual enough, I wasn’t kind enough, I didn’t adore him the way he adored me, I had insisted we marry too young, I had wanted babies right away, I hated moving and resented it every time we did, I complained about his weight. I complained about the way he ate grapefruit, I complained about his snoring, I complained when he took a second cup of coffee and didn’t leave enough in the pot for me. If there was an emptiness inside of him that was simply unfillable then we were both damaged goods who shared in the corruption of our marriage. That thought didn’t soothe me so much as temporarily quell the self-loathing that had begun in earnest: an iota of reassurance that was a mere drop in the bucket of my anguish. Sick with grief, I was unable to eat or drink; my breath was shallow, my eyes were puffy and red, my skin pale and clammy. I had no idea what to do next. I felt like a caged animal in my bedroom, unable to leave for fear of having to face Michael or explain myself to the kids, but crawling out of my skin alone. Erika called back a few hours later to tell me that she was getting in her car to drive upstate and would arrive by dinner. She instructed me to shower and drive to a nearby restaurant. I protested, unable to fathom taking the steps even to change my clothes, but she was adamant that I could and must do it. I was reminded of a time she came to visit me in the city when Michael and I had rented our first apartment after graduating from college. When she left to return home to the suburban town we had grown up in together, I stood on the corner and cried as her taxi pulled away. I was homesick, found the city overwhelming, and missed her being glued to my side. I felt homesick for her again and longed for a part of my past I could still rely on. Hudson was confused that I had been in bed sick all day and was now going out to dinner, but I came up with vague excuses, stuffed a wad of tissues in my purse and drove to the restaurant. When Erika came, I wept. When I picked my head up and met her sympathetic gaze, I wept some more. She urged me to take a few bites of the food I had ordered but I pushed it around my plate, afraid I would vomit. When she reminded me that I could not take care of the kids if I didn’t take care of myself, I forced a few bites down.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.... All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to YHWH; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion [hammelukah, i.e., “the kingdom”] belongs to YHWH, and he rules over the nations. (22:1–4, 6, 14–15, 22–24, 27–28) Here the whole sequence is laid out. The sufferer goes all the way down to death, and somehow he is rescued, not only for his own sake, but also so that YHWH’s “kingdom,” that is, his sovereignty over the nations, might become a reality. We hardly need to add that both Matthew (27:46) and Mark (15:34) put the opening words of this psalm on the lips of Jesus as he hangs on the cross, leaving generations of interpreters to puzzle over whether they meant it as a cry of dereliction or, remembering how the psalm continues, ultimate hope. Perhaps it was both; perhaps Matthew and Mark might have said that for Jesus it was the former, but that they were hinting at the latter as well. It hardly matters. The point is that in the story they are telling the crucial moment when Israel’s king is executed is highlighted as the fulfillment of one of the clearest kingdom-and-suffering passages in the whole scripture. The same could be said, of course, about the “servant” passages in Isaiah. It is ultimately futile to inquire whether the “servant” is Israel or Israel’s representative. In all sorts of ways it must be both, even though in the end it appears that the sufferer is one upon whom the faithful within Israel (those who “obey the voice of his servant,” 50:10) gaze in a mixture of horror and gratitude. The “servant” is at one moment “Israel, in whom [God] will be glorified” (49:3) and the one who stands in for Israel, doing for the people (in vicarious suffering) what they cannot do for themselves. Interpreters have, of course, regularly noted the hints (such as Mark 10:45) in the direction of Isaiah 53, the climax of the “suffering servant” theme. Fewer have noted the way in which the servant’s suffering, in that chapter in particular, is framed by the promise of the kingdom. The messenger who announces the fall of Babylon and the liberation of enslaved Israel brings this simple, two-word announcement of the good news: malak elohayik, “Your God reigns” (52:7).

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Kingdom and cross are thus woven tightly together in some of the very texts that the gospel writers themselves highlight in their interpretation of the story of Jesus. There are of course many, many more. The prophet Jeremiah finds that his personal pain embodies and focuses the pain of the nation. Farther back (and not so often noted in this connection), the combination of victory and intense personal pain of Elijah (1 Kings 18–19) tells a similar story, as he resolutely opposes the wickedness of Ahab and Jezebel and has to bear the cost in his own experience. Later on we find the suffering of Daniel and his friends and God’s vindication of them set out as the quintessential Jewish vocation, as the kingdom of God confronts and eventually overthrows the kingdoms of the world. All of these and more point to the following conclusion. When we see the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel, we should not be surprised to discover that the suffering of Israel and of Israel’s supreme representative is to be understood as part of the longer and larger purposes of Israel’s God, in other words, the establishment of his worldwide healing sovereignty. Conversely, we should not be surprised to discover that when this God finally claims the nations as his own possession, rescuing them from their evil ways, the means by which he does it is through the suffering of his people—or, as in the story the gospels themselves are telling, the suffering of his people’s official, divinely appointed representative. All this is brought out brilliantly by Luke as, drawing together the threads of his whole narrative, he tells the story of the road to Emmaus: “You are so senseless!” said Jesus to them. “So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!” So he began with Moses, and with all the prophets, and explained to them the things about himself throughout the whole Bible. (24:25–27) This is then followed, in the Upper Room, with a further emphasis of the same point: Then he said to them, “This is what I was talking to you about when I was still with you. Everything written about me in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and the Psalms, had to be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Bible. “This is what is written,” he said. “The Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and in his name repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, must be announced to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are the witnesses for all this.” (24:44–48)

• From The Pisces (2018)

  He was lying there on his side, perfectly still. “Dominic,” I said. “Domi.” Then I saw his face. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth. His eyes were open, hazy, as though they were made of plastic. He looked like a grotesque stuffed-animal version of himself. The floor was covered in vomit and drool. “Oh no,” I said out loud. “Please, no.” He was motionless. I didn’t even have to touch him. I didn’t have to feel his flank or check for breath to know he was dead. The whole summer came flashing in front of me: each of the men and behind them sweet Dominic, waiting for me in the background the whole time. What had I done? I had poisoned him. I’d been dosing him heavier and heavier, because he seemed to be getting more resistant. “Please come back. Please,” I begged, kneeling beside him. His eye seemed to be looking at me, or through me into space. His ear was flapped up over his head and I adjusted it so it faced downward again. It felt cold when I touched it, and detached from anything living, like a piece of loose suede. I began to cry. I thought of how he didn’t like being stroked on his ear, but he always let me. The rest of his body was cold too, heavy like stone. I shook him a little. Where was he? How was his body here but he was just gone? Everything about him had been warmth, softness, the most gentle parts of life. But now he was the opposite: rigid and empty. “I never wanted you to suffer,” I said. “I only wanted you to be comfortable. I didn’t want you to be scared of Theo.” But a quiet voice inside me said, No, that isn’t the truth. The truth was I’d wanted him out of the way so I could wander the labyrinth of my fantasy life. I had been given pure love in the form of this dog and I had destroyed him. I sat there and waited. I waited as I had waited for Theo, because I didn’t know what else to do. And sitting on that floor, the truth was further revealed to me that I was not capable of love for anyone. I’d always imagined that there was a subjective reality. But there was nothing subjective about this. I was objectively selfish and cruel. Suddenly it occurred to me that there really were gods who could smite us. The gods were just nature itself. If you didn’t follow the gods, you blew it. I had gone against nature. I had done it all wrong. I’d been wrong about death too. There was no gentle escape. When I had taken those Ambien in Phoenix I thought there was a peaceful way to just kind of disappear. But death wasn’t gentle.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  We checked into the hotel and were given a room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water park. Although over the years we had gone on day trips to amusement parks, Michael was adamantly opposed to kid-centered vacations. The novelty of this current situation was not lost on them. Even trips to Disney had been one-day affairs, and we would screech out of the parking lot at the end of the day to go to whatever hip hotel Michael had chosen for us. Now, they marveled at all they could do here over the next three days. Georgia’s planned itinerary would require my participation – water rides, an arcade, ice skating, rock climbing – and while it was hard for me to decide which amongst these was my least favorite activity, my only goal was to keep her so busy and happy that she wouldn’t remember her father was not with us. Hudson left early the next morning to ski while Georgia and I changed into bathing suits. She stopped suddenly and climbed back into bed, watching the scene at the water park warily from our windows. “I don’t feel well. My stomach hurts,” she said. “I don’t want to go down there.” I surveyed the scene below, moms and dads toting kids around, holding their hands and catching them at the bottoms of slides. “Georgia, are you sad that we’re here without Daddy?” I asked. Her big blue eyes welled with tears that she fought to restrain. I climbed back into bed with her, reaching for her. She pressed her face against my chest, which I could feel get slick with her copious tears. These sudden about-faces in mood had become frequent since our separation – when we had gone out for dumplings and her face had changed, taking in the completeness of the family next to us and the missing piece of our own; when we watched her perform in a show at school and she realized that Michael and I weren’t sitting together; when we celebrated Hudson’s 15th birthday and then Daisy’s 18th and Michael wasn’t with us. No explanation for his absence was adequate for her, and why should it have been? He had stolen a huge chunk of her childhood innocence and I was enraged and heartbroken every time I faced the fallout of it. As I soothed her, I plotted long, vicious texts I would send to him later, accusing him of not loving his children enough to consider consequences while having his affair, of fracturing his family and decimating their happy mother to a sniveling heap, of sullying our pristine family by recreating his own broken home, of traumatizing me by returning me to the scene of my own childhood in which my father had been taken from me too soon. Every tear the kids shed I reported to him immediately, so that I could vent my anger and hit him over the head with blame.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Wow, sounds like they really got you, didn’t they?” I laughed. “I don’t know if they did or didn’t. But do you want to know what’s the weirdest? The strangest thing of all? I don’t want men anymore. I feel finished.” “Wow.” “They say that you don’t hit rock bottom until you hit rock bottom. Lucy, what if this is it?” “What if it is?” “All I can tell you is that I feel so bloody free right now!” she said, adjusting her hospital bracelet. “I’m so glad for you, Claire,” I said. Then I began to cry. “Oh no, what’s wrong?” “Please. You have to help me. I am in so much pain. Theo is gone forever and I don’t know what to do,” I said. “The swimmer?” she asked. “What happened?” “He left,” I said. “He just left and I don’t think he’s ever coming back.” “Oh love,” she said. “What do I do?” I asked. “Ignore him,” she said. “Ignore, ignore, ignore. Do not pursue. In your mind, you have to literally give him up.” “If I give him up do you think he will come back?” “They always come back if you give them up—especially, as we know, if you find other cock. But what if you don’t do that? What if you don’t replace him with anyone? You don’t have to give him up just so that he will come back to you. You could give him up just to give him up.” “Why?” “Well, for one thing, it might behoove you to sit with yourself for a while.” Who was this talking? “So that’s it? Just give him up and sit?” “None of these wankers are worth the pain,” she said. “You have to dump them on the roadside and let them rot there.” “You don’t understand,” I said. “He didn’t fuck me over. It was me who hurt him. It was me who lied to him, not the other way around. This isn’t like the other ones. This time I’m in control. Sort of.” “You asked my advice and I’m giving it to you.” “I can’t do that,” I said. “I need love. Or if it’s not love, then the power of that feeling. I love it. I love love. It’s the only thing I have.” “Oh, Lucy,” she said. “You have a lot. It’s like your tits.” “What?” “Your tits. You always say that you have no tits. But really, your breasts are ample. They’re more than enough.” “I want a D cup. Metaphorically.” “And I want a thousand giant cocks. Or I think I do. But it’s a lie. Because even a thousand cocks would never be enough. And it’s crazy to think that they would. The fantasy is a lie.” “But I am crazy. And I don’t want to live without the fantasy,” I said. “You can do it. We can do it together.” “I don’t want to.” “Suit yourself,” she said. “Can I just tell you one more thing?”

• From How God Became King (2012)

  It is more like the story of a journey in which the travelers have misread the map, lost their way, and become stuck in quicksand with hostile troops closing in around them. That, I suggest, is the impression we might get if we read straight through the Old Testament: great beginnings and wonderful visions of God’s plan and purposes, then a steady decline and puzzling and shameful multiple failures, all ending in a question mark. Just as Genesis 1–3 tell the story of the human plight through the pattern of glorious beginnings, rich vocations, and then horrible failure and exile, so Genesis 12 through to the end of Chronicles or Malachi tell the story of Israel with tales of glorious beginnings, rich vocations, and then horrible failure and exile. Indeed, whoever put Genesis 1–3 into its present form was undoubtedly aware of, and undoubtedly intended, that resonance to be fully heard. That is itself part of the backdrop to my first main point. The problem is that we have all read the gospels, if we haven’t been careful, simply as God’s answer to the plight of the human race in general. The implied backstory hasn’t been the story of Abraham, of Moses, of David, of the prophets; it’s been the story of Adam and Eve, of “Everyman,” sinning and dying and needing to be redeemed. Israel’s story sneaks in alongside, in this version, in order merely to offer some advance promises, some hints and signposts. But the story of Israel itself, for most modern readers of the Bible, is to be quietly left aside. It was part of the problem, not part of the solution. It seems, after all, to be so dark—such a failure, such a disappointment. Here again the creeds leave an ominous gap. They don’t mention Israel at all. They seem to indicate that we’re going for a new start, a quite fresh beginning, reinforcing the tendency I just mentioned to see the gospels as the answer not to the story of Israel as a whole, but to the story of Adam and Eve. Can’t we go back to Genesis 3, they seem to say, and begin over again? Shouldn’t we just read the whole story of Genesis 12 to the end of Chronicles or Malachi as a kind of failed first attempt, God’s first shot at rescuing people from their sin, full of signs and pointers no doubt, but not really as a “history of salvation” at all?

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  The photo mystifies my friends, from whom I receive a litany of texts ranging from, “I hope you’re OK, you look miserable” to “Has he kidnapped you and is he holding you hostage?” to “It looks like that hold he’s got on you is very tight.” Daisy texts me and asks, “I’m confused by this photo, are things good now between you and Dad?” I’m furious that he feels he has a right to me and that for the sake of my kids, I really have no choice but to play along. When the fair ends, Georgia and her friends run around the classroom while the other moms and I sweep up cake crumbs. Georgia suddenly runs headfirst into me, pressing her face against my stomach, tears dampening my shirt. “I heard the other kids talking about me. They called me bossy,” she sobs. “Well sometimes you are a little bossy. It’s OK, love,” I say. Her small body heaves as she wraps her arms tightly around me. She is a proud child who doesn’t like to show feelings of sadness so I know she must be really upset to have unraveled like this. She presses her face even deeper into my stomach until Tina gently pulls her onto her lap so that I can finish cleaning up. She weeps and Tina strokes her hair. I know that she would never get this upset about her friends, that her grief at seeing me and Michael together, at having us in the same room but about to go our separate ways again, is more than she can bear. She looks small and piteous as the black and white eye make-up we painted on earlier streaks down her face. When we all leave the building together en masse, I give her a hug and wave goodbye as she stands forlornly, holding Michael’s hand. It is Saturday night, her night to stay with him. I have to let her go, even though my maternal instinct urges me to take her home, help her get cleaned up and curl into bed with her while we accept that this is how it is now, even though sometimes it’s hard and often it physically hurts. I have to let Michael adopt this role too, learn how to be a nurturer. I know his love for Georgia is deep and abiding, but that he’s usually played the role of fun uncle. If I take over every time the going gets tough for her, he will never learn how to be there for her in all circumstances. Ultimately it is best for her and best for him if they wade through these murky waters together without me. The only person it’s not best for is me, who has never viewed motherhood as a walk-on role. I have to let Michael be Georgia’s father. It does not devastate me to let him in, but it does devastate me to walk away.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And Raftery stood there looking at Stephen, and his eyes were as soft as an Irish morning, yet as brave as the eyes that looked into his. Then it seemed to Stephen that he had spoken, that Raftery had said: ‘Since to me you are God, what have I to forgive you, Stephen?’ She took a step forward and pressed the revolver high up against Raftery’s smooth, grey forehead. She fired, and he dropped to the ground like a stone, lying perfectly still by the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. But now there broke out a great crying and wailing: ‘Oh, me! Oh, me! They’ve been murderin’ Raftery! Shame, shame, I says, on the ‘and what done it, and ‘im no common horse but a Christian. . . .’ Then loud sobbing as though some very young child had fallen down and hurt itself badly. And there in a small, creaky, wicker bath-chair sat Williams, being bumped along over the paddock by a youthful niece, who had come to Morton to take care of the old and now feeble couple; for Williams had had his first stroke that Christmas, in addition to which he was almost childish. God only knew who had told him this thing; the secret had been very carefully guarded by Stephen, who, knowing his love for the horse, had taken every precaution to spare him. Yet now here he was with his face all twisted by the stroke and the sobs that kept on rising. He was trying to lift his half-paralysed hand which kept dropping back on to the arm of the bath-chair; he was trying to get out of the bath-chair and run to where Raftery lay stretched out in the sunshine; he was trying to speak again, but his voice had grown thick so that no one could understand him. Stephen thought that his mind had begun to wander, for now he was surely not screaming ‘Raftery’ any more, but something that sounded like: ‘Master!’ and again, ‘Oh, Master, Master!’ She said: ‘Take him home,’ for he did not know her; ‘take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all—it’s against my orders. Who told him about it?’ And the young girl answered: ‘It seemed ’e just knowed—it was like as though Raftery told ’im. . . .’ Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. ‘Who be you?’ he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. ‘It be good to be seein’ you, Master—seems like a long while. . . .’ His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  We always carry the deadness of Jesus about in the body, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. Although we are still alive, you see, we are always being given over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal humanity. So this is how it is: death is at work in us—but life in you! (2 Cor. 4:7–12) Right now I’m having a celebration—a celebration of my sufferings, which are for your benefit! And I’m steadily completing, in my own flesh, what is presently lacking in the king’s afflictions on behalf of his body, which is the church. (Col. 1:24) Yes, it may well be necessary that, for a while, you may have to suffer trials and tests of all sorts. But this is so that the true value of your faith may be discovered. It is worth more than gold, which is tested by fire even though it can be destroyed. The result will be praise, glory, and honor when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. (1 Pet. 1:6–7) Beloved, don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is coming upon you to test you, as though this were some strange thing that was happening to you. Rather, celebrate! You are sharing the sufferings of the Messiah. Then, when his glory is revealed, you will celebrate with real, exuberant joy. (1 Pet. 4:12–13) Now at last has come salvation and power: the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah! The accuser of our family has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before God day and night. They conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, because they did not love their lives unto death. (Rev. 12:10–11) Here, the suffering and death of Jesus’s people is not simply the dark path they must tread because of the world’s continuing hostility toward Jesus and his message. It somehow has the more positive effect of carrying forward the redemptive effect of Jesus’s own death, not by adding to it, but by sharing in it. When we speak of the “finished work of the Messiah,” as the evangelists intend us to (as far as they were concerned, the story of Jesus was the unique turning point of all history), we are not ruling out, but rather laying the groundwork for, a missiology of kingdom and cross.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Hudson’s reaction was much scarier in its silence, as he retreated into himself, becoming impenetrable and taciturn. He met Michael at a diner a few days after learning of the affair to tell him that if we divorced, he would stay with me and that he wanted no further contact with his father. He did not tell me this – he did not tell me anything – but Michael had reported it to me as evidence that if anyone was now responsible for the breakup of our family, it was me, in shutting him out of our home. The worst was yet to come, as I still had to break it to sweet little Georgia. The dread I felt was palpable. This was the one child of ours who would lose her belief in her parents as an indestructible unit before she would lose her belief in magic, and I wondered if as an adult she would be able to recall our ever having been together. On Saturday morning, as she happily yammered away in my bed, I told her that I needed to share some difficult news with her. “You know how Daddy has been away this week? We’re having a hard time getting along and we think if we spend some time apart it might help, so he’s going to stay somewhere else for a few weeks,” I said. “How many weeks is a few weeks?” she asked. “I don’t really know, maybe three weeks?” “In three weeks, he’ll come home?” she pressed. “In three weeks, we’ll see if that’s been enough time apart for us to stop being upset with each other,” I said. Georgia curled up in a tight ball, pulled my blanket over her head and wept. I wrapped myself around her and silently cursed Michael again. That our kids should feel this kind of pain was devastating to me, but that their own father had caused it was intolerable. If I could ever forgive him for having an affair, would I ever be able to forgive him for hurting our kids like this? An image came to me from my childhood, my lying curled up in my narrow bed 43 years earlier, my own mother wrapped around me after telling me that my father had died. There had been a before and an after in my childhood and now I was passing this sad legacy on to my daughter, only two years older than I had been when I first ran headlong into loss and grief. I had so desperately wanted a cohesive, traditional, forever family, and now I had to face not only that I wasn’t going to get it after all but also that this outcome had not been inevitable as death had been for my father: Michael had had a choice and he had willingly forsaken us. * Every day after that felt like a lifetime.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I will myself to say the words that have been trapped inside me for months; they’re so close to the surface, but getting them out feels like I will have to shatter a glass wall to do it. “OK, well,” I say, sucking in a deep gulp of air. “I guess what I want then is to agree that we’re done. I want a divorce. I don’t think there’s anything left to salvage between us.” The word “divorce” explodes between us, littering the space with shards of glass so that the path between us is no longer passable. “I think we could be together if we both wanted to. But if you don’t want to, then we can’t,” he says, his previously neutral tone now edged with anger and sadness. “Michael, I thought we would always be together. I can’t imagine what life without you is going to look like. I’m terrified. But I can’t find a way back to you,” I say, understanding that this is really it, that he won’t be fighting for me unless I give him a signal that it’s what I want, and I don’t want it. “I’ll always love you, Laura. You gave me the most beautiful family. I don’t want you to be scared, I’ll always take care of you. It will make me proud to know that I can do that for you,” he says, choking on his words. Tears openly stream down our faces. So this, I think, is what the end of our marriage looks like, almost like the beginning of it: a declaration of everlasting love, loyalty and support, sitting on a park bench just as when we got engaged 23 years earlier. We are, for a moment at least, two people who remember how purely they once loved each other, how much they have given each other, how permanent it was always meant to be. In the background are laughing children and exhausted young mothers, scurrying dogs and birds and squirrels, college students sleepily drinking coffee, joggers rhythmically making loops around the park. All the chapters of the life we shared unfold around us in the images of these passers-by, just another blessedly ordinary day except that for us, on this day, there are no more pages to turn together. “I’ll tell the older kids. I’ll let them know this was a mutual decision. Maybe having this new information will give them some feeling of closure that we all need to start healing. We’ll plan a time later in the week to tell Georgia together. OK?” I ask. He nods his head and I continue, “I guess that’s it then.” He walks alongside me the five blocks back home, back to what is now my home. Under the awning outside the building, he pauses, asking if he can run upstairs with me for a few minutes so that he can write and leave behind a note for Hudson.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Though reluctant to disrupt our newly established summer routine, I pull Georgia out of day camp so that we can spend a few days with my friend Tina and her family at their house in Nantucket. Tina has been insistent that a few days away will do me good and I don’t have the stamina to come up with more excuses. I want to burrow in my grief and hibernate, but my friends keep digging me out. I love them for their tenacity, but wish they would let me be. Countless mornings I walked through my apartment from bedroom to bedroom, attempting to rouse my kids for school with a chipper “Good morning, sunshine!” and watching them instead pull blankets over their heads without so much as opening an eye. I would disentangle and then pull off twisted blankets from their slumbering bodies as they reached out to hold on for a few more minutes, seconds even. That’s how I feel now – friends keep throwing my blankets off to wake me up, but I want to be left alone to sleep through the pain. Of course, Tina had been right. A change of scenery, her bracingly strong cocktails and the sight of Georgia frolicking on the wide expanse of beach are a welcome respite from my misery. If I can’t feel joy right now, I can at least find occasional moments of peace. It has been months since I have been able to get through more than a few hours of the day without weeping and these small bits of calm give me a glimmer of hope, reminding me of the person I was before. My current life is framed in the before and the after: before, I was happily married, comfortable, my path laid out in a neat, unbroken line. After is the dystopian alternative of that narrative, the pitiful remains left after the version I wanted was taken away from me. I need to get back to the before version of myself – the one who smiled easily and often, who embraced her life with purposefulness, a can-do attitude and joie de vivre – but without marriage, stability and a clear footpath I cannot figure out how to begin the journey to find her, if she in fact still exists. We arrive sandy and sunburnt back at our house in rural Upstate New York after a choppy ferry ride and a long drive home. Michael is there, ready to take over for a couple of days. I turn Georgia over to him and close myself in my – formerly our – bedroom. We are sharing our country home so that the kids don’t have to come and go; it’s awkward on a good day, a slap in the face on a bad one. Now it’s 6 p.m. on Saturday and I’m facing a long evening shut in my room so that I can avoid interacting with him.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Each time I hit my head I said sorry. “That’s okay. Rub your clit,” he said. “Don’t tell me what to do.” “Sorry,” he said. “And don’t come inside me.” But he came inside me, and in less than a minute, making a face that looked like a dying warrior, a hissing sound escaping his open mouth. “Damn,” he sighed after he had finished expelling his load of little Uta Hagens into my vagina. “That was great. Did you come?” “Um, definitely not.” I laughed. Was he kidding? I would have to be a better actress for that. I guess he thought I was hypersexual and came instantly, tossing orgasm after orgasm into the wind. Who else would fuck a stranger in his car? Most people wanted to avoid being fondled by their driver. I imagined his sperm in there, trying to talk to my egg, and my egg ignoring them. What were his sperm saying? It’s a tough town, but I’m hoping to get an agent this year, said his sperm. Just shut the fuck up, said my egg. “Well,” he said, patting me on the ass. “I hope you give me a good rating.” “Oh, for sure,” I said. “Five stars.” 56. The following evening I packed my suitcase. I thought about my little sweaters and dresses floating in the water as I packed up each one. It made me feel sad. I kept thinking the words belonging and my belongings . Dominic was no longer in the pantry. I wasn’t sure who had come and taken him away. It smelled heavily of ammonia, but I swore I could still smell death. Annika had gone back inside the pantry. She was just sitting there on the floor with Dominic’s bowl and a squeaky toy in the shape of a duck. She looked up at me. “This was his favorite toy,” she said, giving it a squeeze. “Did you know that? Did I tell you that?” “Yes. We played with it together a lot,” I lied. “Good.” She smiled. “I wanted him to have the most beautiful life.” “Annika, I am so sorry. I want you to know I’m grateful to you.” “I knew I should have come home. I should have listened to my intuition. But you told me you could handle it. You said that nothing bad was going to happen to him, that he would be fine.” “I know. If there is some way I can make this up to you—” “No, it isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s my fault.” “You couldn’t have known. Even the vet didn’t know how sick he was exactly.” “I will never forgive myself,” she said. “Never.” “Annika,” I said. There was nothing else left to say. I held out my hand to help her up.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  “You may actually kill me.” CHAPTER 42LemonadeMichael proposes a family trip to a beach resort we’ve been to several times together. It had always been his rule that we never go to the same place twice no matter how much we loved it since the world is too big and there are too many places to see. This one resort in the Caribbean had broken the rule though, with its majestic beauty and absolute luxury – it was many dollar signs beyond what I could have stomached spending on a vacation, but because he had done marketing work for the resort, we were able to go once a year for free. I am evasive in my response to him, saying the dates don’t work and Daisy won’t be able to come because of her college schedule, but he persists. It’s not just the idea of taking a family trip with our newly revised family that is giving me pause, but a combination of the memory of what had once been a happy place for our family and the fact that Michael had been there with his lover in the midst of his affair. He doesn’t seem to realize that his suggestion coincides with the one-year anniversary of our separation, but I am painfully aware of the timing. The morning of the day that marks exactly one year, I am upstate with the kids for their mid-winter recess. I drop them off to ski and then drive to my favorite café for coffee and a flip through the newspapers on the communal table. I am overwhelmed with an unrecognizable feeling – the intersection of absolute joy and peace on one hand and grief and heartache on the other. I take a selfie as I sit with my mug of coffee and pile of newspapers, as I know that I need to remember this exact feeling. I am bundled in a cream-colored sweater with a thick indigo blue scarf knotted around my neck. I stare at the camera and tilt my head to the side, neither smiling nor frowning. The sun is streaming through the window behind me and light makes its way through my unruly curls. I am not wearing make-up and my eyes look sleepy and swollen. This is me, in my messiness and beauty, in a moment of solace that encapsulates the intense feeling of loss with the reassuring knowledge that the worst is safely behind me. I am sad, but I am whole. I post the picture on Instagram to commemorate the occasion, ensuring that I have a record of this moment. I caption it, “These last twelve months have brought particularly turbulent highs and lows to my life, but I am more than ever grateful that I can appreciate the small pleasures that make me feel peace and happiness: this view when I’m upstate, and a coffee at my favorite café. Sometimes that’s enough”.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  * One morning, Georgia woke up in my bed, where she had been sleeping since Michael’s departure, and asked, “Is six weeks a long time?” I launched into a long, rambling answer about how it would depend on the context, how long she had already been waiting and how excited she was for what was coming. She gave me a confused look, making it clear that my abstract answer was not in line with the topic at hand, and tried again. “Daddy’s been gone for six weeks. Is that long enough for you to make up with him?” “Oh, Georgia,” I said, deflating. “I thought it would be, but it’s not. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take.” “But you said three weeks, so how much longer?” she asked, her voice rising in panic. “How much time will be enough time?” “I’m so sorry. I wish I could make this go away, but I can’t. I don’t have an amount of time to give you, but Daddy and I both love you so much and will do anything we can to make this easier for you,” I said. “Easier would be if Daddy could come back home,” she said, sobbing, as I held her. Silently, to myself, I agreed. That certainly would be easier, and for the thousandth time since our separation had begun, I wished I could blink and make this all disappear. * In May, at the three-month mark of our separation, I saw no end in sight to my ambivalence about my marriage. I was still seeing my own therapist once a week, and she helped me accept that a clear path was not going to be in my sightline anytime soon. It was with this in mind that I texted Michael and asked him to find a one-year lease on an apartment, explaining that the pressure of a deadline for him to move back home had become unbearable. Our therapist had told us when we first started seeing her that the longer couples stayed separated the lower the chance they would ever reunite, but I could take or leave our marriage at this point. Friends asked for updates, wanting to know what I thought would happen, and I would give them 50:50 odds, some days feeling sure we were done and others unable to wrap my head around a future without him. I still could not bring myself to look at him, but letting go of our future together was intolerable. For most of our adult lives we had been one unit; I could not fathom our being divided without it killing me. Already I was having to allow our past to take new shapes and colors, but to obliterate our future? In couples’ therapy one day, I silently raged as Michael explained why he could not completely cut this other woman out of his life.