Guilt

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 Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  So I empathized with her dilemma. I listened, probed gently, and kept my opinions to myself. Finally I suggested that she write a softer letter to the medical board: “Honest but softer,” I said. “Then the doctors will get only a reprimand rather than a license forfeiture.” All this, of course, was in bad faith. No medical board in the world was going to take her letter seriously. No one was going to believe that all the clinic physicians were conspiring against her. There was no possibility of either reprimand or revocation of license. She lapsed into thought, weighing my advice. I believe she felt my caring for her, and I hoped she would not know that I was being false. Finally she nodded. “You’ve given me good, sound counsel, Irv. It’s just what I needed.” I felt painfully the irony that it was only now, when I had acted in bad faith, that she considered me helpful and trustworthy. Despite her sensitivity to the sun, Paula insisted on walking with me to my car. She put on her sun hat, wrapped herself in her veil and linens, and, as I started the ignition, leaned into the car window to give me a last hug. As I drove away I looked back through the rearview mirror. Silhouetted against the sun, her hat and linen wrapping gleaming with light, Paula was incandescent. A breeze came up. Her clothes fluttered. She seemed a leaf, trembling, twisting on its stem, readying itself for the fall. In the ten years before this visit, I had dedicated myself to my writing. I turned out book after book—a productivity due to a simple strategy: I put the writing first and let nothing and no one interfere with it. Guarding my time as fiercely as a mother bear guards her cubs, I eliminated all but absolutely essential activities. Even Paula fell into the nonessential category, and I did not take the time to call her again. Several months later my mother died, and while I was flying to her funeral, Paula slipped into my mind. I thought of her farewell letter to her dead brother—the letter containing all the things she had never said to him. And I thought of what I had never said to my mother. Almost everything! My mother and I, though loving one another, had never spoken directly, heart to heart, as two people reaching out with clean hands and clear minds. We had always “treated” each other, spoken past each other, each of us fearing, controlling, deceiving the other. I’m certain that’s why I had always wanted to speak honestly and directly to Paula. And why I hated being forced to “treat” her falsely. The night after the funeral, I had a powerful dream.

• From Anxiety at Work: 8 Strategies to Help Teams Build Resilience, Handle Uncertainty, and Get Stuff Done

  She told us she’d never been big on conflict. “I expect my employees to do their jobs without hand-holding,” she said in our first session. In 360s with her team, we heard several complaints that her new employees didn’t know where they really stood with her. Everything was hinted at. “Become a better coach” and “become more assertive” were the two leadership skills we worked with her on over the coming months. Executive coach Peter Bregman had a similar experience with two of his clients. One of them was seen as the apparent successor to the CEO, but he had a problem. “Several of his direct reports were close friends, and he didn’t hold them accountable in the same way he held his other direct reports,” said Bregman. “They didn’t do what he asked and weren’t delivering the results expected. It was hurting his business and his reputation.” Bregman said the other members of this team saw the problem clearly enough and they admitted it was affecting their own motivation because of the unfairness. The leader, on the other hand, had blinders on. He didn’t see it. Bregman’s other client was CEO of a fast-growing billion-dollar enterprise. “He’s warm, gregarious, and authentic,” said the coach. “He’s learned, the hard way, that having friends when you’re the boss can be complicated.” He used to have work friends come to his house for dinner and get to know his family. “But then I had to make hard calls for the good of the business, including firing one of them, and it became too painful. I became hesitant to make decisions because of it. So no, I’m not looking for friends at work.” Bregman explained that this second leader doesn’t avoid friendships with employees because he is a bad guy. He avoids them because he is a good guy. Indeed, it can be hard for leaders to have close friends in the employee ranks, either because they can’t separate friendships from business decisions, or because they have to make tough calls that may destroy those relationships. “There’s plenty of research supporting the idea that having friends at work makes you happier and more engaged,” Bregman adds. “But the research doesn’t address that friendships at work are tricky, especially when you’re the boss.” This means for those who are promoted from individual contributor to manager, or from manager to a manager-of-managers, they can choose to be proactive. Says Professor Art Markman of the University of Texas at Austin, “Make an effort to take some of your [work] friends out and talk to them about some of the stresses and responsibilities of the new position. Help them understand some of the tensions you’re feeling. You may assume that your friends will implicitly understand the tensions you have, but they are much more likely to be sympathetic if you have an open conversation.”

• From The Power of Myth (1988)

  The hunt is a ritual. MOYERS: And a ritual expresses a spiritual reality. CAMPBELL: It expresses that this is in accord with the way of nature, not simply with my own personal impulse. I am told that when the Bushmen tell their animal stories, they actually mimic the mouth formations of the different animals, pronouncing the words as though the animals themselves were pronouncing them. They had an intimate knowledge of these creatures, and friendly neighborly relationships. And then they killed some of them for food. I know ranch people who have a pet cow in addition to their ranch animals. They won’t eat the meat of that cow because there is a kind of cannibalism in eating the meat of a friend. But the aborigines were eating the meat of their friends all the time. Some kind of psychological compensation has to be achieved, and the myths help in doing that. MOYERS: How? CAMPBELL: These early myths help the psyche to participate without a sense of guilt or fright in the necessary act of life. MOYERS: And these great stories consistently refer to this dynamic in one way or the other—the hunt, the hunter, the hunted, and the animal as friend, as a messenger from God. CAMPBELL: Right. Normally the animal preyed upon becomes the animal that is the messenger of the divine. MOYERS: And you wind up as the hunter killing the messenger. CAMPBELL: Killing the god. MOYERS: Does that cause guilt? CAMPBELL: No, guilt is what is wiped out by the myth. Killing the animal is not a personal act. You are performing the work of nature. MOYERS: Guilt is wiped out by the myth? CAMPBELL: Yes. MOYERS: But you must at times feel some reluctance upon closing in for the kill. You don’t really want to kill that animal. CAMPBELL: The animal is the father. You know what the Freudians say, that the first enemy is the father, if you are a man. If you are a boy, every enemy is potentially, psychologically associated with the father image. MOYERS: Do you think that the animal became the father image of God? CAMPBELL: Yes. It is a fact that the religious attitude toward the principal animal is one of reverence and respect, and not only that—submission to the inspiration of that animal. The animal is the one that brings the gifts—tobacco, the mystical pipe, and so on. MOYERS: Do you think this troubled early man—to kill the animal that is a god, or the messenger of a god? CAMPBELL: Absolutely—that is why you have the rites. MOYERS: What kind of rites? CAMPBELL: Rituals of appeasement and of thanks to the animal.

• From Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy (1989)

  “Carlos, you take pride in your honesty in the group—but were you really being honest? Or only part honest, or easy honest? It’s true, you were more open than the other men in the group. You did express some of your real sexual feelings. And you do have a point about how widespread these feelings are: the porno business must be offering something which appeals to impulses all men have. “But are you being completely honest? What about all the other feelings going on inside you that you haven’t expressed? Let me take a guess about something: when you said ‘big deal’ to Sarah and Martha about their rapes, is it possible you were thinking about your cancer and what you have to face all the time? It’s a hell of a lot tougher facing something that threatens your life right now than something that happened a year or two ago. “Maybe you’d like to get some caring from the group, but how can you get it when you come on so tough? You haven’t yet talked about having cancer.” (I had been urging Carlos to reveal to the group that he had cancer, but he was procrastinating: he said he was afraid he’d be pitied, and didn’t want to sabotage his sexual chances with the women members.) Carlos grinned at me. “Good try, Doc! It makes a lot of sense. You’ve got a good head. But I’ll be honest—the thought of my cancer never entered my mind. Since we stopped chemotherapy two months ago, I go days at a time without thinking of the cancer. That’s goddamn good, isn’t it—to forget it, to be free of it, to be able to live a normal life for a while?” Good question! I thought. Was it good to forget? I wasn’t so sure. Over the months I had been seeing Carlos, I had discovered that I could chart, with astonishing accuracy, the course of his cancer by noting the things he thought about. Whenever his cancer worsened and he was actively facing death, he rearranged his life priorities and became more thoughtful, compassionate, wiser. When, on the other hand, he was in remission, he was guided, as he put it, by his pecker and grew noticeably more coarse and shallow. I once saw a newspaper cartoon of a pudgy lost little man saying, “Suddenly, one day in your forties or fifties, everything becomes clear. . . . And then it goes away again!” That cartoon was apt for Carlos, except that he had not one, but repeated episodes of clarity—and they always went away again. I often thought that if I could find a way to keep him continually aware of his death and the “clearing” that death effects, I could help him make some major changes in the way he related to life and to other people.

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

  Note 1: Paul Brand (1914–2003) was a medical missionary in India who discovered that the reason people with leprosy lose their fingers is not because the fingers fall off, but because they are worn away. The reason they are worn away is that leprosy damages the peripheral nervous system, causing lepers not to feel pain when they are injured. Without a sense of pain to protect them, they end up, quite literally, whittling themselves away. In two excellent books that he co-authored with Philip Yancey, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (1980) and The Gift of Pain (1982), Brand discusses, among other things, how pain is actually a blessing from God. Though no one likes to feel pain, he explains, pain functions as a signal to tell us that there is something wrong with our body. If we ignore that signal and either overtax our body or do not repair the damage already done, we will, like lepers, fall apart. Adding to Brand’s powerful insight, I would make a connection between pain and guilt. Just as pain is a signal to tell us there is something wrong with our body, so guilt is a signal to tell us there is something wrong with our soul. It is important to understand this since, in our post-Freudian age, an increasing number of people in education and the behavioral sciences are claiming that guilt is the problem; that if we can just eliminate guilt, people will be happier. Some argue, for example, that the reason those in the gay (and transgender) lifestyle suffer from extremely high rates of depression, drug abuse, and suicide is that society burdens them with an unnatural sense of guilt for living out their natural urges. However, is it possible that many in the gay lifestyle feel guilty because they are engaging in behavior that is destructive to the soul and contrary to nature? It is significant that gay-rights advocates have not been satisfied just with the legalization of gay marriage, but also want to see gay marriage affirmed, praised, and celebrated as natural and good. Might the need for public affirmation and praise evidence guilt and be a means of seeking to eliminate it? To return to Paul Brand on pain, one caveat must be made. If someone contracts cancer, the disease will often disrupt their normal pain mechanism, causing them to suffer constant and debilitating pain. In that case, medication is needed to deal with the broken pain mechanism.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  exercised some form of agency in moving the process along, at least in some ways, in some places, and at some points in time. The assumption of mutuality is a welcome antidote to supersessionism and anti-Judaism. I wonder, however, whether scholars’ desire to atone for past sins has also caused them to misconstrue the historical processes that the “parting of the ways” discourse intends to clarify.2 To begin to probe this issue, I will in these pages consider a few of the sources that are used to construct the Jewish side of the “parting of the ways,” from the New Testament (NT), Josephus, Justin Martyr, and rabbinic literature, and the ways in which they are used in the “parting” discourse. I will argue two interconnected points. First, the available evidence for Jewish response to and concern with Christ-confessors can be read in at least two mutual y exclusive ways: as evidence for and against Jews’ engagement with Christ-confessors. Second, scholars’ judgments about the historical value of this evidence, while often presented as objective and even self-evident, are based on an unstated criterion—the criterion of plausibility—that is intuitive and therefore not objective at al . The Criterion of Plausibility The criterion of plausibility is discussed explicitly in the fields of epidemiology and biomedicine when proposing a causal association—a relationship between putative cause and an outcome—that is consistent with existing biological and medical knowledge. It has received little direct attention in the historical study of early Christianity despite the fact that it is employed by virtual y all scholars. Among the few to discuss this criterion directly are Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter. In their book The Quest for the Plausible Jesus, Theissen and Winter point out what we all know but prefer not to acknowledge: we cannot know with any certainty what actual y happened in the life of Jesus. 3 The same is true, I suggest, with the development of the movement that came to be called Christianity. We can only construct plausible scenarios that are consistent with existing knowledge. The problem is one of circularity, however. The existing knowledge that we need as a foundation for our plausible scenarios is often itself subject to question, as are the methods that we use for constructing our scenarios in the first place. As scholars, therefore, we are always in a position of assessing the plausibility of the scenarios that others propose, and, in turn, we are subject to the criticism of our peers, to whom our own scenarios may seem less than plausible. The sources that are often used to construct the Jewish role in the “parting” process il ustrate this conundrum perfectly. 2 Others too have tried it. See, e.g., Tobias Nicklas, Jews and Christians? Second-Century “Christian” Perspectives on the “Parting of the Ways” (Annual Deichmann Lectures 2013) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 221–3. 3 Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002). 149

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  SO DO I. “Ana!” My mother calls me, making me jump. Shit. Why do I feel so guilty? “Just coming, Mom.” From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Moaning Date: May 31 2011 19:39 ET To: Christian Grey Gotta go. Laters, baby. I dash into the hall, where Bob and my mother are waiting. My mother frowns. “Darling, are you feeling okay? You look a bit flushed.” “Mom, I’m fine.” “You look lovely, dear.” “Oh, this is Kate’s dress. You like it?” Her frown deepens. “Why are you wearing Kate’s dress?” Oh…no. “Well, I like this one and she doesn’t,” I improvise quickly. She regards me shrewdly while Bob oozes impatience with his hangdog, hungry look. “I’ll take you shopping tomorrow,” she says. “Oh, Mom, you don’t need to do that. I have plenty of clothes.” “Can’t I do something for my own daughter? Come on, Bob’s starving.” “Too right,” moans Bob, rubbing his stomach and assuming a fake pained expression. I giggle as he rolls his eyes, and we head out the door. Later when I’m in the shower, cooling under the lukewarm water, I reflect on how much my mother has changed. Seeing her at dinner, she was in her element: funny and flirty and among many friends at the golf club. Bob was warm and attentive. They seem so good for each other. I’m really pleased for her. It means I can stop worrying about her and second-guessing her decisions and put the dark days of Husband Number Three behind us both. Bob is a keeper. And she’s giving me good advice. When did that start happening? Since I met Christian. Why is that? When I’m done, I dry myself quickly, eager to get back to Christian. There’s an email waiting for me, sent just after I left for dinner a few hours ago. From: Christian Grey Subject: Plagiarism Date: May 31 2011 16:41 To: Anastasia Steele You stole my line. And left me hanging. Enjoy your dinner. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Who are you to cry thief? Date: May 31 2011 22:18 ET To: Christian Grey Sir, I think you’ll find it was Elliot’s line originally. Hanging how? Your Ana From: Christian Grey Subject: Unfinished Business Date: May 31 2011 19:22 To: Anastasia Steele Miss Steele, You’re back. You left so suddenly—just when things were getting interesting. Elliot’s not very original. He must have stolen that line from someone. How was dinner? Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Unfinished Business? Date: May 31 2011 22:26 ET To: Christian Grey Dinner was filling—you’ll be very pleased to hear I ate far too much. Getting interesting? How? From: Christian Grey Subject: Unfinished Business—Definitely Date: May 31 2011 19:30 To: Anastasia Steele Are you being deliberately obtuse? I think you’d just asked me to unzip your dress. And I was looking forward to doing just that. I am also glad to hear you are eating. Christian Grey

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) For as the sacrifice had not yet been offered up, nor had the holy Spirit descended, how could remission of sins be given? What is it then that St. Luke means by the words, for the remission of sins? Seeing the Jews were ignorant, and knew not the weight of their sins, and because this was the cause of their evils, in order that they might be convinced of their sins and seek a Redeemer, John came exhorting them to repentance, that being thereby made better and sorrowful for their sins, they might be ready to receive pardon. Rightly then after saying, that he came preaching the baptism of repentance, he adds, for the remission of sins. As if he should say, The reason by which he persuaded them to repent was, that thereby they would the more easily obtain subsequent pardon, believing on Christ. For if they were not led by repentance, in vain could they ask for grace, other than as a preparation for faith in Christ. GREGORY. (ubi sup.) Or John is said to preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, because the baptism which was to take away sin, as he could not give, he preached; just as the Incarnate Word of the Father preceded the word of preaching, so the baptism of repentance, which was able to take away sin, was preceded by John’s baptism, which could not take away sin. AMBROSE. And therefore many say that St. John is a type of the Law, because the Law could denounce sin, but could not pardon it. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. (Orat. 39.) To speak now of the difference of baptisms. Moses indeed baptized, but in the water, the cloud, and the sea, but this was done figuratively. John also baptized, not indeed according to the Jewish rite, (for he baptized not only with water,) but also for the remission of sins, yet not altogether spiritually, (for he adds not, in the Spirit.) Jesus baptizes but with the Spirit, and this is perfect baptism. There is also a fourth baptism, namely by martyrdom and blood, by which also Christ Himself was baptized, and which is so far more glorious than the others, as it is not sullied by repeated acts of defilement. There is also a fifth, the most weary, according to which David every night washed his bed and his couch with tears. It follows, As it is written in the book of Esaias the Prophet, The voice of one crying in the wilderness. (Is. 40:3.) AMBROSE. John the forerunner of the Word is rightly called the voice, because the voice being inferior precedes, the Word, which is more excellent, follows.

• From The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women: How to Become Orgasmic for a Lifetime (2011)

  Women are traditionally the givers and that is what we tend to do: we give ourselves away, not in the sense of making ourselves vulnerable but in the sense of giving up our innate inner being. We give up our own needs in favor of our lover’s. “Giving” in this sense means prioritizing someone else’s needs and feelings over our own, and many of us have been taught that our needs are not as important as those of others. This is a lie. We cannot be complete human beings if we do not pay attention to our own feelings. Feelings are what inform us of our needs, of what is right for us individually, of why we are here being human. Our feelings will guide us on the paths we must follow throughout our lives. Healthy sexual relationships are about balance, not sacrifice, about sharing, not withholding. Claiming Our Passion Many women are able to claim their sexual passion in spite of their cultural conditioning. They assert their sexual passion, knowing they are doing it for themselves and not for anyone else. And they look for kindred spirits in the people they choose to be sexual with, opting to work together to develop honest, open partnerships. Even when a woman does experience sex as an act of submission, she may feel empowered by it; paradoxically, total surrender—letting down all defenses and allowing physical pleasure and passion to take over—can be deeply liberating. Such a woman may consent to being submissive in that context; she may very well be someone with power and responsibility in her everyday life, and wants to experience the opposite in bed. She recognizes the universal truth that vulnerability always requires strength. She remains securely connected with her own inner power and stays connected to that source of personal power even when she appears to be acting submissively. Strong sexual energy can feel alarming, especially to people who were molested as children. This kind of dynamic can be addressed within the context of sexual play. It used to be that I would feel like an abuser if I really let my passion show. There didn’t seem to be any way around it. My lover just didn’t like the way I moved when I got to a certain level of arousal. Finally we negotiated that we would take turns being the one in charge, being the one to give or the one to take. This works really well, because I know there is no possibility of her being overwhelmed by my sexual energy when she is in charge because she directs the action. She can tell me to lie still if she wants. One woman told me that she solves this dilemma by tying her lover up. Then there is no question who is in charge, and her partner never has to worry about restraining his desire because it is restrained for him. What a simple way to deal with a problem that might otherwise destroy a relationship.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I’m nearly passing out with stress, crouching, dirty, covered in mud and sweat, pulsing with adrenalin. The goshawk is full of adrenalin too. She’s killing the pheasant more, even though it’s dead. Stamp stamp, gripe, stamp, foot, clutch, stamp. Leaves continue to fly as she dances about on it. Her eyes burn with an unholy light, her beak is open. She looks terrifying. Slowly she calms down. I keep looking back behind me. No one is in sight. I feed her all the food in my waistcoat, and give her the whole head and neck of the pheasant. I sneak the pheasant itself into the capacious back pocket of the waistcoat, breaking its long tail feathers in half so no tell-tale ends poke out of the zip, and guiltily heap leaves all over the scene of the crime. And then we sneak back to the car. I am undone. From the four corners of the field I’m crossing, from all sides, every single cock pheasant in the neighbourhood begins to crow simultaneously. It’s a terrible, echoing, barrelling sound, like an echo-effects pedal on long sustain, rolling backwards and forwards through the air. It swells into the most terrifying, sustained cacophony, more like an artillery bombardment than calling birds. It is a vast alarum of accusation. I am guilty. I’ve poached a pheasant from someone’s shoot. I didn’t mean to, I almost say out loud. It was an accident. I’m relieved when the calls die away. And then, as I round the corner to the car, the barrage starts again. Chastened and slightly unnerved, I drive away, the pheasants gone but conscience ringing in my ears. The landscape is changing before my eyes. What I see is not just winter moving onwards to spring; it is a land filling slowly with spots and lines of beauty. There’s brittle sun out on the hill this lunchtime, and a fresh westerly wind. Mabel’s pupils shrink to opiated pinpricks as I unhood her, both of her eyes narrow with happiness. It is exceptionally clear. The red flag over the range cracks with the wind and the sound of distant rifles; the radio mast on the horizon looks like an ink-drawing over a wash of shadows and lines and bolts of land rippling up to the chalk hills before me. We walk up the track. From the top I can look down and see the whole of Cambridge. The light today is beguiling. The rooftops and spires seem within a hand’s grasp; a chess-set town glittering among bare trees, as if I could pick up the brute tower of the university library and move it six places north, set it down somewhere else.

• From Open (2009)

  I give my platinum wedding band to a friend and point him to the nearest pawnshop. Take their first offer, I tell him. When he brings me the cash I make a donation to my new school in the name of Brooke Christa Shields. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, she will forever be one of the original benefactors. 22THE FIRST TOURNAMENT of my new, Brooke-less life is San Jose. J.P. drives up from Orange County for a few days of emergency counseling. He encourages, advises, cajoles, promises that better days are ahead. He understands that I have good moments and bad. One moment I say, To hell with her, and the next moment I miss her. He says it’s all par for the course. He tells me that for the last few years my mind has been a swamp—stagnant, fetid, seeping in every direction. Now it’s time for my mind to be a river—raging, channeled, and therefore pure. I like it. I tell him I’ll try to keep this image in mind. He talks and talks, and as long as he’s talking, I’m OK. I’m in control. His advice feels like an oxygen cup on my mouth. Then he leaves, drives back to Orange County, and I’m a mess again. I’m standing on the court, in the middle of a match, thinking about everything but my opponent. I’m asking myself, If you took a vow, before God and your family, if you said I do, and now you don’t, what does that make you? A failure. I walk in circles, cursing myself. The linesman hears me call myself an obscene name and walks past me, across the court, to the umpire’s chair. He reports me to the umpire for using foul language. The umpire gives me a warning. Now here comes the linesman, walking back across the court, past me, to resume his position. I glare. The mealy-mouthed fink. The pathetic tattletale. I know I shouldn’t, I know there will be hell to pay, but I can’t hold it in. You’re a cocksucker. He stops, turns, marches straight back to the umpire, reports me again. This time I’m docked a point. The linesman comes back again, past me, to resume his position. I say, You’re still a cocksucker. He stops, turns, walks back to the umpire, who heaves a sigh and pitches forward in his chair. The umpire calls over the supervisor, who also sighs, then beckons me. Andre. Did you call the linesman a cocksucker? Do you want me to lie or tell you the truth? I need to know if you said it. I said it. And you want to know something? He is a cocksucker. They kick me out of the tournament. I HEAD BACK TO VEGAS. Brad phones. Indian Wells is coming up, he says. I tell Brad that I’m going through some stuff right now, but I can’t tell him what. And Indian Wells is out of the question.

• From Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)

  The pattern of deception by which the weak are deprived of their civic, economic, political, and social rights without its appearing that they are so deprived is a matter of continuous and tragic amazement. The pattern of deception by which the weak circumvent the strong and manage to secure some of their political, economic, and social rights is a matter of continuous degradation. A vast conspiracy of silence covers all these maneuvers as the groups come into contact with each other, and the question of morality is not permitted to invade it. The tragic consequences of the alternative that there is no alternative are not far to seek. In the first place, it tends to destroy whatever sense of ethical values the individual possesses. It is a simple fact of psychology that if a man calls a lie the truth, he tampers dangerously with his value judgments. Jesus called attention to that fact in one of his most revealing utterances. His mother, in an attempt to excuse him from the harsh judgment of his enemies, said that he was a little out of his mind—not terribly crazy, but just a little off-balance. Those who did not like him said that he was all right with regard to his mind, but that he was full of the devil, and that it was by the power of the devil that he was casting out devils. Jesus, hearing the discussion, said that these men did not talk good sense: “A house … divided against itself … cannot stand.” He suggested that if they continued saying that he was casting out devils by the power of the devil—and they knew that such was not the case—they would commit the unpardonable sin. That is to say, if a man continues to call a good thing bad, he will eventually lose his sense of moral distinctions. Is this always the result? Is it not possible to quarantine a certain kind of deception so that it will not affect the rest of one’s life? May not the underprivileged do with deception as it relates to his soul what the human body does with tubercle bacilli? The body seems unable to destroy the bacilli, so nature builds a prison for them, walls them in with a thick fibrosis so that their toxin cannot escape from the lungs into the blood stream. As long as the victim exercises care in the matter of rest, work, and diet, normal activities may be pursued without harm. Is deception a comparable technique of survival, the fibrosis that protects the life from poison in its total outlook or in its other relations? Or, to change the figure, may not deception be regarded under some circumstances as a kind of blind spot that is functional in a limited area of experience? No!

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  GREGORY. (ubi sup.) He warns them that they must bring forth not only the fruits of repentance, but fruits worthy of repentance. For he that has violated no law, to him it is permitted to use what is lawful, but if a man has fallen into sin, he ought so to cut himself off from what is lawful, as he remembers to have committed what is unlawful. For the fruit of good works ought not to be equal in the man who has sinned less, and the man who has sinned more, nor in him who has fallen into no crimes, and him who has fallen into some. In this way it is adapted to the conscience of each man, that they should seek for so much the greater blessing on good works through repentance, as they have by guilt brought on themselves the heavier penalties. MAXIMUS. (lib. Ascet.) The fruit of repentance is an equanimity of soul, which we do not fully obtain, as long as we are at times affected by our passions, for not as yet have we performed the fruits worthy of repentance. Let us then repent truly, that being delivered from our passions we may obtain the pardon of their sins. GREGORY. (ubi sup.) But the Jews glorying in their noble birth were unwilling to acknowledge themselves sinners, because they were descended from the stock of Abraham. So then it is rightly said, And begin not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham for our father. CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) Not meaning thereby that they had not descended in their natural course from Abraham, but that it avails them nothing to have Abraham for their father, unless they observed the relationship in respect of virtue. For Scripture is accustomed to entitle laws of relationship, such as do not exist by nature, but are derived from virtue or vice. To whichsoever of these two a man conforms himself, he is called its son or brother. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. For what profits the nobleness we inherit through the flesh, unless it be supported by kindred feelings in us? It is folly then to boast of our worthy ancestors, and fall away from their virtues. BASIL. (non occ.) For neither does the speed of its sire make the horse swift; but as the goodness of other animals is looked for in individuals, so also that is reckoned to be man’s legitimate praise which is decided by the test of his present worth. For it is a disgraceful thing for a man to be adorned with the honours of another, when he has no virtue of his own to commend him. GREGORY OF NYSSA. (non occ.) So then having foretold the casting away of the Jews, He goes on to allude to the calling of the Gentiles, whom He calls stones. Hence it follows, For I say unto you, &c.

• From Open (2009)

  Just before the tournament starts, during a final practice with Brad, I give a halfhearted effort. Perry drives me back to the hotel. I stare out the window, silent. Pull over, I say. Why? Just pull over. He steers onto the shoulder. Drive two miles ahead and wait for me. What are you talking about? Are you crazy? I’m not done. I didn’t give my best today. I run two miles through Rock Creek Park, the same park where I gave my rackets away in 1987. With every step I’m close to passing out, but I don’t care. This run, even if it brings on heatstroke, will give me peace of mind tonight in that all-important ten minutes before I fall asleep. I now live for that ten minutes. I’m all about that ten minutes. I’ve been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep. When I get to the car, my face is bright purple. I slide into the passenger seat, turn up the air-conditioning, and smile at Perry. That’s how we do it, he says, handing me a towel as he pulls away. I reach the final. I face Draper again. I remember wondering not too long ago how I ever beat him. I remember shaking my head in disbelief that I’d ever gotten past him. One of the low points of my life. Now I take him out in fifty minutes, 6–2, 6–0. I win the tournament for the fourth time. At the Mercedes-Benz Cup I reach the semis without losing a set and ultimately win the whole thing. At the du Maurier Open in Toronto I face Pete again. He plays great in the first set but wears down in the second. I beat him, which costs him the number one ranking and moves me up to number nine.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  This was not a cynical forgery, however. At this time, it was customary for people who wished to impart a new religious teaching to attribute their words to a great figure in the past. The Deuteronomists believed that they were speaking for Moses at a time of grave national crisis. The world had changed drastically since the time of the exodus, and the religion of Yahweh was in danger. In 722, the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed, and thousands of its citizens had disappeared without trace. The kingdom of Judah had narrowly escaped extermination in the days of King Hezekiah. Only Yahweh—not the gods whose cult Manasseh had revived—could save his people. Many of the prophets had urged the people to worship Yahweh alone, and now at last Judah had a king who could revive the glories of the past. This was what Moses would say to Josiah and his people, if he were delivering a “second law” today. As soon as he had heard the words on the scroll, Josiah tore his garments in great distress. “Great indeed must be the anger of Yahweh blazing out against us,” he cried, “because our ancestors did not obey what this book says by practising everything written within it.”106 The switch from the oral transmission of religion to a written text was a shock. Here—as elsewhere in the Bible—it evoked a sense of dismay, guilt, and inadequacy.107 Religious truth sounded completely different when presented in this way. Everything was clear, cut-and-dried—very different from the more elusive “knowledge” imparted by oral transmission. In India, people did not believe that it was possible to convey a spiritual teaching in writing: you could not, for example, understand the full meaning of the Upanishads simply by perusing the texts. But the Deuteronomists made Yahwism a religion of the book. Henceforth in the West, the benchmark of religious orthodoxy would be a written scripture. Josiah immediately consulted the prophetess Huldah, for whom the sefer torah meant one thing and one thing only. She received an oracle from Yahweh: “I am bringing disaster on this place and those who live in it, carrying out everything said in the book the king of Judah has read, because they have deserted me and sacrificed to other gods.”108 Reform was clearly essential, and Josiah summoned the whole people to listen to the clear directives of the scroll: In their hearing, he read out everything that was said in the book of the covenant found in the Temple of Yahweh. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before Yahweh, to follow Yahweh, keeping his commandments, his decrees and his statutes, with all his heart and soul, to perform the words of the covenant as written in that book. All the people gave their allegiance to the covenant.109 Josiah at once inaugurated a program that followed Yahweh’s torah by the book.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  When The Goshawk was published in 1951 it was not a bestseller, but it brought an extraordinary number of letters from readers. Some were congratulatory, others strange: one offered White an eagle. Some disliked the book greatly. And one of these letters White never forgot. It touched a very raw nerve. It was from a man who said that he had for thirty years lectured on birds and watched them all his life. ‘How you can talk of love for a bird after subjecting our wonderful predatory birds to such torture is beyond a normal mind,’ the letter ran. ‘Is there not enough cruelty in the world without adding to it for one’s amusement or hobby?’ ‘This letter put me off food for three days,’ White later confessed, ‘though I answered it with several pages of affection, apology and explanation.’ He waited for a reply. When it came, White wrote, the letter-writer ‘used the word “normal” five times, concluding with the pronouncement that he did not wish to hear from me again. It seemed polite to leave it at that.’ I’ve moved back to the city, to a little rented house in a street near the river with a small sunny garden that ends in a tangle of briars. Cats stalk the pavement outside, there are pigeons all over the roof, and it’s good to be in a house that I can call my own for a while. Today I’m unpacking boxes and stacking books on shelves. Three boxes down, five to go. I open the next box. Inside, on top of the other books, is The Goshawk. Oh, I think, as I pick it up. It is strange to see it again, because I’ve not thought of White for a while. As I grew happier his presence receded, his world more and more distant from mine. I look at the scuffed spine, open it, and flip to the very end. I want to read the very last page, where White lists all the things Gos was: a Prussian officer, Attila, an Egyptian hieroglyph, a winged Assyrian bull, ‘one of the lunatic dukes or cardinals in the Elizabethan plays of Webster’. A litany of human things in stone and armour, in marks on pages and dints in sun-baked clay. I peer out of the dusty window at Mabel in the garden. She has bathed and preened and now she’s leaning backwards to the oil-gland above her tail, nibbling it gently, then pulling each tail feather through her beak to make it waterproof. I know she is content: the half-closed, happy eye, the rattling of her feathers: these are signs of raw good humour. I cannot know what she is thinking, but she is very alive.

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  All the “ I should have’s ” and “ if only’s ” roll through the character’s brain, especially in cases of suicide.Anger: Anger generally has four sources:Justified anger at perpetrators and the failures of individuals and institutions. This is fertile ground for thoughts of revenge.Lashing out at others in response to feelings of helplessness and loss of control.Anger at one’s self for an inability to prevent the death.Anger at the deceased for dying, for not fighting harder, not making better choices, or abandoning the survivors (like guilt, this anger isn’t always logical).Unexpected Death: Death out of the natural sequence of life is generally more tragic than death after a long life. Sudden death is frequently harder to deal with than a loss that’s expected. Death by a purposeful or negligent hand is often more difficult than one by accident or illness.Previous Experience: Previous experience with death can prepare a character for new losses and soften the sharp edges. At the same time, if previous deaths weren’t fully processed, new losses can trigger unresolved emotions and complicate healing.Delaying grief: Death and grief make characters feel vulnerable. In dangerous situations, it’s common for grief responses to be suppressed or delayed. Then, once safe, the emotional blockade opens. If that safe haven for grief is a long time coming, consider that feelings may bottleneck, turn in on the character, or explode.Children’s Grief: Don’t forget that babies, children, and teens grieve too.Babies experience a sense of absence in their lives. They also respond to the stress of the adults around them.Little children and teens experience the SAME feelings as adults including guilt – believing that they somehow could have prevented the death.Children also dip in and out of grief, cry and whine one minute, then play and laugh the next.Children and teens tend to regress to younger behaviors.Children will frequently delay their own grief until they see that the adults are handling it well and it’s safe to grieve.In an attempt to fit in, teenagers will frequently hide their grief. Teens may not talk about their feelings with their parents, but will talk to another trusted adult and among each other. List of Common SynonymsAuthor Lara Eakins has painstakingly compiled and shared an excellent list of synonyms for some of the most common words we use in our writing: Amazing — incredible, unbelievable, improbable, fabulous, wonderful, fantastic, astonishing, astounding, extraordinary. Anger — enrage, infuriate, arouse, nettle, exasperate, inflame, madden. Angry — mad, furious, enraged, excited, wrathful, indignant, exasperated, aroused, inflamed. Answer — reply, respond, retort, acknowledge. Ask - — question, inquire of, seek information from, put a question to, demand, request, expect, inquire, query, interrogate, examine, quiz. Awful — dreadful, terrible, abominable, bad, poor, unpleasant.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  problems. Theology ought not to pare down its thought to the rudimentary ideas of untrained people. But every influence which compels it to simplify its terms and to deal with actual life is a blessing to theology. Theological professors used to lecture and write in Latin. There is perhaps no other language in which one can utter platitudes so sonorously and euphoniously. It must have been a sanitary sweating off of adipose tissue when theology began to talk in the vernacular. It will be a similar increase of health when theology takes in hand the problems of social redemption and considers how its doctrines connect with the Kingdom of God in actual realization. The renovating effect of the social gospel would aid theology to meet the really modern religious needs. Heart religion is always a cry of need. Men pray because a burden is on their life; sickness threatens them; a child is in danger; some morbid passion has gained a footing in their mind or body and can not be shaken off; some evil has been done which can not be undone. The need is beyond their own strength. So they cry to a higher Power to help, to forgive, to cleanse, to save. Now, many of the fears and burdens which drove men to the altars of their gods in the past are being eased in modern life. People are learning to trace diseases to natural causes instead of the evil eye, or the devil, or the anger of God. Even the streptococcus has a friendlier look than the omnipresent devils that haunt a Burmese hill tribe. Men used to feel acute guilt if they had committed some ritual oversight, such as touching a taboo thing, eating meat on Friday, or working on the Sabbath. The better teachings of modern Christianity and general religious indifference have combined to reduce that sort of fear and guilt. On the other hand we are becoming much more sensitive about collective sins in which we are involved. I have a neighbour who owns stock in a New England cotton mill. Recently the company opened a factory in North Carolina and began to employ child labour. This man’s young daughter faded away when she was emerging from childhood, and so he thinks of the other girls, who are breathing cotton fluff for him. A correspondent wrote me whose husband, a man of national reputation, had bought stock in a great steel company. She is a Jewess and a pacifist. When the plant began to devote itself to the manufacture of shrapnel and bombs in 1915, she felt involved. But what was her husband to do with the stock? Would it make things better if he passed the war-stained property to another man? I know a woman whose father, back in the nineties, took a fortune out of a certain dirty mill town. She is now living on his fortune;

• From What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (2013)

  “We’re a conservative couple and my husband is the only man I’ve ever been with, so when I close my eyes, his body is the one I have an image of. Lesbian sex, adulterous sex, I’ll find myself wandering sometimes into the forbidden, but I always go back. His body is simply erotic. It’s mine. I know it. I understand it. I have fantasies that I whisper to him in bed about tying his hands behind him and making him watch me masturbate. I always think it’s funny that people who find out I was a virgin—by choice!—when I got married think I’m naïve or prudish. If only they were in my head.” “Males and females, males more when I was single, females more now. Images as mild as the curve of a hip or as hard-core as full-blown bondage.” “Older brother–younger sister incest (I should add that I’m an only child).” “A visit to a male gynecologist, with me naked in the stirrup-things. The doctor inserts various instruments; he fingers me to make sure there’s nothing wrong with my cervix. A sexy female nurse starts examining my breasts. Young male medical students come in to watch, to be taught how to conduct the pelvic exam. The doctor instructs the nurse to play with my breasts, to make sure that arousal is functioning normally. He checks my clit. I start squirming with pleasure. I’m vulnerable and completely exposed to a figure of knowledge and authority. Or being raped. It’s a twisted paradox, but in my head rape equals control equals trust. I don’t have to worry about anything, because the other person has power over me, I know he could kill me, so it’s his responsibility to make sure that I’m safe. The rapist is often a soldier, Serbian or Russian, not American, because of the stereotypes about Eastern European men being dominant and rough. He’s always a stranger. He uses his own strength, as opposed to a rope or gun, to control me, usually by pinning my wrists above my head against the floor. At first I don’t want it, and struggle against him, but he knows when I start to enjoy it. Occasionally I fantasize about being raped as punishment for having anti-feminist fantasies.” “An older man sitting on a chair and masturbating while I have sex.” “I’ve always battled with my weight. So being someone else and looking completely different than I actually do. Sex with a celebrity, sex with a cute bartender from the other night, sex on stage, with one spotlight and one chair like in Cabaret. The feeling that I am desire in the audience’s loins.”

• From Open (2009)

  I win three of the next four tournaments. Three more beers. Each more delicious than the last. But with every sip, I taste the bitter dregs of guilt. PERRY AND I FALL right back into our old routine. Horror movies. Long talks. Cambridge. 7-Eleven. Chipwiches. Every now and then, however, I look at him and feel the weight of my betrayal. We’re walking from Cambridge to 7-Eleven and I can’t hold it in any longer. The guilt is eating away at me. We’re each wearing headphones plugged into Perry’s Walkman, listening to Prince. Purple Rain. I tap Perry on the shoulder and tell him to take off his headphones. What’s up? I don’t know how to say this. He stares. What is it? Perry. I broke our pact. No. I had a beer in Australia. Just one? Four. Four! I look down. He thinks. He stares off at the mountains. Well, he says, we make choices in life, Andre, and you’ve made yours. I guess that leaves me on my own. But a few minutes later, he’s curious. He asks how the beers tasted, and again I can’t lie. I tell him they were great. I apologize again, but there’s no point in pretending to be remorseful. Perry’s right—I had a choice, for once, and I made it. Sure, I wish I hadn’t broken our pact, but I can’t feel bad about finally exercising free will. Perry frowns like a father. Not like my father, or his father, but like a TV father. He looks as if he should be wearing a cardigan sweater and smoking a pipe. I realize that the pact Perry and I made, at its root, was a promise to become each other’s fathers. To raise each other. I apologize once more, and I realize how much I missed Perry while I was gone. I make another pact, with myself, that I won’t leave home again. MY FATHER ACCOSTS ME IN THE KITCHEN. He says we need to talk. I wonder if he heard about the beer. He tells me to sit at the table. He sits across from me. An unfinished Norman Rockwell separates us. He describes a story he caught recently on 60 Minutes. It was all about a tennis boarding school on the west coast of Florida, near Tampa Bay. The first school of its kind, my father says. A boot camp for young tennis players, it’s run by a former paratrooper named Nick Bollettieri. So? So—you’re going there. What! You’re not getting any better here in Las Vegas. You’ve beaten all the local boys. You’ve beaten all the boys in the West. Andre, you’ve beaten all the players at the local college! I have nothing left to teach you.