Hope

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 The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  A Postscript on Practice In the end, of course, “prophetic imagination” is not simply “a good idea.” It is a concrete practice that is undertaken by real believers who share the conviction of grief and hope that escapes the restraints of dominant culture. It is my hope that my exposition of prophetic imagination is intimately connected to concrete practice and that it may, on occasion, evoke, generate, and authorize such concrete practice. Thus at the end of my exposition I take the liberty of identifying some concrete practices of prophetic imagination that are under way in concrete subcommunities of grief and hope that engage in resistance and alternative. Of course I do not suggest at all that this list is generated by my exposition, but only that the examples I cite are typical and representative of what is possible for the church in its enactment of prophetic imagination. Obviously the list I present is in large part happenstance and subjective and concerns the practices known to me. The reader surely knows other such typical practices and is invited to add to the list. The ones I think of include the following. In Atlanta, close to my own experience: Plymouth Harbor. This is a day-care facility housed by my local UCC Church, Central Congregational Church. Led by the relentless and persistent Pam Rapp, it cares on a daily basis for persons suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other forms of senior dysfunction. The care is necessarily person-to-person, labor intensive, and extraordinarily demanding of both staff and a host of volunteers. Family Counseling Services Urban Ministries. A network of urban ministries presided over by cunning and knowing Bob Lupton that aims at rehabilitation and restoration of communities that are economically disadvantaged and consequently crime threatened. FCS operates entrepreneurially and taps effectively into the resources of corporate capitalism in the enactment of its dreams. Open Door. A food-and-shelter community of worship and care with Presbyterian connections. This agency, led by the shrill Ed Loring and the determined Murphy Davis, in addition to self-styled “band aids,” maintains a shrill and steady voice of dissent so that the poor remain visible in the city.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  Breaking with Triumphalism and Oppression The radical break of Moses and Israel from imperial reality is a two-dimensioned break from both the religion of static triumphalism and the politics of oppression and exploitation. Moses dismantled the religion of static triumphalism by exposing the gods and showing that in fact they had no power and were not gods. Thus, the mythical legitimacy of Pharaoh’s social world is destroyed, for it is shown that such a regime appeals to sanctions that in fact do not exist. The mythic claims of the empire are ended by the disclosure of the alternative religion of the freedom of God . [8] In place of the gods of Egypt, creatures of the imperial consciousness, Moses discloses that Yahweh, the sovereign one who acts in his lordly freedom, is extrapolated from no social reality and is captive to no social perception but acts from his own person toward his own purposes. At the same time, Moses dismantles the politics of oppression and exploitation by countering it with a politics of justice and compassion . The reality emerging out of the Exodus is not just a new religion or a new religious idea or a vision of freedom but the emergence of a new social community in history, a community that has historical body, that had to devise laws, patterns of governance and order, norms of right and wrong, and sanctions of accountability. The participants in the Exodus found themselves, undoubtedly surprisingly to them, involved in the intentional formation of a new social community to match the vision of God’s freedom . That new social reality, which is utterly discontinuous with Egypt, lasted in its alternative way for 250 years. We will not understand the meaning of prophetic imagination unless we see the connection between the religion of static triumphalism and the politics of oppression and exploitation . Karl Marx had discerned the connection when he observed that the criticism of religion is the ultimate criticism and must lead to the criticism of law, economics, and politics. [9] The gods of Egypt are the immovable lords of order. They call for, sanction, and legitimate a society of order, which is precisely what Egypt had. In Egypt, as Frankfort has show, there were no revolutions, no breaks for freedom. There were only the necessary

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  community consisting of marginal people. The prophetic word of criticism is addressed to the dominant community, but it will not be heard (Isa 6:9-10). The prophetic word of energy is addressed never to the dominant community but only to those who are denied the pseudo-energy and power of the royal consciousness. Second, the promissory, prophetic word concerns a radical turn, a break with the old rationality, and a discontinuity between what has been and what will be. Thus the teaching presumed a contrast between that to which we cling and a future for which we yearn. The ministry of Jesus, like the ministry of Second Isaiah, happens in the space between the clinging and the yearning. If there is only clinging, then the words are only critical. If there is yearning, there is a chance that the words are energizing. The staggering works of Jesus— feeding, healing, casting out, forgiving—happened not to those who held on to the old order but to those who yearned because the old order had failed them or squeezed them out. The Beatitudes are cunningly articulated to sharpen the contrasts. The woes describe the royal consciousness and, in that situation, there is mostly the energy of fear. By contrast, those who have now broken with that consciousness, whose lives are organized against those values, and who know that the royal community cannot keep it promises, are the ones who are opened to another future. That future is an unqualified yes from God. The energy of this blessing word comes in the reality that God has alternative futures, that he is free to bestow them, and that futures are not derived from or determined by the present. Thus this teaching is faithful to the work of Moses, who created an underived community. It reflects the joy of Second Isaiah, who evoked a community not derived from the Babylonian reality. And, like Second Isaiah, Jesus is able to articulate a future that is distinctly different from an unbearable present. But that future is energizing only for those for whom the present has become unbearable. For those people and that community the abrasion takes the form of promise; the judgment takes the form of energy; the condemnation takes the form of hope. Believers in that future given by God are able to sing and to dance, to heal and to forgive. All those actions that the numb cannot take are given to believers in that future.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  Jesus’ Birth The birth of Jesus is presented, especially by Luke, as decisive energizing toward a new social reality. The early church obviously struggled with how to begin its tale of Jesus. The beginning must be just right, for there is something new here that can scarcely be articulated, and the articulation must match the reality of the newness. The birth itself is presented by the song of the angels against the rulers of the day. The rulers had decreed a census and all the managing ways that went with it, but a census never led to energy or newness. [2] This new one from God could not and would not be counted. The grim holding action of census was penetrated by the unscheduled and unextrapolated song of angels who sing a new song for a new king. There is no way to begin this new narrative except by a new song in the mouth of angels, authorized from the throne of God. The very idiom of lyric means the penetration of closed royal prose. The beginning is with a song that stands in conflict with the decree . All the old history is by decree, but the new history begins another way. The birth of a new king marks a new beginning in heaven and on earth of a very different kind. So the Lucan version is in keeping with the devices of Second Isaiah, an enthronement formula and a new song for a new king. The birth of the new king, the one Rome did not anticipate and Herod could not stop, begins another history, which carries in it the end of all old royal histories. Characteristically, the birth of this new king marks a jubilee from old debts, an amnesty from old crimes, and a beginning again in a movement of freedom (so Luke 4:18-19). The newly lyrical beginning is received by the only ones who could receive it, the shepherds, who were certainly bearers of society’s marginality. There is no hint here of the lyrics being heard by any of the managers of the census. They just kept counting and assuming that all numbers come in sequence and finally add up. This beginning is not among those who operate the old order; rather, it emerges among the victims of the old order. It comes among a barren old woman (Elizabeth), an innocent but believing young woman (Mary), an old man struck dumb (Zechariah), and society’s rejects (shepherds). It is a place for

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Nor am I saying that the cross has nothing to do with Jesus “dying for my sins” or that Christian mission is not about explaining this to people so that they may come to believe. Far from it. What I am saying, based on the revolutionary meaning of Jesus’s crucifixion, is that “life after death” is a quite different thing from what most Western Christians have imagined, since the ultimate future is a life after “life after death,” in other words, the life of the resurrection and the ultimate new creation; that “human behavior” from a biblical point of view is quite a different thing from the normal view of codes of either morality or self-discovery, because what matters is not “works” (whether ours or Jesus’s), but vocation , the human calling to worship God and reflect him into his world. And I am therefore saying, in the present chapter, that through the cross Jesus won the Passover victory over the “powers,” that he did this precisely by dying under the weight of the world’s sin, and that Christian mission consists of putting this victory into practice using the same means. All this brings us back once more to the heart and center of all Christian discipleship. The new Passover is the large, overarching reality. Jesus has defeated all the anti-God, anticreation powers. He has stripped them of their borrowed robes and robbed them of their hollow crowns.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Paul had discovered in towns and cities, in private houses and public streets, in formal and informal settings, that the news of Jesus, crucified, risen, and reigning, was “God’s power, bringing salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). The reign of the crucified Jesus only had to be announced for it to become effective. The powers that had held people captive were powerless to stop them believing, to prevent them from becoming part of God’s new creation. The gospel was—and is—the powerful announcement that the world has a new lord and the summons to give him believing allegiance. The reason the gospel carries this power is that it’s true: on the cross Jesus really did defeat the powers that had held people captive. For the early Christians, the revolution had happened on the first Good Friday. The “rulers and authorities” really had been dealt their death blow. This didn’t mean, “So we can escape this world and go to heaven,” but “Jesus is now Lord of this world, and we must live under his lordship and announce his kingdom.” The revolution had begun. It had to continue. Jesus’s followers were not simply its beneficiaries. They were to be its agents. What might it mean for the church today to live by the same belief? It would mean recognizing, for a start, that the “powers,” though defeated on the cross, are still capable of enslaving millions. When we in the Western world think of forces that enslave millions we tend to think of the ideologies of the twentieth century, not least Communism, which until 1989 had half the world in its grip and still controls the lives of millions. Many in southern Africa think back to the terrible days of apartheid and remember with a shudder how racial segregation and the denial of basic freedoms to much of the nonwhite population were given an apparent Christian justification. Similar reflections continue to be appropriate in parts of the United States, where the victories won by the civil rights movement in the 1960s still sometimes appear more precarious than people had thought. It is worth pointing out that in each case the Christian church had a key role to play in the downfall of these different systems. The Polish protests in the early 1980s, led by devout Catholics, slowly but surely began the process of shaking the Eastern European house of cards.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Or, as in Isaiah 54–55, following hard on the heels of the kingdom announcement of chapter 52 and the “servant’s” work in chapter 53, it would come to mean “new covenant” and “new creation.” The gospel was the announcement of this new reality. This new reality—hard to perceive except by faith in Jesus’s death-defeating resurrection, as all the early Christians knew well—was designed to come to ultimate fruition in the eventual new creation, the “new heavens and new earth.” I have written about this at length elsewhere (notably in Surprised by Hope), and we do not need to repeat or labor the point. Ephesians 1:10 says it all: God’s plan was to unite all things in the Messiah, things in heaven and on earth. The final scene in Revelation (chaps. 21–22) spells it out: the new heavens and new earth function as the ultimate Temple, the new world in which God will wipe away all tears from all eyes. First Corinthians 15 describes the accomplishment of this final reality under the image of the messianic battle: Jesus, having already conquered sin and death, will reign until these and all other enemies are totally destroyed. Romans 8 describes it as the birth of the new creation from the womb of the old, weaving into that great metaphor a powerful allusion to the events of the Exodus, so that creation itself will have its own “Exodus” at last, being set free from its slavery to corruption and sharing the freedom that comes when God’s children are glorified. That is the ultimate hope. All of this is the “goal” of God’s rescue operation accomplished through Jesus. All of this is in direct fulfillment of the ancient hopes of Israel: it is all “according to the Bible”—though it was quite unexpected. Nobody had read Israel’s scriptures like this before, but the events concerning Jesus left his followers with no choice. What had happened could have no other meaning. And all of this can be summed up in the phrase “forgiveness of sins.” None of it has to do with redeemed souls leaving the world of space, time, and matter for something better. All of it has to do with the strange, unanticipated fulfillment of the hope of Israel. “Forgiveness of sins,” then, is an altogether bigger reality than we have imagined. It is (to use the fashionable language) “cosmic.” When individuals share in it, experiencing for themselves the glorious relief of knowing themselves to be forgiven, they are, whether they realize it or not, learning to sing one of the “inside parts” within the much larger symphonic chorus of new creation. The alto line (if that’s what our part is) matters.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  generations, that is taken as distinctive, and that is richly coded in ways that only insiders can know. In short, such a subcommunity is one in which the first-line, elemental realities of human, bodily, historical existence are appreciated, honored, and treasured. It is obvious that such a subcommunity knows itself to be positioned for the long-term in tension with the dominant community that responds to the subcommunity at best as an inconvenience, at worst as an unbearable interruption. From this characterization, three specific comments follow: 1. It is not surprising that the noteworthy “prophetic figures” of the twentieth century have emerged in oppressive situations not completely closed down by usurpatious technology, in circumstances wherein subcommunities could claim for themselves enough space in which to practice resistance and alternative. 2. The immense technological power of the United States makes the formation and maintenance of subcommunities of resistance and alternative in the United States exceedingly difficult. Moreover, for all of our treasured talk of “individual freedom,” the force of homogeneity is immense—partly seductive, partly coercive, partly the irresistible effect of affluence, in any case not hospitable to “difference.” 3. While a Christian congregation in the prosperous United States is not at all parallel to subcommunities of resistance and alternative in more manifestly brutal societies, the church as a subcommunity in the United States is a thinkable mode of ministry. This is not a championing of sectarian withdrawal—a charge often made against Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon—nor a cranky community of endless protest, dissent, and confrontive “social action.” Rather, it is a suggestion about a community of peculiar discourse with practices of memory, hope, and pain that keep healthy human life available in the face of all the “virtual reality” now on offer in dominant culture. Reflection on biblical faith will indicate that the discourse of the biblical text provides ways of speech that make such a community possible. The formation and sustenance of such a subcommunity require a shared willingness to engage in gestures of resistance and acts of deep hope. These gestures and acts in turn require pastoral leadership that proceeds with an intentional ecclesial focus, namely, a subcommunity with an evangelical will for public engagement. In our contemporary world we are able to notice prophets-in-the-face-of- oppression. It is not so easy in our electronic environment of consumerism to imagine prophetic discourse and prophetic action, but such consumerism is nonetheless likely the foremost circumstance of prophetic faith in the United States. As every vibrant subcommunity knows, the defining prerequisite for such a subcommunity is a conviction that it can and will be different because of the purposes of God that will not relent. A deficit in that conviction, to which to we are all prone, will produce despairing conformity, an atmosphere making the prophetic profoundly unlikely.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  Jesus’ Resurrection Such a way of discerning the sovereign power of his gracious compassion leads directly to the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate energizing for the new future. The wrenching of Friday had left only the despair of Saturday (Luke 24:21), and the disciples had no reason to expect Sunday after that Friday. The resurrection cannot be explained on the basis of the previously existing reality. The resurrection can only be received and affirmed and celebrated as the new action of God, whose province it is to create new futures for people and to let them be amazed in the midst of despair. So it is my concern to show that the resurrection is faithful to and can only be understood in terms of the characteristically surprising energizing of the promises of the prophets. The resurrection of Jesus is not to be understood in good liberal fashion as a spiritual development in the church. Nor should it be too quickly handled as an oddity in the history of God or an isolated act of God’s power. Rather, it is the ultimate act of prophetic energizing in which a new history is initiated. It is a new history open to all but peculiarly received by the marginal victims of the old order. The fully energized Lord of the church is not some godly figure in the sky but the slain Lamb who stood outside the royal domain and was punished for it. Without detracting from the historical singularity of the resurrection, we can also affirm that it is of a piece with the earlier appearances of an alternative future by the prophetic word. The resurrection of Jesus made possible a future for the disinherited. In the same way, the alternative community of Moses was given a new future by the God who brought freedom for slaves by his powerful word, which both dismantled and created a future and which engaged in radical energizing and radical criticizing. In the same way, the resurrection of Jesus made possible a future for the disinherited, as did the newness announced by Second Isaiah. The nonpeople in the nonhistory of Babylon were given a homecoming like the poor, hungry, and grieving in the history of Jesus. The resurrection is a genuinely historical event in which the dead one rules.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  This vast increase in our knowledge about the basic processes that underlie trauma has also opened up new possibilities to palliate or even reverse the damage. We can now develop methods and experiences that utilize the brain’s own natural neuroplasticity to help survivors feel fully alive in the present and move on with their lives. There are fundamentally three avenues: 1) top down, by talking, (re-) connecting with others, and allowing ourselves to know and understand what is going on with us, while processing the memories of the trauma; 2) by taking medicines that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or by utilizing other technologies that change the way the brain organizes information, and 3) bottom up: by allowing the body to have experiences that deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse that result from trauma. Which one of these is best for any particular survivor is an empirical question. Most people I have worked with require a combination. This has been my life’s work. In this effort I have been supported by my colleagues and students at the Trauma Center, which I founded thirty years ago. Together we have treated thousands of traumatized children and adults: victims of child abuse, natural disasters, wars, accidents, and human trafficking; people who have suffered assaults by intimates and strangers. We have a long tradition of discussing all our patients in great depth at weekly treatment team meetings and carefully tracking how well different forms of treatment work for particular individuals. Our principal mission has always been to take care of the children and adults who have come to us for treatment, but from the very beginning we also have dedicated ourselves to conducting research to explore the effects of traumatic stress on different populations and to determine what treatments work for whom. We have been supported by research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control, and a number of private foundations to study the efficacy of many different forms of treatment, from medications to talking, yoga, EMDR, theater, and neurofeedback. The challenge is: How can people gain control over the residues of past trauma and return to being masters of their own ship? Talking, understanding, and human connections help, and drugs can dampen hyperactive alarm systems. But we will also see that the imprints from the past can be transformed by having physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness, rage, and collapse that are part of trauma, and thereby regaining self-mastery. I have no preferred treatment modality, as no single approach fits everybody, but I practice all the forms of treatment that I discuss in this book. Each one of them can produce profound changes, depending on the nature of the particular problem and the makeup of the individual person.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Of all the hucksters, only “Birdie” managed, in all seasons, to achieve the miracle of bringing us real goodies at a reasonable price. He was a tiny man of no specific age, who had adopted as his dress for all times an ancient pair of tuxedo pants, a jacket that had a patch over the left elbow, and a cap of Persian lamb that seemed to overwhelm his birdlike head. He owed his nickname to the sweets of the “Bird” brand that he sold in a biscuit box. This tin box could easily be concealed whenever the cops turned up, as the police, God alone knows why, seemed to be intent on mercilessly pursuing all the little hucksters; so Birdie’s biscuit box was his stroke of genius, his secret weapon of defense that allowed him to remain invulnerable, whereas all his colleagues were sooner or later arrested. This miracle box always contained a few defective candies from one or the other of the better makers, some excellent pastries that had been spoiled in the process of baking, or some candied almonds that had failed to acquire the right color while cooking, all of this stock having been sold to Birdie for next to nothing. Even if we failed to get any of these treats, we found at least some cakes made of heavy semolina that were full of bits of straw and somehow numbed our stomachs that were always underfed. For some time Birdie had been offering us flat Nestlé chocolate bars, together with a colored card. The Nestlé firm was launching a very successful commercial campaign: in the wrapping of each bar they put one or two of these picture cards of which a complete set would fill an album. The prize, for whoever turned in a full album by a certain deadline, was something pretty serious: a bicycle, if I remember right. Each one of these chocolate bars cost seven pennies, but since I had only two pennies a day to spend, I was disqualified from the start. However, I was not aware of this handicap and, as the Nestlé firm gave its albums away free, I went to collect one too. Every Friday, on the morning before Sabbath, classes began and finished an hour earlier, which seemed to us to be a considerable gain. For this reason, among others, I particularly enjoyed my Fridays, whereas my mother could never get accustomed to this interruption of our daily routine. Harried by her responsibilities in preparing the three Sabbath meals, she never made a success of the first one, actually the least important one.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  By some stroke of luck, as it turned out, most of the intellectuals were of the middle class. So the intellectual and the economic elites were confused. It seemed to the middle class only fair, since they had to pay the heavy cost of the camps, that their own sons should be exempted. But I could not forget that I was poor, nor accept this ambiguous situation. How was it possible to stay in the offices while all those young Jews were being beaten, humiliated, and killed in the camps? To the astonishment of our directors and the half-ironic surprise and respect of my colleagues, I asked to be allowed to join the camp workers. I am not trying to pride myself on my decision, and perhaps I behaved like a fool. But I do not remember the details of my argument. I only know that the action I took seemed necessary to me, and I refuse to discuss the matter today. I asked to go because it seemed intolerable to stay. Painfully but definitely, I was discovering that others really existed, and moreover that I would never be content merely with my own happiness. I was simple enough to think that I could be of help to them. I was fortunate to enjoy some culture and a few ideas; I would go to the camps to help the others live. I believe that, in the midst of the despair of those days, my move was optimistic. I wanted to go out toward men and thought I could help them. For myself, my decision was certainly a happy one: I immediately felt better. ~ 4. THE CAMP ~ All through the long day’s journey the worn-out springs of the old truck passed on to us the smallest bumps in the road. We had left Tunis almost gaily at dawn, with rucksacks on our backs, which reminded us of our youth movement excursions. The sharp air and the warm sun were just as promising then, and when one of us burst into a marching song we all joined in. I was lighthearted as I left, for I had left nothing behind me. The evening before, Ginou had yielded to the last of my arguments and admitted that we were not made for each other. I must confess that I had indulged in some histrionics for a quarter of an hour as I tried to find in my heart a pain that was not there. But I had to leave her hurriedly in order to pack my bag and had no time to think more of it. Ten minutes after our departure, I was already singing with the others, standing in the wind, full of the healthy impression of having volunteered for a great adventure.

• From Bluets (2009)

  29. If a color cannot cure, can it at least incite hope? The blue collage you sent me so long ago from Africa, for example, made me hopeful. But not, to be honest, because of its blues. 30. If a color could deliver hope, does it follow that it could also bring despair? I can think of many occasions on which a blue has made me feel suddenly hopeful (turning one’s car around a sharp curve on a precipice and abruptly finding ocean; flipping on the light in a stranger’s bathroom one presumed to be white but which was, in fact, robin-egg blue; coming across a collection of navy blue bottle tops pressed into cement on the Williamsburg Bridge, or a shining mountain of broken blue glass outside a glass factory in Mexico), but for the moment, I can’t think of any times that blue has caused me to despair. 31. Consider the case of Mr. Sidney Bradford, however, whose corneal opacities were grafted away at the age of fifty-two. After his vision was restored, he became unexpectedly disconsolate. “He found the world drab, and was upset by flaking paint and other blemishes; he liked bright colours, but became depressed when they faded.” Not long after he gained vision and saw the world in full color, he “died in unhappiness.” 32. When I say “hope,” I don’t mean hope for anything in particular. I guess I just mean thinking that it’s worth it to keep one’s eyes open. “What are all those / fuzzy-looking things out there? / Trees? Well, I’m tired / of them”: the last words of William Carlos Williams’s English grandmother. 33. I must admit that not all blues thrill me. I am not overly interested in the matte stone of turquoise, for example, and a tepid, faded indigo usually leaves me cold. Sometimes I worry that if I am not moved by a blue thing, I may be completely despaired, or dead. At times I fake my enthusiasm. At others, I fear I am incapable of communicating the depth of it. 34. Acyanoblepsia: non-perception of blue. A tier of hell, to be sure—albeit one that could be potentially corrected by Viagra, one of whose side effects is to see the world tinged with blue. The expert on guppy menopause, whose office is across from mine at the Institute, tells me this. He says it has something to do with a protein in the penis that bears a similarity to a protein in the retina, but beyond that I cannot follow. 35. Does the world look bluer from blue eyes? Probably not, but I choose to think so (self-aggrandizement).

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Many had given up all hope and withdrawn into a mute stupor, and the unexpected rest certainly helped to save some of them. I remember with emotion the extraordinary scene when poor Basmouth, who had become a sort of hairy animal clothed in rags, spent his day off feverishly washing himself, as though he were afraid the day would end before he had managed to get clean. I triumphed the day two men came and asked me timidly if I could organize a Sabbath service. In other circumstances, I would have refused vehemently. For years I had not even been inside a synagogue. But they were asking for what seemed most important to them, so I joyfully accepted. I soon saw what use I could make of such meetings. Through the group chiefs I requested permission of the military authorities to hold a strictly religious service. My excuse was that the men’s morale must be improved, which was true, and that, in consequence, they would work better, which was doubtful. My reasoning seemed valid, and permission was granted. As I could not undertake the religious part, rather because of my ignorance than of any scruple, I found an assistant capable of saying the prayers — they were all capable of this — and kept for myself the sermon, which mattered more to me. It worried me to have to trick my own people like the enemy. But if religion could help me save these men and give them a collective consciousness which would keep them sane, I would use their religion. They did not, however, all have confidence in me, and the more suspicious were among the most faithful. Some welcomed the idea of keeping up religious education, others demanded a rabbi. On Wednesdays and Thursdays the coming ceremony was the center of discussion, and often silence fell as I approached. To add to the solemnity of the occasion, I induced the kitchens, which were supplied by the community, to make a special effort. I prepared my program with great care. The rest was a question of propaganda, and in this I was greatly helped by the scouts and a few men who had understood my ultimate aim. On Friday evenings when they returned from work, several of the workers would go to the stream, in spite of the cold, to take an extra wash. They put on their least tattered clothes and slowly came back to the middle of the camp. I too had dressed up and awaited them with a few determined helpers, the group captains, and the scouts. We had agreed to stay at equal distances from each other and to form a circle. The men hesitated as they approached, argued among themselves and, in their minds, drew an imaginary circumference.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  My decision to resume my studies had been but a personal refuge from my insoluble problems and, in this manner, had acquired an objective basis, so that it became unequivocally serious. I quickly wrote to the university, prepared my transcript files, and was impatient to return to my job in school, as though I wanted to put an end to a period when all my convictions and hopes had been subjected to questioning. I was thus going to pick up the brutally broken thread of my life, which would acquire again its initial purpose once so convincing to me. The world I had doubted was going to resume its real course and signify to me that its rejection of me had only been a passing error which it would now be ungracious of me not to want to forget. When everything would once more be in its place there would only remain the memories of a few private nightmares. So these days of rushing around asking for interviews, going to school, and writing quick joyful letters had given me far more happiness than those of the military liberation of Tunis. I again felt I had an open future ahead of me . In a gesture of good will designed to efface somehow the humiliations recently inflicted on us, the administration offered to consider valid all the time that we had lost. To take advantage of this new measure, one had to go back to work immediately. The faculty had organized special courses to prepare us quickly for our exams, so I decided to go to Algiers and wrote a long letter to the Board of Education requesting an interview. Like everybody else, I wanted to take advantage of my years of seniority, and above all, I requested an exemption from returning to my teaching job. I argued that I wished to leave the city solely in order to improve my professional training. I thought that, in the general atmosphere of good will, this could not be refused me. My request was submitted in the most favorable circumstances. Luck had it that my former principal, Monsieur Marouzeau, was now chief of secondary education. Although he had absolutely no ambitions, he had been appointed to the job because there were no other candidates and because he had a right to the job. At school the decision was taken unjustly as a surprise and his friendly and informal manners and his shorts were ridiculed, but for me, it was an unhoped-for blessing. My imagination went to work and I began to plan far ahead. Soon I would return from the university; I would then need, to start with, a job as a teacher. My former principal had often promised me his support.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Then he stuck his head out and, with much gesturing, explained the direction we were to follow by order of the lieutenant. Ten miles ahead, the road branched in two: to the left, it went straight to Tunis and, to the right, through Bir-Halima, our last camp but one, before it also reached Tunis by a roundabout way. Of course, we were to take the right and stop at Bir-Halima. The sergeant concluded by furiously screaming: “Non è finita, la guerra!” After having let us go, the lieutenant had regained control of himself. But the men’s hopes had risen too high and too fast to let resignation replace their thwarted joy. As soon as we had left our guards, we had all immediately thought of the road to the left at the other end of which were our families and friends. But the three-wheeled car now carried the bust of the sergeant away and our grumbling column pulled itself together. None of us objected or even considered the risk. We had to hurry, so we started a race against time and against our clogs and empty stomachs and the heavy sacks of loot that we did not want to abandon. We had already trudged six hours of forced marching, after twelve hours of road work. Loaded down but sustained by hope, the men still found the strength to joke and show their high spirits: “Aren’t they going to have a surprise when they see us!” “And how about Lieutenant Liquorice [that was his nickname because he was thin and long, and his skin, mustache, hair, and boots were all black] when he doesn’t see us at all!” After that, only silence could help us economize our energies. For a long time we marched to the dull thud of our wooden clogs. When we passed through Pont-du-Fahs in Indian file, the night was already dissolving. The village was deserted and sinister, with great black wounds on the houses where the doors and windows had been torn out. Solitude is more oppressive in places abandoned by men than in the middle of the wildest desert. After the bewildered crowds of the Italian sector, we were, in this deserted village, rather like the survivors of a huge catastrophe which had emptied the world of its inhabitants. We had to walk round great shell craters in the road. At long last, after Pont-du-Fahs, we came to the expected fork in the road. There were two green signposts with black lettering. To the left: Nach Tunis. To the right: Nach Bir-Halima. It was here that the first men let themselves fall into the ditch, weighed down by the bags they had not the courage to unfasten.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I cannot forget it,” he said darkly. Yet it was necessary to forget and to pull down those old walls. I too knew some nasty tales and had even had one or two experiences of my own. One day, in Tarfoune Street, in the middle of a game, a little Jewish boy had caught at a Moslem girl’s earring. The violence of the children’s movements had caused the jewel to split the lobe of her ear. For three days the street had been in an uproar while the Moslems besieged the Jewish home, refusing all offers of a money indemnity and demanding that the little boy be handed over so that his ear could be torn off. Another time, after a quarrel between the local Jewish carpenter and a Moslem customer, the latter, having exhausted all his patience, had thrown the carpenter flat on the floor and tried to saw his throat. The victim had been saved only thanks to the screams of his womenfolk, all crazed with fear. But one had to forget and act. Only action could deliver both sides from their mutual isolation. It was then only a few weeks before our school certificate examinations, and soon we would be distracted from these problems by reviewing. Ben Smaan was again on duty with me as a boarding-school prefect. I decided to go with him the day Poinsot, in his endless curiosity, wanted to find out the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. He thought he had found the answer, but his curiosity made me angry. I had too much confidence in his intelligence and, as Poinsot was well-meaning and incapable of prejudice, there surely existed a gulf between us, if he saw one. There were not many of us at these secret meetings, and we felt strongly even if we had no very definite ideas. But I always left this Arab house filled with warmth and a feeling of generosity. The communion which ten of us could achieve was of good augury for the rest of the city. I smiled at the little street vendors and was amiable to the ticket collector in the streetcar; when two women began to argue, I sided with the Moslem one. But the vendors did not understand my smiles, the ticket collector hardly returned my politeness, and the Moslem women formed such a solid bloc in their opposition to the Jewess that I ended up by feeling sorry for her as the victim.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  My intention to provoke him was obviously insolent. Usually, the pupils took advantage of the slightest chance to laugh and imitate animal cries. Murat would then treat them as idiots and pretend to be angry while the class laughed all the more at his tenderness toward his pupils. This time, however, they all felt that something uncommon had occurred and, in their surprise, were silent. Murat, for once, was up against a real show of fervor and no longer knew what to answer. He merely muttered: “All right, all right, shut up!” He then quickly went on to criticize the next composition. Ben Smaan smiled at me and waved his plump hand. I realized I had been fortunate. Murat had not insisted. Had he not retreated, I would never have been able to control myself. During the recess, Ben Smaan joined me and said he wished to talk with me alone. I said I was prepared to listen, but he frowned with his eyes almost closed in his broad face and said mysteriously that he would rather we went somewhere out of the way. So we made a date to meet in town. He then told me he was the local secretary of a political youth movement composed only of native Africans and asked me to join it. I was delighted but a little embarrassed. Of course, I suffered from my growing awareness that I was alien in the eyes of Europeans, but it had not yet occurred to me to make a move toward the Moslems for I thought of this road as closed. “Precisely,” said Ben Smaan, “that is something new in our program: we would like to have some Jews too, so as to express the aspirations of the whole Tunisian nation.” “But are we a part of the nation?” “Of course you are! Where was your father born? And your grandfather? Have you ever had any other nationality in the last few centuries? No! There you are!” “It’s true,” I said, “that I was born here, like my father and all my ancestors, and I’ve never been out of this country since my birth. You consider that we belong to the same nation, but what about the others, Ben Smaan, what about the others? I’m afraid that, to them, we may still be foreigners.” “Maybe the times have changed. But there’s a job for those of us who know how to speak and explain and convince. We must promote unity among all the native sons of the country and make them act according to their own conscience. Why should we do without the help of the Jews who are an important part of the population and a particularly active, clever, and powerful one?” The last part of this sentence did not please me.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  There were not many of us at these secret meetings, and we felt strongly even if we had no very definite ideas. But I always left this Arab house filled with warmth and a feeling of generosity. The communion which ten of us could achieve was of good augury for the rest of the city. I smiled at the little street vendors and was amiable to the ticket collector in the streetcar; when two women began to argue, I sided with the Moslem one. But the vendors did not understand my smiles, the ticket collector hardly returned my politeness, and the Moslem women formed such a solid bloc in their opposition to the Jewess that I ended up by feeling sorry for her as the victim. Perhaps, I thought, if they only knew that I had just left an Arab home in the middle of the Halfaouine section, with a fig tree growing in the middle of the patio, and that I had just drunk tea there with Ben Smaan and the others, if only they knew that I was working for them, who I was and what I thought... But I had to overcome the hostility of the ticket collector and teach the shopkeepers not to insult Jewish housewives by calling them bitches, and I had to send Jewish and Moslem girls to the same schools. Our success depended on our work and patience and on time. Naturally, I had my ups and my downs. When I was discouraged, I thought of the sufferings of the Jews, of their despair in the ghetto: “They will never never like us!” I thought also of the utter misery which so blinded the Moslems. How could one cut a path through such tangled darkness? Then again, when I was strong enough to view it all with the calm of a Spinoza and to recover from my own nervousness, I seemed to see the solution clearly, and this vision gave me a certain serenity and a philosopher’s joy. In action, I felt happy and optimistic. For a while, I thought I could discover salvation through trying to save others.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Anything else would be a luxury. As if my life were on the same pattern as all the others, clear and comfortable and without any mystery or contradiction, I tried to organize it quietly on the same model as any other man. I am poor; so I shall get a lucrative job and forget all my humiliations. I cannot pay for my studies; so I will coach other students and work my way through school, studying only in the evenings. My memory is full of superstitions and Djnouns and strange anxieties; so I vigorously opt for Western culture and try to ignore all that is barbarian. I saw, of course, that I was simplifying a great deal and that I would have to hack my way with an ax; still, I believed that it was only a matter of effort and will power. But my life has again risen like a vomit in my throat; I cannot be simplified. Every event proves this, every move brings me back to myself. Perhaps I would not give up if I still had some strength. I have already proved myself, but I have now come to the end of my tether. Perhaps it is best as it is. I have already told how I came up for these finals. The official decree which announced that exams would be held again and the Vichy laws would be repealed had suddenly put an end to my hesitation. My decision to resume my studies had been but a personal refuge from my insoluble problems and, in this manner, had acquired an objective basis, so that it became unequivocally serious. I quickly wrote to the university, prepared my transcript files, and was impatient to return to my job in school, as though I wanted to put an end to a period when all my convictions and hopes had been subjected to questioning. I was thus going to pick up the brutally broken thread of my life, which would acquire again its initial purpose once so convincing to me. The world I had doubted was going to resume its real course and signify to me that its rejection of me had only been a passing error which it would now be ungracious of me not to want to forget. When everything would once more be in its place there would only remain the memories of a few private nightmares. So these days of rushing around asking for interviews, going to school, and writing quick joyful letters had given me far more happiness than those of the military liberation of Tunis. I again felt I had an open future ahead of me.