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.

Page 141 of 216 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Retrace your steps, O virgin of Israel, Return to these your cities. 22 “How long will you hesitate [to return], O you faithless and renegade daughter? For the LORD has created a d new thing in the land [of Israel]: A woman will encompass (tenderly love) a man.” 23 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Once more they will speak these words in the land of Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and in her cities when I restore their fortunes and release them from exile, ‘The LORD bless you, O habitation of justice and righteousness, O holy mountain!’ 24 “And [the people of] Judah and all its cities will live there together—the farmer and they who wander about with flocks. 25 “For I [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.” 26 At this I (Jeremiah) awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me. A New Covenant 27 “Behold (listen carefully), the days are coming,” says the LORD , “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. 28 “It will be that as I have watched over them to uproot and to break down, to overthrow, destroy, and afflict with disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant [with good],” says the LORD . 29 “In those days they will not say again, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ [Ezek 18:2 ] 30 “But everyone will die [only] for his own wickedness; every man who eats sour grapes—his [own] teeth shall be set on edge. 31 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD , “when I will make a new covenant with the e house of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and with the house of Judah (the Southern Kingdom), [Luke 22:20 ; 1 Cor 11:25 ] 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the LORD . 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the LORD , “I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 34 “And each man will no longer teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD ,’ for they will all know Me [through personal experience], from the least of them to the greatest,” says the LORD .

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  The creative individual (in wrestling with his medium) is supposed to experience a joy which balances, if it does not outweigh, the pain and anguish which accompany the struggle to express himself. He lives in his work, we say. But this unique kind of life varies extremely with the individual. It is only in the measure that he is aware of more life, the life abundant, that he may be said to live in his work. If there is no realization, there is no purpose or advantage in substituting the imaginative life for the purely adventurous one of reality. Everyone who lifts himself above the activities of the daily round does so not only in the hope of enlarging his field of experience, or even of enriching it, but of quickening it. Only in this sense does struggle have any meaning. Accept this view, and the distinction between failure and success is nil. And this is what every great artist comes to learn en route—that the process in which he is involved has to do with another dimension of life, that by identifying himself with this process he augments life. In this view of things he is permanently removed—and protected—from that insidious death which seems to triumph all about him. He divines that the great secret will never be apprehended but incorporated in his very substance. He has to make himself a part of the mystery, live in it as well as with it. Acceptance is the solution: it is an art, not an egotistical performance on the part of the intellect. Through art then, one finally establishes contact with reality: that is the great discovery. Here all is play and invention; there is no solid foothold from which to launch the projectiles which will pierce the miasma of folly, ignorance and greed. The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose on one another. The power which we long to possess, in order to establish the good, the true and the beautiful, would prove to be, if we could have it, but the means of destroying one another. It is fortunate that we are powerless. We have first to acquire vision, then discipline and forbearance. Until we have the humility to acknowledge the existence of a vision beyond our own, until we have faith and trust in superior powers, the blind must lead the blind. The men who believe that work and brains will accomplish everything must ever be deceived by the quixotic and unforeseen turn of events. They are the ones who are perpetually disappointed; no longer able to blame the gods, or God, they turn on their fellow-men and vent their impotent rage by crying “Treason! Stupidity!” and other hollow terms.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  The Negro Woman and Revolutionary PossibilityToni Cade Bambara took up the politics of revolution, family, and knowledge production with decidedly less ambivalence than Murray. Her 1970 collection of essays, poetry, and cultural criticism, Black Woman, offered a resounding response to the cultural and intellectual discombobulation that had framed the works of Pierce and Cruse. Exemplary of Brooks’s definition of a Negro woman intellectual, “who observes and/or claws out facts and ideas, worries them, turns them inside out, assembles them, relates them, and—on the highest level—enhances or nourishes them,” Bambara and her colleagues considered a range of issues relevant to Black women’s lives, turning them inside out, interrogating their relevance, discarding the ideas that were not useful, and offering a new set of conceptual frames for thinking and writing about Black women’s lives and organizing for Black liberation. Bambara and her comrades did not see Black women’s lives through the framework of a problem. Rather, like Cooper, they looked at Black women’s lives and their embodied experience as a space of possibility. The year 1970 was auspicious in terms of increasing Black women’s cultural and intellectual legibility. With the publication of first novels by Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou’s publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the posthumous editing and publication of Ida B. Wells’s autobiography, Crusade for Justice, and the launch of Essence Magazine, Black women created a veritable Black women’s literary renaissance. Echoing the creative literary and political ferment of the early 1890s, these women challenged existing institutional categories of knowledge production, storming the gates and making a way for themselves. At the same time, the placing of Angela Davis on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List made clear the violent material conditions that Black women faced and the consequences of having Black radical politics. Bambara’s text entered into a cultural moment eager to articulate and celebrate the multiplicity of Black women’s lives. But the clarity that animates the intellectual project of Black Woman should be seen as a corrective to the crisis narrative that Harold Cruse propagated in Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. As her forebears like Williams and Terrell and Victoria Earle Matthews had done, Bambara’s introduction to Black Woman laid out an ambitious plan of study about Black women’s lives, while the essays pressed the case for a vibrant, burgeoning, politically informed, and culturally conscious Black women’s movement. Beverly Guy-Sheftall has written about her incredulity at the fact that it had never “occurred to Cruse that a comprehensive discussion of Black intellectuals should not have been an exclusively male discourse.”43 In addition to Cruse’s egregious oversight, scholars of Black intellectual history have also placed Cruse’s work within the tradition of landmark Black texts including “Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, Alain Locke’s The New Negro, Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro, and E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie.”44 The problem is that all of these texts were written by Black men.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  The difference lies in the act, in the assertion of a will, and individuality. For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal. An artist should be able not only to spit on his predecessor’s art, or on all works of art, but on his own too. He should be able to be an artist all the time, and finally not be an artist at all, but a piece of art. In addition to the deep breathing exercises perhaps mercurial inunctions ought also to be recommended—for the time being . A Turning Point in My Life—The Cosmological EyeI feel that I have some right to speak about the difficulty of establishing communication with the world since my books are banned in the only countries where I can be read in my own tongue. I have enough faith in myself, however, to know that I eventually will make myself heard, if not understood. Everything I write is loaded with the dynamite which will one day destroy the barriers erected about me. If I fail it will be because I did not put enough dynamite into my words. And so, while I have the strength and the gusto I will load my words with dynamite. I know that the timid, crawling ones who are my real enemies are not going to meet me face to face in fair combat. I know these birds! I know that the only way to get at them is to reach up inside them, through the scrotum; one has to get up inside and twist their sacred entrails for them. That’s what Rimbaud did. That’s what Lautréamont did. Unfortunately, those who call themselves their successors have never learned this technique. They give us a lot of piffle about the revolution—first the revolution of the word, now the revolution in the street. How are they going to make themselves heard and understood if they are going to use a language which is emasculated? Are they writing their beautiful poems for the angels above? Is it communication with the dead which they are trying to establish? You want to communicate. All right, communicate! Use any and every means. If you expect the world to fall for your lingo because it is the right lingo, or even the left lingo, you are going to be cruelly deceived. It’s like the “pug” who goes into the ring expecting to get it over with quickly. Generally he gets flattened stiff as a board. He thinks he’ll deliver an uppercut or a swift one to the solar plexus. He forgets to defend himself. He lays himself wide open. Everybody who’s gone out to fight has had to first learn something about the strategy of the ring. The man who refuses to learn how to box becomes what is called, in the language of the ring, “a glutton for punishment.” Speaking for myself, I’ll say that I’ve taken all the punishment I could assimilate.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  13 “And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts; 14 “but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted.’ ” Zechariah 8 The Coming Peace and Prosperity of Zion 1 T HEN THE word of the LORD of hosts came [to me], saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I am a jealous for Zion with great jealousy [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely mine], and I am jealous for her with great wrath [against her enemies].’ 3 “Thus says the LORD , ‘I shall return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the [faithful] City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts will be called the Holy Mountain.’ 4 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Old men and old women will again sit in the b streets (public places) of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of his advanced age. 5 ‘And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.’ 6 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If it is difficult in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days [in which this comes to pass], will it also be difficult in My sight?’ declares the LORD of hosts. [Gen 18:14 ; Jer 32:17 , 27 ; Luke 18:27 ] 7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Behold, I am going to save My people from the east country and from the west, [Is 43:5 , 6 ] 8 and I will bring them home and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God in truth (faithfulness) and in righteousness.’ 9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Let your hands be strong, you who in these days hear these words from the mouths of the prophets who, on the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, foretold that the temple might be rebuilt. 10 ‘For before those days there were no wages for man or animal; nor was there any peace or success for him who went out or came in because of his enemies, for I set all men against one another. 11 ‘But now [in this time since you began to build] I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ declares the LORD of hosts. 12 ‘For there the seed will produce peace and prosperity; the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will produce its increase, and the heavens will give their dew.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Assyria will plunder his treasury of every precious object. 16 Samaria will be found guilty [and become desolate], Because she rebelled against her God; They will fall by the sword, Their infants will be dashed in pieces, And their pregnant women will be ripped open. Hosea 14 Israel’s Future Blessing 1 O ISRAEL, return [in repentance] to the LORD your God, For you have stumbled and fallen [visited by tragedy], because of your sin. 2 Take the words [confessing your guilt] with you and return to the LORD . Say to Him, “Take away all our wickedness; Accept what is good and receive us graciously, So that we may present the fruit of our lips (gratitude). [Heb 13:15 ] 3 “Assyria will not save us; We will not ride on horses [relying on military might], Nor will we say again to [the idols who are] the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’ For in You [O LORD ] the orphan finds love and compassion and mercy.” 4 I will heal their apostasy and faithlessness; I will love them freely, For My anger has turned away from Israel. 5 I shall be like the dew to Israel; He will blossom like the lily, And he will take root like the cedars of Lebanon. 6 His shoots will sprout, And his beauty will be like the olive tree And his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon. 7 Those who live in his shadow Will again raise grain, And they will blossom like the vine. His renown will be like the wine of Lebanon. 8 O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? It is I who have answered and will care for you and watch over you. I am like a luxuriant cypress tree; With Me your fruit is found [which is to nourish you]. 9 Whoever is [spiritually] wise, let him understand these things; Whoever is [spiritually] discerning and understanding, let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right, And the righteous will walk in them, But transgressors will stumble and fall in them. [Ps 107:43 ; Is 26:7 ; Jer 9:12 ; Dan 12:10 ] Hosea 1 a 1:2 Some scholars interpret this to mean that Gomer was chaste at the time of the marriage, but later became an adulteress. As such, she symbolizes the future unfaithfulness of Israel. b 1:2 Lit forsaking . c 1:4 Jehu murdered Ahab’s sons in order to seize the throne of Israel. d 1:4 I.e. Israel, the Northern Kingdom, which included ten of the original tribes of Israel. Samaria was the capital city. e 1:7 Isaiah also made this prophecy (Is 31:8 , 9 ) and both he and Hosea lived to see its fulfillment (Is 37:36 ). See also 2 Kin 19:35–37 .

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Isaiah 44 The Blessings of Israel 1 “B UT NOW listen, O Jacob, My servant, And Israel, whom I have chosen: 2 This is what the LORD who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you says, ‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant; And Jeshurun (Israel, the upright one) whom I have chosen. [Deut 32:15 ; 33:5 , 26 ] 3 ‘For I will pour out water on him who is thirsty, And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring And My blessing on your descendants; [Is 32:15 ; 35:6 , 7 ; Joel 2:28 ; John 7:37–39 ] 4 And they will spring up among the grass Like willows by the streams of water.’ 5 “One will say, ‘I am the LORD ’s’; And another will name himself after Jacob; And another will write on his hand, ‘I am the LORD ’s,’ And be called by the [honorable] name of Israel. 6 “For the LORD , the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts says this, ‘I am the First and I am the Last; And there is no God besides Me. [Rev 1:17 ; 2:8 ; 22:13 ] 7 ‘Who is like Me? Let him proclaim it and declare it; Yes, let him confront Me, Since I established the people of antiquity. And let them [those supposed gods] tell those people [who foolishly follow them] the things to come And the events that are going to take place. 8 ‘Do not tremble nor be afraid [of the violent upheavals to come]; Have I not long ago proclaimed it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? There is no other Rock; I know of none.’ ” The Folly of Idolatry 9 All who make carved idols are nothing. Their precious objects are worthless [to them], and their own witnesses (worshipers) fail to see or know, so that they will be put to shame. 10 Who has made a god or cast an idol which is profitable for nothing? 11 In fact, all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are mere men. Let them all assemble, let them stand up, let them be terrified, let them together be put to shame. 12 The ironsmith shapes iron and uses a chisel and works it over the coals. He forms the [idol’s] core with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He also becomes hungry and his strength fails; he drinks no water and grows tired. 13 The carpenter stretches out a measuring line, he marks out the shape [of the idol] with red chalk; he works it with planes and outlines it with the compass; and he makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of man, that it may sit in a house.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  And Cooper was willing to step into the ring to contest anyone who thought otherwise. Thus, Cooper’s racial conceptions remained profoundly rooted in and on the body, despite critical disagreements with Delany’s requirements for African blood quantum. Racial purity and formal recognition by white bodies of power were not prerequisites for the concession and acknowledgment of Black dignity. Black women could show up, move through the world, and make profound contributions when violent and oppressive conditions ceased to inhibit their access to full bodily integrity. In this way, the Black female body became integral to how Black women theorized the politics of racial uplift. Unlike her contemporary W. E. B. Du Bois—who famously conceptualized the black body as a site of internal striving—“two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder” 9 —Cooper embraced racial embodiment as possibility rather than as perturbation. Where Du Bois characterized the Black body as racked with an epic internal struggle over identity, Cooper, using the Black female body as a point of reference, saw intersecting identities—primarily of race and gender, but also of class and nation—as a point of possibility. In Cooper’s account of racial identity, a Black female experience of embodiment brought these competing national identities into generative tension, whereas in Du Bois’s’ account, competing identities threatened to dismember the Black self: In this last decade of our century, changes of such moment are in progress, such new and alluring vistas are opening out before us, such original and radical suggestions for the adjustment of labor and capital, of government and the governed, of the family, the church and the state, that to be a possible factor, though an infinitesimal [one] in such a movement is pregnant with hope and weighty with responsibility. To be a woman in such an age carries with it a privilege and an opportunity never implied before. But to be a woman of the Negro race in America, and to be able to grasp the deep significance of the possibilities of the crisis, is to have a heritage, it seems to me, unique in all the ages. 10 Here, Cooper constructs Black women’s intersectional position as its own kind of “crisis” of “possibility,” as a space of “hope,” “responsibility,” and even “privilege.” She inverts the logic of marginalization that one would typically assume in an argument about Black women’s position at the intersection of race and gender. 11 She invokes the symbolism of a pregnant female body heavy with the weight of racial responsibility. Black women’s capacity to reproduce children who would inherit the slave status of the mother had tethered their material value to their reproductive capacity, simultaneously rendering them vulnerable to endless sexual exploitation. Cooper, however, in her invocation of an expectant female body, offers new creative and procreative possibilities to Black women. At the most literal level, emancipated Black womanhood meant Black women could produce citizens rather than slaves.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  All kinds of Black bodies appear in Cooper’s work. In one moment, she uses embryonic imagery to describe the race as being “full of the elasticity and hopefulness of youth” and as having a “quickening of its pulses and a glowing of its self-consciousness.”12 In another moment, Cooper characterizes the race as a twenty-one-year-old Black male, “just at the age of ruddy manhood.” This young man, who is eager to make his way in the world, challenges several stereotypical notions of Black males as lazy, perpetually immature, and unmotivated. She characterizes this state of maturity as a moment of profound possibility for both Black people and for America, and as a critical moment for “retrospection, introspection, and prospection.”13 This young man’s youthful, healthy, sanguine complexion, exemplified in Cooper’s use of the term ruddy, situates him as a positive addition to American life. Neither a rapist nor a potential criminal, he is a person who now has the freedom to mature to adulthood and pursue life’s possibilities. Her invocation of a young male body ready to encounter the transforming American body politic intentionally concedes the value of Black manhood, in stark opposition to an ideological system bent upon alternately infantilizing or criminalizing Black men.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  3 And [the LORD ] said to Me, “You are My b Servant, Israel, In Whom I will show My glory.” [Gen 32:28 ; Deut 7:6 ; 26:18 , 19 ; Eph 1:4–6 ] 4 Then I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity (pride, uselessness); However My justice is with the LORD , And My reward is with My God.” 5 And now says the LORD , who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him and that Israel might be gathered to Him, —For I am honored in the eyes of the LORD , And My God is My strength— 6 He says, “It is too trivial a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the c survivors of Israel; I will also make You a light to the nations That My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 7 This is what the LORD , the Redeemer of Israel, Israel’s Holy One says, To the thoroughly despised One, To the One hated by the nation To the Servant of rulers, “d Kings will see and arise, Princes shall also bow down, Because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.” 8 This is what the LORD says, “In a e favorable time I have answered You, And in a day of salvation I have helped You; And I will keep watch over You and give You for a covenant of the people, To restore the land [from its present state of ruin] and to apportion and give as inheritances the deserted hereditary lands, [2 Cor 6:2 ] 9 Saying to those who are bound and captured, ‘Go forth,’ And to those who are in [spiritual] darkness, ‘Show yourselves [come into the light of the Savior].’ They will feed along the roads [on which they travel], And their pastures will be on all the bare heights. 10 “They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And He will guide them to springs of water. [Rev 7:16 , 17 ] 11 “And I will make all My mountains a roadway, And My highways will be raised. 12 “In fact, these will come from far away; And, lo, these shall come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of f Aswan (southern Egypt).” 13 Shout for joy, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth, And break forth into singing, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 “In fact, you c [Israel] will call a nation that you do not know, And a nation that does not know you will run to you, Because of the LORD your God, even the Holy One of Israel; For He has glorified you.” 6 Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call on Him [for salvation] while He is near. 7 Let the wicked leave (behind) his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD , And He will have compassion (mercy) on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. 8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD . 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts higher than your thoughts. 10 “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth, Making it bear and sprout, And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, [2 Cor 9:10 ] 11 So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me void (useless, without result), Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. 12 “For you will go out [from exile] with joy And be led forth [by the LORD Himself] with peace; The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. 13 “Instead of the thorn bush the cypress tree will grow, And instead of the nettle the myrtle tree will grow; And it will be a memorial to the LORD , For an everlasting sign [of His mercy] which will not be cut off.” Isaiah 56 Rewards for Obedience to God 1 T HIS IS what the LORD says, “Maintain justice and do righteousness, For My salvation is soon to come, And My righteousness and justice is soon to be revealed. [Is 62:1 , 11 ; Matt 3:2 ; Luke 21:31 ; Rom 13:11 , 12 ] 2 “Blessed (happy, fortunate) is the man who does this, And the son of man who takes hold of it, Who keeps the Sabbath without profaning it, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.” 3 Do not let the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will most certainly separate me from His people.” And do not let the eunuch say, “Look, I am a dry tree.” 4 This is what the LORD says, “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths And choose what pleases Me, And hold firmly to My covenant, 5 To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  One can find in the Psalms of Solomon a statement to the effect that God evenly distributes punishments and rewards on the basis of deeds (9.4 [2]), just as one can find such statements in Rabbinic literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Paul, among other places. 29 Basically, however, the righteous did not wish to claim good from God on the basis of merit, and so said that God is merciful to the righteous. When speaking of God, one can say that he is a just judge who rewards and punishes in accord with fulfilment and transgression. When speaking of one's own treatment by God, however, particularly in the form of prayer to God, one would hesitate to attribute good treatment by God to one's own merit. Before God, man can best hope for mercy. There is another way in which it may be seen that Braun has misunder- stood the themes of God's mercy to Israel and to the righteous. When he contrasts God's free grace with grace which is 'earned' ('Das Dilemma zwischen einer dem Menschen frei und umsonst zugewandten und einer vom frommen Menschen verdienten Barmherzigkeit Gottes'), 30 Braun is 27 It is noteworthy that Braun does not once cite Biichler's definitive work on the Psalms of Solomon (Piety), in which the religious convictions of the author(s) are clearly set out. 28 Braun, pp. 46f. 29 Sifre Deut. 307; IQS 10.17-21; II Cor. 5.10. 30 Braun, p. 35. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha [III contrasting two things which are not in fact in competition with each other. The 'free grace' passages (God's mercy to Israel) have to do with the election and preservation of Israel. They show, as we have pointed out, that all Israel is elect and as such is 'saved'. The passages dealing with God's mercy to the righteous have to do with their relative protection from temporal harm. The wicked are considered to be those who have transgressed the covenant so severely that they are treated as Gentiles; i.e. they have forfeited their place in the free, unmerited grace bestowed by God in electing and preserving Israel, and consequently are destroyed. That original electing grace is not earned by the righteous. Rather, by being righteous they keep their place in the covenant established by grace, the preservation of which is guaranteed by God. In the view of the author of the Psalms of Solomon, God would have forfeited his unmerited covenant promises to Israel if he had not shown mercy to the righteous by preventing the destruction of those who kept the covenant. This is clearly seen in 9.11-19 (6-10), where God's mercy to the righteous is based on his having chosen the seed of Abraham, which involved the commitment not to reject Israel. The hope of the righteous for mercy springs from the covenant with Israel.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  56 As we shall see, the statements of God's determining grace answer another question than the question of whether or not man is free. Thus we note repeatedly in the Scrolls the notion of election by God side by side with explanations of entrance into or exclusion from the covenant on the basis of the individual's choice. Thus in a passage already quoted (IQH 15.14-19), the psalmist thanks God for creating the righteous man that he might follow the right path. The wicked is also said to have been 'created' by God and vowed 'from the womb' for destruction. But then a reason is given: 'For (ki) they walk in the way which is not good.' The psalm- ist continues to explain that they are outside the covenant because they 56 This was correctly pointed out by Marx (Predestination', p. 168). He would prefer to speak simply of'grace' (p. 181 ). The particular way in which God's electing and governing grace is emphasized in some passages, however, makes 'predestination' a natural term, as long as it is not understood in the technical sense of excluding free will. On Marx's view, see further n. 80 below. 262 The Dead Sea Scrolls [II despised it and loathed it. They 'have chosen' what God hates. One sees a similar alteration between God's choice and man's choice elsewhere: Thou hast brought me into the Council of ... And I know there is hope for those who turn from transgression and for those who abandon sin Thou wilt raise up survivors among Thy people and a remnant within Thine inheritance. and Thou wilt establish them in Thy Council according to the uprightness of Thy truth. (IQH 6.5-10) Here crediting God with bringing one into the Council (which is equivalent to the community of the covenant) alternates with the expression of hope for the salvation of those who 'tum from' transgression. I know that Thou hast marked the spirit of the just (tsaddiq), and therefore I have chosen to keep my hands clean And I know that man is not righteous except through Thee .... (IQH 16.10f.) Here again God's choice alternates with man's choice 'to keep his hands clean'. Similarly in IQS those in the covenant are called both the 'chosen' (I~ 9.14) and 'those who have chosen the way' (IQS 9.17f.). The combina- tion of human choice and God's election is seen in one phrase in IQpMic 7f.: 'those who volunteer to join the elect of God'. In general, such terms as 'choose', 'turn' and 'despise' figure significantly in discussions of how one enters or does not enter the covenant. Those who are not in the covenant shall not be cleansed by God (and admitted) unless they turn from wickedness (IQS 5.14). The good are defined as those who turn from transgression, while the evil are those who turn aside from the way; those who are smitten (as punishment for transgression) will not be com- forted until their way becomes perfect (IQS 10.2of.).

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  21 After f they had gone a long time without food [because of seasickness and stress], Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, you should have followed my advice and should not have set sail from Crete, and brought on this damage and loss. 22 “But even now I urge you to keep up your courage and be in good spirits, because there will be no loss of life among you, but only loss of the ship. 23 “For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me, 24 and said, ‘Stop being afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has given you [the lives of] all those who are sailing with you.’ 25 “So keep up your courage, men, for I believe God and have complete confidence in Him that it will turn out exactly as I have been told; 26 but we must run [the ship] aground on some island.” 27 The fourteenth night had come and we were drifting and being driven about in the g Adriatic Sea, when about midnight the sailors began to suspect that they were approaching some land. 28 So they took soundings [using a weighted line] and found [the depth to be] twenty fathoms (120 feet); and a little farther on they sounded again and found [the depth to be] fifteen fathoms (90 feet). 29 Then fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern [to slow the ship] and kept wishing for daybreak to come. 30 But as the sailors were trying to escape [secretly] from the ship and had let down the skiff into the sea, pretending that they were going to lay out anchors from the bow, 31 Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men remain on the ship, you cannot be saved.” 32 Then the soldiers cut away the ropes that held the skiff and let it fall and drift away. 33 While they waited for the day to dawn, Paul encouraged them all [and told them] to have some food, saying, “This is the fourteenth day that you have been constantly on watch and going without food, having eaten nothing. 34 “So I urge you to eat some food, for this is for your survival; for not a hair from the head of any of you will perish.” 35 Having said this, he took bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all, and he broke it and began to eat. 36 Then all of them were encouraged and their spirits improved, and they also ate some food. 37 All told there were two hundred and seventy-six of us aboard the ship. 38 After they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship by throwing the h wheat [from Egypt] overboard into the sea.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  Empathize with the feelings they are experiencing while also offering them other ways of dealing with those feelings, such as deep breathing, taking time to themselves, and assertiveness. If the goal is for them to express their anger in a healthier and more appropriate way, your response should be about helping them achieve that goal. Three Steps to Identifying Your Goals You can break down the process into three steps: (1) pause, (2) collect your thoughts and ask yourself what you want to achieve, and (3) determine how to get there. Step One: Find a way to pause The most difficult part of identifying your goals is taking the time to actually do it. It requires that you stop yourself from reacting immediately, and potentially poorly, and find time to think through the situation and what you want from it. When you react too quickly to another’s anger, you may start down a path that is difficult to come back from. Instead, find a way to pause in those moments. This is something I’m going to spend the entire next chapter on, so know that there’s a lot more information coming. In the meantime, though, here are a few suggestions to help you find a way to pause. First, understand that you have to be intentional about it as a life strategy. It takes far more psychological effort to stay calm than to act so you need to prepare yourself in advance. Second, get in the habit of counting slowly to three, taking a deep breath and exhaling,* or even shaking out your shoulders the way you might after exercising. Step Two: Ask yourself, “What do I want to get out of this situation?” Once you’ve had a moment to collect yourself, start thinking about the ideal outcome for this situation. What do you want for the parties involved, including yourself? Don’t trouble yourself yet with what is reasonable or likely or even what the other person “deserves” in this circumstance. Those things are just distractions at this point. Ask yourself what you want and stay focused on that. Step Three: Ask yourself, “What is the best route to obtain that outcome?” Finally, start thinking about the best route to obtain that goal. When my friend decided she wanted to preserve the relationship between her husband and her father-in-law, the next step was to determine the best way to do that. If you decided you want to preserve your relationship with the person that is mad at you, then start thinking about how to repair that relationship in a meaningful way. If you decide that your goal is to help your kids learn to manage their anger in ways other than hitting, then focus your energies away from justice and more toward teaching and support. Staying Calm in Emotional Times Of course, you won’t be able to do any of this unless you learn to stay calm yourself.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Nearly twenty-five years ago, while teaching English and leading outdoor programs at an all-girls’ private school, Charis Denison had an epiphany. So many of the critical lessons of middle and high school took place outside the classroom. Her students wanted (needed) to talk about their experience, but didn’t know how, and anyway, there was nowhere they could try. “I started feeling that we were failing these kids,” she told me. What would happen if she carved out a formal space for those conversations? What would happen if she encouraged students to apply the rigorous critical skills they used in the classroom to life beyond it? “You wouldn’t walk into an essay exam wondering which book the test was on, right?” she said. “But people will go to a party without any thought at all, not even of what they don’t want to happen.” Rather than blaming themselves when things go awry, students needed to remember, Denison began urging them, the “reflect-revise-redraft” strategy they used when editing a paper. “Instead of just thinking, ‘Oh my God, that night was awful, that was horrible!’ I want them to back it up and think, ‘Why did that suck? And what part did I play in it, and what part was out of my control?’ Just like you would with a bad grade, or with anything else that goes wrong. Avoiding the blame game—just backing up, figuring it out, reflecting on it, revising your plan, forgiving yourself, and moving forward.”

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  All sins, no matter of what gravity, which are committed within the covenant, may be forgiven as long as a man indicates his basic intention to keep the covenant by atoning, especially by repenting of transgression. Moore has put it this way: 'A lot in the World to come' ... is ultimately assured to every Israelite on the ground of the original election of the people by the free grace of God ... [It] is not wages earned by works, but is bestowed by God in pure goodness upon the members of his chosen people, as 'eternal life' in Christianity is bestowed on the individuals whom he has chosen, or on the members of the church. 1 Similarly Montefiore: Few Israelites were destined for an abiding hell or for annihilation. Only very high-handed criminals, and very outrageous and unrepentant heretics and apost- ates, would incur such a doom. And the view ofR. Joshua that the righteous of all nations (that is, of all non-Jews) would inherit the world to come became the accepted doctrine of the Synagogue. 2 The explicit statement that 'all Israelites have a share in the world to come' appears in Sanhedrin 10. 1. It is followed by a list of exceptions, which we have already quoted, but which we should now consider at greater length. The first group of exceptions is attached immediately to the anony- mous statement concerning every Israelite and may have always accom- panied the positive statement. 3 The three groups excluded are these: 'he that says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law, and [he that says] that the Law is not from Heaven, and an Epicurean'. The 1 Moore, Judaism II, p. 95. 2 Montefiore, Anthology, p. 582 (the last point refers to T. Sanhedrin 13.2); cf.Judaism and St Paul, pp. 44> 77f. 3 Epstein, however, thinks that the anonymous exclusions belong with Sanhedrin 6.2: 'Every one that makes his confession has a share in the world to come·: .1'1 rho' ot, p .} I 8 n. 8. Tannaitic Literature [I statement is then glossed by R. Akiba (excluding those who read heretical books and those who, in healing, claim for themselves the power of God) and by Abba Saul (excluding those who pronounce the Tetragrammaton). The anonymous statement continues (10.2) by saying that in biblical history three kings Oeroboam, Ahab and Manasseh) and four commoners (Balaam, Doeg, Ahitophel and Gehazi) have no share in the world to come. This saying is glossed by R. Judah's taking exception to the exclusion of Manasseh, who repented, and an anonymous rebuttal of R. Judah. Further exclusions follow (10.3): the generation of the flood, the genera- tion of the dispersion, the men of Sodom and the spies. This list is further glossed by R. Akiba, who adds the generation of the wilderness, the company of Korab and the Ten Tribes.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  If our daily life is full of ugliness it is inevitable that men will arise to describe it and reveal it in all its manifold details. The truth about life can no more be throttled than the spread of knowledge. All that censorship may hope to accomplish is to delay the inevitable. For books, like everything else in this universe, are created in answer to our needs, our inner needs. They are part of the time spirit. Thought will out. If it does not find its way to the surface, through the various media of art, it will dig under, follow subterranean channels, and eventually poison the very springs of life. Moreover, it is hardly likely that ideas, however abhorrent, are the product of certain monstrous individuals. Ideas are in the air, as we say, and the artist does but make use of them. It is also a most curious phenomenon that so-called obscene literature is the hardiest of all forms of literature. It has existed from most ancient times, and it endures, without protection, without ballyhoo, despite all that may be said against it. Only one other class of literature is admittedly as durable, and that is the occult. The one obviously corresponds to some vital need which no amount of moralizing or penalizing can eradicate, while the other answers to that sense of mystery in us which no scientific or religious explanations ever satisfy. Every day in the forest, on the farm, under the ground, in the air, everywhere throughout this planet, the creatures of this earth, as well as men and women, are indulging in the sexual act, and, if we are to believe a writer like Rémy de Gourmont, often in ways that would stagger the imagination. The only permissible word language with which to describe this cosmic state of rut is, at present, scientific language. The cattle breeder may write his pamphlets and treatises; the physician may detail his psychopathic case histories; the anthropologist may describe his researches into the sexual habits of primitive peoples—but the writer who is interested purely in creative literature, the writer who would like to describe the life about him fully and freely, is forbidden to speak. Yet he is the only one who can write passionately and meaningfully, the only one who is truly detached, free in spirit, who sees life in its entirety and can therefore be honest, truthful, gay, and ultimately therapeutic . Though we no longer believe in alchemy, our age is nevertheless the one in which the art of transformation manifests itself in every realm. Almost everything we touch, eat, drink, smell has undergone an amazing process of transmutation. Everything we have learned about the “secret processes” derives from a study of nature.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  27 “But we know where this Man is from; whenever the Christ comes, no one will know where He is from.” 28 Then Jesus called out as He taught in the temple, “You know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come on my own initiative [as self-appointed], but He who sent Me is true, and Him you do not know. 29 “I know Him Myself because I am from Him [I came from His very presence] and it was He [personally] who sent Me.” 30 So they were eager to arrest Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His time had not yet come. 31 But many from the crowd believed in Him. And they kept saying, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs and exhibit more proofs than this Man?” 32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things [under their breath] about Him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent g guards to arrest Him. 33 Therefore Jesus said, “For a little while longer I am [still] with you, and then I go to Him who sent Me. 34 “You will look for Me, and will not [be able to] find Me; and where I am, you cannot come.” 35 Then the Jews said among themselves, “Where does this Man intend to go that we will not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion [of Jews scattered and living] among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? 36 “What does this statement of His mean, ‘You will look for Me, and will not [be able to] find Me; and where I am, you cannot come’?” 37 Now on the last and most important day of the feast, Jesus stood and called out [in a loud voice], “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! 38 “He who believes in Me [who adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Me], as the Scripture has said, ‘From his innermost being will flow continually rivers of living water.’ ” [Is 58:11 ; John 4:14 ] 39 But He was speaking of the [Holy] Spirit, whom those who believed in Him [as Savior] were to receive afterward. The Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (raised to honor). Division of People over Jesus 40 Listening to these words, some of the people said, “This is certainly the Prophet!” [Deut 18:15 , 18 ; John 1:21 ; 6:14 ; Acts 3:22 ] 41 Others said, “This is the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed)!” But others said, “Surely the Christ is not going to come out of Galilee, is He? 42 “Does the Scripture not say that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?” [Ps 89:3 , 4 ; Mic 5:2 ] 43 So the crowd was divided because of Him.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  I would never ask anyone to tolerate an abusive, hostile, or dangerous situation. It simply means that you make an effort to consider the world from their perspective and that you have concern for the ways they may have suffered. TIP Therapy services can be a useful step when distancing yourself from an angry person is challenging. Sometimes, Though, Angry People May be Toxic and Dangerous That said, we also need to recognize that some angry people may be bad for you. It’s not necessarily that they are “bad people,” rather their presence in your life may not be healthy for you. Much of what people have shared with me through the interviews I’ve done and through social media is that living with angry people, especially those who express their anger outwardly in aggressive ways, can be exhausting and take a considerable toll on one’s mental health. They have told me that they spend much of their time not just managing their own emotions, but trying to manage the emotions of this angry person too. They never get to feel comfortable or be themselves because they are too busy trying to prevent this bomb from going off. Please do not think of this book as a field guide for how to tolerate abuse. The last thing I want is for people to think that they are expected to endure hostile and aggressive behavior. In an ideal world, angry people would work on their own emotions so the rest of us wouldn’t need to carry that emotional labor. They would deal with their own anger and they would treat people well. My last book, Why We Get Mad: How to Use Your Anger for Positive Change , was designed to help angry people do this very thing. The problem, though, is that not every angry person wants to be less angry. Their anger serves them in a way that they like. They might even be reinforced for their anger, so they would see changing that anger as harmful to themselves. Some other angry people, though, do want to change, but that change is scary and difficult. They recognize the harm they might be causing people and they want to do the work, but haven’t found success yet.* When the angry person in your life feels especially toxic to you, and when you see no other options, it is ok to draw some boundaries around your connections to them. This too can be hard for people to hear sometimes, but there is no rule that says you must keep people in your life. When interacting with particular people is unhealthy for you, you can keep it to a minimum or even eliminate it altogether.