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 Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  There are covenants made with the tribal peoples of every continent and every culture. They are all fulfilled, confirmed, and corrected by the same Messiah in the same way. Each has something important to tell us about the nature of God. They each inform us about the New Covenant. To deepen our understanding we are all called to undertake our vision quests, just as Jesus did. We are invited to make our lament, to approach God in great humility and even greater hope. We are asked to follow certain disciplines in doing so, to stand before God to make our confession and seek our blessing. The visions we receive are as many and varied as we are, but they all share one thing in common: They are not for our benefit alone, but for the healing, nurture, and enlightenment of our people. Therefore, we learn from one another, we need one another, we are never fully complete without one another. The visions we have are not static or legalistic. They move and grow and change. They call us to step out into a catholicity of covenants. Jesus followed one of these paths. He was raised in a covenant. He believed he heard the voice of God. He prepared himself as best he could. Then one day he went out to a lonely place to make his vision quest. He was filled with humility. He had no idea where it might end. He was supported by his friends. He learned from each quest and kept going. He lived into the quests set before him by God. He understood them as his role as a healer of others. Jesus made four vision quests and, by so doing, left us a legacy to follow. Now we are making our quests. We are becoming healers. We are listeners to the voice of God, speaking to us across all time and all history, through many of our own ancestors and the ancestors of other generations, teaching us what we need to know, welcoming us to learn more. The voice is within us, but it is also calling to us. It speaks our language. It knows our heart. If we trust it, we will see visions, and if we see visions, we will live. The people will live. Chapter 4THE MESSIAHOn January 1, 1889 a solar eclipse occurred. On that same day a Northern Paiute medicine man had a vision. Like Black Elk, he was taken up to heaven and shown an alternate reality where Native American communities would be at peace. He saw the dead, those thousands of Native people lost to war and disease, brought back to life and living happily in their traditional ways. Also like Black Elk, he was given instructions for his role as a healer. He was told to return to teach his people to live righteous lives according to the old values.

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

  fu. קו‎ n.m.2!:!6 line (cf. Koi} 40 Anm. 3 ;-- abs. קו‎ a 47°+ Ze 1" Qr (Kt mp), Is 34%+3; estr. P 2 K 218+; _—measuring-line (TID קי‎ Je 31°): 1K 7* (Qr; Kt ,קוה‎ v. infr.)=2 Ch 45 Ez 47°; for marking off a possession in land Is34” (fig.); esp. ק' על‎ 793, in building, Jb 38° (fig. of earth), 26 1" (7533; || 723%), so ק'‎ NB Je 31° (Qr; Kt ק' ; (קוה‎ 72 of designing idol Ts 44"; marking off for destruction, by ק'‎ nb 2 K 21% Is 34" (Np), נ' ק'‎ La 28; so ‘AY מִשָפָּט לקו‎ Is 28°7.—DIP 15 (AV their line, te of their domain) rd. prob. ndp their sound, Capp. Ol Che and now most. Is 18" v. קוקו‎ infr.; 28 v. 1. .קד‎ + מ קוה‎ m. קו.זנ==+)1‎ Qr ; abs. וָה)‎ or MP) Ze ד‎ estr. (Mp, or MP) 1 K ל‎ Je 31°. might )1( ;—‏ | . גד ]. בנ (קוקר, קוק (or‏ קר קוז גי ק' in phrase‏ , קורק so Sea (ace. to most) for‏ i.e. a mighty nation (cf. Ar. 355 strength ;‏ 857 ד Is‏ v. (on redupl.) Ges'™*); >RV ‘meting out’‏ .(קו ,11( conquered lands, lit. ‘of line, line’‏ +1. .מ מקה‎ [m.] hope ;—abs. מ'‎ 1 Ch 29” Ezr 10°; estr. in phr. bet Mp, epithet 01 %, Jer 4® 173, Ch. 50". ti. 5.מ [תקוה]‎ cord (cf. Vad -init.);— estr. 289 (BIN) MPA Jos 252, TIL. TPN | +.ג‎ hope ;—abs. ‘n Ho2"+; estr. mipn ‘Ib 884 +; sf. תי‎ 65+ , 4. hope, Je לידב‎ Mia sa ל‎ ea ee ar 19° ץ‎ 62° Pr 19% 26” 29” Ru1™; ת'‎ NHB Ho 27; “AI DS Ze g” )1.6. with fee of deliver- pace)! 2. =ground of hope Jb 4° ץ‎ 71° (ef. 62°). 3. 6 hoped for, outcome, Ez 19° a db G Sita ie (but rd. 20 G Me Bi Siegf Beer Bu Du), 27" סק‎ | Pr roman es 24r. (del. Toy as athe אחרית ות'‎ Je 29" (i.e. by hendyadis, the hoped-for future). aN): ears +1. הּקוה‎ n.pr.m. (hope; ef, Lag 1. aoe law of Huldah 2K 22", 066006, AGL Oex(k)ove = תוקהת‎ 2 0 34” Kt [Qr NPA], Kadovad, A 0000000, GL Ockwe). 2. post-ex. name Ezr 10”, Edxea, A GL 06. 7 II. [TP] vb. ‘collect (NH Hiph. col- lect) ;—Niph. be collected, Pf. 3 pl. 12) consee. Je 3” (of nations); Jmpf. 3 mpl. יק‎ Gn 1°(P; of waters; both 0. אֶל‎ loc.); so prob. of ships (c. ere ele 60° (for MT #9), v. 1. קוה‎ Pi. 1. hey Tz קוה]‎ 29] 2. ] collection, collected mass (P) —estr. 4 Gn 1° (MP also v°, for = מָקוּם‎ , ace. to G Ball), Ex 7°Lyv 11%, all of water. 1K 10% = NPD 2 Ch1”® (company of‏ מ'-- v. MP.‏ ז merchants ; drove of horses),‏ n.f. reservoir ;—Is 22".‏ מקוה1 פקחדקוח .+ Mp‏

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  45 Yet there were political consequences even for that. During the bitterly contested presidential election of 1800, Jefferson the deist was accused of being an atheist and even a Muslim. He replied that while he was not hostile to faith, he was adamantly opposed to government meddling in religious affairs. When a group of his Baptist supporters in Danbury, Connecticut, asked him to appoint a day of fasting to bring the nation together, Jefferson replied that this lay beyond the president’s competence: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes to none other for his faith and worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation of Church and State. While such separation could be beneficial to both church and state, it was not, as Jefferson assumed, written into the very nature of things but was a modern innovation. The United States was attempting something entirely new. Jefferson had borrowed the image of the “wall of separation” from Roger Williams (1604–83), founder of Providence, Rhode Island, who had been expelled from New England because of his opposition to the intolerant policies of the Puritan government. 46 But Williams was less concerned about the welfare of the state than that of his faith, which he believed would be contaminated by any involvement with government. 47 He intended Rhode Island to be an alternative Christian community that came closer to the spirit of the gospels. Jefferson, by contrast, was more concerned to protect the state from the “loathsome combination of church and state” that had reduced human beings to “dupes and drudges.” 48 He seemed to assume—quite wrongly—that there had been states in the past that had not been guilty of this “loathsome combination.” It remained to be seen whether the secularized United States would be less violent and coercive than its more religious predecessors. Whatever the Founders wanted, most Americans still took it for granted that the United States would be based on Christian principles. By 1790, some 40 percent of the new nation lived on the frontiers and were becoming increasingly resentful of the republican government that did not share their hardships but taxed them as harshly as the British had done. A new wave of revivals, known as the Second Great Awakening, represented a grassroots campaign for a more democratic and Bible-based America. 49 The new revivalists were not intellectuals like Edwards but men of the people who used wild gestures, earthy humor, and slang and relied on dreams, visions, and celestial signs.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  If they did this, he was to tell them that a renaissance would occur where Native nations would be free from fear and allowed to coexist with their white neighbors without further exploitation. Finally, he was shown a new form of the traditional round dance performed by almost all Native cultures, a liturgical dance that would hasten the coming of all of these promises made by God. The medicine man’s name was Wood Cutter, Wovoka in his language. The liturgy he brought back from his vision came to be called The Ghost Dance.1 I believe it is difficult for many non-Native people to really understand just how significant Wovoka was in Native American history. His story has become something of a footnote in the recounting of Western expansion. It is usually mentioned in association with the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where some two hundred Native people were slaughtered by the United States army in 1890 and dumped into a mass grave.2 For many historians, this pitiful episode represents the end of any resistance by Native nations against the Western power, the last light of a traditional and sovereign Native presence to be extinguished. The massacre is associated with Wovoka because the elders, women and children machine gunned by the Army at Wounded Knee were followers of his vision. They were practitioners of his Ghost Dance. To this day, even the few non-Native people who remember Wovoka or Wounded Knee imagine it to be the story of a false messiah who worked up a handful of ignorant followers into an apocalyptic frenzy and then left them to die when the vision failed. Echoes of Jim Jones or David Koresh come to mind. Therefore, the story of the Ghost Dance is relegated to the category of delusion and tragedy. It becomes a morality tale of how religious vision can be exploited and how “weak minded” people can be taken in by false prophets. In fact, this is exactly the spin on the story that began even before Wounded Knee as local Indian agents, Christian clergy, and military officers quickly branded Wovoka as a huckster. He was presented in newspapers of the day as the Indian who was pretending to be Jesus. After the massacre, he was blamed for inciting pacified Indians into hostile behavior through his promises that they would be invulnerable to the bullets of the Army if they revolted. He was characterized as a charlatan, a second-rate magician, and a mentally unstable fanatic. Given this long standing prejudice against him, it may seem strange that I would turn to Wovoka as an illustration of how our quest for spiritual vision leads us to Jesus, but the connections are there from the Native American viewpoint. There are lessons to be learned about the meaning of quest, the power of vision, and the ultimate authority of messiahship, if we choose to learn them. Wovoka was not Jesus, but he is something far more than a false prophet for Native people.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  It was not surprising that Wovoka’s vision showed him a dance as the centerpiece of renewal for his people. From the Native perspective, that made perfect sense. Dance is the embodiment of the people’s faith in God. It is how God is worshipped and glorified. It is the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible grace that the Creator shows to every tribe and nation. Consequently, once word went out on the grapevine that a prophet had arisen among the Paiute with a new dance that could heal the suffering of the people, representatives from many nations made the long trek to Nevada to see for themselves. They came not out of curiosity, but out of desperation. Wovoka was a messianic figure for Native Americans in 1889, not because he was a miracle worker, but because he was a choreographer. Native people did not see him as divine, since there is only one God, but they did see him as a divinely inspired visionary who could teach them to do the Ghost Dance. It soon spread like wildfire through many Native nations. The Ghost Dance, more commonly known among the Native people as The Spirit Dance, was a variation on the traditional “round dance” which is almost generic to all Native communities. This fact alone is significant: a round dance is inclusive. It is not designed to demonstrate the skills of either young men or women. It is not focused on a particular sacramental relationship to the land or other creatures with whom the people are in spiritual kinship (e.g., the buffalo or white-tailed deer). Instead it is a communal dance that draws both men and women, young and old, into the solemn celebration of community. A round dance embodies community. Like the Eucharist, it is a liturgical exercise designed to demonstrate the bond between human beings and their Maker. Therefore, despite what anxious white people may have thought, the Ghost Dance was not a war dance. It was a “Ghost” Dance because it sought to bring the whole of the community together: the great cloud of witness of the ancestors with the living remnants of the people in the present. It was a “Spirit” Dance because it sought to do this through the medium of a vision quest, a vision quest made not by an individual, but by a whole community. The Ghost Dance was a vision quest that people could take together. The power of Wovoka’s message was that it took the concept of an individual vision quest and made it a communal experience. It drew a sacred circle, the round dance, around a whole community. It allowed people to enter into a shared lament. It gave the Native nations a way to cry before God as they faced genocide. Wovoka’s vision was a way for a beleaguered nation to gather in the sanctuary of sacred space to raise a collective lament to God for justice, hope, and healing.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  I hoped that I could transcend my limited reality and be shown the path to follow to make me the disciple I wanted to be. My intention in this way was not very different from countless other human beings who have sought a transcendent moment. Such moments are possible. Transcendence can occur. People can have the scales fall from their eyes, be swept up in a rapture divine, be given a glimpse of eternity. The only problem is: we have no formula for making that happen. Transcendent experience, from my perspective, is wholly at the initiative of God. It is not something we can obtain through our own diligence or by virtue of our own deserving. The quest is not a tool of transcendence. It is a method of transformation. It begins very much with our own initiative. It truly is a case of our going out to find God, not God coming to find us. It is humble in expectation, an experience truly bounded by our finite nature and located in our earthy reality, which is why it is our lament. Looking back, my choice of an urban rooftop for my first quest was more than appropriate because fewer places could be more mundane. I did not go up to Sinai to find my God. I went up to the roof of my house. The transformation of the quest begins in this celebration of the human. The fact that a fragile, finite creature would take the initiative to “find” God is the first stage of the quest’s transformative experience. It is the hinge point, the turning toward transformation. The quest begins with the mystery of our own self-awareness: we understand that we are fragile and limited creatures, and we also understand that there is something greater than ourselves. The spiritual audacity of a quest is that we want to connect the two. We are aware of our reality and the reality of the sacred; where the two come into contact is the location of the quest. Whether we physically choose to carry out our quest on a mountain top or a rooftop makes no difference. The real location is the nexus point of spiritual awareness. We do not leave the finite. We do not enter the infinite. We stand at the place of intersection. We do not transcend our own reality, much less the reality of the infinite, but we are positioned for transformation because when the mundane becomes a vehicle for the sacred, things change. The quest is sacramental. It is the process by which the substance of our everyday reality becomes transformed. How this happens is a mystery. Why it happens is a mystery. But in effect, we take the initiative to place ourselves at this hinge point because we believe that something wonderful happens when the two are brought together.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  55 Grace is thus the basis for a distinct set of supernatural or theological virtues. Whereas the moral virtues are based on reason in the soul, the supernatural virtues are based on sanctifying grace, which is a created supernatural form in the soul. One does have to be a Christian to have the three supernatural theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. Faith means speci ¿ cally faith in Christ. Hope means speci ¿ cally hope for eternal life in Christ. Charity means loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself. In addition to making supernatural virtues possible, sanctifying grace strengthens the moral virtues, such as prudence, justice, courage, and temperance. Sanctifying grace in itself is gratia gratum faciens, a grace that makes a person acceptable to God. Created supernatural grace is important at three stages of human existence. In the beginning, as “original righteousness,” it was the supernatural gift of righteousness that maintained the soul of Adam and Eve in sinless innocence before it was lost in the Fall. In the course of the Christian life, this grace is the basis of the three theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity. Ultimately, as the “light of glory,” it is the supernatural elevation of human nature that makes the beati¿ c vision possible. Ŷ Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, Question 13 (on analogy), found in Pegis’s Introduction to Thomas Aquinas as well as the complete edition of Summa Theologica. ———, Summa Theologica I–II (“First Part of the Second Part”), Question 110 (on grace as habit) found only in the complete edition of Summa Theologica. Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, chaps. 3, 4, 13, and 14. Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas. Suggested Reading 56 Lecture 16: Scholastic Theology 1. Is all speech about God non-literal—either analogical or metaphorical? 2. Why does Roman Catholic theology want to think of grace as a quality of the soul? Questions to Consider

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  129 speak of “concretely graced human nature” and point out that it is of this that the church fathers typically speak. Karl Rahner, perhaps the most inÀ uential Catholic theologian of the 20 th century, speaks of a “supernatural existential,” an offer of grace that is intrinsic not to human nature but to concrete human existence. The supernatural existential makes possible a turn to experience in Rahner’s theology, making him the fountainhead of Catholic Liberal theology. The ideas of de Lubac and Rahner were very inÀ uential in the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Pope John XXIII, who called the council, described its task as aggiornamiento (updating), bringing the church up to date. The central document of the council was the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (which begins with a reference to Christ as the “Light of the Nations”). Rejecting clericalism, the council de¿ ned the church as the people of God, not just the hierarchy. More deeply, the council described the church itself as a sacrament, a sign and instrument of communion with God and unity among human beings. The Pastoral Constitution on the church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes (“Joy and Hope”) made the church a sharer in the hopes and fears of the modern world. The council took a much more positive attitude than the Roman church earlier had toward the world, other churches, and other religions. Taking a strikingly different attitude than Pius IX a century earlier, the council af¿ rmed the right to religious freedom, based on the dignity of the human person. The council af¿ rmed that the Jews are not rejected by God, who does not take back the choice he has made. In a move that changed the Christian world, the council committed the Roman church to the ecumenical movement seeking to restore the unity of all the churches. The Roman church recognized other churches and ecclesial communities as genuinely Christian, describing them as “separated brethren” in real but imperfect communion with the true church, which “subsists in” the Roman Catholic church but also is present in some ways outside it. Ŷ Rejecting clericalism, the council de¿ ned the church as the people of God, not just the hierarchy. 130 Lecture 35: From Vatican I to Vatican II Decrees of Vatican I, in Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2, 234– 271; Creeds of the Churches, in Leith, 447–457 (contains only the decree on papal infallibility.) Flannery, Vatican Council II, “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (Lumen Gentium). ———, Vatican Council II, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes). Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, in Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2, 213–233. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith. 1. When you think of Catholicism, is it the Catholicism of Pius IX or the Catholicism of Vatican II that ¿ rst comes to mind? 2. How deep do you think is the difference between the two? Suggested Reading Questions to Consider

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  The publicity was nice, of course. The evening after we got back from the CHA office, Sadie’s face was all over the television. The press, smelling blood, discovered that another South Side project contained pipes lined with rotting asbestos. Aldermen began calling for immediate hearings. Lawyers called about a class-action suit. But it was away from all that, as we prepared for our meeting with the CHA director, that I began to see something wonderful happening. The parents began talking about ideas for future campaigns. New parents got involved. The block-by-block canvass we’d planned earlier was put into effect, with Linda and her swollen belly waddling door-to-door to collect complaint forms; Mr. Lucas, unable to read the forms himself, explaining to neighbors how to fill them out properly. Even those who’d opposed our efforts began to come around: Mrs. Reece agreed to cosponsor the event, and Reverend Johnson allowed some of his members to make an announcement at Sunday service. It was as though Sadie’s small, honest step had broken into a reservoir of hope, allowing people in Altgeld to reclaim a power they had had all along. The meeting was to be held in Our Lady’s gymnasium, the only building in Altgeld that could accommodate the three hundred people we hoped would turn up. The leaders arrived an hour early, and we went over our demands one last time—that a panel of residents work with CHA to assure containment of asbestos, and that CHA establish a firm timetable for making repairs. As we discussed a few last-minute details, Henry, the maintenance man, waved me over to the public address system. “What’s the matter?” “System’s dead. A short or something.” “So we don’t have a microphone?” “Not outta here. Gonna have to make do with this thing here.” He pointed to a solitary amplifier, the size of a small suitcase, with a loose microphone that hung by a single, frayed cord. Sadie and Linda came up beside me and stared down at the primitive box. “You’re joking,” Linda said. I tapped on the mike. “It’ll be okay. You guys will just have to speak up.” Then, looking down at the amp again, I said, “Try not to let the director hog the microphone, though. He’ll end up talking for hours. Just hold it up to him after you’ve asked the questions. You know, like Oprah.” “If nobody comes,” Sadie said, looking at her watch, “we won’t need no mike.” People came. From all across the Gardens, people came—senior citizens, teenagers, tots. By seven o’clock five hundred people had arrived; by seven-fifteen, seven hundred. TV crews began setting up cameras, and the local politicians on hand asked us for a chance to warm up the crowd. Marty, who had come to watch the event, could barely contain himself. “You’ve really got something here, Barack. These people are ready to move.”

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  It is a shadowy world within a world, deep and hidden from view. When the Hopi enter the kiva , they are entering a place of mystery. They are acknowledging that there is a power, a wisdom greater than our own intellect. As wise as our ancestors have been in putting together the intricate pieces of the puzzle we call life, they were still only stewards of the mystery of God. When the cloud comes down on the disciples, it does so to illustrate our spiritual blindness. The desire to keep God’s vision for ourselves is short-sighted. Only when we give up the desire to control the power of God do we truly understand our role in creation. The Hopi knew that human beings can make things better or we can make things worse. We can work with the katsinas or we can ignore them. We have free will and our choices matter. How we respect our traditions and attend to our rituals matters, but it does not elevate us above the Creator. We are the technicians of grace, not the source. We must always remember that we are living in this world, but there have been others in the past. There will be more in the future. This is our time, our moment of choice. The mystery of God is not ours to own, only to serve, which is why the Voice in the second vision quest of Jesus simply tells us to do what any good Hopi knows to do when it comes to God: be quiet and pay attention. Through all their years of suffering, the Hopi remained quiet, but they paid attention. They kept their eye on the vision of the transfiguration entrusted to their ancestors. They continued to perform the vital ceremonies that kept life in balance. They never forgot the katsinas and they never lost hope in the future of humanity. At the end of his second vision quest, Jesus comes to his friends and tells them, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” Those few words of strength are part of the vision because they represent what sustains human beings. The spirit of the Hopi could not be broken by the Spanish or in later years by other conquerors. I wish I could write an end to this chapter by saying that the Hopi threw off the yoke of their oppression and lived forever as free people, but that is not the case. In 1700, the Spanish returned. They forced the Pueblo people back into submission and they returned to their efforts to convert the Hopi to Christianity. Once again, the Hopi resisted. Generation after generation, they held on to their beliefs. Perhaps, in their own way, they whispered to one another: “get up, don’t be afraid.” By 1849 the Spanish had been supplanted by the Americans. Protestant and Mormon missionaries joined the Catholics. Still the Hopi resisted. By 1875 a boarding school was built to teach Hopi children.

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

  food Ru 2%; 0 (Bn?) bow Ex 16°(P), Lv 25” 26° (both H), ef. שי ;"78 שי לש‎ WEI... אָבל‎ Dt 23° eat grapes according to thine appetite, (namely) thy fill, cf. לש נַפשו‎ DON ו‎ satisfying abundance, ש' שָמָחות‎ y 16% ש' n.f. satiety ;—abs.‏ [שבעה] שבְעַָהז Ts 561+, estr. “nya Ez 16”, sf. qwnyay ys;‏ as to food, esp. “wy P38 eat to satiety, one’s‏ .1 of‏ ש' also Is 55? (fig.);‏ לֶש ;”39 fill, Is 235 Ez‏ leading to arrogance,‏ שלְחֶם dogs 56” (fig.);‏ ה ,8 .600 , גּאוּן +( 16% as sin of Sodom Ez‏ to carnal desire Ez 16% (fig-).‏ n.m. ""* * plenty, satiety ;—only‏ שבעז plenty, of bread-stuffs Gn 41404"‏ .1-- ; ש' abs.‏ a OS OE) OEE a 2. satiety, Ke 5".‏ adj. sated, satisfied, surfeited ;—‏ שבעז Dt 337+; fs.‏ שבע Gn 25° Pr 15; estr.‏ ש' abs.‏ nya’ Pr 277; mpl. Dyay 1 ₪ 2°;—1. a. sated‏ with food, c. D023 18 2°; MYA” WI Pr 2477 (opp.‏ Y2¥)‏ רְצו[) abounding in ’*’s favour‏ ;)2 רְעָבָה dn) ; abs. satisfied Prig*. b. in‏ | 3 כ Y2¥ satisfied with days, in a good old‏ יָמִים phr.‏ Ch 29%‏ 1 ,(זק] + age, Gn 35” (P), Jb 42” (both‏ also abs. YAY Gn 25°(P; +-2d.‏ ,)73%3 7210+( +jpt). 2. bad sense, surfeited with trouble,‏ ,10% ש' Tb 14%, ep‏ שבע 12 :66 mute et [שבר]‎ vb. inspect, examine (van d. 11 שבר‎ [so G ovrrpiBor |, but Mas.’ v. Norzi; hence connex. with Ar. jas probe a wound, try, examine,improb., and this(ace. to Fra?) denom, from Aram. loan-word ; improb. also is connex. with Aram. 12D think (cf. foll.), Kau *= ATS): __Qal Pt. (שבר‎ c. ב‎ obj, Ne 2° 1 ex- amined into the wall, inspected it closely. TIL. [שבר]‎ vb. Pi. wait, hope (Aramaism; ef. Aram. 2D think, Pa. hope; seo believe, hope, Pa. think, Aph. hope) ;—Pf. rs, May yi19', 3 pl. NY Est 91; 7707 3 mpl. 73 Is 3838, nav ד א‎ mae ;")סש‎ fpl. nyaen Ru r®;—1. wait for, ל‎ pers., Ru 1", 2. hope for, ל‎ rei ץ‎ 119", Os rei Is 38% ON pers. y 104% 145%; 5 inf. Est 9 hope to rule. / [שבר]‎ n.m. hope;— sf. שבָרִ'‎ 1% עַלדי"‎ nay 1468, Ww] vb. grow, grow great (Vv only in‏ א] Job; Aramaism; cf. Aram. %}D, 83D, loco, all‏ 960 שגיב increase, grow great; OAram. BAram, Palm. &(°)3vadj.mch);—Qal Impf. 3 ms.metapl. 830 Jb 8" (of plant; metapl. form Ges'”°; >van 6. H. 730), Hiph. 1. make great, pt. Sv לגוים‎ Jb 12” he maketh the nations great (v.5 3 b). 2. magnify, laud, 2 ms. פ9ל‎ NIWA Jb 36 that thou magnify his work.—Vid. .שגה‎ Trea adj. great ;—of God, abs, NY אל‎ Jb 36”; 0802. שנגִּיאהכה‎ 37%,

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

  Professor Brown is responsible for all articles and parts of articles not included in the above statements, as well as for the arrangement of the book and the general editorial oversight. The work has consumed a much longer time than was anticipated at the outset. Twenty-three years have passed since it was undertaken, and nearly fifteen since the issue of the First Part, in June, 1891. Several causes have prevented an earlier completion of it. Not only have the Editors been engaged in the active duties of their professorships, to which they were obliged to subordinate even so important a work as this, but they have more than once encountered serious interruptions from unforeseen circumstances of a personal nature. But, above all, the task itself has proved a greater one than they supposed it to be. The field has been large, the questions have been many, and often difficult, the consideration of usage, involved, as it is, with that of textual change and of fresh proposals in exegesis, has required an enormous amount of time; the study of etymologies is involved with masses of new material, rapidly increasing and as yet imperfectly published and digested; the critical discussion of the many related topics is of great extent and scattered through many books and periodicals. Even tentative conclusions can be reached often only through a careful weighing of facts yielded by prolonged investigation. And so the process has gone on year after year. The Editors are quite aware that the patience of purchasers has been put to a severe test. They would be glad to think that they may find in the result a partial compensation. They know, indeed, that this result is far from perfect. Their most earnest care has not been able to exclude errors; the First Part, in particular, was printed under unfavourable conditions, and the years since the earlier Parts were issued have brought new knowledge at many points. It was not possible, nor would it have been just to owners of these Parts, to make considerable changes in the plates. Such changes have been limited, almost wholly, to obvious misprints, and occasional errors in citation. A selected, and restricted, list of some of the more important ‘Addenda et Corrigenda’ is appended to the volume. The Editors venture to hope that in the future they may be able to utilize the additional material which is now in their hands. PREFACE xi A list of abbreviations was issued with Part I. This has been now revised and enlarged, and it is hoped that by its aid the abbreviations made necessary by the fullness of reference, on the one hand, and the requirements of space, on the other, will be quite intelligible.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  60 Lecture 17: The Sacraments Holy Orders or ordination, in the medieval and Roman Catholic understanding, confers a special power and character on those who receive it. It is one of three sacraments (the others being Baptism and Con ¿ rmation) which imprint an indelible mark or “character” on the soul. Only men who have received this character can consecrate the Eucharist and bestow sacramental absolution. Ŷ Catechism of the Catholic Church, pt. 2. Council of Trent, Decree on the Sacraments, in Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2, 118–198; an abridged version is in Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 425–439. Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, chap. 17. 1. Why do Catholics—unlike many Protestants—¿ nd the sacraments to be such an important part of the Christian life? 2. What is the point of the doctrine of transubstantiation? Suggested Reading Questions to Consider 61 Souls after Death Lecture 18 The Christian hope was not the hope of going to heaven with Jesus, but the hope of Christ coming from heaven to earth to establish the Kingdom of God on earth and restore all things and redeem the world and raise everyone from the dead. The hope was resurrection of the dead. That meant an undoing of death so that people who are corpses become living human beings again. T he theological concept of souls going to heaven developed to explain what happens in the interval between death and resurrection. The Christian hope of bodily resurrection leaves a gap or interim between when we die and when we are raised from the dead. In the New Testament, the dead are said to be “asleep,” as if resurrection is something like waking up. Believers who die are “with the Lord,” which must mean somehow with the exalted Lord Jesus at God’s right hand. Four interconnected philosophical concepts about the soul came to be used as a framework for explaining the state of the dead before the resurrection. One is the concept that a human being consists of body and soul; another is the concept that death is the separation of soul and body. Furthermore, there is the concept that the soul is by nature immortal, and there is the concept that good souls ultimately go to heaven. The crucial question was whether souls could be fully blessed before the resurrection. The one time the New Testament pictures souls in heaven, they are waiting for judgment day—they are not quite happy. Augustine hesitates to say disembodied souls are blessed by the full vision of God, because that would seem to make resurrection of the body superÀ uous. The issue was not fully settled in the West until 1336, when Pope Benedict XII declared that holy souls enjoy the beati¿ c vision before the resurrection. Jesus’s own interim between death and resurrection was elaborated in the doctrine of the harrowing of hell. There is a distinctively Christian understanding of what it means to say God died—not the Father or the Holy

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  It was twilight by the time we crossed the city line and pulled into the parking lot of a large suburban school, where crowds of people were already making their way into the auditorium. They appeared as Marty had described them: laid-off steelworkers, secretaries, and truck drivers, men and women who smoked a lot and didn’t watch their weight, shopped at Sears or Kmart, drove late-model cars from Detroit and ate at Red Lobster on special occasions. A barrel-chested black man in a cleric’s collar greeted us at the door and Marty introduced him as Deacon Wilbur Milton, copresident of the organization. With his short, reddish beard and round cheeks, the man reminded me of Santa Claus. “Welcome,” Will said, pumping my hand. “We been wondering when we’d actually get to meet you. Thought maybe Marty just made you up.” Marty peeked inside the auditorium. “How’s turnout looking?” “Good so far. Everybody seems to be making their quota. Governor’s people just called to say he’s on his way.” Marty and Will began walking toward the stage, their heads buried in the evening’s agenda. I started to follow them, but found my path blocked by three black women of indeterminate age. One of them, a pretty woman with orange-tinted hair, introduced herself as Angela, then leaned over to me and whispered, “You’re Barack, aren’t you?” I nodded. “You don’t know how glad we are to see you.” “You really don’t,” the older woman next to Angela said. I offered the woman my hand, and she smiled to show off a gold front tooth. “I’m sorry,” she said, taking my hand, “I’m Shirley.” She gestured toward the last woman, dark and heavyset. “This is Mona. Don’t he look clean-cut, Mona?” “Sure does,” Mona said with a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong,” Angela said, her voice still lowered a pitch. “I’ve got nothing against Marty. But the fact is, there’s only so far you can—” “Hey, Angela!” We looked up to see Marty waving at us from the stage. “You guys can talk to Barack all you want later. Right now I need all of you up here with me.” The women exchanged knowing looks before Angela turned back to me. “I guess we better get going,” she said. “But we really do have to talk. Soon.” “Sure do,” said Mona before the three of them walked away, Angela and Shirley busy chatting away in the front, Mona leisurely bringing up the rear.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  58,59,60 All of this was incredibly empowering for Colleen to learn. While she had before felt like she was predetermined to carry out the same harmful patterns as her aunt (indeed, about 30 percent of abused and neglected children go on to abuse their own children), she learned that she had the power to change the narrative. 61,62 It wasn’t just something to hope for: there were steps she could take to create direct outcomes that broke the generational cycle of abuse. In our work together, Colleen began practicing mindfulness on a regular basis to learn how to respond instead of react, especially when it came to refraining from impulsive behaviors. She integrated distress-tolerance skills as she began coping with her feelings rather than escaping them by cutting her arms. She developed a healthy sense of trust with others, learning how to let people in who earned her respect, rather than doing so solely because they gave her attention sexually. Colleen was changing her behaviors with intention, and slowly but surely, this was likely changing her biology in a biofeedback loop that was working for her in the best way. More than anything, I don’t want you to read this section of the book and believe that you are destined to be anxious. It’s not fated. We are not doomed to live a life of panic and worry just because it’s in our history. Our parents and the generations before them are part of our story. But they are not our entire story. Ultimately, you get to write this chapter. With the pen in your hand, it’s your responsibility to show up intentionally. We do not need to succumb to the narrative that it’s all just too much and that it’s beyond our power. That’s how systems of pain, trauma, and injustice perpetuate. And yes, let’s be real, these problems are bigger than you or I. They’re bigger than our parents and their parents. We are living in a world that is built on generations of pain, where there have been winners and losers, takers and victims. For hundreds of years, wounds have been ignored. It hasn’t been okay and it’s still not okay. If we’re going to face our anxiety and heal this intergenerational trauma, it’s got to be done on a collective level. Our systems—and our perspectives—need to change. We each can play our part in rebuilding these broken systems by helping more than ourselves. When I say that anxiety can make us selfish, this is what I mean. Our worries can pull us in so deeply that all we can see is ourselves and our personal problems. Our empathy is shattered because it’s shrouded by the cloud of a scarcity mindset. We think we don’t have enough to keep ourselves safe so we rarely look out to see how we could help a neighbor.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Although the historic context of the two movements is very different, a comparison of early Christianity and the Ghost Dance has much to teach us about the authority of the vision quest in human life. There is a spiritual magma that increases when people are oppressed, a critical mass of hope that builds up beneath the surface. The outlet for that stress is the messiah figure who can offer a vision of renewal. And once people have taken hold of that vision it is very difficult to take it from them. In other words, the human desire to find fulfillment through the vision quest remains strong within us. It is a desire that transcends cultural and religious histories and, above all, it is a longing to complete the vision quest, not just as a person, but as a people. In this way the experience of the first Christians and the experience of the Ghost Dancers is very much the same. In both cases even martyrdom could not erase the spiritual bond that held them to their vision. The vision quest on which they embarked went deep within them and allowed them to preserve their sense of community, even when it had to survive underground. Early Christians continued their practice of the Eucharist in the catacombs. Ghost Dancers continued their traditions in the hidden corners of the reservations. Both continued to understand themselves as the inheritors of a sacred vision. Their task was to keep it alive, to pass it on, and to keep believing against all odds. Faith in God sustained both communities. Even after their original message bearers, Jesus or Wovoka, were gone, the vision quest continued. At the turn of the century, Native people were described as the “Vanishing Americans.” The aftermath of Wounded Knee convinced the dominant society that Native American tribes would soon wither under enforced assimilation. Their languages would disappear; their culture would melt away; but that did not happen. Traditions that were prohibited continued. Despite a level of oppression that I described as “ten times worse” than what Rome could administer, Native American culture and religion survived. The reason why is hidden in the vision of the Ghost Dance. A strange little footnote to the story occurred in 1924. A silent movie star, Tim McCoy, brought an old man in his limousine to visit the set of one of his Westerns. The man was Wovoka.6 Wood Cutter had lived in relative obscurity after the suppression of his dance. He had been reviled in the press and kept under surveillance by the government, but eventually he was no longer deemed a threat. He was left to live out his days as a failed prophet in the Nevada desert. Aficionados of Western history did not forget him entirely, however, and so Wovoka found himself invited to see how Hollywood was recreating the world he and Black Elk knew before it totally vanished.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  During these rallies, knights were forced to swear, on pain of excommunication, that they would stop tormenting the poor: I will not carry off either ox or cow or any other beast of burden; I will seize neither peasant nor merchant; I will not take from them their pence, nor oblige them to ransom themselves; and I will not beat them to obtain their subsistence. I will seize neither horse, mare nor colt from their pasture; I will not destroy or burn their houses. 31 At these peace councils the bishops insisted that anyone who killed his fellow Christians “spills the blood of Christ.” 32 They now also introduced the Truce of God, forbidding fighting from Wednesday evening to Monday morning each week in memory of Christ’s days of passion, death, and resurrection. Although peace became a reality for a specific period of time, it could not be maintained without coercion. The bishops were able to enforce the Peace and the Truce only by forming “peace militias.” Anyone who broke the Truce, explained the chronicler Raoul Glaber (c. 985–1047), “was to pay for it with his life or be driven from his own country and the company of his fellow-Christians.” 33 These peacekeeping forces helped to make knightly violence a genuine “service” ( militia ) of God, equal to the priestly and monastic vocation. 34 The Peace movement spread throughout France, and by the end of the eleventh century, there is evidence that a significant number of knights had indeed been converted to a more “religious” lifestyle and regarded their military duties as a form of lay monasticism. 35 But for Pope Gregory VII, one of the leading reformers of the day, knighthood could be a holy vocation only if it fought to preserve the libertas of the Church. He therefore tried to recruit kings and aristocrats into his own Militia of St. Peter to fight the Church’s enemies—and it was with this militia that he intended to fight his “crusade.” In his letters he linked the ideals of brotherly love for the beleaguered Eastern Christians and liberatio of the church with military aggression. But very few laymen joined his militia. 36 Why indeed would they, since it was clearly designed to enhance the power of the Church at the expense of the bellatores? The popes had blessed the predatory violence of the Carolingians because it had enabled the Church to survive. But as Gregory had learned in his struggle with Henry IV, warriors were no longer willing simply to protect the Church’s privileges. This political struggle for power between popes and emperors would inform the religiously inspired violence of the Crusading period; both sides were competing for political supremacy in Europe, and that meant gaining the monopoly of violence. In 1074 Gregory’s crusade had no takers; twenty years later, the response from the laity would be very different.

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Johnnie smiled gently. “Ain’t nobody gonna get the wrong idea, Barack. Man, we’re just proud to see you succeed.” The sun was now slipping behind a cloud; a couple of the old cardplayers pulled on the windbreakers they had hung on the backs of their chairs. I lit a cigarette and tried to decipher that conversation with Johnnie. Had he doubted my intentions? Or was it just me that mistrusted myself? It seemed like I had gone over my decision at least a hundred times. I needed a break, that was for sure. I wanted to go to Kenya: Auma was already back in Nairobi, teaching at the university for a year; it would be an ideal time for an extended visit. And I had things to learn in law school, things that would help me bring about real change. I would learn about interest rates, corporate mergers, the legislative process; about the way businesses and banks were put together; how real estate ventures succeeded or failed. I would learn power’s currency in all its intricacy and detail, knowledge that would have compromised me before coming to Chicago but that I could now bring back to where it was needed, back to Roseland, back to Altgeld; bring it back like Promethean fire. That’s the story I had been telling myself, the same story I imagined my father telling himself twenty-eight years before, as he had boarded the plane to America, the land of dreams. He, too, had probably believed he was acting out some grand design, that he wasn’t simply fleeing from possible inconsequence. And, in fact, he had returned to Kenya, hadn’t he? But only as a divided man, his plans, his dreams, soon turned to dust ….

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  The change that once felt impossible, probable at best, was now in plain sight. [image file=Image00027.jpg] Where are you and I headed? We’re aiming for one step beyond even that. Based on Paul’s writings long ago to the church in Rome, you and I can learn to mind our minds to the point that controlling our thoughts becomes reflexive—an automatic, intuitive response. In Romans 8:5 Paul said that “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh” and that “those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” He went on: To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.7 I have read and reread this passage in the past few months, mulling over how life would be if I could truly have a mind that dwells on the Spirit. A mind that is full of life and peace. A mind that consistently thinks about God—who He is and what He wants for me. I so desperately want the “perfect peace” God promises when my mind is fixed on Him.8 Again, not perfectly but more regularly thinking this way. I want to be so well versed in the patterns of thinking in line with the Spirit that my default is not to rely on the flesh but on the Spirit in everything. This is the goal of our deliberate interruptions: we abruptly stop the crazy spirals of our minds. As we practice the art of interruption, we’re shifting to a whole new mind-set, and with each shift we will find ourselves growing more and more into the mind of Christ. When we’re spiraling in noise or distractedness, we have a choice to shift our minds back to God through stillness. When we’re spiraling in isolation, we have a choice to shift our minds back to God through community. When we’re spiraling in anxiety, we have a choice to shift our minds back to God through trust in His good and sovereign purposes.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  I’m not making this up. From the time you think a thought to that thought having physiologically, scientifically, indisputably changed your brain, ten minutes have elapsed. 6 Your singular thought has enhanced some neural circuits and caused others to die off. It has awakened some neurons and allowed others to drift to sleep. It has built an entire microtubular city in some parts of your mind and left others a total ghost town. All from one simple thought. Now, there are two ways to look at this information I’ve just given you. One way leaves us terrified and distressed: If I think even one negative thought, I could wreck my whole brain in ten minutes flat? I guess that is technically true. But before you spiral into despair, let’s consider the other way. If you have made a habit of thinking negative thoughts, you’re only ten minutes away from a fresh start. Pull out the mind map you created at the beginning of this book. Would your map be the same if you mapped your thoughts today? Have you noticed the thoughts you are thinking? Have you started to interrupt them by remembering you have a choice? Are your spirals shorter and fewer? With each positive choice made—choosing stillness instead of distraction, for example, or community instead of isolation, or surrender instead of anxiety—we are training ourselves to use the mind of Christ that we have. The more we make these positive choices, the more reflexive that approach becomes. We said that at first such a shift is possible through consciously, deliberately interrupting our spirals. But as we practice more, that shift becomes probable and then predictable and then utterly instinctive to us. Eventually we get to the place where we don’t even realize we’re interrupting our negative thinking in order to choose mind-of-Christ thinking, because the impulse has become so ingrained. I liken it to cutting a road in the woods. At first the path is marked by flattened leaves on foot-worn soil. But over time the demand for that path will cause someone to come in and lay gravel on top of the dirt and then pour cement on top of that gravel and then put in mile-marker signs and streetlights at regular intervals along the way. Eventually the path is so clear cut, it would be senseless to take another route. That path is just the path you always take. That path keeps in step with God’s Spirit. That path is the way of constant surrender. That path is the way of abundant humility. That path is the way of full reliance on Jesus, with every step, for every moment. Training ourselves to take the path in our thinking is crucial because when the