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 Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (1) We learn that, even if these people to whom he is writing have failed to grow up in Christian faith and knowledge, and even if they have been falling away from their first enthusiasm, they have never given up their practical service to their fellow Christians. There is a great practical truth here. Sometimes, in the Christian life, we come to times which are arid; the church services have nothing to say to us, the teaching that we do in Sunday School or the singing that we do in the choir or the service we give on a committee becomes a labour without joy. At such a time, there are two alternatives. We can give up our worship and our service; but, if we do, we are lost. Or we can go determinedly on with them, and the strange thing is that the light and the attractiveness and the joy will in time come back again. In the arid times, the best thing to do is to go on with the habits of the Christian life and of the Church. If we do, we can be sure that the sun will shine again. (2) He tells his people to be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. What he is saying to them is: ‘You are not the first to launch out on the glories and the perils of the Christian faith. Others braved the dangers and endured the tribulations before you and won through.’ He is telling them to go on in the realization that others have gone through their struggle and won the victory. Christians are not treading an untrodden pathway; they are treading where the saints have trod. THE SURE HOPEHebrews 6:13–20 When God made his promise to Abraham, since he was not able to swear by anyone greater, he swore by himself. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘I will bless you and I will multiply you.’ When Abraham had thus exercised patience, he received the promise. Men swear by someone who is greater than themselves; and an oath serves for a guarantee beyond all possibility of contradiction. But on this occasion God, in his quite exceptional desire to make clear to the heirs of the promise the unalterable character of his intention, interposed with an oath, so that by two unalterable things, in which it is impossible that God should lie, we, who have fled to him for refuge, might be strongly encouraged to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. This hope is to us like an anchor, safe and sure, and it enters with us into the inner court beyond the veil, where Jesus has already entered as a forerunner for us, when he became a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  O NE thing links these three examples of faith together. In each case, it was the faith of someone to whom death was very near. The blessing which Isaac gave is in Genesis 27:28– 9, 39–40. Given after Isaac had said: ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death’ (Genesis 27:2), it was: ‘May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.’ The blessing of Jacob is given in Genesis 48:9–22. The story has just said that ‘the time of Israel’s death drew near’ (Genesis 47:29). The blessing was: ‘In them let my name be perpetuated, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude on the earth’ (Genesis 48:16). The incident from the life of Joseph comes from Genesis 50:22–6. When Joseph was near to death, he made the Israelites take an oath that they would not leave his bones in Egypt but would take them with them when they went out to possess the promised land, which in due course they did (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). The point which the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make is that all three men died without having entered into the promise that God had made, the promise of the promised land and of greatness to the nation of Israel. Isaac was still a nomad, Jacob was an exile in Egypt, Joseph had attained to greatness but it was the greatness of a stranger in a strange land; and yet they never doubted that the promise would come true. They died not in despair but in hope. Their faith defeated death. There is something of permanent greatness here. The thought in the minds of all these men was the same: ‘God’s promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. I may not live to see it, death may come to me before that promise becomes a fact; but I am a link in its fulfilment. Whether or not that promise comes depends on me.’ Here is the great function of life. Our hopes may never become reality, but we must live in such a way that we shall hasten their coming.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The wise will pass over it but will not build a house upon it.’ Christians regard themselves as the pilgrims of eternity. (2) In spite of everything, these men never lost their vision and their hope. However long that hope might be in coming true, its light always shone in their eyes. However long the way might be, they never stopped tramping along it. Robert Louis Stevenson said: ‘It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.’ They never wearily gave up the journey; they lived in hope and died in expectation. (3) In spite of everything, they never wanted to go back. Their descendants, when they were in the desert, often expressed a wish to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt. But not the patriarchs. They had begun, and it never struck them to turn back. In flying, there is what is called the point of no return . When the aircraft has reached that point, it cannot go back . Its fuel supply has reached such a level that there is no option but to go on. One of the tragedies of life is the number of people who turn back just a little too soon. One further effort, a little more waiting, a little more hoping, would make the dream come true. Immediately a Christian has set out on some enterprise sent by God, he or she should feel that the point of no return has already been passed. (4) These men were able to go on because they were haunted by the things beyond. People with the urge to travel are lured on by the thought of the countries they have not yet seen. Great artists or composers are driven by the thought of the performance they have not yet given and the wonder they have not yet produced. Robert Louis Stevenson tells of an old farmworker who spent all his days amid the muck of the cowshed. Someone asked him if he never got tired of it all. He answered: ‘He that has something ayont [beyond] need never weary.’ These men had the something beyond – and so may we. (5) Because these men were what they were, God was not ashamed to be called their God. Above all things, he is the God of the brave adventurer. He loves the person who is ready to venture for his name. The prudent, comfort-loving individual is the very opposite of God. The one who goes out into the unknown and keeps going on will in the end arrive at God. THE SUPREME SACRIFICE Hebrews 11:17–19 It was by faith that Abraham offered up Isaac when he was put to the test. He was willing to offer up even his only son, although it had been said to him: ‘It is in Isaac that your descendants will be named.’ He was willing to do this, for he reckoned that God was able to raise him even from the dead.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  Here, however, is how the Kingdom of God is more fully described in other eschatological descriptions within the earlier biblical tradition. “No One Shall Make Them Afraid”THE EXPECTATION OF THE Kingdom of God was not original with Daniel 7. Israel had long believed in an eventual great Divine Cleanup of the World, an Extreme Makeover: World Edition, in which justice and peace would replace injustice and violence. The biblical tradition marched inevitably to this chanted mantra: God will overcome—someday. Here are some earlier biblical equivalents to the Kingdom of God, and I insist that the vision, however it is named, is always about a renewed creation here below heaven in a radically changed world: 1. The Harvest of God The time is surely coming, says the Lord when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. (Amos 9:13) 2. The Feast of God On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. (Isa. 25:6–8) 3. The Community of God In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Mic. 4:1–2 = Isa. 2:2–3; see also Zech. 8:20–23) 4. The Peace of God i. Between animals The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (Isa. 11:6–7) ii. Between animals and humans The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Isa. 11:8–9) iii.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Bailey and I tore the stuffing out of the doll the day after Christmas, but he warned me that I had to keep the tea set in good condition because any day or night she might come riding up.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  ONE thing links these three examples of faith together. In each case, it was the faith of someone to whom death was very near. The blessing which Isaac gave is in Genesis 27:28– 9, 39–40. Given after Isaac had said: ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death’ (Genesis 27:2), it was: ‘May God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you.’ The blessing of Jacob is given in Genesis 48:9–22. The story has just said that ‘the time of Israel’s death drew near’ (Genesis 47:29). The blessing was: ‘In them let my name be perpetuated, and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude on the earth’ (Genesis 48:16). The incident from the life of Joseph comes from Genesis 50:22–6. When Joseph was near to death, he made the Israelites take an oath that they would not leave his bones in Egypt but would take them with them when they went out to possess the promised land, which in due course they did (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). The point which the writer to the Hebrews wishes to make is that all three men died without having entered into the promise that God had made, the promise of the promised land and of greatness to the nation of Israel. Isaac was still a nomad, Jacob was an exile in Egypt, Joseph had attained to greatness but it was the greatness of a stranger in a strange land; and yet they never doubted that the promise would come true. They died not in despair but in hope. Their faith defeated death. There is something of permanent greatness here. The thought in the minds of all these men was the same: ‘God’s promise is true, for he never breaks a promise. I may not live to see it, death may come to me before that promise becomes a fact; but I am a link in its fulfilment. Whether or not that promise comes depends on me.’ Here is the great function of life. Our hopes may never become reality, but we must live in such a way that we shall hasten their coming. It may not be given to everyone to enter into the fullness of the promises of God, but it is given to every one of us to live with such faithfulness as to bring nearer the day when others will enter into it. To all of us is given the tremendous task of helping God make his promises come true. FAITH AND ITS SECRETHebrews 11:23–9

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  The ability to destroy one’s enemies by “word” alone is a transcendental ability akin to the creative word of God in Genesis 1. The other example is from a Dead Sea Scroll fragment found in Cave 4 at Qumran: He [the Messiah] will be called Son of God, and they will call him Son of the Most High. Like sparks of a vision, so will their Kingdom be; they will rule several years over the earth and crush everything; a people will crush another people, and a city another city. Until the people of God arises [or: until he raises up the people of God] and makes everyone rest from the sword. His Kingdom will be an eternal Kingdom, and all his paths in truth and uprightness. The earth will be in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease in the earth, and all the cities will pay him homage. He is a great god among the gods [or: the great God will be his strength]. He will make war with him; he will place the peoples in his hand and cast away everyone before him. His Kingdom will be an eternal Kingdom. Once again, if God “will make war” with this Messiah, he is hardly a pacifist. But with a transcendental figure, one could still wonder how exactly that “rest from the sword” would be accomplished. Granted all that, one point, mentioned already in the preceding chapter, needs emphatic repetition. Israel against Rome was never simply the standard conflict of the conquered against the conqueror, a colony against an empire. Instead, it was a clash between eschatological visions as Israel proclaimed a still-future Golden Age and Rome an already-present Golden Age. A just, peaceful, and nonviolent world was the still-future eschaton for Israel but the already-present empire for Rome. By the first century CE , it was for many in the Jewish homeland a time of choice between Roman and Jewish versions of that fifth and final Kingdom of Earth. It was, for many, a time for courageous decision between God and Rome, between fidelity and infidelity to covenantal law. Finally, therefore, this question presses: How precisely was the ruling style of God different from that of Rome; how exactly were God’s justice and peace different from those of Rome? If, as was certainly the case, the Pax Romana was established by war and conquest, violence and victory, was the Pax Divina to be established by similar but far, far superior force? Enter John and Jesus in the next chapter. Where Are We Now and What Comes Next?I THINK, AND NOT just with easy hindsight, that any Jewish teachers or thinkers, sages or prophets in early-first-century Roman Israel who did not wonder how to react to Roman imperialism failed their history, their tradition, their covenant, and their God. Reaction could be a withdrawal or a participation, an acceptance or a resistance, violence or nonviolence.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Part 2, Trans Women, Femininity, and Feminism, brings together my experiences and observations—pre-, during, and post-transition—to discuss the many ways fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape societal attitudes toward trans women and influence the way trans women often come to view ourselves. In the last two chapters of this section, I bring together several of the main themes in this book to suggest new directions for gender-based activism. In chapter 19, “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism,” I make the case that feminist activism and theory would be best served by working to empower and embrace femininity, rather than eschewing or deriding it, as it often has in the past. Such an approach would allow feminism to both incorporate transgender perspectives and reach out to the countless feminine-identified women who have felt alienated by the movement in the past. And in chapter 20, “The Future of Queer/Trans Activism,” I show how certain taken-for-granted beliefs and assumptions that are prevalent in contemporary queer and transgender theory and politics ensure that trans women’s perspectives and issues will continue to take a back seat to those of other queers and transgender people. I argue that, rather than focusing on “shattering the gender binary”—a strategy that invariably pits gender-conforming and non-gender-conforming people against one another—we work to challenge all forms of gender entitlement (i.e., when a person privileges their own perceptions, interpretations, and evaluations of other people’s genders over the way those people understand themselves). After all, the one thing that all forms of sexism share—whether they target females, queers, transsexuals, or others—is that they all begin with placing assumptions and value judgments onto other people’s gendered bodies and behaviors. Trans Woman Manifesto THIS MANIFESTO CALLS FOR the end of the scapegoating, deriding, and dehumanizing of trans women everywhere. For the purposes of this manifesto, trans woman is defined as any person who was assigned a male sex at birth, but who identifies as and/or lives as a woman. No qualifications should be placed on the term “trans woman” based on a person’s ability to “pass” as female, her hormone levels, or the state of her genitals—after all, it is downright sexist to reduce any woman (trans or otherwise) down to her mere body parts or to require her to live up to certain societally dictated ideals regarding appearance.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The unleavened bread had to be made; the Passover lamb had to be slain; the doorpost had to be smeared with the blood of the lamb so that the Angel of Death would see the blood and pass over that house and not slay the first-born in it. But the really amazing thing is that, according to the Exodus story, Moses not only made these regulations for the night on which the children of Israel were leaving Israel; he also laid it down that they were to be observed annually for all time . That is to say, he never doubted the success of the enterprise, never doubted that the people would be delivered from Egypt and that some day they would reach the promised land. Here was a band of wretched Israelite slaves about to set off on a journey across an unknown desert to an unknown promised land, and here was the whole power of Egypt hot upon their heels; yet Moses never doubted that God would bring them safely through. He was supremely the man who had the faith that, if God gave his people an order, he would also give them the strength to carry it out. Moses knew very well that God does not summon his servants to a difficult and challenging task and leave it at that; he goes with them every step of the way. (5) There was the momentous act of the crossing of the Red Sea. The story is told in Exodus 14. There, we read of how the children of Israel were wondrously enabled to pass through and of how the Egyptians were engulfed when they tried to do the same. It was at that moment that the faith of Moses communicated itself to the people and drove them on when they might well have turned back. Here, we have the faith of a leader and of a people who were prepared to attempt the impossible at the command of God, realizing that the greatest barrier in the world is no barrier if God is there to help us to get over it. Moses possessed the faith to attempt what appeared to be the most insurmountable barriers, in the certainty that God would help the one who refused to turn back and insisted on going on. Finally, this passage not only tells us of the faith of Moses; it also tells us of the source of that faith . Verse 27 tells us that he was able to face all things as one who sees the God who is invisible. The outstanding characteristic of Moses was the close intimacy of his relationship with God. In Exodus 33:9–11, we read of how he went into the tabernacle: ‘Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.’

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The wisest person is a fool in the sight of God; and the strongest person is weak in the moment of temptation. There is no one who can live the Christian life and neglect the fellowship of the Church. If people feel that they can do so, let them remember that they come to church not only to get but also to give . If they think that the Church has faults, it is their duty to come in and help to correct them. (3) We must encourage one another . One of the highest of human duties is that of encouragement. There is a regulation in the Royal Navy which says: ‘No officer shall speak discouragingly to another officer in the discharge of duties.’ Eliphaz unwillingly paid Job a great tribute. As Moffatt translates it: ‘Your words have kept men on their feet’ (Job 4:4). The writer J. M. Barrie somewhere wrote to Cynthia Asquith, the wife of the Liberal statesman: ‘Your first instinct is always to telegraph to Jones the nice thing Brown said about him to Robinson. You have sown a lot of happiness that way.’ It is easy to laugh at people’s ideals, to pour cold water on their enthusiasm, to discourage them. The world is full of discouragers; we have a Christian duty to encourage one another. So many times, words of praise or thanks or appreciation or cheer have kept people on their feet. Blessed are those who speak such words. Finally, the writer to the Hebrews says that our Christian duty to each other is all the more pressing because the time is short. The day is approaching. He is thinking of the second coming of Christ when things as we know them will be ended. The early Church lived in that expectation. Whether or not we still do, we must realize that none of us knows when the summons to rise and go will come to us also. In the time we have, it is our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can. THE DANGER OF DRIFTING Hebrews 10:32–9 Remember the former days. Remember how, after you had been enlightened, you had to go through a hard struggle of suffering, partly because you yourselves were held up to insult and involved in affliction and partly because you had become partners with people whose life was like that. For you gave your sympathy to those in prison; you accepted the pillaging of your goods with joy; for you knew that you yourselves hold a possession which is better and which lasts. Do not throw away your confidence, for it is a confidence that has a great reward. You need fortitude so that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  In the two short blocks before it reached its destination, the street housed two day-and-night restaurants, two pool halls, four Chinese restaurants, two gambling houses, plus diners, shoeshine shops, beauty salons, barber shops and at least four churches. To fully grasp the never-ending activity in San Francisco's Negro neighborhood during the war, one need only know that the two blocks described were side streets that were duplicated many times over in the eight-to ten-square-block area. The air of collective displacement, the impermanence of life in wartime and the gauche personalities of the more recent arrivals tended to dissipate my own sense of not belonging. In San Francisco, for the first time, I perceived myself as part of something. Not that I identified with the newcomers, nor with the rare Black descendants of native San Franciscans, nor with the whites or even the Asians, but rather with the times and the city. I understood the arrogance of the young sailors who marched the streets in marauding gangs, approaching every girl as if she were at best a prostitute and at worst an Axis agent bent on making the U.S.A. lose the war. The undertone of fear that San Francisco would be bombed which was abetted by weekly air raid warnings, and civil defense drills in school, heightened my sense of belonging. Hadn't I, always, but ever and ever, thought that life was just one great risk for the living? Then the city acted in wartime like an intelligent woman under siege. She gave what she couldn't with safety withheld, and secured those things which lay in her reach. The city became for me the ideal of what I wanted to be as a grownup. Friendly but never gushing, cool but not frigid or distant, distinguished without the awful stiffness. To San Franciscans “the City That Knows How” was the Bay, the fog, Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Top o' the Mark, Chinatown, the Sunset District and so on and so forth and so white. To me, a thirteen-year-old Black girl, stalled by the South and Southern Black life style, the city was a state of beauty and a state of freedom. The fog wasn't simply the steamy vapors off the bay caught and penned in by hills, but a soft breath of anonymity that shrouded and cushioned the bashful traveler. I became dauntless and free of fears, intoxicated by the physical fact of San Francisco. Safe in my protecting arrogance, I was certain that no one loved her as impartially as I. I walked around the Mark Hopkins and gazed at the Top o' the Mark, but (maybe sour grapes) was more impressed by the view of Oakland from the hill than by the tiered building or its fur-draped visitors. For weeks, after the city and I came to terms about my belonging, I haunted the points of interest and found them empty and un-San Francisco.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Woooh, oh Charity.” Another holler went up in front of me, and a large woman flopped over, her arms above her head like a candidate for baptism. The emotional release was contagious. Little screams burst around the room like Fourth of July firecrackers. The minister's voice was a pendulum. Swinging left and down and right and down and left and—“How can you claim to be my brother, and hate me? Is that Charity? How can you claim to be my sister and despise me? Is that supposed to be Charity? How can you claim to be my friend and misuse and wrongfully abuse me? Is that Charity? Oh, my children, I stopped by here—” The church swung on the end of his phrases. Punctuating. Confirming. “Stop by here, Lord.” “-to tell you, to open your heart and let Charity reign. Forgive your enemies for His sake. Show the Charity that Jesus was speaking of to this sick old world. It has need of the charitable giver.” His voice was falling and the explosions became fewer and quieter. “And now I repeat the words of the Apostle Paul, ‘and now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity’” The congregation lowed with satisfaction. Even if they were society's pariahs, they were going to be angels in a marble white heaven and sit on the right hand of Jesus, the son of God. The Lord loved the poor and hated those cast high in the world. Hadn't He Himself said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven? They were assured that they were going to be the only inhabitants of that land of milk and honey, except of course a few whitefolks like John Brown who history books said was crazy anyway. All the Negroes had to do generally, and those at the revival especially, was bear up under this life of toil and cares, because a blessed home awaited them in the far-off by and by. “By and by, when the morning come, when all the saints of God's are gathering home, we will tell the story of how we overcome and we'll understand it better bye and bye.” A few people who had fainted were being revived on the side aisles when the evangelist opened the doors of the church. Over the sounds of “Thank you, Jesus,” he started a long-meter hymn: “I came to Jesus, as I was, worried, wounded and sad, I found in Him a resting place, And He has made me glad.” The old ladies took up the hymn and shared it in tight harmony. The humming crowd began to sound like tired bees, restless and anxious to get home. “All those under the sound of my voice who have no spiritual home, whose hearts are burdened and heavy-ladened, let them come. Come before it's too late.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The senses say to us: ‘Take what you can touch and taste and handle and enjoy.’ As the poet Robert Herrick wrote in ‘Hesperides’: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The senses tell us to grasp the thing of the moment; the spirit tells us that there is something far beyond that. Christians believe in the spirit rather than the senses. (3) The Christian hope is belief in the future against the present . Long ago, the Greek philosopher Epicurus said the chief purpose of life was pleasure. But he did not mean what so many people think he meant. He insisted that we must take the long view. The thing which is pleasant at the moment may sooner or later bring pain; the thing which at present hurts like fury may eventually bring joy. Christians are certain that in the long run no one can put aside the truth, for ‘great is truth, and in the end she will prevail’. It looked as if his judges had eliminated Socrates and as if Pilate had crushed Christ; but the verdict of the future reversed the verdict of the moment. The American Baptist preacher and author, Harry Emerson Fosdick, pointed out that Nero once condemned Paul, but the years have passed on and the time has come when people call their sons Paul and their dogs Nero. It is easy to argue: ‘Why should I refuse the pleasure of the moment for an uncertain future?’ The Christian answer is that the future is not uncertain because it belongs to God; and it is enough that God has commanded and that God has promised . The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say that it was precisely because the great heroes of the faith lived on that principle that they were approved by God. Every one of them refused what the world calls greatness and staked everything on God – and history proved them right. The writer to the Hebrews goes further. He says that it is an act of faith to believe that God made this world, and adds that the things which are seen emerged from the things which are not seen. This was aiming a blow at the prevailing belief that God created the world out of existing matter which, being necessarily imperfect, meant that from the beginning this was an imperfect world. The writer to the Hebrews insists that God did not work with existing material but created the world from nothing.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “That's right, Lord.” “-if giving my flesh and blood is not charity?” “Yes, Lord.” “I have to ask myself what is this charity they talking so much about.” I had never heard a preacher jump into the muscle of his sermon so quickly. Already the humming pitch had risen in the church, and those who knew had popped their eyes in anticipation of the coming excitement. Momma sat tree-trunk still, but she had balled her handkerchief in her hand and only the corner, which I had embroidered, stuck out. “As I understand it, charity vaunteth not itself. Is not puffed up.” He blew himself up with a deep breath to give us the picture of what Charity was not. “Charity don't go around saying ‘I give you food and I give you clothes and by rights you ought to thank me.’” The congregation knew whom he was talking about and voiced agreement with his analysis. “Tell the truth, Lord.” “Charity don't say, ‘Because I give you a job, you got to bend your knee to me.’” The church was rocking with each phrase. “It don't say, ‘Because I pays you what you due, you got to call me master.’ It don't ask me to humble myself and belittle myself. That ain't what Charity is.” Down front to the right, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, who only a few hours earlier had crumbled in our front yard, defeated by cotton rows, now sat on the edges of their rickety-rackety chairs. Their faces shone with the delight of their souls. The mean whitefolks was going to get their comeuppance. Wasn't that what the minister said, and wasn't he quoting from the words of God Himself? They had been refreshed with the hope of revenge and the promise of justice. “Aaagh. Raagh. I said … Charity. Woooooo, a Charity. It don't want nothing for itself. It don't want to be boss-man … Waah … It don't want to be headman … Waah … It don't want to be foreman … Waah … It … I'm talking about Charity … It don't want … Oh Lord … help me tonight … It don't want to be bowed to and scraped at …” America's historic bowers and scrapers shifted easily and happily in the makeshift church. Reassured that although they might be the lowest of the low they were at least not uncharitable, and “in that great Gettin' Up Morning, Jesus was going to separate the sheep (them) from the goats (the whitefolks).” “Charity is simple.” The church agreed, vocally. “Charity is poor.” That was us he was talking about. “Charity is plain.” I thought, that's about right. Plain and simple. “Charity is … Oh, Oh, Oh. Cha-ri-ty Where are you? Wooo … Charity … Hump.” One chair gave way and the sound of splintering wood split the air in the rear of the church. “I call you and you don't answer.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  We had a very fruitful discussion”—he chose his words with the precision of a Sunday school teacher—“She understands completely. There is a time in every man's life when he must push off from the wharf of safety into the sea of chance … Anyway, she is arranging with a friend of hers in Oakland to get me on the Southern Pacific. Maya, it's just a start. I'll begin as a dining-car waiter and then a steward, and when I know all there is to know about that, I'll branch out … The future looks good. The Black man hasn't even begun to storm the battlefronts. I'm going for broke myself.” His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol and age, but his face believed the freshness of his words, and I had no heart nor art to drag him back to the reeking reality of our life and times. Whores were lying down first and getting up last in the room next door. Chicken suppers and gambling games were rioting on a twenty-four-hour basis downstairs. Sailors and soldiers on their doom-lined road to war cracked windows and broke locks for blocks around, hoping to leave their imprint on a building or in the memory of a victim. A chance to be perpetrated. Bailey sat wrapped in his decision and anesthetized by youth. If I'd had any suggestion to make I couldn't have penetrated his unlucky armor. And, most regrettable, I had no suggestion to make . “I'm your sister, and whatever I can do, I'll do it.” “Maya, don't worry about me. That's all I want you to do. Don't worry. I'll be okey-dokey.” I left his room because, and only because, we had said all we could say. The unsaid words pushed roughly against the thoughts that we had no craft to verbalize, and crowded the room to uneasiness.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The greatest barrier preventing us from fully challenging sexism is the pervasive antifeminine sentiment that runs wild in both the straight and queer communities, targeting people of all genders and sexualities. The only realistic way to address this issue is to work toward empowering femininity itself. We must rightly recognize that feminine expression is strong, daring, and brave—that it is powerful—and not in an enchanting, enticing, or supernatural sort of way, but in a tangible, practical way that facilitates openness, creativity, and honest expression. We must move beyond seeing femininity as helpless and dependent, or merely as masculinity’s sidekick, and instead acknowledge that feminine expression exists of its own accord and brings its own rewards to those who naturally gravitate toward it. By embracing femininity, feminism will finally be able to reach out to the vast majority of feminine women who have felt alienated by the movement in the past. The movement would also be able to reach those who are not female (whether male and/or transgender) who regularly face effemimania or trans-misogyny, but who have not been able to seek refuge or have a voice in the feminist movements of the past. Indeed, a feminist movement that encompasses both those who are female and those who are feminine has the potential to become a majority, one with the strength in numbers to finally challenge and overturn both traditional and oppositional sexism. 20 The Future of Queer/Trans Activism THE MAJORITY OF MY EXPERIENCES as a trans activist and spoken word artist have taken place in what is increasingly becoming known as the “queer/trans” community. It is a subgroup within the greater LGBTIQ community that is composed mostly of folks in their twenties and thirties who are more likely to refer to themselves as “dykes,” “queer,” and/or “trans” than “lesbian” or “gay.” While diverse in a number of ways, this subpopulation tends to predominantly inhabit urban and academic settings, and is skewed toward those who are white and/or from middle-class backgrounds. In many ways, the queer/trans community is best described as a sort of marriage of the transgender movement’s call to “shatter the gender binary” and the lesbian community’s pro-sex, pro-kink backlash to 1980s-era Andrea Dworkinism. Its politics are generally antiassimilationist, particularly with regard to gender and sexual expression. This apparent limitlessness and lack of boundaries lead many to believe that “queer/trans” represents the vanguard of today’s gender and sexual revolution. However, over the last four years in which I’ve been a part of this community, I’ve become increasingly troubled by a trend that, while not applicable to all queer/trans folks, seems to be becoming a dominant belief in this community, one that threatens to restrict its gender and sexual diversity. I call this trend subversivism.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And her words had the strangest effect on Puddle who quite suddenly beamed at Stephen and kissed her—Puddle who never betrayed her emotions, quite suddenly beamed at Stephen and kissed her. 2People gossiped a little because of the freedom allowed Martin and Stephen by her parents; but on the whole they gossiped quite kindly, with a great deal of smiling and nodding of heads. After all the girl was just like other girls—they almost ceased to resent her. Meanwhile Martin continued to stay on in Upton, held fast by the charm and the strangeness of Stephen—her very strangeness it was that allured him, yet all the while he must think of their friendship, not even admitting that strangeness. He deluded himself with these thoughts of friendship, but Sir Philip and Anna were not deluded. They looked at each other almost shyly at first, then Anna grew bold, and she said to her husband: ‘Is it possible the child is falling in love with Martin? Of course he’s in love with her. Oh, my dear, it would make me so awfully happy—’ And her heart went out in affection to Stephen, as it had not done since the girl was a baby. Her hopes would go flying ahead of events; she would start making plans for her daughter’s future. Martin must give up his orchards and forests and buy Tenley Court that was now in the market; it had several large farms and some excellent pasture, quite enough to keep any man happy and busy. Then Anna would suddenly grow very thoughtful; Tenley Court was also possessed of fine nurseries, big, bright, sunny rooms facing south, with their bathroom, there were bars to the windows—it was all there and ready. Sir Philip shook his head and warned Anna to go slowly, but he could not quite keep the great joy from his eyes, nor the hope from his heart. Had he been mistaken? Perhaps after all he had been mistaken—the hope thudded ceaselessly now in his heart. 3Came a day when winter must give place to spring, when the daffodils marched across the whole country from Castle Morton Common to Ross and beyond, pitching camps by the side of the river. When the hornbeam made patches of green in the hedges, and the hawthorn broke out into small, budding bundles; when the old cedar tree on the lawn at Morton grew reddish pink tips to its elegant fingers; when the wild cherry trees on the sides of the hills were industriously putting forth both leaves and blossoms; when Martin looked into his heart and saw Stephen—saw her suddenly there as a woman.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  They were very unlike each other, these negroes; Lincoln, the elder, was paler in colour. He was short and inclined to be rather thick-set with a heavy but intellectual face—a strong face, much lined for a man of thirty. His eyes had the patient, questioning expression common to the eyes of most animals and to those of all slowly evolving races. He shook hands very quietly with Stephen and Mary. Henry was tall and as black as a coal; a fine, upstanding, but coarse-lipped young negro, with a roving glance and a self-assured manner. He remarked: ‘Glad to meet you, Miss Gordon—Miss Llewellyn,’ and plumped himself down at Mary’s side, where he started to make conversation, too glibly. Valérie Seymour was soon talking to Lincoln with a friendliness that put him at his ease—just at first he had seemed a little self-conscious. But Pat was much more reserved in her manner, having hailed from abolitionist Boston. Wanda said abruptly: ‘Can I have a drink, Jamie?’ Brockett poured her out a stiff brandy and soda. Adolphe Blanc sat on the floor hugging his knees; and presently Dupont the sculptor strolled in—being minus his mistress he migrated to Stephen. Then Lincoln seated himself at the piano, touching the keys with firm, expert fingers, while Henry stood beside him very straight and long and lifted up his voice which was velvet smooth, yet as clear and insistent as the call of a clarion: ‘Deep, river, my home is over Jordan. Deep river—Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground. . . .’ And all the hope of the utterly hopeless of this world, who must live by their ultimate salvation, all the terrible, aching, homesick hope that is born of the infinite pain of the spirit, seemed to break from this man and shake those who listened, so that they sat with bent heads and clasped hands—they who were also among the hopeless sat with bent heads and clasped hands as they listened. . . . Even Valérie Seymour forgot to be pagan. He was not an exemplary young negro; indeed he could be the reverse very often. A crude animal Henry could be at times, with a taste for liquor and a lust for women—just a primitive force rendered dangerous by drink, rendered offensive by civilization. Yet as he sang his sins seemed to drop from him, leaving him pure, unashamed, triumphant. He sang to his God, to the God of his soul, Who would some day blot out all the sins of the world, and make vast reparation for every injustice: ‘My home is over Jordan, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.’

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

  Apostle Andrew. This highly prized treasure was brought to Italy by Thomas Palaeologus, who, in recognition of his pious benevolence toward the holy see, was given the Golden Rose, a palace in Rome and an annual allowance of 6,000 ducats. The relic was received with ostentatious signs of devotion. Bessarion and two other members of the sacred college received it at Narni and conveyed it to Rome. The pope, accompanied by the remaining cardinals and the Roman clergy, went out to the Ponte Molle to give it welcome. After falling prostrate before the Apostle’s skull, Pius delivered an appropriate address in which he congratulated the dumb fragment upon coming safely out of the hands of the Turks to find at last, as a fugitive, a place beside the remains of its brother Apostles. The address being concluded, the procession reformed and, with Pius borne in the Golden Chair, conducted the skull to its last resting-place. The streets were decked in holiday attire, and no one showed greater zeal in draping his palace than Rodrigo Borgia. The skull was deposited in St. Peter’s, after, as Platina says, "the sepulchres of some of the popes and cardinals, which took up too much room, had been removed." The ceremonies were closed by Bessarion in an address in which he expressed the conviction that St. Andrew would join with the other Apostles as a protector of Rome and in inducing the princes to combine for the expulsion of the Turks.746 In his closing days, Pius II. continued to be occupied with the crusade. He had written a memorable letter to Mohammed II. urging him to follow his mother’s religion and turn Christian, and assuring him that, as Clovis and Charlemagne had been renowned Christian sovereigns, so he might become Christian emperor over the Bosphorus, Greece and Western Asia. No reply is extant. In 1458, the year before the Mantuan congress assembled, the crescent had been planted on the Acropolis of Athens. All Southern Greece suffered the indignity and horrors of Turkish oppression. Servia fell into the hands of the invaders, 1459, and Bosnia followed, 1462. Pius’ bull of 1463, summoning to a crusade, was put aside by the princes, but the pontiff, although he was afflicted with serious bodily infirmities, the stone and the gout, was determined to set an example in the right direction. Like Moses, he wanted, at least, to watch from some promontory or ship the battle against the enemies of the cross. Financial aid was furnished by the discovery of the alum mines of Tolfa, near Civita Vecchia, in 1462, the revenue from which passed into the papal treasury and was specially devoted by the conclave of 1464 to the crusade. But it availed little. Pius proceeded to Ancona on a litter, stopping on the way at Loreto to dedicate a golden cup to the Virgin. Philip of Burgundy, upon whom he had placed chief reliance, failed to appear. From Frederick III. nothing was to be expected.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  The writer to the Hebrews uses a most illuminating word about Jesus. He says that he entered the presence of God as our forerunner. The word is prodromos. It has three stages of meaning. (1) It means one who rushes on. (2) It means a pioneer. (3) It means a scout who goes ahead to see that it is safe for the rest of the troops to follow. Jesus went into the presence of God to make it safe for all to follow. Let us put it very simply in another way. Before Jesus came, God was the distant stranger whom only a very few might approach, and that at peril of their lives. But, because of what Jesus was and did, God has become the friend of all. Once, people thought of him as barring the door; now, they think of the door to his presence as thrown wide open to all. A PRIEST AFTER THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEKHebrews 7 WE come now to a passage of such supreme importance for the writer to the Hebrews and in itself so difficult to understand that we must deal with it in a special way. Chapter 6 ended with the statement that Jesus had been made a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. This priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is the most characteristic thought of Hebrews. Behind it lie ways of thinking and of arguing and of using Scripture which are quite strange to us and which we must try to understand. It will be best first to collect together all that the writer to the Hebrews has to say about the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek and to read that as a whole before we divide it into shorter passages to study in detail. We shall then try to understand what the writer to the Hebrews was getting at before we study this chapter in detail. So, we collect the passages which deal with this idea. The first is Hebrews 5:1–10.