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 Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  The middle group, where parents are very unhappy in the marriage but want to protect their children, is the largest of all, and indeed, this is where the question is hardest to answer. Many parents in our divorce group had marriages that were of “middling” quality but they decided on balance to go their separate ways. And most of the young adults who were raised in intact families in our study described their parents’ marriages the same way—not very happy but they stayed together anyway. Until this study, no one to my knowledge has ever directly compared the experience of growing up in divorced or remarried families with what it’s like to grow up in intact families—yet this is exactly what we, as a society, need to know. Parents want to know how the lives of their children will be different if they decide to stay married or to get a divorce. That said, these young adults did indeed describe three kinds of intact families. At one end of the spectrum are the highly dysfunctional, bordering-on-cruel families revealed by Carol’s story in Chapter 7. These are homes where the children do not feel safe, where the adults are often out of control, but where the parents stay together for reasons I’ll explain later. At the other end of the spectrum are those families that seem to someone like me, who is so used to family troubles, too good to be true. The parents not only get along, they genuinely love each other and continue to show one another respect and affection. The children feel that they are central to their parents’ interest and that the family is a priority to both adults. It’s very important to understand that these happy families suffer the same kinds of setbacks—automobile accidents, job loss, death in the family, bouts with cancer—that other families encounter in everyday life. They are not immune to tragedy or blessed by incalculable good luck. It’s just that they negotiate these issues in ways that preserve the rock solid marriage. In several instances, as people talked lovingly about their parents and their parents’ marriages, I felt like I had wandered into another country where the inhabitants look familiar but the language and customs are new. I have grown so used to talking to children of divorce that I hadn’t given much thought to what it would mean to grow up in a very happy family in our divorce-ridden culture from the child’s point of view. How would their life experiences and perceptions of the world differ from the young people down the street being raised in divorced families? Finally, there is the largest group comprising all the families in between. These are homes in which there can be many serious problems —loneliness, infidelity, chronic illness, depression, sexual deprivation, and countless other woes—but the marriage stays intact. These are homes in which there are also gratifications, especially in shared concern and love of the children.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  But he stopped in his tracks only briefly. He also had a competing image that was equally powerful of his mother and father working closely together as a team on behalf of their children. He had a storehouse of memories of both parts of his parents’ marriage. Their unhappiness frightened him. But he also knew a lot about the skills and compromises that they made in order to keep the marriage afloat. These observations underlie his resolution, which he called an epiphany—that if he wanted a good marriage it would take hard work. School for Spouses ADULTS RAISED IN intact families have been to “marriage school” alongside their academic learning. By the time they reach adulthood, they figure they’re as prepared as they will ever be to build their own family. They have watched their parents carefully, observing them in many moods, in different settings at different times, in sickness and in health. They have seen them use humor in tense situations to tide them over and watched them read each other’s moods and body language to distinguish a minor upset from an incoming storm. One colleague, Paul Amato from Pennsylvania State University, has proposed that the main difference between adults raised in intact families and those in divorce is that the latter lack social skills. But it’s more than social skills. Those raised in an intact family understand the marriage’s context. They know that to make a marriage work amid today’s pressures, you have to keep it front and center in your mind at all times. Nobody wanted a marriage just like their parents. There are big generational differences. All of the men and women in the comparison group wanted a freer, more equal relationship than their parents had, even if it meant more arguments. They all expected that the wives would work, which made a huge difference in their roles and especially in their parenting. But the children raised in intact marriages used their parents’ marriages as a model that they could shape to their liking. They did not doubt the very existence of a happy marriage, even if their parents failed to attain it. The lack of observations and memories of a working marriage is a serious handicap for children of divorce in learning to live closely with another person and striking the balance that both need. It’s like becoming a dancer without ever having seen a dance. Adults from intact families have two other advantages over those raised in divorced families. They had a sense of continuity with their families.

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

  I answer that, Long deliberation and the advice of many are required in great matters of doubt, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 3); while advice is unnecessary in matters that are certain and fixed. Now with regard to entering religion three points may be considered. First, the entrance itself into religion, considered by itself; and thus it is certain that entrance into religion is a greater good, and to doubt about this is to disparage Christ Who gave this counsel. Hence Augustine says (De Verb. Dom., Serm. c, 2): “The East,” that is Christ, “calleth thee, and thou turnest to the West,” namely mortal and fallible man. Secondly, the entrance into religion may be considered in relation to the strength of the person who intends to enter. And here again there is no room for doubt about the entrance to religion, since those who enter religion trust not to be able to stay by their own power, but by the assistance of the divine power, according to Is. 40:31, “They that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Yet if there be some special obstacle (such as bodily weakness, a burden of debts, or the like) in such cases a man must deliberate and take counsel with such as are likely to help and not hinder him. Hence it is written (Ecclus. 37:12): “Treat with a man without religion concerning holiness [*The Douay version supplies the negative: ‘Treat not . . . nor with . . . ‘], with an unjust man concerning justice,” meaning that one should not do so, wherefore the text goes on (Ecclus. 37:14,15), “Give no heed to these in any matter of counsel, but be continually with a holy man.” In these matters, however, one should not take long deliberation. Wherefore Jerome says (Ep. and Paulin. liii): “Hasten, I pray thee, cut off rather than loosen the rope that holds the boat to the shore.” Thirdly, we may consider the way of entering religion, and which order one ought to enter, and about such matters also one may take counsel of those who will not stand in one’s way. Reply to Objection 1: The saying: “Try the spirits, if they be of God,” applies to matters admitting of doubt whether the spirits be of God; thus those who are already in religion may doubt whether he who offers himself to religion be led by the spirit of God, or be moved by hypocrisy. Wherefore they must try the postulant whether he be moved by the divine spirit. But for him who seeks to enter religion there can be no doubt but that the purpose of entering religion to which his heart has given birth is from the spirit of God, for it is His spirit “that leads” man “into the land of uprightness” (Ps. 142:10).

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. Why is it then that nothing is said of the rest of the Apostles how or when they were called, but only of Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew? Because these were in the most alien and lowly stations, for nothing can be more disreputable than the office of Publican, nothing more abject than that of fisherman. GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) As a meet return for the heavenly mercy, Matthew prepared a great feast for Christ in his house, bestowing his temporal goods on Him of whom he looked to receive everlasting goods. It follows, And it came to pass as he sat at meat in the house. AUGUSTINE. (De. Cons. Ev. ii. 27.) Matthew has not said in whose house Jesus sat at meat (on this occasion), from which we might suppose, that this was not told in its proper order, but that what took place at some other time is inserted here as it happened to come into his mind; did not Mark and Luke who relate the same shew that it was in Levi’s, that is, in Matthew’s house. CHRYSOSTOM. Matthew being honoured by the entrance of Jesus into his house, called together all that followed the same calling with himself; Behold many Publicans and sinners came and sat down with Jesus, and with his disciples. GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) The Publicans were they who were engaged in public business, which seldom or never can be carried on without sin. And a beautiful omen of the future, that he that was to be an Apostle and doctor of the Gentiles, at his first conversion draws after him a great multitude of sinners to salvation, already performing by his example what he was shortly to perform by word. GLOSS. (ord.) Tertullian says that these must have been Gentiles, because Scripture says, There shall be no payer of tribute in Israel, as if Matthew were not a Jew. But the Lord did not sit down to meat with Gentiles, being more especially careful not to break the Law, as also He gave commandment to His disciples below, Go not into the way of the Gentiles. JEROME. But they had seen the Publican turning from sins to better things, and finding place of repentance, and on this account they do not despair of salvation.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As our meeting ended I realized that Karen had provided me with an intimate portrait of what it’s like to grow up in a divorced family where parenting collapses and the child takes over adult responsibilities. She had shown me how she finally broke free of the demanding caregiver role and went on to create her own family. And she had been remarkably candid about divorce-related residues that she struggled with almost daily. As I drove away from her house, I marveled that she was upbeat not only about herself but also about the future of her generation. She said, “Divorce makes you grow up very fast. I resented this when I was young, but as I grew older, I realized it could be a good thing. Some kids were so angry at their parents’ divorce, all they could do was get into drugs and an unhappy lifestyle. Even now I know people who have not recovered. But I have. And I’ll tell you why. Somewhere in my twenties I stopped wanting a lost childhood. I think that’s the secret. I began to realize that it’s now, not then, that matters. And I realized that I’m me, not them. I can do what I want, not what they did. I learned to take responsibility for myself and my life.” Then she said, “I know we live in a culture of divorce and that many people have given up on the idea that you can find a partner for life. But I still believe that marriage can be a wonderful thing. I like to think that mine is. But to make it work, you need the right understanding and the right tools. I hope that Maya and the children in her generation will be able to marry for love with no hang-ups.” In expressing her hopes and fears, I believe Karen speaks for us all.

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

  I answer that, It behooved Christ to rise again, for five reasons. First of all; for the commendation of Divine Justice, to which it belongs to exalt them who humble themselves for God’s sake, according to Lk. 1:52: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.” Consequently, because Christ humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross, from love and obedience to God, it behooved Him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection; hence it is said in His Person (Ps. 138:2): “Thou hast known,” i.e. approved, “my sitting down,” i.e. My humiliation and Passion, “and my rising up,” i.e. My glorification in the resurrection; as the gloss expounds. Secondly, for our instruction in the faith, since our belief in Christ’s Godhead is confirmed by His rising again, because, according to 2 Cor. 13:4, “although He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God.” And therefore it is written (1 Cor. 15:14): “If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and our [Vulg.: ‘your’] faith is also vain”: and (Ps. 29:10): “What profit is there in my blood?” that is, in the shedding of My blood, “while I go down,” as by various degrees of evils, “into corruption?” As though He were to answer: “None. ‘For if I do not at once rise again but My body be corrupted, I shall preach to no one, I shall gain no one,’” as the gloss expounds. Thirdly, for the raising of our hope, since through seeing Christ, who is our head, rise again, we hope that we likewise shall rise again. Hence it is written (1 Cor. 15:12): “Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead?” And (Job 19:25, 27): “I know,” that is with certainty of faith, “that my Redeemer,” i.e. Christ, “liveth,” having risen from the dead; “and” therefore “in the last day I shall rise out of the earth . . . this my hope is laid up in my bosom.” Fourthly, to set in order the lives of the faithful: according to Rom. 6:4: “As Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life”: and further on; “Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more; so do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive to God.” Fifthly, in order to complete the work of our salvation: because, just as for this reason did He endure evil things in dying that He might deliver us from evil, so was He glorified in rising again in order to advance us towards good things; according to Rom. 4:25: “He was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification.”

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  The facing wall was a wooden partition, rough with nail-holes and nail-heads hammered in, that made me wonder what had been stored here, what work had been done here, and when it had come to an end. It seemed an encouraging setting for my own projects, the bits of writing I was going to take up again. Behind the partition was the sleeping area, choked by a high iron bedstead in which three people could have slept abreast. Outside, at the head of the stairs, was a little washroom, with a sink and a fragment of mirror, and a rudimentary shower that dripped and left a rusty stain. As soon as I was alone I set out my dictionaries, English, French and Dutch, and my notebooks and inks; I checked the crockery—two of everything, which seemed another good sign—and switched on the creaking electric plate. I'd persuaded myself it didn't matter there was no heating—only a little blower that roared and ate electricity. I bounced on the bed and set its loose finials jingling. At the front of my main room a leaded dormer looked down into the courtyard and across to the shuttered upper floor of the doctor's house; but at the back there was a big sash-window. It looked westward, across to the mouldering apse of the church of St Narcissus; on the map the drawing of its singular brick tower and pointed lantern obliterated my house and the garden that lay between us. I heaved open the heavy frame and stared into the silence of the leafy space below. On the left was the ivy-covered height of the cinema's blank back wall and on the right a canal in which the rotting water-door and tall barred windows of some ancient institutional building were reflected. The garden itself was not a churchyard, although the church presided over it and someone had chopped back the alder at its base and poisoned the creeper that still blackly covered its sunken outhouse or boiler-room. It was hard to imagine who—there seemed to be no door into the garden, and where the canal lay by the far wall of the church I could just make out fanned black spikes. The grass between the fruit trees had been scythed and left. Craning round I saw the blue ribbon of a toilet-roll thrown from a height and caught in the branches. And there was something I couldn't quite see, a little stone figure of some kind, herm or saint, satyr or cupid, sheltered by leaves and ankle-deep in hay.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “You’ll need to go to the capital at least once a month.” They then go on to tell me that most of their funding comes from a greeting card manufacturing plant they partially own in New Hampshire and that, as a nonprofit, they don’t have the opportunity to pay decent salaries. I nod. I knew I could continue waitressing in the evenings and on weekends to supplement my income. “This is perfect,” I tell them. “I have contacts up there, and I’m familiar with the time and perseverance it takes to get something passed. Plus, I have my own car.” The gentlemen glance at each other with raised eyebrows and promise to review my résumé, my letters of recommendation, and my references. The next day, they call me, offering me the title of an associate advocate for seventeen thousand dollars a year, with benefits. I have no concept for what seventeen thousand will get me, and I don’t really care. The only important thing is, I’ve got a job. I’m fully aware that this is another step toward main-streaming—doing what my peers are doing, regardless of how different my background has been from theirs. After a few months of commuting ninety minutes each way from the Petermans’ to my office, I move into the dark, barred-window basement apartment of a Tudor home in Forest Hills, Queens, with my college friend Reyne. “This place is a firetrap. You couldn’t get a room upstairs?” Cherie says when she comes to visit. I know it’s not fancy, but it’s all I can afford, and the location is convenient for the travel my job demands. The disabled veterans group sends me to Washington and all around New York State. I advocate publicly and passionately for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights act whose purpose is to remove barriers, societal and structural, for people with disabilities. What inspires me most about this act is that, in its true spirit, it provides opportunities for those who have been held back from mainstreaming and living independently. Every time the phrase self-sufficiency is bantered about in lectures or legislative sessions, my commitment grows stronger with the realization that my fight for others to maintain their dignity is exactly the same fight I’ve known all my life. While lobbying for the veterans in Albany, I meet Alan Hevesi, the Assembly chair of the committee for People with Disabilities, who, as I learn through friendly banter, happens to also live in Queens. Alan is a professor at Queens College and appears genuinely concerned about the development of young public servants. In 1989, when he decides to run for the position of comptroller, the chief fiscal officer of the city, I volunteer for his campaign. Every night for weeks, I stick stamps on envelopes and hand out literature at subway stations during rush hours.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Alan loses the race, but to prepare for his next run, a small group of us band together to organize the RFK Democratic Club, a new political clubhouse, to attract volunteers. I’m designated the founding chairperson . . . and when Bobby Kennedy Jr. joins us at the club’s dedication to his father, I begin to see the payoff of being part of a campaign that is categorized as a long shot. In April 1991, after two and a half years working for the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, New Jersey Transit recruits me to assist in developing their statewide plan to make their public rail and bus systems accessible to people with disabilities. I spend my time on buses and trains from Queens to Newark, studying how to write a plan to the federal government on behalf of a state agency . . . and it grows clear that, as my career flourishes, I’m going to need a significant understanding of the law. Every morning, on the walk from Newark’s Penn Station to my office a few blocks away, I glance over at the construction site for Seton Hall University’s new law school building. Day by day, for months, I see the shadow of a building rising slowly behind the train station. When it grows possible to observe its form—all white, steel and glass—I stop by their admissions office and pick up a brochure explaining their unique program called Legal Education Opportunity (LEO). The LEO program is affectionately known as an “affirmative action boot camp,” the admissions officer tells me, and it runs all summer to prepare its students for the possibility that they’ll be accepted into Seton Hall’s law school. The brochure explains that, unlike other institutions that require both a competitive LSAT and GPA, Seton Hall’s LEO program considers students with either one or the other. The catch is that applicants need a strong personal story explaining why they couldn’t excel in both requirements. It’s only for half a second that I waffle, wondering if being twenty-five makes me too old to begin four years of evening law school when most law students my age are already applying for first-year associate jobs. Still . . . the thought of holding a law degree feels like it could be in reach, if I just had an opportunity to prove myself. After writing a personal essay explaining my less-than-stellar GPA, I kiss the envelope for luck and submit my application. In spring of 1992 I’m accepted. Affirmative action boot camp begins in June. At the LEO orientation, the law school dean explains to all seventy-six of us that, while it’s unlikely any other law school would have accepted us, Seton Hall sees something in our stories that shows promise. “But this program is going to take an extraordinary commitment from you,” he says.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Once my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, if I see more clothes than garbage and useless debris, I step on the window ledge and squeeze myself through the sloped metal opening in the bin to get inside. I begin throwing clothes out through the hole and into the car. Using the car’s dome light to see, the kids and Cookie root through the clothes to pick out the ones we could possibly use. I locate a pair of jeans and a plaid skirt for Rosie. “Gi!” she cries. “Look, this pink shirt still has the tags on it!” “It’s brand-new for you to wear on the first day!” For Norman, I fold a nice pair of corduroys and a couple turtlenecks into a pile, and for myself I dig out a pair of khaki pants that I can make a size smaller by taking them in with a few stitches. Then, once our options are exhausted, I pile all the excess clothes on the floor and climb out, giving myself a leg up as I shimmy out of the bin, back into Cookie’s car. Throughout the weekend, Cookie shares the details of the life she created at her new boyfriend’s place as though she’s telling us a great fairy tale of which we have no part. “Oh, the meals I cook,” she says. “And you oughtta see how well-behaved his daughter is—you three could take a lesson. She’s only thirteen, lost her mother to cancer last year . . . treats me like I walk on water. Talk about appreciation. Instead, what do I get from you? I get bullshit.” Although I wish someone was taking care of us the way her boyfriend’s thirteen-year-old daughter is being mothered now, I can tell Cookie’s happy because she’s been sober for the entire day. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m actually not afraid of her. After the weekend together, she announces that she’s going back to her boyfriend’s house. In peace, I begin to rifle through our new wardrobe, sorting the colors to wash in the tub before we start school on Wednesday. As I start my hems and alterations, I flip on the TV, where Ronald Reagan is giving a speech in New Jersey as part of his campaign for the U.S. Presidency: And most of us have begun to realize that, so long as Carter policies are in effect, the next four years will be as dark as the last four . . . I pledge to you I’ll bring a new message of hope to all of America. A new message of hope to all of America. That includes my family. It includes me! I need a new message of hope as much as I need a new wardrobe to start the ninth grade. If my next four years are as dark as my last four years, I’ll never make it to seventeen.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “But the one argument we have going for us is that the Washington State paternity law does not define what a child is.” “Ralph—that’s brilliant.” “Well, we’ll see. But it seems to me that whether you’re five or thirty-five, you are still someone’s child. It appears that the legislature left the door open for an adult child to bring a paternity suit.” He pauses, then says, “The only piece that’s missing is an affidavit from someone alleging that there was a relationship between your mother and Paul Accerbi at the time of your conception. Regina, if there’s any way you can secure that, we’ll be on better footing.” For the past six months, since Paul and I first spoke in August, Julia finally let everyone know who I actually am. Since I’ve met with various members of the family over the past three years, I sense that they view me as a self-sufficient, independent, decent young woman who simply wants to know the truth about who she is. When they invited me to their most recent family holiday dinner, the Accerbis seemed to completely understand that I’m not seeking financial support of any kind. And as I told them about my past contact with Paul, they understood that I tried to avoid litigation and making my plea part of the public record. Now that my pursuit has taken on a life of its own, I drive to Long Island on a Sunday afternoon to make my request: “Julia, my lawyer says we need to submit an affidavit written by someone who was witness to Paul’s relationship with Cookie. Is that going to stir conflict between you and the Accerbis?” She wrings her hands gently in her lap. “No honey, in fact, I think they’ll be supportive. Regina?” “Yes?” “You know you’re welcome to call me Aunt Julia . . . don’t you?” “When we’ve finally gotten the truth, I promise that you will be my aunt Julia. Right now I don’t want to do anything that could jinx this case.” “Okay, honey,” she says. “That’s fair enough.” She sends me home with a week’s worth of home-cooked dinners in tightly sealed Tupperware and stacked in a grocery bag. The next day, I call Ralph. “I’m planning to fly out to Seattle and meet you,” I tell him. “Now that we’ve got Julia on board, this case is looking more promising. It’s outcome will impact my life forever so I need for you to be able to put a face on the plaintiff you’re representing.” It’s February 28, 2001, when I land at the Seattle airport. I take my carry-on luggage and head straight to the front of the airport. On my way to the taxi line I stop to view a map of the city to get a sense of the direction the taxi driver should take . . . and suddenly, as I’m studying the route, I feel unsteady.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Dedication To Cherie, Camille, Norman, and Roseanne— may we always continue laughing and dancing, together. To the hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. who are either abused, in foster care, or homeless. The journey is long and often dark but you must believe in your light—you have so much to offer. Contents Dedication Author’s Note Prologue 1 Bitten Bones 2 Building Sand Castles 3 And Then There Were Three 4 Breaking Pact 5 Failure to Thrive 6 Houses of Sand 7 Keeping Pact 8 Empty Emancipation 9 Out of Idaho 10 Aging Out 11 The Happy House 12 A Child at Any Age 13 Beacons of Light Epilogue Excerpt from Girl Unbroken Introduction 1 Foster Things Acknowlegments About the Author Credits Copyright About the Publisher Author’s Note ETCHED IN SAND is the true story of the experiences I shared with my siblings from our childhood to the present day. My siblings consented to the publication of Etched in Sand and the use of their proper names in the forthcoming pages. However, some people’s names have been changed in order to protect their anonymity, including but not limited to past foster parents and relatives both living and deceased. Specifically worth noting is the name change of the character represented as my biological father, whom I refer to with the pseudonym of Paul Accerbi. For ease of description, my many social workers were consolidated into a few characters and are represented with pseudonyms as well. Also changed is the town that my younger siblings resided in when in Idaho.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  Let me have my intercourse with this love and take solace only in it.” When Aegeates identifi es Andrew as the cause of his troubles, he has the apostle arrested. Th e proconsul tempts his wife to return to bed by threatening to visit inconceivable torment on Andrew’s body. In the Acts of Andrew the lawful husband, the image of Roman order, has become the villain, and the bond between the apostle and the heroine— a purely chaste bond— is subjected to awful trials. Strengthened by Andrew’s preaching, Maximilla stands fi rm against Aegeates, and Andrew, after preaching from the gallows, is crucifi ed. Th is artful romance, then, ends not with the mys- terious pleasures of union that regenerate the world but with suff ering and separation and hope for a fi nal reunion with God.  No piece of the apostolic cycle is so exquisitely framed as a romance as the legend known as the Acts of Paul and Th ecla. Th e story of Paul and Th e- cla was a detachable part of the larger body of legends that accumulated around the fi gure of Paul. Th e Acts of Paul and Th ecla are already, in their focus on Th ecla as a protagonist, more reminiscent of romance than most apostolic lore. Th ecla is directly modeled on the heroines of romance. She is a virgin, the daughter of Th eoclia, citizen of Iconium. She is just of mar- riageable age, engaged to the leading young man of the city, Th amyris. When Th ecla overhears Paul’s preaching through a window, she is enrap- tured by his words. She sat day and night at the window and listened to his gospel of virginity. Th ecla’s mother, equal in her connivance to Leucippe’s, is astonished and alarmed at the enthusiasm of her daughter, who is at- tached to the window “like a spider.” Th ecla’s mother sounds the alarm to her daughter’s fi ancé, Th amyris, about the stranger whose teachings threaten to convulse the city of the Iconians. He and the other men of the city plot against Paul and have him arraigned before the governor, who exiles Paul ROMANCE IN THE LATE CLASSICAL WORLD  but orders Th ecla burned alive. She miraculously escapes and rejoins her apostle on the road. Th ey travel to Antioch, where the sequence of events replays itself: a malignant suitor sets his mind on Th ecla, she resists, she faces trial and execution, but she is miraculously rescued. Finally she and Paul part ways, and she journeys to Seleucia, her fi nal resting place.  Th e apocryphal legends are a powerful expression of early Christian sexual morality, the sexual gospel of a minority movement, when the reli- gion and its followers stood apart from mainstream society. Th e Christian romances refl ect a confi guration of sexual morality and society in which Christian austerity represented a radical freedom from the demands of the world.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  At the twenty-five-year mark, 60 percent of the adults we interviewed had tried marriage. About half of them walked down the aisle when they were in their early twenties; a few were in their late teens.1 As we’ll see in Chapter 14, many of these marriages were doomed from the start. A large number ended in divorce whereas some are continuing amid great unhappiness, with no expectations for change. More on this later. For now I want to discuss adults like Karen who have entered into what appear to be good marriages later in their lives. Many of these thirty-somethings have been through the hard knock school of relationships. Some have had brief first marriages that ended in failure or they lived with another person or a series of other persons through their twenties. Others had a long run of one-night stands. A few were heartbroken by a lover’s rejection and for years felt too discouraged to try again. But then, in tentative but courageous steps, each of these children of divorce found someone whom they could love, trust, and cherish. It’s too soon, of course, to say how many of these good, later marriages will last. Most have only been in place for a few years and, like all marriages, they are not immune from strife. A few were shaky, and some had already come apart. But in the twenty-five-year interviews, I saw many happy, loving couples who were devoted to each other and who had clearly vanquished the fears that beset them in the early days of their relationships. One of the reasons I selected Karen as a main character for this book is that her story illustrates the troubled path that many follow before achieving a splendid marriage. Her mixed feelings of triumph and disbelief are emblematic of many in her generation.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  If you are, please pass this letter on to him. Dear Paul, My name is Regina Marie Calcaterra. I am 16 years old and was born in November of 1966. I believe that you may be my father. I am now living in a foster home because my mother, Camille Calcaterra, was a bad mother, not because I was a bad kid. I divorced her several years ago so I can work toward taking care of myself. I have a B average in school, am on the gymnastic team, and work at Rickel Home Center at nights and on the weekends. I plan on going to community college when I graduate high school. My mother told me that you were my father many times during my upbringing and she never strayed from her belief. Unfortunately my mother is an alcoholic and drug addict, which caused her to be incapable of caring for my siblings and me, so we spent most of our youth raising ourselves. When I turned fourteen, I asked the court to emancipate me from her so I could make my own decisions about where I should live and what school I should go to. I have been in this foster home for 2½ years beginning from when I was in the 9th grade. I am now in the 11th grade. I have limited contact with my mother, so I am hoping that I can meet you to see if you could possibly be my father, as my mother is convinced you are. Please write me back at the address below. Sincerely, Regina Marie Calcaterra For weeks I try to get the mail before my foster parents do to see whether there’s a letter from any of the Accerbis. On a Sunday night in early May, after I return around ten o’clock from working at Rickel’s, I’m preparing for school the next day. Addie knocks on my door. “Come in!” She has a disturbed look on her face. “Regina, Pete got a weird call tonight around seven o’clock. It was very peculiar—there was this man who called, and when Pete answered the phone, he asked if you were home. When Pete said no, he asked where you were, so Pete said you were at work. When Pete asked him to identify himself he refused, but he asked Pete if he was your foster father.” “Really?” I say innocently. “That’s odd.” Meanwhile my heart is pounding. Addie’s face grows more puzzled and her words come out slower as she continues. “When Pete said yes, this person wanted to know when you would be home again. So Pete asked him again who he was, but he still refused, and Pete told him that you won’t be home until late, so if he wants to speak to you he should call back tomorrow after you’re back from school.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  scarves, while we stuff our pockets and pillowcases with undershirts, towels, sheets, washcloths, and socks. When the snowdrifts eventually grow taller than us, we tunnel a hole through the snow to the street, then walk twenty minutes in the drifts to get to Route 25 where our bus driver said she’d pick us up for school. Some days, though, the weather is so bad that we don’t even bother. At home, we wear our snorkels all day with our other findings piled on top of us for warmth. At nightfall I unlatch the exhaust hose on the back of the washroom’s clothes dryer, then position the dryer so that the back of it points toward the center of the room. After I make sure the dryer door is closed so Rosie can’t crawl inside, I press the on button. Warm air blasts into the washroom, and we generate more heat between us by cuddling up with our arms around each other in our snorkels piled with stuff. When we finally get sick of sipping the sugar water we boil on the electric stove to fill our stomachs, Cherie, Camille, and I wake up around four in the morning to wrap whatever we’re sleeping in around Norm and Rosie. Then we venture out in search of food. Our snorkels make it easy to hide stolen candy and snack cakes, and we realize how much more we can smuggle by cutting a hole in one pocket then ripping through the coat’s lining to the other pocket. We know the bakery’s delivery guy arrives at the town market just after five in the morning. The minute his van has disappeared around the corner, we fill the lining of our coats with warm rolls, donuts, crumb cakes, and soft bagels. Then we head to the deli that’s past the road to our house, to see if the milkman has made his delivery so we can feed Rosie. We’re able to eat for several days after one outing. On the walk home, we snack as we savor our successful hunt, and sing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”—taking turns being Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell —since it symbolizes the lengths we’ll go for one another. Each of the girls have to miss at least one day of school a week since someone always needs to be at home to take care of Rosie, who doesn’t start kindergarten until next year. She’ll be the smartest in her class since her schooling on pictures, colors, and numbers is inspired by our boredom—when she counts to twenty, it’s a victory for us all. When it’s my turn to watch her, I fill her day with songs about optimism by teaching her the lyrics to Annie’s “Tomorrow” and my very favorite, “Ooh Child.” Oo-ooh child things are gonna get easier. . . .

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As the stories you are about to hear reveal, children are not passive vessels but rather active participants who help shape their own destiny and that of their family. They make gallant efforts to fit into the new requirements of the postdivorce family although they hope for many years that their parents will reconcile. Because they are in their formative years, the new roles that they assume in the family are built into their character. Some move into the postdivorce vacuum and become principal caregivers of their families. Others learn to hide their true feelings. Some get into trouble hoping that they can bring their parents back together to rescue them. The roles they adopt to adjust to the new circumstances in the divorced family are likely to endure into adulthood and are frequently reinstalled in their adult relationships. And finally, we see that many children of divorce are stronger for their struggles. They think of themselves as survivors who have learned to rely on their own judgment and to take responsibility for themselves and others at a young age. They have had to invent their own morality and values. They understand the importance of economic independence and hard work. They do not take relationships lightly. Most maintain a reverence for good family life. The Life StoriesTHIS BOOK IS organized around the life stories of five adults raised in divorced families and several others who were raised in intact families. Each of these individuals is prototypical, carefully and thoughtfully chosen to represent the experiences of large numbers of people from similar backgrounds. Their stories are interlaced with writing that draws on current research and studies carried out at the Center for the Family in Transition, reflecting our most recent dilemmas in family law and policy. Other essays present my own formulations about growing to adulthood in a divorced or intact family, how the experiences are alike or different, and how adult expectations are forged in the crucible of family life.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  ends to continue on as an aide, and his invitation is further promise that the universe will always find ways to take care of me as long as I’m doing my part: In July I go back to living rent-free in Southampton and coaching gymnastics again. Heading into the fall of my senior year at New Paltz, I’ve done my best to plan for the day in November when I turn twenty-one, for the day when I’ll no longer be a ward of the state or a foster child and for the day when the Medicaid card that’s covered my health care for the last seven years will be void, and the four hundred twenty dollars I receive for rent and expenses each month will just stop showing up in my mailbox. There’s only one choice: to keep working. For the fall semester I move into an off-campus apartment with my high school friend Jeanine, who transferred to New Paltz last year. “Yeesh!” she says. “Waitressing, the science lab, studying . . . do I have to get you a job with me at the Wallkill farm stand in order to actually see you on weekends?” “I’ve worked a cash register before,” I jibe back. “Get me an application.” Soon we’ve begun our autumn Saturday routine, peddling warm apple cider and mums then hitting the town hangouts where Jeanine’s charm scores us free beers. She introduces me as her geeky sidekick, referring to me as “Miss Constitution” because I can proudly recite all seven articles and twenty-seven amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Before Thanksgiving break, the debate team coach approaches me as I’m studying in the lounge next to the political science department. “I’d like to speak with you about joining my team of students for the Harvard Model United Nations,” he says. “We’re one of a handful of schools competing that’s not Ivy League, and I need a tough debater on my team.” “Uh . . . sir?” I look around. “Are you sure you’re talking to the right person?” “Regina Calcaterra? Sure I am. I need someone with a strong backbone, somebody bright and assertive. Professor Brownstein recommended you.” Bright and assertive. I choose global warfare as my debate topic. My peers and I take the train to the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan when our debate coach sends us to meet with the actual Zimbabwean delegates. We spend winter break preparing for the final debate forum in Boston. We don’t place in the rankings, but our whole team cheers when I’m nominated for an award alongside students from Columbia and Harvard. “Don’t lose any sleep over the fact we didn’t win,” our debate coach tells me

• From The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—and Us (2017)

  Watching recent political battles over birth control and reproductive rights in the United States, many experienced observers have remarked, “But I thought all these issues were settled decades ago!” Unfortunately, if these events are part of a cultural sexual conflict arms race, we can expect that the struggle for female sexual autonomy will continue as each side innovates new countermeasures to neutralize the previous advances by the other. On the other hand, feminists themselves have often expressed discomfort with standards of beauty, sexual aesthetics, and discussions of desire. Beauty has been viewed as a punishing male standard that treats women and girls as sexual objects and persuades women to adopt the same self-destructive standard to judge themselves. Desire has been viewed as another route to finding themselves under the power of men. Yet aesthetic evolutionary theory reminds us that women are not only sexual objects but also sexual subjects with their own desires and the evolved agency to pursue them. Sexual desire and attraction are not just tools of subjugation but individual and collective instruments of social empowerment that can contribute to the expansion of sexual autonomy itself. Normative aesthetic agreement about what is desirable in a mate can be a powerful force to effect cultural change. The ancient lessons of Lysistrata are clear. Individuals can transform human society through their affirmative sexual choices. — This book has taken the concept of beauty from the humanities and applied it to the sciences by defining beauty as the result of a coevolutionary dance between desire and display. Now I would like to explore the opposite—take the coevolutionary view of beauty and see how it might apply to the humanities, specifically to the arts. Indeed, progress in understanding aesthetic evolution in nature creates a whole new opportunity for intellectual exchange between evolutionary biology and aesthetic philosophy—the philosophy of art, aesthetic properties, art history, and art criticism—which I have been pursuing in new research. For centuries, the “aesthetics of nature” has consisted entirely of investigating human aesthetic experiences of nature—whether that be looking at a landscape, listening to the song of a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, or contemplating the shape, color, and odor of an orchid flower. However, aesthetic evolution informs us that grosbeak songs and orchids (but not the landscape) have coevolved their aesthetic forms with the evaluations of nonhuman agents—female grosbeaks and insect pollinators, respectively. We humans can appreciate their beauty, but we have played no role in shaping it. Traditionally, aesthetic philosophy has failed to appreciate the aesthetic richness of the natural world, much of which has come into being through the subjective evaluations of animals. By viewing the beauties of nature through an exclusively human gaze, we have failed to comprehend the powerful aesthetic agency of many nonhuman animals. To be a more rigorous discipline, aesthetic philosophy must grapple with the full complexity of the biological world.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  My procedure was based on a series of observations made upon myself over a long period; any lucid explanation has always convinced me, all courtesy has won me over, every moment of felicity has almost always left me wise. I lent only half an ear to those well-meaning folk who say that happiness is enervating, liberty too relaxing, and that kindness is corrupting for those upon whom it is practiced. That may be; but, in the world as it is, such reasoning amounts to refusal to nourish a starving man decently for fear that in a few years he may suffer from overfeeding. When useless servitude has been alleviated as far as possible, and unnecessary misfortune avoided, there will still remain as a test of man's fortitude that long series of veritable ills, death, old age and incurable sickness, love unrequited and friendship rejected or betrayed, the mediocrity of a life less vast than our projects and duller than our dreams; in short, all the woes caused by the divine nature of things. I should say outright that I have little faith in laws. If too severe, they are broken, and with good reason. If too complicated, human ingenuity finds means to slip easily between the meshes of this trailing but fragile net. Respect for ancient laws answers to what is deepest rooted in human piety, but it serves also to pillow the inertia of judges. The oldest codes are a part of that very savagery which they were striving to correct; even the most venerable among them are the product of force. Most of our punitive laws fail, perhaps happily, to reach the greater part of the culprits; our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing diversity of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom. And nevertheless from that mass of outworn routines and perilous innovations a few useful formulas have emerged here and there, just as they have in medicine. The Greek philosophers have taught us to know something more of the nature of man; our best jurists have worked for generations along lines of common sense. I have myself effected a few of those partial reforms which are the only reforms that endure. Any law too often subject to infraction is bad; it is the duty of the legislator to repeal or to change it, lest the contempt into which that rash ruling has fallen should extend to other, more just legislation. I proposed as my aim a prudent avoidance of superfluous decrees, and the firm promulgation, instead, of a small group of well-weighed decisions.