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 This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  In trying to keep my voice from breaking I ended up sounding angry. “Don’t misunderstand me,” Mr. Howard said. “You’re a fine boy and I’ll be happy to give you a good report.” He said these words quickly, as if reciting them. Then he added, “You have a strong case. But you should know what you’re getting into.” He said he would write to the school the next day, then we’d just have to wait and see. From what he understood, I was one of many boys being considered for the few remaining places. “I assume you’ve got applications in at other schools,” he said. “Just Choate. But I’d rather go to Hill. Hill is my first choice.” We were parked in front of the school. Mr. Howard took a business card from his wallet and told me to call him if I had any questions. He advised me not to worry, said whatever happened would surely be for the best. Then he said good-bye and drove away. I watched the Thunderbird all the way down the hill to the main road, watched it as a man might watch a woman he’d just met leave his life, taking with her some hope of change that she had made him feel. The Thunderbird turned south at the main road and disappeared behind some trees. I was running a board through the table saw at school and joking around with the boy next in line. Then I felt a sharp pinch and looked down. The ring finger on my left hand was spouting blood. I had cut off the last joint. It lay beside the whirling blade, fingernail and all. The boy I’d been talking to looked at it with me, his mouth working strangely, then turned and walked away. “Hey,” I said. The shop was loud; no one heard. I sank to my knees. Somebody saw me and started yelling. Horseface Greeley took me to the doctor. He brought along another teacher, who drove the car while Horseface asked me leading questions whose answers would protect him if we should ever go to court. I understood his purpose and gave him the answers he wanted. I thought that the accident had been my fault, and that it would be unfair of me to get him in trouble. I’d been a fool. I’d cut off part of my own finger. Now I wanted above all, as the only redemption left to me, to be a good sport. The finger was a mess. My mother gave the doctor permission to take me to the hospital in Mount Vernon for surgery. I went under the knife that afternoon, and awoke the next morning with a bandage from my wrist to my remaining fingertips. I was supposed to stay in the hospital for three days, but the doctor was worried about infection and it was almost a week before I got home.

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  down with the founder and set performance benchmarks that would signal that the company was heading in the right direction. Then, they agree when to revisit those benchmarks and, if the venture is falling short, to have a serious discussion about shutting it down. This probably sounds a lot like Conway is using kill criteria, and that’s because he is. The founder comes away from the conversation believing they’ve convinced Conway they can turn it around. Conway’s opinion, you’ve probably guessed, hasn’t changed. He comes away still believing that if the founder could see what he sees, they would shut the endeavor down that day. But he knows it’s generally futile to try to persuade them right then. Having set these kill criteria, which the founder has helped generate, Conway has markedly increased the probability that, when they revisit the issue, the founder will be able to see past their own biases and come to the right decision. The deftness of Conway’s approach is that he’s able to take founders who are facing down the decision, who are less rational because they’re in it, and refocus their attention on some point in the future. That refocus allows the founder to be more rational about the choice. What comes with this quitting strategy is that the founder is going to continue to put a few more months of time, money, and effort into something that Conway can clearly see is failing. But he considers those extra months spent as a huge win, because it gets the founder to shut the endeavor down much sooner than they otherwise would have. Without this type of intervention, founders, who are gritty by nature, all too often continue to grind it out until the bitter end. Giving up a few months to save years is a trade worth making, because it frees up the founders much sooner to move on to something that has a better chance of succeeding. Even so, after the company has missed the benchmarks, Conway often gets pushback. That’s not surprising because none of these things work perfectly. These tools are just trying to get us to no faster and more often than we otherwise would. One of the most common ways that the founders push back is by claiming that they have a duty to the investors to give it everything they have. Beyond that duty, they believe that if they don’t keep going, instead returning the remaining

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Holding the beaver in front of him with both hands, Dwight carried it to the open trunk and let go. It landed hard. “There,” he said, and wiped his hands on his pant leg. We drove farther into the mountains. It was late afternoon. Pale cold light. The river flashed green through the trees beside the road, then turned gray as pewter when the sun dropped. The mountains darkened. Night came on. Dwight stopped at a tavern in a village called Marblemount, the last settlement before Chinook. He brought a hamburger and fries out to the car and told me to sit tight for a while, then he went back inside. After I finished eating I put my coat on and waited for Dwight. Time passed, and more time. Every so often I got out of the car and walked short distances up and down the road. Once I risked a look through the tavern window but the glass was fogged up. I went back to the car and listened to the radio, keeping a sharp eye on the tavern door. Dwight had told me not to use the radio because it might wear down the battery. I still felt bad about being afraid of the beaver, and I didn’t want to get in more trouble. I wanted everything to go just right. I had agreed to move to Chinook partly because I thought I had no choice. But there was more to it than that. Unlike my mother, I was fiercely conventional. I was tempted by the idea of belonging to a conventional family, and living in a house, and having a big brother and a couple of sisters—especially if one of those sisters was Norma. And in my heart I despised the life I led in Seattle. I was sick of it and had no idea how to change it. I thought that in Chinook, away from Taylor and Silver, away from Marian, away from people who had already made up their minds about me, I could be different. I could introduce myself as a scholar-athlete, a boy of dignity and consequence, and without any reason to doubt me people would believe I was that boy, and thus allow me to be that boy. I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all. I played the radio softly, thinking I’d use less power that way. Dwight came out of the tavern a long time after he went in, at least as long a time as we’d spent getting there from Seattle, and gunned the car out of the lot. He drove fast, but I didn’t worry until we hit a long series of curves and the car began to fishtail. This stretch of the road ran alongside a steep gorge; to our right the slope fell almost sheer to the river.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  279Lecture 28—Vatican II and Global Renewal õThe Catholic Church was an inf luential player in the independence movements that rocked the Global South in the 1960s and 1970s and beyond. The Philippines–the most Catholic country in Asia—serves as an example. õSpanish colonists, who first arrived in the 16 th century, brought their religion along with them. After the Spanish-American War, the United States used military might to defeat Filipino forces fighting for independence. The islands were an American territory for half a century, and then, after a brutal occupation by the Japanese during World War II, gained their independence in 1946. õBy the late 1960s, Filipinos had endured two decades of tumultuous independence under a series of presidents who kept promising economic recovery, land reform to help poor farmers and punish greedy landlords, and peace to a nation wracked by peasant rebellion and a communist guerrilla movement. õFerdinand Marcos won the presidency in 1965 by promising to end the country’s economic woes, but his opponents stymied many of his plans, and crime and unrest only got worse. His communist enemies got bolder and formed the New People’s Army to promote the armed struggle for revolution, while a group called the Moro National Liberation Front began fighting for independence for the Philippines’ Muslim minority. Marcos responded by trying to stamp out dissent and declaring martial law. õMeanwhile, Catholics in the Philippines, particularly the religious orders, were spreading Vatican II’s message. Catholic leaders embraced the reform of worship that Vatican II encouraged. For example, priests began speaking in the laypeople’s own language.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  Love is an action word, not an abstract concept based on unexpressed feelings. The real tests of love are that it be unconditional, and that it be love for the sake of the person, as she or he is. When the disciple Philip (according to Acts 8:26–40) encounters an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza who is reading the prophet Isaiah, Philip is quick to share the affirming message of the gospel and to welcome the sexual outcast, in spite of the Law (Deut. 23:1), into the fellowship of believers. THE HERMENEUTICAL CIRCLE In chapter 2 we explored how the Bible is read from the center of power and privilege. The present chapter, along with chapter 3 , has explored how marginalized groups, in their search for liberation and justice, interpret Scripture. How exactly do the center and the margins differ in reading and interpreting biblical texts? For most faith communities within the dominant culture, the Bible is viewed and understood as containing or being universal truth, accessible to Protestants and to Catholics alike. In both traditions, the Bible is the expression of the will of God that determines what is to be believed (theology) and how its readers are to conduct their lives (praxis). Biblical interpretation is deductive; that is, the universal truth of the Bible or the teachings of the church is the starting point, a first step that leads to a second step, which is the application of biblical truth. Yet what happens when biblical truth is fused and confused with interpretations made by a dominant culture? Are interpretations from the center of society, often concerned with the preservation and maintenance of the status quo, which provides privilege, indeed biblical truth? If the center's interpretations are but constructed opinions rather than definitive statements, then applications deducted from those opinions can be harmful and oppressive to those who do not reside in the center. Most people who read the Bible from the margins reverse this methodology. Oppressed groups begin with their need for liberation. Engagement in a praxis (action) of liberation informs them how biblical texts are to be interpreted. This interpretation then informs and strengthens any new praxis. This new praxis leads the Christian to a clearer understanding of the Bible that informs any further praxis. Biblical interpretation, then, becomes a reflection of liberative action. While such an approach may be perceived with disdain by those accustomed to interpreting the text from within the scholarly community, reading the Bible from the margins has contributed to the development of a theological perspective that emphasizes the social and living context of those who are doing the reading. The everyday experiences manifested in art, community relationships, popular religious expressions, and cultural customs become the lens through which the Bible is understood. Using this methodology, biblical interpretations are no longer stagnant.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  He gave me Cokes to drink while he explained what the various parts of the car were and what he planned to do with them. I nodded as if I understood, and really believed that one day this mess would put itself together again. Though Skipper was supposed to start at the University of Washington in September, he didn’t give any sign of leaving. Dwight began to ride him. He wanted to know where Skipper expected to live, and how he was going to pay for his education. He wanted to know what the plan was. Skipper said he had it all worked out. Dwight kept at him, but Skipper just smiled his polite uninterested smile and did as he pleased. And then, late that summer, the car began to come together just as Skipper had said it would. I was in the shed the night he and his friends put the rebuilt engine in. Skipper had installed racing carbs and bored out the cylinders to make it more powerful, then he’d had it chromed. It was beautiful. His friends wrestled it in with a block and tackle while Skipper shouted orders at them, and within an hour he had it roaring. The body looked beyond saving. It was dented, dull, and full of holes from the ornaments Skipper had stripped off. He leaded in the holes, fiberglassed the dents, laid on a coat of primer, sanded it smooth, and put on sixteen coats of candy-apple red lacquer paint. He fine-sanded each coat before adding the next. It took him over a month, and by the time he was done the paint had such clarity and depth it was like looking into a glaze of thick red ice. The lines of the car were fluid, clean; he had been right to take off the ornaments. Once the painting was done Skipper put on new whitewall tires with chrome hubcaps, not the flipper hubcaps that were in fashion then but simple globes as bright as. mirrors. Along the sides, under the doors, he hung chrome Laker exhaust pipes that bent out slightly at the end as if to cough the smoke discreetly away from the car. He put a rechromed bumper in front and attached a Continental kit to the rear end—an unusually long bumper with an external case for the spare tire. It was cherry. The only thing that needed fixing was the interior. Skipper told me he had just enough money left to take the car down to Tijuana and have it upholstered there. He was going to have it done in white leather, tucked, rolled, and pleated. When I asked him if I could come along he told me he’d think about it. I thought he was serious. I thought that he would actually consider taking me with him, and since I could imagine no reasonable argument against my going I assumed that he couldn’t either. It was as good as decided.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  There’s the upstairs window where, one night when I was little, I woke to a blizzard outside. I was five or six and didn’t know things ended. I thought the snow would continue to the sky’s brim—then beyond, touching god’s fingertips as he dozed in his reading chair, the equations scattered across the floor of his study. That by morning we would all be sealed inside a blue-white stillness and no one would have to leave. Ever. After a while, Lan found me, or rather her voice appeared beside my ear. “Little Dog,” she said as I watched the snow, “you want to hear a story? I tell you a story.” I nodded. “Okay,” she went on, “long ago. One woman hold her daughter, like this,” she squeezed my shoulders, “on a dirt road. This girl, name Rose, yes, like flower. Yes, this girl, her name Rose, that’s my baby. . . . Okay, I hold her, my daughter. Little Dog,” she shakes me, “you know her name? It’s Rose, like flower. Yes, this little girl I hold in dirt road. Nice girl, my baby, red hair. Her name is. . . .” And we went on like that, till the street below glowed white, erasing everything that had a name. — What were we before we were we? We must’ve been standing by the shoulder of a dirt road while the city burned. We must’ve been disappearing, like we are now. Maybe in the next life we’ll meet each other for the first time—believing in everything but the harm we’re capable of. Maybe we’ll be the opposite of buffaloes. We’ll grow wings and spill over the cliff as a generation of monarchs, heading home. Green Apple. Like snow covering the particulars of the city, they will say we never happened, that our survival was a myth. But they’re wrong. You and I, we were real. We laughed knowing joy would tear the stitches from our lips. Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places. Underneath the grid is a field—it was always there—where to be lost is never to be wrong, but simply more. As a rule, be more. As a rule, I miss you. As a rule, “little” is always smaller than “small.” Don’t ask me why. I’m sorry I don’t call enough. Green Apple. I’m sorry I keep saying How are you? when I really mean Are you happy? If you find yourself trapped inside a dimming world, remember it was always this dark inside the body. Where the heart, like any law, stops only for the living. If you find yourself, then congratulations, your hands are yours to keep. Take a right on Risley. If you forget me, then you’ve gone too far. Turn back. Good luck. Good night. Good lord, Green Apple.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  345Lecture 35—Revival and Repression in Korea õKorea was a battleground, first of the Sino-Japanese War and then of the Russo-Japanese War. In 1910, Japan annexed the whole peninsula. Therefore, for most Koreans, the most dreaded imperialists were not Westerners but other Asian countries. The whiff of imperialist oppression did not really taint Western missionaries working in Korea the way it did elsewhere. õIn 1903, Methodist missionaries hosted a series of prayer meetings where some of them confessed that their missionary work hadn’t been as successful as they had hoped. At a meeting in the northern city of Wonsan, a Methodist doctor named R.A. Hardie said that the Holy Spirit told him to reread Luke 11:13: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” õThis verse made him realize that he’d relied too much on his own effort, and not enough on God. He told his Korean congregation that he had been too proud and not faithful enough. Hearing this public confession from a foreign missionary emboldened Korean Christians to see themselves as the leading agents of God’s work in their country. õIn the next few years, emotional prayer meetings and Bible studies multiplied, especially in the north. This culminated in the Great Revival of Pyongyang, which started in 1906–1907 when Presbyterians and Methodists spent a week intensely studying the Bible and then scattered to their hometowns, bringing that call to repentance and faith with them. This was the very same time that the Pentecostal revival was exploding in Los Angeles and spreading around the world. õThe 1907 revival did not convert huge swathes of the country to Christianity. By 1910, about one percent of the Korean population was Christian—but compared to other Asian countries at the time, Christianity seemed to be taking off as a real indigenous religious movement.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  For the writer of the Gospel of John, the action of creation is assigned to logos: “All things through him came into being, and without him, not even one thing came into being” (1:3). It is interesting to note that if we read the first verse of the Gospel in Spanish, it goes, “En el principio era el Verbo, y el Verbo estaba con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios ” (“In the beginning was the Verb, and the Verb was with God, and the Verb was God”). Although the English version of the Scriptures exclaims that Jesus is the Word, those who read the Bible in Spanish discover that Jesus is the Verb, nuancing its creative aspect. Feminist theologian Mary Daly asks why we must reduce God to a noun and, by so doing, destroy the dynamic nature of the Verb.6 Continuing on this theme, Latino theologian Luis Pedraja concludes that if the Deity can indeed be perceived as a Verb, then theology must reflect this active nature.7 As the Verb, Jesus becomes the incarnation of God's living and active Verb. Rather than portraying a static noun, an action word is used to remind the reader of the importance of faith as action, as praxis. This has a profound effect on how theology is conceived by Euroamericans and those who read the text in Spanish, specifically Hispanics. For Latina/os, theology can no longer be reduced to abstract concepts about God from which doctrines are derived. Instead, theology becomes something that is done, not believed.8 The very biblical text ceases to be a thing (book) and becomes an action, a testimony of God's call to action. When we read the Bible, we do not read a book; rather we are confronted with the action of either obedience or disobedience to Jesus Christ as presented to us through the Gospels. The Bible calls us to liberative actions, actions that seek the abundant life for all of God's creation. Doctrinal interpretations, the product of a metaphoric reading that attempts to reconcile the dominant culture's lifestyle with the biblical message, are debunked by the action of the resurrection, the ultimate manifestation of the new liberative abundant life we are called to, a life determined through a materialist reading of the text. Acts and the Letters from Paul: God the Subverter Paul's ministry in Philippi, found in Acts 16:6–15, provides an excellent example of God as the subverter of any religiosity that fails to consider seriously racism, classism, and sexism. According to the Scriptures, Paul set out to evangelize the known world, but the Spirit of God delayed him while at the border of Mysia. There he had a vision. A Macedonian man appeared, beseeching him, “Come across to Macedonia to help us.” Paul lost no time and crossed into Macedonia, taking the vision to be God's call. When Paul reached Philippi, he went to the customary place for Jewish prayer.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  When my patients wax nostalgic about the early days of rapid ignition sex, I remind them that even in the beginning, spontaneity was a myth. Whatever used to happen “in the moment” was often the result of hours, if not days, of preparation. What outfit, what conversation, which restaurant, which music? All that planning—that highly detailed, imaginative production—was part of the buildup and part of the denouement. For this reason, I urge my patients not to be spontaneous about sex. Spontaneity is a fabulous idea, but in an ongoing relationship whatever is going to “just happen” already has. Now they have to make it happen. Committed sex is intentional sex. “I couldn’t resist” has to become “I don’t want to resist.” “We just fell into each other’s arms” has to become “Let me take you in my arms.” “We just click” has to become “Can we click tonight?” My aim is to help patients become comfortable with sexuality as a consciously acknowledged and enthusiastically welcomed part of their lives—something that demands full engagement. The idea of planning is a hurdle many couples need to cross. They associate planning with scheduling, scheduling with work, and work with obligation. Often, therapy is a process of dismantling these beliefs. Bringing Intentionality to Sex Dominick and Raoul complain about their lackluster sex life. In the early days of their romance, when Raoul still lived in Miami, distance precluded routine. Their weekends were much anticipated and never dull. But now, living together, they spend their downtime doing housework and running errands. I can’t help noticing the discrepancy between the attention they devote to these chores and the lack of attention they bring to their sex life—as if sex operates according to a different principle. “The laundry won’t just do itself, you know,” Dominick says defensively. “And sex will?” I ask. Dominick pretends not to understand what I mean by planned sex. “You want me to put it in my BlackBerry? Thursday night, ten o’clock? That seems so pathetic,” he says. “If you don’t want sex to be another item on your to-do list, don’t treat it like one,” I respond. “I’m not talking about scheduling sex, I’m talking about creating an erotic space, and that takes time. What will occur in that space is open-ended, but the space itself is marked by intentionality. Like that osso buco you made for Raoul last weekend—it didn’t just happen.”

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  Sometimes, that new information will be new facts. Sometimes, it might be different ways to think about or model a problem or a set of data or the facts you already have. Sometimes, it will be a discovery about your own preferences. And, of course, some of that new information will be about which future you happen to observe, a good one or a bad one. When you take all these aspects of uncertainty together, it makes decision- making hard. The good news is that quitting helps make this easier. Everyone has had the thought go through their head “If I had known then what I know now, I would have made a different choice.” Quitting is the tool that allows you to make that different decision when you learn that new information. It gives you the ability to react to the way the world has changed, your state of knowledge has changed, or how you have changed. This is why it’s so important to skill up on quitting, because having the option to quit is what will keep you from being paralyzed by uncertainty or being stuck forever in every decision you make. Silicon Valley is famous for mantras like “move fast and break things” and implementing them through strategies like “minimum viable product” (MVP). These types of agile strategies can only work if you have the option to quit. You can’t put out an MVP unless you have the ability to pull it back. The whole point is to get information quickly, so you can quit the stuff that isn’t working and stick with the things that are worthwhile or develop new things that might work even better. Quitting is what allows companies to maximize speed, experimentation, and effectiveness in highly uncertain environments. If you are moving fast, by definition, you are going to have greater uncertainty. You are taking less time to gather and analyze information before acting. An MVP is meant to allow you to quit or change things before you put too much time or effort into a course of action, all while speeding up the information-gathering process so crucial to good decision-making. Richard Pryor, when he was arguably the world’s best stand-up comedian from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, was known for his dedication to this kind of strategy for developing new material. Pryor, if a little less familiar to the current generation, is still considered among the most important comedians ever, in the scope of his success, in using comedy to break down boundaries, and in

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  The preoccupation with making the male perspective the central lens by which Christ is identified and understood prevents the inclusiveness of Christ that Paul calls for in Galatians, where he turns the morning Jewish prayer of thanksgiving mentioned above on its head: “For as many as were baptized in Christ, you put on Christ, so there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ” (3:27–28). When Paul calls the church to form one body in Christ, that body is composed of both males and females who participate in the living, dying, and resurrection of Christ. This participation, not the replication of sexual features, becomes the model for Christ's image. In Acts 9:1–5 Saul was traveling to Damascus to persecute the early Christian church when he was blinded by a light that knocked him to the ground. He heard a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” This narrative begins by informing the reader of Saul's motive for going to Damascus, to arrest followers of the early church. The text specifically states that Saul was looking for “men or women” to persecute. So, when Saul asks who it is that he is persecuting, the response is, “I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me.” This passage clearly teaches that Jesus is the persecuted church, male and female, without distinction. Historically, Jesus may be male, but his sacramental identification with the persecuted makes them identical with Christ. If, however, Jesus’ historical maleness is interpreted as essential to his deistic identity and redemptive functions, then Christ is religiously construed to marginalize women.22 Jesus can also be viewed as female because a feminine image of the Deity appears in several places throughout the Bible. Humans can never fathom the total mystery of the Deity. There exists no symbol, word, concept, or idea perceivable by humans that totally encompasses the essence of God. The best we can do is to describe the Deity in human-constructed words that fall short of completely and thoroughly describing that which no mind can totally comprehend. Hence we say God is a consuming fire, God is a vineyard owner, or God is a father. While these words are insufficient to describe God, they do provide a glimpse into the eternal Creator. Likewise, there exist feminine words and symbols that the Bible uses to describe the Deity. For example, in Isaiah, the prophet writes, “I [God] have forever kept silence. I was quiet and refrained myself. I will groan like a woman in labor, I will pant and I will gasp” (42:14).23 Jesus picks up this imagery and refers to the other two members of the Trinity in the feminine. Of the Spirit, Jesus says in John 3:6 that to be a Christian, one must emerge from the Spirit's womb, that is, be “born again.” The Spirit, like a woman in labor, gives birth to those who become new creatures in Christ.

• From Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002)

  Finally, in a public whisper, she said, Because the Bible says that what we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven and what we bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, in the name of Jesus I loose you from your bonds to this man who has done this to you. You are not guilty of anything he has done. Go now to your cousin's house and start a new life. Don't look back or go back like Lot's wife. In God's name, we will provide for you all your needs.7 Her words not only set this oppressed woman free but also bound the rest of the faith community to support and provide for her. SEARCHING FOR THE ABUNDANT LIFE This chapter has explored how the Bible is read by those who benefit from oppressive social structures to justify their privilege. Some biblical verses have been misinterpreted, consciously or unconsciously, to protect the power and privilege of the dominant culture. Other verses seem to imply the sanctification of non-Christian actions such as ethnic cleansing. How then can Christians complicit in the oppression of their neighbors continue to rely on the authority of Scripture as the basis for Christian ethics? What type of morality can the faith community claim? It is important to remember that the biblical text is the witness of God's revelation to humanity, a book designed to point the reader to the Deity. But is the Bible the fullest revelation of God to humanity? No, Jesus is the fullest revelation of God to humanity. The Bible bears witness to that revelation and as such becomes the basis of faith for the community of believers. Yet it is important to acknowledge that the Bible is written from within the social location of different writers. While this multitude of writers spanning centuries all proclaim the same revelation of God's love and mercy, a love and mercy that find ultimate manifestation in the incarnation, these writers were born into, and were greatly influenced by, their social environments. Their writings assumed the normative oppressive structures of their times, structures we clearly repudiate today. Does this invalidate the Bible? No! But it clearly places a greater responsibility on the reader to interpret the text in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. How then do those of the faith community read the Bible, still claiming authority for their lives yet rejecting the passages that appear to call for the death of others? Readers should always submit their interpretation to the Holy Spirit, reading the text within the marginalized body of faith and remaining always cognizant of the basic purpose of the gospel. Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of John, said it best: “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (10:10). Simply put, if a biblical interpretation prevents life from being lived abundantly by a segment of the population or, worse, if it brings death, then it is anti-gospel.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Invariably, I’m asked if my book offers a solution. What can people do? Hidden behind this question looms a secret longing for the élan vital, the surge of erotic energy that marks our aliveness. Whatever safety and security people have persuaded themselves to settle for, they still very much want this force in their lives. So I’ve become acutely attuned to the moment when all these ruminations about the inevitable loss of passion turn into expressions of hope. The real questions are these: Can we have both love and desire in the same relationship over time? How? What exactly would that kind of relationship be? The Anchor and the Wave Call me an idealist, but I believe that love and desire are not mutually exclusive, they just don’t always take place at the same time. In fact, security and passion are two separate, fundamental human needs that spring from different motives and tend to pull us in different directions. In his book Can Love Last? the infinitely thoughtful psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell offers a framework for thinking about this conundrum. As he explains it, we all need security: permanence, reliability, stability, and continuity. These rooting, nesting instincts ground us in our human experience. But we also have a need for novelty and change, generative forces that give life fullness and vibrancy. Here risk and adventure loom large. We’re walking contradictions, seeking safety and predictability on one hand and thriving on diversity on the other. Ever watch a child run away to explore and then run right back to make sure that Mom and Dad are still there? Little Sammy needs to feel secure in order to go into the world and discover; and once he has satisfied his need for exploration, he wants to go back to his safe base to reconnect. It’s a sport he’ll come back to as an adult, culminating in the games of eros. Periods of being bold and taking risks will alternate with periods of seeking grounding and safety. He may fluctuate, though he’ll generally settle on one preference over another. And what is true for human beings is true for every living thing: all organisms require alternating periods of growth and equilibrium. Any person or system exposed to ceaseless novelty and change risks falling into chaos; but one that is too rigid or static ceases to grow and eventually dies. This never-ending dance between change and stability is like the anchor and the waves. Adult relationships mirror these dynamics all too well. We seek a steady, reliable anchor in our partner. Yet at the same time we expect love to offer a transcendent experience that will allow us to soar beyond our ordinary lives. The challenge for modern couples lies in reconciling the need for what’s safe and predictable with the wish to pursue what’s exciting, mysterious, and awe-inspiring.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  He had found the school a cold place. Then, in his last year, something changed. The members of his class grew close in ways that he had never thought possible, until they were more like brothers than friends. It came, he said, from the simple fact of sharing the same life for a period of years. It made them a family. That was how he thought of the school now—as his second family. But he’d had a rough time getting to that point, and some of the boys never got to it at all. They lived unhappily at the edge of things. These same boys might have done well if they’d stayed at home. A prep school was a world unto itself, and not the right world for everyone. If any of this was supposed to put me off, it didn’t. Of course the boys were concerned with money and social position. Of course a prep school wasn’t for everyone—otherwise, what would be the point? But I put on a thoughtful expression and said that I was aware of these problems. My father and my brother had given me similar warnings, I explained, and I was willing to endure whatever was necessary to get a good education. Mr. Howard seemed amused by this answer, and asked me on what experience my father and brother had based their warnings. I told him that they had both gone to prep schools. “Is that right? Where?” “Deerfield and Choate.” “I see.” He looked at me with a different quality of interest than before, as I had hoped he would. Though Mr. Howard was not a snob, I could see he was worried that I might not fit in at his school. “My brother’s at Princeton now,” I added. He asked me about my father. When I told him that my father was an aeronautical engineer, Mr. Howard perked up. It turned out he had been a pilot during the war, and was familiar with a plane my father had helped design—the P-51 Mustang. He hadn’t flown it himself but he knew men who had. This led him to memories of his time in uniform, the pilots he had served with and the nutty things they used to do. “We were just a bunch of kids,” he said. He spoke to me as if I were not a kid myself but someone who could understand him, someone of his world, family even. His hands were folded on the tabletop, his head bent slightly. I leaned forward to hear him better. We were really getting along. And then Huff showed up. Huff had a peculiar voice, high and nasal. I had my back to the door but I heard him come in and settle into the booth behind ours with another boy, whose voice I did not recognize. The two of them were discussing a fight they’d seen the previous weekend. A guy from Concrete had broken a guy from Sedro Woolley’s nose. Mr.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  boys being considered for the few remaining places. “I assume you’ve got applications in at other schools,” he said. “Just Choate. But I’d rather go to Hill. Hill is my first choice.” We were parked in front of the school. Mr. Howard took a business card from his wallet and told me to call him if I had any questions. He advised me not to worry, said whatever happened would surely be for the best. Then he said good- bye and drove away. I watched the Thunderbird all the way down the hill to the main road, watched it as a man might watch a woman he’d just met leave his life, taking with her some hope of change that she had made him feel. The Thunderbird turned south at the main road and disappeared behind some trees.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  217Lecture 22—The Social Gospel õRauschenbusch thought his critique of society was in scripture, and had been there since the beginning. The church had simply forgotten it over the centuries as church leaders cast their lot with kings, wealth, and secular power. This is how they’d gone astray and ended up in the wreck of the 20 th century. õRauschenbusch threw himself into his community work as well as writing books to articulate the theology of the Social Gospel movement. He was skeptical that any list of policy reforms could capture the essence of Jesus’s message. õIn 1912 he wrote: “It is not this thing or that thing that our nation needs, but a new mind and heart, a new conception of the way we all ought to live together, a new conviction about the worth of a human life and the use God wants us to make of our own lives.” POLITICAL FRUITS õBy the early 20 th century, Christian reformers in Britain were playing a role in the expansion of government-funded social services there, but their American colleagues were not enjoying the same success. õSocial Gospelers worked diligently at the local level, serving their immediate communities. They also wrote books and held international conferences that called for reforming the capitalist system and rethinking basic Christian doctrines. õIn North America, they established a network of churches in cities that offered not just worship but social services, health care, employment guidance, and recreational facilities. They also pushed for changes in state and federal law, limits on the workday, and limits on child labor. õEchoes of the Social Gospel ethos appeared in some national political movements in the United States. The Populists in the American South and West and the Progressive Party took up a broad vision of

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  I wanted to shake them so hard their bones rattled. I wanted to shout, “Stop drinking those Diet Cokes! Stay off those goddamn stationary bikes! This is no joke; you two are five or six pounds away from death, and when each of you is finished dying, your entire life will be described in a three-word epitaph: ‘I died thin.’” But of course I kept these sentiments to myself. It would have done nothing but rupture whatever slender strands of a relationship I had established with them. Instead I said to Rosa, “Are you aware that through your discussion with Martin, you’ve already filled part of your agenda today? You said you wanted to have the experience of being understood by someone, and Martin seems to have done exactly that.” I then turned to Martin. “How do you feel about that?” Martin just stared at me. This, I thought, may be the liveliest interaction he has had for years. “Remember,” I reminded him, “you started this meeting by saying you could no longer be of use to anyone. I heard Rosa say you were of use to her. Did you hear that too?” Martin nodded. I saw that his eyes were glistening and that he was too moved to speak further. Still, it was enough. With only the tiniest of openings, I had done good work with Martin and Rosa. At least we wouldn’t walk away empty-handed (and I confess I was thinking of the residents as much as of the patients). I turned back to Rosa. “How do you feel about what Magnolia is saying to you today? I’m not sure it’s possible to leave California to eat, but what I did see was Magnolia stretching out to help you.” “Stretch? I’m surprised to hear you say that,” said Rosa. “I don’t think of Magnolia stretching. Giving is natural to her, like breathing. She is a pure soul. I wish I could take her home with me or go home with her.” “Honey,” Magnolia gave Rosa an enormous, toothy smile, “you don’t wanna go to mah house. Jes’ can’t fumigate it. They jes’ keep comin’ back.” Apparently, Magnolia was talking about her insect hallucinations. “You guys should hire Magnolia,” Rosa said, turning to me. “She’s the one who really helps me. And not just me. Everybody. Even the nurses come to Magnolia with their troubles.” “Chile, you makin’ a lot out of nuthin’. You ain’t got much. You so skinny you easy to give to. And you got a big heart. Makes folks want to give to you. Feels good to help out. Thas mah bes’ medicine. “Thas mah bes’ medicine, Doctah,” Magnolia repeated, looking over at me. “You jes’ let me help out folks.” For a few moments I couldn’t say a word.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I remembered every note of the music, though I hadn’t heard it for years. I must have been fourteen when I bought the CD, a London double set I picked out because of a single name, a soprano I knew my teacher adored, already I wanted to imitate him in everything. I remember falling asleep to the soldier’s arias as sung by a tenor whose voice, which I’ve never found on another recording, was beautiful and light-bodied and pure, embodying my every ambition; as I listened to him I imagined the life my own voice would lead me to, scrubbed of shame. It didn’t matter that the performance in Veliko Turnovo was poor; as I sat beside R. I felt that hope again. I was overcome by feeling for him, and it was painful not to touch him, even to reach my hand to his. Caution had become an instinct, and even here, if there wasn’t actual danger I could imagine the discomfort any display of affection would cause. But we had our repertoire of covert gestures, the brushed elbow or knee, the slight pressure of a foot, and we made use of them as the night deepened and the air chilled and the ruins stood out more eerily in the lights. Looking at them I felt, with a force beyond the figures of my children’s history, beyond any history at all, how ancient the place was; it was a battlefield we sat on, every inch of the ground had been steeped in blood, it must still be in the chemistry of the soil.

• From Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022)

  Once you think about it that way, you realize how much time has actually been wasted in the service of the idea that if you quit, the time you’ve already spent will be for naught. Just look at the California bullet train, where they’re continuing to dump money into something for fear that they will have wasted the time and taxpayer money that they’ve already put into it. We need to redefine failure. We need to redefine waste. But ultimately, what we need to do is rehabilitate the very idea of quitting. Lots of hard things are worth pursuing and grit is good for getting you to stick with it when it’s right. But lots of hard things are not worth pursuing and the ability to walk away when it’s right is also a skill worth developing. Hopefully this book has given you the tools to do that. Ultimately, where you’re going—where we’re all going—is along whatever route will have the greatest expected value throughout our lives. That path is going to involve a lot of quitting. Contrary to popular belief, winners quit a lot. That’s how they win. Chapter 11 Summary Goals can make it possible to achieve worthwhile things, but goals can also increase the chances that we will escalate commitment when we should quit. Goals are pass-fail in nature. You either reach the finish line or you don’t, and progress along the way matters very little. Don’t just measure whether you hit the goal, ask what you have achieved and learned along the way. Set intermediate goals and prioritize goals that allow you to recognize progress along the way or acquire something valuable even if you don’t reach the goal. Goals, when set, are a proxy for an expected-value equation, balancing the benefits that you’re trying to gain against the costs you’re willing to bear. Inflexible goals aren’t a good fit for a flexible world. With better advance planning (like identifying monkeys and pedestals and kill criteria) and the help of a good quitting coach, you can make goals more flexible, setting at least one “unless” and planning regular check-ins on the analysis that initially led to setting the goal. In general, when we quit, we fear two things: that we’ve failed and that we’ve wasted our time, effort, or money. Waste is a forward-looking problem, not a backward-looking one.