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

  164The History of Christianity II BACK TO CHRISTIAN BASICS õFor some American Christians, however, the Methodists did not go far enough in reforming worship and church life. These Christians thought that the churches had fallen so far into corruption that the only solution was to scrap them entirely and go back to what Christ and his apostles intended. This general impulse to restore the apostolic faith is called restorationism. õFor scholars, restorationism is a broad term that covers multiple movements in the 19 th century. One of the most important was the so-called Christian movement. The central figure of the Christian movement was a Presbyterian preacher named Barton Stone. õStone helped plan the revivals at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, perhaps the most famous evangelical camp meeting of the Second Great Awakening. For about a week in early August of 1801, somewhere between 10,000 and 25,000 people poured into Cane Ridge. Stone believed revivals could free people from oppression by denominational officials and arrogant scholars. õIn 1803, Stone and some colleagues formed their own alliance of Presbyterian churches. A year later, they disbanded that and called themselves simply Christians. At roughly the same time, a Scots-Irish father and son duo in Pennsylvania, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, also abandoned the Presbyterian Church for the same reasons. õThey joined with Baptists for a while, but eventually decided that even the Baptists drifted too far from the Bible. Followers of the Campbells called themselves Christians or Disciples of Christ. Soon, they realized that they shared much in common with Stone’s followers, and the two groups united in 1832.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  challenging situations. The negative paradoxical death effect takes hold. The other choice available to us is to commit ourselves to what Friedrich Nietzsche called amor fati (“love of fate”): “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati : that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity. Not merely to endure that which happens of necessity . . . but to love it.” What this means is the following: There is much in life we cannot control, with death as the ultimate example of this. We will experience illness and physical pain. We will go through separations with people. We will face failures from our own mistakes and the nasty malevolence of our fellow humans. And our task is to accept these moments, and even embrace them, not for the pain but for the opportunities to learn and strengthen ourselves. In doing so, we affirm life itself, accepting all of its possibilities. And at the core of this is our complete acceptance of death. We put this into practice by continually seeing events as fateful— everything happens for a reason, and it is up to us to glean the lesson. When we fall ill, we see such moments as the perfect opportunity to retreat from the world and get away from its distractions, to slow down, to reassess what we are doing, and to appreciate the much more frequent periods of good health. Being able to accustom ourselves to some degree of physical pain, without immediately reaching for something to dull it, is an important life skill. When people resist our will or turn against us, we try to assess what we did wrong, to figure out how we can use this to educate ourselves further in human nature and teach ourselves how to handle those who are slippery and disagreeable. When we take risks and fail, we welcome the chance to learn from the experience. When relationships fail, we try to see what was wrong in the dynamic, what was missing for us, and what we want from the next relationship. We don’t cocoon ourselves from further pain by avoiding such experiences. In all of these cases, we will of course experience physical and mental pain, and we must not fool ourselves that this philosophy will instantly turn the negative into a positive. We know that it is a process and that we must take the blows, but that as time passes our minds will go to work converting this into a learning experience. With practice, it becomes easier and quicker to convert. This love of fate has the power to alter everything we experience and lighten the burdens we carry. Why complain over this or that, when in fact we see such events as occurring for a reason and ultimately enlightening us? Why feel envy for what others have, when we possess something far greater—the ultimate approach to

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  47 This statement should be qualified with the caveat that for the author of Jubilees the end has begun but there are glimmers of hope even in the present. 48 I am borrowing from George E. Ladd’s title, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996). 72 72 Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles of a new world. It is not the corruptible world that is destroyed, but the corruptible aspects of the world, which are part of the old age. What is present in the passage is the renewing of this world to a world that is pleasant to the Creator. We read in Rom 8:18, “I consider that our present sufferings (τὰ παθήματα τοῦ νῦν καιροῦ) are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed (τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν ἀποκαλυφθῆναι) in us.” The phrases “present sufferings” and “glory that will be revealed” correspond to the time frame: this age and the age to come. The future is a glorious one, and one that Paul prays and hopes for. Romans 8:18–27 looks forward to the eschatological glory of creation, but it does not describe in detail the future changes in the transformed creation. 49 Creation has hope and awaits eagerly the future changes (vv. 19–20), which would be unlikely if the world was going to be destroyed and recreated anew. The present creation will be delivered from its slavery to corruption and futility and it will be set free to share in the glory of the glorified children of God (v. 21). 50 Thus creation will be able to fulfill the purposes for which it was created, but which were blocked by the damage that human sin brought to the created order. Even though the present plight of creation is due to one man’s disobedience, the redemption of creation will not involve a return to the lost paradise, but rather creation will gain more than it lost. The natural world will share in the greater glory of the resurrected and glorified children of God. The basic premise here is that the threat of chaos to the original y good creation is an ever-present opportunity for God to demonstrate his theodicy by always redeeming life from the grip of chaos. New creation to Paul is about the rejection of the old creation, with its idolatry and its standards of living and being in the world and for the world, and the remaking/reconciling the world to its creator by means of Christ. Most interpreters agree that the words “the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it” refer to Gen 3:17–19

• From The History of World Literature (2007)

  212 Lecture 48: Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories end of history (so far), authors see their work as self-contained art, detached from a reality that we cannot understand and on which therefore we cannot base our values. We do not know what the future holds, but it seems certain that whatever it is, there will always be storytellers inventing new forms and uses for stories. As Rushdie reminds us, inside every story is a world not subject to the control of tyrants or hard-headed practical people, both of whom try to control us by suppressing our imaginations. Inside those worlds there is room for alternate ways of thinking, as there was for Emily Dickinson in her poems, which took her far beyond the con ¿ ned and respectable life she lived in Amherst. As Haroun and the Sea of Stories reminds us, we never know where such imaginative freedom will take us: The people of the Valley of K. did, after all, free themselves from Snooty Butto after they had heard a story. There are other values in stories as well. Gabriel Garcia Marquez said that the stories his grandmother told him could not change the external world, but they did make him feel better. William Faulkner, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said that literature could help humans not only to endure, but to prevail. Faulkner did not exactly say it this way, but part of the reason it helps us prevail is by keeping our inner worlds free from the Khattam-Shuds and Mr. Senguptas of the world, who are always interested in manipulating us into accepting their vision of the world. Perhaps one of the most powerful sentences in all of human history is, “Tell me a story.” Ŷ Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Cundy, Salman Rushdie. Hassumani, Salman Rushdie. Essential Reading Supplementary Reading 213 1. There is a great deal of attention paid in Haroun and the Sea of Stories to the values of societies in which open discussion is allowed, particularly in the depiction of the cultures of the Chupwalas and the Guppees. What are the advantages and disadvantages of free speech and the right to criticize one’s leaders in the book? 2. Sinbad the Sailor stories receive a lot of allusive attention in the book. Since you have already encountered those stories in 1001 Nights, do you see any connections between the values of those stories and the values of Rushdie’s book? Are there ways in which knowing the Sinbad stories helps to illuminate what is happening in Haroun and the Sea of Stories? Questions to Consider

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  new has dawned in the midst of the old and that those in Christ must live accordingly. To be in Christ is to live a transformed life and participate in the new creation; it is to receive the promise of the Spirit and assume the quality of life that characterizes the new eon of God’s dealings with the human race, a veritable resurrection from the dead. To be in Christ for Paul means that nothing can separate the believers from the love of God (Rom 8:39). Paul’s goal in preaching, then, at least in Romans, is to place his converts in union with Christ so that they may live in Christ and in hope within the new creation that is already a reality of world history, while awaiting eagerly with patience and endurance (ἀπεκδεχόμεθα δι’ ὑπομονῆς, 8:25) for its final consummation. The apostle personifies the cosmos to show that it is already in the process of new creation “in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (ἐφ’ ἑλπίδι ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ, 8:20–21). Paul’s hope for creation is rooted in the presence of the future, which is soon to appear in its full measure. Conclusion Paul’s use of liberation language with respect to the “new creation” motif in Romans is revealing. It shows how his future hope is linked to what has already transpired in Christ’s death and resurrection in anticipation of what is yet to come, namely the redemption of the believer’s body and the liberation of creation from slavery to liberation. The motif of new creation is not unique to him. The comparison presented in this work with the book of Jubilees shows that there are both similarities and differences. However, Paul develops the new creation ideas in fresh ways and with new content. Romans 8:18–27 forms a climax in the letter. It shows how the hopes expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the book of Jubilees find their resolution in the renewal of all creation by God’s great act of setting everything free. The cosmos will be redeemed to share in the freedom of the glory of the children of God, where there will be no more suffering nor death, but joy everlasting. Romans 8:18–27 also shows us that Paul’s theology is steeped in the covenant theology and in the Genesis/

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  You feel a deep and visceral connection to the group, seeing your fate and theirs as deeply intertwined. If you exude this attitude, people will feel it, and it will open them up to your influence. They will be drawn to you by the simple fact that it is rare to encounter a person so sensitive to people’s moods and focused so supremely on results. This will make you stand out from the crowd, and in the end you will gain far more attention this way than by signaling your desperate need to be popular and liked. Cultivate the third eye: the Vision. In 401 BC, ten thousand Greek mercenary soldiers, fighting on behalf of the Persian prince Darius in his attempt to take over the empire from the king, his brother, suddenly found themselves on the losing side of the battle, and now trapped deep in the heart of Persia. When the victorious Persians tricked the leaders of the mercenaries into coming to a meeting to discuss their fate and then executed them all, it became clear to the surviving soldiers that they would be either executed as well or sold into slavery by the next day. That night they wandered through their camp bemoaning their fate. Among them was the writer Xenophon, who had gone along with the soldiers as a kind of roving reporter. Xenophon had studied philosophy as a student of Socrates. He believed in the supremacy of rational thinking, of seeing the entire picture, the general idea behind the fleeting appearances of daily life. He had practiced such thinking skills over several years. That night he had a vision of how the Greeks could escape their trap and return home. He saw them moving swiftly and stealthily through Persia, sacrificing everything for speed. He saw them leaving right away, using the element of surprise to gain some distance. He thought ahead—of the terrain, the route to take, the many enemies they would face, how they could help and use citizens who revolted against the Persians. He saw them getting rid of their wagons, living off the land and moving quickly, even in winter. In the space of a few hours, he had conjured up the details of the retreat, all inspired by his overall vision of their fast zigzag route to the Mediterranean and home. Although he had no military experience, his vision was so complete, and he communicated it with such confidence, that the soldiers nominated him as their de facto leader. It took several years and involved many ensuing challenges, each time Xenophon applying his global vision to determine a strategy, but in the end, he proved the power of such rational thinking by leading them to safety despite the immense odds against them.

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

  Objection 3: Further, the Philosopher says (De Coel. ii, 5) that “to have something to say about everything, without leaving anything out, is sometimes a proof of folly.” But to attempt everything seems to point to great hopes; while folly arises from inexperience. Therefore inexperience, rather than experience, seems to be a cause of hope. On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 8) “some are hopeful, through having been victorious often and over many opponents”: which seems to pertain to experience. Therefore experience is a cause of hope. I answer that, As stated above [1355](A[1]), the object of hope is a future good, difficult but possible to obtain. Consequently a thing may be a cause of hope, either because it makes something possible to a man: or because it makes him think something possible. In the first way hope is caused by everything that increases a man’s power; e.g. riches, strength, and, among others, experience: since by experience man acquires the faculty of doing something easily, and the result of this is hope. Wherefore Vegetius says (De Re Milit. i): “No one fears to do that which he is sure of having learned well.” In the second way, hope is caused by everything that makes man think that he can obtain something: and thus both teaching and persuasion may be a cause of hope. And then again experience is a cause of hope, in so far as it makes him reckon something possible, which before his experience he looked upon as impossible. However, in this way, experience can cause a lack of hope: because just as it makes a man think possible what he had previously thought impossible; so, conversely, experience makes a man consider as impossible that which hitherto he had thought possible. Accordingly experience causes hope in two ways, despair in one way: and for this reason we may say rather that it causes hope. Reply to Objection 1: Experience in matters pertaining to action not only produces knowledge; it also causes a certain habit, by reason of custom, which renders the action easier. Moreover, the intellectual virtue itself adds to the power of acting with ease: because it shows something to be possible; and thus is a cause of hope. Reply to Objection 2: The old are wanting in hope because of their experience, in so far as experience makes them think something impossible. Hence he adds (Rhet. ii, 13) that “many evils have befallen them.” Reply to Objection 3: Folly and inexperience can be a cause of hope accidentally as it were, by removing the knowledge which would help one to judge truly a thing to be impossible. Wherefore inexperience is a cause of hope, for the same reason as experience causes lack of hope.

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

  GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) For by custom every several man paid a didrachma for himself; now a stater is equal to two didrachmas. ORIGEN. Mystically; In the field of comfort, (for so is Capernaum expounded,) He comforts each one of His disciples, and pronounces him to be a son and free, and gives him the power of taking the first fish, that after His ascension Peter may have comfort over that which he has caught. HILARY. When Peter is instructed to take the first fish, it is shewn therein that he shall catch more than one. The blessed first martyr Stephen was the first that came up, having in his mouth a stater, which contained the didrachma of the new preaching, divided as two denarii, for he preached as he beheld in his passion the glory of God, and Christ the Lord. JEROME. Or; That fish which was first taken is the first Adam, who is set free by the second Adam; and that which is found in his mouth, that is, in his confession, is given for Peter and for the Lord. ORIGEN. And when you see any miser rebuked by some Peter who takes the speech of his money out of his mouth, you may say that he is risen out of the sea of covetousness to the hook of reason, and is caught and saved by some Peter, who has taught him the truth, that he should change his stater for the image of God, that is for the oracles of God. JEROME. And beautifully is this very stater given for the tribute; but it is divided; for Peter as for a sinner a ransom is to be paid, but the Lord had not sin. Yet herein is shewn the likeness of their flesh, when the Lord and His servants are redeemed with the same price. CHAPTER 18 18:1–61. At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2. And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3. And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. JEROME. The disciples seeing one piece of money paid both for Peter and the Lord, conceived from this equality of ransom that Peter was preferred before all the rest of the Apostles.

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

  While the boys around me nodded off during Chapel I prayed like a Moslem, prayed that I would somehow pull myself up again so I could stay in this place that I secretly and deeply loved. The school was patient, but not inexhaustibly patient. In my last year I broke the bank and was asked to leave. My mother met my train and took me to a piano bar full of men in Nehru jackets where she let me drink myself under the table. She wanted me to know that she wasn’t mad about anything, that I’d lasted longer than she ever thought I would. She was in a mood to celebrate, having just landed a good job in the church across the street from the White House. “I’ve got a better view than Kennedy,” she told me. My best friend got kicked out of school a few weeks after me, and the two of us proceeded to rage. I wore myself out with raging. Then I went into the army. I did so with a sense of relief and homecoming. It was good to find myself back in the clear life of uniforms and ranks and weapons. It seemed to me when I got there that this was where I had been going all along, and where I might still redeem myself. All I needed was a war. Careful what you pray for. WHEN WE ARE green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever. That assurance burns very bright at certain moments. It was burning bright for me when Chuck and I left Seattle and started the long drive home. I had just dumped a load of stolen goods. My wallet was thick with bills which I would lose at cards in one night, but which I then believed would keep me going for months. In a couple of weeks I was leaving for California to be with my father and my brother. Soon after I got there, my mother would join us. We would all be together again, as we were meant to be. And when the summer was over I would go East to a noble school where I would earn good marks, captain the swimming team, and be welcomed into the great world that was my desire and my right. In this world nothing was impossible that I could imagine for myself. In this world the only task was to pick and choose. Chuck felt good too. His trunk had no guns in it. He had escaped Tina Flood, he had escaped prison, and before long he would escape me.

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

  Mating in Captivity Reconciling the Erotic + the Domestic Esther Perel Dedication To my parents, Sala Ferlegier and Icek Perel. Their vitality lives on in me. Epigraph WILD THINGS IN CAPTIVITY Wild things in captivity while they keep their own wild purity won’t breed, they mope, they die. All men are in captivity, active with captive activity, and the best won’t breed, though they don’t know why. The great cage of our domesticity kills sex in a man, the simplicity of desire is distorted and twisted awry. And so, with bitter perversity, gritting against the great adversity, the young ones copulate, hate it, and want to cry. Sex is a state of grace. In a cage it can’t take place. Break the cage then, start in and try. D. H. Lawrence Contents Dedication Epigraph Introduction 1 From Adventure to Captivity: Why the Quest for Security Saps Erotic Vitality 2 More Iintimacy, Less Sex: Love Seeks Closeness, but Desire Needs Distance 3 The Pitfalls Of Modern Intimacy: Talk Is Not the Only Avenue to Closeness 4 Democracy Versus Hot Sex: Desire and Egalitarianism Don’t Play by the Same Rules 5 Can Do! The Protestant Work Ethic Takes On the Degradation of Desire 6 Sex Is Dirty; Save It for Someone You Love: When Puritanism and Hedonism Collide 7 Erotic Blueprints: Tell Me How You Were Loved, and I’ll Tell You How You Make Love 8 Parenthood: When Three Threatens Two 9 Of Flesh and Fantasy: In the Sanctuary of the Erotic Mind We Find a Direct Route to Pleasure 10 The Shadow of the Third: Rethinking Fidelity 11 Putting the X Back in Sex: Bringing the Erotic Home Notes Bibliography Searchable Terms Acknowledgments About the Author Credits Books by Esther Perel Copyright About the Publisher About the Author Esther Perel is a couples and family therapist with a private practice in New York City. She is on the faculty of the International Trauma Studies program at Columbia University, is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy, and has appeared on many television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Day New York, CBS This Morning , and HBO’s Women Aloud . She lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com Acknowledgments I NEVER WROTE A BOOK before. I thought I couldn’t stand the solitude. To my surprise, I found I could bring my love of collaboration and midnight chats to the writing table. I tend to think in conversation—it’s in speaking that my ideas emerge and take on clarity. Some people helped me talk, and others, write. I owe them so much, far beyond this modest tribute. Since we have been musing about love and sex for two years, let me simply say that every word sends a kiss of gratitude. Sarah Manges, editor extraordinaire, you have been my compass. You have kept me on course when squalls of ideas threatened to knock me way off.

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

  Flipping Coins In 2013, economist Steven Levitt, coauthor of the wildly popular book Freakonomics, put up a website inviting people who visited to flip a virtual coin to help them make a close decision about whether to quit or stick. Participants would register what they were struggling with, among a variety of types of decisions. Many of these were big life decisions, like “Should I quit my job or stay?” or “Should I leave my relationship or continue on?” or “Should I stay in college or drop out?” In other words, these were the normal types of choices you can imagine people would have trouble making. The site would assign one side of the decision, like stay in your job, to heads, and the other side of the decision, like quit your job, to tails. When users clicked on the image of the coin, they were shown the randomized outcome of the virtual coin flip. You might be skeptical that people would go to a website to flip a coin to help them make a life-changing quitting decision. But twenty thousand people over the course of a year actually did this. Obviously, these people must have felt that the choice of whether to quit or to persevere was so close, so 50-50, that flipping a coin to help them decide seemed like a reasonable option. It stands to reason that if these decisions were, in reality, as close as the coin flippers felt they were, they would be equally likely to be happier if the coin landed heads or if it landed tails, whether they ended up sticking or quitting. That is, after all, the definition of a close call. But this isn’t what Levitt found. When he followed up with the coin flippers two and six months later, he discovered that for the big life decisions, people who quit were happier on average than people who stuck, whether they quit on their own or after the coin flipped in favor of quitting. While the decisions may have felt close to the people making them, they were not actually close at all. As judged by the participants’ happiness, quitting was the clear winner. Because people were much happier when they quit what they considered a close decision, that shows that people are generally quitting too late. That’s exactly what was happening with Sarah Olstyn Martinez. She thought it was a

• 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 The History of World Literature (2007)

  22 Lecture 5: Homer’s Odyssey The differences between the heroic world of the Iliad and the peacetime world of the Odyssey are illustrated in Odysseus’s meeting with Aias in Hades. Aias, a hero from the heroic world of the Trojan War, turns his back on Odysseus and walks away, refusing to acknowledge someone who has survived by compromising the heroic code. The distance from the heroic world is also re À ected in Odysseus’s frequent disguises and the sometimes deÀ ating epic similes applied to him by the poet. Women characters play a far more important part in this poem than they do in the Iliad; they are not depicted as slave women. In the Odyssey, we have Helen, Circe, Calypso, and Penelope, formidable women who easily control men and whose power is challenged only by Odysseus (who sometimes needs divine help to do so). Helen in Sparta, visited by Telemachus, is marvelously in charge of her household; Circe changes men into swine; and Calypso captures Odysseus and keeps him with her until forced to release him by Zeus. Penelope’s beauty, wit, and intelligence have turned 108 suitors into metaphorical swine; in the poem’s penultimate scene, she tricks the great trickster Odysseus into losing his temper, making her the only character in the poem ever able to do so. We hope that Odysseus and Penelope will spend the rest of their lives as equals—a hope that this peacetime poem makes possible in a way the Iliad cannot. The impact of the Odyssey and the Iliad on the subsequent history of literature is incalculable. Both Achilles and Odysseus bequeathed an idea of personal heroism that never disappears. We will encounter Achilles again in Greek tragedy and the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Faulkner, and Achebe. We will meet Odysseus again in the Chinese novel Monkey and many of the tales from Chaucer and the 1001 Nights. Ŷ Homer, Odyssey. Essential Reading 23 Finley, The World of Odysseus. Grif¿ n, Homer (Past Masters). 1. Odysseus’s name translates roughly as “trouble.” If his goal throughout the poem is to win a name, or to deserve the name he has already won at Troy, what is the signi ¿ cance of his given name? Does he earn or deserve it by the poem’s end and, if so, in how many ways? 2. The most fantastic adventures in the poem are narrated by Odysseus himself at the Phaiakian banquet when he ¿ nally reveals his identity. It has been suggested that he is making up these adventures—or at least elaborating and heightening them—in order to impress the highly domesticated Phaiakians, to convince them to take him home, and to get them to load him up with gifts. What do you think about that thesis? Is it plausible? Is there any corroborating evidence, supplied by the poet, to con¿ rm any of Odysseus’s tales? Questions to Consider Supplementary Reading

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Rosa turned to Martin. “I like you. I don’t know why.” She turned back to face me: “He’s been here for a week, but today, in this group, is the first time I’ve spoken to him. It’s like we have a lot in common, but I know we don’t.” “Do you feel understood?” “Understood? I don’t know. Well, yeah, in a funny sort of way I do. Maybe that’s it.” “That’s what I saw. I saw Martin trying his best to understand you. And he wasn’t trying to do anything else—I didn’t hear him try to manage you or tell you what to do, or even tell you that you ought to eat.” “It’s a good thing he didn’t try. It wouldn’t have done any good.” Here Rosa turned to Carol, and they exchanged bony grins of complicity. I hated their grisly conspiracy. 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.”

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

  “What the Scout Is determines his progress in whatever line of business he may seek success—and Scout Ideals mean progress in business.” Suggested good turns were enumerated on a ledger, so the Scout could check them off as he performed them: Assisted a foreign boy with some English grammar. Helped put out a burning field. Gave water to crippled dog . Here, even the murky enterprise of self-examination could be expressed as a problem in accounting. “On a scale of 100, what all-around rating would I be justified in giving myself?” I liked all these numbers and lists, because they offered the clear possibility of mastery. But what I liked best about the Handbook was its voice, the bluff hail-fellow language by which it tried to make being a good boy seem adventurous, even romantic. The Scout Spirit was traced to King Arthur’s Round Table, and from there to the explorers and pioneers and warriors whose conquests had been achieved through fair play and clean living. “No man given over to dissipation can stand the gaff. He quickly tires. He is the type who usually lacks courage at the crucial moment. He cannot take punishment and come back smiling.” I yielded easily to this comradely tone, forgetting while I did so that I was not the boy it supposed I was. Boy’s Life , the official Scout magazine, worked on me in the same way. I read it in a trance, accepting without question its narcotic invitation to believe that I was really no different from the boys whose hustle and pluck it celebrated. Boys who raised treasure from Spanish galleons, and put empty barns to use by building operational airplanes in them. Boys who skied to the North Pole. Boys who sailed around the Horn, solo. Boys who saved lives, and were accepted into savage tribes, and sent themselves to college by running traplines in the wilderness. Reading about these boys made me restless, feverish with schemes. My mother had allowed me to bring the Winchester to Chinook. When I was alone in the house I sometimes dressed up in my Scout uniform, slung the rifle across my back, and practiced Indian sign language in front of the mirror. Hungry . Brother . Food . Want . Great Mystery . MY MOTHER FINALLY gave Dwight a date in March. Once he knew she was coming he began to talk about his plans for renovating the house, but he drank at night and didn’t get anything done. A couple of weeks before she quit her job he brought home a trunkful of paint in five-gallon cans. All of it was white. Dwight spread out his tarps and for several nights running we stayed up late painting the ceilings and walls. When we had finished those, Dwight looked around, saw that it was good, and kept going. He painted the coffee table white. He painted all the beds white, and the chests of drawers, and the dining-room table.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  Plague came upon plague, and wound upon wound, and affliction upon affliction, and evil report upon evil report, and sickness upon sickness, and every evil judgment of this sort one upon another: sickness, and downfal , and sleet, and hail, and frost, and fever, and chil s, and stupor, and famine, and death … And all of this will come in the evil generation which sins in the land. In spite of the corruption of the present moment one may live with the hope that restoration will happen in the new age and the new creation. 16 The New Age and the New Creation The new age is seen as the true return from exile. Only those who confess their guilt will enjoy that return. The end of the exile and the coming of a new creation involve judgment upon the Gentiles and unfaithful Israelites alike, as well as blessings to those who are faithful and obedient. Then, they will be restored to health and live long and extraordinary ages in a new creation that brings the world back to its lost paradise status. In the victory of Judah, the destiny of Israel is realized. The Levites will rule over a nation whose true happiness is centered in the Temple on Mt. Zion, in keeping Torah, and in celebrating the festivals of the restored calendar. The hearts of the people will be 14 Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2, 47. 15 OTP 2, trans. Wintermute, 60. The Greek text is from the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha. 16 In spite of the bleak description of the present age, the author seems to entertain the possibility that the new age has already begun; that he was living in the early period of the eschaton. In chapter 23 he seems to be describing some events of his own time. For more on this, see T. Hanneken, The Subversion of the Apocalypses in the book of Jubilees (Atlanta: SBL, 2012). 64 64 Paul and Matthew among Jews and Gentiles

• From Cleanness (2020)

  My phone buzzed with a text from D., telling me to meet him at the fountain in front of the Presidency. He was one of the first friends I had made in Bulgaria, a journalist and a poet, an alumnus of the school where I taught. We had met at some function where he was held up as an example, since after college and graduate school in the States he had decided to come back, as almost none of our students ever did; if you came back it meant you had failed, our students thought, but D. hadn’t failed, it was an important example. The boulevard was blocked off after the intersection with Rakovski and we spilled out into the street, which was already full of people, as was the square in front of the Presidency. This had yellow police barricades in front of it but was otherwise protected only by the usual ornamental guard, two men in nineteenth-century uniforms staring blankly and unfazed, bayonets held stiffly at their sides. The police were gathered across the boulevard, in front of the former Communist Party headquarters, which served as Parliament offices now and where there was a much larger space kept free from protesters, the distance a bottle could be thrown, I thought—but they were relaxed, most of them held their helmets under their arms. Their riot shields were stacked in piles leaning against the bus they had traveled in on, the size of an American schoolbus, painted blue and white. They were smiling and talking with one another, with the protesters, toward whom they had expressed a benevolent neutrality, claiming in public statements that they were keeping the protests safe, that so long as they remained peaceful they had no intention of putting a stop to them; and the protesters reciprocated, one man stood now in front of them with a sign that read WE THANK OUR FRIENDS THE POLICE. The hope was that by saying it one could make it so, I thought, and so far the hope had held. Interspersed among the crowd were large white vans, teams of newscasters; cameramen stood on their roofs, next to the satellite dishes, scanning the crowd. People were milling about, many of them holding their signs above their heads to block the sun; it could have been a fair, almost, the crowd was bright with balloons, with spinning pinwheels children waved, with the sounds of whistles and handheld drums. Near the fountain, in the shade of a tree, a man had set out a table with these trinkets, most of all with the little Bulgarian flags that he held out to passersby, calling out po levche sa, one lev each. There were other street vendors, too; the air was sweet with roasted walnuts, and people were carrying little plastic bags of sunflower seeds, bottles of water still sweating with condensation.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Outside, I wanted to tell R. why I had needed to leave so suddenly, but as I began to speak what I had felt seemed ridiculous, out of scale, and I let it drop. It was already late afternoon, and we angled our way back to the busier part of town. We didn’t have any plans for the evening, and as we walked I kept an eye on the walls of the buildings beside the road, which were crowded with posters for concerts and exhibitions and plays, a surprising number for such a small town, I thought, posters mounted over other posters, bulging like plaster from the walls. Most of them were for small venues, clubs and cafés, but there was a series of performances held within the walls of the ruined fortress, too; the stage of ages, they called it, symphony and opera and ballet. We had been saving Tsarevets for the evening anyway; it would be brutal in the day, exposed to the sun and with almost no shade to be found. I saw that there was a concert that night, members of the Sofia Opera and Ballet performing Lakmé, the opera by Delibes. I had never seen it live, I told R., but it was the first opera I owned on CD, two discs I had played again and again. It was like a door opening onto my adolescence, I felt, a chance to share it with him, and suddenly it seemed important that we go, Please, I said, can we go, please, surprising us both with my insistence. He had never been to an opera before, but he was willing; it would be a new experience, he said, he was eager for new experiences.

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

  When I told her I’d spoken to Geoffrey, her eyes filled with tears. This was unusual for her. We were sitting at the kitchen table, where we liked to talk when we were alone in the house. Geoffrey had recently been sending my mother letters, too, but they hadn’t spoken since we left Utah. She wanted to know what he sounded like, how he was, and all manner of things I had not thought to ask him. My mother grew somber, as she often did when we talked about Geoffrey. She was afraid she’d done the wrong thing in letting him go with my father, afraid he held it against her, that and the divorce, and taking up with Roy. I mentioned Geoffrey’s idea about Choate, about the possibility of my getting a scholarship there or maybe at some other school. I was afraid of her reaction. I thought she would be hurt by my wish to go, but she liked the idea. “He actually thinks you have a chance?” she said. “He said they’ll be eating out of my hand, quote un-quote.” “I don’t know why he thinks that.” “My grades are good,” I said. “That’s true. Your grades are good. What other schools did he mention?” “St. Paul’s.” “He’s got big plans for you.” “Deerfield.” She laughed. “They’ll recognize your name, anyway. I think your father was the only boy they ever expelled.” Then she said, “Don’t get your hopes too high.” “Geoffrey said he’d talk to Dad about it. He said maybe Dad would have some ideas.” “I’m sure he will,” she said. GEOFFREY SENT THE names and addresses of the schools he had first mentioned, and also three others—Hill, Andover, and Exeter. I went to the library at school and looked them up in Vance Packard’s The Status Seekers . This book explained how the upper class perpetuates itself. Its motive was supposedly democratic, to attack snobbery and subvert the upper class by giving away its secrets. But I didn’t read it as social criticism. To seek status seemed the most natural thing in the world to me. Everyone did it. The people who bought the book were certainly doing it. They consulted it with the same purpose I had, not to deplore the class problem but to solve it by changing classes. Whatever he meant it to be, Packard’s book was the perfect guide for social climbers. He listed the places you should live and the colleges you should go to and the clubs you should join and the faith you should confess. He named the tailors and stores you should patronize, and described with filigree exactitude the ways you could betray your origins. Wearing a blue serge suit to a yacht-club party. Saying davenport for sofa, ill for sick, wealthy for rich. Painting the walls of your house in bright colors. Mixing ginger ale with whiskey. Being too good a dancer. He showed boxes within boxes, circles within circles.

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

  I should also apply to Deerfield, where our father had gone for a time, and to St. Paul’s. Maybe some others. They liked jocks, he said. Was I a jock? I told him I was a swimmer. “Good, they love swimmers. You swim for your school?” “The school doesn’t have a team. I swim for my Scout troop.” “You’re a Scout? Great! Better and better. What rank?” “Eagle.” He laughed. “Christ, Toby, they’ll be eating out of your hand. Anything else? Chess? Music?” “I play in the school band.” “Terrific. What instrument?” “Snare drum.” “Yes, well, let’s stick with the grades and swimming and the Scouts.” Geoffrey told me he would send a list of schools to apply to, along with addresses and deadlines. I would have to be patient, this wasn’t going to happen overnight. “I don’t like the idea of that guy hitting you,” Geoffrey said. “Think you can hang on out there?” I said I could. “I’m going to call the old man about this. He might have some ideas. We’ll get you out of there, one way or the other.” He told me to give his love to our mother, and to keep writing. He said he really liked the wolf story. THIS WAS A low time for my mother. During the campaign she had traveled up and down the valley, and gone to conventions, and spent her time with people she admired. She had met John F. Kennedy. Now that the election was over she’d gone back to waiting tables at the cookhouse. She missed the excitement, but her sadness went beyond that, beyond boredom and fatigue. She had told a man who’d worked with her on the campaign that she wanted to get out of Chinook, and he offered to pull some strings to find her a job back East. Dwight somehow got wind of it. While they were driving up from Marblemount one night, he turned off on a logging road and took her to a lonely place. She asked him to go back but he refused to say anything. He just sat there, drinking from a bottle of whiskey. When it was empty he pulled his hunting knife out from under the seat and held it to her throat. He kept her there for hours like that, making her beg for her life, making her promise that she would never leave him. If she left him, he said, he would find her and kill her. It didn’t matter where she went or how long it took him, he would kill her. She believed him. I knew something had happened, but I didn’t know what. My mother wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid I would make things worse if I knew, stir Dwight up all over again. The fact was, she had no money and no place to go. Alone, she might have bolted anyway. With me to take care of she thought she couldn’t.