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 Etched in Sand (2013)

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

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  I realize that in this moment—as I’m about to leave high school and enter the world as an adult—I have a choice: I can distance myself and remain cynical toward her, or I can forgive her in the interest of developing a relationship with someone who’s actually my family. After I graduate in June 1984, Addie knocks on my bedroom door. “Your mother’s on the phone,” she says. My face twists in confusion. “Cookie? Called here?” Addie’s expression tells me she’s confused, too. “Yes.” I pick up the phone in her bedroom. “Hello?” I hear Addie gently hang up her end of the phone in the kitchen. “I called to wish you a happy graduation.” Cookie’s voice is gruff and strained. “I’ve got something for you.” I hesitate for the punch line. “What?” “A boot up your ass!” I chuckle along, slightly stunned that she’s contacted me. “Actually, I have something in mind,” I tell her. “I’ve saved money to take a plane to Idaho for a visit. Would you be willing to have me?” My tone is sweet. If I disarm her, she may let me come out to see the kids. I still think about Rosie constantly, even though it’s been four years since we’ve seen each other in person. I try to convince myself that she knows I did everything I could to save her. “I guess that’d be okay,” Cookie says. “If you agree to leave your attitude in New York.” When I tell Camille I’m going, she’s concerned how I’ll do when I have to face Cookie. “You haven’t seen her since that day in the motel room,” Camille says. “Are you nervous?” “Nah. She knows she has to pick me up from the airport, and I’ll make it clear right up front that I’m the boss of that relationship now.” Cookie and Norman stand by as I lift my suitcase into the car. “Get a load of you,” Cookie says, looking me over. In the last three years, my hair’s grown back thick, and I set it with rollers so it’s shiny and full. The bare limbs stemming from my tropical pink shorts and T-shirt are fit and trim, and I wear gold jewelry around my tanned neck and wrists. I’ve grown into a young woman with features that Addie says intimidate the boys, and right before graduation I found out I was accepted to the local community college. Feeling certain about my future, I stand before Cookie with satisfaction of who I’ve become. Already it’s clear nothing about her has changed. Rosie, who’s obviously afraid to speak in front of Cookie, is blossoming, too. Just a few months shy of twelve years old, my baby sister is almost unrecognizable from the little peanut I knew four years ago. She’s peaked much sooner than the rest of us did, already a head taller than fifteen-year-old Norm. Her father, Vito, was a tall, broad man and Rosie’s frame is taking after his.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “He understands that such a ruling would have substantial legal reverberations. He said this is something better decided by a higher court.” A few weeks later the judge dismisses my case. I have two more options: an appeal to the Court of Appeals of the State of Washington; then, if we lose there, onto the Washington State Supreme Court. Ralph warns me about proceeding and the impact this will have on others . . . and of course on my bank account. “But, Regina, I’ve got to tell you, I have confidence in your facts. We still have a chance here, but it will take a year until the hearing is scheduled and the court issues a determination.” “Good,” I tell him. “I want to appeal.” I just need to know. I remember a verse I once spotted that Julia had highlighted in her Bible: The truth will set you free. I’ve never been able to forget those words. Even when it hurts, it’s more empowering to know the truth than to stay blind to it. Once I know the truth—and once Paul knows the truth—I’ll be finished. In my life I’ve found that you can’t let something go until it’s really over and it’s never really over until you learn the truth. The morning of September 11, 2001, I’m serving as an election monitor in Queens for my old boss, who’s campaigning for mayor, when the poll workers alert me that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, the second tower is hit. That afternoon, with all the bridges and tunnels that lead into Manhattan closed, I can’t return home. I drive east toward Camille’s, where I watch news coverage of the attack and begin to grieve for those who perished and the impact all this will have on our country. A few days later, Ralph calls from Seattle. “I just wanted to hear that you’re safe,” he says. “I’ve been trying to get through for days.” I wait for him to mention that maybe Paul’s lawyer reached out to him to check on me. “No word from Wayne Teller?” Ralph lets me down easy. “No.” I nod, as though he can hear my deflation through the phone. Paul Accerbi hasn’t even checked to make sure I’m still alive. I take a deep breath, reminding myself of my strength: I’m doing this for me—to know for certain that he’s my father. In the Spring of 2002, in our written appeal, Ralph argues that the trial court erred in dismissing my action and that the statute as adopted by the State of Washington back in the mid–1970s does not restrict paternity suits to minor children only. Then, of course, Paul reiterates his defense: He should be awarded Fourth Amendment protections of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  The oral argument before the three-judge panel was held in May 2002, but Ralph warns me it could be another six months before the court makes its decision. In late October I receive a fax from Ralph. It’s the cover page of the decision from the Washington State Court of Appeals in Seattle. On the cover sheet are two key words: Reversed and Remanded. Holding my breath, I flip to the next page where the decision is written by Judge Grosse, with the two other judges, Applewick and Baker, concurring, making the decision unanimous: Under the Uniform Parentage Act establishing a father-child relationship does not depend on the minority of the child. A child has a constitutionally protected interest in an accurate determination of paternity. The statute and [this] case preserve the right of child of any age, who alleges sufficient underlying facts, to seek a determination of the existence of a paternal relationship. . . . The inclusion of the phrase “at any time” shows the intent of the Legislature. In adopting the Uniform Parentage Act, the Legislature balanced the interest of the child against those of a putative parent. While Accerbi’s right to privacy is an interest affected by an order compelling DNA or blood test, that right is not absolute. The State may reasonably regulate this right if it has a compelling interest. The privacy invasion of a DNA test is minor. Even if it is determined that Accerbi is the father of Calcaterra, there are admittedly no child support issues, and he can disinherit Calcaterra if he so chooses. Accerbi’s psychological well-being does not outweigh the interests of a child. I’m thrilled it was a unanimous decision, but I reserve any urge to celebrate. The fact is, this isn’t over. I know Paul’s next move. Six days later, his attorney confirms my prediction when he files his appeal to the Supreme Court of the State of Washington. Ralph tells me his counsel was merely repeating their earlier arguments. He also tells me that the Supreme Court rulings in Washington allow the prevailing party to recover court costs. “Ralph, you mean if I win in the state Supreme Court, Paul will have to reimburse me the nine thousand dollars it cost me to bring this case just so he could take a twenty-five-dollar DNA test?” “Not quite,” he says. “The court cost is the actual filing cost that accompanied your appeal. In this instance, it would just be $414.71. If you lose, you have to pay that to Paul; and if he loses, he has to pay that to you.” I laugh. Seven months after Paul’s appeal in June 2003, the Washington State Supreme Court rules in my favor. They keep the appellate court decision intact that compelled him to take a DNA test and issue an order that Paul reimburse me for $414.71. Again, I don’t celebrate—he could still appeal to the Federal courts . . . and he still needs to take the DNA test.

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

  The tale of Taïsia’s repentance is handed down among the chain of traditions about the earliest generations of monks, principally from the site of Scetis. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers preserve a number of memories about the colorful ascetic John the Dwarf, who flourished in the last decades of the fourth century and the first decade of the fifth. Most of the stories and sayings focus on monastic pioneers from the mid-fourth to the early fifth century. In the earliest days these memories were transmitted orally, and characteristic traces of oral transmission remain in the collections. The story of Taïsia passed through only a few generations of oral transmission before its redaction in the Sayings, which seems to have taken shape as a text in the second half of the fifth century, probably in Palestine. A Palestinian origin for the redaction would add poignancy to the humbling finale of Taïsia’s story. The heavenly voice that affirms her salvation reminds us of nothing so much as an aphorism of Rabbi Judah ha Nasi that recurs throughout Avodah Zarah, uttered after the repentance of the most condign sinners. “One may acquire eternal life after many years, another in one hour!”49

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

  Second Chances Men, Women, and Children a Decade after Divorce with Sandra Blakeslee The Good Marriage How and Why Love Lasts with Sandra Blakeslee Copyright Copyright © 2000 Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Hyperion e-books. EPub Edition © AUGUST 2010 ISBN: 978-0-786-87073-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wallerstein, Judith S. The unexpected legacy of divorce : a 25 year landmark study / by Judith Wallerstein, Julia M. Lewis and Sandra Blakeslee.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7868-6394-3 1. Children of divorced parents—United States—Longitudinal studies. 2. Divorce—United States—Longitudinal studies. I. Lewis, Julia. II. Blakeslee, Sandra. III. Title. HQ834.W356 2000 306.890973—dc21 00-035071 FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Preface I N THE FALL OF 1994 I received a phone call that was to entirely revise my understanding of divorce and how it has changed the nature of American society. On the other end of the line was Karen James, one of the children in a longitudinal study on divorce that I began in 1971 and last wrote about in the late 1980s. I remembered her well. Karen was a charming, lively child who was ten years old when her parents separated. I had interviewed her then, and again when she was fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five years old. The last time we met she was miserable, living with a man she didn’t love. I recalled how concerned I was about her despair. But the voice on the phone sounded strong and vibrant. “This is Karen James,” she announced. “I’m calling from North Carolina. How are you?” After we exchanged routine pleasantries, she said, “I’m going to be in the Bay Area next week. Do you have time to see me?” “Of course,” I answered. “I’ve thought about you many times.” “I’m in a whole other place than our last meeting,” said Karen. “It’s all new. I’m coming to town to get married next Saturday but I can come up to Marin on Thursday afternoon. Would that work?” I told Karen that I was honored that she could fit me in during such a busy week, and we set a time to get together. I was absolutely delighted by her call.

• From Sin: The Early History of an Idea (2012)

  Yet Paul’s vision of redemption is no less commodious than are the older Jewish apocalyptic traditions upon which he draws, wherein all the nations turn to Israel’s god and all Israel is gathered in when the day of the Lord finally dawns. The peculiarities of the Jesus movement—the message of a messiah who had died and been raised before establishing the kingdom—had called into existence this double loop in the sequence of saving events. Instead of the messiah’s coming, then Israel’s redemption, then the turning of the nations, as more classical patterns had it, Paul sees two comings of the messiah, the election of some within Israel and some of the gentiles, and then, eschatologically, a second messianic appearance bringing together the rest of Israel and the rest of the nations. Paul improvises. Scripture provides his sheet music here, but the urgency of the times, between the resurrection and the second coming, compels his stunning variations. And the main theme of his theological cadenza sounds clearly: God sent his son to die in order to redeem the world from sin—or, rather, from Sin, and from all the other rebel cosmic forces ranged between God and his creation. “If God is for us,” Paul proclaims to the gentile Christ-followers in Rome, “who is against us?” He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? . . . Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Or distress? Or persecution, or famine, or peril, or nakedness, or the sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.31–39). Paul thus envisages a divine comedy, a cosmic happy ending. And he—like John the Baptizer and like Jesus before him—is convinced that these events will happen soon. Yet the kingdom did not come, though traditions established by these three men continued. What happened then to Paul’s message, to their message, when Time failed to end on time? Chapter 2FLESH AND THE DEVILSin in the Second Century

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

  The aesthetic theory of the evolution of male same-sex behavior does not imply that men with a predominantly same-sex orientation have any physical or social personality traits that differ from those of other males. Exactly the contrary, in fact. The hypothesis maintains that there is nothing distinctive about such men, because the features that evolved along with same-sex preferences have become a typical component of human maleness in general. Therefore, individuals with exclusively same-sex sexual preferences are distinctive only in the exclusivity, not in the existence, of their same-sex desires. — These aesthetic theories of the evolution of human same-sex behavior are, of course, highly speculative. However, I think that this speculation is responsible and warranted because of the fundamental importance of the question, the failure of current adaptive explanations to address the evolution of same-sex desire directly, and the unfortunate impact the current adaptive theories have already had on the public and cultural discourse on human sexuality, especially by reinforcing the tendency to view ourselves merely as (flawed) sexual objects rather than as autonomous and deserving sexual subjects. Clearly, there is a need for a new evolutionary theory on this question. We can, however, put these aesthetic hypotheses to the test by examining both their plausibility and their congruence with current data on sexuality in both human and nonhuman animals. To begin, I will evaluate their plausibility first by examining their assumptions. For example, these aesthetic evolutionary theories assume the existence of heritable genetic variations in sexual preference and in behavior traits related to sexual preference. Like many other social behavior traits in humans, there is good evidence that predominantly same-sex sexual preference—that is, self-identified homosexuality—is strongly heritable. In the case of the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior in females, the plausibility of the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection for female social alliances is well established in general. So, this proposal merely requires the application of a well-known evolutionary mechanism in a new context. However, the hypothesis that female mate choice can result in the evolution of male social behavior in ways that expand female sexual autonomy is a new idea. Sam Snow and I are developing a mathematical, genetic model that will establish the efficacy of the aesthetic remodeling mechanism as proposed in bowerbirds, manakins, and humans. Such models establish that an evolutionary mechanism could occur under certain realistic assumptions. The aesthetic theory proposes that female mate choice can also transform male social behavior in ways that extend beyond males’ social interactions with females, which is exactly the kind of process we’ve seen in lekking birds. Female mate choice in manakins has transformed the nature of male social competition so that bromance is key to success in romance. Same-sex behavior in human males may be another form of this female-driven aesthetic remodeling of male social relations, another evolutionary solution to the problem of male sexual coercion.

• From Sin: The Early History of an Idea (2012)

  All of Paul’s teaching is framed by his conviction that the kingdom approached. This fact can help to explain his unprecedented demand: not only that “his” gentiles absolutely cease their worship of idols and of the gods represented by those idols (a condition otherwise only of full conversion to Judaism), but also that they not “convert” to Judaism (that is, for men, receive circumcision; Galatians, passim). Why insist that these gentiles act like Jewish converts, eschewing their own ancestral practices, while at the same time also and heatedly insisting that they not act like converts, honoring Jewish ancestral practices (circumcision, food laws, and so on)?20 Because, as Paul says in Corinthians and elsewhere, the “end of the ages” had already arrived. The turning of the nations to the god of Israel was yet another event anticipated at the End. (We saw this above, briefly, in our passage from Isaiah 2.) Well-represented in biblical prophetic texts—Isaiah 25.6 (Israel and the nations gathered at the temple mount sharing a common meal); Micah 4.1–2 (an echo of our Isaiah passage); and Zechariah 8.23 (“In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’ ”)—this expectation swells to a major theme in many Jewish writings of the late Second Temple period. Thus the Psalm of Solomon expects that at the End, the nations themselves will carry the exiles back to Jerusalem (7.31–41). Repudiating their idols, “all people shall direct their sight to the path of uprightness” (1 Enoch 91.14). “All the nations will turn in fear to the Lord God . . . and bury their idols,” prophesies Tobit (14.6). Note: the word turning here does not mean or imply “converting.” According to these traditions, the nations do not “become” Jews at the End. In turning to Israel’s god, these eschatological gentiles preserve their particular ethnicities as gentiles. They just do not worship idols any more. This is precisely what Paul’s gentiles have already done: “You turned to God from idols,” he tells the community of Thessalonika, “to serve a living and true god” in advance of the fast-approaching End (1 Thes 1.9–10).21

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  “I need to make it clear that for us to accept you is a risk—law school rankings are based upon many things, including how many students pass the bar examination the first time, and by definition, you’re here because you failed in one of the two indicators that result in high first-time bar passage rates.” He explains that only students who achieve at least a B in the affirmative action boot camp will be admitted into law school . . . and in August of 1992, I learn I made the cut. I stay full-time at New Jersey Transit and pace myself for a twelve-credit load every semester, grabbing a coffee and a sandwich for dinner from the law school deli before my six o’clock class four nights a week. When class gets out at nine thirty I take the train from Newark to Manhattan’s Penn Station, then the subway and the bus back to Queens. By midnight I’m in bed, knowing the next day will look the same. Some nights, as I’m drifting to sleep, I’m jolted awake by the thought of Rosie. Nothing else has ever compared to the depth of emptiness my heart holds for her. Sure, I’ve mainstreamed professionally and socially . . . but emotionally I’ve never healed. I’ve stifled the reality of the emotional scars that I’ve spent all of my young adulthood ignoring. The more I learn about policy and the law, the more excited I become to immerse myself in the world of politics. After the half-decade I’ve dedicated to advocating for the rights of the physically challenged, I’m ready for a change. In 1993, the same year Rudy Giuliani runs for New York City mayor, Alan runs for city comptroller . . . and this time, with the support of the field operation that we cultivated over the past few years, he wins. Alan places me on his transition and inauguration teams. The first few months into his new administration in downtown Manhattan, I work with fierce intensity while juggling law school in Newark. “You’re one of the only people I know who never takes no for an answer,” Alan tells me as he designates me as his director of Intergovernmental Relations, charged with passing his state and city legislative agenda. As far as title and responsibility go, they’re as thrilling as they are daunting for me—a twenty-eight-year-old law student managing a staff and charged with implementing a New York City–wide elected official’s legislative agenda. We successfully secure the passage of ten state laws. MY PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS gives me the courage to reach out once again to Paul Accerbi . . . something I haven’t tried since I was sixteen, twelve years ago. If I can overcome strong and powerful opposition in state politics, maybe I can convince Paul that I’m a decent young woman who just wants to know who her father is.

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

  POSSIBILITY OF REACHING THE KINGDOMWe must go on to show that man can reach that kingdom. Otherwise it would be hoped for and prayed for in vain. In the first place, the divine promise makes this possibility clear. Our Lord says, in Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom.” God’s good pleasure is efficacious in carrying out all that He plans, according to Isaiah 46: 10: “My counsel shall stand, and all My will shall be done.” For, as we read in Romans 9: 19: “Who can resist His will?” Secondly, an evident example shows that attainment of the kingdom is possible. THE COMPENDIUM THEOLOGIAE BREAKS OFF AT THIS POINT. DEATH PREVENTED ST. THOMAS FROM FINISHING THE BOOK. HIS OPUSCULUM, EXPOSITIO ORATIONIS DOMINICAE, THOUGH PROBABLY A REPORTATIO, GIVES US AN IDEA OF THE PLAN HE VERY LIKELY WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED IN COMPLETING PART II OF THE COMPENDIUM. PART III, ON THE VIRTUE OF CHARITY, WAS TO HAVE DEVELOPED THE THEME INDICATED IN THE OPENING CHAPTER OF THE PRESENT WORK, THAT WE SHOULD CARRY OUT GOD’S WILL THROUGH LOVE. DE MEMORIA ET REMINISCENTIASAINT THOMAS AQUINAS COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK. TRANSLATED BY JOHN BURCHILL, O.P. M.A. DISSERTATION DOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, 1962 CONTENTSDE MEMORIA ET REMINISCENTIA LESSON ONE LESSON TWO LESSON THREE LESSON FOUR LESSON FIVE LESSON SIX LESSON SEVEN

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

  Each of us brings conscious and unconscious expectations, hopes, unfulfilled wishes, and fantasies from long ago into marriage. Each of us then comes up against the other person’s conscious and unconscious agenda as we evoke their hopes, fears, and fantasies. The secret of a good marriage is to arrive at a good enough fit so that each person feels that the relationship is uniquely satisfying, sometimes uniquely annoying, but probably irreplaceable. People who have been raised in good marriages have an easier time. They have clear models in their head and know the effort required. They’ve seen it work and don’t give up easily. Those who have been raised in an unhappy marriage that stayed together bring more guarded hopes and expectations. They may have a harder time deciding to marry. But they also have an extraordinary model of people who have been able to triumph over their anger at each other to protect their children. After a long journey, both Karen and Gary and many others like them were able to protect their marriages because they were willing to change. On balance, their stories are hopeful and encouraging. Being a Parent and the Legacy of Intact FamiliesCHILDREN CARRY symbolic meaning for all parents. Just as they embody our aspirations and dreams for the future, they inevitably evoke the past, including vivid images and memories of our own childhoods and passionate feelings about our parents when we were young. Thus for Karen and other children of divorce like her, the decision to have a child brought up feelings of sorrow, anger, and deprivation. When Karen considered motherhood, she was beset with concerns. Could she trust the marriage to hold? Would Gavin be a better father than her own father had been? Could she trust herself as a parent to give her child a more protected, happier upbringing than she had experienced? She was determined to do so. Like parents since the beginning of time, she wanted her children to have all that she had missed. Unlike her peers from divorced families who took the opposite route of avoiding parenthood, she had confidence in her ability to be a good mother. For Gary, however, the decision to become a parent was never in serious question. His mother and father had presented a united front as parents, and Gary had an excellent role model for how to be a loving, sensitive father. In this he was unquestionably better equipped than any of his peers who had been raised by part-time, divorced fathers. By becoming a father, Gary had the opportunity to refurbish happy memories of his childhood. Those children of divorce who were close to loving stepfathers also had good role models to draw on and could look forward to reliving happy experiences with their own children.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  The time seemed to have come to evaluate anew all the ancient prescriptions in the interest of mankind. One day in Spain, in the vicinity of Tarragona, when I was visiting alone a half-abandoned mine, a slave attacked me with a knife. He had passed most of his forty-three years in those subterranean corridors, and not without logic was taking revenge upon the emperor for his long servitude. I managed to disarm him easily enough; under the care of my physicians his violence subsided, and he changed into what he really was, a being not less sensible than others, and more loyal than many. Had the law been applied with savage rigor, he would have been promptly executed; as it was, he became my useful servant. Most men are like this slave: they are only too submissive; their long periods of torpor are interspersed with a few revolts as brutal as they are ineffectual. I wanted to see if well-regulated liberty would not have produced better results, and I am astonished that a similar experiment has not tempted more princes. This barbarian condemned to the mines became a symbol to me of all our slaves and all our barbarians. It seemed to me not impossible to treat them as I had treated this man, rendering them harmless simply by kindness, provided that first of all they understand that the hand which disarms them is sure. All nations who have perished up to this time have done so for lack of generosity: Sparta would have survived longer had she given her Helots some interest in that survival; there is always a day when Atlas ceases to support the weight of the heavens, and his revolt shakes the earth. I wished to postpone as long as possible, and to avoid, if it can be done, the moment when the barbarians from without and the slaves within will fall upon a world which they have been forced to respect from afar, or to serve from below, but the profits of which are not for them. I was determined that even the most wretched, from the slaves who clean the city sewers to the famished barbarians who hover along the frontiers, should have an interest in seeing Rome endure. I doubt if all the philosophy in the world can succeed in suppressing slavery; it will, at most, change the name. I can well imagine forms of servitude worse than our own, because more insidious, whether they transform men into stupid, complacent machines, who believe themselves free just when they are most subjugated, or whether to the exclusion of leisure and pleasures essential to man they develop a passion for work as violent as the passion for war among barbarous races. To such bondage for the human mind and imagination I prefer even our avowed slavery. However that may be, the horrible condition which puts one man at the mercy of another ought to be carefully regulated by law.

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

  PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Because in comparison of God who is preeminently good, all men seem to be evil, as all light shews dark when compared with the sun. JEROME. Or perhaps he called the Apostles evil, in their person condemning the whole human race, whose heart is set to evil from his infancy, as we read in Genesis. Nor is it any wonder that He should call this generation evil, (Gen. 8:22.) as the Apostle also speaks, Seeing the days are evil. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Or; He calls evil (Eph. 5:16.) those who are lovers of this age; whence also the good things which they give are to be called good according to their sense who esteem them as good; nay, even in the nature of things they are goods, that is, temporal goods, and such as pertain to this weak life. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 61, 3.) For that good thing which makes men good is God. Gold and silver are good things not as making you good, but as with them you may do good. If then we be evil, yet as having a Father who is good let us not remain ever evil. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. in Mont. ii. 21.) If then we being evil, know how to give that which is asked of us, how much more is it to be hoped that God will give us good things when we ask Him? PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. He says good things, because God does not give all things to them that ask Him, but only good things. GLOSS. (ord.) For from God we receive only such things as are good, of what kind soever they may seem to us when we receive them; for all things work together for good to His beloved. REMIGIUS. And be it known that where Matthew says, He shall give good things, Luke has, shall give his Holy Spirit. (Luke 11:13.) But this ought not to seem contrary, because all the good things which man receives from God, are given by the grace of the Holy Spirit. 7:1212. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Firmness and strength of walking by the way of wisdom in good habits is thus set before us, by which men are brought to purity and simplicity of heart; concerning which having spoken a long time, He thus concludes, All things whatsoever ye would, &c. For there is no man who would that another should act towards him with a double heart.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  At one point early on, I tried to caution them against expecting too much from Charlie after his release. “You know, he’s been through a lot. I’m not sure he can just carry on as if nothing has ever happened. I want you to understand he may not be able to do everything you’d like him to do.” They never accepted my warnings. Mrs. Jennings was rarely disagreeable or argumentative, but I had learned that she would grunt when someone said something she didn’t completely accept. She told me, “We’ve all been through a lot, Bryan, all of us. I know that some have been through more than others. But if we don’t expect more from each other, hope better for one another, and recover from the hurt we experience, we are surely doomed.” The Jenningses helped Charlie get his general equivalency degree in detention and insisted on financing his college education. They were there, along with his mother, to take him home when he was released. Chapter Seven [image file=image_rsrc32S.jpg] Justice DeniedWalter’s appeal was denied. The seventy-page opinion from the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirming his conviction and death sentence was devastating. I’d filed a lengthy brief that documented the insufficiency of the evidence and raised every legal deficiency in the trial that I could identify. I argued that there was no credible corroboration of Myers’s testimony and that under Alabama law the State couldn’t rely exclusively on the testimony of an accomplice. I argued that there was prosecutorial misconduct, racially discriminatory jury selection, and an improper change of venue. I even challenged Judge Robert E. Lee Key’s override of the jury’s life sentence, though I knew the reduction of an innocent man’s death sentence to life imprisonment without parole would still have been an egregious miscarriage of justice. The court rejected all of my arguments. I didn’t think it would turn out this way. At the oral argument months earlier, I’d been hopeful as I walked into the imposing Alabama Judicial Building and stood in the grand appellate courtroom that was formerly a Scottish Rite Freemasonry temple. Constructed in the 1920s, the building was renovated into a cavernous courthouse in the 1940s, complete with marble floors and an impressive domed ceiling. It stood at the end of Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, across the street from the historic Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had pastored during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A block away was the state capitol, adorned with three banners: the American flag, the white and red state flag of Alabama, and the battle flag of the Confederacy.

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

  Realizing that their contemporaries share many of the same feelings, they’re no longer ashamed to admit how much their childhood grievances and disappointments have endured. As they search for ways to help one another and put their fears to rest, we may see the rise of groups that focus on the experience of having grown up in divorced families. Another change is that many people are seriously considering the benefits of staying together for the sake of their children. They’re examining what they have as a family and are taking a more realistic look at what divorce entails. Combining a full-time job, courtship, and parenting requires the speed and agility of an Olympics champion but without the training that the champion brings to the race. We are also seeing a rise in interest in premarital education and marriage enrichment programs. Several states have enacted marriage license incentives that encourage people to take a four-hour class in marriage education for a reduced fee and immediate granting of the license. To cut down on impetuous weddings, Florida put in a three-day waiting period. Illinois has legislation to make people wait sixty days. Other states are considering legislation to improve preparation for marriage. There is greater community interest in marital counseling programs and conflict resolution courses that are aimed at teaching people to stay in the marriage and resolve the friction rather than turn to divorce. It is still far too early to know whether these or other education plans will be effective, but they reflect the rise in community concern about children and the search for new ways to improve marriage. When I have presented my findings to judges and attorneys at national conferences, many admitted that they were stunned to learn that highly educated, affluent parents were not sending their children to college, especially when a second set of children was born into a remarriage and children from the first marriage were pushed aside. They were also surprised to hear that many adolescents are furious at the court system for ordering strict visitation agreements with no options for adding flexibility or change down the road. The extraordinary reception to our book has encouraged me to hope that change is on the way. This younger generation has no illusions that divorce is easy or quickly over for children or parents. They, like we, are in favor of divorce where the marriage is cruel, exploitative, or dangerous or even when one or both partners are miserably unhappy in the relationship. But they are also acutely aware of how difficult it is to raise children alone or as coparents in separate homes. They know how hard it is for the youngsters who grow up in divorced homes to create the relationships that they long for when they come of age. Greta, who is 23 years old, is an example of the hope I see for the future.

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

  The final task force that formulated the new no-fault divorce laws was led by law professor Herma Kay, who was well known as an advocate for women’s rights. In 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the new law and people were jubilant. It was a time of hope and faith that greater choice would set men and women free and benefit their children. Within a few years, no-fault divorce laws spread like wildfire to all fifty states. People all across the country were in favor of change. But what about the children? In our rush to improve the lives of adults, we assumed that their lives would improve as well. We made radical changes in the family without realizing how it would change the experience of growing up. We embarked on a gigantic social experiment without any idea about how the next generation would be affected. If the truth be told, and if we are able to face it, the history of divorce in our society is replete with unwarranted assumptions that adults have made about children simply because such assumptions are congenial to adult needs and wishes. The myths that continue to guide our divorce policies and politics today stem directly from these attitudes. Cherished Myths TWO FAULTY BELIEFS provide the foundation for our current attitudes toward divorce. The first holds that if the parents are happier the children will be happier, too. Even if the children are distressed by the divorce, the crisis will be transient because children are resilient and resourceful and will soon recover. Children are not considered separately from their parents; their needs and even their thoughts are subsumed under the adult agenda. This “trickle down” myth is built on the enduring fact that most adults cannot fathom the child’s world view and how children think. The problem is, they think they do. Indeed, many adults who are trapped in very unhappy marriages would be surprised to learn that their children are relatively content. They don’t care if Mom and Dad sleep in different beds as long as the family is together. Fortunately this myth has come under strong attack in recent years with reports from parents, teachers, and researchers like me who found that the children were suffering. The euphoria of the early 1970s soon gave way to a rising tide of concern about the impoverishment of women and children, the high distress among the many parents who did not agree with their spouse that their marriage was on the rocks, and the fact that children did not bounce back quickly. Children in postdivorce families do not, on the whole, look happier, healthier, or more well adjusted even if one or both parents are happier. National studies 1 show that children from divorced and remarried families are more aggressive toward their parents and teachers. They experience more depression, have more learning difficulties, and suffer from more problems with peers than children from intact families.

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

  In another milestone, they also managed to loosen their ties to their parents. Instead of running home to help their moms and dads deal with every minor crisis in life, they were at last able to separate emotionally. Only then could they give up the expectation that they were doomed to share their parents’ fate. Only by separating were they free to look forward to a better marriage than their parents had achieved. Of course, it helped that many of these young adults were doing well in their careers and in other areas of their lives. They had learned that they really could trust themselves to get what they wanted. Karen’s story shows these many steps in poignant detail. For most of her childhood and young adult life, she refused to consider her own needs. She took care of her parents, siblings, and a lover who disappointed her every single day. Then, in an act of supreme courage, she broke away from them all and began a journey toward independence and an increased sense of self-worth. Once she stood on this new foundation, Karen was able to call an attractive young man a few days after they met and open the door to a relationship. Smiling happily, she told me, “I finally figured out what I wanted.” Like the others, she said, “I decided to take a chance.” This triumph over her fears was the key to Karen’s success as she reached her mid-thirties. She was able to gamble because she fully realized that her chances of success were at least fair. Because she was no longer afraid, she could take a chance on love and commitment. Children raised in intact families also spend time in trial-and-error relationships to hone their judgment in choosing a life mate. But they enter these early relationships without the fear of failure gnawing at their heels. Thus, while the external behavior of both groups looks similar—lots of twenty-somethings living together to test the marital waters—they are driven by different expectations. Until they can break free of the past, the Karens of this world expect failure. For the most part, those raised in good intact families expect to succeed. Once children of divorce are able to put their fears aside and choose a life mate, I was surprised to discover that they often go in search of partners who were raised in stable intact families. This was a top agenda in their courtship. Apparently a stable family background provides a sense of safety to the child of divorce who wants security along with love and commitment. They say proudly, “He comes with no baggage. There has been no divorce in his family for generations.” Or, “She’s a rock. She makes up for all that I never had from my parents.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Transferring to New Paltz is a stepping-stone toward finally creating some presence in the world, to make a living and something of my life. Three weeks later, it’s really time. Camille and Frank host a special farewell dinner for me at their home. Camille squeezes me tight after I put on my coat to leave. “I heard that living away at college is all fun, all the time. Will you promise me something?” I pull away to look at her. “What?” I anticipate a motherly request to be careful. “Forget everything, and for once, just enjoy yourself,” she says into my ear. “You deserve it.” Frank hands over baby Frankie, who plants an openmouthed kiss on my cheek, and the expression on my brother-in-law’s face is enough to convince me how much they believe in me. Sheryl, who is as eager to leave as I am, pulls into the Petermans’ driveway with her music cranked. “Road trip!” she says, and she and Pete load my two suitcases into her trunk. Addie and I stand silently with our feet pointed toward each other. Suddenly, she tackles me in a hug. “Regina, I don’t want you to leave!” she says. Exhausted by the emotions of the past month and my entire life, I hug back only halfheartedly. “Addie, I have to do this.” “But I’m going to miss you.” She pulls back from the hug to look in my eyes. “Regina, there’s something I’ve never told you.” “Addie, this is really not the time for any more shock from another parent—” “I love you.” My eyes and forehead soften. My gaze takes in both her eyes, looking for evidence of a bluff. As I realize she means it—that she really loves me—I wrap my arms around her and begin to cry. I take in her smell—lemon Pledge and cotton—and listen to the whimper of her cry in my ear. Pete and Sheryl give us the moment . . . and finally I peel away. When Sheryl shifts her car into reverse and whirs out of the driveway, I try to identify what I’m feeling: Anxiety? Fear? Excitement? Uncertainty? And then I find the word: Freedom. Over and over, on the four-hour ride upstate, Sheryl rewinds Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days.” On the door of my dorm room is a sign that reads Regina & KiKi. “KiKi, huh?” Sheryl says. “This should be good.” She helps me unpack my clothes then insists on taking me out. “Let’s hit Pig’s for a beer, then we’ll get a late-night knish with mustard at the bagel shop near the bars.” “There’s a bar called Pig’s?” “Oh, just you wait.” On the way there, we stop by the student union where there’s already mail waiting for me in the form of a course schedule. It’s packed with classes I’ll take for the education major I’ve declared, plus a course in international politics to fulfill a history requirement. “Brownstein’s the professor,” I say to Sheryl.

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

  It describes several abiding myths that have guided our community opinions and policies for three decades. Up until thirty years ago marriage was a lifetime commitment with only a few narrow legal exits such as proving adultery in the courts or outwaiting years of abandonment. American cultural and legal attitudes bound marriages together, no matter how miserable couples might be. Countless individuals were locked in loveless marriages they desperately wanted to end, but for the most part they had no way out. Then, in an upheaval akin to a cataclysmic earthquake, family law in California changed overnight. A series of statewide task forces recommended that men and women seeking divorce should no longer be required to prove that their spouse was unfaithful, unfit, cruel, or incompatible. It was time, they said, to end the hypocrisy embodied in laws that severely restricted divorce. People should be able to end an unhappy marriage without proving fault or pointing blame. The prevailing climate of opinion was that divorce would allow adults to make better choices and happier marriages by letting them undo earlier mistakes. They would arrive at an honest, mutual decision to divorce, because if one person wanted out, surely it could not be much of a marriage. These attitudes were held by men and women of many political persuasions, by lawyers, judges, and mental health professionals alike. The final task force that formulated the new no-fault divorce laws was led by law professor Herma Kay, who was well known as an advocate for women’s rights. In 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the new law and people were jubilant. It was a time of hope and faith that greater choice would set men and women free and benefit their children. Within a few years, no-fault divorce laws spread like wildfire to all fifty states. People all across the country were in favor of change. But what about the children? In our rush to improve the lives of adults, we assumed that their lives would improve as well. We made radical changes in the family without realizing how it would change the experience of growing up. We embarked on a gigantic social experiment without any idea about how the next generation would be affected. If the truth be told, and if we are able to face it, the history of divorce in our society is replete with unwarranted assumptions that adults have made about children simply because such assumptions are congenial to adult needs and wishes. The myths that continue to guide our divorce policies and politics today stem directly from these attitudes. Cherished Myths T WO FAULTY BELIEFS provide the foundation for our current attitudes toward divorce. The first holds that if the parents are happier the children will be happier, too.