Joy

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 In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Plot Twist You spend the rest of your time in San Diego writing, drinking scotch, taking long walks down to the beach with your classmates, and pulling massive bullwhips of kelp out of the ocean. You and Val talk every other day. One day, she asks if she can accompany you on your way back to Iowa, when you’re done. You pick her up in LA. She is windswept and beautiful, and the two of you bundle into the car and drive. You blast Beyoncé’s “Best Thing I Never Had” as you drive toward the Grand Canyon. You get there near sunset, and you lead her to the edge and you talk about the depth and ancientness of it all. The photo you take there is one of your favorites: Val staring out at the vast expanse of space, carved inch by inch by water and wind and time. Her mouth is hanging open, her dark curls blowing around her face. A few days later, on a friend’s foldout couch in New Mexico, you reach out for each other in the dark. Val asks if she can kiss you, and you say yes. Every day, you drive and talk about the woman in the Dream House. At night, you curl into each other. You visit every tourist trap in Roswell, New Mexico. You sleep at a shady motel in southern Colorado, where an elderly couple next door smokes weed that pours through the flimsy shared wall, and signs warn about bears. You drive up a mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park, your tiny car winding up narrow paths and sharp switchbacks until you reach the peak. You visit your cousins and their new baby in Nebraska; the baby’s head is stained purple from gentian violet. You talk about her, the woman in the Dream House, but you also talk about who you were before her, and who you are hoping to be after. Eventually, you and Val will come to love each other outside this context. You will move in together, get engaged, get married. But in the beginning, this is what holds you together: the knowledge that the two of you are not alone. V Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love. —Dorothy Allison

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Daydream She and Val need to go house hunting in Bloomington, and they want you to come along. A few days before you leave Iowa, you find a vintage photograph for sale, black-and-white with three women laughing, one of them holding a baby. From the forties, maybe, but you’re just guessing. You buy a frame at a thrift store and take the picture with you. In Indiana you go from house to house together. You drive; your girlfriend is in the passenger seat; Val is in the back. The loose explanation is that they are the couple and you are the friend with wheels, but in every place you are all thinking about bedrooms. Do you need two, one for you and her, one for her and Val? What about a futon in the office? You all laugh, crowd into rooms. If the landlords have questions, they don’t verbalize them. You think, They can’t even imagine it, the perfection and lushness of this arrangement. One house is magical—tucked into a deep pocket of trees, all wood and rustic, with more rooms than you could fill if you tried. You remember a puzzling set of indoor windows, as if the house had swallowed a second, tiny house. Another is hilariously dilapidated, and every surface of the kitchen is covered in clean, drying shot glasses; a party house with at least one curiously conscientious resident. It smells like teenage boys: sweat and scented sprays and Doritos. During a long interval between appointments, you visit a pet store and see a tiny pile of ferrets, nestled together in their enclosure. You give them all funny voices; tell a story about the boss you had at a summer job who asked if she could show you a photo of her kids and then showed you a picture of her ferrets. By the time you’re back outside in the sunlight, you’re all laughing. The last house—the most perfect—is owned by a beautiful young couple, both redheads, whose children come to the door clutching their mother’s skirt while she stirs a bowl of batter. It is like a fairy tale. Chickens peck in the yard; a beautiful, lanky dog sleeps on the porch. The house is heated by a wood stove. You know the place is impractical—too far from town—but you love it so much your heart aches. It is here—standing under a canopy of trees, watching your girlfriend talk to the husband—that you first admit the fantasy to yourself: that one day the V structure of your relationship will collapse into a heap, and the three of you will be together. 9 You put Val on a plane, and then the two of you drive back to Iowa. As farmland scrolls past you, you find yourself imagining a whole new life, a perfect intersection of hedonism and wholesomeness: canning and pickling, writing in front of a fireplace, the three of you tangled in a bed. Fighting with your kids’ guidance counselor. Explaining to your children that other families may not look like yours, but that doesn’t mean something is wrong. Most kids would give anything to have three moms. You catch yourself mourning already. You look over at her. “Let’s take one more road trip together,” she says. 9. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type T92.1, The triangle plot and its solutions.

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

  Every so often, I meet couples who get it, who maintain a sense of playfulness with each other, in and out of the bedroom. They are physically and sensually alive—two people whose desire for one another hasn’t been left to languish. Even in our culture of immediate gratification, they’re able to see seduction as an end in itself. Johanna continues to bewitch her boyfriend of ten years by setting up rendezvous in motels in a nearby suburb. Darnell and his lover pretend not to know each other when they go to a party. Eric describes making love to his wife in the alley of their apartment building when they come home late at night, a furtive pleasure they indulge in before checking on the kids. Every year, Ivan and Rachel go away for a long weekend of consensual adultery with other swingers. “Instead of having secrets from each other, we have secrets from the world.” Jessica has rescued her husband from many lonesome stretches on the road by teasing him on the CB radio. Every morning, Leo tells his wife how lucky he is to be married to her, and he still means it after more than fifty years. For all these couples, playfulness is central to their relationship, and eroticism extends beyond the sexual act. Their lovemaking can be ceremonious or sudden, soulful or utilitarian, vanilla or transgressive, warm or hot. The point is that sex is pleasurable and inviting, not dutiful. They revere the erotic, yet they delight in its irreverence. They like sex, they especially like it with each other, and they take the time to nurture an erotic space. Like all couples, they go through periods when desire is dormant—when they are estranged from each other, or simply immersed in their own projects and in their own lives—but they don’t panic, terrified that something is fundamentally wrong with them. They know that erotic intensity waxes and wanes, that desire suffers periodic eclipses and intermittent disappearances. But given sufficient attention, they can bring the frisson back. For them, love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of their romance, it’s the beginning. They know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It’s a story that they are writing together, one with many chapters, and neither partner knows how it will end. There’s always a place they haven’t gone yet, always something about the other still to be discovered.

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

  Having a child is one of our grand aspirations. In a way we reproduce, be it biologically or through the other ways we create a family, so as not to die. We carve a place in the cycle of life and become inscribed in the course of history. We extend ourselves beyond mortality by leaving something, some one, behind: a representative of our union. In this way, having a child speaks of desire. It is a pure, life-affirming act. How cruel to see it erode the force that brought it into being. There is no question that children make the erotic connection more difficult to sustain. There are the demands for routine without which family life cannot function, but which undermine sexual spontaneity. There is the undeniable stress on the couple’s resources: less time, money, and energy to spend on each other. There is the sexual invisibility of the American mother, which is so deeply rooted in our psyche that men and women alike conspire to deny maternal sexuality. There are the many ways we shut ourselves down sexually in the family, acting under the assumption that we need to keep sex hidden from children in order to protect them. For many parents, the idea of a secret garden inspires everything from acute guilt and anxiety to the more benign gradations of embarrassment. We are afraid that our adult sexuality will somehow damage our kids, that it’s inappropriate or dangerous. But whom are we protecting? Children who see their primary caregivers at ease expressing their affection (discreetly, within appropriate boundaries) are more likely to embrace sexuality with the healthy combination of respect, responsibility, and curiosity it deserves. By censoring our sexuality, curbing our desires, or renouncing them altogether, we hand our inhibitions intact to the next generation. There are so many reasons to give up on sex that those who don’t are champions in their own right. The brave and determined couples who maintain an erotic connection are, above all, the couples who value it. When they sense that desire is in crisis, they become industrious, and make intentional, diligent attempts to resuscitate it. They know that it is not children who extinguish the flame of desire; it is adults who fail to keep the spark alive. 9 Of Flesh and FantasyIn the Sanctuary of the Erotic Mind We Find a Direct Route to Pleasure The whole fauna of human fantasies, their marine vegetation, drifts and luxuriates in the dimly lit zones of human activity, as though plaiting thick tresses of darkness. Here, too, appear the lighthouses of the mind, with their outward resemblance to less pure symbols. The gateway to mystery swings open at the touch of human weakness and we have entered the realms of darkness. One false step, one slurred syllable together reveal a man’s thoughts. —Louis Aragon

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  From my earliest experiences with clients suffering from a daunting array of crippling symptoms, I have been privileged to witness profound and authentic transformations. Seemingly out of nowhere, as with Nancy from Chapter 2, who was “held in warm tingling waves,” such unexpected “side effects” appeared as these individuals mastered the monstrous trauma symptoms that had haunted them— emotionally, physically and psychologically. These surprises included ecstatic joy, exquisite clarity, effortless focus and an all-embracing sense of oneness. In addition, many of my clients described deep and abiding experiences of compassion, peace and wholeness. In fact, it was not unusual after that profound internal shift of feeling the “goodness of self,” perhaps for the first time, to refer to their therapeutic work as “a holy experience.” While these individuals realized the classic goals of enduring personality and behavioral changes, these transcendent side effects were simply too potent and robust to overlook. I have been compelled to follow these exciting and elusive enigmas with wonder and curiosity for many decades. Because the formal diagnosis of trauma, as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III, was still over a decade away when my newfound odyssey was in its infancy, I didn’t have a formulated set of pathological criteria to unduly distract me. I was freer to observe in the tradition of the ethologists. From this vantage point, and without a premeditated list of symptoms, I was able to monitor my clients’ bodily reactions and self-reports as I participated in their transformative process of healing. The highly charged physiological reactions described in the earlier chapters, including shaking and trembling (when experienced as a safe discharge) together with dramatic spontaneous changes in temperature, heart rate and respiration, helped to restore their equilibrium. These reactions also promoted a relaxed readiness, an aptitude similar to that cultivated in Zen and in the martial arts such as aikido. In sorting through these types of involuntary, energetic and deeply moving experiences, I realized that my clients’ reactions manifested what was right and normal—rather than what was wrong and pathological. In other words, they exhibited innate self-regulating and self- healing processes. And as the animals went on about their daily business after such discharge reactions, so too did my clients reengage into life with renewed passion, appreciation and acceptance. At the same time, they frequently touched into a variety of experiences that I learned to appreciate as spiritual encounters such as Nancy’s feelings of aliveness, warmth, joy and wholeness.

• From The History of World Literature (2007)

  39 his real, Supreme Self. Once he does this, he realizes three things. First, the universe is one, and we cannot escape its continuity; Second, Arjuna’s own interests and those of the universe coincide: what is done for the Supreme Self is done for the universe and vice versa. Third, these awarenesses lead to a union in love with his Supreme Self (Vishnu) and to the ability to accept the entire universe with joy and to join in its universal aims. This reading matches up with Confucius’s saying that at a certain stage in life instinct and duty are identical, or with Plato’s assertion that the life of the just man is many times happier than the life of the unjust man. The Bhagavad Gita touches on many important issues: the nature of the self; the relationship of the self to one’s religion, culture, and society; the nature of society; and the role of the warrior and hero. It has in À uenced many important historical ¿ gures including Goethe, Carlyle, Emerson, and Thoreau. Mahatma Gandhi used it as an everyday guide to action. Ŷ Bhagavad Gita. Deutsch, The Bhagavad Gita, the “Introduction.” Sukthankar, On the Meaning of Mahabharata. 1. What do you think of Krishna’s argument in the Gita as a justi ¿ cation for war? Are there other conceptual frameworks—for example, that of a “just” or “unjust” war—that need to be invoked? Would these justi¿ cations for ¿ ghting be the same as Arjuna’s? If you were on the other side in this war, how would Krishna’s counsel strike you? Is the idea that if one is a soldier, one’s duty is to ¿ ght suf¿ cient justi¿ cation? Why or why not? Essential Reading Questions to Consider Supplementary Reading 40 Lecture 9: Bhagavad Gita 2. Pick three or four of the writers treated in this course so far and set them at one of Steve Allen’s round tables to discuss a question raised by one of the works treated so far: the withdrawal of Achilles or Arjuna from ¿ ghting; the treatment of women by Hector, Jason, Creon, and Aeneas; the idea that one’s primary loyalty is to God rather than to any earthly good; or some other idea that the course has suggested to you so far.

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

  This isn’t a justification of infidelity, or an endorsement. Temptation has existed since Eve bit the apple, but so, too, have injunctions against it. The Catholic church is expert not only in avoiding temptation but also in meting out penance for those we couldn’t resist. What’s different today is not the desires themselves but the fact that we feel obligated to pursue them—at least until we tie the knot, when we’re suddenly expected to renounce all we’ve been encouraged to want. Monogamy stands alone, like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, trying to hold back a flood of unbridled licentiousness. Inviting the Shadow Some couples choose not to ignore the lure of the forbidden. Instead, they subvert its power by inviting it in. “I would never want him to be unfaithful, but knowing it’s possible keeps me sexually interested in him.” “Pretending there are no handsome men in the world doesn’t make my relationship safer and certainly doesn’t make it more honest.” “My girlfriend is beautiful. Men are always coming on to her. The way she laughs it off makes me feel great; she keeps picking me.” These couples share fantasies, read erotica together, or reminisce about the past. They admit that, yes, the delivery man was hot. So was the computer tech, the salesman at Barney’s, your neurologist, the neighbor’s wife. Selena and Max have license to flirt but draw the line at realizing the possibilities. “We’re both gluttons for attention. I get a real ego boost when someone hits on me, especially now that I have a kid. And when someone hits on Max? Forget it. I feel like I’m going home with the prom king.” Max and Selena like to play with possessiveness, but both are dead certain of the rules of the game. When Elsa returns from a conference, Gerard is always curious about whom she met. “Was there anyone interesting? Did you tell him about your fantastic husband? And were you flirting while you were raving about me?” Wendy has always known that George has a weakness for blonds. So last Thursday she decided to be one for the day. She donned a platinum wig and a trench coat and showed up unannounced at the building site to take him to lunch. He says, “Great. The guys are going to think I’m having an affair.” Wendy doesn’t miss a beat: “Let them be jealous.”

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  Dream House as Daydream She and Val need to go house hunting in Bloomington, and they want you to come along. A few days before you leave Iowa, you find a vintage photograph for sale, black-and-white with three women laughing, one of them holding a baby. From the forties, maybe, but you’re just guessing. You buy a frame at a thrift store and take the picture with you. In Indiana you go from house to house together. You drive; your girlfriend is in the passenger seat; Val is in the back. The loose explanation is that they are the couple and you are the friend with wheels, but in every place you are all thinking about bedrooms. Do you need two, one for you and her, one for her and Val? What about a futon in the office? You all laugh, crowd into rooms. If the landlords have questions, they don’t verbalize them. You think, They can’t even imagine it , the perfection and lushness of this arrangement . One house is magical—tucked into a deep pocket of trees, all wood and rustic, with more rooms than you could fill if you tried. You remember a puzzling set of indoor windows, as if the house had swallowed a second, tiny house. Another is hilariously dilapidated, and every surface of the kitchen is covered in clean, drying shot glasses; a party house with at least one curiously conscientious resident. It smells like teenage boys: sweat and scented sprays and Doritos. During a long interval between appointments, you visit a pet store and see a tiny pile of ferrets, nestled together in their enclosure. You give them all funny voices; tell a story about the boss you had at a summer job who asked if she could show you a photo of her kids and then showed you a picture of her ferrets. By the time you’re back outside in the sunlight, you’re all laughing. The last house—the most perfect—is owned by a beautiful young couple, both redheads, whose children come to the door clutching their mother’s skirt while she stirs a bowl of batter. It is like a fairy tale. Chickens peck in the yard; a beautiful, lanky dog sleeps on the porch. The house is heated by a wood stove. You know the place is impractical—too far from town—but you love it so much your heart aches. It is here—standing under a canopy of trees, watching your girlfriend talk to the husband—that you first admit the fantasy to yourself: that one day the V structure of your relationship will collapse into a heap, and the three of you will be together. 9 You put Val on a plane, and then the two of you drive back to Iowa. As farmland scrolls past you, you find yourself imagining a whole new life, a perfect intersection of hedonism and wholesomeness: canning and pickling, writing in front of a fireplace, the three of you tangled in a bed. Fighting with your kids’ guidance counselor. Explaining to your children that other families may not look like yours, but that doesn’t mean something is wrong. Most kids would give anything to have three moms. You catch yourself mourning already. You look over at her. “Let’s take one more road trip together,” she says. 9 . Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature , Type T92.1, The triangle plot and its solutions.

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

  See if there’s some ginger ale for the slugger.” Judd rose and left the room. Gil said, “What kind of bicycle would you like to have, Jack?” “A Schwinn, I guess.” “Really? You’d rather have a Schwinn than an English racer?” He saw me hesitate. “Or would you rather have an English racer?” I nodded. “Well then, say so! I can’t read your mind.” “I’d rather have an English racer.” “That’s the way. Now what kind of English racer are we talking about?” Judd brought the drinks. Mine was bitter. I recognized it as Collins mix. My mother leaned forward and said, “Gil.” He held up his hand. “What kind, Jack?” “Raleigh,” I told him. Gil smiled and I smiled back. “Champagne taste,” he said. “Go for the best, that’s the way. What color?” “Red.” “Red. Fair enough. I think we can manage that. Did you get all that, Judd? One bicycle, English racer, Raleigh, red.” “Got it,” Judd said. My mother said thanks but she couldn’t accept it. Gil said it was for me to accept, not her. She began to argue, not halfheartedly but with resolve. Gil wouldn’t hear a word of it. At one point he even put his hands over his ears. At last she gave up. She leaned back and drank from her beer. And I saw that in spite of what she’d said she was really happy at the way things had turned out, not only because it meant the end of these arguments of ours but also because, after all, she wanted very much for me to have a bicycle. “How are the peanuts, Jack?” Gil asked. I said they were fine. “Great,” he said. “That’s just great.” GIL AND MY mother had a few more beers and talked while Judd and I watched the hydroplane qualifying heats on television. In the early evening Judd drove us back to the boardinghouse. My mother and I lay on our beds for a while with the lights off, feeling the breeze, listening to the treetops rustle outside. She asked if I would mind staying home alone that night. She had been invited out for dinner. “Who with?” I asked. “Gil and Judd?” “Gil,” she said. “No,” I said. I was glad. This would firm things up. The room filled with shadows. My mother got up and took a bath, then put on a full blue skirt and an off-theshoulder Mexican blouse and the fine turquoise jewelry my father had bought her when they were driving through Arizona before the war. Earrings, necklace, heavy bracelet, concha belt. She’d picked up some sun that day; the blue of the turquoise seemed especially vivid, and so did the blue of her eyes. She dabbed perfume behind her ears, in the crook of her elbow, on her wrists. She rubbed her wrists together and touched them to her neck and chest. She turned from side to side, checking herself in the mirror.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: What is customary becomes pleasant, in so far as it becomes natural: because custom is like a second nature. But the movement which gives pleasure is not that which departs from custom, but rather that which prevents the corruption of the natural mode of being, that might result from continued operation. And thus from the same cause of connaturalness, both custom and movement become pleasant. Whether hope and memory causes pleasure?Objection 1: It would seem that memory and hope do not cause pleasure. Because pleasure is caused by present good, as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii, 12). But hope and memory regard what is absent: since memory is of the past, and hope of the future. Therefore memory and hope do not cause pleasure. Objection 2: Further, the same thing is not the cause of contraries. But hope causes affliction, according to Prov. 13:12: “Hope that is deferred afflicteth the soul.” Therefore hope does not cause pleasure. Objection 3: Further, just as hope agrees with pleasure in regarding good, so also do desire and love. Therefore hope should not be assigned as a cause of pleasure, any more than desire or love. On the contrary, It is written (Rom. 12:12): “Rejoicing in hope”; and (Ps. 76:4): “I remembered God, and was delighted.” I answer that, Pleasure is caused by the presence of suitable good, in so far as it is felt, or perceived in any way. Now a thing is present to us in two ways. First, in knowledge—i.e. according as the thing known is in the knower by its likeness; secondly, in reality—i.e. according as one thing is in real conjunction of any kind with another, either actually or potentially. And since real conjunction is greater than conjunction by likeness, which is the conjunction of knowledge; and again, since actual is greater than potential conjunction: therefore the greatest pleasure is that which arises from sensation which requires the presence of the sensible object. The second place belongs to the pleasure of hope, wherein there is pleasurable conjunction, not only in respect of apprehension, but also in respect of the faculty or power of obtaining the pleasurable object. The third place belongs to the pleasure of memory, which has only the conjunction of apprehension. Reply to Objection 1: Hope and memory are indeed of things which, absolutely speaking, are absent: and yet those are, after a fashion, present, i.e. either according to apprehension only; or according to apprehension and possibility, at least supposed, of attainment. Reply to Objection 2: Nothing prevents the same thing, in different ways, being the cause of contraries. And so hope, inasmuch as it implies a present appraising of a future good, causes pleasure; whereas, inasmuch as it implies absence of that good, it causes affliction.

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

  It’s all highly impractical sometimes. The same scenario with a different couple might have triggered a fear of abandonment that would have caused the fight of the century. Nobody can plan for this; that’s the point. Desire is an enigma; it’s insubordinate, and it chafes at impositions. That evening, Ryan was receptive to Christine. In her honesty, he discovered her again. Even more important, he was choosing her again, and it’s the act of choosing, the freedom involved in choosing, that keeps a relationship alive. The flambé that Ryan and Christine savored that night had nothing efficient or expedient to it. It wasn’t a task they could incorporate into their weekly routine. Christine rattled the cage, and Ryan was dislodged. She claimed her individuality, and the end result was greater intimacy. Desire emerged from a paradox: mutually recognizing the limitations of married life created a bond between them; acknowledging otherness inspired closeness. There is no way to “institutionalize” or create a personal marital policy for this couple that will somehow ensure that they will go on having, or ever again have, this experience. As a therapist I acknowledge that setting up some kind of programmatic reinforcement to help them maintain this newfound glow is beyond my ability. But even though I can’t turn this into an assignment or exercise, the fact that it happened may wake them up to a different kind of reality. It’s my hope that it will change the way they look at themselves and each other. “A Paradox to Manage, Not a Problem to Solve” What makes sustaining desire over time so difficult is that it requires reconciling two opposing forces: freedom and commitment. So it’s not only a psychological or practical problem; it’s also a systemic one. That makes it harder to “work at.” It belongs to the category of existential dilemmas that are as unsolvable as they are unavoidable. Ironically, even the business world, which is all about pragmatism and effectiveness, recognizes that some problems do not have clear solutions. We find the same polarities in every system: stability and change, passion and reason, personal interest and collective well-being, action and reflection (to name but a few). These tensions exist in individuals, in couples, and in large organizations. They express dynamics that are part of the very nature of reality. Barry Johnson, an expert on leadership who is the author of Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems, describes polarities as sets of interdependent opposites that belong to the same whole—you can’t choose one over the other; the system needs both to survive.

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

  25).53 In Mark, she has none of these words. In Matthew, even before her final winning line—“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs” (15:27)—she has twice called Jesus “Lord,” and she has called him “Son of David.” In her own voice, therefore, in Matthew’s gospel, the Canaanite woman proclaims Jesus Lord and King. “O woman, great is your faith,” Jesus says to her at last; in this address—O woman (ὦ γὐναι, a Matthean addition)— Dermience says he uses a title of utmost respect.54 Second and final y, the women at the tomb. It is perhaps not surprising, in light of the anointing woman and the Canaanite woman, that at the gospel’s end it is women who first see the risen Lord, and women who first proclaim the good news. “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has been raised from the dead,” the angel says to the women (Matt 28:7). And in Matthew, though not in Mark, the women do go and tel . In light of the earlier contrasts between the anointing woman who announces Jesus’ death and the disciples who do not see it, and the Canaanite woman who has great faith and the disciples who have little faith, the angels’ words are pointed. “Behold, I have told you” (ἰδοὺ εἶπον ὑμῖν, 28:7); you go and tell his disciples. The women see; the women hear the angel’s voice. The disciples are nowhere to be found. And this time, the women speak. The women are bearers of the word now at the tomb as the Canaanite woman was in the presence of Jesus earlier in the gospel. Τhe women are bearers of the word “with fear and great joy” (28:8) to the disciples—the disciples who now again, as before in Matthew’s gospel, find themselves doubting (οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, 28: 17). At the gospel’s end as at its beginning, then, women carry the word of the Lord; it is through their faithfulness that God’s word is heard. The word of God that Mary bears in her body in the gospel’s first chapter, “the other Mary” is given to speak, in the last chapter, in her own voice. In the gospel’s ending we come full circle, back to its beginning. And we find there not only the constancy of God’s word, but Mary.

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

  For some of us, this is when romance starts to work its way back into the fabric of our lives. We remember that sex is fun; it makes us feel good, and it makes us feel closer. As my friend Clara said, “It’s easy to forget that before we were parents, we were lovers. Sex reaffirms that for us. It reminds me that I chose Meyer because I love him; I’d choose him again today. For me, that’s romantic.” But while some couples gravitate toward one another again, others slowly wander off on a path of mutual estrangement. Reclaiming erotic intimacy is not always easy. The case is often made that American parents today, regardless of class, are overworked and overwhelmed. As a consequence, we virtually schedule sex out of our lives, keeping it on permanent standby while we attend to more pressing matters. Family life can feel like ongoing triage: what needs my immediate attention, and what can I put off until later? We constantly sort conflicting demands into their appropriate hierarchical slots: The Crucial, The Important, The Dreamed of, The Ought-to, The Negligible, The Irrelevant, The Whatever, The Trifling, The “Maybe Someday,” The “Not in this lifetime.” Sex often remains firmly at the bottom of the to-do list, never relinquishing its last-place status to other, more mundane tasks. But why does our erotic connection with our partner wind up so demoted? Does it really matter if the dishes aren’t done, or is there something more beneath our mysterious willingness to forgo sex? Perhaps there is something specific about our modern American culture that reinforces the erotic muting of moms and dads. Or perhaps eroticism in the context of family is simply too difficult for anyone to embrace. Parenthood, Inc. Safety and stability take on a whole new meaning when children enter the picture. Read any parenting book about infants and toddlers and what you’ll find over and over is an emphasis on routine, predictability, and regularity. For children to feel confident enough to go out into the world and explore on their own, they need a secure base. Parenthood demands that we become steady, dependable, and responsible. We plant ourselves firmly on the ground so that our kids may learn to fly. Even before a child arrives, we review our life insurance policies, buy a car with air bags, and move into the best (i.e., safest) neighborhood we can afford. We cut down on our drinking, finally quit smoking, and begin to keep something in the refrigerator besides a six-pack and condiments.

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

  Objection 3: Further, Jerome says [*Contra Jovin. i] that “after the deluge wine and flesh were sanctioned: but Christ came in the last of the ages and brought back the end into line with the beginning.” Therefore it seems unlawful to use wine under the Christian law. On the contrary, The Apostle says (1 Tim. 5:23): “Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thy frequent infirmities”; and it is written (Ecclus. 31:36): “Wine drunken with moderation is the joy of the soul and the heart.” I answer that, No meat or drink, considered in itself, is unlawful, according to Mat. 15:11, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man.” Wherefore it is not unlawful to drink wine as such. Yet it may become unlawful accidentally. This is sometimes owing to a circumstance on the part of the drinker, either because he is easily the worse for taking wine, or because he is bound by a vow not to drink wine: sometimes it results from the mode of drinking, because to wit he exceeds the measure in drinking: and sometimes it is on account of others who would be scandalized thereby. Reply to Objection 1: A man may have wisdom in two ways. First, in a general way, according as it is sufficient for salvation: and in this way it is required, in order to have wisdom, not that a man abstain altogether from wine, but that he abstain from its immoderate use. Secondly, a man may have wisdom in some degree of perfection: and in this way, in order to receive wisdom perfectly, it is requisite for certain persons that they abstain altogether from wine, and this depends on circumstances of certain persons and places. Reply to Objection 2: The Apostle does not declare simply that it is good to abstain from wine, but that it is good in the case where this would give scandal to certain people. Reply to Objection 3: Christ withdraws us from some things as being altogether unlawful, and from others as being obstacles to perfection. It is in the latter way that he withdraws some from the use of wine, that they may aim at perfection, even as from riches and the like. Whether sobriety is more requisite in persons of greater standing?Objection 1: It would seem that sobriety is more requisite in persons of greater standing. For old age gives a man a certain standing; wherefore honor and reverence are due to the old, according to Lev. 19:32, “Rise up before the hoary head, and honor the person of the aged man.” Now the Apostle declares that old men especially should be exhorted to sobriety, according to Titus 2:2, “That the aged man be sober.” Therefore sobriety is most requisite in persons of standing.

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

  I stuck with poker, eventually earning a World Series of Poker championship bracelet, winning the WSOP Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, and having a very fruitful and long career. What was supposed to be something “in the meantime” ended up lasting for eighteen years. For me at age twenty-six, any career other than academics was practically unexplored territory. Even as far as poker was concerned, when I was playing on those trips to Las Vegas, it never occurred to me that it was anything beyond something that I played for fun on vacation, and maybe something that I would keep playing occasionally as a hobby throughout my life. I enjoyed the game and made some money playing during those vacations, but thinking of poker as some kind of opportunity was so silly that I actually joked about it with Lila. When I first saw her back at school after one of those trips, I told her mischievously, “I had so much fun playing poker that I almost didn’t come back.” We both had a good laugh about it. For me to even think about poker as a serious career option, it took being forced to leave school, missing my chance to move to the next step of my academic career for at least a year, desperately being in need of an income, and having severely limited options because of the state of my health. For both me and Maya Shankar, and anybody who’s been forced to exit the path they’ve been so passionately pursuing, those can be moments of discovery. Sometimes, forced quitting gets you to explore new opportunities, like when Maya discovered her love of cognitive science. And sometimes, being forced to quit gets you to see options that have been right under your nose all along in a new light. That’s what happened to me with poker. What Ants Can Teach Us about Backup Plans The world is uncertain. Whatever you’ve decided to pursue—a project, a sport, a job, a relationship—may not be there tomorrow. The world might force what you’re pursuing away from you. Or you might be the one who chooses to abandon it when the circumstances of what you’re doing change. You could be

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The combination of raw instinct and artful shaping is also found in human mating rituals. Clearly, however, one must beware of what has been called “zoomorphism”—the uncritical extension of conclusions drawn from animal behavior to humans. Having said this, anyone who has seen a well-executed rendering of a dance such as the tango or samba has witnessed an exquisitely instinct-rooted mating ritual. Seen simply as formalized movements, devoid of their primal sexual rooting, the steps lose their vitality and credibility. Equally important are the unexpected and creative variations as well as the partner’s response to those surprises that make the dance simultaneously instinctual and artistic. I once watched the mating dance of two scorpions, and had to laugh at just how it resembled (including the gift of a rose—in the form of a twig) the tango in its basic structure. Imagine seeing, in a split screen, a couple passionately engaged in a tango, along with two scorpions coupled in the fervor of their mating dance. One would be struck both by the unexpected, almost bizarre, similarity as well as by the difference in the sense of nuance and variation. Let us not forget the millions of lovers the world over who, at this very moment, are gazing into each other’s eyes. With their enchantment, originality, creativity and perfection ignited, they are engaging the instinctual stepping-stones for an entire life together. Unfortunately, when this dance goes awry, there are also the instincts that drive the jealous rage of brokenhearted lovers. For most of us, the multitude of primal impulses is generally hidden from our rational appreciation. Yet, in sharpening our focus, we can begin to discern an internal savannah, one populated by ancient instincts that manifest as coherent behaviors, sensations, feelings and thoughts. These primal reactions and responses are organized and orchestrated by “hardwired” neurological mechanisms. The assemblage of physiological processes, known as “fixed action patterns” and “domain-specific programs” (and the stimuli that release them, the so-called innate releasing mechanisms, or IRMs), are the legacy of our long evolutionary past. It is worth mentioning that the term fixed makes these behaviors seem more rigid than they really are. This is probably due to a mistranslation of the original German word for these responses, Erbkoordination, which translates, descriptively, as “legacy coordination.” This latter term infers a strong genetic component but one that is not fully determined and is subject to modification. According to Darwin,115 emotions are accompanied by bodily changes and by “incipient” bodily action. He describes, for example, the typical bodily action that accompanies rage: The body is commonly held erect; ready for instant action … The teeth are clenched or ground together … Few men in a great passion … can resist acting as if they intended to strike or push the man [with whom they are enraged] violently away. The desire, indeed, to strike often becomes so intolerably strong that inanimate objects are struck or dashed to the ground.116

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

  Reply to Objection 2: Pleasure includes two things; rest in the good, and perception of this rest. As to the former therefore, since it is more perfect to contemplate the known truth, than to seek for the unknown, the contemplation of what we know, is in itself more pleasing than the research of what we do not know. Nevertheless, as to the second, it happens that research is sometimes more pleasing accidentally, in so far as it proceeds from a greater desire: for greater desire is awakened when we are conscious of our ignorance. This is why man takes the greatest pleasure in finding or learning things for the first time. Reply to Objection 3: It is pleasant to do what we are wont to do, inasmuch as this is connatural to us, as it were. And yet things that are of rare occurrence can be pleasant, either as regards knowledge, from the fact that we desire to know something about them, in so far as they are wonderful; or as regards action, from the fact that “the mind is more inclined by desire to act intensely in things that are new,” as stated in Ethic. x, 4, since more perfect operation causes more perfect pleasure. OF THE EFFECTS OF PLEASURE (FOUR ARTICLES)We must now consider the effects of pleasure; and under this head there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether expansion is an effect of pleasure? (2) Whether pleasure causes thirst or desire for itself? (3) Whether pleasure hinders the use of reason? (4) Whether pleasure perfects operation? Whether expansion is an effect of pleasure?Objection 1: It would seem that expansion is not an effect of pleasure. For expansion seems to pertain more to love, according to the Apostle (2 Cor. 6:11): “Our heart is enlarged.” Wherefore it is written (Ps. 118:96) concerning the precept of charity: “Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” But pleasure is a distinct passion from love. Therefore expansion is not an effect of pleasure. Objection 2: Further, when a thing expands it is enabled to receive more. But receiving pertains to desire, which is for something not yet possessed. Therefore expansion seems to belong to desire rather than to pleasure. Objection 3: Further, contraction is contrary to expansion. But contraction seems to belong to pleasure, for the hand closes on that which we wish to grasp firmly: and such is the affection of appetite in regard to that which pleases it. Therefore expansion does not pertain to pleasure. On the contrary, In order to express joy, it is written (Is. 60:5): “Thou shall see and abound, thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged.” Moreover pleasure is called by the name of “laetitia” as being derived from “dilatatio” [expansion], as stated above ([1284]Q[31], A[3], ad 3).

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I couldn’t see D. at first, the area around the fountain was packed with people. Children ran around the fountain’s edge, weaving past their parents, bumping into strangers, and playing in the water, too, though there were signs forbidding it; they shrieked, arms pressed tight to their sides, as the spray soaked their clothes. But then I noticed him, he had hoisted himself onto the base of a lamppost and was scanning the crowd. I waved and his face brightened when he saw me. He was a few years younger than I, with shaggy black hair that hung into his eyes if he let it go too long between haircuts, as he had now. He wasn’t obviously beautiful but he was beautiful, it was a combination of charm and intelligence, a kind of earthy old-world grace, and of the wiry athleticism I felt when we hugged, a little awkwardly to spare the flower. You’ve been working out, I said when he pulled back, and he smiled, raising both his arms in a muscleman pose. It had taken me a while to be sure he was straight, he was so warm with his friends, he spoke a language of endearment, of casual caresses and kisses to the cheek and forehead, flirtation was his natural mode of congress with the world. This annoyed me sometimes in others, it could seem like a taunt, or a demand to be adored; but D.’s affection was genuine, a kind of blessing, it made you happy to be with him. He led me to the patch of shade he had claimed under the trees that grew near the wall of the Archaeological Museum, where he had been standing with two other people. One of these was his mother, whom I knew well, and I took the flower from my shirt and held it out to her, which made her laugh, she took it and then pulled me to her for a hug. I’m sure my face showed my surprise when D. introduced me to the older man standing with them; I had read his books, in Bulgarian and in English, he was the first writer I read when I decided years before to come to Sofia. Za men e chest, I said to him, shaking his hand, it’s an honor, and he smiled, less at the sentiment, I thought, than at the formality of what I had said, which was so out of tune with the festive atmosphere, with his friendship with D., which was old and deep, with the shorts and sneakers he was wearing, I was suddenly a little embarrassed. Cherries, I said in English, I had almost forgotten their weight in my hand, and I held the bag out to him. He laughed, and as he reached his hand in the awkwardness was gone. D. took each of us by a shoulder, beaming, and said how happy he was for us to meet. I offered the cherries to him, too, telling him to take the bag, I had had enough. You brought us gifts, D. said, flowers and cherries, you brought us springtime, he said, which made everyone laugh.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Probably it had something to do with the weather, the fact that the most recent protests had remained peaceful; Sofia is wonderful in springtime, and even with the unseasonable heat it was a glorious spring. At Orlov Most the little vendor stalls were heaped with flowers and with cherries, swollen and voluptuously red; old women brought them from their villages, they were the most delicious cherries I had ever tasted. I bought some now from a round squat woman who called out sladki, sladki, promising they were sweet. She put great handfuls in a plastic sack, a bread bag turned inside out—I saw she had a whole heap of these sacks next to her in a garbage bag, she must have been collecting them all winter. The bag she handed me was half full, more than I wanted, she had filled it before I could tell her to stop. She was wearing a thin, formless housedress with a floral pattern, almost a nightgown, the kind of thing my own grandmother wore, and her hair was the same, too, cut short and curled; probably the resemblance was why I stopped, though her hair wasn’t my grandmother’s gray but dyed a bright shade of red I had only ever seen in the Balkans. She weighed the cherries on an old balance scale, as she did so trying to sell me her flowers, that was all she had on her table, cherries and country flowers, daisies and black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace, laid out in piles and also in prebundled bouquets, one of which she held out to me. For your girlfriend, she said, go on, she will be so happy. I laughed, thanking her but not taking the flowers, and she shrugged, disappointed. But she smiled again when I handed her a bill for five leva, telling her to keep the change, and she insisted I take a single black-eyed Susan, which I did, I would feel awkward carrying it through the streets but it would have been rude to refuse. I thanked her and slipped into the stream of people walking along the boulevard. Nearly everyone was headed for the protests, they carried signs and noisemakers, one man swung a bullhorn at his waist. They were young people mostly, some of them with shaved heads or dyed hair, the various strands of Sofia’s alternative scene, a kind of neo-hippie style of torn jeans and denim jackets; but really there were people of all kinds, men and women coming from the office, couples pushing bikes or strollers, one young man with his daughter on his shoulders, her ringlets of brown hair crowned with a chain of flowers. People were laughing, the mood wasn’t angry at all, it was ebullient, and I slipped the stem of the black-eyed Susan through the buttons of my shirt, so that the bright head hung at my heart. That put me in mind of something, a flower for a heart, there was a line of a poem I almost remembered, something from O’Hara or Reverdy; I couldn’t quite catch it but the feel of it made me smile. Police were in the street directing traffic, ushering the last cars through before they closed the boulevard for the march, but for now we stayed on the sidewalk, moving more slowly as it grew more crowded, which just increased our fellow feeling: people smiled to one another in a way that was unusual in Sofia, couples drew closer together, parents pulled their children near, keeping a hand on the top of their heads, on the nape of their necks. Bulgarian flags were everywhere, dangling from breast pockets or the straps of backpacks, one woman had four or five of them tucked into the long braid of her hair. Children waved them in the air, and some adults did, too, though we hadn’t made it to the protest yet. Or maybe we had, we were the protest already, I guess, we had become a kind of parade. The cherries burst in my mouth, firm and ripe, sweet with a dark sweetness, gorgeous, like a low frequency. I spat the pits in my palm and dropped them a little guiltily into the gutter.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  THEY USED SOME KIND of accelerant, they must have, so that when the three children touched their torches to it (angling their bodies away, keeping the greatest distance between themselves and the fire) the flame leapt up the wood, from the base to the ridiculous crown the whole frog blazed up. And with it there was a huge explosion of sound, air horns and rattlers and little handheld bells children jingled, and above them all human voices, the crowd cheering both the fire and the New Year, which had just struck. There were hundreds of people in the square, pressed tight near the wooden barricades that held them back from the fire but more spread out near the edges, where we were; there was space here for people to toast one another, with wine in plastic cups or little glass bottles like those R. had bought for us, prosecco with a twist-off cap. After we drank I leaned toward him and cupped his face in my palm and we kissed. I moved my mouth in a way he liked, kissing first his upper lip and then his lower before I drew away, hanging my arm around his shoulder. And then, as the statue burned—it was huge, it would take a long time to burn—there was another sound, a salute of drums and a burst of guitars, and then the far corner of the square lit up with floodlights, and there was a new shout from the crowd as it shifted toward the platform where the band had begun to play, four skinny boys bent over their instruments. There was a keyboard as well as the guitars and drums, it was an American sound, I thought, which contrasted with the stone buildings around us, with the pagan fire. R. and I didn’t move as the crowd thinned further; we wouldn’t stay, it was cold and the band wasn’t very good, we would watch the fire a little longer and then go back to the hotel. R. pulled away from me suddenly and reached into his coat pocket, taking from it the packet of raisins he had bought earlier with the wine. I almost forgot, he said, it’s almost too late. He handed me his bottle and took off one of his mittens so he could open the packet. Give me your hand, he said, so I put the bottles on the ground and held it out to him, taking my glove off as he asked, and he counted out twelve raisins, placing them in my palm in a single line from my wrist to the tip of my third finger, then counting another twelve for himself. It was the Portuguese tradition, he had told me, a raisin for each month of the year that had passed, a wish for each month of the year to come. He looked at me and smiled, Skups, he said, feliz ano, and we kissed again. He ate his all at once, tossing them in his mouth and putting his mitten back on before he leaned down for his bottle and turned to watch the fire. But I didn’t watch the fire, I kept my eyes on him, though it was cold and I wanted to be back in the hotel with him, in the warmth of our bed. I took my time, I put the raisins in my mouth one by one, thinking a wish for each, though all my wishes were the same wish.