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.

Page 115 of 299 · 20 per page

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  41:8–10) It is out of this context that there emerges a new promise: the covenant love that YHWH has for Israel is to be extended to the nations. I am YHWH, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isa. 42:6–7) In other words, non-Jewish peoples too are to have their own Exodus! This is revolutionary indeed, and it transforms the exclusive note of the earlier passages about the divine love. It now appears that this love is not only the divine love for Israel, but the divine love through Israel, resulting in the worldwide appeal of Isaiah 55: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. . . . Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. (55:1–3) On the way to that conclusion, the message comes from one angle after another and always with the reassurance of the powerful and unshakeable divine love: Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For YHWH has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (49:13–16) For YHWH will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  And this life is the result of a Spirit transplant. PAUL’S FAREWELL LETTER We conclude with two texts from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Though it was probably not the last letter he wrote, we call it his farewell letter because Paul imagines that it could be. Paul wrote it from prison, quite possibly during the same imprisonment in Ephesus that produced the letter to Philemon (see Chapter 2). Paul doesn’t say why he was in prison, but we know from the letter that it was an imperial prison and that he was aware that his confinement could end in execution (1:12–26). Philippi in northern Greece was the first city in Europe in which Paul created a community. His relationship with the Philippians seems to have been free of difficulties. No troubles are reported, no pressing questions are addressed; rather, the letter is filled with affection. Because he knew that this might be his final farewell to a community that he loved, his words carry extra weight. The possibility of death has a sobering effect. Given this, the letter’s dominant tone of thanksgiving, joy, and lack of worry is remarkable. We turn to our first text, from near the end of the letter: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice…. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (4:4, 6–7) Paul follows this with a concise description of the kind of life he wishes for them—the life of those who are “in Christ.” It includes a list of virtues and concludes with a description of the kind of life he himself had found “in Christ”: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him [Christ] who strengthens me. (4:8–9, 11–13) This is who Paul had become because of his life in Christ. It is an enviable state: he had learned to be content with whatever came his way, with being hungry or well fed, with having plenty or being in need, in any and all circumstances. Paul’s Spirit transplant had been successful.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  From the beginning she knew he was the man she had been seeking. I marveled at her certainty—her prescience. I thought of all those impossible, ridiculous standards she had set. Well, he met every single one of them, and then some. Youth, perfect health, sensitivity—he was even a member of the society of the secretly bereaved. His wife had died a year previously, and he and Irene fully understood and empathized with each other’s mourning. Everything clicked immediately, and I was overjoyed for Irene—and for my own liberation. Before she met Kevin, she had entirely regained her high level of functioning in the outside world, but there had remained a deep and almost inexpressible inner sadness and resignation. Now that too had rapidly resolved. Had she improved as a result of meeting Kevin? Or had she been able to be open to him because she had improved? Some of each? I could never be certain. And now she was bringing Kevin to meet me. Here they come, through the café entrance. They’re walking toward me. Why am I nervous? Look at that man: he’s gorgeous—tall, powerful, looks like he does a triathlon every day before breakfast, and that nose . . . unbelievable . . . where do you buy noses like that? Enough, Kevin, let go of her hand. Enough already! There’s got to be something not to like about this guy. Oops, I’m going to have to shake hands with him. Why are my hands sweating so? Will he notice? Who cares what he notices? “Irv,” I heard Irene say, “this is Kevin. Kevin, Irv.” I smiled, held out my hand, and greeted him through clenched jaws. Damn you, I thought, you’d better take good care of her. And, goddamnit, you’d better not die. Afterword to the Perennial Edition Are these six psychotherapy tales true? Or fictional? The first story (“Momma and the Meaning of Life”) is a true autobiographical fantasy—that is, the dream and the events in the story are true, the precise conversation is a fantasy. The next three (“Southern Comfort,” “Seven Advanced Lessons,” and “Travels with Paula”) are pure nonfiction flecked only with fiction to conceal the patients’ identities. And the final two (“Double Exposure” and “The Hungarian Cat Curse”) contain a nonfictional nucleus around which I constructed a fictional tale. But a confusion inheres in any fiction-nonfiction codification. Not only does fiction have its own truth, but every story, no matter how “true,” is a lie because it omits so much. In each narrative I have eliminated the quotidian details of the therapy encounter. Not only is such close-cropping required for dramatic impact, but for vision as well. As Nietzsche put it, we must blind ourselves to many things in order to see the one thing. Hence, to uncover underlying truths we must clear away obscuring distractions.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  Though it was probably not the last letter he wrote, we call it his farewell letter because Paul imagines that it could be. Paul wrote it from prison, quite possibly during the same imprisonment in Ephesus that produced the letter to Philemon (see Chapter 2). Paul doesn’t say why he was in prison, but we know from the letter that it was an imperial prison and that he was aware that his confinement could end in execution (1:12–26). Philippi in northern Greece was the first city in Europe in which Paul created a community. His relationship with the Philippians seems to have been free of difficulties. No troubles are reported, no pressing questions are addressed; rather, the letter is filled with affection. Because he knew that this might be his final farewell to a community that he loved, his words carry extra weight. The possibility of death has a sobering effect. Given this, the letter’s dominant tone of thanksgiving, joy, and lack of worry is remarkable. We turn to our first text, from near the end of the letter: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice…. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (4:4, 6–7) Paul follows this with a concise description of the kind of life he wishes for them—the life of those who are “in Christ.” It includes a list of virtues and concludes with a description of the kind of life he himself had found “in Christ”: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him [Christ] who strengthens me. (4:8–9, 11–13) This is who Paul had become because of his life in Christ. It is an enviable state: he had learned to be content with whatever came his way, with being hungry or well fed, with having plenty or being in need, in any and all circumstances. Paul’s Spirit transplant had been successful. The second text from Philippians is perhaps the fullest concise distillation of the theology of the radical Paul.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  I placed the round head on my clit, adjusting so the small hole would rest atop it. The first thing I thought was wow. The second thing I thought was wowwwwwwwwwww. The sensation on my clit was distinct from anything I’d ever felt with a vibrating toy; in fact, it wasn’t vibration at all. As DiCarlo had explained to an unbelieving me, the air-powered motion was more like sucking. It felt like the best oral sex I’d never had. Warmed up within seconds, I inserted the other end until it felt snug and turned on the “come-hither” motion. The dual sensations bordered on overwhelming, but were still deeply pleasurable. Its whirring sound marked a stark contrast from the dainty “whisper-quiet” trend in sex toys, and I sort of respected that, even though Bucatina, now taking shelter under the couch, did not. I orgasmed within a few minutes. I procrastinated using the Tilt. A week passed. The day finally arrived for me to travel to Italy, where I planned to finish this book, so I placed the item in its cute little pouch and packed it in my suitcase, praying that it wouldn’t come to life on the plane. Once I arrived at my quaint apartment, nestled in the heart of an ancient Umbrian village, I realized I’d forgotten the lube. Oops, I can’t try it yet, I thought, doing a bad job of convincing myself that I was disappointed. I peered out my window and watched an elderly woman hang laundry on the balcony of her brick home. I wonder if this town has lubricant. Convinced that experimenting with unfamiliar pleasure points would help me grow as a sexual being, I had no choice but to venture to the town’s one supermarket to buy genital gel. Shockingly enough, there was no lube in the personal care corner, just pads and “intimate liquid” for cleaning your vagina. Exhausted by the ordeal of having tried to buy lubricant in a small Italian supermarket, I walked home to rest. Besides, it was 2:30 P.M., national nap time. My hands were tied. I would try the farmacia the next day. I tried the farmacia the next day. As is custom outside of Italian pharmacies, the windows were plastered with outlandish adverts for anti-cellulite creams, but inside, these stores mean business, stocking a dizzying number of over-the-counter medicines that their pharmacists are extensively trained to assist you with. I kept my eyes down to avoid the helpful interrogation I am used to from Italian pharmacists, which is good when I have confusing diarrhea but not when I’m perusing lubes.

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

  I didn’t know what to say. “What are you gonna call her?” I told him I didn’t know. “How about Mrs. Huff?” he said. “How about Mrs. Gerald Lucius Huff?” When he saw how I looked at him, he held up his right hand and said, “Gospel, Wolfman. I shit you not.” “Huff? Huff’s marrying Tina?” Chuck started to answer but suddenly bent over, coughing and snorting. Canadian Club ran out of his nose. I pounded him on the back. I heard myself cawing harshly. Something was breaking loose in me, some hysterical heartless tide of joy. I could hardly breathe. My face twitched. I was shaking with relief and joy and cruel pleasure, for the truth was I didn’t like Huff and felt no pity for Tina. To me she was just The Flood and now I saw Huff trapped in its grip, paddling feebly on its broad heaving surface, pummeled and smothered, going under and bobbing up again somewhere else with his hairy arms churning and his pompadour agleam.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  Inside was a faceted lavender jewel on a gold chain. “Every girl needs a little jewelry,” he said. Claire clipped it around my neck. “Amethyst is a great healer,” she whispered as she put it on me, kissing me on the cheek. “Only good times now.” Ron leaned forward and I let him kiss me too. I felt tears coming. They surprised me. The food arrived and I watched them while we ate, Claire’s dark glossy hair falling against her cheek, her large soft eyes. Ron’s smooth man’s face. I pretended that they were really my parents. The steak and the wine went to my head, and I imagined being the child of Claire and Ron Richards. Who was I, the real Astrid Richards? Doing well in school, of course I was going to college. I listened as they laughed, something about their days at Yale together, though I knew Ron was married to somebody else then, that he dumped his wife for Claire. I imagined myself at Yale, knee-deep in crisp fall leaves, in a thick camel’s hair coat. I sat in dark paneled lecture halls looking at slides of Da Vinci. I was going to study in Tuscany my junior year. On Parents’ Day, Claire and Ron came to visit, Claire wearing her pearls. She showed me where her dorm was. I touched the amethyst around my neck. Only good times now… RON WAS GONE most of the summer. He came home and she did his laundry and cooked too much food. He made phone calls, worked on his laptop computer, had meetings, checked his messages, and then he was gone again. It threw Claire when he came and then went so soon, but at least she didn’t pace at night anymore. She worked in her garden almost every day, wearing gloves and an enormous straw Chinese hat. Tending her tomatoes. She’d planted four different kinds—yellow and red cherry, Romas for spaghetti sauce, Beefsteaks big as a baby’s head. We faithfully watched a TV show on Saturday mornings that told her how to grow things. She staked the tall delphiniums, debudded the roses for the biggest flowers. She weeded every day, and watered at dusk, filling the air with the scent of wet hot earth. Her peaked hat moved in the beds like a floating Balinese temple. Sometimes I helped her, but mostly I sat under the Chinese elm and drew. She sang songs she learned when she was my age, “Are You Going to Scarborough Fair?” and “John Barleycorn Must Die.” Her voice was trained, supple as leather, precise as a knife thrower’s blade. Singing or talking, it had the same graceful quality, and an accent I thought at first was English, but then realized was the old-fashioned American of a thirties movie, a person who could get away with saying “grand.” Too classic, they told her when she went out on auditions. It didn’t mean old.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Many of her symptoms improved significantly, and some disappeared altogether. The panic attack that occurred during the session was her last; and, over the next two years, until her graduation from graduate school, her chronic fatigue, migraines, and premenstrual symptoms improved dramatically. In addition, she reported the following “side effect”—she “felt more alive and happier than [she could] remember.” Restoration of Active Defense Responses Figure 2.1b I was able to lead Nancy out of her immobility/fear and hyperarousal by allowing her to re-create the experience of running and successfully escaping from her would-be attackers. It is essential for the client to feel the sensation of running. Running without inner sensing has only limited value. The Innate Capacity for Recovery What allowed Nancy to emerge from her frozen symptomatic shell and reengage in life was the same mechanism that prevented me from becoming traumatized after I was hit by the automobile. The shaking and trembling, occurring in the warm and reassuring presence of a reliable other person, and allowed to continue to completion, helped both of us to restore equilibrium and wholeness, and to be freed from trauma’s grip. Through focused awareness and micro-movements to reenact and complete our unfinished, instinctually rooted protective actions, both Nancy and I were able to discharge the residual nervous system “energy” that had been activated for survival. Nancy experienced the long-delayed escape that her body wanted to make while she was being tied down and overpowered as a defenseless little girl. In short, we both experienced and embodied the innate and powerful wisdom of our instinctual responses as they mobilized to ward off mortal danger. The mindful sensing of this protective primal force stood in stark contrast to the overwhelming helplessness that had engulfed each of us. The major difference between Nancy’s experience and mine was that I had the luck of receiving self-administered first aid, and the fortunate presence of the pediatrician, to nip the potential PTSD symptoms in the bud. Nancy, like millions of others, unfortunately did not. She had suffered years of needless distress until we briefly revisited and “renegotiated” her childhood surgery in my office, some twenty years afterward. * Had I not sensed the raw muscular power of my survival instincts, contrasting with my helpless condition, I surely would have developed the debilitating symptoms of PTSD that had so shadowed and crippled Nancy. I would have, like Nancy, been left too frightened to venture out confidently into the world again. Just as Nancy was able to escape her tormenters in retrospect, I was able to both escape my destruction and preventatively “reset” my nervous system in real time. When acutely threatened, we mobilize vast energies to protect and defend ourselves. We duck, dodge, twist, stiffen and retract. Our muscles contract to fight or flee.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Step 8. Restore self-regulation and dynamic equilibriumA direct consequence of discharge of the survival energy mobilized for fight-or-flight is the restoration of equilibrium and balance (as in the previous example of the spring). The nineteenth-century French physiologist Claude Bernard, considered the father of experimental physiology, coined the term homeostasis to describe “the constancy of the internal environment [milieu intérieur] as the condition for a free and independent life.”57 More than a hundred and fifty years later, this remains the underlying and defining principle for the sustenance of life. However, since equilibrium is not a static process, I will use the term dynamic equilibrium instead of homeostasis to describe what happens when the nervous system becomes hyperaroused in response to threat and is then “reset,” only to be aroused and reset once again. This continual resetting both restores the prethreat level of arousal and promotes the shifting state (process) of relaxed alertness. Over time this contributes to the building of a robust resilience. Finally, the interoceptive experience of equilibrium, felt in viscera and in your internal milieu, is the salubrious one of goodness: that is, the background sense that—whatever you are feeling at a given moment, however dreadful the upset or unpleasant the arousal—you have a secure home base within your organism. Step 9. Reorient to the environment in the here and nowTrauma could appropriately be called a disorder in one’s capacity to be grounded in present time and to engage, appropriately, with other human beings. Along with the restoration of dynamic equilibrium, the capacity for presence, for being in “the here and now,” becomes a reality. This occurs along with the desire and capacity for embodied social engagement. The capacity for social engagement has powerful consequences for health and happiness. As young children we are wired to participate in the social nervous systems of our parents and to find excitement and joy in such engagement. In addition, fascination with the face of another person generalizes to the environment and to the wonder of “newness.” Colors become vibrant, while one perceives shapes and textures as though seeing them for the first time—the very miracle of life unfolding.

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

  I answer that, As stated above [2104](A[1]; Q[99], AA[3],4), the ceremonial precepts are those which refer to the worship of God. Now the Divine worship is twofold: internal, and external. For since man is composed of soul and body, each of these should be applied to the worship of God; the soul by an interior worship; the body by an outward worship: hence it is written (Ps. 83:3): “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.” And as the body is ordained to God through the soul, so the outward worship is ordained to the internal worship. Now interior worship consists in the soul being united to God by the intellect and affections. Wherefore according to the various ways in which the intellect and affections of the man who worships God are rightly united to God, his external actions are applied in various ways to the Divine worship. For in the state of future bliss, the human intellect will gaze on the Divine Truth in Itself. Wherefore the external worship will not consist in anything figurative, but solely in the praise of God, proceeding from the inward knowledge and affection, according to Is. 51:3: “Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.” But in the present state of life, we are unable to gaze on the Divine Truth in Itself, and we need the ray of Divine light to shine upon us under the form of certain sensible figures, as Dionysius states (Coel. Hier. i); in various ways, however, according to the various states of human knowledge. For under the Old Law, neither was the Divine Truth manifest in Itself, nor was the way leading to that manifestation as yet opened out, as the Apostle declares (Heb. 9:8). Hence the external worship of the Old Law needed to be figurative not only of the future truth to be manifested in our heavenly country, but also of Christ, Who is the way leading to that heavenly manifestation. But under the New Law this way is already revealed: and therefore it needs no longer to be foreshadowed as something future, but to be brought to our minds as something past or present: and the truth of the glory to come, which is not yet revealed, alone needs to be foreshadowed. This is what the Apostle says (Heb. 11:1): “The Law has [Vulg.: ‘having’] a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things”: for a shadow is less than an image; so that the image belongs to the New Law, but the shadow to the Old.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  Finally, then, I conclude with an iconic image of that foundational reconciliation from the later fourth century. It is a bronze hanging lamp from the villa of the aristocratic Valerii on the Celian Hill in Rome, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence. The lamp is shaped like a boat. Peter is seated in the stern at the tiller. Paul is standing in the prow looking forward. Peter steers. Paul guides. And the boat sails full before the wind. In coauthoring this book in the “Year of Paul,” June 29, 2008, to June 29, 2009, as proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI, our common hope is that we can get Paul out of the Reformation world and back into the Roman world, to see him properly as contrasting not Christianity to Judaism or Protestantism to Catholicism, but Jewish covenantal traditions to Roman imperial theology. Even though Protestants agree about Paul’s importance, they see his message very differently. Two visions are especially divergent. For some, Paul has been a mediator of radical grace, unconditional grace—grace without conditions. So it was for Luther. Paul’s message of justification by grace through faith brought about a joyous liberation from his anxious effort to be right with God by meeting God’s requirements, a fear-filled task that tormented him into his thirties. Radical grace meant for Luther that God accepts us just as we are, and the Christian life is about living more and more fully into this realization, not about measuring up to requirements. For Luther, Paul’s message was about the end of requirements as the basis of our relationship with God. For other Protestants, including even many descendants of Luther, Paul’s theology has been understood not as the abolition of requirements, but as the new requirement—namely, believing his theology is what we must do in order to be saved. In its Lutheran form, despite the emphasis upon God’s grace, “justification by grace through faith” was heard as “justification by faith” and thus as involving a fearful form of works righteousness: the “work” was “to believe.” Faith meant believing in a correct set of doctrines (which happened to be Lutheran), and this was the gateway to salvation. What Luther experienced as joyful liberation from anxiety became the source of deep anxiety. Faith—believing—became the new requirement we are to fulfill and by which we are to measure up. This notion—that we are saved by believing a set of teachings about Jesus, God, and the Bible—continues among many Protestants in our time. It is especially prevalent among those who emphasize “believing the right things” as foundational to being Christian and thus as a requirement for salvation. PAUL THE SPOILER

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The principal then paused, with some solemnity. He still had to ask me my opinion, whether I was prepared to continue my studies. The Jewish community of Tunis, on the recommendation of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, would undertake to finance my studies, at first my high-school years, then the university too. What had I to say? The principal was already asking me what I had to say! Here I was, already acquiring importance. Did I want to study? Good God, did I want to continue my studies... “Well,” the principal concluded by himself, “you’ve agreed. Of course, we first had to get the approval of your father, and it has meant his accepting a heavy sacrifice and agreeing to carry on without any help from you until you have received your final diplomas.” The principal thus revealed to me that my father had already been consulted several days earlier, and that nothing had then been said to me, to avoid any possible disappointment. Only that same morning had my father at last given a favorable answer. So, my father had accepted! How could he possibly have said no! I was utterly aghast, full of revolt against the mere possibility of my father’s objecting. Obscurely, I imagined an argument with my father, but he never would have been able to prevent me from choosing the path toward glory. Monsieur Louzel continued to speak in his dictatorial tone, and I continued to remain silent. Still, I had an answer for every question, repartee came spontaneously to my lips, I was bubbling over with promises, gratitude, and dreams. I reacted to every one of his sentences with gestures that were born of my whole body, approving, denying, committing me. There had been some hesitation, Monsieur Louzel confided in me, between choosing Lévy, the son of the widow, and myself. His financial status deserved more consideration, but I was the better student. I nodded, with an expression that wished to convey deep sympathy for Lévy Isidro; but my joy was too great to allow any qualification, except that of retrospective anguish. “Well, you have deserved your luck,” concluded the principal. “Now you must go back to your classroom to fetch your things and go at once to see Monsieur Bismuth, who has been appointed your sponsor. He wants to see you at once, as he has to leave town this afternoon. So, you had better go... But wait, I haven’t told you anything about Monsieur Bismuth.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady very graciously replied that she was ready to do his desire, so but she might and it were honourable. Then said he, 'Madam, your kinsfolk and all the Bolognese believe and hold you for certain to be dead, wherefore there is no one who looketh for you more at home, and therefore I would have you of your favour be pleased to abide quietly here with my mother till such time as I shall return from Modona, which will be soon. And the reason for which I require you of this is that I purpose to make a dear and solemn present of you to your husband in the presence of the most notable citizens of this place.' The lady, confessing herself beholden to the gentleman and that his request was an honourable one, determined to do as he asked, how much soever she desired to gladden her kinsfolk of her life,[449] and so she promised it to him upon her faith. Hardly had she made an end of her reply, when she felt the time of her delivery to be come and not long after, being lovingly tended of Messer Gentile's mother, she gave birth to a goodly male child, which manifold redoubled his gladness and her own. Messer Gentile took order that all things needful should be forthcoming and that she should be tended as she were his proper wife and presently returned in secret to Modona. There, having served the term of his office and being about to return to Bologna, he took order for the holding of a great and goodly banquet at his house on the morning he was to enter the city, and thereto he bade many gentlemen of the place, amongst whom was Niccoluccio Caccianimico. Accordingly, when he returned and dismounted, he found them all awaiting him, as likewise the lady, fairer and sounder than ever, and her little son in good case, and with inexpressible joy seating his guests at table, he let serve them magnificently with various meats. [Footnote 449: _i.e._ with news of her life.]

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as Jehannot knew of his return, he betook himself to him, hoping nothing less than that he should become a Christian, and they greeted each other with the utmost joy. Then, after Abraham had rested some days, Jehannot asked him how himseemed of the Holy Father and of the cardinals and others of his court. Whereto the Jew promptly answered, 'Meseemeth, God give them ill one and all! And I say this for that, if I was able to observe aright, no piety, no devoutness, no good work or example of life or otherwhat did I see there in any who was a churchman; nay, but lust, covetise, gluttony and the like and worse (if worse can be) meseemed to be there in such favour with all that I hold it for a forgingplace of things diabolical rather than divine. And as far as I can judge, meseemeth your chief pastor and consequently all the others endeavour with all diligence and all their wit and every art to bring to nought and banish from the world the Christian religion, whereas they should be its foundation and support. And for that I see that this whereafter they strive cometh not to pass, but that your religion continually increaseth and waxeth still brighter and more glorious, meseemeth I manifestly discern that the Holy Spirit is verily the foundation and support thereof, as of that which is true and holy over any other. Wherefore, whereas, aforetime I abode obdurate and insensible to thine exhortations and would not be persuaded to embrace thy faith, I now tell thee frankly that for nothing in the world would I forbear to become a Christian. Let us, then, to church and there have me baptized, according to the rite and ordinance of your holy faith.' Jehannot, who looked for a directly contrary conclusion to this, was the joyfullest man that might be, when he heard him speak thus, and repairing with him to our Lady's Church of Paris, required the clergy there to give Abraham baptism. They, hearing that the Jew himself demanded it, straightway proceeded to baptize him, whilst Jehannot raised him from the sacred font[45] and named him Giovanni. After this, he had him thoroughly lessoned by men of great worth and learning in the tenets of our holy faith, which he speedily apprehended and thenceforward was a good man and a worthy and one of a devout life." [Footnote 45: _i.e._ stood sponsor for him.] THE THIRD STORY [Day the First] MELCHIZEDEK THE JEW, WITH A STORY OF THREE RINGS, ESCAPETH A PARLOUS SNARE SET FOR HIM BY SALADIN

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  quickly mastered all the other branches of press work. I have always thought that he was not conscious of his own capacity. We had hardly settled down, the buildings were hardly ready, when I had to leave the newly constructed nest and go to Johannesburg. I was not in a position to allow the work there to remain without attention for any length of time. On return to Johannesburg, I informed Polak of the important changes I had made. His joy knew no bounds when he learnt that the loan of his book had been so fruitful. ‘Is it not possible,’ he asked, ‘for me to take part in the new venture?’ .’Certainly,’ said I. ‘You may if you like join the Settlement.’ ‘I am quite ready,’ he replied, ‘If you will admit me.’ His determination captured me. He gave a month’s notice to his chief to be relieved from #The Critic#, and reached Phoenix in due course. By his sociability he won the hearts of all and soon became a member of the family. Simplicity was so much a part of his nature that, far from feeling the life at Phoenix in any way strange or hard, he took to it like a duck takes to water. But I could not keep him there long. Mr. Ritch had decided to finish his legal studies in England, and it was impossible for me to bear the burden of the office single- handed, so I suggested to Polak that he should join the office and qualify as an attorney. I had thought that ultimately both of us would retire and settle at Phoenix, but that never came to pass. Polak’s was such a trustful nature that, when he reposed his confidence in a friend, he would try to agree with him instead of arguing with him. He wrote to me from Phoenix that though he loved the life there, was perfectly happy,and had hopes of developing the Settlement, still he was ready to leave and join the office to qualify as an attorney, if I thought that thereby we should more quickly realize our ideals. I heartily welcomed the letter. Polak left Phoenix, came to Johannesburg and signed his articles with me. About the same time a Scotch theosophist, whom I had been coaching for a local legal examination, also joined as an articled clerk, on my inviting him to follow Polak’s example. His name was Mr. MacIntyre. Thus, with the laudable object of quickly realizing the ideals at Phoenix, I seemed to be going deeper and deeper into a contrary current, and had God not willed otherwise, I should have found myself entrapped in this net spread in the name of simple life. It will be after a few more chapters that I shall describe how I and my ideals were saved in a way no one had imagined or expected. 101.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  My father’s store was not far from my sponsor’s office, so I went first to see my father. I showed him, almost without any self-consciousness, how deeply I was moved. He told me all about his talk with the principal that same morning; he had come back from it very proud and convinced that I should continue my studies. The principal had been very complimentary indeed, and this had confirmed my father in his faith in his own intelligence and in that of his offspring. Then I went to the drugstore. Monsieur Bismuth was no longer there, but his clerk reassured me: Monsieur Bismuth had expected me, but now asked me to come back in two weeks. So the various threads were indeed all tied together. The city’s siren that announced noon now rang. I rushed into the street, at last aware of my own appetite, but also because I felt a need to run. I wanted to sing, to announce my unbelievable adventure to everyone, to make polite remarks to utter strangers in the street. Some Moslem laborers were repairing the streetcar tracks, and the sun was glistening on the metal. I shouted out to them: “May God be with you!” This is how we greet, in the countryside, laborers whom we do not necessarily know, but merely to reaffirm, in the face of loneliness, the solidarity of all mankind. Now, these men were surprised, because such conventions are generally respected only among believers in their faith; still, they answered me: “The blessing of Allah be upon you!” This feeling of communion with all of mankind made me happy. I gave a couple of coins to a Bedouin beggar, now that I would henceforth be so wealthy! An old idea that disappointments had caused to wilt now blossomed again, binding my adolescence that was beginning more closely to my childhood that was gone: I had been chosen among many, ahead of Lévy, who could not be surpassed in mathematics, ahead of Spinoza, who was Monsieur Marzouk’s favorite! I was surely better than all my classmates, all the students in the school, perhaps all the students in all the Alliance schools! Surely, I would go far and be very powerful. True, I couldn’t yet foresee the nature of this power, but it was a kind of broad movement toward the future, a lunging that was almost muscular. Following the advice of my father, who was more aware of such necessities, my mother began inspecting my wardrobe. “You know,” he explained to her, “only rich men’s sons attend high school, and our boy must be decently dressed, too.”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Those whom we called the “damned” or the “dwellers beneath the earth,” because one should avoid naming the demons by their real name unless one does it with music and with offerings, were now becoming particularly obtrusive: the other evening, they had even left a big bruise on her leg, which was a warning. They might indeed drive her to insanity, so her sisters and sisters-in-law decided to hold a meeting on the subject. There, they all spoke at the same time, in their high-pitched voices, but managed all the same to agree on the urgency of holding a ceremony in honor of the demons that live below. A dance invoking their protection would be a wise thing for the whole house. Noucha, the wife of Uncle Aroun, courageously volunteered to take the matter up with her miser husband, as it involved some expense. Her sisters were suddenly moved to the heart and thanked her with tears in their eyes, like an autumn shower that comes over very suddenly. Then they broke up, all agog and happy at the idea of such wonderful and useful fun. My mother brought out her wooden box that she hid against the wall beneath the bed. For lack of space in our common closet, that was where she tucked away her own personal treasures. Among broken trinkets, old ribbons, fragments of bridal veils, old purses and baby clothes, she discovered some weird oriental finery, shapeless and gaudy, all orange, yellow, and green, embroidered with beads and sequins. Then she gathered together all the colored scarves and handkerchiefs that she could find throughout the house. Twice, she went busily out to buy, in the covered markets, her share of the incense: a little bit of the kind that is called ouchak, some of the jaoui kind, and a few sticks of ned. She did everything that could be expected of her as a worthy contribution toward her younger sister’s recovery. Still, her joy was very childish and she could scarcely conceal it; it was written all over her face, and she could no longer refrain from anticipating the event by singing snatches of song from time to time. In spite of her protests, we teased her about all this. On the appointed day, at noon, she was too much intent on preparing for the ceremony to fulfill all her duties as a mother, so that we had to be content with a pot of chick-peas, cooked in water. Whenever it came to the matter of food, we could become really unpleasant with Mother. Quite properly, we blamed the coming ceremony and her for the excessive importance that she seemed to attach to it. Hungry and bad-tempered, we repeated, each of us in turn, the traditional question: “Is that all there is?” “Yes, that’s all. Father didn’t leave me any money this morning, and I’m lucky to have been able to borrow twenty francs from Noucha.”

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Although we are still alive, you see, we are always being given over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal humanity. So this is how it is: death is at work in us—but life in you! (4:7–12) And with even more rhetorical emphasis he expounds the true apostolic life of suffering and shame as the very thing that ought to recommend itself, not as something to be ashamed of: We recommend ourselves as God’s servants: with much patience, with sufferings, difficulties, hardships, beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, going without food, with purity, knowledge, great-heartedness, kindness, the holy spirit, genuine love, by speaking the truth, by God’s power, with weapons for God’s faithful work in left and right hand alike, through glory and shame, through slander and praise; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, yet very well known; as dying, and look—we are alive; as punished, yet not killed; as sad, yet always celebrating; as poor, yet bringing riches to many; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (6:4–10) Then even more dramatically, and now deliberately teasing his audience, he lists all his “achievements”—only they are all the wrong sort of thing, the things that show his weakness (11:21–12:7). The Lord himself had said to him, “My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness” (12:9). So he says: I will be all the more pleased to boast of my weaknesses, so that the Messiah’s power may rest upon me. So I’m delighted when I’m weak, insulted, in difficulties, persecuted, and facing disasters, for the Messiah’s sake. When I’m weak, you see, then I am strong. (12:9–10) The point throughout is that the crucifixion of the Messiah is not just an event in the past that changed the world once and for all, though it certainly is that. It is not just the “mechanism” of salvation, though if we must use that language we can do so without inaccuracy. The Messiah’s crucifixion was not a strange, one-off deal through which God played a trick on sin and death, after which normal operations were resumed, power went back to being what it always was, and the normal human lifestyles of honor and shame, boasting and prestige, social climbing and pretension could be picked up again where they had left off. Precisely because the Messiah’s crucifixion unveiled the very nature of God himself at work in generous self-giving love to overthrow all power structures by dealing with the sin that had given them their power, that same divine nature would now be at work through the ministry of the gospel not only through what was said, but through the character and the circumstances of the people who were saying it.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  Instead, they made love all morning, and when they finally did get up, she took us all out to the IHOP, where we ate chocolate pancakes and waffles with whipped cream in a big corner booth. Everyone was laughing and having a good time, but all I could see was Ray’s arm around her shoulder on the back of the leatherette booth. I felt strange, and moved the waffle around on my plate. I wasn’t hungry anymore. THE RAINS PASSED , and now in the nights the new-washed sky showed all its stars. The boys and I stood out in the darkest part of the clay-muddy yard, listening to the runoff on the Tujunga out in the dark beyond the trees. Heavy pancakes of mud congealed around my boots as I craned my head back in the vapor-breath cold and tried to pick out the dippers and the crosses. Davey’s books didn’t show so many stars. I couldn’t separate them. I thought I saw a streak of light. I wasn’t sure if I even saw it. I gazed upward, trying not to blink, waited. “There!” Davey pointed. In a different quadrant of the sky, another star broke loose. It was eerie, the one thing you didn’t plan on, stellar movement. I tried to keep my eyes open without blinking. When you blinked, you missed them. I held them open for the light to develop on them like a photograph. The little boys shivered despite the jackets over their pajamas and muddy boots, chattering and giggling in the cold and the excitement of being up so late as they gazed at the stars that started pinging like pinballs, mouths opened in case one should fall in. It was completely dark except for the line of Christmas lights that twinkled along the edge of the trailer porch. The screen door opened and slammed. I didn’t have to look to know it was him. The flare of a match, the warm stinky pot smell. “Ought to take down those Christmas lights,” he said. He came out on the yard where we were, the ember glow, and then the sharpness of his body, the smell of new wood. “It’s the Quadrantid shower,” Davey said. “We’ll be getting forty an hour pretty soon. It’s the shortest-lived meteorite display, but the densest except for the Perseids.” I could hear the mud sucking at his boots as he shifted his weight. I was glad it was dark, that he couldn’t see the flush of pleasure on my face as he drew closer, looking up at the sky, as if he cared about the Quadrantids, as if that’s why he’d come out. “There!” Owen said. “Did you see it, Uncle Ray? Did you?” “Yeah, I saw it buddy. I saw it.” He was standing right next to me. If I shifted just an inch to my left, I could brush him with my sleeve.

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

  Reply to Objection 12: Some say that the use of reason was by the Divine power accelerated in the Innocents slain for Christ’s sake, even as in John the Baptist while yet in his mother’s womb: and in that case they were truly martyrs in both act and will, and have the aureole. others say, however, that they were martyrs in act only and not in will: and this seems to be the opinion of Bernard, who distinguishes three kinds of martyrs, as stated above (OBJ 3). In this case the Innocents, even as they do not fulfill all the conditions of martyrdom, and yet are martyrs in a sense, in that they died for Christ, so too they have the aureole, not in all its perfection, but by a kind of participation, in so far as they rejoice in having. been slain in Christ’s service; thus it was stated above [5150](A[5]) in reference to baptized children, that they will have a certain joy in their innocence and carnal integrity [*Cf. [5151]SS, Q[124], A[1], ad 1, where St. Thomas declares that the Holy Innocents were truly martyrs.] Whether an aureole is due to doctors?Objection 1: It would seem that an aureole is not due to doctors. For every reward to be had in the life to come will correspond to some act of virtue. But preaching or teaching is not the act of a virtue. Therefore an aureole is not due to teaching or preaching. Objection 2: Further, teaching and preaching are the result of studying and being taught. Now the things that are rewarded in the future life are not acquired by a man’s study, since we merit not by our natural and acquired gifts. Therefore no aureole will be merited in the future life for teaching and preaching. Objection 3: Further, exaltation in the life to come corresponds to humiliation in the present life, because “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Mat. 23:12). But there is no humiliation in teaching and preaching, in fact they are occasions of pride; for a gloss on Mat. 4:5, “Then the devil took Him up,” says that “the devil deceives many who are puffed up with the honor of the master’s chair.” Therefore it would seem that an aureole is not due to preaching and teaching. On the contrary, A gloss on Eph. 1:18,19, “That you may know . . . what is the exceeding greatness,” etc. says: “The holy doctors will have an increase of glory above that which all have in common.” Therefore, etc. Further, a gloss on Canticle of Canticles 8:12, “My vineyard is before me,” says: “He describes the peculiar reward which He has prepared for His doctors.” Therefore doctors will have a peculiar reward: and we call this an aureole.