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

  This description of the woman’s pleasure, the reader of the romance remembers, is delivered by a young man whose experiences, on his own admission, have been limited to professional women. Part of us may wonder if Clitophon has not himself been sold a convincing act, but that is to bring a modern cynicism into the picture. Achilles is a sly author, to be sure, but his rendering of female pleasure is integral to the whole conception of eros in the novel. The novels embrace the physical power of eros and celebrate its potential to be reconciled within the order of married life and the city-state. The Greeks and Romans recognized eros as a wild, destructive force. The novels present a cosmos where the feral power of eros is harnessed by marriage, not dampened by it. For Achilles, marriage itself exists as part of nature, or at least on an indistinct border between wild nature and human civilization. The novels are about the ending, about marriage, but they are not sermons or political pamphlets on behalf of marriage. In the world of the novel, civilization does not repress eros. For the novelist, the fires of sexual love gave warmth and meaning to human life. Civilization is nourished by absorbing eros into its most vital institution. THE GLOOMY ONES: THE PHILOSOPHERS AND SEXUALITY In the very opening scene of Leucippe and Clitophon, the “author” sails to Sidon and meets Clitophon in a temple of the goddess Astarte. The topic of eros arises and the two descend to a nearby grove bordered by a clear cold stream; the rest of the novel is Clitophon’s first-person account of his experiences. The story of Clitophon and Leucippe’s romance is an afternoon conte in the cool shade of the plane trees. The ancient reader would have known immediately that we have been placed in the surroundings of Plato’s Phaedrus, one of the Athenian’s most celebrated dialogues on eros, in which Socrates extols the power of love to draw humans toward the divine. It was by design an ambitious place to set an erotic story. From the beginning Achilles Tatius evokes the atmosphere of philosophy and the possibility of a rivalry between philosophy and art. The novel presents a narrative of eros that is permeated at every turn by the concerns of contemporary philosophy. Leucippe and Clitophon is a philosophical novel, though not a dogmatic one. Indeed, Achilles Tatius was one of those creative spirits whose prime conviction was the superiority of art over doctrine as a vehicle for representing deep human truths.93

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

  AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxviii. 1) Though He was only going for a time, their hearts would be troubled and afraid for what might happen before He returned; lest in the absence of the Shepherd the wolf might attack the flock: Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again to you. In that He was man, He went: in that He was God, He stayed. Why then be troubled and afraid, when He left the eye only, not the heart? To make them understand that it was as man that He said, I go away, and come again to you; He adds, If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto My Father; for My Father is greater than I. In that the Son then is unequal with the Father, through that inequality He went to the Father, from Him to come again to judge the quick and dead: in that He is equal to the Father, He never goes from the Father, but is every where altogether with Him in that Godhead, which is not confined to place. Nay, the Son Himself, because that being equal to the Father in the form of God, He emptied Himself, not losing the form of God, but taking that of a servant, is greater even than Himself: the form of God which is not lost, is greater than the form of a servant which was put on. In this form of a servant, the Son of God is inferior not to the Father only, but to the Holy Ghost; in this the Child Christ was inferior even to His parents; to whom we read, He was subject. Let us acknowledge then the twofold substance of Christ, the divine, which is equal to the Father, and the human, which is inferior. But Christ is both together, not two, but one Christ: else the Godhead is a quaternity, not a Trinity. Wherefore He says, If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father; for human nature should exult at being thus taken up by the Only Begotten Word, and made immortal in heaven; at earth being raised to heaven, and dust sitting incorruptible at the right hand of the Father. Who, that loves Christ, will not rejoice at this, seeing, as he doth, his own nature immortal in Christ, and hoping that He Himself will be so by Christ. HILARY. (de Trin. ix) Or thus: If the Father is greater by virtue of giving, is the Son less by confessing the gift? The giver is the greater, but He to whom unity with that giver is given, is not the less.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  When I hold it to my face, the smell reminds me of pickle juice, with that salty flavor, I love to drink straight from the jar. Thinking about pickles makes the vinegar more bearable, and for some reason, the vinegar always curbs my appetite. When that doesn’t work and I’m still feeling worn down, I know I have backup to keep my energy going: the yellow jackets. I do my best to ignore the signs of my malnourishment: the bruises that appear in dull purple on my limbs from simple chores around the house, the shallowness of my skin, and the emptiness in my eyes. There’s constant pain in my gums, and I can’t drink cold water because of the tingling ache in my teeth. Finally, late one afternoon, Camille comes home for a visit, wearing a huge smile when she steps out of Kathy’s mother’s car. Through the rolled-down window, Kathy waves as she pulls away. In my bare feet I step onto the porch and fold my arms, smiling. “Why you looking so smug?” “Here’s why.” Camille opens a plastic grocery bag to reveal a whole roasted chicken. “Where’d you get that?!” “Today I made ten dollars washing cars with Kathy’s brother,” she says. “I was worried about you guys.” “No way!” I hug her—quickly, because my mouth is watering with the intensity of a fountain. “What else is in here?” When I take the chicken out of the bag, I find a jar of mustard and a loaf of Italian bread. Yum! “Norman! Rosie!” I yell. “Come and eat!” “Now?” Norm yells from upstairs. “It’s a surprise.” The four of us sit on the floor with the plastic tray of chicken between us. “You’re eating so fast!” Camille says, giggling, and poking me in the ribs. “Slow down or you might choke.” We put mustard on our plates and dip the chicken in it. When the bones are nearly stripped clean, Camille sets it aside and we pass around more mustard and dip our bread in it. Rosie and Norm sit back to let their food settle, then run outside to play. Camille smiles at me, seeing how happy they are. I tuck my hands behind my head and smile back in agreement. With our bellies stuffed, she and I stretch out on the living room couches. I tell her how we’ve been spending our days and how I lock the house up at night. “Are you going to come back and live with us again?” “How are the kids doing?” I understand this is her answer. Norman and Rosie have always been “the kids,” because they’re “the kids” to our mother. She’ll say, “Who’s taking care of the kids?” and I know she means Norman and Rosie. I have never been a kid. Norman acts like a child, even though we’re less than two years apart. He’s our mother’s little prince, and he loves that we girls take care of him.

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

  Sometimes I’d find within a letter a scrap of wrinkled paper, which, once unfolded, would reveal thoughtful and sobering poems with titles like “Uncried Tears,” “Tied Up with Words,” “The Unforgiving Minute,” “Silence,” and “Wednesday Ritual.” We decided to publish a report to draw attention to the plight of children in the United States who had been sentenced to die in prison. I wanted to photograph some of our clients in order to give the life-without-parole sentences imposed on children a human face. Florida was one of the few states that would allow photographers inside a prison, so we asked prison officials if Ian could be permitted out of his solitary, no-touch existence for an hour so that the photographer we hired could take the pictures. To my delight, they agreed and allowed Ian to be in the same room with an outside photographer. As soon as the visit was over, Ian immediately wrote me a letter. Dear Mr. Stevenson: I hope this letter reaches you in good health, and everything is going well for you. The focal point of this letter is to thank you for the photo session with the photographer and obtain information from you how I can obtain a good amount of photos. As you know, I’ve been in solitary confinement approx. 14.5 years. It’s like the system has buried me alive and I’m dead to the outside world. Those photos mean so very much to me right now. All I have is $1.75 in my inmate account right now. If I send you $1.00 of that, how many of the photos will that purchase me? In my elation at the photo shoot today, I forgot to mention that today June 19th was my deceased mom’s birthday. I know it’s not a big significance, but reflecting on it afterward it seemed symbolic and special that the photo shoot took place on my mother’s birthday! I don’t know how to make you feel the emotion and importance of those photos, but to be real, I want to show the world I’m alive! I want to look at those photos and feel alive! It would really help with my pain. I felt joyful today during the photo shoot. I wanted it to never end. Every time you all visit and leave, I feel saddened. But I capture and cherish those moments in time, replaying them in my mind’s eye, feeling grateful for human interaction and contact. But today, just the simple handshakes we shared was a welcome addition to my sensory deprived life. Please tell me how many photos I can get? I want those photos of myself, almost as bad as I want my freedom. Thank you for making a lot of the positive occurrences that are happening in my life possible.

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

  The Offering of Sacrifice.—The first is the offering of sacrifices. In the Book of Numbers (18) it is written how God ordered that on each day there be offered one lamb in the morning and another in the evening, but on the Sabbath day the number should be doubled. And this showed that on the Sabbath we should offer sacrifice to God from all that we possess: “All things are Yours; and we have given You what we received from your hand” [1 Chron 29:14]. We should offer, first of all, our soul to God, being sorry for our sins: “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit” [Ps 50:19]; and also pray for His blessings: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight” [Ps 140:2]. Feast days were instituted for that spiritual joy which is the effect of prayer. Therefore, on such days our prayers should be multiplied. Secondly, we should offer our body, by mortifying it with fasting: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice”[Rm 12:1], and also by praising God: “The sacrifice of praise shall honor Me” [Ps 49:23]. And thus on these days our hymns should be more numerous. Thirdly, we should sacrifice our possessions by giving alms: “And do not forget to do good, and to impart; for by such sacrifice God’s favor is obtained” [Hb 13:16]. And this alms ought to be more than on other days because the Sabbath is a day of common joys: “Send portions to those who have not prepared for themselves, because it is the holy day of the Lord” [Neh 8:10]. Hearing of God’s Word.—Our second duty on the Sabbath is to be eager to hear the word of God. This the Jews did daily: “The voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath” [Acts 13:27]. Therefore Christians, whose justice should be more perfect, ought to come together on the Sabbath to hear sermons and participate in the services of the Church! “He who is of God, hears the words of God” [Jn 8:47]. We likewise ought to speak with profit to others: “Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth; but what is good for sanctification” [Eph 4:29]. These two practices are good for the soul of the sinner, because they change his heart for the better: “Are not My words as a fire, says the Lord, and as a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” [Jer 23:29]. The opposite effect is had on those, even the perfect, who neither speak nor hear profitable things: “Evil communications corrupt good manners. Awake, you just, and do no sin” [1 Cor 15:33]. “Your words have I hidden in my heart” [Ps 118:11]. God’s word enlightens the ignorant: “Your word is a lamp to my feet” [Ps 118:105]. It inflames the lukewarm: “The word of the Lord inflamed him” [Ps 114:19]

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

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Though Matthew mentions only the disciples of John as having made this enquiry, the words of Mark rather seem to imply that some other persons spoke of others, that is, the guests spoke concerning the disciples of John and the Pharisees—this is still more evident from Luke; why then does Matthew here say, Then came unto him the disciples of John, (Luck 5:33.) unless that they were there among other guests, all of whom with one consent put this objection to Him? CHRYSOSTOM. Or; Luke relates that the Pharisees, but Matthew that the disciples of John, said thus, because the Pharisees had taken them with them to ask the question, as they afterwards did the Herodians. Observe how when strangers, as before the Publicans, were to be defended, He accuses heavily those that blamed them; but when they brought a charge against His disciples, He makes answer with mildness. And Jesus saith unto them, Can the children of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? Before He had styled Himself Physician, now Bridegroom, calling to mind the words of John which he had said, He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. (John 3:29.) JEROME. Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church the Bride. Of this spiritual union the Apostles were born; they cannot mourn so long as they see the Bridegroom in the chamber with the Bride. But when the nuptials are past, and the time of passion and resurrection is come, then shall the children of the Bridegroom fast. The days shall come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. CHRYSOSTOM. He means this; The present is a time of joy and rejoicing; sorrow is therefore not to be now brought forward; and fasting is naturally grievous, and to all those that are yet weak; for to those that seek to contemplate wisdom, it is pleasant; He therefore speaks here according to the former opinion. He also shews that this they did was not of gluttony, but of a certain dispensation. JEROME. Hence some think that a fast ought to follow the forty days of Passion, although the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit immediately bring back our joy and festival. From this text accordingly, Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla enjoin a forty days’ abstinence after Pentecost, but it is the use of the Church to come to the Lord’s passion and resurrection through humiliation of the flesh, that by carnal abstinence we may better be prepared for spiritual fulness.

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

  The judge and the prosecutor were suddenly generous and accommodating. It was as if everyone wanted to be sure there were no hard feelings or grudges. Walter was rightfully ecstatic, but I was confused by my suddenly simmering anger. We were about to leave court for the last time, and I started thinking about how much pain and suffering had been inflicted on Walter and his family, the entire community. I thought about how if Judge Robert E. Lee Key hadn’t overridden the jury’s verdict of life imprisonment without parole and imposed the death penalty, which brought the case to our attention, Walter likely would have spent the rest of his life incarcerated and died in a prison cell. I thought about how certain it was that hundreds, maybe thousands of other people were just as innocent as Walter but would never get the help they need. I knew this wasn’t the place or time to make a speech or complain, but I couldn’t stop myself from making one final comment. “Your Honor, I just want to say this before we adjourn. It was far too easy to convict this wrongly accused man for murder and send him to death row for something he didn’t do and much too hard to win his freedom after proving his innocence. We have serious problems and important work that must be done in this state.” I sat down and the judge pronounced Walter free to go. Just like that he was a free man. Walter hugged me tightly, and I gave him a handkerchief to wipe the tears from his eyes. I led him over to Chapman, and they shook hands. The black deputies who had hovered nearby ushered us toward a back door that led downstairs, where a throng of reporters waited. One of the deputies patted me on the back, declaring, “That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome.” I asked Bernard to tell the family and supporters that we would meet them out front. Walter stood very close to me as we answered questions from the press. I could tell he was feeling overwhelmed, so I cut off the questions after a few minutes, and we walked to the front door of the courthouse. TV camera crews followed us. As we walked outside, dozens of people cheered and waved their signs. Walter’s relatives ran up to him to hug him, and they hugged me, too. Walter’s grandchildren grabbed his hands. Older people I hadn’t previously met came up to hug him. Walter couldn’t believe how many people were there for him. He hugged everyone. Even when some of the men came up to shake his hand, he gave them a hug.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  For years, the two of us have worked to set up each new place so that it feels at least something like a home, even though we never know how long we might stay there. We just rest easier knowing, at nightfall, that the younger ones have a safe spot to rest their heads. Together. Without Cookie. If we can control that. Cookie puts the brakes on our wordless games when she pulls into a semicircular driveway, gravel crunching under the tires. We’re met by the image of a gray, severely neglected two-story shingled house surrounded by dirt, dust, and weeds. There are no bushes, no flowers, no greenery at all; but the lack of landscaping draws a squeal from me. “No grass!” Rosie and Norman smile and nod in agreement, understanding this means we won’t be taking shifts to accomplish Cookie’s definition of “mowing the lawn”—using an old pair of hedge clippers to cut the grass on our hands and knees. Camille and I usually cut the bulk of the lawn to protect the little ones from the blisters and achy wrists. Cookie turns off the ignition and coughs her dry, scratchy smoker’s cough. “This is it,” she announces. “Sluts and whores unpack the car.” Then she emits a loud, sputtering, hillbilly roar that never fails to remind me of a malfunctioning machine gun. As usual, she’s the only one who finds any humor in the degrading nicknames she’s pinned on her daughters. I gaze calmly at the facade before me. It’s a house . . . our house. Even if it ends up being only for a few days, I’m relieved that my siblings and I won’t be separated. Since the interior car-door handle is missing, exiting the car is always an occasion for embarrassment. I take my cue as Cookie reaches out her window, pulling up the steel tab that opens her door with her right hand while she pushes with her left shoulder from the inside. It’s my job to step out and pull the exterior driver’s-side door handle for her, especially when she’s too drunk to get the door open on her own. This normally results in me falling on my bony bottom as the heavy steel door comes barreling out toward me from my mother’s force. I quickly jump straight up like Nadia Comaneci at the Montreal Olympics—landing with locked legs and arms extended skyward—and look back at the three little judges in the car to rate my performance. As always, this leads to giggles from Rosie and Norman and an I feel your pain wince from Camille, whose behind is just as scrawny as mine. Since my dismount lacks originality, my score is always the same. Rosie is the most generous, flashing ten stretched-out fingers. Norman offers an underwhelmed five; Camille gives me two thumbs-up, which from her is equal to a ten. Cookie usually just snorts in my direction, but not this time. Today she’s in a hurry.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  There I sat, cross-legged on a rug, shirtless, brown, blue-eyed—perhaps the most beautiful I had ever been or ever would be. ‘That’s you,’ cried Rupert, splodging his forefinger down on my face as if recording his fingerprints for the police. ‘And that’s James! Isn’t he funny?’ ‘Yes, isn’t he a scream.’ James had on his panama hat, was quite drunk and had been caught at an unflattering angle (one I had never seen him from in real life), so that he looked lecherously seedy. ‘And is that Robert Carson um Smith?’ ‘Smith-Carson, actually, but jolly good all the same.’ ‘Was he a homosexual?’ ‘Certainly was.’ ‘I don’t like him.’ ‘No, he wasn’t very nice really. Some people liked him, though. He was great friends with James, you know.’ ‘Is James a homosexual, too?’ ‘You know perfectly well he is.’ ‘Yes, I thought he was, but Mummy said you mustn’t say people were.’ ‘You say what you like, sweetheart; as long as it’s true, of course.’ ‘Of course. Is he a homosexual as well?’ he chimed on, pointing to the remaining person in the picture, the blazered, boatered man-mountain, Ashley Child, a wealthy American Rhodes scholar whose birthday, as far as I could remember, we had been celebrating. ‘A bit hard to say, I’m afraid. I should think so, though.’ ‘I mean,’ Rupert looked up at me cogitatively, ‘almost everyone is homosexual, aren’t they? Boys, I mean.’ ‘I sometimes think so,’ I hedged. ‘Is Grandpa one?’ ‘Good heavens no,’ I protested. ‘Am I one?’ Rupert asked intently. ‘It’s a bit early to say yet, old fellow. But you could be, you know.’ ‘Goody!’ he squealed, banging his heels against the front of the sofa again. ‘Then I can come and live with you.’ ‘Would you like that?’ I asked, my avuncular rather than my homosexual feelings deeply gratified by this. And really Rupert’s cult of the gay, his innocent, optimistic absorption in the subject, delighted me even while its origin and purpose were obscure. I was saved from the sexual analysis of the next set of pictures, the Oscar Wilde Society Ball, by the doorbell ringing. (The dressnote that year had been ‘Slave Trade’, and the spectacle of predominantly straight boys camping it up to the eyeballs would have been confusing to the child’s budding sense of role-play.) It was not Philippa but Gavin who had come. ‘Sorry about this, Will,’ he said. ‘Has he been a frightful bother?’ ‘Not a bit, Gavin. Come in. We were just having a talk about homosexuality.’ ‘He is frightfully interested in that at the moment, although he can’t have the least idea of what it is —can he?

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  An open multidisciplinary effort could begin to help us discern what is or is not effective and to improve at our primary aim of helping suffering people heal! The article by Jack Maser and Steven Bracha offers a spirited challenge to those entrusted to write the DSM-V. In their audacious commentary, these two researchers put forth the bold premise that there exists a theoretical basis for the mechanisms underlying PTSD: an evolutionary (instinctual) basis for trauma, similar to what I had observed with Nancy in 1969. With this article, I had come full circle. Gallup and Maser’s 1977 experimental studies on fear and “animal paralysis” had inspired my explanation for her behavior. Now Maser and Bracha concluded their 2008 article with these tickling couple of sentences: Along with the many changes that are being suggested for DSM-V, we urge the planners to seek out empirical studies and/or theories that place psychopathology in an evolutionary context. The field will then have a connection to broader issues in biology, the data on psychopathology can be placed within a widely accepted concept, and clinicians will have the possibility of developing more effective behavioral treatments (e.g., Levine, 1997). 9 Oh, what divine delight! I could not help but wonder if my lecture at the San Diego Medical Conference had contributed in part to stimulating Maser and Bracha to make this proposal. The mere possibility that I might somehow, through fateful detours and twisted turns, have influenced the course of the psychiatric diagnosis of trauma (or at least contributed to the dialogue) was mind-blowing. Let us take a brief look at that diagnostic history. * I use the term renegotiation to refer to the reworking of a traumatic experience in contrast to the reliving of it. † Tragically, Donald Wilson was killed in a rafting accident in 1970. ‡ This transcript was published in the journal Science in 1974. § The Alexander technique takes its name from F. Matthias Alexander, who first observed and formulated its principles between 1890 and 1900. It is an approach for reducing harmful postural habits that interfere with both the physical and the mental conditions of the individual as a whole. ‖ At this time the chairman of my doctoral committee was quite dubious, even antagonistic, about my thesis. M CHAPTER 3 The Changing Face of Trauma OST PEOPLE THINK OF TRAUMA AS A “MENTAL” PROBLEM, even as a “brain disorder.” However, trauma is something that also happens in the body. We become scared stiff or, alternately, we collapse, overwhelmed and defeated with helpless dread. Either way, trauma defeats life. The state of being scared stiff has been portrayed in the various great cultural mythologies. There is, of course, the Gorgon Medusa who turns her victims to stone by exposing them to her own wide-eyed terrified gaze. In the Old Testament, Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt as a punishment for witnessing the terrifying destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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

  “Having kids had a huge impact on our marriage,” Gary said with satisfaction. “I love being a father. I like the newness of my kids’ lives. I love reading the books to them that my folks read to me and playing the games I played as a child. Those were happy times and my children give me the double joy of sharing the parts of my life that I loved with them and replaying these precious experiences in my own mind. Both Sara and I are committed to spending as much time as we can with our kids. We have this crazy schedule that’s all about maximizing our time with them.” As he told me the details, I felt exhausted just listening. This is the story I hear these days from all parents with children. They come home from their busy, demanding jobs to pick up children at school, take them to their playdates and their music lessons, sports, and a zillion other activities plus hours of homework that by second grade require the presence of parents. Fathers in general are more present in the lives of their children. It is one of the better changes in American society over the last few decades. Unlike Karen, who wrestled over the decision to have a child, Gary took marriage and fatherhood totally for granted. The fact that his mother and father had troubles in their marriage in no way affected his decision to have children of his own. Indeed, this is one of the major differences between those raised in good or “good enough” intact families like Gary’s and children of divorce.1 Gary and his peers felt that becoming parents was a natural step and discussed having children as part of their courtship. They knew that their parents wanted to be grandparents and were happy to oblige them. But in another respect, Karen and Gary were very much alike as parents. Their children were central to the marriage. They wanted what was best for their children and were willing to make sacrifices on their behalf. For example, Gary explained that he got an offer from a national chain to buy out the family hardware store. The deal meant he’d make a lot more money, but he’d have to relocate the family to company headquarters in Seattle. “That’s a very nice city and a really good offer but I said no,” he explained. “It wasn’t because of me or even Sara. We would have enjoyed a big rise in our standard of living. And we would have stayed close enough to my folks and hers to see them pretty often. But I wanted the stability for my children that I enjoyed as a child. I want them to feel that they have roots. I still feel like I have two homes—ours and my folks’.”

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

  The imagination that produced these rich socio-legal riddles is not far at all from the literary spirit that informs the romances. The contemplation of the possible disjuncture between essence and circumstance is identical. In Leucippe and Clitophon, this disjuncture is a constant source of dramatic energy. In a touching scene near the end of the romance, a priest of Artemis tries to dissuade Leucippe from submitting to the harrowing, and fearfully inerrant, divine virginity test. He assumes that the girl, in professing her purity, has tried to save face out of necessity and pride, but he wants to spare her, quietly. She confidently persists in the protestations of her innocence, and he realizes that she is indeed uncorrupted. “I rejoice with you in your chastity and your fortune.” Achilles Tatius could not have chosen more resonant words—sōphrosynē, female sexual modesty, and tychē, fortune. Leucippe’s sexual honor and her fate were inseparable. The novel contemplates, but does not ultimately doubt, a salvation that will realign Leucippe’s subjective modesty and her objective respectability. The inhabitants of the high empire were highly conscious that female sexual honor was dispensed just as much by the lottery of fate as by the force of the individual’s will. This awareness of honor’s origins did nothing to dim its power. If anything, it made sexual respectability all the more precious, more intimate, more numinous.57 Here the novel scrapes very close to the deepest recesses of belief in the high empire. In the same years when Achilles was conceiving his romance, a woman named Regilla was voted an honorific statue by the people of Corinth. Regilla was a descendant of the reigning imperial clan, wife to the most powerful and eloquent Greek aristocrat of the age, Herodes Atticus (whom she married when she was around fourteen, he forty). She would eventually die during the miscarriage of their sixth child, after being kicked in the stomach by a freedman acting on her husband’s orders. But in brighter times the Corinthians sculpted her in the image of the goddess Tychē, “Fortune.” Regilla was priestess of the goddess Tychē at Athens, and had in fact introduced her cult there and constructed a grand temple perched over the stadium that her husband built for the city. The dedicatory inscription from Corinth survives. “This is a portrait of Regilla. A sculptor carved the figure, endowing the stone with all her sōphrosynē.… Regilla: the Council, as if to call you ‘Tychē’ has erected this marble image in front of the sanctuary.” Ordinary women may not have hoped to merge with the divine in the way that an imperial scion like Regilla could, but in the monuments and images that surrounded them they saw memorialized the sublime value of feminine chastity, as an ideal somewhere between a moral attribute and an endowment of fate. Regilla embodied, in a superlative form, the hopes, values, and sufferings out of which Roman women could make their lives.58 MODERATION: THE SEXUAL LIFE COURSE FOR MEN

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Then on the way to the local King Kullen supermarket we drop Norman off at home, securing him in a room by himself so we can go shopping with Mom’s food stamps. Camille and Cherie take two different carts, and I stand on the outside edge of Cherie’s with my feet on the bottom rail, adding up the cost of the food items as they’re placed in the cart to make sure we have enough food stamps to cover our groceries. When we bag our food at the cash register, my job is to hide an extra stash of bags in our cart. Then Cherie tells the cashier we have to go find our sister, and she wheels me back into the store to look for Camille, who takes the contents of her cart and stuffs it all in my bags when no one’s looking. Camille’s cart is always better—she grabs Fluffernutter, peanut butter, frozen jelly donuts, and lots of cake mixes. Then we zip out the door with our stash. We prefer to be left alone. We watch Sesame Street, The Electric Company , and The Flintstones without any interruption from my mom’s boring shows like Guiding Light and As the World Turns . When it’s cold or raining outside, we take out the games that Mom gets from the Salvation Army for Cherie and Camille. We play five hundred rummy, chess, checkers, Connect Four, and Battleship. We take turns feeding Norman and teaching him words for the objects around the apartment. Couch , we tell him. Television . Lightbulb . Of course, we also continue his potty training. When spring breaks, Mom’s away even more, so I go out to the side yard to make mud pies and chase worms and ants. We miss school more days than we attend, which finally brings a truant officer to our door. Then we start attending again, for now. When the weather heats up, Mom starts coming home more. She’s always groaning that her back hurts. “You’d better get prepared,” she says. “You’ll have a new little brother or sister by Halloween.” Mom says she and Vito want to plan a vacation together, so she begins working across the street at the deli. On weekends she brings me to stock the freezers. Her tummy is too big for her to climb around, but I’m small enough to crawl on the ground and stack juices, milk, and sodas on the bottom shelves. Then I stick around and clean the counters and mop the floor before the deli opens. After school lets out in June, Cherie, Camille, and I put Norman in his walker and walk two whole miles to our favorite spot: Cordwood Beach. We stroll past homes that look like palaces with big wrought-iron gates, finally arriving at the beach. On sunny days it’s filled with kids—splashing around, building sand castles, and screaming when they see a horseshoe crab or a jellyfish.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  They bring us breakfast of warm rolls from a nearby bakery or Hostess cakes, and sometimes they walk us to the pub for the soup and sandwich lunch special . . . but we always hurry to exit before Cookie parks herself at the bar for the day. As far as caretakers go, I’m partial to Garcia, who looks out for us so well I don’t bother to wonder why he would never date Cookie. He promises that after the horses get used to us, he’ll give us riding lessons. A few days in a row he teaches me to practice saddling up Dixie, a sweet nutmeg mare. After half a dozen lessons in the saddle, Norman, Rosie, and I take turns trotting her around as if she were our own, until one afternoon when both Rosie and the horse find themselves surprised. Apparently Dixie’s being sought after by an overly enthusiastic stud, causing all the farmworkers to crowd around in terror. One runs to rescue Rosie from the reins, while the two horses go on to give us all a lesson in horse mating so thorough I’m tempted to write in to National Geographic . Garcia informs us that Cookie’s been living with a guy from the pub, so for Thanksgiving, the workers call Salvation Army to bring us a warm dinner. When the food arrives, the kids and I slip socks poked with holes over our fingers and open the Styrofoam containers heaped with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. We scurry to take seats around our trailer’s folding table. “Let’s say grace,” I tell them. We bow our heads as I lead: Bless us O Lord, And these Thy gifts Which we are about to receive from Thy bounty Through Christ, our Lord. Amen. When my sisters first taught me this prayer, they gave me permission to bless myself with the sign of the cross, even though none of us are sure whether I was ever baptized. I watch as Rosie and Norman dig into their dinners, reminding them to chew slowly. After dinner we eat the pumpkin pie the Salvation Army brought us, then we lounge on the floor to play board games with our stomachs so full we can barely move. “Does your belly hurt?” I ask Rosie. “No,” she answers. “It feels delicious.” As the weather continues to chill down, the workers begin to arrive earlier, allowing us to sleep in and stay out of the cold. The three of us begin to spend our days hanging out at the mall, watching shoppers’ carts fill up with gifts as little kids climb onto Santa’s lap. “Do you think Santa will ever bring us presents?” Rosie asks me. “One day, sweetheart. When we stop moving around and we’re finally home for good.” It’s almost Christmas when Cookie shows up again. She says welfare has a room for us in the Los Biandos shelter in Patchogue.

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

  If we look beyond the walls of the ancient house, too, there are other indications that Roman visual culture was vibrantly sensual. In the Antonine era, it became fashionable among the respectable classes for a married couple to have themselves depicted as Ares and Aphrodite, borrowing the bodies and accoutrements of the gods beneath the recognizable visages of the married pair. Th e images are ludicrously disconsonant. More profoundly, we won- der why a married pair would wish to present themselves as the world’s most discreditable adulterer and adulteress. Yes, the mythological veneer li- censed the portrayal of decent women in the nude, but at a more symbolic level Ares and Aphrodite signifi ed pure, ardent passion. In a society that be- lieved in the mysterious, indwelling presence of the gods, there could hardly have been a more powerful evocation of the power of marital eroticism.  Given the vagaries of survival, the most representative artifact of Roman eroticism is the humble lamp. Small, ceramic, and produced in truly innu- merable quantities, lamps survive across the centuries. Th e culture where sex was supposedly reduced to sexual fumbling in the dark is the same cul- ture that has left, in rather startling abundance, lamps decorated with the most uninhibited exertions. Lamps assure us that erotic art was not the preserve of the elite alone. Th e sheer numbers and archaeological fi ndspots of erotic- themed lamps, furthermore, militate against the suggestion that these artifacts were anything other than a basic and broadly diff used do- mestic instrument. Sex— along with mythology, the animal kingdom, and the world of public entertainments— provided one of the most inexhaustible sources of decoration; the standard study of the huge collection of Italian  FROM SHAME TO SIN lamps in the British Museum suggests that sex may have provided the very most common theme. Th e range and inclusiveness of the erotic repertoire suggests that myth, fantasy, and farce were exuberantly mingled. Modern studies conventionally divide the erotic lamps into two classes: Erotes (de- pictions of Eros) and symplegmata (“embracings”— a sort of learned prud- ery). Th is division does not adequately capture the range and meaning of diff erent erotic motifs. Th e fi gure of Eros himself, symbol of joy and life, was unfailingly pop u lar; though our eyes may be desensitized to the power of such a mythological commonplace, in Roman culture, where sexual pas- sion was an immanent divine force, the blending of spirituality and sensu- ality ought not be discounted. Th e symplegmata lamps present the most varied images.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  and not have to pay. The spare minutes of free time I have, I spend with Camille, who’s now twenty. She married Frank last fall after they’d been dating for a year and knew, without question, that they were born to take care of each other. While a small part of me had feared that marriage would take Camille away from me, it’s actually made our relationship even better. Camille inspires me. She doesn’t look back; she doesn’t get shaken by our past with Cookie . . . and her strength is what reminds me to keep looking forward, too. My sister and I are aware that we’re both laying the foundation for our next phase in life—especially Camille, who learns in the spring of 1983 that she’ll become a mother in November. Camille has in fact found refuge from our life at home by beginning her own family. Not only is she the happiest I’ve ever seen her, but my sister—whom the social workers once documented was too affected by our upbringing to ever have a functional family of her own—is also proving wrong all the naysayers from our past who predicted so pessimistically what our futures would look like. What our social workers said was impossible was now happening for us both. Camille gives birth to baby Frankie on November 16—exactly one week after my eighteenth birthday. I edge in next to Camille on her hospital bed, and she passes the baby into my arms. From the very first moment I hold him, I feel how determined he is and how sensitive his heart will be for others. I marvel at him: his eyelashes, his cheeks, his face. His hair is dark brown, just like mine and his parents’, and it’s an instant miracle how much joy and excitement he brings us just by breathing in his trusting, restful sleep. When I look up at Camille, we both have tears in our eyes. It’s our silent promise that no child we love will ever experience the pain that we did . . . and that Cookie will never come near this baby. While Camille enjoys her new son, Cherie is forced to come back to New York to defend her right to keep hers. Once again, Rosie and Norman are left without any of their older sisters nearby to watch over them. While we work to keep our contact with them, I continue to try and create normalcy in my life by wrapping up my freshman year in college and heading out to the Hamptons to work for the summer at gymnastics camp. This first summer away from the home of a parent figure, combined with the coaching staff’s seventy-hour workweek, makes letting loose on the weekends a wild occupational bonus. With my coworkers, I befriend the bouncer at Toby’s Tavern, who lets my fellow coaches sneak me in although I’m underage. The agreement? We entertain them with flips and back-handsprings inside the bar.

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

  Her last words were unforgettable. She seemed to be talking more to herself and only partly to me. “My co-workers say that I have an old soul. I’ve always felt that I would die young, that so much unhappiness was compressed into the early part of my life that it made sense. But maybe the second half of my life is the part that I will enjoy more. I never had a childhood. I always took care of everything.” A smile broke across her face. “You know, I like the kind of woman I’m becoming. I love the man I’m marrying. I like my kindness and my sensitivity. I love my work. I’m on a good path. I can finally be who I am.” Our meeting had lasted three hours and both of us were spent emotionally. It was a sad, moving, gallant story, and Karen had told it vividly. Both of us cried as she spoke and both of us ended up smiling and thankful that she had ended on a note that was at least partly upbeat and hopeful. She was on her way to her wedding day. I’d been granted a great privilege to share her life. I wished, as I so often do, that I were a novelist so that I could capture the richness of her feelings and the amazing sweep of changes she had made in her life. As we embraced, I thanked Karen for her generosity and candor. I told her how impressed I was with her, how proud I was of all she’d done, and how much I hoped the years ahead would make up for her past sorrows. She invited me to stay in touch and offered to send me snapshots of their new home. The door was almost closed behind Karen when she turned back and pushed it open. Smiling, she said, “Maybe your next book should be about what happens to all of us when we grow up.” Little did I realize how prophetic her words would turn out to be. • • • AFTER KAREN LEFT, I sat for a long time thinking about the unexpected twists and turns in her life. Did her parents have any idea of what they had started twenty-five years ago when they filed for divorce? If they had known the long-term consequences for their children, would they have done things differently? Would they have divorced? Like most people back then, they probably thought divorce was a minor upheaval in the lives of children. They undoubtedly expected that family life would soon resume its normal course and that parents and children alike would benefit from an end to marital conflict. Surely they did not foresee lasting effects that would extend into the fourth decade of Karen’s life.

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

  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. It was said above that our Lord sent forth His disciples sealed with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and that being made ministers of preaching, they received power over the unclean spirits. But now when they returned, they confess the power of Him who honoured them, as it is said, And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us, &c. They seemed indeed to rejoice rather that they were made workers of miracles, than that they had become ministers of preaching. But they had better have rejoiced in those whom they had taken, as St. Paul says to them that were called by him, My joy and my crown. (Phil. 4:1.) GREGORY. (23. Mor. c. 4.) Now our Lord, in a remarkable manner, in order to put down high thoughts in the hearts of His disciples, Himself related the account of the fall which the teacher of pride suffered; that they might learn by the example of the author of pride, what they would have to dread from the sin of pride. Hence it follows, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. BASIL. (Hom. Quod Deus non est auctor mali.) He is called Satan, because he is an enemy to God, (for this the Hebrew word signifies,) but he is called the Devil, because he assists us in doing evil, and is an accuser. His nature is incorporeal, his abode in the air. BEDE. He says not, ‘I see now,’ but referring to past time, I saw, when he fell. But by the words as lightning, He signifies either a fall headlong from the high places to the lowest, or that now cast down, he transforms himself into an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11:14.) TITUS BOSTRENSIS. Now He says that He saw it, as being Judge, for He knew the sufferings of the spirits. Or He says, as lightning, because by nature Satan shone as lightning, but became darkness through his affections, since what God made good he changed in himself to evil. BASIL. (adv. Eunom. l. 3.) For the heavenly Powers are not naturally holy, but according to the analogy of divine love they receive their measure of sanctification. And as iron placed in the fire does not cease to be iron, though by the violent application of the flame, both in effect and appearance, it passes into fire; so also the Powers on high, from their participation in that which is naturally holy, have a holiness implanted in them. For Satan had not fallen, if by nature he had been unsusceptible of evil.

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

  Duck sex can be elaborately aesthetic or shockingly violent and deeply troubling, but it is a fascinating topic. It may not be the best subject for dinner table conversation among new acquaintances—perhaps that’s why we’ve never again been in the company of the woman who asked the question—but after all the disturbing details have been examined and understood, the story of duck sex actually concludes with a rather redeeming insight into the relationship between the sexes, the nature of desire, female sexual autonomy, and the evolution of beauty in the natural world. The drama of duck sex brings to mind the ancient Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, in which Zeus took sexual possession of the lovely young Leda after assuming the physical form of a swan. This mythic scene has attracted the interest of artists ranging from the Greeks to Leonardo da Vinci to William Butler Yeats. Although often referred to as “the Rape of Leda,” it has usually been depicted with a note of sexual ambiguity, there being an element of mutual desire mixed in with the suddenness of the act. Perhaps the Greeks intuited that something about waterfowl sex is intriguing. If so, they were right, for the full evolutionary implications of the social complexity of duck sex are only beginning to be unpacked. — On a cloudy winter day in 1973, when I was twelve years old, I embarked on one of my earliest birding trips to the ocean. I stood on the banks of the Merrimack River in Newburyport, Massachusetts, just upstream from where it widens out into the bay. With the proceeds from a paper route and mowing lawns, I had just purchased my first spotting scope for watching distant birds, and I was excited to be using it to observe ducks, gulls, loons, and other waterbirds at this famous birding locality. It was a cold February day, with chunks of ice on the riverbanks and in some of the calmer eddies, but I was euphoric. I could see several dense flocks of ducks churning away against a strong current on the falling tide. In my very first scan with the scope, I landed on a lifer!—a flock of a couple dozen Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). The male ducks were crisp black on the back, snowy white on the sides, belly, and breast, and crowned with a shiny, iridescent green head. On each glittering green cheek was a large round white spot. As advertised, their eyes were brilliantly golden yellow. The females were drabber, with grayish sides and neck and a brown head, but they shared the same yellow eyes.

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

  As Karen came through my front door, she looked radiant. I was suddenly aware that in all the years we’ve known each other, I had rarely seen her happy. She was dressed very simply in black wool slacks, white pullover, and herringbone suit jacket, and as always, she was beautiful. The last few years had made her somehow softer, more relaxed in her shoulders and arms. Her stunning blue eyes had a new twinkle that flashed as we greeted each other warmly. I told her how lovely she looked and congratulated her on her forthcoming marriage. “Who’s the lucky man?” “We’re both lucky,” she said, settling on the sofa. “Gavin and I did everything differently compared to how I lived my life before.” And she launched into her story. Within months of our last meeting, she had moved out of the apartment she shared with Nick and said good-bye. As she had anticipated, he was devastated, begged her to come back, wailed, and made her feel guiltier than ever. “How were you able to leave?” I asked, aware of her long-standing difficulty in turning away anyone who needed her care. She was silent and then answered slowly, her face pale. “I felt like I was dying. It has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it took all my courage.” She described how she would come home after work and find her partner lying on the couch, waiting for her to take charge. It was just like taking care of her mom. At that point, she realized she had to get out. Her escape took her to the East Coast, graduate school, and ultimately into a dream job—directing a regional public health program for handicapped children in five southern states. It was there that Karen met her fiancé, Gavin. As she told me about him, I smiled and said, “I remember when you thought you didn’t have choices. It looks like you’ve made quite a few recently.” “You mean, how did I decide to marry Gavin?” She blushed ever so slightly. “It’s a long story. We met at a party not long after I moved to Chapel Hill and he called to say that he would love to get together. He’s an assistant professor of economics at Duke and even though I knew absolutely nothing about his field, we hit it off instantly. I wanted to see him again right away but I waited a discreet week and then I called him back. Well, we were together every day from then on and about six months later I moved in with him. He says that the day I moved in was, in his eyes, the day we married, but I didn’t see it that way. I wasn’t ready quite yet. I was scared.” “So you were hesitating. Was it about Gavin or about marriage?”