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 History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  By far the most celebrated hymn of the Milanese bishop, which alone would have made his name immortal, is the Ambrosian doxology, Te Deum laudamus. This, with the Gloria in excelsis, is, as already remarked, by far the most valuable legacy of the old Catholic church poetry; and will be prayed and sung with devotion in all parts of Christendom to the end of time. According to an old legend, Ambrose composed it on the baptism of St. Augustine, and conjointly with him; the two, without preconcert, as if from divine inspiration, alternately singing the words of it before the congregation. But his biographer Paulinus says nothing of this, and, according to later investigations, this sublime Christian psalm is, like the Gloria in excelsis, but a free reproduction and expansion of an older Greek hymn in prose, of which some constituents appear in the Apostolic Constitutions, and elsewhere.1261 Ambrose introduced also an improved mode of singing in Milan, making wise use of the Greek symphonies and antiphonies, and popular melodies. This Cantus Ambrosianus, or figural song, soon supplanted the former mode of reciting the Psalms and prayers in monotone with musical accent and little modulation of the voice, and spread into most of the Western churches as a congregational song. It afterwards degenerated, and was improved and simplified by Gregory the Great, and gave place to the so-called Cantus Romanus, or choralis. Augustine, the greatest theologian among the church fathers († 430), whose soul was filled with the genuine essence of poetry, is said to have composed the resurrection hymn: "Cum rex gloriae Christus;" the hymn on the glory of paradise: "Ad perennis vitae fontem melis sitivit arida;" and others. But he probably only furnished in the lofty poetical intuitions and thoughts which are scattered through his prose works, especially in the Confessions, the materia carminis for later poets, like Peter Damiani, bishop of Ostia, in the eleventh century, who put into flowing verse Augustine’s meditations on the blessedness of heaven.1262 Damasus, bishop of Rome († 384), a friend of Jerome, likewise composed some few sacred songs, and is considered the author of the rhyme.1263 Coelius Sedulius, a native of Scotland or Ireland, presbyter in the first half of the fifth century, composed the hymns: "Herodes, hostis impie," and "A solis ortus cardine," and some larger poems.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the year 596, Gregory, remembering his interview with the sweet-faced and fair-haired Anglo-Saxon slave-boys, and hearing of a favorable opportunity for a mission, sent the Benedictine abbot Augustin (Austin), thirty other monks, and a priest, Laurentius, with instructions, letters of recommendation to the Frank kings and several bishops of Gaul, and a few books, to England.24 The missionaries, accompanied by some interpreters from France, landed on the isle of Thanet in Kent, near the mouth of the Thames.25 King Ethelbert, by his marriage to Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had brought a bishop with her, was already prepared for a change of religion. He went to meet the strangers and received them in the open air; being afraid of some magic if he were to see them under roof. They bore a silver cross for their banner, and the image of Christ painted on a board; and after singing the litany and offering prayers for themselves and the people whom they had come to convert, they preached the gospel through their Frank interpreters. The king was pleased with the ritualistic and oratorical display of the new religion from distant, mighty Rome, and said: "Your words and promises are very fair; but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot forsake the religion I have so long followed with the whole English nation. Yet as you are come from far, and are desirous to benefit us, I will supply you with the necessary sustenance, and not forbid you to preach and to convert as many as you can to your religion."26 Accordingly, he allowed them to reside in the City of Canterbury (Dorovern, Durovernum), which was the metropolis of his kingdom, and was soon to become the metropolis of the Church of England. They preached and led a severe monastic life. Several believed and were baptized, "admiring," as Bede says, "the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." He also mentions miracles. Gregory warned Augustin not to be puffed up by miracles, but to rejoice with fear, and to tremble in rejoicing, remembering what the Lord said to his disciples when they boasted that even the devils were subject to them. For not all the elect work miracles, and yet the names of all are written in heaven.27 King Ethelbert was converted and baptized (probably June 2, 597), and drew gradually his whole nation after him, though he was taught by the missionaries not to use compulsion, since the service of Christ ought to be voluntary.

• From My People (2022)

  Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929–1968.” Others had such slogans as “Black Power on Time,” “Soul Power,” “United People Power, Toledo, Ohio,” “Soul City, U.S.A.,” and “The Dirty Dozen,” on a building I figured was a dormitory. And, of course, the inevitable “Flower Power.” “I Have a Dream” stickers appeared in most places, as well as pictures of Martin Luther King—usually enshrined beside the canvas-and-wood cots inside the houses. Just as the slogans varied widely, so did the inside appearance of the houses. While many looked like the wreck of the Hesperus , in others, by 9 a.m. when the camp was opened to visitors, beds were made, clothes were hung, floors were swept, and—in several houses—plank coffee tables were adorned with greenery in tin-can vases. The Coretta King Day Care Center was perhaps the most successful unit in the camp. A local church group contributed most of the materials, including books like Alice in Wonderland, What Are You Looking At? , The Enormous Egg , and Bennett Cerf’s Pop-Up Lyrics . There were even toy cars and trucks, water colors, and jigsaw puzzles. And a hundred pairs of muddy boots. The children played games and sang songs such as “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands” and, of course, “We Shall Overcome.” And they went on field trips—to the Smithsonian, the National Historical Wax Museum, and Georgetown University. Enrollment was about seventy-five. Altogether, Resurrection City never contained more than the average American city—the bare-bones necessities. Still, many people received more medical attention than ever before in their lives. A young mother left Marks, Mississippi, with a baby whose chances of survival, she had been told, were very slim. He was dying of malnutrition. After three weeks of medical care—vitamins, milk, food—he began gaining weight and life. For others, teeth were saved. Upper-respiratory infections—at one point a source of alarm to those outside the camp—were treated and curbed. And when one of the residents died while on a demonstration in the food line at the Agriculture Department, there was little doubt that it was not Resurrection City that killed him, but the lack of adequate medical attention back home. Most of the residents were also eating better. The menus were often a hodgepodge affair—sometimes consisting of beef stew, turnip greens, apple sauce, and an orange—but the food was nutritious. And you did not need food stamps to get it. Residents of Resurrection City found it difficult to understand the outside world’s reaction via the press to conditions within the camp. The stink from the toilets that filled one’s nostrils whenever a breeze stirred was, as one observer put it, “the smell of poverty.” Residents put it another way. “I appreciate the mud,” a woman from Detroit said. “It might help get some of this disease out.” The mud of Resurrection City was seen by many as unifying, if not cleansing.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “I am very serious,” she gaily continued. “I love you, only you, and you—you foolish, little man, didn’t know that everything was only make-believe and play-acting. How hard it often was for me to strike you with the whip, when I would have rather taken your head and covered it with kisses. But now we are through with that, aren’t we? I have played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you will be satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn’t altogether unattractive. Isn’t that so? We will live like rational people—” “You will marry me!” I cried, overflowing with happiness. “Yes—marry you—you dear, darling man,” whispered Wanda, kissing my hands. I drew her up to my breast. “Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave,” said she, “but Severin, the dear man I love—” “And he—you don’t love him?” I asked in agitation. “How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were blind to everything, I was really afraid for you.” “I almost killed myself for your sake.” “Really?” she cried, “ah, I still tremble at the thought, that you were already in the Arno.” “But you saved me,” I replied, tenderly. “You hovered over the waters and smiled, and your smile called me back to life.” * * * * * I have a curious feeling when I now hold her in my arms and she lies silently against my breast and lets me kiss her and smiles. I feel like one who has suddenly awakened out of a feverish delirium, or like a shipwrecked man who has for many days battled with waves that momentarily threatened to devour him and finally has found a safe shore. * * * * * “I hate this Florence, where you have been so unhappy,” she declared, as I was saying good-night to her. “I want to leave immediately, tomorrow, you will be good enough to write a couple of letters for me, and, while you are doing that, I will drive to the city to pay my farewell visits. Is that satisfactory to you?” “Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman.” * * * * * Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I had slept. Her tenderness is positively wonderful. I should never have believed that she could be so tender. * * * * * She has now been gone for over four hours. I have long since finished the letters, and am now sitting in the gallery, looking down the street to see whether I cannot discover her carriage in the distance. I am a little worried about her, and yet I know there is no reason under heaven why I should doubt or fear. However, a feeling of oppression weighs me down, and I cannot rid myself of it. It is probably the sufferings of the past days, which still cast their shadows into my soul. * * * * *

• From My Secret Garden (1973)

  So if I’m with some silent type, just lying there noiseless with him thrusting away, I remember those noisy nights as a kid in San Francisco, and within seconds I’m moaning and groaning like crazy myself, and sure enough, the old silent type picks up on it, too… and we’re off on a great loud fuck! [Conversation] NinaI am thirty-three years old, a lesbian, and have been happily “married” for the past five years. My fantasies during sex are very much a reflection of what is actually happening. Very often we will “act out” our roles as Mum and Baby, as she sucks my nipples and I sing her nursery songs. At other times she acts the male role and I describe out loud what her “cock” is like and how it is affecting me while we masturbate each other. Our lovemaking pleasure is always heightened by the use of words like “cunt,” “fuck,” etc., which we normally don’t use… only in bed. I should add that my fantasies are always about my lover, never about some other lesbian. If I did have ideas about another woman, I would never tell her, as she is terribly jealous natured. When I discovered the delights of masturbation, at the age of seven, even then I used to imagine it was my girlfriend who was rubbing between my legs. I suppose I’ve always been a lesbian and it was just a matter of time before I made these early fantasies come true. Sometimes, while masturbating as a child, I would imagine her dog was licking my cunt (which it sometimes did and which excited me greatly). However, I never fantasize about animals now. My thoughts are totally given over to my love for other women. Often, I will imagine a kind of religious orgy—lesbian, but watched by men robed as priests. There are always lots of lighted candles, vestal virgins, and a certain amount of sex on the altar with my partner. There is invariably glorious music and brilliant colors as in church. (I am a vicar’s offspring and attend church regularly, but have no guilt about being homosexual.) Every (frequent) session with my beloved partner is exciting and satisfying, all the more so because of my thoughts and our words. However, I would never talk about my fantasies to anyone. [Letter] MegWhen I am with my husband, I often think of my former lover and of the time we were on a secluded, bushy beach together and he pinned me to the ground with his legs after I’d already had one climax; he just steamrollered me and moaned and groaned when he came. That’s something else I miss—my former lover’s lovemaking noises and talk—my husband doesn’t “talk dirty” during the act to the extent my lover used to, and he’s pretty well noiseless at climax. [Taped interview]

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  They evoked the heroic days in the Punjab, when men had proved their valor and virility by braving the untamed forest. Many saw the bhiksu as a new kind of pioneer. 78 When a famous renouncer came to town, people of all classes flocked to listen to him. Perhaps the most important martial ritual revised by the renouncers was yoga, which became the hallmark of renouncer spirituality. Originally, as we have seen, the term had referred to the tethering of the draft animals to the war chariots before a raid; now it became a contemplative discipline that “yoked” the yogin’s mental powers in a raid on the unconscious impulses (vrittis) of passion, egotism, hatred, and greed that had fueled the warrior ethos and were so deeply entrenched in the psyche that they could be extirpated only by sheer mental force. Yoga may have been rooted in the indigenous traditions of India, but by the sixth century BCE it had become central to the Aryan spiritual landscape. A systematic assault on the ego, it expunged the “I” from the yogin’s mind, nullifying the warrior’s proud self-assertion: “I am the mightiest! I am supreme!” The ancient warriors of the Punjab had been like the devas, perpetually on the move and constantly engaged in martial activity. Now the new man of yoga sat for hours in one place, holding himself in such unnatural stillness that he seemed more like a statue or a plant than a human being. If he persevered, a skilled yogin had intimations of a final liberation (moksha) from the confines of egotism that bore no relation to ordinary experience. Before he was allowed even to sit in the yogic position, an aspirant had to complete an arduous ethical program, observing five “prohibitions” (yamas). 79 The first of these was ahimsa, nonviolence: not only was he forbidden to kill or injure another creature, but he could not even speak unkindly or make an irritable gesture. Second, he was forbidden to steal: instead of seizing other people’s property like the raiders, the yogin had to cultivate an indifference to material possessions. Lying was also prohibited. Truth-telling had always been central to the Aryan warrior ethos, but the exigencies of war had occasionally forced even Indra into deceit; the aspirant, however, was not permitted to be economical with the truth, even to save his own life. He also abstained from sex and intoxicating substances that could enervate the mental and physical energies that he would need in this spiritual expedition. Finally, he must study the teaching (dharma) of his guru and cultivate habitual serenity, behaving kindly and courteously to everybody without exception. This was an initiation into a new way of being human, one that eschewed the greed, self-preoccupation, and aggression of the warrior. By dint of practice, these ethical disciplines would become second nature to the yogin, and when that happened, the texts explained, he would experience “indescribable joy.”

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  You washed that back with a sip of cold beer you’d salted a little. (Even at seven I had a taste for liquor.) And you followed that with a soda cracker. Before that summer, I had many times heard long-winded Baptist preachers take ten minutes to pray over card tables of potato salad and fried chicken at church picnics, but the way those sweating, red-faced men sat around on stacked pallets of lumber gulping oysters taught me most of what I know about simple gladness. They were glad to get fed for their labor, glad they had the force to pound nails and draw breath. Of course, they bitched loudly about their aches and mocked each other’s bitching. But unless I’ve completely idealized that fellowship, there was something redeeming that moved between those men. Even the roofing part of the job, which involved a vat of boiling tar and whole days on top of the new garage beyond the cool shade of our chinaberry, didn’t wipe it out. At evening, they would pull off their work boots, then peel off their double layers of cotton socks and lay them to dry across the warm bricks. Daddy had a habit of tipping the beer coolers out right where they stood in the grass, so cool water rushed over their sweaty feet. At that time of day, with night coming in fast, and the men taking a minute to pass a pint of Tennessee whiskey between them or to light their smokes, there was a glamour between them that I sensed somehow was about to disappear. When they climbed into the cabs of their trucks, I sometimes had a terrible urge to rush after them and call them back. With Mother, I always felt on the edge of something new, something never before seen or read about or bought, something that would change us. When you climbed in the car with her, you never knew where you’d end up. If an encyclopedia salesman happened to knock on the door, she might spend a month’s salary on books you would pore over all day. With Daddy and his friends, I always knew what would happen and that left me feeling a sort of dreamy safety. By August they were done, and my folks had a paneled bedroom with a separate tiled shower. And out in back of the house, there stood a detached garage big enough for two cars. It also held a separate work studio for Mother, my father’s one nod to her desire to paint. The studio had a high ceiling and skylights, which were unheard-of in those days, and a black stove where she could build a fire on a rainy night. She wasted no time setting up her easel and starting to work in oils. The first thing she did was a portrait of Grandma wearing a plain blue dress. She worked from a Polaroid taken just before Grandma lost the leg.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  disciples, believers, brethren, saints, soon rose to five thousand. They continued steadfastly under the instruction and in the fellowship of the apostles, in the daily worship of God and celebration of the holy Supper with their agapae or love-feasts. They felt themselves to be one family of God, members of one body under one head, Jesus Christ; and this fraternal unity expressed itself even in a voluntary community of goods—an anticipation, as it were, of an ideal state at the end of history, but without binding force upon any other congregation. They adhered as closely to the temple worship and the Jewish observances as the new life admitted and as long as there was any hope of the conversion of Israel as a nation. They went daily to the temple to teach, as their Master had done, but held their devotional meetings in private houses.281 The addresses of Peter to the people and the Sanhedrin282 are remarkable for their natural simplicity and adaptation. They are full of fire and vigor, yet full of wisdom and persuasion, and always to the point. More practical and effective sermons were never preached. They are testimonies of an eye-witness so timid a few weeks before, and now so bold and ready at any moment to suffer and die for the cause. They are an expansion of his confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, the Saviour. He preached no subtle theological doctrines, but a few great facts and truths: the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, already known to his hearers for his mighty signs and wonders, his exaltation to the right hand of Almighty God, the descent and power of the Holy Spirit, the fulfilment of prophecy, the approaching judgment and glorious restitution of all things, the paramount importance of conversion and faith in Jesus as the only name whereby we can be saved. There breathes in them an air of serene joy and certain triumph. We can form no clear conception of this bridal season of the Christian church when no dust of earth soiled her shining garments, when she was wholly absorbed in the contemplation and love of her divine Lord, when he smiled down upon her from his throne in heaven, and added daily to the number of the saved. It was a continued Pentecost, it was paradise restored. "They did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people."283 Yet even in this primitive apostolic community inward corruption early appeared, and with it also the severity of discipline and self-purification, in the terrible sentence of Peter on the hypocritical Ananias and Sapphira. At first Christianity found favor with the people. Soon, however, it had to encounter the same persecution as its divine founder had undergone, but only, as before, to transform it into a blessing and a means of growth.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  “No!” Jacob flapped his hands about, as if to dismiss his father’s irrelevant questioning. He shuffled over and stood directly in front of me, looked at me carefully, and nodded, as though making a careful assessment. He then said, quietly and deliberately: “It’s the Royal Arms.” “Oh!” I suddenly understood. “It’s my name. Armstrong.” Jacob beamed again, entranced with his pun, and looked at me with his head bent enquiringly to one side. “It’s the Royal—” He waited. “Arms!” I capped, and we laughed together. We had established a connection and his parents visibly relaxed. “That’s a good joke, Jacob,” Jenifer said happily, and in order to capitalize on this unexpected harmony, added: “What about helping Karen and me to carry that little bookcase up to her room?” “Yes!” Jacob roared with enthusiasm, bounding into Jenifer’s study, grabbing books from shelves, and hurling them around the room with joyous abandon, ignoring his mother’s timid requests to proceed more quietly. I recovered the books as they fell and started to pile them up by the door. “Karen.” Jacob was now on his knees, peering intently into the crevice between the bookcase and the wall. “Karen,” he said again (like his father, he could not pronounce his Rs), “come and have a look at this.” To humor him, Jenifer and I went to look, only to have our superior smiles wiped from our faces. “How ludicrous,” Jenifer breathed. “It’s fantastic. Herbert, come and see.” A small rosebush had somehow forced its way up from the foundations, broken through the floorboards, and grown, thin and spindly, to a height of eighteen inches. “It’s a tree!” Jacob danced ecstatically. “Growing in the drawing room!” “Nature reasserts itself against the thin veneer of human civilization. If you can call this civilized,” Herbert mused. “Isn’t there a poem about that?” He looked at me interrogatively. “Something about ‘laughing Ceres’?” “Pope. The ‘Epistle to Burlington,’ ” I replied. “He’s making fun of that awful country house. ‘Deep harvests bury all his pride has planned.’ ” “ ‘And laughing Ceres reassume the land.’ ” Rose tree and all else forgotten, Herbert went back to the drawing room and started rummaging in a bookcase for a copy of Pope’s collected works. “You should keep that rose tree,” I said to Jenifer, as we maneuvered the bookcase out of the room with some difficulty. Herbert glanced up benignly from the sofa, spectacles askew, clutching the book in a somewhat awkward grasp. “Marvelous poem!” he beamed, watching our efforts absently. And so, yet again, a new life began.

• From Wild (2012)

  “We’re headed up there to do some fishing. We’d give you a ride, but we’re packed,” he said, pointing to the back of the truck, which was covered by a camper. “That’s okay. I like to walk.” “Well, we’re having Hawaiian screwdrivers tonight, so stop on by.” “Thanks,” I said, and watched them drive off. I hiked the rest of the afternoon thinking about Hawaiian screwdrivers. I didn’t know exactly what they were but they didn’t sound all that different from Snapple lemonade to me. When I reached the top of the road, the red pickup and the men’s camp came into view, perched above the westernmost of the Three Lakes. The PCT was just beyond it. I followed a scant trail east along the lake’s shore, finding a secluded spot among the boulders that were scattered around the lake. I set up my tent and ducked into the woods to squeeze out my sponge and put it in again. I walked down to the lake to filter water and wash my hands and face. I thought about diving in to bathe, but the water was ice-cold and I was already chilled in the mountain air. Before coming on the PCT, I’d imagined countless baths in lakes and rivers and streams, but in reality, only rarely did I plunge in. By the end of the day, I often ached with fatigue and shook with what felt like a fever but was only exhaustion and the chill of my drying sweat. The best I could do most days was splash my face and strip off my sweat-drenched T-shirt and shorts before swaddling myself in my fleece anorak and leggings for the night. I removed my boots and pulled the duct tape and 2nd Skin off my feet and soaked them in the icy water. When I rubbed them, another blackened toenail came off in my hand, the second I’d lost so far. The lake was calm and clear, rimmed by towering trees and leafy bushes among the boulders. I saw a bright green lizard in the mud; it froze in place for a moment before scampering away at lightning speed. The men’s camp was not far beyond me along the lakeshore, but they hadn’t yet detected my presence. Before going to see them, I brushed my teeth, put on lip balm, and pulled a comb through my hair. “There she is,” shouted the man who’d been in the passenger seat when I ambled up. “And just in time too.” He handed me a red plastic cup full of a yellow liquid that I could only assume was a Hawaiian screwdriver. It had ice cubes. It had vodka. It had pineapple juice. When I sipped it I thought I would faint. Not from the alcohol hitting me, but from the sheer fabulousness of the combination of liquid sugar and booze.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  ib bey vb. rejoice )10 0 27% 1*% 7; cf. Ar, es go round or about, beexcited to levity, etc.) 1 Pf HP 165%; גיל סחי‎ OM yer? + 4t. (p27 Kt x, Qr ba with retracted tone); גל‎ on 139+ 1% אָנִילֶה 6% ד גל‎ הָליִנְנ‎ vo + 5 t, ON 13° + 8%. MN 89%, MPD שי‎ 8% 2 6. יָנוּל‎ Pr'23™; 10 לי 4% +27 ילו‎ Is 49%+ > 2%.;---1. rejoice, a. abs. ~13° 51° 269%; || שמח‎ ae! 96" 9 Pr aa I Ch‏ 4 הס 16° זא ד ש b.c. 2149"‏ .1535168 שיש,שוש || Hb1”;‏ 167 בישועתך ;66% "65 Is‏ בירושלם ;?9 Pr 2% 247 Ts‏ באלהים ;010% 41° Is‏ 35° ש ביהוה ;217 13° Wo‏ Is‏ בקדוש ישראל ; "סָ8 ש בשם * ;3% Is 61 Hb‏ Ctx! Is 259 Jo 2%‏ 118% 31° ץ גיל ושמח “a‏ ;29% Zp 3”. Besides‏ על with‏ .0 .2% 10 גילי ושמחי כי נפש ;20107 247 persons the subj. is a> 13° Pr‏ Ch 16”‏ 1 ארץ ,16° ץ (נפש==) כבוד ,61% 18 35° ¥ Is 3. 2. tremble‏ ערבה 49% 19 '97 96% ש (Thes Ew Hi Che,‏ עבד || 27 + (cf. Ar. Jes)‏ אבל || but 69 Hu De Pe AV RV rejoice), Horo?‏ (Thes and most mod., but AV RV that rejoiced‏ Ew Gr Che.‏ חיל over it), possibly error for‏ Th. ביל‎ n.[m. | rejoicing —Jb3” + 6t., גול‎ Pr es a לי‎ W43*;—rejotcing 76 5 Pr23”; || שמחה‎ ו ץ‎ Is 6 Je 205 Jo ae 193 nny ש‎ 4% שמח אל גיל‎ glad unto rejotcing Ho g* Jb 3”. pee [גיל]‎ n.[m. | circle, age, מן הילדים אשר‎ p3>22 ofthe youths which are of your age Dn1™ (cf. Ar. Jus, Sam. גיל‎ = Heb. WI=yevea, Talm. נילו‎ j2 one born atthe same time, a contemporary). try, n.f. rejoicing Is 65%, {21) nd%3 Is 35° (nom. verbal. for Inf. abs. cf. De Di; estr. before 1 Ges §%-?; but rd. prob. (גִּילָה‎ : aby vead Is 9? for לא‎ ‘a7 by Krochm Che RS Di. taba n.pr.loc. city in mountains of Judah Jos לש‎ Sirgas (on V cf. Dr 28 15”.) adj.gent. 2 5 15%, 23%=1Chri™,‏ גילני1 (for MT 3980),‏ הג' where also rd.‏ v. sub 73.‏ גינת mea | (boil, boil up? cf. Aram. ג"ר‎ wave, NH id. foam; Ar. = quicklime, also heat in 162 mba chest from rage or hunger (Lane) ; admodum aestuans acc. to 111 כ /\11 א‎ *** ; but cf. infr.) : 1 בר‎ n.[m.] chalk, lime (perh. Aram. loan- word cf. Frii?; Aram. (also B Aram.) 4, ]- AY. p> is loan-wd.Fri'*)—3 ‘23ND Ny Is 27°. 1 [גיר]‎ n.m. 2 Ch 2% .צ‎ 13 sub .גור.1‎ Tuba 29 7° Kt, v. Wa. Tywra n.pr.m. a descendant of Judah through Caleb 1 Ch 2”. 4 ל גל גל‎ bbs. (=shear, shave, As. [galabu] 116%;‏ ב לב Aram. ads id., a3 razor; cf. JaNS 2 820° v.PS).‏ [ada] n.[m. ] barber (Ph.39]CIS*#”*)—‏ ך

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  After Iggy is released from the hospital post-toxin, we celebrate with one of our living room dance parties, just me and the three Irish guys, so called to honor the otherwise un-addressed genetic link each of them has to Irish stock. We play “Tightrope” by Janelle Monáe over and over again (after years of noise metal, Harry now also keeps abreast of the Top 40, so that he can discuss the finer points of the new Katy Perry, Daft Punk, or Lorde). Iggy’s big brother holds him by the armpits and spins him around in a wild circle while we scramble to make sure Iggy’s chubby legs don’t hit any windows or end tables. As one might expect for brothers seven years apart, they almost always play too rough for my liking. But he loves it! his brother says whenever I tell him to take the heavy faux-fur blanket off Iggy’s head for a moment, so we can be sure he hasn’t smothered. But for the most part, he’s right. Iggy loves it. Iggy loves playing with his brother and his brother loves playing with Iggy in ways I could never have dreamt. His brother especially loves dragging Iggy around his schoolyard, bragging about how soft his little brother’s head is to mostly preoccupied peers. Who wants to touch a really soft head? he yells, as if hawking wares. It stresses me out to watch them play, but it also makes me feel like I’ve finally done something unequivocally good. That I’ve finally done my stepson an unequivocal good. He’s mine, all mine, he says as he scoops Iggy up and runs off with him to another room. Don’t produce and don’t reproduce, my friend said. But really there is no such thing as reproduction, only acts of production. No lack, only desiring machines. Flying anuses, speeding vaginas, there is no castration. When all the mythologies have been set aside, we can see that, children or no children, the joke of evolution is that it is a teleology without a point, that we, like all animals, are a project that issues in nothing. But is there really such a thing as nothing, as nothingness? I don’t know. I know we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSParts of this book appeared, in different forms, as a talk for Tendencies (a series in honor of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick held at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, cu-rated by Tim Trace Peterson); as a zine for A. L. Steiner’s 2012 Puppies and Babies installation (published by Otherwild); in the magazines jubilat, Tin House, and Flaunt; and in the anthology After Montaigne (University of Georgia Press, 2015). This book was supported throughout by a Literature grant from the Creative Capital Foundation, for which I remain grateful.

• From Another Country (1962)

  I’m looking for a new man. But I guess I came to the wrong store.” “You may have to wait for a fire sale,” said Vivaldo. Cass turned to Rufus and put her hand on his arm. “It’s nice to have you back,” she said. Her large brown eyes looked directly into his. “Are you all right? We’ve all missed you.” He shrank involuntarily from her touch and her tone. He wanted to thank her; he said, nodding and trying to smile, “I’m fine, Cass.” And then: “It’s kind of nice to be back.” She grinned. “Do you know what I realize every time I see you? That we’re very much alike.” She turned back to Vivaldo. “I don’t see your aging mistress anywhere. Are you looking for a new woman? If so, you too have come to the wrong store.” “I haven’t seen Jane for a hell of a long time,” said Vivaldo, “and it might be a good idea for us never to see each other again.” But he looked troubled. “Poor Vivaldo,” Cass said. After a moment they both laughed. “Come on in the back with me. Richard’s there. He’ll be very glad to see you.” “I didn’t know you people ever set foot in this joint. Can’t you bear domestic bliss any longer?” “We’re celebrating tonight. Richard just sold his novel.” “No!” “Yes. Yes. Isn’t that marvelous?” “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Vivaldo, looking a little dazed. “Come on,” Cass said. She took Rufus by the hand and, with Vivaldo ahead of them, they began pushing their way to the back. They stumbled down the steps into the back room. Richard sat alone at a table, smoking his pipe. “Richard,” Cass cried, “look what I brought back from the dead!” “You should have let them rot there,” Richard grinned. “Come on in, sit down. I’m glad to see you.” “I’m glad to see you,” said Vivaldo, and sat down. He and Richard grinned at each other. Then Richard looked at Rufus, briefly and sharply, and looked away. Perhaps Richard had never liked Rufus as much as the others had and now, perhaps, he was blaming him for Leona. The air in the back room was close, he was aware of his odor, he wished he had taken a shower at Vivaldo’s house. He sat down. “So!” said Vivaldo, “you sold it!” He threw back his head and gave a high, whinnying laugh. “You sold it. That’s just great, baby. How does it feel?” “I held off as long as I could,” Richard said. “I kept telling them that my good friend, Vivaldo, was going to come by and look it over for me. They said, ‘That Vivaldo? He’s a poet, man, he’s bohemian! He wouldn’t read a murder novel, not if it was written by God almighty.’

• From Wild (2012)

  I stopped to gaze at it. It was a miserable-looking mucky pond about the size of a tennis court, but there was water in it. I was laughing with joy as I staggered down the slope toward the little dirt beach that surrounded the reservoir. I’d hiked my first twenty-mile day. I unbuckled Monster and set it onto the ground and went to the muddy shore and squatted to put my hands in the water. It was gray and warm as blood. When I moved my hands, the muck from the bottom rose in weedy tendrils and streaked the water black. I got my purifier and pumped the questionable liquid into my bottle. My purifier had remained as difficult to use as it had been that first time I used it at Golden Oak Springs, but it was especially difficult in this water, so dense with sludge that it half jammed my filter. By the time I was done filling one bottle, my arms shook with fatigue. I went to my first aid kit and took out my iodine pills and dropped a couple into the water. I’d brought the pills for just this reason, reinforcement should I ever be compelled to drink water that was likely contaminated. Even Albert had thought the iodine pills a good idea back in Kennedy Meadows, when he’d been ruthlessly tossing things into the get-rid-of pile. Albert, who’d been felled by a waterborne illness the very next day. I had to wait thirty minutes for the iodine to do its work before it was safe to drink. I was desperately thirsty, but I distracted myself by filling my other bottle with water. When I was done, I laid out my tarp on the dirt beach, stood on top of it, and took off my clothes. The wind had mellowed with the fading light. In gentle wafts, it cooled the hot patches on my naked hips. It didn’t occur to me that anyone might come along the trail. I hadn’t seen a soul all day, and even if someone did come along, I was too catatonic with dehydration and exhaustion to care. I looked at my watch. Twenty-seven minutes had passed since I’d plopped the iodine pills into my water. Usually I was starving by evening, but the idea of eating was nothing to me now. Water was my only desire. I sat on my blue tarp and drank one bottle down and then the other. The warm water tasted like iron and mud and yet seldom have I ever consumed anything so amazing. I could feel it moving into me, though even once I’d had two 32-ounce bottles, I wasn’t entirely restored. I still wasn’t hungry. I felt like I had in those first days on the trail, when I’d been so astoundingly exhausted that all my body wanted was sleep. Now all my body wanted was water. I filled my bottles again, let the iodine purify them, and drank them both.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  “All right. You can plug in the record player. That’s right. Look at the cover, and all those people playing in the country. Now. Listen. You’ll hear the thunder very quietly at first, building up and up and up. Then you’ll hear it go away, as it always does . . .” “Karen says the thunder always goes gradually away,” Jacob informed the gas fire sotto voce, as we listened to the first chords of the storm sequence in the Pastoral Symphony. At first, I acted as the commentator. “Here are the raindrops. Now—the first rumble of the thunder.” “Rumble!” Jacob echoed, but after a few moments he indicated imperiously that he wanted me to be quiet, and for once I did not insist on a “please.” He began to sway thoughtfully to the music, keeping perfect time. “Whoosh! There goes the lightning! Brroom! That’s the thunder!” and as the storm died out, he sank back with a histrionic sigh of relief. As the final notes of the symphony died away, Jacob demanded that we play the other side. “All right. This time you’ll hear a cuckoo and some people dancing.” By the end of the evening, I was as enthusiastic as Jacob. We had also got through the whole of the Elgar cello concerto, which was another hit. He immediately called the cello the “deep violin,” and when I introduced him later to the Dvorak concerto, he dubbed it the “new deep violin record.” His comments showed astonishing sensitivity. “Listen, Karen, the violins are asking a question,” or, “Oh dear, this is so sad. Somebody’s crying!” But mostly he just listened quietly. A little after nine, as we got up to go to his bedroom, he stood at the door and bowed solemnly. “Thank you, Karen,” he said formally, obviously imitating one of his parents’ dinner guests. “I enjoyed this evening very much indeed.” He almost clicked his bare heels together. “In fact, it was our best evening yet, don’t you agree?” I nodded. “So can we listen to your records next time I come to your room? Please?” “Of course. Next time we’ll hear something different.” “Something different and the thunderstorm again. Please.” He grinned and became a child again. “And now—o f to the lavatory!” he yelled, and then, forestalling me, “And don’t forget to pull the chain!” Is that all you are having for dinner? It’s quite ludicrous! You must eat more than that.” Jenifer was standing at the top of the stairs, poised as if for flight and clearly uneasy. It was against her principles to proffer unwanted advice to the young. We looked at my supper tray: a boiled egg, two slices of crispbread, and a tub of plain yogurt. It seemed more than enough to me.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  When Iggy had the toxin and we lay with him in his hospital crib, I knew—in a flood of fear and panic—what I know now, in our blessed return to the land of health, which is that my time with him has been the happiest time of my life. Its happiness has been of a more palpable and undeniable and unmitigated quality than any I’ve ever known. For it isn’t just moments of happiness, which is all I thought we got. It’s a happiness that spreads. For this reason I am tempted to call it a lasting happiness, but I know I won’t take it with me when I go. At best, I hope to impart it to Iggy, to allow him to feel that he created it, which, in many ways, he has. Babies do not remember being held well—what they remember is the traumatic experience of not being held well enough. Some might read in this a recipe for the classic ungratefulness of children—after everything I’ve done for you, and so on. To me, at the moment anyway, it is a tremendous relief, an incitement to give Iggy no memory, save the sense, likely unconscious, of having once been gathered together, made to feel real. That is what my mother did for me. I’d almost forgotten. And now, I think I can say— I want you to know, you were thought of as possible—never as certain, but always as possible—not in any single moment, but over many months, even years, of trying, of waiting, of calling—when, in a love sometimes sure of itself, sometimes shaken by bewilderment and change, but always committed to the charge of ever-deepening understanding—two human animals, one of whom is blessedly neither male nor female, the other of whom is female (more or less), deeply, doggedly, wildly wanted you to be.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  I had come to hate the long dull road which led to my house but which always seemed to be heading nowhere. Yet it was while I was toiling up this hill one day, weighed down with plastic bags of uninspiring groceries, that an idea came to me, and (again without realizing it) I turned another corner. I needed to cheer myself up, start a new project, and this time I should do something more positive. For three years I had steeped myself in the deadly hostility that had separated Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Why not study something that they held in common? The Abrahamic faiths worshiped the same God, for instance. Why not study the way they had all seen this God over the centuries? Why not write a history of God? 8. To Turn Again The decision to write A History of God seemed to come out of the blue, and it changed my life so radically that, if I were a traditional believer, I might be tempted to call it an inspiration. In Coleridge’s poem the ancient mariner, adrift on a desolate ocean and apparently eaten up with bitterness and despair, found himself watching the water snakes coiling, writhing, and gleaming around his becalmed ship. O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gusht from my heart, And I bless’d them unaware! Sure my kind Saint took pity on me, And I bless’d them unaware. Redeemed by a spontaneous ecstasy that took him out of himself and toward his fellow creatures, the mariner discovered that he could actually pray again. And immediately the albatross hanging around his neck like a millstone, the cause of all his misery, “fell off, and sank / Like lead into the sea.” The mariner attributes this impulse of love to the prompting of his patron saint, but Coleridge, who was, I believe, the first person to use the word “unconscious” in its modern, psychological sense, stresses that it came upon him “unaware.” The mariner did not know what he was doing but was saved by the hidden workings of his psyche, which knew instinctively what was best for him. My own experience was similar, but while the mariner was redeemed in an instant, as tends to happen in myths and fairy tales, it took me much longer to go through the process. I too was “unaware” of what was happening to me. There was no sudden road-to-Damascus illumination, and it was only in retrospect that I realized that the decision to write about God had been a defining moment. With no clear understanding of what I was about, I had taken the first step down a path that would lead me in a wholly unexpected direction.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  In my frenzy, I would aim wrong and release my first two smut-schnapps on the carpet and the door, but with the third I would manage to fling some fertile distillate on her upper thigh. Feeling it, she would give her commotion the final go-ahead—and the limply hanging washcloth, tightly cinched in her raving sphincter, would begin to move hypnotically, pulling in and out several times where it disappeared, making the free end gently lift and wag, like a handkerchief waved in farewell from an ocean liner. She would turn and sit and look in at me. We would describe how pleasant it had been. “And see?” I would say. “The washcloth did not fall. Your modesty was maintained.” “Now I can sleep,” she would say. I would refocus on her hair, which would look beautiful and thick and tossed around. Though we wouldn’t be able to shake hands properly through the door, we would hook index fingers and shake good-bye that way. Her door would close and I would hear the lock on the knob turn and the bolt slide spftly into place. I would close my door, too, and lock it, but I wouldn’t reinstate the chain lock on my side—for it would seem to me that the sound of my chaining would constitute a faint rudeness after what we had done together. The next morning, when I opened the door to the outside, I would find a small white bundle at my feet. It would be the Suzanne Vega tape wrapped in one of the now-stiffened washcloths, with a note saying, Take care of yourself—A.J.S. I wouldn’t be sure if this gift was meant to show that she knew that I was the one who had switched the tapes in the car, or whether it was simply a friendly gesture. But I would take care of myself, at least twice, before driving back to Boston. That was what I planned to happen. What did happen, though, is that after an hour and a half or so of steady driving on the Mass Pike, an hour and a half full of hope and keyed-up concentration, I saw a small twirling rectangular shape fly out of Adele’s car window.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  This is not always comfortable; in fact, it has become something of a social liability, because I find myself more and more distressed by the disdain that so often peppers social conversation. I know how this puts a splinter of ice into the heart of the disdained. I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest ways, we find it impossible, as Marshall Hodgson enjoined, to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant. Of course, toleration has its limits. We should cry out against injustice and cruelty wherever we find it, as the prophets did, especially when it occurs in our own society or on “our” side. It may be politically expedient to ignore the beam in our own eye while decrying the splinter in the eye of our enemy, but I do not see how it can be a religious option. But this pain is a small price to pay for the spirituality of empathy. Paradoxically, what I have gained from this identification with suffering is joy. This was something that I did not expect. And this habit of looking outside myself into the heart of another has put me outside the prism of myself. This ecstasy may not last for long, but while it lasts I experience an astonishing freedom. Self, after all, is our basic problem. When I wake up at three in the morning and ask myself, Why does this have to happen to me? Why cannot I have what X has? Why am I so unloved and unappreciated?—and I still have plenty of moments like this—I learn that ego is at the heart of all pain. When I get beyond this for a few moments, I feel enlarged and enhanced—just as the Buddha promised. It is important for me to do this, because my solitary lifestyle could imprison me forever in selfishness. In a relationship, you constantly have to go beyond yourself. Each day you have to forgive something, each day you have to put yourself to one side to accommodate your partner. Looking after somebody else means that you have to give yourself away. But I never have to do this. Because I travel such a lot, I cannot even have an animal to look after. So my science of compassion does for me what a husband, lover, child, or even a dog might have done in a different life.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  Kevin’s ears were changing color. He was readjusting his notion of his employer. Sylvie just looked friendly and sly and curious. Marian said, “No, I’m not burying them. I just thought it would be exciting to try out a few of them outdoors, and I wasn’t sure which ones I would want. It seemed like such a nice setting, my own back yard, with the new parrot tulips.” “Can I look at one?” said Sylvie. Marian passed her the most decorous dildo—a medium-sized clear Lucite thick-veined figurine that the catalog called the Ice Princess. Sylvie handled it carefully, using her fingertips, not, it seemed, out of repugnance, but out of politeness for another’s treasures. “Sylvie,” said Kevin in an undertone. “I think she probably wants us to go.” “She’s welcome to take a look if she wants,” said Marian casually. The Klockhammer deep in her ane was now beginning to reassert itself; it was silencing any objections she might otherwise have had to showing two teenagers wearing matching striped shirts her fuckable toys. “Can I see that really long one, with the two ends?” said Sylvie. “Ah yes—this is my Royal Welsh Fusilier. Here.” “Wowsers!” Sylvie held the two dick-ends together, jerking on them so that the movable foreskins wrinkled and stretched in tandem. She offered one end to Kevin, who inspected it with fascination in spite of himself. “I don’t exactly get why you would need something this long with two ends,” he said. Marian hesitated. “Any number of reasons.” “One of which is,” said Sylvie to Kevin, “if you misbehave with Karen in any way ever again, I’ll put one end right up your fanny and make you jump in your next meet with it in.” “Karen is over,” said Kevin. Deferentially he thanked Marian, handing his end directly back to her. “Where did you purchase all these things?” he asked, with an air of serious inquiry. “Oh, from a place in San Francisco,” said Marian. She was using every ounce of willpower she had to keep from announcing to the two of them that she had a massive dildungs-roman installed in her butt. “Maybe sometime you could give us the address,” said Kevin, still very serious, very grown up. “We might want to order something or other. Right, Syl?” “You never know,” said Sylvie. Marian looked at them both and laughed happily. “God it’s nice to see young love,” she said. “Are you two lovers, then?” They both nodded. “We’ve made love thirty-two times in two months,” said Sylvie proudly. “In fact,” she continued, putting a fond arm around Kevin’s waist, “we were just going out for a little ‘drive,’ because Kevin’s mother doesn’t like us going up to his room anymore—which I can understand.” “Ah, a little ‘drive,’ ” said Marian. She looked at Kevin with amused surprise—the employer surprised at the precocity of the employee. “Yeah,” Kevin agreed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the road. “We’ll probably go on over to the fish hatchery.”