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 This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  My mother leaned forward and said, “Gil.” He held up his hand. “What kind, Jack?” “Raleigh,” I told him. Gil smiled and I smiled back. “Champagne taste,” he said. “Go for the best, that’s the way. What color?” “Red.” “Red. Fair enough. I think we can manage that. Did you get all that, Judd? One bicycle, English racer, Raleigh, red.” “Got it,” Judd said. My mother said thanks but she couldn’t accept it. Gil said it was for me to accept, not her. She began to argue, not halfheartedly but with resolve. Gil wouldn’t hear a word of it. At one point he even put his hands over his ears. At last she gave up. She leaned back and drank from her beer. And I saw that in spite of what she’d said she was really happy at the way things had turned out, not only because it meant the end of these arguments of ours but also because, after all, she wanted very much for me to have a bicycle. “How are the peanuts, Jack?” Gil asked. I said they were fine. “Great,” he said. “That’s just great.” GIL AND MY mother had a few more beers and talked while Judd and I watched the hydroplane qualifying heats on television. In the early evening Judd drove us back to the boardinghouse. My mother and I lay on our beds for a while with the lights off, feeling the breeze, listening to the treetops rustle outside. She asked if I would mind staying home alone that night. She had been invited out for dinner. “Who with?” I asked. “Gil and Judd?” “Gil,” she said. “No,” I said. I was glad. This would firm things up. The room filled with shadows. My mother got up and took a bath, then put on a full blue skirt and an off-theshoulder Mexican blouse and the fine turquoise jewelry my father had bought her when they were driving through Arizona before the war. Earrings, necklace, heavy bracelet, concha belt. She’d picked up

• From Story of O (1954)

  Without uttering a word, without so much as a glance at Jacqueline, Sir Stephen made a sign to René to let O go, and to O to go into the other room. But on the other side of the door O, who was immediately wedged against the wall, her belly and breasts seized, her lips forced apart by Sir Stephen’s insistent tongue, moaned with happiness and deliverance. The points of her breasts stiffened beneath his hand’s caress, and with his other hand Sir Stephen probed her loins so roughly she thought she would faint. Would she ever dare tell him that no pleasure, no joy, no figment of her imagination could ever compete with the happiness she felt at the way he used her with such utter freedom, at the notion that he could do anything with her, that there was no limit, no restriction in the manner with which, on her body, he might search for pleasure? Her absolute certainty that when he touched her, whether it was to fondle or flog her, when he ordered her to do something it was solely because he wanted to, her certainty that all he cared about was his own desire, so overwhelmed and gratified O that each time she saw a new proof of it, and often even when it merely occurred to her in thought, a cape of fire, a burning breastplate extending from the shoulders to the knees, descended upon her. As she was there, pinned against the wall, her eyes closed, her lips murmuring “I love you” when she could find the breath to say them, Sir Stephen’s hands, though they were as cool as the waters of a bubbling spring on the fire coursing through her from head to toe, made her burn even hotter. Gently he released her, dropping her skirt down over her moist thighs, closing her bolero over her quivering breasts. “Come, O,” he said, “I need you.” Then, opening her eyes, O noticed that they were not alone. The big, bare, whitewashed room, identical in all respects to the living room, also opened, through a French door, onto the garden. Seated in a wicker chair on the terrace, which lay between the house and garden, an enormous man, a giant of a creature with a cigarette between his lips, his head shaved and his vast belly swelling beneath his open shirt and cloth trousers, was gazing at O. He rose and moved toward Sir Stephen, who was shoving O ahead of him. It was then that O noticed, dangling at the end of his watch chain, the Roissy insignia that the man was sporting. Still, Sir Stephen politely introduced him to O, simply as “Commander,” with no name attached, and much to O’s surprise she saw that he was kissing her hand, the first time it had happened since she had been involved with Roissy members (with the exception of Sir Stephen).

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Taking a knife, he cut into his abdomen to release the locust. He cut so deep that he died. “And so, Irv,” Paula said, giving me her lovely, beatific smile, reaching out for my hand and then whispering into my ear, “you’ve got to find your own song to sing.” I was very moved: her smile, her mystery, her stretch for wisdom—that was the Paula I loved so much. I liked the parable. It was vintage Paula; it felt like old times. I took the meaning at face value—that I should sing my own song—and pushed away the story’s darker, more disturbing implications about my relationship with her. I have refused even to this day to examine it too deeply. And so we each sang our songs separately. My career progressed: I conducted research, wrote many books, received the academic rewards and promotions I so coveted. Ten years went by. The breast cancer project that Paula had helped launch had long been completed and the findings from it published. We had offered group therapy to fifty women with metastatic breast cancer and found that, compared with thirty-six control patients, the group had vastly improved the quality of the patients’ remaining lives. (Years later, in a follow-up study published in Lancet, my colleague Dr. David Spiegel, whom I had asked many years before to become the project’s principal investigator, ultimately demonstrated that the group had significantly lengthened the lives of the members.) But the group was now history; all of the thirty women in the original Bridge Group and the eighty-six women in the metastatic breast cancer study had died. All but one. One day in the hospital corridor, a young woman with red hair and a flushed face hailed me and said, “I bear greetings from Paula West.” Paula! Could it be? Paula still alive? And I hadn’t even known. I shuddered to think that I had become a person who was unaware whether a spirit like hers still dwelled on earth. “Paula? How is she?” I stammered. “How do you know her?” “Two years ago, when I was diagnosed as having lupus, Paula came to visit me and introduced me into her lupus self-help group. Ever since she’s been taking care of me—indeed, the whole lupus community.” “I’m sorry to hear about your illness. But Paula? Lupus? I hadn’t heard.” What hypocrisy, I thought. How could I have heard? Had I even once called her? “She says it was caused by the medicine she was given for cancer.” “Is she very sick?” “You never know with Paula. Certainly not too sick to start a lupus support group, to invite all the new lupus patients to lunch, to visit us when we’re too ill to leave the house, to arrange a series of medical speakers to keep us apprised of new research in lupus. Also not too sick to launch a medical-ethics- board investigation of her cancer doctors.”

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In any case, courage is a more complex phenomenon than is generally appreciated . Trauma through a Child’s Eyes In a lifelong career of working with adults, I have occasionally been asked to see the children of my clients. I was frequently astonished by how, with the briefest of interventions, children rebounded from what would otherwise have been a devastating lifelong debilitation. These children, unshackled from the yoke of trauma, were free to develop with confidence, resilience and joy. I have cowritten two books on the prevention and somatic treatment of childhood trauma. One of them is geared to therapists, medical personnel and teachers, 105 while the other is geared primarily toward teaching parents effective emotional first-aid tools. 106 In this section, I offer the tender stories of three overwhelmed children: Anna, Alex and Sammy. Their vignettes illustrate the principle that less is more and speak to the innate resilience of the human spirit. Anna and Alex: A Picnic Gone Wrong Eight-year-old Anna has enormous brown eyes. She could have been a model for one of the popular Keane paintings of almond-eyed children. The school nurse has just brought her in to see me. Pale, head hanging and barely breathing, she is like a fawn frozen by the bright lights of an oncoming car. Her frail face is expressionless, and her right arm hangs limply, as if it were on the verge of detaching itself from her shoulder. Two days earlier, Anna went on a school outing to the beach. She and a dozen of her classmates were frolicking in the water when a sudden riptide swept them swiftly out to sea. Anna was rescued, but Mary (one of the mothers who volunteered for the outing) drowned after courageously saving several of the children. Mary had been a surrogate mom to many of the neighborhood kids, including Anna, and the entire community was in shock from her tragic death. I had asked the school nurse to be on the lookout for children who displayed a sudden onset of symptoms (e.g., pain, head and tummy aches and colds). Anna had already been to see the nurse three times that morning, reporting severe pain in her right arm and shoulder . One of the mistakes often made by trauma responders is to try to get children to talk about their feelings immediately following an event. Although it is rarely healthy to suppress feelings, this practice can be traumatizing. In these vulnerable moments, children (and adults as well) can easily be overwhelmed. Previous traumas can resurface in the aftermath of an overwhelming event, creating a complex situation that may involve deep secrets, untold shame, guilt feelings and rage. For this reason, my team sought out, and learned, some of Anna’s history from several helpful elementary school teachers (and the nurse) prior to seeing the child.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Right! What right ha' yo' ter start harnessin' other folks i' your Continuity? Leave folks to their own continuities." "My dear man, do you think I am concerned with you?" said Hilda softly. "Ay," he said. "Yo' are. For it's a force-put. Yo' more or less my sister-in-law." "Still far from it, I assure you." "Not a' that far, I assure _you_. I've got my own sort o' continuity, back your life! Good as yours, any day. An' if your sister there comes ter me for a bit o' cunt an' tenderness, she knows what she's after. She's been in my bed afore: which you 'aven't, thank the Lord, with your continuity." There was a dead pause, before he added: "--Eh, I don't wear me breeches arse-forrards. An' if I get a windfall, I thank my stars. A man gets a lot of enjoyment out o' that lass theer, which is more than anybody gets out o' th' likes o' you. Which is a pity, for you might 'appen a' bin a good apple, 'stead of a handsome crab. Women like you needs proper graftin'." He was looking at her with an odd, flickering smile, faintly sensual and appreciative. "And men like you," she said, "ought to be segregated: justifying their own vulgarity and selfish lust." "Ay, ma'am! It's a mercy there's a few men left like me. But you deserve what you get: to be left severely alone." Hilda had risen and gone to the door. He rose and took his coat from the peg. "I can find my way quite well alone," she said. "I doubt you can't," he replied easily. They tramped in ridiculous file down the lane again, in silence. An owl still hooted. He knew he ought to shoot it. The car stood untouched, a little dewy. Hilda got in and started the engine. The other two waited. "All I mean," she said from her entrenchment, "is that I doubt if you'll find it's been worth it, either of you!" "One man's meat is another man's poison," he said, out of the darkness. "But it's meat an' drink to me." The lights flared out. "Don't make me wait in the morning, Connie." "No, I won't. Good night!" The car rose slowly on to the highroad, then slid swiftly away, leaving the night silent. Connie timidly took his arm, and they went down the lane. He did not speak. At length she drew him to a standstill. "Kiss me!" she murmured. "Nay, wait a bit! Let me simmer down," he said. That amused her. She still kept hold of his arm, and they went quickly down the lane, in silence. She was so glad to be with him, just now. She shivered, knowing that Hilda might have snatched her away. He was inscrutably silent. When they were in the cottage again, she almost jumped with pleasure, that she should be free of her sister. "But you were horrid to Hilda," she said to him.

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

  I came to know her more intimately at the Godhra Conference. To her I poured out my grief about the charkha, and she lightened my burden by a promise to prosecute an earnest and incessant search for the spinning wheel. 166FOUND AT LAST !As last, after no end of wandering in Gujarat, Gangabehn found the spinning wheel in Vijapur in the Baroda State. Quite a number of people there had spinning wheels in their homes, but had long since consigned them to the lofts as useless lumber. They expressed to Gangabehn their readiness to resume spinning, if someone provide them with a regular supply of slivers, and to buy the yarn spun by them. Gangabehn communicated the joyful news to me. The providing of slivers was founded to be a difficult task. On my mentioning the thing to the late Umar Sobani, he solved the difficulty by immediately undertaking to send a sufficient supply of slivers from his mill. I sent to Gangabehn the slivers received from Umar Sobani, and soon yarn began to pour in at such a rate that it became quite a problem how to cope with it. Mr. Umar Sobani’s generosity was great, but still one could not go on taking advantage of it for ever. I felt ill at ease, continuously receiving slivers from him. Moreover, it seemed to me to be fundamentally wrong to use mill- slivers. If one could use mill- slivers, why not use mill- yarn as well ? Surely no mills supplied slivers to the ancients ? How did they make their slivers then ? With these thoughts in my mind I suggested to Gangabehn to find carders who could supply slivers. She confidently undertook the task. She engaged a carder who was prepared to card cotton. He demanded thirty-five rupees, if not much more, per month. I considered no price too high at the time. She trained a few youngsters to make slivers out of the carded cotton. I begged for cotton in Bombay. Sjt. Yashvantprasad Desai at once responded. Gangabehn’s enterprise thus prospered beyond expectations. She found out weavers to weave the yarn that was spun in Vijapur, and soon Vijapur Khadi gained a name for itself. While these developments were taking place in Vijapur, the spinning wheel gained a rapid footing in the Ashram. Maganlal Gandhi, by bringing to bear all his splendid mechanical talent on the wheel, made many improvements in it, and wheels and their accessories began to be manufactured at the Ashram. The first piece of Khadi manufactured in the Ashram cost 17 annas per yard. I did not hesitate to commend this very coarse Khadi at that rate to friends, who willingly paid the price. I was laid up in bed at Bombay. But I was fit enough to make searches for the wheel there. At last I chanced upon two spinners. They charged one rupee for a seer of yarn, i.e., 28 tolas or nearly three quarters of a pound.

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

  Of pride he had not the slightest trace, excepting, of course, a rather undue regard for his own capacity as a writer. We met daily. There was a considerable amount of similarity between our thoughts and actions. Both of us were vegetarians. We would often have our lunch together. This was the time when I lived on 17s. a week and cooked for myself. Sometimes when I would go to his room, and sometimes he would come to mine. I cooked in the English style. Nothing but Indian style would satisfy him. He would not do without dal. I would make soup of carrots etc., and he would pity me for my taste. Once he somehow hunted out mung[1] cooked it and brought it to my place. I ate it with delight. This led on to a regular system of exchange between us. I would take my delicacies to him and he would bring his to me. Cardinal Manning’s name was then on every lip. The dock labourers’ strike had come to an early termination owing to the efforts of John Burns and Cardinal Manning. I told Narayan Hemchandra of Disraeli’s tribute to the Cardinal’s simplicity. ‘Then I must see the sage,’ said he. ‘He is a big man. How do you expect to meet him?’ ‘Why? I know how. I must get you to write to him in my name. Tell him I am an author and that I want to congratulate him personally on his humanitarian work, and also say that I shall have to take you as interpreter as I do not know English.’ I wrote a letter to that effect. In two or three days came Cardinal Manning’s card in reply giving us an appointment. So we both called on the Cardinal. I put on the usual visiting suit. Narayan Hemchandra was the same as ever, in the same coat and the same trousers. I tried to make fun of this, but he laughed me out and said: ‘You civilized fellows are all cowards. Great men never look at a person’s exterior. They think of his heart.’ We entered the Cardinal’s mansion. As soon as we were seated, a thin, tall, old gentleman made his appearance, and shook hands with us. Narayan Hemchandra thus gave his greetings: ‘I do not want to take up your time. I had heard a lot about you and I felt I should come and thank you for the good work you done for the strikers. It has been my custom to visit the sages of the world and that is why I have put you to this trouble.’ This was of course my translation of that he spoke in Gujarati. ‘I am glad you have come. I hope your stay in London will agree with you and that you will get in touch with people here. God bless you.’ With these words the Cardinal stood up and said good-bye.

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

  The great theoretician of play, Johan Huizinga, maintained that a fundamental feature of play is that it serves no other purpose. The purposelessness associated with play is hard to reconcile with our culture of high efficiency and constant accountability. More and more, we measure play by its benefits. We play squash for cardiovascular conditioning; we take our kids to dinner to expand their palates; we go on vacation to recharge. Yet if we’re plagued by self-awareness, obsessed with outcomes, or fearful of judgment, our enjoyment is inevitably compromised. When we are children, play comes to us naturally, but our capac ity for play collapses as we age. Sex often remains the last arena of play we can permit ourselves, a bridge to our childhood. Long after the mind has been filled with injunctions to be serious, the body remains a free zone, unencumbered by reason and judgment. In lovemaking, we can recapture the utterly uninhibited movement of the child, who has not yet developed self-consciousness before the judging gaze of others. Erotic Intelligence Every so often, I meet couples who get it, who maintain a sense of playfulness with each other, in and out of the bedroom. They are physically and sensually alive—two people whose desire for one another hasn’t been left to languish. Even in our culture of immediate gratification, they’re able to see seduction as an end in itself. Johanna continues to bewitch her boyfriend of ten years by setting up rendezvous in motels in a nearby suburb. Darnell and his lover pretend not to know each other when they go to a party. Eric describes making love to his wife in the alley of their apartment building when they come home late at night, a furtive pleasure they indulge in before checking on the kids. Every year, Ivan and Rachel go away for a long weekend of consensual adultery with other swingers. “Instead of having secrets from each other, we have secrets from the world.” Jessica has rescued her husband from many lonesome stretches on the road by teasing him on the CB radio. Every morning, Leo tells his wife how lucky he is to be married to her, and he still means it after more than fifty years. For all these couples, playfulness is central to their relationship, and eroticism extends beyond the sexual act. Their lovemaking can be ceremonious or sudden, soulful or utilitarian, vanilla or transgressive, warm or hot. The point is that sex is pleasurable and inviting, not dutiful. They revere the erotic, yet they delight in its irreverence. They like sex, they especially like it with each other, and they take the time to nurture an erotic space. Like all couples, they go through periods when desire is dormant—when they are estranged from each other, or simply immersed in their own projects and in their own lives—but they don’t panic, terrified that something is fundamentally wrong with them.

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

  closed the door behind him. We joined Norma and Skipper in the kitchen. Norma had taken the turkey out of the oven, and the house was rich with its smell. When she found out that my mother had won, she said, “Oh boy, now we’re really in for it. He thinks he’s some kind of big hunter.” “He killed a deer once,” Pearl said. “That was with the car,” Norma said. Skipper got up and went down the hall to Dwight’s room. A few minutes later they both came back, Dwight stiff and awkward. Skipper teased him in a shy, affectionate way, and Dwight took it well, and my mother acted as if nothing had happened. Then Dwight perked up and made drinks for the two of them and pretty soon we were having a good time. We sat down at the beautiful table Norma had laid for us, and we ate turkey and dressing and candied yams and giblet gravy and cranberry sauce. After we ate, we sang. We sang “Harvest Moon,” “Side by Side,” “Moonlight Bay,” “Birmingham Jail,” and “High above Cayuga’s Waters.” I got compliments for knowing all the words. We toasted Norma for cooking the turkey, and my mother for winning the turkey shoot. My mother was still flushed, expansive. All the talk about turkey reminded her of a Thanksgiving she and my brother and I had spent on a turkey farm in Connecticut after the war. Housing was scarce, and we were broke, so my father had boarded us with these turkey farmers while he went down to work in Peru. The turkey farmers were novices. Before Thanksgiving they’d butchered their birds in an unheated shed, and all the blood froze in their bodies and turned them purple. The local butcher came out for a look. He suggested that the birds be kept in a warm bath for a few days—maybe that would loosen things up and turn them pink. The bath they used was ours. For almost two weeks we had these bumpy blue carcasses floating in the tub. Dwight was quiet after my mother told her story. Then he told one of his own about a Thanksgiving he’d spent in the Philippines, when starving Japanese soldiers ran out of the jungle and grabbed food right off the chow line, and nobody even tried to shoot them. That story reminded Pearl of Chinese checkers. Dwight and Skipper refused to play, but the rest of us joined in. First we played as free agents and then in teams. Pearl and I played the last round together. It was close—very close. When Pearl made the winning move we jumped up and down, and crowed, and pounded each other on the back.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Mary is weeping, but Jesus tells her to dry her tears. The disciples are scared, but Jesus comes through the locked door and tells them not to be afraid. Thomas doubts and questions, and Jesus answers him and accepts his newfound faith and worship. New creation can happen because the power of the satan, of Babylon, of Pharaoh has been broken. That is how the story works. That is what is different by six o’clock on the evening of Good Friday, though Jesus’s followers don’t realize it until the third day, which is the first day of the new week, the start of the new world. All this is framed, like so much of the New Testament, within the story of Passover (John 13:1). As we have seen throughout this book, the first Christians knew that Jesus had chosen Passover as the frame within which his death would mean what it was meant to mean. Judas, energized by the satan, is like hard-hearted Pharaoh, who won’t let Israel go, so that when the victory comes it will be decisive and final. And the love, the “uttermost” love, that Jesus pours out is the sharply focused divine covenant love, which had made promises to Abraham, promises that his descendants would be freed from slavery and given their inheritance, promises that were fulfilled when this love came down to Egypt to rescue them. John is telling the story of the new Exodus, the new tabernacle, and of course the new Torah: “I am giving you a new commandment,” says Jesus. “Love one another . . . just as I have loved you” (13:34). The people who are rescued by the cross and the love it reveals will then be shaped by the cross and the love it will reveal through them to the world: “This is how everybody will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other” (13:35). This is how we learn not only to tell the story of Jesus, but also to live the story of Jesus. There is a straight line from here to Jesus’s commissioning of the disciples in John 20 and particularly to his recommissioning of Peter in John 21. This is the source, and the shape, of all Christian mission. There is a poignant final passage in John 13. Peter realizes that Jesus is going to a place of great danger, and he declares that he will follow him and give his life for him (13:37). The reply is full of gentle, sad irony. Will Peter lay down his life for Jesus? Actually, in an hour or two Peter will find he is still part of the problem, not part of the solution.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  The liberating power of the gospel was itself a demonstration of the truth it proclaimed. As with the poetry of Philippians 2, so with the dense and polemical argument of Colossians 2: the fact that its message can be compressed into a few sentences, complete with rhetorical flourishes, must mean that this line of thought was already a frequent theme in the early church. When Jesus was crucified, the “powers” lost their power, because sin itself had been defeated and sinners forgiven. Once Jesus had chosen to do what he did at Passover time, joining the idea of a new or ultimate “Exodus” together with the idea that this was the time for the real “return from exile,” the forgiveness of sins, and linking them together via passages like Isaiah 52 and 53, the stage was set. The new Exodus was accomplished through the forgiveness of sins, and forgiveness of sins was accomplished by the Messiah as the living and dying embodiment of the one true God, standing in the place of sinners and taking the full weight of their plight upon himself. Paul has already said as much in the poem earlier in the letter: In him all the Fullness was glad to dwell And through him to reconcile all to himself, Making peace by the blood of his cross. (1:19–20) He repeats the point in 2:9: “In him . . . all the full measure of divinity has taken up bodily residence.” This is in fact Temple language, but the point for our present purposes is that all that Paul ascribes to Jesus and his death in 2:13–15 is to be seen as the work of the one God himself. Here again the implicitly trinitarian structure of early Christian thought is all-important. Take that away, and the slide back toward some kind of pagan formulation has begun. * * * There are many other things one might say about the death of Jesus in the letters of Paul. I have argued elsewhere, for instance, that the little Letter to Philemon, though it does not mention the death of Jesus specifically, exemplifies its meaning, which for Paul focused on the “ministry of reconciliation.” Paul extends one arm to Philemon and the other to Onesimus and brings them together within his own love for them both, insisting to Philemon that if Onesimus has wronged him in any way he, Paul, will make it good. That looks to me like a practical application of the cross. Philemon functions as a small signpost to Paul’s largest and most important letter, one that has always featured prominently in any discussion of the meaning of Jesus’s death: the Letter to the Romans. This demands a deep breath and a fresh start. 12 The Death of Jesus in Paul’s Letter to the Romans The New Exodus AT ONE POINT in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of C.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  After the foot washing and after Judas has gone out into the dark (13:30), Jesus tells the disciples with a sense of excitement that God is going to be glorified at last and that they must love one another as he has loved them (13:31–35). Glory and love: two great Johannine (and indeed Pauline) themes. How is God glorified? Through the work of his Son, the true divine image, the genuinely human one. The Word had become flesh; in our midst he appeared like God’s new dwelling place, God’s true tabernacle; and we gazed upon his glory. That is what John told us at the start of his gospel (1:14). This, then, John is saying, is what it looks like when the glorious divine Presence returns to Jerusalem at last, when the watchmen shout with joy because God is becoming king. This is what it looks like when Babylon is overthrown, when Pharaoh’s hosts are defeated, and the slaves are set free. This is what it looks like when the Servant is exalted and lifted up high so that kings will shut their mouths because of him. This is what it looks like when the scriptures are fulfilled. And this is why, when John tells the story of the new Eden, the new creation, the day of resurrection (chaps. 20–21), there is no serpent to be seen. Mary is weeping, but Jesus tells her to dry her tears. The disciples are scared, but Jesus comes through the locked door and tells them not to be afraid. Thomas doubts and questions, and Jesus answers him and accepts his newfound faith and worship. New creation can happen because the power of the satan, of Babylon, of Pharaoh has been broken. That is how the story works. That is what is different by six o’clock on the evening of Good Friday, though Jesus’s followers don’t realize it until the third day, which is the first day of the new week, the start of the new world.

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

  information sheet. I did not send this back right away. I carried it around with me for a few days, then filled it out. Where it asked me for my name as I wished it to appear in the school catalogue, I wrote, “Tobias Jonathan von Ansell-Wolff III.” MY MOTHER PICKED me up after school one afternoon and took me into Concrete for a Coke. She couldn’t get over the fact that I had been given a scholarship to Hill. She kept looking at me curiously, then laughing. “All right,” she said. “What did you tell them?” “What do you mean, what did I tell them. I didn’t tell them anything. I just applied.” “Come on.” “My test scores were pretty high.” “You must have told them something.” “Thanks, Mom. Thanks for the vote of confidence.” “Are you going to get in trouble?” “Get in trouble. What’s that supposed to mean?” “Are you going to get in trouble?” “No. I’m not going to get in trouble.” “Promise?” “I’m not going to get in trouble, I promise. What do you want, blood?” We passed on to other things. She was happy for me, after all, and willing not to question fortune too closely. She had good news of her own. She’d found a job in Seattle, a secretarial job at Aetna Life Insurance. She was supposed to start there in another week. A woman she knew had offered to put her up until she found a place to live so she wouldn’t be under pressure to rent something she didn’t like. She could afford to relax and take her time, especially since I would be going off to California in June rather than coming to live with her. My father had been in touch, she told me. He’d arranged everything. I would take the bus down to La Jolla as soon as school let out, and Geoffrey would join me there after his graduation from

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. (55:1–3) On the way to that conclusion, the message comes from one angle after another and always with the reassurance of the powerful and unshakeable divine love: Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For YHWH has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “YHWH has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (49:13–16) For YHWH will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of YHWH; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song. (51:3) This message of divine comfort, extending from the opening of the poem in 40:1 through 52:9 (“For YHWH has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem”), crescendos to the very passage where the “servant” is “despised and rejected by others” (53:3). It is flatly impossible, reading this passage in its wider context, to see it as anything other than the strange and shocking outworking of the powerful divine covenant love. Thus, immediately after chapter 53 itself, where the death of the “servant” is seen as the ultimate punishment of Israel’s sins, we find the covenant gloriously reaffirmed: sins are now forgiven, exile is over, and YHWH and his people are bonded together forever: For your Maker is your husband, YHWH of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For YHWH has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says YHWH, your Redeemer. . . . For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, But my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, Says YHWH, who has compassion on you. (54:5–10)

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  So I saw in my Dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his Burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. . . . Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death. Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder; for it was very surprizing to him, that the sight of the Cross should thus ease him of his Burden. 2 Let me give one more example, out of thousands of possible ones, of the way in which the crucifixion of Jesus appears to carry a power that goes way beyond any attempt to rationalize it away. A Roman Catholic archbishop (I have tried to discover which one, but so far without success; the story is well known) described how three mischievous young lads decided to play a trick on the priest who was hearing confessions in their local church. They took turns going into the confessional and “confessing” all sorts of terrible sins and crimes to see how the priest would react. Two of them then made off in a hurry; but the priest stopped the third one and, as though taking him seriously, announced that he was going to impose a penance on him. The lad was to walk up to the far end of the church, toward the figure of Jesus hanging on the cross. He was to look Jesus in the face and to say three times, “You did all that for me, and I don’t give that much”—snapping his fingers on the “that.” The young man did it once. He did it a second time. Then he found he couldn’t do it the third time, but instead dissolved into tears. He left the church a changed person. “And the reason I know that story,” concluded the archbishop, “is that I was that young man.” Why? Why is this story so powerful? What kind of sense does it make to suppose that the death of one man nearly two thousand years ago, in an obscure Roman province, could have that kind of power? What sort of revolution is it that was launched on that dark and horrible afternoon? Before we go any farther in this inquiry, let’s make one thing clear. You do not have to be able to answer the question “Why?” before the cross can have this effect. Think about it.

• From Story of O (1954)

  Then, to help her off the stool, Sir Stephen offered her his right hand, in which she placed hers, he finally addressing her directly by observing that she had hands that were made to wear irons, so becoming was iron to her. But as he said it in English, there was a trace of ambiguity in his words, leaving one in some doubt as to whether he was referring to the metal alone or whether he were not also, and perhaps even specifically, referring to iron chains. In the room downstairs, which was a simple whitewashed cellar, but cool and pleasant, there were in fact only four tables, one of which was occupied by guests who were finishing their meal. On the walls had been drawn, like a fresco, a gastronomical and tourist map of Italy, in soft, ice-cream colors: vanilla, raspberry, and pistachio. It reminded O that she wanted to order ice cream for dessert, with lots of almonds and whipped cream. For she was feeling light and happy, René’s knee was touching her knee beneath the table, and whenever he spoke she knew he was talking for her ears alone. He too was observing her lips. They let her have the ice cream, but not the coffee. Sir Stephen invited O and René to have coffee at his place. They had all dined very lightly, and O realized that they had been careful to drink very little, and had kept her virtually from drinking at all: half a liter of Chianti for the three of them. They had also dined very quickly: it was barely nine o’clock. “I sent the chauffeur home,” said Sir Stephen. “Would you drive, René. The simplest thing would be to go straight to my house.” René took the wheel, O sat beside him, and Sir Stephen was next to her. The car was a big Buick, there was ample room for three people in the front seat.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  What did the crowd do now? What did we do? For a fraction of a second we all hesitated in silence and surprise, then burst out laughing, began to roll on the floor, all of us, big and small in a tangle, beating one another with our fists, climbing onto the benches, upsetting them, in an uproar of shouts and insults, insulting the victim too, still pale as he was from fear as he smiled and trembled in a corner of the synagogue, his eyes glistening with tears. The stupid urchin had really taken the whole farce seriously and been afraid of a mere piece of tin! A good joke indeed, and what fun it was to play at being grownups! ~ 8. GINOU ~ Mature women had no place in my world of feminine ideals, and the girls that peopled it could be divided into two categories: those that I dreamed of at night, wishing I could approach them but believing them to be inaccessible, and those that I knew well, who might have accepted me but who left me cold. It would have been impossible for me to kiss a girl from my own background. All my neighbors and relatives made themselves up badly, using too much rouge; their hair was reddish from cheap permanents, and they wore dresses that were poorly cut, always longer at the front than at the back, with gaudy colors and too many ornaments, pleats and frills and furbelows; most of the time they looked as if they had been bundled into their clothes and tied together carelessly. The mere thought of them and their very presence failed to inspire in me the tender and exquisite emotion that made my heart beat faster. No matter how much I found excuses for them and pitied them, their company bored me. They were females destined only to be housewives, so ignorant and lacking in any culture that they were completely cut off from me. As for the other women, those who used lipstick with discretion, whose perfume was enchantingly light, whose flesh was clean and fresh, who flirted in a manner that I found, deep within me, quite wonderful, well, these girls all come from middle-class homes and I believed I was cut off from them just as definitely, but by my own poverty.

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

  Philippians 2:1–11 speaks of what life “in Christ” is to be like and it emphasizes “Christ crucified” and “Jesus Christ is Lord.” It also contains what most scholars think is a hymn, written by either Paul or a predecessor. We think it probably comes from Paul; but even if it was written by a predecessor, it is evidence for the nature of Paul’s thought, for Paul obviously used it approvingly. And whether written by Paul or a predecessor, it is of special interest because it is the earliest Christian hymn we have. The text begins with a series of counsels about behavior for those who are “in Christ”: If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (2:1–4) The text continues by grounding the mind they are to have—the mind they are to have in Christ—in what they see in Jesus: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (2:5). And what mind is that? Then the text quotes or echoes the hymn—this is the mind that they are to have. We display the hymn in three parts, without presuming that they correspond to stanzas: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (2:6–11)This is a hymnic summary of the story of Jesus. Of course, there is much in the story of Jesus as we know it from the gospels that is not here. But what is here encapsulates Paul’s most central convictions about Jesus. The second and third parts (stanzas?) emphasize “Christ crucified” and “Jesus Christ is Lord”—which, not coincidentally, are the titles of two of our chapters. Note that in part two, when Paul refers to Jesus becoming “obedient to the point of death,” he adds specifically, “even death on a cross.

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

  That exact same metaphor was used over a half century later by Ignatius of Antioch in his Epistle to the Romans —and possibly used in imitation of Paul. “From Syria to Rome I am fighting with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and day bound to ten ‘leopards’ [that is, a company of soldiers], and they become worse for kind treatment” (5:1). As he traveled to martyrdom in Rome, Ignatius was—like Paul—free to receive support and assistance from fellow Christians, free to write seven letters to churches along his route, but always chained to one or another of that military squad known as the “Leopards.” And so, after that explanatory detour, we return to Paul’s letter to Philemon. After the names of sender and recipient, the protocols of an ancient letter required a greeting: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (3) In this greeting, the “you” is plural. But that phrase “grace and peace” appears as in the greeting of every single one of Paul’s seven authentic letters. We will, therefore, leave it for now, but return to consider it in much greater detail in Chapter 4. After the greeting Paul continues with his usual thanksgiving element: When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother. (4–7) Paul’s thanksgiving verses usually interweave recipient, God, and Christ. Read, for example, what he says in 1 Thessalonians 1:2–3 and 1 Corinthians 1:4–9. And when Paul writes, for example, to the Philippians from the Ephesian prison, he says, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3–5). At a first glance, therefore, this thanksgiving element in Philemon is not at all unusual. The “you” in the greeting is plural, but in this thanksgiving the “you” is singular, focusing on Philemon himself. Although the letter involves a personal matter, it is not a private one. It also involves the twice mentioned “saints” (5, 7). What makes this thanksgiving strikingly unusual is what comes immediately after it. What follows it turns the thanksgiving into what Latin rhetoric calls captatio benevolentiae (“capturing your benevolence”) and we might call “laying it on thick.” It is like the fulsome praise of a person’s generosity that precedes a request for a loan. For a moment think of yourself in Philemon’s place.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I got back to work while I waited to learn when my interview would take place. With difficulty I got together a few books and I made up for the lack of textbooks that were out of print by studying more collateral readings and other compilations. In order not to be distracted during study, I gave up taking my temperature. It was a good idea: soon I experienced once more a long-forgotten happiness. With delight, I discovered that my mind had not gone to seed, in fact this period of lying fallow had done it good. When I tired of taking notes, I rushed around town to prepare for my trip. Owing to the confusion in government agencies and the suspicions that were a hangover from the state of siege, it was difficult to get travel orders. But I was optimistic and resolute. I experienced such a pleasure in wandering freely in the liberated city, without always having to fear a German dragnet, that I even discovered a liking for purposeless roaming, as though I were renewing acquaintance with my own city. In short, I was a new man. On the appointed day I was ushered into a big office, rather like a government department. The desk stood in the middle of a carpet of thick blue wool with black squares. Behind the desk, on this magnificent Gabes rug, was my little principal. The heads of Oriental agencies take great care to stage a princely setting and I was accustomed to this. But the frail silhouette of Monsieur Marouzeau, with his sparse short-cropped hair and his pants too short above his socks, seated here in the proud surroundings of his predecessor, this was indeed very funny. When he saw me, he rose in a very friendly manner and greeted me without any ceremony. “Good morning, Benillouche, take a chair...” He had read my letter. So I was resuming my studies! Very good! I was wise to do it immediately, and he could but encourage me heartily. He had always known I would succeed. Besides, he would help me as much as he could. I was grateful to him for his simplicity in still treating me as a former pupil; this allowed me more freedom. As he chattered on without coming to the object of my visit, I reminded him of it. “Ah, yes! You’ve made a fine mess of it, you know. I’m told that you’re no longer a government employee.” I did not quite see what he meant. I felt only that very bad news was coming. “You might have obtained the delay you asked for, and I would have helped you. But when I was shown that letter of yours I could obviously do nothing. The chief of personnel was final about it: you resigned and you were not thrown out like the rest of your colleagues. As a point of law...”