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 How God Became King (2012)

  It’s time, in the power and joy of the Spirit, to get back on track. FURTHER READING There are, of course, thousands of books about the four canonical gospels. What follows is an alphabetical selection, not quite at random, of those I have found stimulating over the past couple of decades. It is worth remembering that one is often most stimulated by works with which one disagrees. Within my own earlier writings, the background to the present book is mostly found in The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), especially Part IV. If I had to choose one of the following books to take to a desert island, it would almost certainly be Ben Meyer’s The Aims of Jesus, a neglected work with more wisdom and learning per page than many other scholars could provide per chapter. Adams, Edward. Parallel Lives of Jesus: Four Gospels, One Story. London: SPCK, 2011. Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008. Bauckham, Richard J. The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Bock, Darrell L. The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2006. Burridge, Richard A. What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Dunn, James D. G. Jesus Remembered. Vol. 1, Christianity in the Making. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. ———. Jesus, Paul and the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. Griffith-Jones, Robin. The Four Witnesses: The Rebel, the Rabbi, the Chonicler, and the Mystic. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000. Keener, Craig S. The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009. Koester, Helmut. From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Lemcio, Eugene E. The Past of Jesus in the Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991. McKnight, Scot. The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. Meyer, Ben F. The Aims of Jesus. 2nd ed. San Jose, CA: Pickwick, 2002. Stanton, Graham N. Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels. London: HarperCollins, 1995. ———. Jesus and Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Stuhlmacher, Peter, ed. The Gospel and the Gospels. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991. Swartley, Willard M. Israel’s Scripture Traditions and the Synoptic Gospels: Story Shaping Story. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. Theissen, Gerd. The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. SCRIPTURE INDEX The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use your ebook reader’s search tools.

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

  in Cumbria or Strathclyde, the son of a Christian, though unbaptized mother. He founded a college of Culdees or secular monks, and several churches. He wore a hair shirt and garment of goat-skin, lived on bread and vegetables, slept on a rocky couch and a stony pillow, like Jacob, rose in the night to sing psalms, recited in the morning the whole psalter in a cold stream, retired to desert places during Lent, living on roots, was con-crucified with Christ on Good Friday, watched before the tomb, and spent Easter in hilarity and joy. He converted more by his silence than his speech, caused a wolf and a stag to drag the plough, raised grain from a field sown with sand, kept the rain from wetting his garments, and performed other marvels which prove the faith or superstition of his biographers in the twelfth century. Jocelyn relates also, that Kentigern went seven times to Rome, and received sundry privileges and copies of the Bible from the Pope. There is, however, no trace of such visits in the works of Gregory I., who was more interested in the Saxon mission than the Scotch. Kentigern first established his episcopal chair in Holdelm (now Hoddam), afterwards in Glasghu (Glasgow). He met St. Columba, and exchanged with him his pastoral stave.76 He attained to the age of one hundred and eighty-five years, and died between A.D. 601 and 612 (probably 603).77 He is buried in the crypt of the cathedral of St. Mungo in Glasgow, the best preserved of mediaeval cathedrals in Scotland. St. Cuthbert (d. March 20, 687), whose life has been written by Bede, prior of the famous monastery of Mailros (Melrose), afterwards bishop of Lindisfarne, and last a hermit, is another legendary saint of Scotland, and a number of churches are traced to him or bear his name.78 § 18. St. Columba and the Monastery of Iona. John Jamieson (D. D.): An Historical Account of the Ancient Culdees of Iona, and of their Settlements in Scotland, England, and Ireland. Edinb., 1811 (p. 417). Montalembert: La Moines d’ Occident, Vol. III., pp. 99–332 (Paris, 1868). The Duke of Argyll: Iona. Second ed., London, 1871 (149 p *Adamnan: Life of St. Columba, Founder of Hy, ed. by William Reeves (Canon of Armagh), Edinburgh, 1874. (Originally printed for the Irish Archaeolog. Society and for the Bannatyne Club, Dublin, 1856). Skene: Celtic Scotland, II. 52 sqq. (Edinb., 1877). Comp. the Lit. in § 7. Saint Columba or Columbcille, (died June 9, 597) is the real apostle of Scotland. He is better known to us than Ninian and Kentigern. The account of Adamnan (624–704), the ninth abbot of Hy, was written a century after Columba’s death from authentic records and oral traditions, although it is a panegyric rather than a history. Later biographers have romanized him like St. Patrick. He was descended from one of the reigning families of Ireland and British Dalriada, and was born at, Gartan in the county of Donegal about A.D. 521.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  And Matthew makes it clear beyond cavil, to anyone thinking Jewishly in that period, that the moment had come with Jesus. Instead of years, he does it with generations, the generations of Israel’s entire history from Abraham to the present. All the generations to that point were fourteen times three, that is, six sevens—with Jesus we get the seventh seven. He is the jubilee in person. He is the one who will rescue Israel from its long-continued nightmare. “He,” says the angel to Joseph, “is the one who will save his people from their sins” (1:21). That, to any first-century Jew, didn’t just mean that individuals could turn to him and find personal forgiveness, though that would obviously be true as well. Read Isaiah 40 and Lamentations 4 again and see. Exile is the payment for sin, so forgiveness of sin means the end of exile. If you have received a royal pardon, you get out of jail free. The time has come. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from YHWH’s hand double for all her sins. (Isa. 40:1–2) The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished, he will keep you in exile no longer; but your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish, he will uncover your sins. (Lam. 4:22) This is perhaps the most important point to make, because it’s one of the hardest for people today to grasp. We can just about take on board the idea, which Matthew also emphasizes, that the life of Jesus recapitulates key elements in the earlier story of Israel. For a moment, as Jesus stands on the mountain giving the famous sermon, he is Moses. For a moment, answering his critics about his actions on the sabbath, he is David. For a moment, as he calls and names the twelve disciples, he is perhaps Jacob, bringing the twelve patriarchs into the world. For a moment, healing the sick and raising the dead, he is Elijah or Elisha. And so on. In the transfiguration he actually meets Moses and Elijah.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Tomorrow she would drop me into the water, but maybe the water was only her lap. What if I would only be dropping to a warmer, deeper embrace? I moved against him again and again. As I moved, I imagined us beside a giant underwater sand castle. The walls of the castle were made of coral and sea crystals of all colors, textures, and sizes: peach, silver, pastel mint, cyan pieces embedded in translucent white chunks, big slabs made of thousands of tiny sparkling dark-green crystals, rusted gold rocks, transparent indigo pyramids, rosy sea glass, neon-orange honeycombs of coral. The castle had tall turrets and spires, and Theo and I were beside it, preparing to enter. But then I began to come and, as I did, the castle melted slowly to the ground. He and I clung together as the castle vanished, eclipsed by a wave of pleasure, disappearing from my inner vision. I didn’t stop moving until I rode over the peak of that orgasm. If anyone had looked at the rocks they would have seen a woman, thirty-eight years old, hopefully a little younger-looking, writhing against what looked like a large fish. Or maybe they would have seen her just riding the air. I wasn’t sure which was crazier. — When I got back to the house Steve was awake at the kitchen table, eating cereal, wearing a pair of blue striped pajamas, hairs sticking out from his balding head. I was drenched with sea spray and grime. He looked at me sternly. “Late-night swim?” he asked. “Just a beach walk,” I said. “I don’t know what went on while we were gone,” he said calmly. “But why is it that every time you come here, disaster strikes?” “Don’t worry, I’m leaving tomorrow night,” I said. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not telling you to leave. I only mean—your sister just wants to be good to you. She only wants you to be happy.” “I know.” “But you can’t not make a mess.” “I guess I can’t.” “If it were up to me, we would have hired a dog sitter. But Annika wanted to give you the time here. You know she’d do anything for you.” “Would she?” I asked. “Yes!” he said, as though it were crazy that I didn’t know. But the truth was, I didn’t. “Whose blood is that? What happened?” he asked, pointing to the sofa. He had turned over the pillows. “It’s—” But just as I was about to answer, he cut me off. “No, you know what? I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know.” “Okay,” I said. “But it’s my blood.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Luke, telling the story, is keen that we should not miss the point. The one-time, unrepeatable moment will nevertheless serve as a paradigm, a template, for all subsequent Christian experience. He is telling the story of Jesus as the story of the launching of God’s renewed people. The two disciples, in their excited astonishment, at once discuss the way in which this new exposition of the Bible caused their hearts to burn inside them, sending them back to Jerusalem to tell the others that he had been “known to them in the breaking of the bread” (21:35). A glance ahead at Acts 2:42 (where Luke highlights the marks of the church as “the teaching of the apostles and the common life, the breaking of bread and the prayers”) will confirm what we had already guessed. Luke, telling the story of the Emmaus road from one point of view as a unique moment of extraordinary joy and revelation, is telling it from another point of view in such a way as to say that this resurrection appearance of Jesus sets the pattern for the way in which he will be known from now on. Again and again, he will come to surprise, comfort, and commission his puzzled and anxious followers through the opening of the scriptures and the breaking of the bread. Luke is telling the story of Jesus in such a way that his hearers are bound to reflect on these as the central features of the life of the community that celebrates Jesus as its risen Messiah and Lord. When we ponder this, and the many other moments in all four gospels that have the same kind of effect, we realize that the scholars’ instincts were in this way right on target: the four gospels were never meant as “historical reminiscence” for its own sake. Just because we are (in my view) right to insist that, in supporting and sustaining the life of the early church, the gospels are precisely telling the story of Jesus, we are not for that reason to swing the other way and imagine that their writers are not aware, constantly, of their task of writing foundational documents for God’s renewed people. The gospels are, and were written to be, fresh tellings of the story of Jesus designed to be the charter of the community of Jesus’s first followers and those who, through their witness, then and subsequently, have joined in and have learned to hear, see, and know Jesus in word and sacrament.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel! “And now, what with all this, it’s the third day since it happened. But some women from our group have astonished us. They went to his tomb very early this morning, and didn’t find his body. They came back saying they’d seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of the folk with us went off to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him .” “You are so senseless!” he said to them. “So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!” So he began with Moses, and with all the prophets, and explained to them the things about himself throughout the whole Bible. They drew near to the village where they were heading. Jesus gave the impression that he was going further, but they urged him strongly not to. “Stay with us,” they said. “It’s nearly evening; the day is almost gone.” And he went in to stay with them. As he was sitting at table with them he took the bread and gave thanks. He broke it and gave it to them. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Do you remember how our hearts were burning inside us, as he talked to us on the road, as he opened up the Bible for us?” And they got up then and there and went back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven, and the people with them, gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord really has been raised! He’s appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (24:13–35) The story is full of echoes. Think, for instance, of Mary and Joseph looking for Jesus in the Temple and finally finding him about his father’s business (2:41–52). “Didn’t you know,” says the twelve-year-old boy, “that I would have to be getting involved with my father’s work?” (2:49). This sense of what had to happen, of Jesus’s sense of a purpose to be fulfilled, is exactly echoed in his words to the two sad and puzzled disciples on the way to Emmaus: “Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!” (24:26). But the echoes go much farther back as well.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now when they climbed the long hill to the town of old Orotava on their way to the mountains, they would pause to examine certain flowers minutely, or to stare down the narrow, shadowy bystreets. And when they had reached the cool upland places, and their mules were loosed and placidly grazing, they would sit hand in hand looking out at the Peak, trying to impress such pictures on their minds, because all things pass and they wished to remember. The goat-bells would break the lovely stillness, together with the greater stillness of their dreaming. But the sound of the bells would be lovely also, a part of their dreaming, a part of the stillness; for all things would seem to be welded together, to be one, even as they two were now one. They no longer felt desolate, hungry outcasts; unloved and unwanted, despised of the world. They were lovers who walked in the vineyard of life, plucking the warm, sweet fruits of that vineyard. Love had lifted them up as on wings of fire, had made them courageous, invincible, enduring. Nothing could be lacking to those who loved—the very earth gave of her fullest bounty. The earth seemed to come alive in response to the touch of their healthful and eager bodies—nothing could be lacking to those who loved. And thus in a cloud of illusion and glory, sped the last enchanted days at Orotava. BOOK FIVE CHAPTER 40 1 E arly in April Stephen and Mary returned to the house in Paris. This second home-coming seemed wonderfully sweet by reason of its peaceful and happy completeness, so that they turned to smile at each other as they passed through the door, and Stephen said very softly: ‘Welcome home, Mary.’ And now for the first time the old house was home. Mary went quickly from room to room humming a little tune as she did so, feeling that she saw with a new understanding the inanimate objects which filled those rooms—were they not Stephen’s? Every now and again she must pause to touch them because they were Stephen’s. Then she turned and went into Stephen’s bedroom; not timidly, dreading to be unwelcome, but quite without fear or restraint or shyness, and this gave her a warm little glow of pleasure. Stephen was busily grooming her hair with a couple of brushes that had been dipped in water. The water had darkened her hair in patches, but had deepened the wide wave above her forehead. Seeing Mary in the glass she did not turn round, but just smiled for a moment at their two reflections. Mary sat down in an arm-chair and watched her, noticing the strong, thin line of her thighs; noticing too the curve of her breasts—slight and compact, of a certain beauty.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Many of the guests at the Florence were English, and not a few scraped an acquaintance with Stephen, since nothing appears to succeed like success in a world that is principally made up of failure. The sight of her book left about in the lounge, or being devoured by some engrossed reader, would make Stephen feel almost childishly happy; she would point the phenomenon out to Mary. ‘Look,’ she would whisper, ‘that man’s reading my book!’ For the child is never far to seek in the author. Some of their acquaintances were country folk and she found that she was in sympathy with them. Their quiet and painstaking outlook on life, their love of the soil, their care for their homes, their traditions were after all a part of herself, bequeathed to her by the founders of Morton. It gave her a very deep sense of pleasure to see Mary accepted and made to feel welcome by these grey-haired women and gentlemanly men; very seemly and fitting it appeared to Stephen. And now, since to each of us come moments of respite when the mind refuses to face its problems, she resolutely thrust aside her misgivings, those misgivings that whispered: ‘Supposing they knew—do you think they’d be so friendly to Mary?’ Of all those who sought them out that summer, the most cordial were Lady Massey and her daughter. Lady Massey was a delicate, elderly woman who, in spite of poor health and encroaching years, was untiring in her search for amusement—it amused her to make friends with celebrated people. She was restless, self-indulgent and not over sincere, a creature of whims and ephemeral fancies; yet for Stephen and Mary she appeared to evince a liking which was more than just on the surface. She would ask them up to her sitting-room, would want them to sit with her in the garden, and would sometimes insist upon communal meals, inviting them to dine at her table. Agnes, the daughter, a jolly, red-haired girl, had taken an immediate fancy to Mary, and their friendship ripened with celerity, as is often the way during idle summers. As for Lady Massey she petted Mary, and mothered her as though she were a child, and soon she was mothering Stephen also. She would say: ‘I seem to have found two new children,’ and Stephen, who was in the mood to feel touched, grew quite attached to this ageing woman. Agnes was engaged to a Colonel Fitzmaurice who would probably join them that autumn in Paris. If he did so they must all foregather at once, she insisted—he greatly admired Stephen’s book and had written that he was longing to meet her.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Finally, when even my head feels like it’s detached from my body and is gently floating in space, I let out an ecstatic sigh, arch back and then collapse forward onto him. I am still, again. Now my other favorite part: I take his hand, place it over my pounding heart, and then I put my hand over his. We stay like this, hand over hand over heart, until my breath calms and I become aware again of where I am. I allow myself these few moments to revel in what feels like an epiphany in my body before turning my attention back to him. He likes to wait to come until I have and the more times I can orgasm before he does, the happier he is, but I have become much more interested in the quality of my orgasms than the quantity. The ones that move up my body and consume it in its entirety – those are the ones I want, not just the ones in which I can feel the release but I’m otherwise largely unmoved. These bodily orgasms are life-affirming and transporting to the degree that when I open my eyes, I am often shocked to find myself in #6’s room or in my own bed with my head hanging off the side across from where I thought I was. I appreciate that he wants to please me all the time, but I also want to please him. I stand up and reach down for his hand, ready to leave the now-chilly water. We quickly pat ourselves dry and land dripping on my bed. I straddle him again and kiss his inner thighs, then move my tongue up the shaft of his penis and flick my tongue against the head, which is a recent trick I’ve picked up from Cosmopolitan magazine. “You’re teasing me again,” he says and I laugh, but – and here’s where a blow job really comes in handy – I don’t have to say anything because my mouth is full and I can’t talk! One of the surprises of sex with #6 is that it’s not linear, it’s not just a means to an end. He loves the process and sometimes wears himself out before he can come; whereas I worry that makes the sex a failure, he doesn’t judge it by this one set of criteria. I am such a goal-oriented person, so have to adjust my thinking: if an orgasm is not the goal, then what is? Touch, words, sensuality, exploration, intimacy, vulnerability. I am learning that there is no bottom line in sex as I thought there was. “You make me crazy, Laura,” he says, as I climb on top of him, his rhythm becoming more persistent until he takes in a deep breath and pulses inside of me. “Thank you,” he says, when we have quieted down.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  All that’s missing is the worry that I will be found out by my parents in their bedroom two flights up from the basement and the nubby wool of the plaid sofa. Being intimate with Jack is surprising in all the best ways: fun, sensual, even transporting. It is liberating to give up control and stop dictating what end of the spectrum between making love and fucking our intercourse will be. The fact that he doesn’t know me and thus has no expectation of how my body will respond allows me to be whoever I want to be sexually at this moment in time. I had worried that I would miss Michael like a stabbing pain during whatever my first encounter would be, but having shed self-consciousness and assumptions of who I am once my clothes come off is profoundly freeing, giving me a reprieve from the sexual identity I steadfastly adhered to over the course of almost three decades with Michael. As Jack works his way back up my body, he places one hand on my stomach and reaches the other hand up to gently place his palm on one of my nipples. His touch on my stomach is the one that feels decidedly intimate; I’ve always equated arousing touches with private parts of the body that are reserved for sex, but his interest in the more mundane parts of my body – my calves, thighs, stomach – enthralls me. “You’re in great shape,” he says. “It’s hard to believe you have three kids.” “Thank you,” I say. “But yes, they’re all mine. I’ve got some stretching and sagging to prove it.” Immediately I regret saying this: learn just to say thank you , I think for the second time tonight. If he’s not noticing where I’ve lost my elasticity, it’s not my job to draw a map for him. He playfully squeezes my arm muscles, admiring them. I feel aglow from these compliments. He’s not saying that I’m lithe or I’m voluptuous, words I associate with sexiness – he’s saying I’m strong. I know that no one can create strength in another person and that you can’t fake strength, which means I can take full credit for this aspect of myself. I realize that’s exactly what I want – to be a little badass, a little unexpected, willing and able to take care of myself. He reaches over for the condom that he had earlier placed on the nightstand, but I catch his forearm and say, “Wait.” I roll over so that I am straddling him and I put my hands on his bare, buff chest. His skin is soft and smooth, not a hair in sight. I take my index finger and trace the tattoo on his left bicep. It’s the size of my fist, a large bird with Latin words underneath. “What does this mean?” I ask. “It’s a long story. I got it during a stint in the military a long time ago,” he says.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  “What’s the difference if the woman is single or not?” “I would never date a woman with a dog, that’s all I’m saying,” he says with a bemused smile. This strikes me as an odd and arguably offensive comment, but the expression on his face indicates that he’s overstating for comic effect. He changes the subject and asks me about my involvement in the PTA, commenting that I am different from what he would expect from a PTA mom, that I look like the fantasy version of a PTA mom, not like the ones he’s seen. “Oh, I don’t know about that. The PTA moms I know look a lot like me. Maybe you go to the wrong PTA meetings,” I say. We return to the spot on the river where we started our walk and turn back onto the city streets so he can walk me to the subway. A block from the river, as we wait for the light to change at a busy intersection, he turns toward me, takes off his sunglasses and leans forward to kiss me. I smile when he pulls back and nod toward the light that has changed. “Sorry,” he says, smiling. “I’ve been trying to find the right moment to do that since we got to the river but you didn’t stop talking long enough to give me a chance. Something about that corner seemed just right.” We keep walking and when we pass by the pool where he teaches, we go inside so I can use the restroom before I get on the train. When I emerge, he is looking down at his phone, but he lifts his head and studies me for a minute as I approach before looking back down at his phone. “You know, you’re prettier in person than in your pictures,” he says. Not for the first time today, I find his forthrightness both refreshing and disarming. “Um, thank you?” I respond. At the subway, he stands with his hands deep inside the pockets of his athletic shorts, shifting from foot to foot, asking if we can go on a proper date, and we make a plan for the following evening in Long Island. I’m not thrilled to have to drive to a date, but I like the idea of how anonymous I will be once I am there. He puts his hands on my hips and pulls me in for a longer kiss and then I hold up a hand to wave goodbye, skipping down the subway steps. CHAPTER 22Sunshine and RosesThat evening, I don a long, silky royal blue strapless dress, tie my humidified mane of hair into a loose knot at my neck, and hail a cab to meet Karl, who has reserved a table at a jazz club. I like that he took it upon himself to make a plan without any tentative back-and-forth conversation. From his texts, he seems intelligent and well-traveled with a taste for expensive restaurants.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  When I got back to the house I swore I could still feel his eyes on me. I looked back one more time, but he was gone. I didn’t see him anywhere in the waves. I felt a creepy feeling go up my spine and was glad the dog was waiting for me. “Hi, Domi,” I said, sliding open the glass door. But Dominic didn’t come bounding toward me as usual. Instead he sniffed the air repeatedly and kept his distance. His ears went flat and he growled. I had never seen him like that before and it made me wonder if I was haunted now. He continued to growl, but the sound was cute to me. He was trying to be like a dog in the wild or a wolf. Did dogs still live in the wild? Did anything? Was there any wildness anywhere, or was all of it inhabited by tech dudes now, juice places and blow-dry bars? Had anything been left undiscovered, or did the Internet snatch it all up the moment it existed? Nothing remained untouched. Or maybe some things weren’t completely mapped out yet and there was still a little room for the mystery. Maybe some strange and beautiful boy could still pop out of the sea and surprise you. “Dominic, no,” I said. “Absolutely not. We don’t growl. We never growl at Mama.” Suddenly, I felt giddy and silly. No longer scared, not even at all. I wondered if the gods or maybe the universe had actually heard my amethyst prayer. Everything was so strange. Life was okay, though. Life was maybe even kind of cute. You simply had to expect nothing from it. That’s what the Stoics believed—Zeno and Seneca, those ancient fuckers. The trick, I now agreed, was you had to remain unattached to any future wishes or vision. You had to never get attached to any other person or expect anything good to come to you, and that was how you fell in love with life and how maybe certain fun and good things could happen to you. They only happened as long as you didn’t need anything from anyone. As long as you didn’t take anything from anyone or give any part of yourself away to another person, but you just sort of met the other person in space, good things could happen. You had to fall in love with quiet first.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I had been so afraid of dying, but suddenly I knew that death would be okay and beautiful—and even dying would be okay, because there was a heaven, sort of. Maybe it was not the way religious people imagined it, but I saw it as some kind of luminous womb to which we would all return. And because we would return there, in a way we were already there. I started to cry. All the pain and fear of the past nine months poured out of me. Theo stroked the back of my head with his hand. I didn’t want to ever move. I was floating above myself and I looked down and saw us there on the rock. I wondered how I had been led to this. He pulled back. He didn’t ask why I was crying. “It’s hard, right?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Life is so oppressive and scary and…oppressive, and the whole time the ocean is right here. It’s like I can’t believe it’s been there this whole time. I feel like I have a new love for it or something.” “Yes,” he said. “I understand.” “Do you want to kiss?” I asked. “I’m not sure if that is how you feel about me? Or maybe you just like me as a friend. I’m not sure.” “Yes,” he said. “I want to kiss you very much.” We kissed on the lips, gently at first. His eyelashes were thick and black and he tasted like the ocean. His lips were chapped from the saltwater, I guess, and it felt like I was kissing a flower. I licked each of them. Then he opened his mouth a little wider and I lightly put my tongue in the front of his mouth. He began to suck on my tongue and I felt that my tongue and the rest of me would go through him, like I was going to be pulled inside him as though he were a big fish. I got dizzy. I took his tongue into my mouth and I felt that I was circling through his body, but also through an entire life cycle of some sort. I felt that I was spinning forward. He kissed my forehead and I laid my head back on his shoulder. “So how old are you anyway?” I asked. “I’m not a teenager,” he said. “If that’s what you’re wondering.” “Will you tell me something about you? About what you were like as a teenager?” “Tomorrow,” he said. “Will you come back tomorrow? I have to go now.” I wanted to ask where. Where could he possibly have to go? We had barely begun kissing.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  What joy it brings me to cede decision-making to another person, even if it is something as inconsequential as where and on what we’ll dine! There are so many decisions to be made every day, for myself and my marriage and my kids, so the way he takes over with a menu brings me a momentary reprieve. I am pleasantly surprised when he remembers all the particulars of my culinary preferences – to be listened to like this, to actually be heard and for someone to care about what I like and don’t like, feels like a true wonder. There’s something old school about him that I find utterly appealing: picking me up for our dates, holding doors for me, helping me with my jacket, ordering for me, insisting on paying the bill as if my even reaching for my wallet offends him. Being treated well, being doted on, having someone make me feel exceptional – a quiet, hopeful part of me dares to believe that maybe I deserve this. Once again, our conversation comes easily and ranges from the mundane to the difficulties of our marriages to the challenges of our childhoods. As dinner continues, we start leaning closer to each other, touching each other’s arms to emphasize a point, and when he returns from the restroom, he approaches from behind so that I don’t see him coming and kisses me on the nape of my neck. I take in a quick, audible breath, my heart quickening. He sits down next to me and continues the conversation without skipping a beat. After he pays the bill, he looks up at me, asking intently, “Shall we go to the jazz club as planned or do you want to go home?” “I think we should go home now,” I say, meeting his gaze. It turns out that the correct subway is about ten steps from the restaurant, and also that this restaurant is not the one he intended to take me to – thus the confusion. We chat as the train barrels downtown, but the tension between us is palpable. I am curious to see how this well-mannered, courteous man will devour me, which is all that I am hoping will happen when we get back to his apartment. He lets his fingers brush against mine as we ride the elevator upstairs, but otherwise maintains a gentlemanly distance. I slip out of my shoes at the door and take my jacket off so that I am down to my skinny jeans and a ruffly silk blouse with spaghetti straps that are easy to slip off. We settle on the couch for a moment, in the same spots as last Saturday night, but it only takes a moment for him to breach the space between us. He kisses me with passion and a lot of tongue so that I pull back a little to get my bearings.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Then one of them, Cleopas by name, answered him. “You must be the only person around Jerusalem,” he said, “who doesn’t know what’s been going on there these last few days.” “What things?” he asked. “To do with Jesus of Nazareth,” they said to him. “He was a prophet. He acted with power and he spoke with power, before God and all the people. Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel! “And now, what with all this, it’s the third day since it happened. But some women from our group have astonished us. They went to his tomb very early this morning, and didn’t find his body. They came back saying they’d seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of the folk with us went off to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.” “You are so senseless!” he said to them. “So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!” So he began with Moses, and with all the prophets, and explained to them the things about himself throughout the whole Bible. They drew near to the village where they were heading. Jesus gave the impression that he was going further, but they urged him strongly not to. “Stay with us,” they said. “It’s nearly evening; the day is almost gone.” And he went in to stay with them. As he was sitting at table with them he took the bread and gave thanks. He broke it and gave it to them. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Do you remember how our hearts were burning inside us, as he talked to us on the road, as he opened up the Bible for us?” And they got up then and there and went back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven, and the people with them, gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord really has been raised! He’s appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. (24:13–35) The story is full of echoes.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I roll off him and head to the bathroom to clean up. When I emerge, I note that he has assembled the clothes that had been thrown with abandon in various parts of the apartment and neatly arranged them on his bed. He pulls on sweatpants while I put my jeans and flouncy top back on. “You don’t have to get dressed. I’m going to walk home, it’ll take me ten minutes,” I say. “No, chivalry is not dead, I’ll put you in a taxi,” he says. I shake my head and insist that I am fine to walk home on my own. He kisses me goodbye, asking me to text when I arrive home, which I do exactly ten minutes later. I also text Lauren to let her know I’m home. “How was it? Please tell me you’re back in action,” she writes. “Indeed I am. Sex was great. He’s very oral and very verbal and I’m not sure how I feel about either, but I do like him so we’ll see.” * Like clockwork, he starts to text me every night around 10 asking, “You awake?” and I write back, “Indeed I am” or “Why yes, how lovely to hear from you,” and within seconds he calls and we talk about our days and kids, articles we’ve read and what we cooked for dinner. He listens with exceedingly fine attention, following up on previous comments I’ve made or issues that have concerned me. On Wednesday nights, he casually asks what my plans are for the weekend and we book Saturday night dates. I love that he takes the game-playing and guessing out of dating. He makes it clear that he wants to talk to me and see me, so that I look forward to getting that daily “You awake?” text without having to worry whether or not it will come. If he hasn’t made a reservation for dinner in advance, he has come up with ideas and we ride the subway from borough to borough on Saturday nights, eating Greek food in Astoria, Russian food in Brighton Beach, and Malaysian food in Chinatown. We are both adventurous eaters who prefer an authentic ethnic meal at a casual dive to a formal, upscale restaurant – though sometimes he takes me to those too. One night he asks if he can cook for me and I arrive at his apartment to find the small table for two set with linen napkins, candles, even a crystal pitcher of water. I try to help in the kitchen but he says no, I should pour myself a glass of wine and keep him company while he cooks. He is apologetic about his cramped kitchen with its peeling counters and ’70s stove, but I tell him he could be cooking in a cave and I would be equally enchanted.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I haven’t hung myself from any silk scarves. So I guess that’s progress?” “Good,” I said. “And you?” “I’ve done it again,” I said. “I’ve fallen hard. Only this time I think it’s real.” “The surfer?” asked Claire. She sounded skeptical, and I wondered what right she had to be skeptical when she had just been in a bottomless pit. “Swimmer,” I said. “All we do is talk. Or all we did was talk until last night when he went down on me for forty-five minutes.” “Nooooo,” she said. “Yes. At least forty-five. What does it mean when a boy goes down on you for forty-five minutes? I feel like it has to be love. Like, I feel like he loves me.” “Either he loves you or he loves pussy. One of the two.” I laughed. “No, he doesn’t seem like that. He isn’t a pussy hound. Well, I can’t tell. I mean, I think he is gorgeous, but he isn’t typically gorgeous. But if I think he is gorgeous then probably a million others do too.” “Usually that’s the way it works,” she said. “Still, I’m glad you’re getting shagged properly. It’s important. I think it’s very important that you be well fucked.” “We haven’t fucked yet,” I said. “I haven’t even seen his dick.” “Oh really?” she said. “Then it could be love on his part.” “That’s what I think,” I said. “But what about you?” “I’m smitten,” I said. “Of course you are. It’s especially intoxicating when there is an expiration date. Aren’t you going back to Phoenix in a month?” “Six weeks,” I said. “Well, there you go. That makes it perfect! A summer romance.” “But what if it’s more? He doesn’t know I’m leaving,” I said. “But you do,” she said. I thought about this. All I imagined I wanted was the love of someone beautiful like Theo—the kind of love where it stayed young and glittery and never got old. One way to keep it shiny was to have an end date on it. I’d thought it was Jamie who didn’t want to commit. But the group was right—it was me who was really the unavailable one. I was picking people with whom I couldn’t have that ultimate intimacy: Jamie, who couldn’t make enough room for me in his life, and now these younger men. Their age made it safe to pine for them, to torture myself, because it ensured I would always be pushing against some sort of friction, an inability to really be together. And no matter what any of them felt for me, I would never have to see it grow old, because I would be returning to Phoenix. Even in the case of Theo, where he seemed to actually like me, I would be leaving. I was in control of the way things would end.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Another example of this phenomenon is the way that feminine self-presentation is often framed as though it solely exists to entice or attract men. This assumption denies any possibility that those who are feminine might wish to adorn themselves for their own benefit or pleasure. After all, feminine self-presentation tends to highly correlate with a more general desire to surround oneself with beautiful or aesthetically pleasing objects and materials—whether in decorating one’s home or adorning one’s body. The idea that this trait exists primarily to pique men’s interest seems unlikely to me, as most straight men I know seem rather disinterested in the way their homes are decorated, and often are completely oblivious when their female partners don new outfits or hairstyles. It’s safe to say that most heterosexual men are far more interested in women’s physical bodies than they are in the clothing and accessories that cover them. The idea that feminine self-presentation exists primarily to attract heterosexual men is further undermined by the fact that femme dykes dress in a feminine manner despite their disinterest in attracting men. And some gay men also dress very femininely despite the fact that the gay male community has a history of idolizing and fetishizing hypermasculine images and bodies rather than feminine ones. As someone who’s not interested in attracting men, I often enjoy dressing femininely; I simply feel more alive and self-empowered when I do. Whenever people (male or otherwise) assume that women who dress in a feminine manner do so in order to elicit male attention, it always sounds like a slightly toned-down version of that arrogant claim that women who dress provocatively are somehow asking to be raped. Clearly, it’s the idea that feminine self-presentation exists for men’s benefit that is oppressive to women, not the acts of self-presentation themselves. The issue of feminine self-presentation also brings up another way in which feminine traits are undermined: They are often cast as being dependent on masculinity and maleness. This sentiment seems to be projected onto virtually all aspects of femaleness and femininity. It can be seen in the way men are often cast as the “protectors” of women, either because they are typically physically stronger or because women are seen as being “emotionally frail.” The stereotypic and mythic image of the damsel in distress who requires a masculine man to save her seems to impart an air of helplessness, fragility, and passivity onto virtually all aspects of femininity and female sexuality. Such connotations seem to heavily inform both the materiality and symbolism of certain feminine fashions. They also help foster a predator/prey mentality regarding sexuality, where femininity becomes conflated with being sexually receptive and passive, while masculinity is synonymous with penetration and sexual aggressiveness.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  At the top of the tree swung the little wax Christ-child in His spangled nightgown with gold and blue ribbons; and the little wax Christ-child bent downwards and sideways because, although small, He was rather heavy—or, as Stephen had thought when she too had been small, because He was trying to look for His presents. In the morning they all went to church in the village, and the church smelt of coldness and freshly bruised greenstuff—of the laurel and holly and pungent pine branches, that wreathed the oak pulpit and framed the altar; and the anxious-faced eagle who must carry the Scriptures on his wings, he too was looking quite festive. Very redolent of England it was, that small church, with its apple-cheeked choirboys in newly washed garments; with its young Oxford parson who in summer played cricket to the glory of God and the good of the county; with its trim congregation of neighbouring gentry who had recently purchased an excellent organ, so that now they could hear the opening bars of the hymns with a feeling of self-satisfaction, but with something else too that came nearer to Heaven, because of those lovely old songs of Christmas. The choir raised their sexless, untroubled voices: ‘While shepherds watched their flocks . . .’ sang the choir; and Anna’s soft mezzo mingled and blended with her husband’s deep boom and Puddle’s soprano. Then Stephen sang too for the sheer joy of singing, though her voice at best was inclined to be husky: ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night,’ carolled Stephen—for some reason thinking of Raftery . After church the habitual Christmas greetings: ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Same to you, many of them!’ Then home to Morton and the large mid-day dinner—turkey, plum pudding with its crisp brandy butter, and the mince-pies that invariably gave Puddle indigestion. Then dessert with all sorts of sweet fruits out of boxes, crystallized fruits that made your hands sticky, together with fruit from the Morton green-houses; and from somewhere that no one could ever remember, the elegant miniature Lady-apples that you ate skins and all in two bites if you were greedy.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  He had now been in service for several years, having contracted rheumatic fever which had weakened his heart and made him unfit for the strenuous life of a fisher. Pauline, his wife, was considerably younger, and she it was who would reign in the kitchen, while their daughter Adèle, a girl of eighteen, would help both her parents and look after the housework. Adèle was as happy as a blackbird in springtime; she would often seem just on the verge of chirping. But Pauline had stood and watched the great storms gather over the sea while her men were out fishing; her father had lost his life through the sea as had also a brother, so Pauline smiled seldom. Dour she was, with a predilection for dwelling in detail on people’s misfortunes. As for Pierre, he was stolid, kind and pious, with the eyes of a man who has looked on vast spaces. His grey stubbly hair was cut short to his head en brosse, and he had an ungainly figure. When he walked he straddled a little as though he could never believe in a house without motion. He liked Stephen at once, which was very propitious, for one cannot buy the good-will of a Breton. Thus gradually chaos gave place to order, and on the morning of her twenty-seventh birthday, on Christmas Eve, Stephen moved into her home in the Rue Jacob on the old Rive Gauche, there to start her new life in Paris. 2 All alone in the brown and white salle à manger, Stephen and Puddle ate their Christmas dinner. And Puddle had bought a small Christmas tree and had trimmed it, then hung it with coloured candles. A little wax Christ-child bent downwards and sideways from His branch, as though He were looking for His presents—only now there were not any presents. Rather clumsily Stephen lit the candles as soon as the daylight had almost faded. Then she and Puddle stood and stared at the tree, but in silence, because they must both remember. But Pierre, who like all who have known the sea, was a child at heart, broke into loud exclamations. ‘Oh, comme c’est beau, l’arbre de Noël!’ he exclaimed, and he fetched the dour Pauline along from the kitchen, and she too exclaimed; then they both fetched Adèle and they all three exclaimed: ‘Comme c’est beau, l’arbre de Noël!’