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 Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 33—Freedom and the Law in Paul’s Letters 223 faith no longer require the supervision of the law because love itself includes an element of restraint. If you love someone, you restrain your own impulses and do what is needed for the well-being of the other. Freedom ‹ Galatians 3:28 is one of the most famous verses in the letter. Here, Paul says that in Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, nor is there male and female.” And now that these dividing lines are gone, everyone is free, as Paul put it, to live as a slave out of love. ‹ In Galatians 5:1, Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Then, a few verses later, he insists that freedom cannot be self-serving. In verse 13, he says that people are free to become slaves to one another. They are liberated in order to serve. ‹ Surprisingly, Paul is advocating a pattern of life that is not based on Jewish law, yet he finds it consistent with Jewish law in its deepest sense. Life in the new community does not follow traditional Jewish patterns, because it does not include being circumcised and keeping kosher. Yet Paul points out that the heart of Jewish law is to love your neighbor as yourself. That is what the message of Jesus moves people to do: It frees them to live out their love in service to others. ‹ For the Galatians, this would have been a paradigm shift. In the standard patterns of Greek culture, freedom and slavery were opposite categories. Yet in this letter, Paul brings the categories together. ● He says that the true signs of slavery are giving in to the forces that destroy community, and the real threat to freedom comes from such things as immorality, jealousy, and anger. Those traits do not express freedom. Instead, they show that people are held captive by their own desires. ● For Paul, true freedom is expressed in love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness, all of which promote community. That is the fruit of God’s Spirit, which frees people for love and service to others. For Paul, that illustrates what it means to live by faith.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 3—Abraham, Sarah, and the Promise 21 The Promise and Laughter ‹Chapters 17 and 18 again take up the problem of Abraham and Sarah’s childlessness. At the beginning of chapter 17, we are told that Abraham is now 99 years old and has been waiting for a child for almost 25 years. It seems audacious for God to keep repeating a promise that he has not fulfilled, yet he does so for more than half a chapter. He describes a glorious future in which Abraham’s many descendants will have a home in the land of Canaan. And he now refers to this as his covenant with Abraham. ‹As a sign of this covenant relationship, God says that all of Abraham’s male descendants should be circumcised on the eighth day after they are born. God then concludes his statement about circumcision by saying once again that Sarah will become the mother of many nations and kings. ‹At this point, Abraham simply laughs, because by now, the whole thing seems absurd. He is nearly 100 years old, and Sarah is almost 90. Abraham says that he’s content now that Hagar has given birth to Ishmael and God should let well enough alone. In the face of this laughter, God finally says he will take action. In just one more year, he says, Sarah will give birth. ‹The promise finally comes true in chapter 21, when Abraham and Sarah’s son is born. And the theme of this section is apparent in his name: Isaac, meaning “he laughs” in Hebrew. The point is that Abraham laughed, then Sarah laughed, and now, God gets the last laugh. At Isaac’s birth, Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.” In the book of Genesis, God is the bringer of laughter, giving a gift that moves beyond the delays of the past to a newfound delight in the present. The Promise and Ordeal ‹In Genesis 22, God tells Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. It’s a story that’s filled with contradictions. Up to this point, God has been the giver, but now he demands that Abraham give Isaac back as a burnt offering that would end Isaac’s life. Earlier, his promise had seemed impossible; now, his demand does. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 22 In a work called Fear and Trembling, the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard tried to probe the torment that Abraham experienced in a situation that could not be comprehended in standard categories.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  This was the season of Sukkoth, a festive time, and Ezra explained the law that commanded the Israelites to spend this sacred month in special ‘booths’ (sukkoth), in memory of their ancestors’ forty years in the wilderness. 5 At once, the people rushed into the hills to pick branches of olive, myrtle, pine and palm, and leafy shelters appeared all over the city. There was a carnival atmosphere, as the people assembled each evening to listen to Ezra’s exposition. Ezra had begun to craft a spiritual discipline based on a sacred text. The Torah had now been elevated above the other writings and, for the first time, was called ‘the law of Moses’. But, if it was simply read like any other text, the Torah could seem demanding and disconcerting. It must be heard in the contexts of rituals that separated it from ordinary life and put the audience in a different frame of mind. Because the people had begun to treat it differently, the Torah was becoming ‘sacred scripture’. Perhaps the most important element of this Torah spirituality was Ezra himself. 6 He was a priest, ‘a diligent scribe in the Torah of Moses’, and a guardian of tradition. 7 But he was also a new type of religious official: a scholar who ‘set his heart to investigate (li-drosh) the Torah of Yahweh and to do and teach law and ordinance in Israel’. 8 He was offering something different from the usual priestly instruction about ceremonial lore. The biblical author makes a point of telling us that ‘the hand of Yahweh rested upon him’ – a phrase traditionally used to describe the weight of inspiration that had descended on the prophets. 9 Before the exile, priests had been wont to ‘consult’ (li-drosh) Yahweh, by casting lots with the sacred objects known as Urim and Thummim. 10 The new seer was not a fortune teller but a scholar who could interpret the scriptures. The practice of midrash (exegesis) would always retain this sense of expectant inquiry. 11 Torah study was not an academic exercise but a spiritual quest. Yet Ezra’s reading had been prefaced by the threat of expulsion and seizure of property. It was followed by a more sombre assembly in the square in front of the temple, during which the people stood shivering as the torrential winter rains deluged the city and heard Ezra command them to send away their foreign wives. 12 Membership of Israel was now confined to the Golah and those who submitted to the Torah, the official law code of Judah.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  Just as En Sof devolved, exteriorized and constricted itself in the progressive emanation of the sefiroth, so too the Godhead expressed itself in the limited human words of the Torah. The kabbalists learned to explore the different levels of the Bible in the same way as they contemplated the layers of divinity. In the Zohar, the Torah was compared to a beautiful maiden, secluded in a palace, who had a secret lover. She knew that he was forever walking up and down the street outside her chamber in the hope of seeing her, so she opened a door to show him her face – just for a second – and then withdrew. Only her lover understood the significance of her fleeting appearance. This was the way Torah revealed herself to a mystic. First she gave him a sign; next she spoke with him ‘from behind the veil which she has hung before her words, so that they suit the manner of understanding in order that he may progress gradually’.44 Very slowly, the kabbalist progressed from one level of scripture to another – through the moral reflections of darash and the riddles and allegories of remez. The veils became thinner and less opaque, until at last, as he reached the culminating insight of sod, the beloved ‘stands disclosed, face to face with him, and holds converse with him concerning all of her secret mysteries, and all the secret ways which have been hidden in her heart from immemorial time’.45 The mystic must strip away the surface meaning of the Bible – all the stories, laws and genealogies – as a lover unveils his beloved and learns to recognize not only her body but her soul. People without understanding see only the narratives, the garment; those somewhat more penetrating see also the body. But the truly wise, those who serve the most high King and stand on Mount Sinai, pierce all the way through to the soul, to the true Torah, which is the root principle of all.46 Anybody who simply read the Bible literally ‘as a book presenting narratives and everyday matters’, had missed the point. There was nothing special about the literal Torah: anybody could write a better book – even the gentiles had produced greater works.47 Kabbalists combined their mystical meditations on scripture with vigils, fasts and constant self-examination. They had to live together in fellowship, repressing selfishness and egotism because anger entered into the psyche like an evil spirit and shattered the divine harmony of his soul. It was impossible to experience the unity of the sefiroth in such a divided state.48 The love of friends was fundamental to the ekstasis of Kabbalah. In the Zohar, one of the signs of a successful piece of exegesis is the cry of joy uttered by the interpreter’s colleagues when they have heard what they experience as divine truth or when the exegetes kiss one another before they resume their mystical journey.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  They saw visions, shook with wonder and awe, and experienced a rapturous transcendence that transformed the world that had seemed so cruel and alien. 36 This sense of unity and joy had to be translated into practical action because the Shekhinah could not live in a place of sorrow and pain. Sadness sprang from the forces of evil in the world, so the cultivation of happiness was essential to tikkun. To counterbalance the prevalence of Din , there must be no anger or aggression in the kabbalists’ heart, even for the goyim who had oppressed and dispossessed them. There were severe penances for faults that injured others: for sexual exploitation, malicious gossip, humiliating others and dishonouring parents. 37 Luria’s mythical rewriting of the creation story helped Jews to develop a spirit of joy and kindness at a time when they could have been overcome by rage and despair. The new discipline of sola scriptura was not able to do this for the Christians of Europe. Even after his great breakthrough, Luther remained terrified of death. He seemed constantly in a state of simmering rage: against the Pope, the Turks, Jews, women, rebellious peasants, scholastic philosophers and every single one of his theological opponents. He and Zwingli engaged in a furious controversy about the meaning of Christ’s words when he had instituted the Eucharist at the last supper, saying ‘This is my body’. 38 Calvin was appalled by the anger that had clouded the minds of the two reformers and caused an unholy rift that could and should have been avoided: ‘Both parties failed altogether to have patience to listen to each other, in order to follow truth without passion, wherever it might be found,’ he concluded. ‘I deliberately venture to assert that, if their minds had not been partly exasperated by the extreme vehemence of the controversies, the disagreement was not so great that conciliation could easily have been achieved.’ 39 It was impossible for interpreters to agree on every single passage of the Bible; disputes must be conducted humbly and with an open mind. Yet Calvin himself did not always live up to these high principles, and was prepared to execute dissenters in his own church. The Protestant Reformation expressed many of the ideals of the new culture that was emerging in the West. Instead of being based on a surplus of agricultural produce, like every previous civilization, its economy would be based on the scientific and technological replication of resources and the constant reinvestment of capital. This society had to be productive, and Calvin’s theology would be used to support the work ethic.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The restoration of tikkun would also redeem the Bible. Kabbalists had long been aware of the flaws in their scriptures. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the God of the Hebrew Bible was one of the ‘faces’ (parzufim) of Adam Kadmon, primordial man, which was composed of six of the ‘lower’ sefiroth: Judgement (Din), Mercy, Compassion, Patience, Majesty and Stability. Originally they had been in perfect balance, but after the breaking of the vessels the destructive tendency of Din was no longer held in check by the other sefiroth. Dominated by Din, they became collectively Zeir Anpin, ‘the Impatient One’, the deity revealed in the post-lapsarian Torah. This was why the biblical God often appeared so cruel and irascible. Separated from the Shekhinah, his female counterpart, he was also irredeemably male. But there was optimism in this tragic myth. Where Luther felt that he could contribute nothing towards his own salvation, the kabbalists believed that they could transform the world, restore God to his true nature, and reform their scriptures. They did not deny their pain: indeed, the rituals of Safed were designed to help them to face it. They made night vigils, weeping and rubbing their faces in the dust, to identify their own exile with that of the Shekhinah. But Luria was adamant that there must be no wallowing. Kabbalists must work through their sorrow in a purposeful way until they achieved a measure of joy. The vigil always ended with a meditation on the final reunion of the Shekhinah with Zeir Anpin in which they imagined that their bodies had become an earthly shrine for the divine presence. They saw visions, shook with wonder and awe, and experienced a rapturous transcendence that transformed the world that had seemed so cruel and alien.36 This sense of unity and joy had to be translated into practical action because the Shekhinah could not live in a place of sorrow and pain. Sadness sprang from the forces of evil in the world, so the cultivation of happiness was essential to tikkun. To counterbalance the prevalence of Din, there must be no anger or aggression in the kabbalists’ heart, even for the goyim who had oppressed and dispossessed them. There were severe penances for faults that injured others: for sexual exploitation, malicious gossip, humiliating others and dishonouring parents.37 Luria’s mythical rewriting of the creation story helped Jews to develop a spirit of joy and kindness at a time when they could have been overcome by rage and despair.

• From The Bible: A Biography (2007)

  The Latin-speaking fathers of Western Europe and North Africa were more down to earth. It is significant that in the West, theoria came to mean a rational construct and dogma expressed everything that could be said about religion. This was a frightening time in the West, where the Roman empire was falling to the barbarian tribes from Germany and Eastern Europe. One of the most influential Western exegetes was Jerome (342–420), who was born in Dalmatia, studied literature and rhetoric in Rome and, fleeing the invading tribes, travelled in Antioch and Egypt before settling in Bethlehem where he founded a monastery. Jerome had initially been attracted to the allegorical hermeneutics of Alexandria, but as a gifted linguist, unique in his day for his mastery of both Greek and Hebrew, his chief contribution was his translation of the entire Bible into Latin. This was called the Vulgate (‘vernacular’) and it remained the standard text in Europe until the sixteenth century. At first Jerome, who had a great respect for what he called Hebraica veritas (‘the truth in Hebrew’), wanted to exclude the Apocrypha, books which had been excluded from the Canon by the rabbis, but at the request of his colleague Augustine he agreed to translate them. As a result of his work on the text, Jerome tended increasingly to concentrate in his commentaries on the Bible’s literal, historical sense. His friend Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa (354–430), had studied rhetoric and was at first disappointed in the Bible, which seemed inferior to the great Latin poets and orators. Yet the Bible played a crucial role in his conversion to Christianity after a long, painful struggle. At a moment of spiritual crisis, he had heard a child in the next garden singing a refrain: ‘tolle, lege’ (‘Pick it up and read it’) and he remembered that Antony had decided to embrace the monastic life after a reading from the gospel. In great excitement, he snatched up a copy of Paul’s epistles and read the first words that caught his eye: ‘no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.’58 In one of the first recorded ‘born-again’ conversions that would become a feature of Western Christianity, Augustine felt all his doubts fall away: ‘It was as if the light of steadfast trust poured into my heart, and all the shadows of hesitation fled away.’59

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Aunt Ruth would always smile when she saw me with my head pressed close to the radio. “Turn it up,” she’d say. “You an’t the only one likes a little music.” Sometimes she’d even start humming along. One weekend she got Earle to bring his record player over and we spent two days listening to her favorite songs. It turned out Aunt Ruth had a bunch of her own records in a box under her bed, an original Carter Family set, Patsy Montana singing “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” the Clinch Mountain Clan doing Hank Williams’s “Are You Walking and a-Talking for the Lord,” Roy Acuff’s “Wabash Cannonball,” and Roy Acuff singing “The Wreck on the Highway.” Her prize was a copy of Al Dexter and the Troopers singing “Pistol Packing Mama.” Every time the chorus came on, she’d pound her hand on the couch and sing along, waving at me to join in with her. We’d yell it out, “Pistol packing mama, lay that pistol down,” until we drove Uncle Travis out to sit on the bumper of his car with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He came in once to get a hunk of cheese for a meal and stopped in to complain. “You’re scaring off the dogs. Give it a break.” “Leave us alone, old man.” Aunt Ruth’s face was pink and happy. “We’re full of the spirit.” “But you sound terrible,” he told us sadly. “You just can’t sing.” “Oh, hell, Travis, we know.” Aunt Ruth looked too pleased with herself to take offense, but I was shocked. I thought we’d been sounding pretty good. “We know and we don’t care. It’s just so much fun. Why don’t you join us? Come on. Bone, put on that one Earle loaned us. You like Stonewall Jackson, don’t you, Travis?” “Oh, no. You an’t gonna get me started. I an’t no singing fool.” He backed out the door like he was afraid something was gonna jump on him. I shrugged and put on the Jackson song. If I squeezed my neck down tight I could almost mimic Stonewall’s deep sad sound. My voice came out rusty and dark as his, like a man singing up from the bottom of a coal mine. Aunt Ruth beamed at my attempt, laughing until she almost strangled. “Oh, God, Bone! Good God, you are something. You are just about more than I can stand.” She fell back weakly, her fingers still keeping time to the music. “Lord God, you are. You are. Lord God, play it again.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Not me,” Mama replied. “The only fire I got going here is the one burning up all these useless papers.” Aunt Ruth’s laughter spilled out of the phone and all over the kitchen. “Girl, there an’t a woman in town going to believe you didn’t set that fire yourself. Half the county’s gonna tell the other how you burned down that courthouse.” “Let them talk,” Mama said, and blew at the sparks flying up. “Talk won’t send me to jail. The sheriff and half his deputies know I was at work all morning, ‘cause I served them their coffee. I can’t get into any trouble just ‘cause I’m glad the goddam courthouse burned down.” She blew at the sparks again, whistling into the phone, and then laughed out loud. Halfway across town, Aunt Ruth balanced the phone against her neck, squeezed Granny’s shoulder, and laughed with her. Over at the mill, Aunt Alma looked out a window at the smoke billowing up downtown and had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling like a girl. In the outer yard back of the furnace works, Uncle Earle and Glen Waddell were moving iron and listening to the radio. Both of them grinned and looked up at each other at the same moment, then burst out laughing. It was almost as if everyone could hear each other, all over Greenville, laughing as the courthouse burned to the ground. 2 [image file=image_rsrc2PR.jpg] Greenville, South Carolina, in 1955 was the most beautiful place in the world. Black walnut trees dropped their green-black fuzzy bulbs on Aunt Ruth’s matted lawn, past where their knotty roots rose up out of the ground like the elbows and knees of dirty children suntanned dark and covered with scars. Weeping willows marched across the yard, following every wandering stream and ditch, their long whiplike fronds making tents that sheltered sweet-smelling beds of clover. Over at the house Aunt Raylene rented near the river, all the trees had been cut back and the scuppernong vines torn out. The clover grew in long sweeps of tiny white and yellow flowers that hid slender red-and-black-striped caterpillars and fat gray-black slugs—the ones Uncle Earle swore would draw fish to a hook even in a thunderstorm. But at Aunt Alma’s, over near the Eustis Highway, the landlord had locked down the spigots so that the kids wouldn’t cost him a fortune in water bills. Without the relief of a sprinkler or a hose the heat had burned up the grass, and the combined efforts of dogs and boys had reduced the narrow yard to a smoldering expanse of baked dirt and scattered rocks. “Yard’s like a hot griddle,” Aunt Alma complained. “Catches all the heat of that tin roof and concentrates it. You could just about cook on that ground.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  In the stillness of the early dawn, I would lean into the speaker and practice my secret ambition, cupping my fingers next to my chin and tilting my head back to whisper-sing so no one could hear me. I sang quietly along with everything, not just the gospel shows but the country hits that followed—Marty Robbins, Kitty Wells, Johnny Cash, Ruth Brown, Stonewall Jackson, June Carter, Johnny Horton. I sang so quietly I could barely hear my own voice, but in my imagination my song soared out strong and beautiful. Aunt Ruth would always smile when she saw me with my head pressed close to the radio. “Turn it up,” she’d say. “You an’t the only one likes a little music.” Sometimes she’d even start humming along. One weekend she got Earle to bring his record player over and we spent two days listening to her favorite songs. It turned out Aunt Ruth had a bunch of her own records in a box under her bed, an original Carter Family set, Patsy Montana singing “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” the Clinch Mountain Clan doing Hank Williams’s “Are You Walking and a-Talking for the Lord,” Roy Acuff’s “Wabash Cannonball,” and Roy Acuff singing “The Wreck on the Highway.” Her prize was a copy of Al Dexter and the Troopers singing “Pistol Packing Mama.” Every time the chorus came on, she’d pound her hand on the couch and sing along, waving at me to join in with her. We’d yell it out, “Pistol packing mama, lay that pistol down,” until we drove Uncle Travis out to sit on the bumper of his car with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He came in once to get a hunk of cheese for a meal and stopped in to complain. “You’re scaring off the dogs. Give it a break.” “Leave us alone, old man.” Aunt Ruth’s face was pink and happy. “We’re full of the spirit.” “But you sound terrible,” he told us sadly. “You just can’t sing.” “Oh, hell, Travis, we know.” Aunt Ruth looked too pleased with herself to take offense, but I was shocked. I thought we’d been sounding pretty good. “We know and we don’t care. It’s just so much fun. Why don’t you join us? Come on. Bone, put on that one Earle loaned us. You like Stonewall Jackson, don’t you, Travis?” “Oh, no. You an’t gonna get me started. I an’t no singing fool.” He backed out the door like he was afraid something was gonna jump on him. I shrugged and put on the Jackson song. If I squeezed my neck down tight I could almost mimic Stonewall’s deep sad sound. My voice came out rusty and dark as his, like a man singing up from the bottom of a coal mine. Aunt Ruth beamed at my attempt, laughing until she almost strangled. “Oh, God, Bone! Good God, you are something.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Shannon cackled her raspy laugh. “I’ll tell you. I couldn’t stand it when I was little, but I got used to it as I got older. Now I love it, people getting all pale and nervous when Mama starts talking about ‘Gaaaaad.’” The bookstore never made any money. It was Mrs. Pearl’s specialty sewing that was the backbone of the Pearl family income. Not surprisingly, she was famous for gilt-rendered scenes on the costumed sleeves and jackets of gospel performers. I got to where I could spot a Mrs. Pearl creation on the “Sunrise Gospel Hour” without even trying. She had a way of putting little curlicues at the base of the cross that was supposed to suggest grass, but for everyone who knew her, it was an artist’s signature. There was no doubt that Mrs. Pearl loved her work. “I feel like my whole life is a joy to the Lord,” she told me one day, surrounded by her sewing machines and racks of embroidery thread. She was knotting tassels on a red silk blouse for one of the younger Carter girls. “My sewing, Mr. Pearl’s work, the store, my precious daughter.” She glanced over at Shannon with a look that mirrored the close-up of Mary and the Baby in the center of the Illustrated Christian Bible that was always on special down at the store. “Everything that comes to us is a blessing or a test. That’s all you need to know in this life…just the certainty that God’s got His eye on you, that He knows what you are made of, what you need to grow on. Why, questioning’s a sin, it’s pointless. He will show you your path in His own good time. And long as I remember that, I’m fine. It’s like that song Mr. Pearl likes so much—’Jesus is the engineer, trust his hand on the throttle…’” Shannon giggled and waved me out on the porch. “Sometimes Mama needs a little hand on her throttle. You know what I mean?” She laughed and rolled her eyes like a broken kewpie doll. “Daddy has to throttle her back down to a human level or she’d take off like a helium angel.” I couldn’t help myself. I laughed back, remembering what Aunt Raylene had said about Mrs. Pearl—“If she’d been fucked right just once, she’d have never birthed that weird child.” I poked Shannon on one swollen arm, just in case she could read behind my eyes. “Your mama’s an ayn-gel,” I whispered hoarsely, mocking the way Mrs. Pearl would say it, “just an ayn-gel of Gaaaaad.” “Gaaaaad damn right,” Shannon whispered back, and I saw her hatred burning pink and hot in those eyes. It scared and fascinated me. Was it possible she could see the same thing in my eyes? Did I have that much hate in me? I looked back at Mrs. Pearl, humming around the pins in her mouth.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  For they found that the garden was liberally stocked with as many as a hundred different varieties of perfectly charming animals, to which they all started drawing each other’s attention. Here were some rabbits emerging from a warren, over there hares were running, elsewhere they could observe some deer lying on the ground, whilst in yet another place young fawns were grazing. And apart from these, they saw numerous harmless creatures of many other kinds, roaming about at leisure as though they were quite tame, all of which added greatly to their already considerable delight. When, however, they had wandered about the garden for some little time, sampling its various attractions, they instructed the servants to arrange the tables round the fountain, and then they sang half-a-dozen canzonets and danced several dances, after which, at the queen’s command, they all sat down to breakfast. Choice and dainty dishes, exquisitely prepared, were set before them in unhurried succession, and when they rose from table, merrier than when they had started, they turned once more to music, songs and dancing. Eventually, however, as the hottest part of the day was approaching, the queen decided that those who felt so inclined should take their siesta. Some of them accordingly retired, but the rest were so overwhelmed by the beauty of their surroundings that they remained where they were and whiled away their time in reading romances or playing chess or throwing dice whilst the others slept. But a little after nones, they all went and refreshed their faces in cool water before assembling, at the queen’s request, on the lawn near the fountain, where, having seated themselves in the customary manner, they began to await their turn to tell a story on the topic the queen had proposed. The first of their number to whom she entrusted this office was Filostrato, who began as follows:

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  Chapter Four. At lasttherecame thenotewhich I had been waiting for,fromHella, tellingmewhatdayand hour shewould arrive in Paris.Ididnottell this toGiovannibut walkedoutalonethatday and wentto thestationto meether. I had hopedthat when Isaw her something instantaneous, definitive, would havehappened in me,something to makeme knowwhere I should beand where I was.But nothing hap- pened.I recognizedher at once,before shesaw me. She was wearinggreen,herhair wasaht- tle shorter,and her facewastan,andshewore the same brilliantsmile. I loved her asmuch as ever and Istill did not knowhowmuch that was. Whenshe sawmeshe stood stock-still on the platform,herhandsclaspedinfront ofher, with her wide-legged, boyish stance,smiling. For amoment wesimplystared at each other. 'Eh Men/ she said, 'fembrassepasta ferameV Then I took her in myarmsand something GIOVANNI'S ROOM159 happenedthen. Iwas terribly glad tosee her. It reallyseemed,withHellain thecircle ofmy arms, tiiatmy armswerehome andIwas wel- coming herback there.Shefittedin my arms, shealwayshad, and theshock ofholding her caused me tofeelthatmyarmshad beenempty since she had beenaway. I held her very closeinthathigh, dark shed, witha greatconfusion of people all about us, justbeside thebreathingtrain. She smelled of thewindandtheseaand ofspace and I felt in hermarvellously living bodythe possibility of legitimate surrender. Thenshepulledaway. Hereyes were damp. Xetmelook at you,'she said.She held me at arm'slength,searching myface.'Ah. You look wonderful. I'mso happy tosee you again.' I kissedher lightlyon the nose and felt that I hadpassed thefirst inspection. I picked up her bagsand westartedtowards the exit. 'Did you haveagoodtrip? And howwas Seville? And how do you like bullfights? Did you meet any bullfighters? Tellmeeverything.' Shelaughed. 'Everything isavery tall order. I hadaterrible trip, I hatetrains, Iwish I'd flownbutI've been inone Spanish airplane and Iswore never, never again. Itrattled, my dear,in themiddle ofthe air justlike a model T Ford — ithadprobablybeen a model TFord atonetime —andIjust satthere, praying and drinking brandy. I was sureI'd never see land again.' We passedthrough the barrier, into the streets. Hella lookedabout delightedly at all of 160 James Baldwin it, the cafes, the self-contained people,thevio- lent snarlof the traffic,theblue-capedtraffic policeman and hiswhite, gleaming club. 'Com- ing back to Paris,' shesaid, after a moment, Is always so lovely, nomatter whereyou've been/ We got intoa caband our driver made awide, reckless circle intothestreamof traffic. 1 should thinkthat even if youreturned here in someawful sorrow, youmight — well, you might find it possible heretobegin toberecon- ciled.^ 'Let's hope,' I said, 'thatwe never have to put Paris to that test.' Her smilewasatonce brightand melancholy. Xet's hope.' Thenshe suddenlytook my face between herhandsand kissedme.There was a great questionin hereyesandIknew that she burned to havethis question answered at once. But I couldnotdo ityet. Iheld her closeand kissed her, closing myeyes. Everything was as it had beenbetweenus, and at the same time everything wasdifferent. I told myself I would not think about Gio- vanni yet, I would not worry abouthim yet; for tonight, anyway, Hellaand I should betogether with nothingto divide us. Still,Iknew very well that thiswas notreallypossible:he had al- ready divided us. Itriednot to think of him sittingaloneinthatroom,wondering why I stayed away so long. Then we weresittingtogetherin Hella'sroom on therue deToumon,samplingFundador. It's

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  To Luke the unclosed door of prayer was one of the most precious in all the world. The Gospel of Women In Palestine the place of women was low. In the Jewish morning prayer a man thanks God that he has not made him `a Gentile, a slave or a woman'. But Luke gives a very special place to women. The birth narrative is told from Mary's point of view. It is in Luke that we read of Elizabeth, of Anna, of the widow at Nain, of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee. It is Luke who makes vivid the pictures of Martha and Mary and of Mary Magdalene. It is very likely that Luke was a native of Macedonia where women held a more emancipated position than anywhere else; and that may have something to do with it. The Gospel of Praise In Luke the phrase praising God occurs oftener than in all the rest of the New Testament put together. This praise reaches its peak in the three great hymns that the Church has sung throughout all her generations - the Magnificat (1:46-55), the Benedictus (1:68-79) and the Nunc Dimittis (2:29-32). There is a radiance in Luke's gospel which is a lovely thing, as if the sheen of heaven had touched the things of earth. The Universal Gospel But the outstanding characteristic of Luke is that it is the universal gospel. All the barriers are down; Jesus Christ is for all people without distinction. (a) The kingdom of heaven is not shut to the Samaritans (9.51-6). Luke alone tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:30-7). The one grateful leper is a Samaritan (17:11-19). John can record a saying that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans (John 4:9). But Luke refuses to shut the door on anyone. (b) Luke shows Jesus speaking with approval of Gentiles whom an orthodox Jew would have considered unclean. He shows us Jesus citing the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian as shining examples (4:25-7). The Roman centurion is praised for the greatness of his faith (7:9). Luke tells us of that great word of Jesus, `People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God' (13:29). (c) Luke is supremely interested in the poor. When Mary brings the offering for her purification it is the offering of the poor (2:24). When Jesus is, as it were, setting out his credentials to the emissaries of John, the climax is, `The poor have good news brought to them' (7:22). He alone tells the parable of the rich man and the poor man (16:19-3 i ). In Luke's account of the beatitudes the saying of Jesus runs, not, as in Matthew (5:3), `Blessed are the poor in spirit', but simply, `Blessed are you who are poor' (Luke 6:20). Luke's gospel has been called `the gospel of the underdog'.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  There are some occasions in life too special to dissect, not only because they are everything they are supposed to be, but because they are also a sum of unexpected fantasies and deep satisfactions all come together at one point in time. Tonight the students of the Hunter College Women’s Poetry Center Club and the Returning Woman Newsletter dedicated the Audre Lorde Women’s Poetry Center. Walking into that hall, even thirty minutes late, was the beginning of exactly that kind of evening, and nothing I nor anyone else will ever do can lessen its meaning for me. Whatever happens to me, there has been a coming together in time and space of some of my best efforts, hopes, and desires. There is a tangible possibility to be built upon and strong young women committed to doing it. I wish them the power of their vision for what this center can be in their lives and in the life of a community of women’s culture in this city, the vision of a living women’s poetry as a force for social change. This evening brought together four of my deepest and longest-lasting interests—poetry, beautiful women, revolution, and me! No matter what I find out in Switzerland, no matter what’s going on in my body, this is my work. The recognition of it, the sweet strength and love in the faces tonight make me know how much what I do has meant to these women who are arming themselves to walk in places I’ve only dreamed of, and in their own step and as their own mistresses.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  In Humphrey’s opinion, the “Joe Doakses,” or average viewers, got to see a bunch of “ragged hill people,” who were “obviously . . . inferior,” outsmarting equally undeserving “big shots.” Theirs was, in short, a contest between “snobs” and “slobs.” As far as the critic was concerned, the show’s creator had come up with a formula that camouflaged class conflict with laughs. Finally, he joked, the class-bashing TV series “cashes in on Groucho Marx’s theory of class struggle —or was that Karl Marx?” 14 • • • In the face of social upheaval, as so many old boundaries and prejudices shifted, Americans generally denied what they remained: highly class conscious. The interconnected civil rights movement and culture wars of the fifties and sixties were marked by social stratification. As ownership of a home in the suburbs came to represent the American dream, the most controversial housing option was, significantly, the trailer park. Segregation, then, was more than simply a racial issue. Zoning laws made it inevitable that housing would adhere to a class- delineated geography. The working class had its bowling alleys and diners, and “white trash” its trailer park slums, both of which contrasted sharply with the backyard barbecues of all-white neighborhoods in favored suburbs, zoned for the middle class. We forget that President Johnson’s Great Society programs targeted both urban ghettos and impoverished white areas of Appalachia. Vietnam has been referred to as the living-room war, yet on their black-and- white television sets in 1957, Americans had already watched a racial and class war, as angry poor whites screamed curses at well-mannered black students as they tried to enter Little Rock’s Central High School. It is for reasons such as these that the poor country boy Elvis symbolized a lot of things for the generation that came of age in the fifties. While whitening African American music and challenging conservative sexual mores, he retained a social identity that was close to the story line of The Beverly Hillbillies. Here was a son of a white sharecropper, suddenly catapulted to a place of wealth and fame; he purchased Graceland, a mansion in Memphis, where he lived with his parents. For his beloved mother he bought a pink Cadillac, and to make the house truly a home she could appreciate, he built her a chicken coop in the backyard.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  At first—when I was, say, eight or nine—I seldom roamed farther than the fields and woods between Vyra and Batovo. Later, when aiming at a particular spot half-a-dozen miles or more distant, I would use a bicycle to get there with my net strapped to the frame; but not many forest paths were passable on wheels; it was possible to ride there on horseback, of course, but, because of our ferocious Russian tabanids, one could not leave a horse haltered in a wood for any length of time: my spirited bay almost climbed up the tree it was tied to one day trying to elude them: big fellows with watered-silk eyes and tiger bodies, and gray little runts with an even more painful proboscis, but much more sluggish: to dispatch two or three of these dingy tipplers with one crush of the gloved hand as they glued themselves to the neck of my mount afforded me a wonderful empathic relief (which a dipterist might not appreciate). Anyway, on my butterfly hunts I always preferred hiking to any other form of locomotion (except, naturally, a flying seat gliding leisurely over the plant mats and rocks of an unexplored mountain, or hovering just above the flowery roof of a rain forest); for when you walk, especially in a region you have studied well, there is an exquisite pleasure in departing from one’s itinerary to visit, here and there by the wayside, this glade, that glen, this or that combination of soil and flora—to drop in, as it were, on a familiar butterfly in his particular habitat, in order to see if he has emerged, and if so, how he is doing. There came a July day—around 1910, I suppose—when I felt the urge to explore the vast marshland beyond the Oredezh. After skirting the river for three or four miles, I found a rickety footbridge. While crossing over, I could see the huts of a hamlet on my left, apple trees, rows of tawny pine logs lying on a green bank, and the bright patches made on the turf by the scattered clothes of peasant girls, who, stark naked in shallow water, romped and yelled, heeding me as little as if I were the discarnate carrier of my present reminiscences. On the other side of the river, a dense crowd of small, bright blue male butterflies that had been tippling on the rich, trampled mud and cow dung through which I trudged rose all together into the spangled air and settled again as soon as I had passed.

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

  c. The spiritual meaning of the praise of wine in Scripture is the joy that comes to the soul by the Blood of the Lamb, drunk according to the measure of faith. Jesus is to us a cluster of grapes, when with His Blood we drink in the sweetness of spiritual joy, which gives us forgetfulness of all the sorrow of life. 3. The Blood of Jesus is the most holy mystery of the Church; for it is that holy thing, that secret thing, in which the great power of God is hidden. In this way it has three supernatural effects: a, it routs the devils; b, it draws down grace; c, it keeps us in holiness of life till it brings us to life everlasting. a. When God saw the blood on the doors of Israel in Egypt He would not suffer the destroyer to enter. So is it with the faithful soul. St. John Chrysostom says, ‘This Blood drives away the devils and keeps them far off.’ As the elephants at Bethzacharam were made to fight by the blood of grapes and mulberries, so Christian souls defeat and crush their spiritual enemies by the Blood of our Lord. b. We have come to the Blood which speaketh better things than that of Abel; for the blood of Abel calls to God for vengeance, whereas the Blood of Jesus demands grace by right and brings it to us. St. Bernard says, ‘O Blood of Christ, worthy of the highest reverence: on the Altar, our drink; on the Cross, our ransom; in heaven, our advocate with the Father.’ c. This Blood is our eternal life. The philosopher says, ‘Corruption and old age are nothing but littleness of blood. When the body is without it then the body corrupts. Hence many die for want of blood.’ As therefore the life of the body is in the blood, so the preservation of the life of the spirit is in the Blood of Jesus. In that Blood also is our security for being brought to the deathless life of Heaven. The Voice of the Holy Ghost (3) About the usefulness of the Blood of Jesus; He that.… drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life. St. John 6:55. He struck the rock and the waters gushed out, and the stream overflowed. Ps. 77:20. 1. Living water; a. It moistens; I will pour out waters upon the thirsty ground, and streams upon the dry land. I will pour out My Spirit on thy seed, and My blessing on thy stock; and they shall spring up among the herbs, and as willows beside the running waters. Is. 44:3, 4. Not so the wicked, not so; but they shall be like the dust which the wind driveth from the face of the earth. Ps. 1:4. The people were scattered through all the land of Egypt to gather straw. Ex. 5:12.

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

  Rebuke me not, O Lord, in Thy indignation; nor chasten me in Thy wrath. For Thy arrows are fastened in me; and Thy hand hath been strong upon me. Ps. 37:2, 3. Now, saith the Lord that made thee, O Jacob, and formed thee, O Israel: fear not, for I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name: thou art Mine. When thou shalt pass through the waters I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee: when thou shalt walk in the fire thou shalt not be burnt, and the flames shall not kindle in thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. Isa. 43:1–3. The flame mounted up above the furnace nine- and-forty cubits; and it broke forth and burnt such of the Chaldæans as were near the furnace. But the Angel of the Lord went down with Azarias and his companions into the furnace; and he drove the flame of the fire out of the furnace, and made the midst of the furnace like the blowing of a wind bringing dew. And the fire touched them not at all, nor troubled them, nor did them any harm. Then these three, as with one mouth, praised and glorified and blessed God in the furnace. Dan. 3:47–51. You shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands. Isa. 55:12. 3. Increase of glory; The breast also that is offered … you shall eat in a most clean place, thou and thy sons and thy daughters with thee. Lev. 10:14. (3) The Sacrament of Love; Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit, appeared unto Angels, hath been preached to the Gentiles, is believed in the world, is taken up in glory. 1 St. Tim. 3:16. 1. Partaking of the Spirit; He filled them with honey out of the rock. Ps. 80:17. O, how good and sweet is Thy Spirit, O Lord, in all things. Wisd. 12:1. By Him we have access in one Spirit to the Father, … in whom you also are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit. Eph. 2:18, 22. 2. The indwelling of Jesus; He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me, and I in him. St. John 6:56. Abide in Me, and I in you. St. John 15:4. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. St. John 1:14. (3) The likeness of God; To as many as received Him He gave power to be made the sons of God. St. John 1:12.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  There are some occasions in life too special to dissect, not only because they are everything they are supposed to be, but because they are also a sum of unexpected fantasies and deep satisfactions all come together at one point in time. Tonight the students of the Hunter College Women’s Poetry Center Club and the Returning Woman Newsletter dedicated the Audre Lorde Women’s Poetry Center. Walking into that hall, even thirty minutes late, was the beginning of exactly that kind of evening, and nothing I nor anyone else will ever do can lessen its meaning for me. Whatever happens to me, there has been a coming together in time and space of some of my best efforts, hopes, and desires. There is a tangible possibility to be built upon and strong young women committed to doing it. I wish them the power of their vision for what this center can be in their lives and in the life of a community of women’s culture in this city, the vision of a living women’s poetry as a force for social change. This evening brought together four of my deepest and longest-lasting interests—poetry, beautiful women, revolution, and me! No matter what I find out in Switzerland, no matter what’s going on in my body, this is my work. The recognition of it, the sweet strength and love in the faces tonight make me know how much what I do has meant to these women who are arming themselves to walk in places I’ve only dreamed of, and in their own step and as their own mistresses.