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 The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  Her other restaurant, Tempero da Dada, situated in a somewhat rougher neighborhood, attracts the wealthy and powerful in their limousines; bodyguards and security goons are said to line the street, watching after their cars while the rich eat her wonderfully soulful and hearty home-style cooking. It was easily the best meal of the entire adventure: unpretentious, colorful, jacked with spices and flavor, unrestrainedly African, smelling so good we almost fainted while waiting to eat. The food was served family style, and we blindly ordered just about everything on the menu: moquecas (seafood stews cooked in coconut milk and fiery red dende), grilled piranha cooked in banana leaves, acaraje (fritters of black-eyed peas filled with dried shrimp), soft-shell crab, spicy shrimp, crawfish, prawns, lobster, all accompanied by the ubiquitous and intoxicating Bahian condiments, farofa (a starchy yucca side), cararu (a piquant mix of well-spiced okra, peppers, and dried shrimp), and vatapa (a bread and flour porridge with cashews, dried shrimp, and ginger). I don't remember it all; my head was swimming from the caipirinhas (made with fresh cashew fruit) and the tall Antarctica beers, as well as the frenzy of trying to get all that incredible food into my mouth. Manioc, coconut, chilies, okra, dried shrimp, yucca, cashew fruit, and of course dende oil play significant roles in much Bahian food, but the broad range of textures and flavors, and the surprising array of seafood, can keep you busy exploring indefinitely. This is not boring food. It's assertive, muscular, unafraid. In larger restaurants, Bahian dishes appear side by side with Portuguese and German dishes, faux-French classics, and workaday favorites. The menus can be a mosh pit of clashing flavors and cultures, an international riot of the classic and the extreme. There was a lot of smiling and moaning at the table among our increasingly inebriated number, and once again, the chefs were hatching plans. Taka and Michael discussed where in New York they could buy the necessary ingredients, strategizing about moqueca and roasting fish in banana leaves. I was encouraged, as I didn't want to have to fly back to Brazil every time I wanted to relive this incredible experience. After dinner in Pelourinho, we walked through the dark streets, heels clicking on cobblestones. Around midnight, I broke away from the group to sit in the central square, chatting with street kids in broken English and Spanish, giving out the occasional cigarette and real. Except for the reggae music from the idling taxis and the occasional tourist, it could have been the 1700s. The Sushi Samba crew had a full day of sightseeing planned, but the following morning I decided I was going off the reservation: no churches, markets, or for-tourists displays of regional/ ethnic dancing and native handicrafts. It was a national holiday, Brazil's five-hundredth anniversary, and all of Salvador, I was convinced, would be going to the beach. The sightseeing portion of the week's entertainment was over. No samba lessons. No buffets. The surf was up.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Your sexual concerns may be so wrapped up in the needs of a particular relationship or partner that you haven’t taken the opportunity to simply imagine what you want for yourself. Period. No one else’s expectations. No one else’s baggage. Begin with your imagination. Don’t worry if your flights of fancy are just that—let your fantasies loose and worry about plausibility later: The sex life of my dreams would allow me to have sex with who I want, when I want, whether I was in a relationship or not. I’d probably have one steady partner, with the understanding that we are free to have sexual experiences with other people. I’d engage in activities with men and women, but mostly women. I would feel free and uninhibited. I would be pleased with myself. While at first glance this may look like an unrealistic ideal (the kind that can have you wallowing in dissatisfaction), this is actually a quite attainable goal. OK, within reasonable limitations. Why shouldn’t you have sex with whomever you want when you want? Why not have as your goal feeling free and uninhibited and being pleased with yourself? No STDs. No pregnancy. Cum tastes like grape soda (both male and female). Many different people, ages, body types, organ styles. All sexual activities within moral reason. I feel better about my body. So what if what you want is completely absurd? Behind the impossibilities lie elements of plausibility. OK, so ejaculate may not taste like a fruit drink, but the rest of this woman’s ideal sex life is quite within the realm of possibility. As are these: If I could order a new sex life I wouldn’t change anything about the current one—the only difference would be for me to have a higher sex drive so I could satisfy my woman more. My partner and I can’t keep our hands off each other. We engage in every sexual activity imaginable—fisting, S/M, using strap-ons, etc. I feel wonderful and sexy. I see myself having a family of friends, some of whom are also lovers. I see myself having a LOT of time to myself as I now understand (after 18 years of monogamy, spread over three relationships) that I need to live alone. You can heal your sexuality of the traumas of the past, and in so doing, invent a sex life that works for you. (A woman interviewed for The Survivors Guide to Sex reports, “I think survivors who have done their healing have some of the best sex lives around. We do all this healing work that most people need to do, survivors or not.”)1 In my dream life, I’m not depressed. I have a healthy self-image and I don’t have to take daily medication just to stay alive. I’ve gotten rid of the baggage from my childhood and sexual abuse, and I have multiple partners and exciting, fun sex.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  "Oh my god!" I spluttered idiotically, my face breaking into a big grin. "I can't believe this!" Trout meuniere, navarin d'agneau, sauteed chicken tarragon, poussin en cocotte "Bonne Femme," rognons de veau Dijon-naise, coq au vin, tripes a la mode de Caen . . . one forgotten French bistro classic after another. And the desserts! The desserts! Okay, creme caramel and tarte aux pommes—still obligatory. One would expect to see those two here. But oeufs a la neige? Peche Melba!? These were preparations you had to go digging for in old copies of Le Repertoire de la Cuisine or Larousse to find. This was madness! This was insane! This was absolutely fantastic! One might think—considering the sight of me giggling at Le Veau d'Or—that perhaps I was appreciating this dino-era menu in a modern, post-ironic way. That I was somehow snickering at the proprietor and his improbable, almost irrationally unsellable choice of menu items, that there was something funny about how out of touch, days-gone-by, stubbornly incongruous and French Le Veau d'Or's menu was—the height of unfashionable, only a few feet from Bloomingdale's and Madison Avenue. But one would be wrong. My eyes filled with real tears. My heart sang. And as I ate my celeri remoulade and my proudly ungarnished rognons de veau, and later, my ties flottantes, I was bursting with admiration for the place. This was the good old stuff. This was roots cooking, the kind of French food I first came to know and love, the wellspring from which I—and many cooks like me—came. And I know that I am not alone in my affection. In Paris, of course, they continue to serve this kind of fare sansirony. On a recent trip, I found myself walking in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres with my editor, who'd grown up in the neighborhood. Every few blocks, she'd stop and excitedly point out a forlorn-looking storefront and say, "Oh! That place there makes the best rognons de veau flambee\" or "the boeuf aux carottes there is superb!" This is akin to walking through suburban New Jersey with an American and having them passionately expound on the glories of diner meatloaf, or coffee-shop tuna salad. I love the French. Their maniacal obsession with the simple act of lunch has, I think, made the world a better place. But what about us? What's left of the once common, even de rigeur, yet now forgotten cuisine bourgoise, and the more upscale "continental" classics that seem to have gone down with the Titanic? Who still loves them? Who continues to uphold the glorious tradition, against the forces of time and trend and simple good sense? Riffing on old-school classics is something well-known American chefs have been doing for some time. It's been decades since you could find a "napoleon" in a restaurant that in any way resembles the original pastry.

• From The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups (2014)

  My advice: First off, Tommy needs to understand that marriage isn’t just about showing up and demanding sex. It’s about growing together and maintaining an emotional connection. Elaine needed to find a way to tell Tommy to slow down in bed and to help him open up emotionally so they can strengthen their love for each other. I asked her what she wanted Tommy to do in bed, and to be very specific. Elaine: It’s not about him. I want more foreplay. Tommy: What did you just say? Elaine: Foreplay. You know. You get home and you kiss me for about thirty seconds, and then you’re all ready to go. I need you to get down there and help me out for a few minutes because you know it takes me longer. Tommy: Really? Elaine: Yes, really. Tommy: Oh, I didn’t know that’s what you wanted. When I heard that, I explained that foreplay is crucial for women, but it isn’t just about sexual stimulation. It’s about making your partner feel loved and cared about. “I want you to put the dishes in the dishwasher or do some other chores around the house that you know Elaine doesn’t like to do,” I told Tommy. “I want you to show her how much you care. Text her during the day. Ask if she wants a little drink before sex. Give her a massage first, before you’ve taken all your clothes off. Ask her what she wants you to do. Allow her to guide your fingers. And realize that sex is not going to be a two-minute sprint to the finish line anymore. Have fun together. Try lots of new positions. Take your time and really learn how to enjoy each other’s bodies.” Tommy’s eyes lit up when he heard this, and Elaine blushed and smiled. I wondered if Tommy would be able to expand his sexual repertoire from wham-bam to expert, and was gratified to find out that he quickly learned how to slow down, to become a better lover, and to make Elaine feel valued and cherished. In other words, he grew up once he changed his notions of what marriage meant and became a true partner to his wife. Lewis and Carmen: Rekindling the SparkLewis and Carmen have been married for eight years and have two young children. He’s thirty-nine and she’s thirty-five. They both love each other deeply, but something is shifting in their marriage, which they regard as strong and committed and for life. What’s shifted is the frequency and urgency of their sex life.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Orgasm is leaving my body and coming back anew. SO, ORGASMS! You can have orgasm-directed sex by yourself or with a partner. If it’s all about getting off, that’s fine. You can also have sex without orgasm, and that’s fine, too. Most of us want that release of coming. Many women are completely happy with our orgasmic capacity. Others want to come harder, quicker, longer, more easily, more often, more transcendently, or more meaningfully. You may wonder if you’re doing it “right”—and you may have had lovers who pressured you to respond differently than was natural for you. You can enhance your capacity for orgasm—and you’ll find plenty of tips and techniques throughout this book to help you do just that. In fact, here’s the first one: You’re fine just the way you are. Even if you’ve never had an orgasm, you’re not defective in any way. Your experience of sexual pleasure is uniquely yours and no less valid than anyone else’s. Sex is not a competitive sport. I would love to be able to have an orgasm more easily than I do. But when I have them they are incredibly intense. Do you start coming as the first drop of moisture hits your panties? Perhaps you come ten seconds after the vibrator touches your clit, and you don’t feel complete until you’ve come nonstop for an hour. Good for you. I orgasm and cum very easily. Just the brush of a woman’s wet tongue on my clitoris causes me to orgasm. I can come every few minutes for several hours. Does the term Pillow Princess ring a bell? Or Do-Me Queen? So what if you don’t consider one or two (or three or four or five) orgasms sufficient? Even if every dyke you’ve ever loved has had to seek medical intervention for repetitive stress injury, there’s nothing wrong with you. How much pleasure is too much? It’s your call. (You can enjoy yourself indefinitely without stressing your partner—see below.) This Is Taking Too LongPerhaps your partners have complained that you’re a “hard come,” taking too long to reach orgasm. Too long for whom? If it takes 30 minutes of perfect clit stimulation, with just the right touch in just the right spot, for you to reach orgasm, you’re fine. Enjoy the attention. If you’d like to come more quickly or reliably, however, here are six specific techniques you might try: • Experiment with different positions or activities. Switch from oral sex to penetration or clitoral stimulation. Get on top. Find out what works for you. • Make sure you’re really turned on before you even think of attempting to come. Human sexual response isn’t linear. Back off, do something else, and then come back to your arousal. • Buy a vibrator. Many women find the strong, consistent stimulation of a vibrator to be the surefire aid to achieving orgasm.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Anal finger-fucking is a slow build-up. She may want two or three fingers as her arousal increases. Or she may be satisfied with one. The first time you play anally, you may get no more than part of one finger inside her—that’s fine. The goal is quality, not quantity. Some women reach orgasm easily with anal penetration. The mounting pleasure in those ultrasensitive nerve endings radiates into an intense orgasm. If you prefer indirect clitoral stimulation, you may enjoy two fingers pressing rhythmically against the front wall of the rectum. That may be enough stimulation for your clitoris and G-spot. Or, you may like direct clitoral stimulation from fingers, a tongue, or a vibrator. You may like to be filled both vaginally and anally. Once you’re fully aroused, you may like a hard thrusting motion—just remember to add plenty of lube. Anal FistingEverything said about vaginal fisting applies tenfold to anal fisting, since the tissue of the rectum is less pliable and more easily torn than that of the vagina. Anal fisting requires patience, trust, and desire—and prodigious quantities of lube. Why would anyone want to put a whole hand into a partner’s rectum—or feel her own anus and rectum stretched to receive a partner’s hand? Like vaginal fisting, anal fisting is very intimate and intensely pleasurable. Your anal fisting journey may begin one day when you feel sexually insatiable. Or, after a session of anal play, your partner may turn to you and say, “I felt so open, I swear I could’ve taken your whole hand.” Isn’t anal fisting dangerous? Won’t fisting stretch you out? No, fisting will strengthen your sphincters, not harm them. As one fisting devotee put it, “Training a muscle to do new and sometimes extraordinary things generally doesn’t interfere with its function.” 4 Tales of fisting enthusiasts wearing diapers are pure urban myth. Anal fisting is a great activity for women who enjoy a long, slow session of anal play. You can’t rush anal fisting. It also helps not to be goal oriented. Never force the body to accommodate more than feels pleasurable at the time. If you don’t get a whole fist inside on the first try, you may on the next. Even if you never take an entire hand, you can have a lot of fun in the process of trying! As the receptive partner, you have to want your partner’s hand inside you for your anus and rectum to open enough to receive it. You have to trust your partner not to hurt you—to know what she’s doing—and to treat your openness and vulnerability with respect and caring. Fisting her anally is a huge rush. I am filled with aggression, yet am tender in my attempts.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  I woke up late, left the hotel, and walked smack into a parade. Now, I hate parades. I'd rather hear the sound of my own teeth being drilled than the music of John Philip Sousa. But this was different. The streets were packed solid. Held in place by the throngs, I got an unexpected look at Bahia's idea of their best foot forward. First came the military, all the branches, one highly motivated unit after another. Each tried to outdo the other with loud, deep-throated chants of "Bra-ZEEL!!" "Ba-HEE-YA!!" "SALVA-DORR!" Army, navy, fire rescue, mountaineer units, sinister-looking folks in black pajamas and balaclavas, it was fascinating to see which groups were popular with the crowds and which weren't. Female cadets, goose-stepping in Cuban heels, got a big hand. The riot police, who paraded with their crowd-control gear, were decidedly unpopular. Representatives of the indigenous culture passed to polite claps and what looked like embarrassment. Indians everywhere, it seems, get the short end of the stick. When the parade had finally gone by and the streets became passable, I walked down to Barra, a long and imposing strand overlooking a magnificent beach. From the farol da Barra, an eighteenth-century lighthouse at one end, all the way to an open-air restaurant on a bluff at the other, the sand was mobbed. Thousands of barely dressed locals were packed around a cluster of thriving barracas, basically beach shacks that serve chopp (icy-cold draft beer) and food. Oiled up with sun products, they were swaying to music, splashing around in tidal pools, riding body boards in the surf, swimming, socializing, playing soccer, practicing capoeira moves, sunbathing, sleeping, making love, flirting, eating. I grabbed a plastic chair, ordered a chopp, which came in a helpful insulated sleeve, and dug in for the afternoon. Food came at me from all directions. Vendors hawked acaraje, bolinhos, paper cones of dried shrimp, grilled fresh shrimp, paper tubes of shelled nuts, boiled quail eggs, and pastels. Others came by with a mozzarellalike cheese on skewers (for a few centavos they'd dredge it in herbs and, fanning the coals in the metal buckets they carried with them, they'd toast the skewers until the outside was brown and crispy and the inside runny delicious). People cracked open coconuts and served them with long thin straws. Spear fishermen, right out of the water, dropped still-twitching groupers, snappers, crabs, and lobsters right on the tables, offering to have them cooked up at the nearest barraca. Sitting only inches from the neighboring tables, I couldn't help but nearly join in with others' meals. People tore at whole grilled fish with their hands, handing out pieces and sharing chopps. Now and again, someone would get up to cool off under a running water pipe. Since the music was loud and seductive, and the mood bordering on orgiastic, each visitor to the shower felt compelled to do a little wriggling and dancing under the water for the amusement of the throngs.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  And suddenly for no reason at all, when I think of her returning to her nest, I remember Sunday mornings in the little old house near the cemetery. I remember sitting at the piano in my nightshirt, working away at the pedals with bare feet, and the folks lying in bed toasting themselves in the next room. The rooms opened one on the other, telescope fashion, as in the good old American railroad flats. Sunday mornings one lay in bed until one was ready to screech with well-being. Toward eleven or so the folks used to rap on the wall of my room for me to come and play for them. I would dance into the room like the Fratellini Brothers, so full of flame and feathers that I could hoist myself like a derrick to the topmost limb of the tree of heaven. I could do anything and everything singlehanded, being double-jointed at the same time. The old man called me “Sunny Jim,” because I was full of “Force,” full of vim and vigor. First I would do a few handsprings for them on the carpet before the bed; then I would sing falsetto, trying to imitate a ventriloquist’s dummy; then I would dance a few light fantastic steps to show which way the wind lay, and zoom! like a breeze I was on the piano stool and doing a velocity exercise. I always began with Czerny, in order to limber up for the performance. The old man hated Czerny, and so did I, but Czerny was the plat du jour on the bill of fare then, and so Czerny it was until my joints were rubber. In some vague way Czerny reminds me of the great emptiness which came upon me later. What a velocity I would work up, riveted to the piano stool! It was like swallowing a bottle of tonic at one gulp and then having someone strap you to the bed. After I had played about ninety-eight exercises I was ready to do a little improvising. I used to take a fistful of chords and crash the piano from one end to the other, then sullenly modulate into “The Burning of Rome” or the “Ben Hur Chariot Race” which everybody liked because it was intelligible noise. Long before I read Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus I was composing the music to it, in the key of sassafras. I was learned then in science and philosophy, in the history of religions, in inductive and deductive logic, in liver mantic, in the shape and weight of skulls, in pharmacopeia and metallurgy, in all the useless branches of learning which give you indigestion and melancholia before your time. This vomit of learned truck was stewing in my guts the whole week long, waiting for it to come Sunday to be set to music.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] I’d set an alarm on my phone so I wouldn’t be late to pick up June, after. I wondered if anyone at school would notice that I was different. Was I different? Was I the same person I’d been all along, before that afternoon, before that spring, before jury duty? June and I stopped for eggs at the grocery store. She wanted cherries too, and I let her pick out a bag of them. At home we made dinner, put unicorn Band-Aids on each other for fun, waited for Brandon. He didn’t have to work that night, so he’d be home to eat with us. What did I tell him about Nora? He knew where I’d been that afternoon, but I don’t remember the conversation. What I remember is how proud I was of us, him and me, for pulling it off. June helped set the table, as she was learning how to do. Brandon made a salad. I warmed beans and boiled seven-minute eggs, rinsed the cherries and piled them in a bowl. We sat together around our table with its stack of bills at one end and mail-in ballots for the 2016 primaries. June spat cherry pits onto her plate, gleeful, her face and hands splotched with hot-pink juice. [image file=image_rsrc2FP.jpg] 13I have a photo of us, June and me, taken that week. We’re at the dining counter in Delancey, and June sits on my lap in a blue dress, her body perpendicular to mine. I think Brandon took the picture: he would have been working the pizza oven that night. I’ve got a fork in one hand and a plate of asparagus in front of me, and my other arm wraps around June’s narrow back. It must be close to bedtime. Her eyes are a little glazed, focused somewhere below the camera, and she sucks her thumb, holding a hank of her hair in the same hand. She’s done that since she was an infant. You can’t see my face because I’m looking down, and my bangs have fallen in the way, my chin tucked against her forehead. You can see that I am her mother. She would be four soon. For nearly four years I had fed her and clothed her and read to her and bathed her and told her I loved her, and at bedtime I always sang “Twinkle, Twinkle” twice, the house rule. It took juggling to date Nora while being a mother and a wife. Was I doing it well enough? Was I a bad mother? My skull buzzed like a radio between stations. I find it difficult now to recall the individual days of that spring; their residue is mostly a feeling. I was happy.

• From The Journals of Sylvia Plath (1982)

  We hid behind a car, and he said, the proctors are out after me, and I kept blithering on about having faith and being lucky, always, if you believe in something, because you can walk on water. Finally, after many strange streets which I did not know, being far far away in a land of whiskey and merry down, saying “Ted” to the lampposts and chiding myself with “Hamish, Hamish,” keeping saying it aloud to him, because he took me away safely. We came to the gates of Queens, and I wanted like a baby to lie down and rest, just peace, peace, I kept whispering. Five boys, five late babies came up, and surrounded me, gently saying, what are you doing here, are you all right, my you smell nice, that perfume, and may we kiss you, and I just stood there huddled to the iron fence, smiling like a lost lamb and saying dear, dear, babies, and then Hamish was among them, and they climbed over and crossed the wooden bridge that Newton once put together without bolts. Hamish helped me up on the wall, and in my tight skirt, I tried to step over the spikes; they pierced my skirt, my hands, and I felt nothing, thinking from the great distance that I might at last lie on a bed of spikes and not feel it, like the yogi, like Celia Copplestone, crucified, near an anthill, at last, peace, and the nails went through my hands, and my legs were bare to the thigh, and I was over. The stigmata, I said, frozen, looking at those raw frigid hands that should have been bleeding. But they were not bleeding. I had gotten over in an act of sublime drunkenness and faith. And then we went to Hamish’s room and lay on the floor by the fire and I was just so damn grateful [omission] … and he kind of liked me and when would I learn my lesson. When? When? So it was suddenly two thirty, and I couldn’t imagine being illegal, but I was, and we managed by the light of two matches to get downstairs, and walked out, a dark lone figure against the pale white blur of snow in the dead quiet crescent court. He beckoned, I came walking along the outer path, through the crust of snow, breaking, hearing the dry crunch and then crossing the snow field to him, waiting for the sudden flash of light, the: hey, there, you stop! and the crack of pistols. It was dead quiet, and the cold snow was in my shoes and I felt nothing. We went through the gap in the box hedge, and Hamish tested the ice on the river; he said the porter chopped it, but it was whole, and bore us, and we crossed, free, walking home.

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  She’s going to think I have zero stamina. It made no difference, though. He was too hot to slow down, too keyed up to pace himself. She felt too good, spasming around him in another orgasm a few minutes later. Ed followed her, coming so hard and long he saw stars. Finally, shaking, he pulled out and levered himself over her in an awkward pushup, kissing her gently. “I apologize in advance. I hear these things hurt like a son-of-a-bitch when they come off.” She opened one sleepy, sated eye and contemplated him for a second before closing it again and muttering, “Motherfucker.” To Ed, it sounded like love. * * * The call came at two in the morning, as such calls typically do. Beth fumbled for her cell phone, disoriented in the dark and unfamiliar room, until she remembered she’d put it on one of Ed’s nightstands. “H’lo?” “Is this Elizabeth Adamson?” “Um. Yeah.” She rubbed her hand over her face, hoping to stir herself into some semblance of coherence. “Ms. Adamson, I’m calling from the ER at Memorial Hermann in the medical center. We have a Mr. Aaron Kruger here, and you’re listed several places as his emergency contact and next of kin.” “Oh my God. Is he okay? What happened?” “Beth?” Ed sat up, knuckling the sleep from his eyes. “Is everything okay? Jesus, what time is it?” “Mr. Kruger will be fine, but he’s being admitted overnight as soon as we can find him a room. He was brought in earlier this evening with a tibial fracture, but we’d just gotten a pretty severe multicar accident in so he had to wait for several hours before they could set it. Between all the pain medication, and his heart condition, the doctor thought it was best to keep him until tomorrow. He wouldn’t let us call anyone for the longest time,” the woman said, irritation trumping her professionalism for a moment. “Honestly I’m not sure I’d call it consent right now, because he’s pretty out of it. But he’s started asking for you and he’ll probably be here in the ER for at least another hour.” “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes. Of course I’ll be there. God, what an idiot, why didn’t he just—wait, he has a heart condition?” “Uh...” “Look, never mind. Just tell him I’m on my way.” She ended the call and turned to Ed. “Aaron broke his leg. I guess he never thought to change his emergency contact info on his insurance. He doesn’t have anyone else here, any family or anything.” “That sucks.” “Yeah. I’d better go. It seems like the nice thing to do.” “Of course. Do you want me to come with you?”

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  (v) Sometimes in the Septuagint this sōtēria is ‘eschatological’, that is to say, it will find its full flowering and glory only in the new age which is to come. It is not something which exhausts itself in this world. It will be mighty to save in any world that will ever be (Isa. 45.17; 52.10; Jer. 3.23). (vi) Consistently this sōtēria is connected with and attributed to God. Contrasted with it ‘vain is the help of man’ (Ps. 60.11; 108.12; 146.3). It is God who is characteristically the God of sōtēria, the God of ‘salvation’ (Ps. 18.46; 38.22; 51.14; 88.1). When the power of man is helpless, the sōtēria of God steps in. Man’s extremity is always God’s opportunity. (vii) Lastly, we may note that this word sōtēria has a way of appearing in the midst of triumphant lyrical passages of singing thanksgiving. It appears in the Song of Moses after the crossing of the Red Sea (Ex. 15.2), in the Song of David after his deliverance from Saul (II Sam. 22.3, 36, 47, 51), in the Song of Hannah when she knew she was to have a son (I Sam. 2.1). It makes the man who experiences it sing for very joy. So, then, the NT writers when they used sōtēria entered into a rich heritage, for already it described the saving, preserving, providential power of God in the crises of history and the crises of the individual life, a care which does not stop with this world, and a care which makes the man who is wrapped round by it sing with joy. In the New Testament Two of the older uses are repeated in the NT. (i) Sōtēria is used of ‘deliverance from enemies’ (Luke I. 69, 71; Acts 7.25; Jude 25). It is to be noted that all these passages have a characteristically OT background. (ii) Both noun and verb are used of ‘bodily health and safety’ in the NT. They are used of Paul’s preservation in shipwreck (Acts 27.20, 34) and of Noah’s construction of the ark for the saving of himself and of his family (Heb.II. 7). But, having noted these older usages, we must now come to the distinctive and characteristic NT usages of these words.

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

  9. Matrimony is not forbidden in the Scripture to any class of men; but fornication and unchastity are forbidden to all. 10. Since, according to the Scripture, an open fornicator must be excommunicated, it follows that unchastity and impure celibacy are more pernicious to the clergy than to any other class. All to the glory of God and his holy Word. Zwingli preached twice during the disputation.167 He was in excellent spirits, and at the height of his fame and public usefulness. In the first sermon he explained the Apostles’ Creed, mixing in some Greek and Hebrew words for his theological hearers. In the second, he exhorted the Bernese to persevere after the example of Moses and the heroes of faith. Perseverance alone can complete the triumph. (Ferendo vincitur fortuna.) Behold these idols conquered, mute, and scattered before you. The gold you spent upon them must henceforth be devoted to the good of the living images of God in their poverty. "Hold fast," he said in conclusion, "to the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1). You know how much we have suffered in our conscience, how we were directed from one false comfort to another, from one commandment to another which only burdened our conscience and gave us no rest. But now ye have found freedom and peace in the knowledge and faith of Jesus Christ. From this freedom let nothing separate you. To hold it fast requires great fortitude. You know how our ancestors, thanks to God, have fought for our bodily liberty; let us still more zealously guard our spiritual liberty; not doubting that God, who has enlightened and drawn you, will in due time also draw our dear neighbors and fellow-confederates to him, so that we may live together in true friendship. May God, who created and redeemed us all, grant this to us and to them. Amen." By a reformation edict of the Council, dated Feb. 7, 1528, the ten Theses were legalized, the jurisdiction of the bishops abolished, and the necessary changes in worship and discipline provisionally ordered, subject to fuller light from the Word of God. The parishes of the city and canton were separately consulted by delegates sent to them Feb. 13 and afterwards, and the great majority adopted the reformation by popular vote, except in the highlands where the movement was delayed. After the catastrophe of Cappel the reformation was consolidated by the so-called "Berner Synodus," which met Jan. 9–14, 1532. All the ministers of the canton, two hundred and twenty in all, were invited to attend. Capito, the reformer of Strassburg, exerted a strong influence by his addresses. The Synod adopted a book of church polity and discipline; the Great Council confirmed it, and ordered annual synods. Hundeshagen pronounces this constitution a "true masterpiece even for our times," and Trechsel characterizes it as excelling in apostolic unction, warmth, simplicity and practical wisdom.168

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  Recall that the monastic life whose art and discipline Cassian defines has contemplation as its goal. One who renounces the world seeks to attain that “principal good” which is established “in theory, that is, in contemplation.” When the soul has entered that state, it will have “no other food than the knowledge of God and the joy of his beauty.” The knowledge relation underlies the soul’s relation to God. And even at the moment when the relation becomes a junction, a fusion, a possession, it’s still in the form of knowledge, or more exactly according to the model of the gaze and the light, that Cassian theorizes it. Consequently, for him chastity doesn’t have the same role that virginity has in the authors I spoke of previously. For them, it was a matter of preserving integrity that would allow the soul to reach the Bridegroom without ever experiencing any defilement. For Cassian, the role of chastity is to ensure a “purity of heart” or a “purity of mind” that makes the knowledge relation possible: such that there is no cloudiness in one’s gaze, nothing shadowy escaping the light, no stain to mar the transparency. In sum, Cassian, like Evagrius, replaces the series virginity-integrity-spiritual nuptials that one finds clearly developed in authors like Basil of Ancyra with the series chastity–purity of heart–contemplation.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  (i) To follow Jesus means to walk not in the darkness, but in the light (John 8.12). When a man walks by himself he walks in the darkness of uncertainty, and he may well end in the darkness of sin. To walk with Jesus is to be sure of the way, and in his company to be safe . (ii) To follow Jesus is to be certain of ultimately arriving at the glory where he himself is (John 12.26). This is the other side of the warning that to follow Jesus means a sacrifice and a cross. The sacrifice and the cross are not pointless. They are the price of the eternal glory. Jesus never promised an easy way, but he did promise a way in the end of which the hardness of the way would be forgotten. 3. We must see that there are inadequate ways of following Jesus. These ways are not to be condemned. They are infinitely better than nothing, but they are not the best. (i) At the end Peter followed Jesus afar off (Matt. 26.58; cp. Mark 14.54 and Luke 22.54). The real reason was that Peter did not dare to follow any nearer; and the real tragedy is that if Peter had kept close to Jesus, the disaster of his denial might never have happened, for it was when Peter saw Jesus’ face again that he discovered what he had done by his repeated denials. (ii) On the last journey to Jerusalem the disciples followed afraid (Mark 10.32). In a way that was the bravest act of all. They did not understand what was happening; they feared the worst; and yet they followed him. We can take comfort from reminding ourselves that often the man who follows Christ in fear and trembling is showing the highest courage of all. 4. Lastly we must note that a man can refuse to follow Jesus. That is what the Rich Young Ruler did (Matt. 19.21; cp. Luke 18.22). The result of his refusal was that he went away sorrowful. The result of refusal is always sorrow; the result of following, however hard and frightening the way, is always joy. ALAZŌN AND ALAZONEIA THE WORDS OF THE EMPTY BOAST The word alazōn occurs twice in the NT, in Rom. 1.30 and II Tim. 3.2. In both places the AV translates it boasters and Moffatt boastful . The word alazoneia also occurs twice in the NT, in James 4.16 and I John 2.16.

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

  Eloquence rarely achieved a more complete and honorable triumph. It was not the eloquence of passion and violence, but the eloquence of wisdom and love. It is easier to rouse the wild beast in man, than to tame it into submission. Melanchthon and the professors, the magistrate and peaceful citizens, were delighted. Dr. Schurf wrote to the Elector, after the sixth discourse: "Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin’s return spread among us! His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day misguided people into the way of the truth. It is as clear as the sun, that the Spirit of God is in him, and that he returned to Wittenberg by His special providence." Most of the old forms were restored again, at least for a season, till the people were ripe for the changes. Luther himself returned to the convent, observed the fasts, and resumed the cowl, but laid it aside two years afterwards when the Elector sent him a new suit. The passage in the mass, however, which referred to the unbloody repetition of the sacrifice and the miraculous transformation of the elements, was not restored, and the communion in both kinds prevailed, and soon became the universal custom. The Elector himself, shortly before his death (May 5, 1525), communed with the cup. Didymus openly acknowledged his error, and declared that Luther preached like an angel.495 But the Zwickau Prophets left Wittenberg for ever, and abused the Reformer as a new pope and enemy of spiritual religion. Münzer stirred up the Peasants’ War, and met a tragic fate.496

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

  The generation of the eternal Son in the soul brings joy which no man can take away. A prince who should lose his kingdom and all worldly goods would still have fulness of joy, for his birth outweighs everything else.455 God is in the soul, and yet He is not the soul. The eye is not the piece of wood upon which it looks, for when the eye is closed, it is the same eye it was before. But if, in the act of looking, the eye and the wood should become one, then we might say the eye is the wood and the wood is the eye. If the wood were a spiritual substance like the eyesight, then, in reality, one might say eye and wood are one substance.456 The fundament of God’s being is the fundament of my being, and the fundament of my being is the fundament of God’s being. Thus I live of myself even as God lives of Himself.457 This begetment of the Son of God in the soul is the source of all true life and good works. One of the terms which Eckart uses most frequently, to denote God’s influence upon the soul, is durchbrechen, to break through, and his favorite word for the activity of the soul, as it rises into union with God, is Abgeschiedenheit, the soul’s complete detachment of itself from all that is temporal and seen. Keep aloof, abgeschieden, he says, from men, from yourself, from all that cumbers. Bear God alone in your hearts, and then practise fasting, vigils and prayer, and you will come unto perfection. This Abgeschiedenheit, total self-detachment from created things,458 he says in a sermon on the subject, is "the one thing needful." After reading many writings by pagan masters and Christian teachers, Eckart came to consider it the highest of all virtues,—higher than humility, higher even than love, which Paul praises as the highest; for, while love endures all things, this quality is receptiveness towards God. In the person possessing this quality, the worldly has nothing to correspond to itself. This is what Paul had reference to when he said, "I live and yet not I, for Christ liveth in me." God is Himself perfect Abgeschiedenheit. In another place, Eckart says that he who has God in his soul finds God in all things, and God appears to him out of all things. As the thirsty love water, so that nothing else tastes good to them, even so it is with the devoted soul. In God and God alone is it at rest. God seeks rest, and He finds it nowhere but in such a heart. To reach this condition of Abgeschiedenheit, it is necessary for the soul first to meditate and form an image of God, and then to allow itself to be transformed by God.459

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  It's a welcome counterpoint to the excesses of the casino, a casual, fun, and filling respite from the madness outside. "This is what's great about Vegas," babbled a momentarily ebullient Ruhlman, well into his fourth sake. He was talking about Okada at the new Wynn Las Vegas, a "combining [of] the French and Japanese worlds" from chef Takashi Yagihashi. "I mean . . . look at this," he spluttered, "the guy [Yagihashi] goes from a sixty-five-seat restaurant in the suburbs of Detroit to . . . this ! It's amazing." And Okada is amazing. The spanking new, two-hundred-thirty-seat restaurant opens onto an artificial, yet stunningly beautiful, bamboo- and tree-lined lagoon. Water falls over rock shelves through what appears to be a dense, Asian jungle just outside. Marginally familiar with the chef's previous venue, the well-reviewed Tribute, I had to admit it was quite a transition. This was what Vegas has to offer: a new life for talented chefs like Yagihashi. Private dining rooms; a sleek, new, stylish, multimillion-dollar main dining room; a large sushi bar manned by "traditional Edomae sushi master Miyazawa." An open kitchen serving robata yaki (marinated skewers grilled over Japanese charcoal). An open kitchen serving "caviar tastings," braised short ribs, and bento boxes, among other fusion offerings, along with tempura and teriyaki—a scattershot potpourri of mix and match, and a vast selection of sakes. All right, so the sushi wasn't so hot: The rice was cold and gluey, the uni (sea urchin) not the freshest I've had. Perfectly good otoro was cut too thick, and across connective tissue. But it's impossible not to be swept along by the enthusiasm of the place. Okada exudes high energy, pride, optimism—and the American dream of a successful future. It celebrates the different and the "exotic" in admirably bold fashion. Our server cheerily explained to Ruhlman and me (two jaded and grizzled food writers if ever there were any) what an omakase was (tasting menu), and we felt compelled to feign ignorance and wonder. What followed was a hilariously frenetic, yet intermittently delicious, trainwreck as food cranked continuously from the various stations without coordination. Our serious yet beleaguered sommelier struggled mightily to match always excellent sakes to a double-time procession of courses, arriving with a perfectly matched unfiltered sake, for instance, only to find another course had been plunked down in the few moments it had taken her to fetch it. Plated offerings and family-style tastings seemed stacked in holding patterns around the table like planes over JFK at rush hour. The always dangerously manic-depressive Ruhlman's mood began to swing. "I've got The Fear," he murmured, picking unhappily at the "lobster trio," an inexplicably smoked lobster tail which tasted of, well . . . smoke; a lobster croquette that could just as well have been "sea leg," and a "lobster gelee" served in the inevitable shot glass. "Maybe there's a downside to this. If Yagihashi had opened in New York first, before coming here . . .

• From The Power of Myth (1988)

  My own peak experiences, the ones that I knew were peak experiences after I had them, all came in athletics. MOYERS: Which was the Everest of your experience? CAMPBELL: When I was running at Columbia, I ran a couple of races that were just beautiful. During the second race, I knew I was going to win even though there was no reason for me to know this, because I was touched off as anchor in the relay with the leading runner thirty yards ahead of me. But I just knew, and it was my peak experience. Nobody could beat me that day. That’s being in full form and really knowing it. I don’t think I have ever done anything in my life as competently as I ran those two races—it was the experience of really being at my full and doing a perfect job. MOYERS: Not all peak experiences are physical. CAMPBELL: No, there are other kinds of peak experiences. But those were the ones that come to my mind when I think about peak experiences. MOYERS: What about James Joyce’s epiphanies? CAMPBELL: Now, that’s something else. Joyce’s formula for the aesthetic experience is that it does not move you to want to possess the object. A work of art that moves you to possess the object depicted, he calls pornography. Nor does the aesthetic experience move you to criticize and reject the object—such art he calls didactic, or social criticism in art. The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object. Joyce says that you put a frame around it and see it first as one thing, and that, in seeing it as one thing, you then become aware of the relationship of part to part, each part to the whole, and the whole to each of its parts. This is the essential, aesthetic factor—rhythm, the harmonious rhythm of relationships. And when a fortunate rhythm has been struck by the artist, you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest. That is the epiphany. And that is what might in religious terms be thought of as the all-informing Christ principle coming through. MOYERS: The face of the saint beholding God? CAMPBELL: It doesn’t matter who it is. You could take someone whom you might think of as a monster. The aesthetic experience transcends ethics and didactics. MOYERS: That’s where I would disagree with you. It seems to me that in order to experience the epiphany, the object you behold but do not want to possess must be beautiful in some way. And a moment ago, when you talked about your peak experience, running, you said it was beautiful. “Beautiful” is an aesthetic word. Beauty is the harmony. CAMPBELL: Yes. MOYERS: And yet you said it’s also in Joyce’s epiphanies, and that concerns art and the aesthetic. CAMPBELL: Yes. MOYERS: It seems to me they are the same if they’re both beautiful. How can you behold a monster and have an epiphany?

• From The Journals of Sylvia Plath (1982)

  Too forced and rhetorical. A leaf from Anne Sexton’s book would do here. She has none of my clenches, and an ease of phrase, and an honesty. I have my 40 unattackable poems. I think. And a joy about them of sorts. Although I would love more potent ones. All the Smith ones are miserable death wishes. The ones here, however gray (“Companionable Ills,” “Owl”), have a verve and life-joy.… The “dead black” in my poem [“Man in Black”] may be a transference from the visit to my father’s grave. Worked and worked with R.B.: the skip of a week gave me courage and momentum: stayed awake the whole night before thinking over what I have come through and to. Concentrated on my suicide: a knot in which much is caught.… How to overcome my naïveté in writing? Read others and think hard. Never step outside my own voice, such as I know it. I think: a Wuthering Heights article for red-shoe money. Correct the word in my Monitor poem. Start a poem for The Bed Book .m A story on the hospital. About the affair of Starbuck & Sexton.n A double story, “August Lighthill and the Other Woman.” … Here is horror. And all the details. Get life in spurts in stories, then the novel will come. A way. By the time I get to Yaddo, three good publishable stories and The Bed Book done! Saturday, April 25 . Clear day, dragged up as usual early, but exhausted, too much so to write, so worked on polishing up essay on Withens [Yorkshire] only to be stopped in title from final typing by not knowing spelling Withens or Withins.… Sunday, May 3, 1959 .… Retyped pages, a messy job, on the volume of poems I should be turning in to Houghton Mifflin this week. But A.S.o is there ahead of me, with her lover G.S.p writing New Yorker odes to her and both of them together: felt our triple-martini afternoons at the Ritz breaking up. That memorable afternoon at G.’s monastic and miserly room on Pinckney: “You shouldn’t have left us”: where is responsibility to lie? I left, yet felt like a brown-winged moth around a rather meager candle flame, drawn. That is over. As [W. D.] Snodgrass would say. I wrote a book yesterday. Maybe I’ll write a postscript on top of this in the next month and say I’ve sold it. Yes, after half a year of procrastinating, bad feeling and paralysis, I got to it yesterday morning, having lines in my head here and there, and Wide-Awake Will and Stay-Uppity Sue very real, and bang. I chose ten beds out of the long list of too fancy and ingenious and abstract a list of beds, and once I’d begun I was away and didn’t stop till I typed out and mailed it (8 double-spaced pages only!) to the Atlantic Press. The Bed Book , by Sylvia Plath. Funny how doing it freed me.