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.

Page 51 of 299 · 20 per page

• From Shunned (2018)

  There was an intimacy and safety there that soothed the raw, vulnerable parts of me that felt guilty for all the pain I was causing and wondered where I might find redemption. “When I’m with you, I’m happy,” I said. Geoff smiled and continued holding my hand. “In the past, I’ve watched other Witnesses leave and thought they had flipped out. From a distance, it looks like a form of insanity. But I feel like I’ve flipped in , like I’m getting closer to who I really am. My heart and my gut feelings tell me I’m on the right track. So I keep going.” “If it feels good, do it,” Geoff said. “That’s my motto.” “I was taught that kind of thinking is dangerous and selfish,” I said. “My mom likes to quote a Scripture: ‘The heart is treacherous. Who can know it?’ But I’m following my heart now, learning to trust it, and it’s a huge relief.” The next day, Geoff had a bouquet of flowers delivered to my office, along with a handwritten note expressing his care for me. He invited me to dinner that Saturday night. Ah, romance! I sat at my desk and reread his note. I was going on my first date in eleven years, with a man I was attracted to and felt completely at home with. [image "Images" file=Image00000.jpg] We had dinner at Papa Hayden on Twenty-First Street. Geoff had remembered my saying it was my favorite restaurant. He’d come by my apartment to pick me up, and I’d invited him to come early enough to have a glass of wine. I had never entertained a single man alone before and was surprised by how calm and composed I felt. I knew if my mother saw me, she’d freak out. I was walking dangerously close to the line of adultery. My divorce was in process, and I hadn’t seen my soon-to-be-ex-husband in weeks. But in Jehovah’s eyes, we were still married. I was playing with fire and enjoying it. Geoff and I had an unspoken understanding that our relationship was shifting. In the days and moments leading up to our first date, I felt excitement, desire, and longing. I knew there might be an opportunity for sex. If it didn’t happen that night, it was coming soon. “If it feels good, do it. That’s my motto.” Our conversation over dinner delved further into the past. We shared stories about how we’d been raised, poignant memories of how life had disappointed us, books we’d read, and places we’d seen. There was no talk of the office, no mention of the present or the future. Strolling hand in hand from the restaurant toward Geoff’s car, my silk dress swaying over my bare legs, I felt sensual and content, filled up by the meal and the company. “Where to now, Linda?” Geoff asked, as he opened my car door.

• From Shunned (2018)

  When he returned, my parents got married and the newlyweds settled near the navy base in San Diego. All three of their children were born there. During those years, Mom took the path of least resistance and became an inactive Witness, though she never forgot The Truth. By all accounts, they had a good life and were happy. One day, when they were just about school age, my brother and sister came home and asked Mom for permission to go to church. The kids they were playing with had invited them along to Mass. This would prove to be a turning point in our family’s destiny. Mother cringed at even a whisper of her children entering a Catholic church—or any church—and through that aversion, a spiritual commitment awakened in her. “That evening,” I said, “my parents had a heart-to-heart conversation. Mom declared her intention to dedicate her life to Jehovah and formalize it through baptism, and her wish that their children be raised as Witnesses. Dad agreed, on two conditions. The first was that each be free as adults to choose the religion anew. The second was that none of his children ever peddle religion on any street corner.” Ross and I both burst out laughing. He grabbed a paper towel to cover his mouth. We were both shaking our heads, completely at ease with each other. I was giggling at him as much as I was the irony of this story. My siblings and I all grew up and pioneered; every one of us had “peddled religion.” I took a minute to catch my breath. “I didn’t learn of this agreement until just a few years ago.” “From what I hear, your dad is a really great guy, very supportive, even though he isn’t a Witness,” Ross said. “That’s true. And I don’t think he has regrets about making that agreement. He’s proud of the way we’ve all turned out. He knows we’re happy. The Truth keeps us safe from so many evils in the world.” By this time, everyone else had gradually gone into the living room, leaving us alone in the kitchen. I took a seat at the table. I was enjoying the conversation and decided to lob a challenge. “So, Ross, what else has Bill told you about me?” He looked down and started gathering used paper plates and crumpled napkins and tossing them into the trash. Next he turned on the faucet and washed his hands. Picking up the towel to dry his hands, he answered, “He said you’re an official member of the Triple A Club.” A smile came to me immediately. In Witness parlance, “Triple A” stood for “Available After Armageddon .” Claiming membership in the Triple A Club was a lighthearted way of saying you intended to remain single until after Armageddon.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Now she looked pale and confused, staring at my father, who looked straight ahead as he sang. Her gaze then turned to us and saw eight eyes filled with tears looking back at her, all of us smiling to reassure her. Mom dropped down to her seat, blinking and baffled. We all sat down with her, and I leaned my arm over the chair back, resting it on her lap. “Dad wanted to surprise you,” I said. The music was still swirling around us. Grace, seated to the right, put her arm around Mom as her eyes filled with tears, not saying a word. “Oh, that rascal,” she said, reaching for Kleenex in her purse, smiling, unable to see through the tears. Lory handed her several tissues, and Mom dabbed her eyes until she could see us clearly. “You all knew about this?” she asked, her disbelief compounding as she gradually understood all that had been hidden from her. “What about reviewing the eighty questions with the elders?” she asked. “All done,” Grace said. “Phil handled that quietly, per Frank’s wishes.” Her mouth curled into a smile, and then we were giggling with her, nodding to assure her this was real. Suddenly, a grave look struck her. “Randy,” she said. “Randy shouldn’t miss this.” “He’s here,” I said, squeezing her knee. “He, Marlene, and the kids are in the back. Dad’s been working on this for months. He thought of everything.” She collapsed into the back of the chair, her defenses down, surrendering to the moment, looking at my dad, shaking her head, blowing her nose. As the song came to a close, he glanced back at her, and I imagined I saw the victorious grin of the young man she’d fallen in love with. We settled back in our seats with the rest of the crowd as the elder leading the discourse reviewed the wisdom and significance of this step. “Immersion is a symbol of a lifelong commitment, a vow, to dedicate one’s life to serve Jehovah.” He spoke of the joy but also the gravity of this action, reminding us that Jesus did not present himself to John the Baptist until he was thirty years old—of age, responsible, and aware. In keeping with Christ’s example, all candidates would be fully immersed in the pool. The talk ended, and all the candidates were invited to stand and publicly affirm their dedication with a loud “yes.” I could hear my dad’s singular voice, apart from the rest. There was a prayer, muffled by my own tears, and the sighs of those near me. We were invited to sing one last song as the candidates filed into a line and walked to the changing rooms behind the stage. Then the meeting adjourned for a two-hour lunch break. Those who wished could stand by and observe the immersion. A crowd gathered near the front with my family. Randy came forward and hugged my mother.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  As a result the history of the Reformation was profoundly distorted. Biographies were largely written with no sense of the social and cultural world of Saxony or of Wittenberg, and thus tended to reinforce the view of Luther as a lone theological hero, who stands above time and space. Even so, there have been some subversive moments. By a fine irony, the best scholarly study of Wittenberg, unmatched since, testifies to the legacy of the early women’s movement: the 1927 work by the economic and social historian Edith Eschenhagen in which she analyzed Wittenberg’s tax records. 19 All these works had a strong influence on me when I began work on this book in 2006, and reinforced my view that a sense of place was essential to understanding Luther’s reformation. I spent as much time as I could in the archives at Wittenberg, which are housed in Friedrich the Wise’s castle. During the lunch hour I wandered around the town. I visited all the places where Luther had lived before going to Wittenberg, and I often read in the archives, not so much to find out about Luther as to get a sense of the local economy and power structure. I read accounts of Luther by his contemporaries, foes as well as friends—and I discovered that his antagonists often proved surprisingly shrewd about his psychology and motivations. But it was reading his letters that gave me the greatest pleasure and the richest encounter with the man. I read them not to corroborate or date Reformation events, but as literary sources that conveyed his emotions and illuminated his relationships with others. Luther’s letters were designed to make things happen. His mistakes, slips, self-justifications, and fondness for particular words reveal much about what moved him. In the early years of the Reformation, for example, he talked constantly of invidia, or envy, attributing it to his opponents—although it is hardly likely that they would have envied a penniless, powerless monk, while he, on the other hand, had every reason to be preoccupied with those he envied. I began to reflect that many of his theological concerns were closely related to the strong conflicts that shaped his psychology. Luther’s letter-writing habits offered perhaps the most intriguing insights. Although he had had secretaries since his days as a monk, he wrote his letters himself, except when severe illness prevented him. His hand—small, neat, and well shaped—moves confidently across the page, and Luther almost always knew what size paper he would need, suggesting a remarkable ability to judge in advance how much he was going to write. Over the years his handwriting remained largely unchanged except for a tendency to become slightly smaller and more angular, the hand muscles evidently becoming more tense. Extraordinarily, in an age when letters were routinely passed from person to person, were forged or intercepted, and when every chancellery filed drafts, Luther kept no copies.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  I nodded yes, but I did not know what he wanted of me. He unbuttoned his pants and I saw his penis. I took it in my hands. He said, “Press harder.” He saw then that I did not know how. He took my hand in his and guided me. The little white foam fell all over my hand. He covered himself. He kissed me with the same grateful kiss I had given him after my pleasure. He said, “Did you know that a Hindu makes love to his wife ten days before he takes her? For ten days they merely caress and kiss.” The thought of Ronald’s behavior angered him all over again—the way he had wronged me in everybody’s eyes. I said, “Don’t get angry. I am happy he did it, because it made me walk away from the village and come here.” “I loved you as soon as I heard you speak with that accent you have. I felt as if I were traveling again. Your face is so different, your walk, your ways. You remind me of the girl I intended to paint in Fez. I saw her only once, asleep like this. I always dreamed of awakening her as I awakened you.” “And I always dreamed of being awakened with a caress like this,” I said. “If you had been awake I might not have dared.” “You, the adventurer, who lived with a savage woman?” “I did not really live with the savage woman. That happened to a friend of mine. He was always talking about it, so I always tell it as if it had happened to me. I’m really timid with women. I can knock men down and fight and get drunk, but women intimidate me, even whores. They laugh at me. But this happened exactly as I had always planned it would happen.” “But the tenth day I will be in New York,” I said laughing. “The tenth day I will drive you back, if you have to go back. But meanwhile you are my prisoner.”

• From Shunned (2018)

  Geoff called that evening, and we spoke the lilting language of lovers, making plans for our next rendezvous. My mother also called, curious about my weekend. I told her the truth about going to Papa Hayden’s but lied about who I’d gone with, changing names to protect the guilty. [image "Images" file=Image00000.jpg] The next week, I received a second bouquet of flowers at the office. This time, they were from Ross. He’d taken the time to buy a Hallmark card that said, “I think of you often, and you’ll be in my prayers through the days to come!!!” In bright blue ink, his familiar hand wrote how much I meant to him. He closed with this: “I hope I can help restore your faith in me and in Jehovah. Xoxoxoxoxo! Rossman” I was astonished that he was holding on to any hope of reconciliation and baffled by the ongoing delusion that he would have any role in restoring my relationship with God. I was also heart-struck to think of the shame Ross was enduring. While I enjoyed my newfound freedom to the hilt, he was slogging to meetings alone, enduring the watchful eye of a community that blamed him for failures as the spiritual head of the family. I called his house at a time when I knew he would not be home and left a short message to thank him for the flowers. Geoff and I continued to spend time together, though we were careful not to broadcast our romantic relationship around the office. Understanding the nuances of my situation, he never spoke of the long term and gave me plenty of space to do my own thing. Our time together was lighthearted and joyful, lacking any need for commitments beyond the moment. I had never had a relationship like it before. We went to the movies, golfed, and took long strolls along the waterfront. He was very curious about my family and my religion, and I spent hours telling him family stories or explaining different tenets of the faith. These conversations were a venue beyond journaling and my therapist’s office to exercise the growing voice within me. I needed to talk freely, sometimes critically, other times with appreciation, always sorting. One night over dinner at Jake’s restaurant, our conversation drifted back to a fond childhood memory. To break the monotony of rainy winter afternoons, Lory would play Mom’s Kingston Trio record on the stereo console in our living room. She and Randy and I would sing along to “Hangman” or “Tom Dooley” while she made popcorn and Kool-Aid. “I love the Kingston Trio,” Geoff said. “Let’s go buy one of their CDs tonight. We can listen to it back at your place.” We settled the bill and proceeded with our spontaneous plan. We left Tower Records in triumph, having succeeded in finding its last Kingston Trio CD.

• From Shunned (2018)

  I could tell David was smiling when he spoke. “That’s right. We’re ready to go. Give me a call so we can get this ball rolling.” I listened to the message a second time, and a third, allowing the stunned feeling to melt into joy. My first instinct was to hang up the phone and twirl about the room in triumph. Instead, I took a breath and returned David’s call. After the mutually congratulatory banter, I promised to send a contract via overnight mail. He was anxious to move forward and thought the legal review could be done that week. This was my second bit of good news, as corporate attorneys can waylay these deals for weeks. David assured me he had an inside track and was confident of the timing, impressing upon me the need to get my team lined up. Catherine was in closed-door meetings until late that afternoon. I’d been impatient to share this news with her and had refrained from telling anyone else. Poking my head through her office doorway, I caught her eye and she motioned for me to come in. I closed the door behind me and sat down to wait as she finished a phone call. My sense of jubilation and validation were palpable. “You look like the Cheshire cat,” Catherine said, putting her phone down. “Are you available this Friday to join me in the city for an early-afternoon meeting with Mid-Town Bank?” I asked. Catherine glanced down to check her calendar. “Today I received a verbal commitment from them to move forward.” Catherine froze in place and looked up, a luminous smile across her face. “Well, well,” she said. “The moment we’ve all been waiting for and knew would come. Congratulations.” “The legal review starts tomorrow, and my contact there is committed to pushing it through this week,” I said. “I’d love it if you came with me to pick up the contract and welcome them aboard.” “Absolutely,” Catherine said. “And after that, there’s a small bar just around the corner where we can celebrate.” “One more thing,” I said. “Unless you disagree, I’d prefer that this not be announced to Richard or anyone else until the ink is dry on the contract.” “Good call,” Catherine said. “Remind me of the numbers again.” “Fifty million dollars in annual volume.” It would move me from last to third in sales for the team. That week unfolded with excitement and ease. David made good on his promise, returning the contract to me within days, and our in-house risk managers supported my request for a rush review. The final contract would be ready to sign by the end of the week. Mid-Town Bank was a short walk from my apartment. I parked my car at home and floated down Clark Street toward the Friday afternoon meeting, poised and confident, breath visible with each step. The encounter went off without a hitch.

• From Shunned (2018)

  But early on I made excuses for my family’s behavior, as I had been taught to do. Hadn’t I, through the years, shunned people who’d been disfellowshipped, turning my head, avoiding the gaze of someone I passed on the street or in a store? I repeatedly told myself that my family had no choice but to do the same if they wanted to stay true to God and their religion. No matter, I thought, as I practically levitated from the freedom from having to please them, the elders, and angry old Jehovah. Those days had an urgency, as though I needed to swallow life whole and satisfy the pent-up and greedy hungers of my soul. So I decided to try everything that called to me, explore all ideas, and keep my dance card full. Armageddon may or may not have been coming—I hadn’t sorted that out—but I’d come this far, and I might as well have a good time. My career continued to blossom, and my sales numbers skyrocketed. I was comfortable navigating around greater Chicago-land and was regularly flying to Houston, where I was starting to get traction in that banking community. When talking about the industry, I spoke with authority. I had a steady paycheck, a commission check in the queue, and the respect of my peers. That summer, I also set a goal of participating in three century rides—organized cycling events where participants bike one hundred miles over one or two days. Training for these rides, playing beach volleyball with a team I’d joined in the spring, and personal-training sessions at my gym helped fill my evenings and burn off stress. In addition, eligible, attractive men were everywhere, and I had no trouble meeting them. I enjoyed playing the field, no longer anchored by the obligation to think of each suitor as a potential marriage mate. I was living the life my new friends had lived in their college years and early twenties, back when I was newly married and knocking on doors full-time. David and I met when I responded to his personal ad in the Reader. He was fair-haired and sturdy, wore cool wire-frame glasses that accentuated his genuine intelligence, and had a wicked, self-deprecating Jewish sense of humor. After one date, it was clear we would be no more than friends, but friends indeed. He became like a brother to me, and we sought each other out to sort through the nuances of our respective encounters with the opposite sex. At one point, which David affectionately referred to as my “slut period,” I was dating five men and “knowing” them all in the biblical sense.

• From Shunned (2018)

  It’s a sort of emotional terrorism, the worst sort of coercion, at least the worst form I’d ever experienced. The sermon was a sharp, bitter contrast with how I was treated. I felt the aspiration of this community to practice a living compassion and remembered Jesus’s barometer of wise teaching—recognizable by its fruits. As the pastor concluded her sermon, every molecule of my heart felt tender and malleable. Old hurts had been stirred and mended, and I was being reconfigured somehow—stirred up, electrified, and relieved to discover a church like this existed. “Finally, my friends,” the pastor said, “I’d like to ask Jean and her group to stand up for an acknowledgment.” About twenty people stood up, many arm in arm, including the two women who had danced during the first song. “This group will be representing our congregation next week in the gay pride parade, marching through the streets, right behind Mayor Daly’s car, spreading peace and tolerance and love. If you get a chance, please go down and show your support. Remember, we’re all family and we’re all in this together.” The applause grew riotous. This level of acceptance was too much to absorb, and my tears came quickly. I was stunned to find a house of worship that didn’t concern itself with what people did in their bedrooms. There was a call to prayer. I grabbed a tissue from my purse and bowed my head, relieved for some privacy. I was too full to hear more, so I anchored my feet and breathed into the place in my heart that was swirling with emotion. When the program was over, I was reluctant to leave and sat alone in my seat for a while, enjoying the parade of people around me. Lying in bed that night, I prayed for the first time in a long while. It was more like releasing a balloon into the ether, launching wishes and gratitude, whispering my request for wisdom, trusting it would be heard somehow. Even if my higher self and I were the only ones listening, that was enough. I drifted off to sleep in the middle of it but didn’t feel guilty for leaving God hanging, as I might have done in days gone by. And I took heart in knowing that the separation gripping my family was only an illusion—on some bigger playing field, we were still connected. Chapter 20 [image "Images" file=Image00000.jpg] Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. —Rumi J ust home from a day’s work, I stood on the porch of my brownstone building, flipped open the rusty mailbox, and reached in for the solitary letter. The writing, with its tidy, just-so slant to the right, was familiar: my mother’s hand. My breathing stopped short and my legs wobbled as I dropped down to sit on the cool concrete stairs, resting my purse and briefcase, staring at the envelope.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  Over his shoulder he handed me a Christmas card. It was from Max Mokeskey, the med student who had done his preceptorship here. Max sent his greetings to Dr. and Mrs. Livengood and in a PS said, “Please give Louden Swain my wishes for good luck in his big wrestling match.” “Gee,” I said. “That’s really nice of him to remember me.” “He’s a good boy,” Dr. Livengood said, handing me back my weight-loss form. “Boy,” Dr. Livengood called him. Max is probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. He stands probably six-four and goes maybe 220. “Boy.” I really get a bang out of old people. * * * God, it’s a beautiful day! Carla drove to work early just to drop me off at Dr. Livengood’s. It’s still pretty early. My appointment was for eight and it only took about ten minutes. People are still on their way to work. Carla’s probably drinking tea with Belle right now, sitting on a granola barrel, waiting for nine o’clock and the first customers. We got just enough snow last night to cover up the dog shit on the sidewalks and the bus exhaust spores in the streets. Ordinarily I’d avoid a busy street like Monroe on a walk from town. But now the traffic is slow and soft-sounding. The cars and buses seem like a herd of big, friendly animals headed for grazing ground. All of us emit little clouds of vapor. I imagine us as comic book characters with writing in our clouds. A snowcapped Toyota pickup has turned into a pronghorn antelope. Dressed in a camp cook’s apron and hat, it waves a ladle and hails me in Kuch’s voice. “Howdy, pilgrim,” says the antelope-cook. “How’s about warmin’ up yur ribs with a little wild onion stew?” “No thanks, ole stud hoss,” I say. “Can’t even take time to set. Headed for the winter rendezvous up to Fort David Thompson. Figure to wrestle Gary Shute out of all his hides and his poke o’ gold.” “That Shute’s quick as a snake an’ mean as an old mountain lion,” yells the pronghorn from far down the trail. “Best watch yur topknot!” “Best watch yourn!” I yell back. But the little cook is gone, the chuckwagon obscured by the lumbering buffalo buses. Yesterday afternoon just before Christmas dinner I finished reading a book called Mountain Man by Vardis Fisher. I’m really a sucker for a good wilderness story. Kuch had been after me to read that book for a long time. I like feeling a kinship with traffic. I like pretending. Carla would get a kick out of seeing me this way. She really loved seeing the deer last night. I had a great night, too, even though Christmas night has traditionally been an anticlimax for me. But Christmas Eve is a gas all day. I always go to a matinee, then open presents at night and have a great time at home.

• From Shunned (2018)

  That’s about a football field a minute. That can’t be right , I thought. But it was true and I had found a group that was doing important work, in true partnership with the indigenous people who’d made their home in the rainforest for centuries. I wanted to be part of that effort somehow. When the event was over, I sought out Lynne and thanked her for inviting me. Seeing how moved I was, she invited me to travel with her group to the Amazon to meet their indigenous partners—and one year later, I did just that. But after we spoke, I was still flying high from all I had seen and heard and was reluctant to break the spell by returning to my office. So I went to the coffee line, and that is where I met Bob. He was a founding board member of the nonprofit and had traveled to the jungle with Lynne and her husband, Bill, several years earlier. We found a lot to talk about. The spark between us led to dinner a few weeks later. Months after our first date, he told me he’d made a rare exception to his dating practice; at the time, the fact that I lived a half-hour drive beyond his acceptable dating radius made me “geographically undesirable.” Thankfully, he liked me enough to set that rule aside, which is just another example of how saying yes to something slightly inconvenient can be the smart choice. Three years later, we were married and that is hands down one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The first thing I noticed about Bob was his strong, six-foot-two frame and Irish charm, which shone through a rascally smile and lighthearted laugh. He was divorced, with two children, an eleven-year-old son, Will, and a fourteen-year-old daughter, Christine, who lived with him half-time. He and his ex-wife had been apart ten years and had a warm, cooperative relationship. Possessing both an engineering and law degree, Bob was a sharp man who had run dozens of successful businesses all around the world, though he was never flashy about his accomplishments. He had a reputation for being one of the smartest and most humble of people in whatever group he belonged. I recall standing in our kitchen, getting exasperated as I sorted through our Tupperware cupboard, trying to find a bowl and matching lid. I threw up my hands, turned to Bob, and said, “This is chaos”—to which he replied, “No, my dear, that is entropy.” Rascally smile. Lighthearted laugh. Kiss on the cheek. Never have I known anyone better at balancing such a keen intellect with a warm heart. His sense of humor never came at another person’s expense. He thought the Catholic religion he was raised in was hypocritical and backward, particularly when it came to women’s reproductive rights and gay rights.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  Sometimes, between the music and the exercise and the heat, I really get spacy. I start out skipping to “Dancing in the Moonlight,” which always makes me think of drinking beer on summer evenings down under the Hangman Creek bridge. Then I go through “Family Affair,” “Treat Her like a Lady,” “Respect Yourself,” and five other good ones, so that by the time I get to the long version of “Layla” I believe myself to be the toughest, meanest, most in-shapest, baddest-ass kid on the block. I’m also near death. Anyway, I finished my laundry-room workout and took off my soggy clothes and was headed for the shower when I saw Carla reading in front of the fireplace and decided to bedevil her some. I tiptoed up behind her and lay my wasted cock gently on her shoulder. She didn’t respond for a few seconds; then she turned her head a little and glanced down at the thing. “What’s that look like?” I asked. She studied it a bit. Finally she responded. “Well,” she said. “It looks like a cock, I guess . . . only smaller.” I hadn’t expected it was quite that wasted. I began to whimper and crept over to the davenport and curled up in a fetal position. Carla cast aside her book and kitten and hurried over to me. After a minute or two she sat up and faced me. “It’s beginning to look more like a cock all the time,” she said very sweetly. We hadn’t made love for two and a half days. We slid along the linoleum like brazen bobsledders. We did the monkey in the banana tree, the grasshopper and the leaf, we practiced our tandem bearwalk. We ended up on the bed. I tried to sit up afterward, but one workout on top of another was just too much. I rose to a sitting position but couldn’t hold it and fell backward the other ninety degrees. Before my eyes Carla’s rusty muff glistened postcoitally. We fell asleep, each pillowed on the other’s thigh. I awoke in a spasm of guilt. Coach had scheduled a practice just for my benefit at three thirty. It was 3:25, so I didn’t have time to shower. I jumped into my clammy sweat suits, laced up my boots, and made a run for it. I burst through the locker-room door in a sweat. Coach was the only one still downstairs. “Sorry, Coach,” I said. “Went running without my watch.” “It’s okay,” he said. He smiled big and patted me on the shoulder. I grabbed my wrestling shoes and followed him upstairs. Coach turned into the film room to set up the films on Shute for tomorrow. In the wrestling room Kuch and Doug and Smith and Balldozer and Otto lay around the mats in various attitudes of repose. I flopped down on my back and began to bridge up on my neck to get loose. Right away Kuch began to sniff loudly.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  And after the third they set up camp in the garage and roasted their gerbils over an open fire. They were great friends afterward, even Garret, who had sacrificed his gerb-gerbs for family unity. They had to buy new boots, but Melissa added the roasted shrunken ones to her doll wardrobe. I felt pretty good. After all, I left no Turn unstoned.” I turned to Carla and flashed my biggest grin. Then I pushed out my upper plate with my tongue and let it fall out of my mouth, catching it with lightning speed before it hit the seat. Carla screamed and almost collided with a logging truck coming from New Kettle. She’d never seen me do that with my teeth before. She drove with her left hand and beat on me with her right. She pulled off in the Gold Creek rest area and beat on me with both fists. I hunched in a ball on the floor and laughed like a loon while Carla pounded away. Then she barked her knuckles on the heater and swore, “Oh, shit, piss, and fuck,” and shook her injured fist and began to laugh. Carla lay across the seat laughing and I sat happily on the floor until I got a muscle spasm in my thigh and couldn’t stand it and opened the door and fell out backward and writhed on the gravel until I rubbed it out. Carla just laughed some more. After we pulled out of the rest area I could feel things had changed a little between us. For one thing, Carla stopped after she turned off the highway onto Lola’s road and gave me a big wet Willy. It was more a playful one than your usual drive-in-movie wet Willy, but it turned me on anyway. She grabbed my head with both hands and lifted my hair and scoured my ear a good one. She must have noticed a strange texture or taste, because she pulled back and scrutinized my ear. “Louden . . . ?” she began. “Cauliflower ear,” I said. “Both of ’em. Hope it doesn’t taste bad.” “It tastes fine,” she said, giving me a few softer wet ones. She pulled me over sideways till my head lay on the seat beside her and examined my right ear, which is in a little worse condition than my left. “Don’t they hurt?” she asked, after treating my semicircular canals to a generous wash of saliva. “Only when someone rubs them into the mat,” I said. She thought I was referring to my other ear being mashed into the cracked leather seat, so she let me go and pulled me up and said she was sorry and looked that ear over for damage she might have done. Actually, it had hurt some, but only a little, since my nervous system had been momentarily hijacked by the desperate jolts of sensation rushing to my cock. We had a great time at Aunt Lola’s.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  When we reestablished our relationship with the world outside the two of us, we found ourselves in a red twilight. Carla peeked outside and then turned back and said, “Nobody’s around. Let’s go for a swim.” “That water is cold,” I informed her. “Think how good it will feel.” And she rubbed her hands together, gave me a quick kiss on my shriveled peter, and burst bare-assed through the tent flaps. I heard a splash and then a scream. Then, “Oh, God, it’s wonderful!” That water was so cold it drove my testes up about to my spleen. But it truly was wonderful. Later, at the lodge, Carla looked up from her dinner and around at all the people and up at the deer, elk, bear, bobcat, pheasant, and fish trophies on the walls and turned back to me and said, “We have a secret. We know something nobody else in here knows.” Actually, I thought our secret was showing. Carla glowed like sunset and I couldn’t stop the smiles coming. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And maybe it was just the fragrance remaining in my mustache, but in spite of our icy creek baths, I thought we smelled like a fish sack left out in the sun. “And we’re going to have another one when we get back to the tent,” Carla said. We’ve been having secrets like that ever since. IXI’m lying on a cot. Tanneran is sitting on a stool talking to me. He says I fainted dead away when I got up to give my book report. He says we walked down here to the nurse’s office and I seemed okay until I fainted again. I feel like I just sprinted to the top of Mt. Rainier and went takedowns with a Sasquatch. “How’s your weight?” Gene asks. “Forty-seven last night,” I reply. “Did you have any breakfast?” “A veritable feast, Gene. A big bowl of Carla’s yogurt with some giant chunks of fresh pineapple.” “What’d you do before class?” Gene asks. “I skipped my two study halls and did a workout,” I reply slowly. “What sort of workout?” Gene’s being very slow with me. I’m grateful. I’m having a little trouble following. “Regular workout, Gene,” I say. “I ran three. Did five hundred pushups, a hundred dips, a thousand sits.” Gene shakes his head. “And what did you weigh then?” “Forty-six.” “I’ll bet anything you’re going down too fast,” Gene says. He purses his lips and nods. “Coach is on his way. He’ll know.” “Where’s the nurse? Where’s the damn nurse?” Coach flaps his arms, looking in all directions. “She doesn’t come on Fridays,” I hear myself whisper. I feel strange. “What do you weigh?” Coach asks. I close my eyes and breathe through my mouth. My fingertips tingle and my body seems to float. I can’t feel the gray wool blanket I know I’m lying on.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This gave his correspondents huge power, because they alone had records of what he had written, but Luther was relaxed about this, joking that he could always deny his own “hand,” a remark that reveals his remarkable confidence. This breezy indifference to formalities is one of Luther’s most appealing characteristics. A brilliant, engaging personal correspondent, he had a sure sense of what would make his recipient laugh. He inquired about illness with genuine interest, but he also knew exactly how to cut to the chase, confronting a correspondent’s anguish with directness. More than anything else, the letters give us a sense of the charisma he must have radiated, and the sheer delight his correspondents must have experienced in being his friends. It was Luther’s vivid friendships and enmities that convinced me that he had to be understood through his relationships, and not as the lone hero of Reformation myth. Luther’s theology was formed in dialogue and debate with others—and it is no accident that the disputation, the form in which he proposed the Ninety-five Theses, remained an intellectual tool he cherished right up to his death. This book also presents an unfamiliar picture of Luther’s theology. We are used to regarding him as the advocate of “salvation by grace alone,” the man who insisted on sola scriptura, the principle that the Bible is sole authority on matters of doctrine. But just as important to Luther himself was his insistence on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is probably the issue many modern Protestants, suspicious of ritual and of the idea that the divine can be manifest in objects, find most alien. Yet the question dominated Luther’s later years and mobilized his deepest energies; it also split the Reformation. It was here that Luther was at his most original as a thinker, refusing to make the easy distinction between sign and signified, and insisting that Christ really was present in the Eucharist, which truly was the body and blood of Christ. Though he was an intellectual, Luther mistrusted “reason, the whore,” as he called it. 20 His position on the Eucharist was at one with his striking ease with physicality, a trait that modern biographies find it hard to come to terms with. A deeply anti-ascetic thinker, Luther constantly undermined and subverted the distinction between flesh and spirit, and this aspect of his thought is among his most compelling legacies. This is also why his theology has to be understood in relation to Luther the man. Luther’s Reformation unleashed passionate emotions: anger, fear, and hatred as well as joy and excitement. Luther himself was a deeply emotional individual, yet much of the history of the Reformation edits those emotions out, as unbecoming or irrelevant to the development of his theology. It is hard for historians and theologians to tackle what now seems so alien, his disturbing obsession with the Devil, virulent anti-Semitism, and crude polemic.

• From Shunned (2018)

  I continued to grapple with key tenets of my faith, especially the concept of mass destruction of the wicked, but interesting work and upward mobility allowed me to push those uncomfortable thoughts aside. Ross and I shared the joy of purchasing our first home. There was furniture to buy and a kitchen to remodel. Life pulled me forward. One afternoon, just before five o’clock, John called me into his office and asked me to shut the door. Under his leadership, the group had done so well that we had moved to a higher floor of the forty-story pink Italian marble Bank Tower. His corner office had a view of the Willamette River, reflecting a bright blue sky, Mount Hood jagged and white in the east. “Linda, I have some great news for you.” He was leaning on the front of his desk, no tie, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In his early forties, John always came across as energetic and upbeat. He motioned for me to take a seat. He was holding his oak-and-bronze name plaque in his hands. I’d never seen him do that before. These plaques were quite luxurious and given only to officers of the bank. The rest of us had plastic name plaques held upright in plastic stands. John had a big grin on his face and was having a hard time keeping still. “Congratulations. The board has approved your promotion to assistant vice president.” My eyes widened as he handed me the plaque; then I realized it had my name on it. It felt dense and significant, the letters of my name deeply engraved, then dipped in bronze. It was like being given the keys to some secret club. I blurted out my news to Ross the minute I walked in the front door. Together we did a dance of joy in the living room. He grabbed me with both arms by the waist and twirled me around so fast, my hand swatted a lamp off the side table. My salary had increased twofold since I’d joined the department. I was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of, more money than Ross made as a garage-door salesman. We agreed to pay off the credit card we’d used to fund our kitchen remodel and buy a new car. Because it was Thursday, and I’d committed to be more regular attending meetings, we deferred a celebration and went to the Kingdom Hall, something I outwardly agreed to but secretly resented, attending in body only, to please my husband. Throughout the meeting, my mind wandered again, reveling in my promotion. I imagined the members of the Board sitting around a large oval table, each dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, hearing a lengthy reading of my accomplishments, then nodding their heads in approval and one by one using their Montblanc pens to sign on the dotted line.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Bob and I followed Mom down the center aisle until she stopped, pointing for us to sit down in the middle of the second empty row from the front. As we took our seats, I saw my aunts, uncles, and cousins of my age sitting next to teenagers who shared common physical characteristics—a dimpled chin or deep-set eyes. Many faces brightened as our eyes met. One of my cousins smiled and waved from across the aisle. I felt a hand on my right shoulder and turned to see my brother, Randy, sitting next to Marlene and Tyler. Sheena wasn’t there. Randy had a smile on his face. “You look good,” he whispered. Marlene nodded and smiled back at me. Mission Control, we have contact! Brother and sister just ended a twelve-year silence. Break out the bubbly. A polished wooden casket dominated the front of the hall, and beside it was the speaker’s podium. Bouquets of white lilies and yellow roses sat on either side. I wondered what Grandma’s favorite flower was and regretted that I didn’t know the answer. “Remind me what your parents’ first names are, again,” Bob leaned over and whispered. “You introduced them as Mom and Dad, but it’s Ruth and Frank, right?” I nodded my head. Mom sat down in the row next to Bob and me, and it was then I noticed Lory and Ove were seated behind her, next to Randy. It pleased me that we were seated with the immediate family, but it also added to the off-kilter feeling, fed by the mixture of a solemn occasion, joyful reunions, and gnawing apprehension about what would happen next. Who was talking to me? Who wasn’t? Dad approached the podium and tapped on the microphone. The music evaporated midsong. “Thank you for coming. As most of you know, I’m Frank, Emma Lee’s oldest. We will have two speakers this afternoon. First, Pastor Jess Strickland, Jr.—Emma Lee’s nephew and a Baptist minister—will recount her life and times, followed by words of encouragement by my son-in-law Ove Peterson.” And so it went that both men stood in succession and delivered their respective talks. Jess, Jr.—known to the family as Twig—showed his experience as an orator with that comfortable gift of gab. He went year by year, sharing the significant events of Grandma’s life and finished by reading aloud the names of her progeny. Upon hearing my name, I felt as if he were speaking of some other Linda Ann, a stranger to these origins, an absence of kinship. I was listening with only part of my brain. Holding Bob’s hand, I was also thinking about the absurdity of the situation— how the end of a life created an opening for me to see my family. Death made it okay for my brother to speak to me, for my sister to give me a hug. Ove now stood in front of the room, Bible in hand.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Over the years, as part of my Bible study, I’d done extensive reading about the history of the holiday and the role church and politics had played in its creation. I knew Christ was born in the autumn, not the dead of winter. And I’d always been taught to steer clear of birthday celebrations, also fraught with pagan rituals true Christians avoided. The whole premise of Christmas was flawed from the Witness point of view. Up until that year, Christmas had been just another day to me, sometimes spent in repose, other times skiing with a group of Witness friends on Mount Hood. Occasionally the entire family came together for dinner, taking advantage of a time when few of us were working. There was no tree or gift exchange. If Christmas happened to fall on a regularly scheduled meeting night, like Tuesday or Thursday, it was often business as usual. I loved a good party, and that was the tack I chose to create distance from my years of piety. Like all my other ideas about faith and religion, I decided to let go of my grip on the old story and give Christmas a chance. It could be fun, and Lord knows I needed some light and joy in my life. I made a point to stroll along Michigan Avenue and see the sparkling lights of Watertower Place, then throw money into the Salvation Army tin guarded by a suspiciously thin Santa chiming a bell outside Marshall Fields. Steve and my work friends Cindy and Catherine were on my shopping list, and I needed stocking stuffers for my colleagues. For the very first time, I purchased Christmas cards and sent notes to my friends and former coworkers in Portland. I missed them all and was delighted to receive many cards in return, some with long, handwritten notes updating me on their lives. This was how I first came to understand the holiday’s power to bring people together, providing an occasion for them to reflect on the meaning of friendship and reach out to each other to affirm it. Eventually I got caught up in the joy of the season, singing along to “Silent Night” on the car radio, counting the days until Christmas. One of the high points that month was a girls’ night out to watch a performance of A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre. Cindy organized the logistics with a few other women from the office. We dressed in various forms of black velvet, red silk, and pearls and met at my apartment for a toast. Cheeks rosy and hearts dancing with champagne bubbles, we bundled up and ventured into the cold night. I’d never seen the play before, having believed that to do so would be an act of religious treason.

• From Shunned (2018)

  When he insisted on sitting near the stage—to be close to the seating area roped off for baptismal candidates—Mom was oblivious to the significance. Dad saved seats for Lory, her husband Ove, Ross, and me just in front of him and Mom, on the aisle a few yards from the baptismal pool. Several close friends of the family, including Phil and Grace, were sitting nearby. They were all in on the ruse and wanting to see Mom’s face when all was revealed. Randy, Marlene, and the kids attended a congregation assigned to gather on a different weekend, so they made a point of arriving just as the program started, to avoid raising Mom’s suspicions. The morning program opened with a call to song and prayer. Then we took our seats and fought our impatience through a series of fifteen-minute discourses. I could barely concentrate, squirming in my seat between Ross and my sister. As much as I’d yearned for this day my entire life, I’d mitigated future disappointment by refusing to think too far ahead, compartmentalizing my dad’s prospects for eternal life into an opaque safe haven of my own imagination. Now I was confused and my heart burned. The five-year-old in me wanted to do cartwheels through the aisles, singing “Hallelujah!” while the emerging independent thinker shouted, You don’t believe this stuff anymore! I resolved the tension by falling in line. This day was about Dad, not my crisis of faith. Lory also appeared unsettled, organizing her purse, passing Lifesavers, feigning attention. Ove sat down halfway through the program and confirmed with a thumbs-up gesture that Randy and his family had arrived and were waiting in the foyer. The protracted first hour finally passed. The elder facilitating the program took the podium and set the stage for the main event of the day. “Brothers and sisters, the special part of our program has come, one many have spent years or months preparing for. Please stand and sing song number twenty-nine, “Jehovah’s Happy People.” While we sing, we invite all fourteen of the baptismal candidates to come to the front and take your seats in the area reserved for you. Please bring everything you need to go straight to the pool at the conclusion of the talk that Brother Anderson has prepared just for you.” With that, everyone stood to sing. Dad grabbed his Bible and songbook and stepped away from Mom, into the aisle. A few other men and women were passing him, headed to the special area. He walked several feet up to the area and joined his voice with the crowd’s. Great God, we’ve vowed to do your will; In wisdom your work we’ll fulfill. For then we know we’ll have a part In making glad your loving heart. Lory, Ove, Ross, and I all turned to observe my mother. Earlier, she had looked ravishing in her crimson dress, radiating vitality.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Our time together was lighthearted and joyful, lacking any need for commitments beyond the moment. I had never had a relationship like it before. We went to the movies, golfed, and took long strolls along the waterfront. He was very curious about my family and my religion, and I spent hours telling him family stories or explaining different tenets of the faith. These conversations were a venue beyond journaling and my therapist’s office to exercise the growing voice within me. I needed to talk freely, sometimes critically, other times with appreciation, always sorting. One night over dinner at Jake’s restaurant, our conversation drifted back to a fond childhood memory. To break the monotony of rainy winter afternoons, Lory would play Mom’s Kingston Trio record on the stereo console in our living room. She and Randy and I would sing along to “Hangman” or “Tom Dooley” while she made popcorn and Kool-Aid. “I love the Kingston Trio,” Geoff said. “Let’s go buy one of their CDs tonight. We can listen to it back at your place.” We settled the bill and proceeded with our spontaneous plan. We left Tower Records in triumph, having succeeded in finding its last Kingston Trio CD. My car was parked in the front row of the store, and we were both putting on our seat belts when I saw two familiar faces. My stomach did a somersault. About thirty feet away, walking in our direction along the storefront, were John and Maeve Maguire, a couple who were in the same congregation as Ross—the same one I used to be part of. They were engrossed in conversation and did not notice me. “Shit,” I said, pulling the sun visor down, stiffening into a position that hid my face from them. The store was emanating a bright, blue-tinged light. “What’s the matter?” Geoff asked, looking at me, then at John and Maeve, who were now passing the front of my car, oblivious to my presence. “Do you know those people?” “Yes,” I whispered. “Are they gone yet?” “They’re headed into Albertsons. What gives?” On the drive back to my apartment, I attempted to explain my odd behavior. “Remember how I told you that in my religion marriage is binding until death?” “Yes.” “According to the Scriptures—at least Witnesses’ interpretation—only two things can bring a marriage to an end: death or adultery.” “So?” Geoff was leaning against the passenger side window, watching me drive, his face scrunched and puzzled. “You’ve filed for divorce. You’ve moved on with your life. What am I missing?” We were waiting at an intersection for the light to change. “The laws of the land do not override Jehovah’s law.