Love

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

  6:10); and nowhere is error as to the person of Christ denounced more sternly than in his Epistles (2 John 10; 1 John 4:1ff.)." Similar passages in Stanley. II. The Mission of John. Dean Stanley (Sermons and Essays on the Apost. Age, p. 249 sq., 3d ed.): "Above all John spoke of the union of the soul with God, but it was by no mere process of oriental contemplation, or mystic absorption; it was by that word which now for the first time took its proper place in the order of the world—by Love. It has been reserved for St. Paul to proclaim that the deepest principle in the heart of man was Faith; it was reserved for St. John to proclaim that the essential attribute of God is Love. It had been taught by the Old Testament that ’the beginning of wisdom was the fear of God;’ it remained to be taught by the last apostle of the New Testament that ’the end of wisdom was the love of God.’ It had been taught of old time by Jew and by heathen, by Greek

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  since we’re more sensitive and much more advanced in our thinking than any of them ever suspect! Love, what is love? I don’t think you can really put it into words. Love is understanding someone, caring for him, sharing his joys and sorrows. This eventually includes physical love. You’ve shared something, given something away and received something in return, whether or not you’re married, whether or not you have a baby. Losing your virtue doesn’t matter, as long as you know that for as long as you live you’ll have someone at your side who understands you, and who doesn’t have to be shared with anyone else! Yours, Anne M. Frank At the moment, Mother’s grouching at me again; she’s clearly jealous because I talk to Mrs. van Daan more than to her. What do I care! I managed to get hold of Peter this afternoon, and we talked for at least forty-five minutes. He wanted to tell me something about himself, but didn’t find it easy. He finally got it out, though it took a long time. I honestly didn’t know whether it was better for me to stay or to go. But I wanted so much to help him! I told him about Bep and how tactless our mothers are. He told me that his parents fight constantly, about politics and cigarettes and all kinds of things. As I’ve told you before, Peter’s very shy, but not too shy to admit that he’d be perfectly happy not to see his parents for a year or two. “My father isn’t as nice as he looks,” he said. “But in the matter of the cigarettes, Mother’s absolutely right.” I also told him about my mother. But he came to Father’s defense. He thought he was a “terrific guy.” Tonight when I was hanging up my apron after doing the dishes, he called me over and asked me not to say anything downstairs about his parents’ having had another argument and not being on speaking terms. I promised, though I’d already told Margot. But I’m sure Margot won’t pass it on. “Oh no, Peter,” I said, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve learned not to blab everything I hear. I never repeat what you tell me.” He was glad to hear that. I also told him what terrible gossips we are, and said, “Margot’s quite right, of course, when she says I’m not being honest, because as

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Now I can see why’ - which made Alice blush, and look to the floor in confusion.With my father she was kind. ‘Well, well, Miss Butler,’ he said when he took her hand, nodding at her skirts, ‘this is rather a change, ain’t it, from your usual gear?’ She smiled and said it was; and when he added, with a wink, ‘And something of an improvement, too - if you don’t mind a gentleman saying so’, she laughed and said that, since gentlemen were usually of that opinion, she was quite used to it, and did not mind a bit.All in all she made herself so pleasant, and answered their questions about herself, and the music hall, so sweetly and cleverly, that no one - not even Alice, or spiteful Rhoda - could dislike her; and I - watching her gaze from the windows at Whitstable Bay, or incline her head to catch a story of my father’s, or compliment my mother on some ornament or picture (she admired the shawl, above the fireplace!) - I fell in love with her, all over again. And my love was all the warmer, of course, since I had that special, secret knowledge about Tricky, and the contract, and the extra four months.She had come for tea, and presently we all sat down to it - Kitty marvelling, as we did so, at the table. It was set for a real oyster-supper, with a linen cloth, and a little spirit-lamp with a plate of butter on it, waiting to be melted. On either side of this there were platters of bread, and quartered lemons, and vinegar and pepper castors - two or three of each. Beside every plate there was a fork, a spoon, a napkin, and the all-important oyster-knife; and in the middle of the table there was the oyster-barrel itself, a white cloth bound about its top-most hoop, and its lid loosened by a finger’s width - ‘Just enough,’ as my father would say, ‘to let the oysters stretch a little’; but not enough to let them open their shells and sicken. We were rather cramped around the table, for there were eight of us in all, and we had had to bring up extra chairs from the restaurant below. Kitty and I sat close, our elbows almost touching, our shoes side by side beneath the table.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I raised a hand to stop a tickling at my cheek, and found tears there. ‘Oh, Flo!’ I said then. ‘Only say - only say you’ll let me love you, and be with you; that you’ll let me be your sweetheart, and your comrade. I know I’m not Lily -’‘No, you’re not Lily,’ she said. ‘I thought I knew what that meant - but I never did, till I saw you gazing at Kitty and thought I should lose you. I’ve been missing Lily for so long, it’s come to seem that wanting anything must be only another way of wanting her; but oh! how different wanting seemed, when I knew it was you I wanted, only you, only you ...’I shifted closer towards her: the paper in my pocket gave a rustle, and I remembered romantic Miss Skinner, and all the friendless girls who Zena had said were mad in love with Flo, at Freemantle House. I opened my mouth to tell her; then thought I wouldn’t, just yet - in case she hadn’t noticed. Instead, I gazed again about the park, at the crush of gay-faced people, at the tents and stalls, the ribbons and flags and banners : it seemed to me then that it was Florence’s passion, and hers alone, that had set the whole park fluttering. I turned back to her, took her hand in mind, crushed the daisy between our fingers and - careless of whether anybody watched or not - I leaned and kissed her.Cyril still squatted with his frills in the lake. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the bruised and trampled grass. From the speakers’ tent there came a muffled cheer, and a rising ripple of applause. Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966 and now lives in London. She is the author of the novels Tipping the Velvet, a New York Times Notable Book, Affinity, and Fingersmith. Affinity, her second novel, won the Somerset Maugham Award, an American Library Association Award, and a Ferro-Grumley Award. Waters was also named the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2000. [image file=Backad01.jpg] [image file=Backad02.jpg] [image file=Backad03.jpg] [image file=Backad04.jpg] [image file=Backad05.jpg] [image file=Backad06.jpg] [image file=GlobalBackad.jpg]

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  It wasn’t mine, I didn’t mean the words - at least, not then, when I said them.’ I came to a halt, then put a hand to my head. ‘Oh! I feel like I’ve been repeating other people’s speeches all my life. Now, when I want to make a speech of my own, I find I hardly know how.’ ‘If you are fretting over how to tell me you are leaving -’ ‘I am fretting,’ I said, ‘over how to tell you that I love you; over how to say that you are all the world to me; that you and Ralph and Cyril are my family, that I could never leave - even though I was so careless with my own kin.’ My voice grew thick; she gazed at me but didn’t answer, so I stumbled on. ‘Kitty broke my heart - I used to think she’d killed it! I used to think that only she could mend it; and so, for five years I’ve been wishing she’d come back. For five years I have scarcely let myself think of her, for fear that the thought would drive me mad with grief. Now she has turned up, saying all the things I dreamed she’d say; and I find my heart is mended already, by you. She made me know it. That was the look you saw on my face.’ I raised a hand to stop a tickling at my cheek, and found tears there. ‘Oh, Flo!’ I said then. ‘Only say - only say you’ll let me love you, and be with you; that you’ll let me be your sweetheart, and your comrade. I know I’m not Lily -’ ‘No, you’re not Lily,’ she said. ‘I thought I knew what that meant - but I never did, till I saw you gazing at Kitty and thought I should lose you. I’ve been missing Lily for so long, it’s come to seem that wanting anything must be only another way of wanting her; but oh! how different wanting seemed, when I knew it was you I wanted, only you, only you ...’ I shifted closer towards her: the paper in my pocket gave a rustle, and I remembered romantic Miss Skinner, and all the friendless girls who Zena had said were mad in love with Flo, at Freemantle House. I opened my mouth to tell her; then thought I wouldn’t, just yet - in case she hadn’t noticed.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Since then I had refused to love at all, had become - or so I thought - a creature beyond passion, driving others to their secret, humiliating confessions of lust; but never offering my own. Now, this lady had torn it from me - had laid me bare, as surely as if she had ripped the shrieking flesh from my white bones. She pressed against me still; and even as her breath came warm against my cheek, I felt my lusts rise up to meet her own, and knew myself in thrall. After all, there are moments in our lives that change us, that discontent us with our pasts and offer us new futures. That night at the Canterbury Palace, when Kitty had cast her rose at me, and sent my admiration for her tumbling over into love - that had been one such moment. This was another; perhaps, indeed, it had already passed - perhaps it was the second when I was guided into the dark heart of that waiting carriage that was the real start of my new life. Either way, I knew I could not go back to the old one, now. The djinn was out of the bottle at last; and I had settled on pleasure.I never thought to ask what happened to the beggar in the tale, once the five hundred days came to an end. Chapter 11 [image "016" file=wate_9781101078198_oeb_016_r1.jpg] The lady’s name, I learned in time, was Diana: Diana Lethaby. She was a widow, and childless, and rich, and venturesome, and thus - though on a considerably grander scale - as accomplished in the habits of self-pleasure as myself, and quite as hard of heart. In that summer of 1892 she would have been eight-and-thirty - younger, that is, than I am now, though she seemed terribly old to me then, at twenty-two. Her marriage had been, I think, a loveless one, for she wore neither wedding-ring nor mourning-ring, nor was there any picture of Mr Lethaby in any room in that large, handsome house. I never asked after him, and she never questioned me about my past. She had created me anew: the old dark days before were nothing to her.And they must become nothing to me, of course, now that we had settled our bargain. On that first, fierce morning of my time in her house, she had me kiss her again, then bathe, then re-don my old guardsman’s uniform; and as I dressed, she stood a little to one side and studied me. She said, ‘We shall have to buy you some new suits.

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Her eyes, deep brown, were shimmering. I grabbed her gloved hand and gave it a quick squeeze before starting to drive. Nothing more was said; for the entire ride back to the South Side, until I left her at her door and wished her good-night, we never broke that precious silence. CHAPTER ELEVEN [image file=image_rsrc2W2.jpg] I PULLED INTO THE AIRPORT parking lot at a quarter past three and ran to the terminal as fast as I could. Panting for breath, I spun around several times, my eyes scanning the crowds of Indians, Germans, Poles, Thais, and Czechs gathering their luggage. Damn! I knew I should have left earlier. Maybe she had gotten worried and tried to call. Had I given her my office number? What if she’d missed her flight? What if she had walked right past me and I hadn’t even known it? I looked down at the photograph in my hand, the one she had sent me two months earlier, smudged now from too much handling. Then I looked up, and the picture came to life: an African woman emerging from behind the customs gate, moving with easy, graceful steps, her bright, searching eyes now fixed on my own, her dark, round, sculpted face blossoming like a wood rose as she smiled. “Barack?” “Auma?” “Oh my …” I lifted my sister off the ground as we embraced, and we laughed and laughed as we looked at each other. I picked up her bag and we began to walk to the parking garage, and she slipped her arm through mine. And I knew at that moment, somehow, that I loved her, so naturally, so easily and fiercely, that later, after she was gone, I would find myself mistrusting that love, trying to explain it to myself. Even now I can’t explain it; I only know that the love was true, and still is, and I’m grateful for it. “So, brother,” Auma said as we drove into the city, “you have to tell me everything.” “About what?” “Your life, of course.” “From the beginning?” “Start anywhere.” I told her about Chicago and New York, my work as an organizer, my mother and grandparents and Maya—she had heard so much about them from our father, she said, she felt as if she already knew them. She described Heidelberg, where she was trying to finish a master’s degree in linguistics, and the trials and tribulations of living in Germany.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  When you look at Jesus, you are so moved by His love, so moved by His grace, so moved by what He did for us, that you can’t contain yourself. So you go give Him away. It’s how we’re supposed to live. Single-Minded Service Hebrews says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”12 I used to think that the three key elements in this passage were a linear progression: you do one, then the next, then the next. I thought I needed (first) to get rid of my sin streaks—my negative thinking patterns, my hurtful attitudes, my terribly selfish ways—so that I could (second) run my race, and then I would (third) finally see Jesus, who was probably so pleased I’d done the first two things. But that’s not at all how Jesus works, which is what told me I’d interpreted the verses wrong. You may recall that it was when we were “still sinners,” according to Romans 5:8, that “Christ died for us.” We all know that if we wait until every sin that entangles us is put off, then we will never start the race! We are “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,”13 not all at once. So, that means we can’t even get rid of our sin before we run our races. What if all this actually happens simultaneously? That would shift the importance of mission in our lives. What if we were built to run and, as we run, we fix our eyes on Jesus because we have to—we need Him!—and our sin and distraction fall away. Sin avoidance is not what Jesus died for. If we are moving, failing, finding forgiveness, and moving again, all with eyes fixed on Christ, we will desperately want to confess and deal with our sin. Because not doing that is thwarting the mission of our lives. Do you see what a radical shift this is? As we run—as we serve others—our sin and distraction lose their hold on us, which only makes it easier to keep our eyes fixed on Christ. Let me put it this way: if you put me on a diet and tell me that for thirty days I cannot have a cheeseburger, then guess what I’m going to think about for thirty days straight? Cheeseburgers. I don’t even like cheeseburgers all that much. I mean, they’re fine, but it’s not as if I think about them all day long. But deprive me of a cheeseburger, and I’m going to want a cheeseburger.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I did not hold my breath in wonder when I opened my eyes upon her face, still and shadowed in the thin grey light of dawn. I had seen her strip to wash or to change her gown. I was as familiar with her body, now, as with my own - more so, indeed, because her head, her neck, her wrists, her back, her limbs (which were as smooth and as rounded and as freckled as her cheek), her skin (which she wore with a marvellous, easy grace, as if it were another kind of handsome suit, perfectly tailored and pleasant to wear), were, I thought, so much lovelier and more fascinating than my own.No, I didn’t want a single thing to change - not even when I learned something about Walter that was rather disconcerting.Inevitably, we had spent so many hours with Walter - working upon songs at Mrs Dendy’s piano, or supping with him after shows - that we had begun to look upon him less as Kitty’s agent and more as a friend, to both of us. In time it wasn’t only working-days that we were spending with him, but Sundays, too; eventually, indeed, Sundays with Walter became the rule rather than the exception, and we began to listen out for the rumble of his carriage in Ginevra Road, the pounding of his boots upon our attic stairs, his rap upon our parlour door, his foolish, extravagant greetings. He would bring bits of news and gossip; we would drive into town, or out of it; we would stroll together - Kitty with her hand in the crook of one of his great arms, me with mine in the crook of the other, Walter himself like a blustering uncle, loud and lively and kind.I thought nothing of it, except that it was pleasant, until one morning as I sat eating my breakfast beside Kitty and Sims and Percy and Tootsie. It was a Sunday, and Kitty and I were rather tardy; when Sims heard who it was that we were rushing for, he gave a cry: ‘My word, Kitty, but Walter must be expecting marvellous things of you! I’ve never known him spend so much time with an artiste before. Anyone would think he was your beau!’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I understood, suddenly - what I had only half perceived before - that she had spent her life in plain, anonymous houses like this one, and knew no better. The thought gave me a little courage - and made me ache, as usual, with sympathy and love.Inside, too, the house was rather cheerier. We were met at the door by Mrs Dendy herself - a white-haired, rather portly lady, who greeted Mr Bliss like a friend, calling him ‘Wal’, and offering him her cheek to kiss - and shown into her parlour. Here she had us sit and remove our hats, and bade us make ourselves quite cosy; and a girl was called, then swiftly dispatched to bring some cups and brew some tea on our behalf.When the door was closed behind her Mrs Dendy gave us a smile. ‘Welcome, my dears,’ she said - she had a voice as damp and fruity as a piece of Christmas cake - ‘Welcome to Ginevra Road. I do hope that your stay with me will be a happy, and a lucky one.’ Here she nodded to Kitty. ‘Mr Bliss tells me that I’m to have quite a little star twinkling beneath my eaves, Miss Butler.’Kitty said modestly that she didn’t know about that, and Mrs Dendy gave a chuckle that turned into a throaty cough. For a long moment the cough seemed to quite convulse her, and Kitty and I sat up, exchanging glances of alarm and dismay. When the fit was passed, however, the lady seemed just as calm and jolly as before. She drew a handkerchief from her sleeve, and wiped her lips and eyes with it; then she reached for a packet of Woodbines from the table at her elbow, offered us each a cigarette, and took one for herself. Her fingers, I saw then, were quite yellow with tobacco stains.After a moment the tea things appeared, and while Kitty and Mrs Dendy busied themselves with the tray I looked about me. There was much to look at, for Mrs Dendy’s parlour was rather extraordinary. Its rugs and furniture were plain enough; its walls, however, were wonderful, for every one of them was crowded with pictures and photographs - so crowded, indeed, that there was barely enough space between the frames to make out the colour of the wallpaper beneath.‘I can see you are quite taken with my little collection,’ said Mrs Dendy as she handed me my tea-cup, and I blushed to find all eyes suddenly turned my way.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I adored my legs - my legs which, while they had had skirts about them, I had scarcely had a thought for; but which were, I discovered, rather long and lean and shapely.I sound vain. I was not - then - and could never have been, while Kitty existed as the wider object of my self-love. The act, I knew, was still all hers. When we sang, it was really she who sang, while I provided a light, easy second. When we danced, it was she who did the tricky steps: I only strolled or shuffled at her side. I was her foil, her echo; I was the shadow which, in all her brilliance, she cast across the stage. But, like a shadow, I lent her the edge, the depth, the crucial definition, that she had lacked before.It was very far from vanity, then, my satisfaction. It was only love; and the better the act became, I thought, the more perfect that love grew. After all, the two things - the act, our love - were not so very different. They had been born together - or, as I liked to think, the one had been born of the other, and was merely its public shape. When Kitty and I had first become sweethearts, I had made her a promise. ‘I will be careful,’ I had said - and I had said it very lightly, because I thought it would be easy. I had kept my promise: I never kissed her, touched her, said a loving thing, when there was anyone to glimpse or overhear us. But it was not easy, nor did it become easier as the months passed by; it became only a dreary kind of habit. How could it be easy to stand cool and distant from her in the day, when we had spent all night with our naked limbs pressed hot and close together? How could it be easy to veil my glances when others watched, bite my tongue because others listened, when I passed all our private hours gazing at her till my eyes ached of it, calling her every kind of sweet name until my throat was dry? Sitting beside her at supper at Mrs Dendy’s, standing near her in the green-room of a theatre, walking with her through the city streets, I felt as though I was bound and fettered with iron bands, chained and muzzled and blinkered.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I looked at Kitty and remembered that I had another, more pressing, reason to be gay and giddy, and I began to wish that Walter would leave us. That, and my tiredness, made me dull with him: I believe he thought he had overworked me. So very soon he did leave; and when the door was closed on him I rose and went to Kitty, and put my arms about her. She wouldn’t let me kiss her in the parlour; but after a moment she led me up through the darkening house, back to our bedroom. Here the suit - which I had, indeed, grown rather used to while strolling in it for Walter - began to feel strange again. When Kitty undressed I pulled her to me; and it was lewd to feel her naked hip come pressing in between my trousered legs. She ran her hand once, very lightly, over my buttons, until I began to shake with the wanting of her. Then she drew the suit from me entirely and we lay together, naked as shadows beneath the counterpane; and then she touched me again.We lay until the front door slammed, and we heard Mrs Dendy’s cough, and Tootsie laughing on the stair. Then Kitty said we should rise, and dress, or the others might wonder; and for the second time that day I lay and watched her wash, and pull on stockings and a skirt, through lazy eyes.As I did so, I put a hand to my breast. There was a dull movement there, a kind of pulling or folding, or melting, exactly as if my chest were the hot, soft wall of a candle, falling in upon a burning wick. I gave a sigh. Kitty heard, and saw my stricken face, and came to me; then she moved my hand away and placed her lips, very softly, over my heart.I was eighteen, and knew nothing. I thought, at that moment, that I would die of love for her. We did not see Walter, and there was no more talk about his plan to put me on the stage at Kitty’s side, until two evenings later, when he arrived at Mrs Dendy’s with a parcel, marked Nan Astley. It was the last night of the year: he had come to supper, and to stay to hear the chimes of midnight with us. When at last they came - struck out upon the bells of Brixton church - he raised his glass. ‘To Kitty and Nan!’ he cried.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  ipa, pat vb. cling, cleave, keep close (N H id, Ar. 523, Aram. P24, p24, 039, a59)—Qal Pf p27 1K 11°+2t; PIN consec. Gn 2"; P27 2 K 3°; 3 fs. 1227 Ru 1” +5t.; M227 Job 29”; 1s. MP2I ש‎ 119"; 3 pl. P27 2S 20%; P3T consec. Dt 28"; PII Ib 41°; DAPI consec. 108235; Impf.P2T Dt 13% + 3t.; 3 fs. patn 2K 57 ¥ 137°; P2IM Gn34*+4 2t.; sf. 2227 ב‎ 105; 2ms. P21 Dt ro” Ez 20* (del.B Co); 2 fs. {PET Ru 2°; 3 pl. P2T טא‎ 367%; 2 mpl. P21 Jos23°; p27 Dt 13°; Inf, estr. APTI’ Dt 11% + 2 t.;—in Hexa- teuch only JD, except Nu 36° (P);—1. cling, cleave to, a. lit. sq. 2 Jb 19° (bone to skin), so sq. 102% sq. אֶל‎ 28 23” (hand to sword; accidentally om. with other words 1 Ch11™ ef. Dr 2 5 23"), Je 13" (girdle to loins), La 4* (tongue to roof of mouth, in thirst), so sq. ; Jb 29% 137° (as a judgment); so also in metaph. y 44” 39303 דבה לְאָרֶץ‎ our belly cleaveth to the earth (|| B22 "BY? TY), 119% API WD) BY? ; fish to scales of crocodile (fig. of Pharaoh), sq. 2 Ez 29* (but ef. supr.); abs. (recipr.) of folds of crocodile’s belly Jb 41”; further of the 027 remaining in (sticking to) the hand sq. 2 Dt 13%; so of spot, stain Jb 31’. b. so also of abiding on the land of one’s tribe Nu 367% (sq. 3). ¢.=remain with, close to sq. DY Ru2** sq. 2v* 2. cling, cleave to, a. fig. of loyalty, affection etc., sts. with idea of physical proximity retained, sq. 2 Gn2™ (J; man to wife) cf. 34° (J) 1 K 11? Jos 23.5 (כ1)‎ ; further Ru 1 (Ruth to Naomi); 2 5 207(people to king); esp. (sq. 2) of cleaving to” Dt r1® (|| 308, Y2TT 33 129) 30” (|| 238, iopa yow), Jos 22° (|| מַצִוְתָיו ,753 ונו' אָהָב‎ Ww); cf. further Dt 10” 13° Jos 23° (all D), 2 K 18°; ץש‎ 63° (sq. HS) & ץ‎ 119" PAMTYI AP2I; so .מ‎ of the opposite P27... OVI) א 2 בְּחַטאות‎ 3°; c. subj. disease, calamity, sq. 2 pers. Dt28™ 2K N 2 pat 57; sq. אחרי‎ 76 42; sq. acc. Gn 10" (J); subj. sin ¥ ro1* (sq. 2 pers.) Pu. /mpf. 3 mpl. §PAT pass. of Hiph. 1 sq. 3, of crocodile’s scales, they are joined together Jb 41° (|| (ְיַתְלַבְּדוּ‎ ; abs. of earth-clods Jb 38%. Hiph. Pf 3 fs. sf. NPAT Ju 20"; 3 pl. sf. PSI 2815; ד‎ ₪. ‘mPa Je13"; ְהַדְבַּקְתִּי‎ Ez29*; 101: juss. ירבק‎ Dt 28"; Pat Gn 31%; אדביק‎ Ez 3%; ולדביקר‎ Ju 18” 20% PAT 18 14% 24. (cf. Ges'8** Ko"). 1. cause to cling or cleave to, sq. acc. + OY, lit, JBN אַרְבִּיק‎ WW Ez 3°; v. also 29! (sq. ace. +4; lit., but in metaph.); fig. of causing

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  65 literally “good news.” The good news is the story of Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became incarnate for the love of us sinners, dying on the cross, and being raised from the dead. Christian faith means not only believing this story, but believing that Christ did this “for us” ( pro nobis), which also means pro me, or “for me.” The Gospel is also a promise in which Christ is given to us. Faith, for Luther and all Protestantism after him, is always faith in Christ’s promise. By believing this promise, a sinner is united to Christ and receives all that is his, including his righteousness, holiness, and eternal life. Luther compares this to a marriage, in which we receive Christ (as the bridegroom) and all his riches, while he takes us to himself together with all our sins and debts, making them his own and destroying them on the cross. Luther’s epochal doctrine of justi ¿ cation by faith alone stems from his conviction that only faith in the Gospel can do us any good spiritually. Justi ¿ cation (from the Latin justitia, often translated “righteousness”) is about how we become righteous or just in God’s sight. Luther teaches that we are justi ¿ ed by faith alone (in Latin, sola ¿ de), apart from works of the Law. According to Luther, sinners cannot receive Christ by doing good works but only by believing the Gospel. Luther’s doctrine of justi ¿ cation has radical implications that Luther fully accepted. He insists on cutting this connection by excluding reason and free will from any role in salvation. Our own righteousness is so far from contributing to our salvation that our good works are always in themselves mortal sins. In a famous and controversial formulation, Luther says, “We are at the same time righteous and sinners” ( simul justus et peccator ), because we are righteous by faith in Christ but sinners by our good works. Luther’s doctrine of justi¿ cation excludes good works from salvation but not from the Christian life. Good works, precisely because it is our own rather than Christ’s, makes no contribution whatsoever to our salvation. The value The most distinctive theme in Luther’s theology is the contrast between two forms of the word of God: Law and Gospel.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  It wasn’t called that, exactly, but that’s what it was. We had never adopted a child, so we eagerly drank in every lecture, compelled to get this right. All these years later, most of what I gleaned during those classes has faded from my memory, but one lesson wound itself around my heart so tightly that I imagine I’ll remember it forever. The lesson was this: “If you want your child to thrive, then make him or her feel seen and loved. ” Feeling seen and loved —this is absolutely everything, the foundation and framework from which we build and thrive. When it’s missing, everything around us seems to crumble into pointlessness and despair. As counselor and author Larry Crabb wrote, “No lie is more often believed than the lie that we can know God without someone else knowing us.”1 We were built to be seen and loved. When I was planning this book, dreaming about the impact it would have, I remember telling a friend of mine who is super into all things neurology about my vision for “all of America to shift their minds,” for masses on masses of people to realize it really is possible to take their thoughts captive, for the whole wide world to finally start tearing down strongholds, and more. I was so passionate in my vision casting that I fumbled my words. My friend listened patiently, and when I eventually took a breath, she said, “You know, Jennie, nobody changes anything all alone with a book.” Ah. Gut punch. Ouch. Of course, my friend was right. We can’t curl up on our couches, read the pages of a book, pray, and simply will our minds to change. God is concerned not only with the posture of our hearts but also with the people on each of our arms. In terms of fulfilling our mission in this life, we can’t do anything worthwhile alone. God Himself exists in community, the Trinity relating as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons, one God. Perfect community. Since God Himself lives in community, He formed us to need community too. The apostle Paul also gave many instructions regarding how we are to behave toward one another: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” “Live in harmony with one another.” “Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace.” “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.”2 I’ve noticed that the idea of living in community is yet one more instruction we tend to regard as a suggestion. We may take a stab at it, but when things get tough, we push it aside. Community is an essential.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  124 Lecture 34: Catholic Mystical Theology The lower stages of the spiritual life consist of mental prayer. The soul begins with meditation, which involves the work of the intellect and its many thoughts. Through recollection, withdrawing its faculties within itself, the soul comes to the prayer of quiet, the ¿ rst stage of supernatural or infused contemplation. The soul proceeds through a sleep of the faculties to a suspended state of the faculties as it enters the prayer of union. Beyond these levels of prayer, Teresa describes extraordinary raptures or ecstasies. A key feature of these experiences is that they center around Christ in his humanity. In her most famous experience, called the “transverberation,” an angel pierces her heart with a golden spear that sets her a¿ re with love for God. The most famous concept of John of the Cross is the dark night of the soul. Like Teresa, John ¿ nds God in the inmost being of the soul. The dark night is the soul’s loss of all that is not God, which is necessary for it to ¿ nd God. The highest level of mystical theology is the spiritual marriage, for both Teresa and John. It is a permanent union in love, the closest thing to beati ¿ c vision that is possible in this life. The union is of two who remain distinct, not an absorption like a drop into the ocean. As with Teresa, the soul’s ultimate ¿ nding of God is a spiritual marriage, which John depicts as a mutual self-giving. Both in Spain and in France mystics went further than the church could approve. Quietism, condemned in 1687, made the passivity of infused contemplation into the whole of Christian life. Quietism contended that the perfect spiritual life involved eliminating all activity of the soul. Once the This statue of Saint Teresa is inside St. Peter’s Basilica. © Hemera/Thinkstock.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Dani. As far as what brings me to our text thread, I have worked by myself from home for the past five years, and now I’m raising a toddler without other adult support in our home. I do not get a lot of adult time. Nowadays I can’t really follow our thread that closely during the day, but at the end of the day, after I put my daughter to sleep, I turn to it to catch up on what’s happening in your lives and to update you with what I’ve been up to or thinking about or challenged by or working on. You really prompt me to be reflective about my life, my life as a woman, as a writer, and not just a mom, which is helpful because it’s easy for me to get stuck in mom-only mode in my sharing there. I need those gentle reminders to pay attention to my whole self. I don’t have much of a social media presence, and what I do have is focused on work. I’m pretty private online about my life. So this circle of three is where I can “post” and seek responses and support from an intimate group that I care about and that I know sincerely cares about me. AMB. And what do you feel like you bring to the woes? Jodie. My fierce Scorpio anaconda love and loyalty.131 My commitment to my own life and dignity now feels very woven into my commitment to my woes. If I can’t muster it for me, I certainly can for my woes, and they for me. It’s a dignity-amplifying superpower. I bring a lived understanding that we are stronger and more liberated and have more capacity in relationship.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Jodie. Yes, like really—this person is going to help me like that? And be funny and stunning and on it? After that, I remember sharing some stories of our biggest mistakes, over the course of a long night—that created a surge of dignity that we leaned into and rode. Like, wow—we said those things out loud and we didn’t die? We didn’t die. Bringing Dani food when she wasn’t well. I was like, I really love this person and want her to be cared for. And I remember lots of Dani and Jodie chats about work and love—getting the gumption to set and hold standards together and to grieve what was heartbreaking. I was like, wow, she is going all in and healing the fuck out of that. I was honored to witness, and it gave me so much permission. I survived my next break-up because of that. AND WE MANIFESTED A BABY! amb. It feels like we really did pray on that child finding a loving way into the world. And she did. All the right people surround her. AMB. We have a high level of daily interdependence. It feels like the place I go to be my truest self, for emotional support, to learn. What brings you to the woes? Jodie. It’s the place where we are fully seen and held and all of the parts of us are welcomed. We’re here for each other’s greatest longings, desires, and wounds. We know shame’s tricks, and they may work on one of us, but the others will catch it and blast it off and bring compassion and tenderness to that place. This is co-evolution through woeship. amb. Yes, for it me it the first place I go to practice one thousand percent honesty. Like, I am hurt by how someone is treating me, or confused about a work boundary, or I just ate mad ice cream, whatever it is. I would add humility. This is the place where I can be like, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO THIS. I know I will receive compassion, care, and also be reminded about what matters to me, what I am trying to accomplish in this lifetime, what makes me feel real joy. And I care so much, and learn so much, from what is moving in your lives.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  These pleasures are not only pleasures, they are also other feelings. But at the base is something that can only be understood in the body, made sense of by the body. That feeling of loving a child with your whole body, being loved by that child with her whole body, and watching children learn to be loved and to express love with their whole bodies. Love, which is not pleasure but is also pleasure, happens in the body and through the body. Words cannot contain all that the gaze can hold, or the pressure of a particular touch, or the pain of knowing your children will grow old and die, and sometimes be young and die, and most times, be young and learn what it is to die. Raising Sexually Liberated KidsJanine de Novais Janine de Novais recently completed her PhD at Harvard's School of Education, but all of us who love her know that her intelligence is beyond what any institution can teach—it is intuitive and compassionate, and one of the few reasons I believe race will one day be something other than a wound. I always gave him massages. From when he was a baby, I cherished his little being so much, all the way to the tips of toes, curve of his cheeks, the particular symmetry of his eye brows, and I naturally communicated that to him through touch. I showed him that hand and foot and scalp massages were soothing. I also used to “draw his face”—a face massage, that my grandmother taught me, where you trace the features and narrate that as if it is a house. For eyes, you say windows, et cetera, then mouth, you say door, and to the baby’s delight, for nose, you say doorbell and “ring!” He very naturally and early on would request these rituals. When masturbation happened at a relatively early age, his own word for it was “massage.” And all I had to do was explain that he should seek privacy for that and ask me any questions. Which he did not, because those of us lucky to have an unburdened relationship to that practice don’t have questions about it! Drawing from the instinct of having had a lot of judgment directed at my body early on, which I internalized, I worked very hard to model for him how to regard his body with acceptance and celebration. When he was small, I did not allow anyone to talk to him about his weight or appearance. Adults say ridiculous things to children, as if they are not embodied actual people. Folks talk about a kid being scrawny, or having or not having baby fat, or gaining or losing weight over a vacation. I tried to monitor that misbehavior, and if I couldn’t prevent someone from saying something tacky, I would always find time later to tell him that such and such adult was an asshole for saying that.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  Relationships like that take time, effort, and energy to cultivate, but they shift everything. I can look back over the course of my life and see how my closest girlfriends at each age and stage protected me from lesser dreams. My darling baby sisters, my grade-school recess buddies, my high school friends, the other cheerleaders at Arkansas, the girls who came to my first Bible studies, my Austin people, my church small group in Dallas—each community has shaped me, helped me feel known, made me run further and faster than I thought I could. Hopefully I’ve done the same for them. Yes, we’ve fought. Yes, we’ve grown apart. Yes, we’ve hurt one another at times. This is all part of the deal. But the strongest bonds get forged through difficulty. [image file=Image00035.jpg] It’s true that choosing community over isolation can be downright scary. It requires us to take a risk. Researcher and author Brené Brown said, “Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.”12 Or put another way: we must be known in order to be healthy. 13 Isn’t that a profound perspective? Tell me the people who know you and how deep that knowledge runs, and I will tell you how healthy you are.14 Gulp. Some people would look at my track record over the years and say, “Clearly, Jennie, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’ve always let people in.” Maybe. But I have to tell you, when our family recently moved to Dallas after living for ten years in Austin, building a new and trusted circle was no small concern. How could I make “old friends” fast? Displacement from a long-standing network of support is a challenge to living in meaningful community, but it’s hardly the only one. The more people I encounter, the more valid reasons I hear for why community “just isn’t for me.” I think of a young woman who lives in a town so small that there was outright celebration last year when they got their first traffic light. “Jennie, there is nobody for me to connect with,” she told me. “I’m not sure another woman in her twenties even exists in my hometown.” Or how about the women I’ve met who are full-on introverts? For them, signing up for this community thing sounds like a stressful and exhausting proposition. I understand that maybe you’ve suffered a painful betrayal—or more than one—and that keeps you from engaging now. You have risked trusting someone with your struggle, and that decision has come back to bite you in the rear. “Not doing that again,” you say. I get it! Then there’s the matter of upkeep. Once you do share your struggle with another person, you feel obligated to keep that person apprised of any progress or setbacks you face.