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 The Pisces (2018)

  Why was I even comparing the two of us? Was this a competition, a competition for pain? Besides, when he was licking me he was entirely my rescuer. He was strong in his softness. We could take turns. Then I saw him under the moon and it was like the first time I had seen him. He was just meant to be mine. In my mind I heard more words, and they said, No one knows what they are doing on Earth or even off it. The gods didn’t even know what the gods were doing, assuming there were even gods. Did the void know what it was doing? Did it know itself? Maybe the void didn’t even know what to do with itself and didn’t even like itself. Maybe the nothingness knew only to fill itself with people, and in that way was a creator of sorts. Maybe the nothingness was a god, but not intentionally cruel—not confident in itself. Maybe it was not evil or saying ha-ha to me, just lonely, hating itself, wanting something else to stick inside itself to relieve itself of itself. It seemed as though Theo didn’t know what he was doing. I obviously didn’t either. In that way maybe we were like gods. “I fell,” I said. “I cut myself.” “I know,” he said. “I saw. I tried to climb up onto the rock and then drag myself to help you. I wanted to call your name but a jeep came onto the beach and I had to drag myself back into the water.” That he wanted to protect me felt good. I didn’t want to be the weak woman, but really it had nothing to do with femininity or masculinity anyway. Simply as a human being, I liked that someone else was worried about me—someone as beautiful as him. There had already been plenty of people worried about me, more than enough, and I didn’t like that. But having Theo worry about me felt sexy. “Let me help you onto the wagon,” I said. “No, I can do it. You’re hurt,” he said. He dexterously slid off the rock right onto the wagon that was underneath it. “Here, just help me adjust the blanket,” he said. His arms were so strong and thick, like marble, only supple. I couldn’t help but think, This is mythic…what you are seeing is mythic. You injured yourself for him, an injury for love, and he is injured too. But his tail was only a handicap on earth. On land he was half a person, but in the sea he was complete. On earth I felt like half a person too. But I didn’t know if there was anywhere I was whole. On earth he was like the god Hephaestus, the clubfooted, cuckolded blacksmith. He needed me.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  It is also what has to happen if God’s kingdom, which makes its way (as Jesus insists) by nonviolence rather than by violence, is to win the day. This is the “truth” to which Jesus has come to bear witness, the “truth” for which Pilate’s worldview has no possible space (18:38). It is at once exemplified, dramatically, by Jesus taking the place of Barabbas the brigand (18:38–40). This is the “truth” to which Jesus bears witness—the truth of a kingdom accomplished by the innocent dying in place of the guilty. And, in the broader Johannine perspective, we discover that the only word to do justice to this kingdom-and-cross combination is agape, “love.” The death of Jesus is the expression of God’s love, as the famous verse in John 3:16 makes clear. For John, it is also the expression of Jesus’s own love: “He had always loved his own people in the world; now he loved them right through to the end” (13:1). And, with that, John introduces the powerful and tender scene in which Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. In between these two, we find the “good shepherd” discourse, where the mutual love between Jesus and the father leads directly to Jesus’s vocation to “lay down his life for the sheep” (10:15). Throughout, Jesus remains God’s anointed king, crowned as such by the pagans, however ironic the crown of thorns is (John 19:1–3). As such, he is the truly human being. When Pilate says “Here’s the man!” (19:5), we are surely to hear echoes of that primal Johannine moment, the Word becoming flesh as the climax of the new Genesis (1:14). But this Genesis, this new creation, is aimed at redemption; and the suffering Messiah, wearing the ironic royal robes, which acquire a second level of irony in John’s treatment, does for his people and the world what he had said all along he would do, as the shepherd giving his life for the sheep, as the seed sown in the ground to bear much fruit. The cross stands at the heart of John’s kingdom theology, which in this stunning passage is revealed as the heart of John’s redemption theology, the vision of the love of God revealed in saving action in the death of his Son, the Lamb, the Messiah. If the cross is central to John’s vision of the kingdom, it is equally true that the kingdom is central to the meaning he gives to the cross.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  In the messianic life and death of Jesus, Israel’s God really did become king of the world. Again and again I read devout works in which this point, utterly central to the New Testament witness to Jesus, is passed over in silence. Only this morning, as I was redrafting this paragraph, did I read another one of this same type. Second, this kingdom is radically defined in relation to Jesus’s entire agenda of suffering, leading to the cross. This draws the sting of any hint of (what we call) triumphalism. As in the book of Revelation, the victory and sovereignty belong to the slaughtered Lamb—and the slaughtering was not simply a one-time unhappy moment that can now be replaced by the Lamb’s followers taking up arms to bring in his kingdom by the methods of Herod and Pilate. Those who would implement Jesus’s kingdom are just as prone to forget this as Peter and the others were, trying to dissuade Jesus from his insistence on the suffering and dying vocation with which he interpreted his messiahship, eager to push him toward the vision of a kingdom much more like the kingdoms of the world. The paradox remains, and those who engage most directly in the work of the kingdom know, again and again, that the principalities and powers they are confronting are cruel, mean, and dirty. Martyrdom of one sort or another, suffering of one sort or another, is what kingdom-bringers must expect. Here, incidentally, is the Christian answer to the postmodern challenge. Our “big story” is not a power story. It isn’t designed to gain money, sex, or power for ourselves, though those temptations will always lie close at hand. It is a love story—God’s love story, operating through Jesus and then, by the Spirit, through Jesus’s followers. This is the building of the church against which the powers of hell, and for that matter deconstruction, cannot prevail. Third, the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated, that is implemented through his cross, is emphatically for this world. The four gospels together demand a complete reappraisal of the various avoidance tactics Western Christianity has employed rather than face this challenge head-on. It simply won’t do to line up the options, as has normally been done, into either a form of “Christendom,” by which people normally mean the capitulation of the gospel to the world’s way of power, or a form of sectarian withdrawal. Life is more complex, more interesting, and more challenging than that. The gospels are there, waiting to inform a new generation for holistic mission, to embody, explain, and advocate new ways of ordering communities, nations, and the world. The church belongs at the very heart of the world, to be the place of prayer and holiness at the point where the world is in pain—not to be a somewhat “religious” version of the world, on the one hand, or a detached, heavenly minded enclave, on the other.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  And I was both the womb and not the womb. We were the womb for each other and made of the same material, but also contained together in a larger womb. I felt so good, and for a moment I wondered, Maybe it is not him who makes me feel this way? Maybe I already contain him, as the gods contain one another. Perhaps I do not even need him, to feel like this? No, I needed him and maybe it was okay to need him. This is how love was spiritual, when it felt like this: unity with each other, the self, and all. And if this wasn’t love, then this was how lust could be a thing of value: a peak experience, something worth the pain of coming down. Was this true or was it a lie? So many things were both true and a lie, depending on how you felt in the moment. In this moment it felt like love. I was bold and ready to ask him. “I was wondering if you would ever possibly come to my house?” I asked. “I mean, it is my sister’s house but I live there alone.” “I would love to be in a house with you,” he said. “I would love to make love to you without having to look over our shoulders for anyone coming. To be totally alone.” “You would?” I giggled. “Yes,” he said. “Have you ever been in a home on land?” “Yes,” he said. “A few times, many years ago.” I didn’t press him. “But this was a home very close to the water,” he said. “It wasn’t really a home. It was a deserted boathouse right on the ocean. An old fishermen’s boathouse. I just don’t see how I could possibly come to your sister’s home. I think it is too far. First of all, I can’t be seen. How would I get across the sand?” “I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. He seemed so excited by the idea that I didn’t feel weird letting him know that this was something I had spent a lot of time thinking about. It was like I had let go now and decided to trust him. Something in me had suddenly decided that it didn’t really matter what would happen. Either I was going to scare him off or I wasn’t, but if it was going to happen, it would happen. I didn’t have to stifle my fears and desires. Just being around him, inside his supernatural aura, gave me the confidence to speak, like the way wine gives you confidence. I was languid and casual. Later I would likely replay everything and pick apart what I had said. Had I been too forward? And God forbid it ended that night when we said goodbye.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Then I saw him under the moon and it was like the first time I had seen him. He was just meant to be mine. In my mind I heard more words, and they said, No one knows what they are doing on Earth or even off it. The gods didn’t even know what the gods were doing, assuming there were even gods. Did the void know what it was doing? Did it know itself? Maybe the void didn’t even know what to do with itself and didn’t even like itself. Maybe the nothingness knew only to fill itself with people, and in that way was a creator of sorts. Maybe the nothingness was a god, but not intentionally cruel—not confident in itself. Maybe it was not evil or saying ha-ha to me, just lonely, hating itself, wanting something else to stick inside itself to relieve itself of itself. It seemed as though Theo didn’t know what he was doing. I obviously didn’t either. In that way maybe we were like gods. “I fell,” I said. “I cut myself.” “I know,” he said. “I saw. I tried to climb up onto the rock and then drag myself to help you. I wanted to call your name but a jeep came onto the beach and I had to drag myself back into the water.” That he wanted to protect me felt good. I didn’t want to be the weak woman, but really it had nothing to do with femininity or masculinity anyway. Simply as a human being, I liked that someone else was worried about me—someone as beautiful as him. There had already been plenty of people worried about me, more than enough, and I didn’t like that. But having Theo worry about me felt sexy. “Let me help you onto the wagon,” I said. “No, I can do it. You’re hurt,” he said. He dexterously slid off the rock right onto the wagon that was underneath it. “Here, just help me adjust the blanket,” he said. His arms were so strong and thick, like marble, only supple. I couldn’t help but think, This is mythic…what you are seeing is mythic. You injured yourself for him, an injury for love, and he is injured too. But his tail was only a handicap on earth. On land he was half a person, but in the sea he was complete. On earth I felt like half a person too. But I didn’t know if there was anywhere I was whole. On earth he was like the god Hephaestus, the clubfooted, cuckolded blacksmith. He needed me. But underwater he was as powerful and graceful as Poseidon, only younger and gorgeous. Maybe he was the son of Poseidon, the wayward son. Maybe he was Aphrodite herself. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the house. Then I can kiss all your wounds.”

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

  The words I said to Hudson hours ago as we set off on our adventure come back to me: I’ve got this, and in this one moment, I do. I fiercely love this boy, and I am newly resolute that I will help him get through this painful chapter. In the days to come, he will start calling me “Mama Bear” and I will think back to this moment with feelings that flood me with pride, warmth and hopefulness. CHAPTER 11BustedAlex, my one close friend upstate, texts me with a confession: she worked up the courage to approach a man she’s had her eye on for me at her gym. He’s fit, very cute and friendly, and she would go for him herself if she wasn’t married, but since she is, she’s determined to live vicariously through me. After confirming his single status, she did an admirably hard sell of me until he gave her his number and suggested that I get in touch. I demur, telling her I’m too stressed about Hudson and sad about messing up my chance with #3, feeling in general blah and overwhelmed. She responds that it’s too early in the game for me to feel so overwhelmed and that all I should do right now is dip my toes in dating waters and have fun. Alex’s coaxing spurs me on. She’s right – I can’t be in a real relationship right now, so I should take whatever opportunities present themselves to keep myself distracted and feeling good in the moment without worrying about what comes next. I text him before I lose the little nerve I have. Alex has told me nothing about him aside from the fact that he’s got an alluring six-pack, a bunch of kids, and is from a local family who own the orchard where I buy fruit and cider doughnuts. He responds with a suggestion that we meet for brunch on Sunday of the upcoming weekend. He gives me a choice of two restaurants; one is a café I frequently go to with my parents, so I opt for the other one in a newly renovated inn where I am unlikely to know anyone. I’ve been wary of running into people I know when I’m out on dates, not wanting to have to explain myself. With the exception of my close friends and family, I have managed to contain the news about my marriage, which is surprising as I am usually an open book. The weight of the situation is too heavy for me, threatening to crush me every time I have to disclose it. This new state of affairs, the one in which I’m a single woman on the prowl, is too big for me to explain too, albeit in a different way. Instead of threatening to topple me as my separation has, this new state is like a lump of clay waiting to be colored and shaped.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I couldn’t believe he was there. I had never thought of it like that before in the heat of things—about a person really being inside another person. “Entered,” like they say in romance novels. With every thrust he kissed me deeply and I gasped in his mouth. He was surprisingly dexterous given his tail. We looked in each other’s eyes as we moved. I felt that we were creating something together. The sounds I was making became primal and real. But then I felt him in me just a little less, then almost not at all. Somehow he had gotten soft. He pulled out and jerked it a little. He looked ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I just get nervous the first time with a new person. It’s the pressure. But you feel so good and are really gorgeous. I want to give you so much pleasure. I want to make you feel so much.” He pulled out of me and wriggled down my body. His desire to get me off made up for him having lost his hard-on. I let myself go completely, like when we were on the rocks. I focused only on the feeling and not on anything else. This time when I came I did not come for the gods or the stars, but only for him. I called out his name as I came into his mouth. I came for so long I felt suspended in time or air or space, as though the divisions between seconds had been obliterated. Afterward, as my pussy settled, he kept his face down there, his cheek resting on my inner right thigh. I could feel us attaching and knew that any chance of breaking apart from him emotionally was not possible. I was his now. 50. After four nights I began to lose hope. The sickness reemerged and it was deeper, all the way to my bones, the way addicts describe dope sickness. I shit myself constantly. I vomited into the ocean. Whatever he had done to me had made my body dependent. I literally needed him to survive. I had heard of people who died from drug withdrawals. Whatever was leaking from me could not be good. Was I going to die of the shits and the shakes? Was I going to die a painful, shitty death? Suddenly I became terrified of dying. It seemed like I was about to stop breathing. Even just the thought that I could stop breathing and disappear was terrifying. What was scarier still was that I had done this to myself. I needed help. There were two hours until group. I needed some kind of emotional methadone, some advice at least about what they had done to tone down their withdrawals. I showered quickly, then walked from Venice to Santa Monica, afraid that if I took a car I might vomit or shit inside of it.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She and Stephen would ride far afield on their mules; they would often ride right up into the mountains, climbing the hill to old Orotava where the women sat at their green postigos through the long, quiet hours of their indolent day and right on into the evening. The walls of the town would be covered with flowers, jasmine, plumbago and bougainvillea. But they would not linger in old Orotava; pressing on they would climb always up and up to the region of health and trailing arbutus, and beyond that again to the higher slopes that had once been the home of a mighty forest. Now, only a few Spanish chestnut trees remained to mark the decline of that forest. Sometimes they took their luncheon along, and when they did this young Pedro went with them, for he it was who must drive the mule that carried Concha’s ample lunch-basket. Pedro adored these impromptu excursions, they made an excuse for neglecting the garden. He would saunter along chewing blades of grass, or the stem of some flower he had torn from a wall; or perhaps he would sing softly under his breath, for he knew many songs of his native island. But if the mule Celestino should stumble, or presume, in his turn, to tear flowers from a wall, then Pedro would suddenly cease his soft singing and shout guttural remarks to old Celestino: ‘Vaya, burro! Celestino, arre! Arre—boo!’ he would shout with a slap, so that Celestino must swallow his flowers in one angry gulp, before having a sly kick at Pedro. The lunch would be eaten in the cool upland air, while the beasts stood near at hand, placidly grazing. Against a sky of incredible blueness the Peak would gleam as though powdered with crystal—Teide, mighty mountain of snow with the heart of fire and the brow of crystal. Down the winding tracks would come goats with their herds, the tinkle of goat-bells breaking the stillness. And as all such things have seemed wonderful to lovers throughout the ages, even so now they seemed very wonderful to Mary and Stephen. There were days when, leaving the uplands for the vale, they would ride past the big banana plantations and the glowing acres of ripe tomatoes. Geraniums and agaves would be growing side by side in the black volcanic dust of the roadway. From the stretching Valley of Orotava they would see the rugged line of the mountains. The mountains would look blue, like the African nights, all save Teide, clothed in her crystalline whiteness. And now while they sat together in the garden at evening, there would sometimes come beggars, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island: ‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace, But now I am tormented because I have seen thee. Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2Stephen and Mary arrived at the Villa del Ciprés, not very long after Christmas. They had spent their Christmas Day aboard ship, and on landing had stayed for a week at Santa Cruz before taking the long, rough drive to Orotava. And as though the fates were being propitious, or unpropitious perhaps—who shall say?—the garden was looking its loveliest, almost melodramatic it looked in the sunset. Mary gazed round her wide-eyed with pleasure; but after a while her eyes must turn, as they always did now, to rest upon Stephen; while Stephen’s uncertain and melancholy eyes must look back with great love in their depths for Mary. Together they made the tour of the villa, and when this was over Stephen laughed a little; ‘Not much of anything, is there, Mary?’ ‘No, but quite enough. Who wants tables and chairs?’ ‘Well, if you’re contented, I am,’ Stephen told her. And indeed, so far as the Villa del Ciprés went, they were both very well contented. They discovered that the indoor staff would consist of two peasants; a plump, smiling woman called Concha, who adhered to the ancient tradition of the island and tied her head up in a white linen kerchief, and a girl whose black hair was elaborately dressed, and whose cheeks were very obviously powdered—Concha’s niece she was, by name Esmeralda. Esmeralda looked cross, but this may have been because she squinted so badly. In the garden worked a handsome person called Ramon, together with Pedro, a youth of sixteen. Pedro was light-hearted, precocious and spotty. He hated his simple work in the garden; what he liked was driving his father’s mules for the tourists, according to Ramon. Ramon spoke English passably well; he had picked it up from the numerous tenants and was proud of this fact, so while bringing in the luggage he paused now and then to impart information. It was better to hire mules and donkeys from the father of Pedro—he had very fine mules and donkeys. It was better to take Pedro and none other as your guide, for thus would be saved any little ill-feeling. It was better to let Concha do all the shopping—she was honest and wise as the Blessèd Virgin. It was better never to scold Esmeralda, who was sensitive on account of her squint and therefore inclined to be easily wounded. If you wounded the heart of Esmeralda, she walked out of the house and Concha walked with her. The island women were often like this; you upset them and per Dios, your dinner could burn! They would not even wait to attend to your dinner. ‘You come home,’ smiled Ramon, ‘and you say, “What burns? Is my villa on fire?” Then you call and you call. No answer . . . all gone!’ And he spread out his hands with a wide and distressingly empty gesture.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The hunter, when he came, was grey-coated and slender, and his eyes were as soft as an Irish morning, and his courage was as bright as an Irish sunrise, and his heart was as young as the wild heart of Ireland, but devoted and loyal and eager for service, and his name was sweet on the tongue as you spoke it—being Raftery, after the poet. Stephen loved Raftery and Raftery loved Stephen. It was love at first sight, and they talked to each other for hours in his loose box—not in Irish or English, but in a quiet language having very few words but many small sounds and many small movements, which to both of them meant more than words. And Raftery said: ‘I will carry you bravely, I will serve you all the days of my life.’ And she answered: ‘I will care for you night and day, Raftery—all the days of your life.’ Thus Stephen and Raftery pledged their devotion, alone in his fragrant, hay-scented stable. And Raftery was five and Stephen was twelve when they solemnly pledged their devotion. Never was rider more proud or more happy than Stephen, when first she and Raftery went a-hunting; and never was youngster more wise or courageous than Raftery proved himself at his fences; and never can Bellerophon have thrilled to more daring than did Stephen, astride of Raftery that day, with the wind in her face and a fire in her heart that made life a thing of glory. At the very beginning of the run the fox turned in the direction of Morton, actually crossing the big north paddock before turning once more and making for Upton. In the paddock was a mighty, upstanding hedge, a formidable place concealing timber, and what must they do, these two young creatures, but go straight at it and get safely over—those who saw Raftery fly that hedge could never afterwards doubt his valour. And when they got home there was Anna waiting to pat Raftery, because she could not resist him. Because, being Irish, her hands loved the feel of fine horseflesh under their delicate fingers—and because she did very much want to be tender to Stephen, and understanding.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Collins rolled down a coarse woollen stocking and displayed the afflicted member; it was blotchy and swollen and far from attractive, but Stephen’s eyes filled with quick, anxious tears as she touched the knee with her finger. ‘There now!’ exclaimed Collins, ‘See that dent? That’s the water!’ And she added: ‘It’s so painful it fair makes me sick. It all comes from polishing them floors, Miss Stephen; I didn’t ought to polish them floors.’ Stephen said gravely: ‘I do wish I’d got it—I wish I’d got your housemaid’s knee, Collins, ’cause that way I could bear it instead of you. I’d like to be awfully hurt for you, Collins, the way that Jesus was hurt for sinners. Suppose I pray hard, don’t you think I might catch it? Or supposing I rub my knee against yours?’ ‘Lord bless you!’ laughed Collins, ‘it’s not like the measles; no, Miss Stephen, it’s caught from them floors.’ That evening Stephen became rather pensive, and she turned to the Child’s Book of Scripture Stories and she studied the picture of the Lord on His Cross, and she felt that she understood Him. She had often been rather puzzled about Him, since she herself was fearful of pain— when she barked her shins on the gravel in the garden, it was not always easy to keep back her tears—and yet Jesus had chosen to bear pain for sinners, when He might have called up all those angels! Oh, yes, she had wondered a great deal about Him, but now she no longer wondered. At bedtime, when her mother came to hear her say her prayers—as custom demanded—Stephen’s prayers lacked conviction. But when Anna had kissed her and had turned out the light, then it was that Stephen prayed in good earnest—with such fervour, indeed, that she dripped perspiration in a veritable orgy of prayer. ‘Please, Jesus, give me a housemaid’s knee instead of Collins—do, do, Lord Jesus. Please, Jesus, I would like to bear all Collins’ pain the way You did, and I don’t want any angels! I would like to wash Collins in my blood, Lord Jesus—I would like very much to be a Saviour to Collins—I love her, and I want to be hurt like You were; please, dear Lord Jesus, do let me. Please give me a knee that’s all full of water, so that I can have Collins’ operation. I want to have it instead of her, ’cause she’s frightened—I’m not a bit frightened!’ This petition she repeated until she fell asleep, to dream that in some queer way she was Jesus, and that Collins was kneeling and kissing her hand, because she, Stephen, had managed to cure her by cutting off her knee with a bone paper-knife and grafting it on to her own. The dream was a mixture of rapture and discomfort, and it stayed quite a long time with Stephen. The next morning she awoke with the feeling of elation that comes only in moments of perfect faith.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen put away her work, then she suddenly caught the girl to her roughly: ‘How much do you love me? Tell me quickly, quickly!’ Her voice shook with something very like fear. ‘Stephen, you’re hurting me—don’t, you’re hurting! You know how I love you—more than life.’ ‘You are my life . . . all my life,’ muttered Stephen. CHAPTER 56 1 V alérie stared at Stephen in amazement: ‘But . . . it’s such an extraordinary thing you’re asking! Are you sure you’re right to take such a step? For myself I care nothing; why should I care? If you want to pretend that you’re my lover, well, my dear, to be quite frank, I wish it were true—I feel certain you’d make a most charming lover. All the same,’ and now her voice sounded anxious, ‘this is not a thing to be done lightly, Stephen. Aren’t you being absurdly self-sacrificing? You can give the girl a very great deal.’ Stephen shook her head: ‘I can’t give her protection or happiness, and yet she won’t leave me. There’s only one way . . .’ Then Valérie Seymour, who had always shunned tragedy like the plague, flared out in something very like temper: ‘Protection! Protection! I’m sick of the word. Let her do without it; aren’t you enough for her? Good heavens, you’re worth twenty Mary Llewellyns! Stephen, think it over before you decide—it seems mad to me. For God’s sake keep the girl, and get what happiness you can out of life.’ ‘No, I can’t do that,’ said Stephen dully. Valérie got up: ‘Being what you are, I suppose you can’t—you were made for a martyr! Very well, I agree’; she finished abruptly, ‘though of all the curious situations that I’ve ever been in, this one beats the lot!’ That night Stephen wrote to Martin Hallam. 2 Two days later as she crossed the street to her house, Stephen saw Martin in the shadow of the archway. He stepped out and they faced each other on the pavement. He had kept his word; it was just ten o’clock. He said: ‘I’ve come. Why did you send for me, Stephen?’ She answered heavily: ‘Because of Mary.’ And something in her face made him catch his breath, so that the questions died on his lips: ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ he murmured. ‘It’s so simple,’ she told him, ‘it’s all perfectly simple. I want you to wait just under this arch—just here where you can’t be seen from the house. I want you to wait until Mary needs you, as I think she will . . . it may not be long . . . Can I count on your being here if she needs you?’ He nodded: ‘Yes—yes!’ He was utterly bewildered, scared too by the curious look in her eyes; but he allowed her to pass him and enter the courtyard. 3 She let herself into the house with her latchkey.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And all this beauty and peace is for you, because now you’re a part of Morton.’ Angela said: ‘I’ve never known peace, it’s not in me—I don’t think I’d find it here, Stephen.’ And as she spoke she released her hand, moving a little away from the girl. But Stephen continued to talk on gently; her voice sounded almost like that of a dreamer: ‘Lovely, oh, lovely it is, our Morton. On evenings in winter these lakes are quite frozen, and the ice looks like slabs of gold in the sunset, when you and I come and stand here in the winter. And as we walk back we can smell the log fires long before we can see them, and we love that good smell because it means home, and our home is Morton—and we’re happy, happy—we’re utterly contented and at peace, we’re filled with the peace of this place—’ ‘Stephen—don’t!’ ‘We’re both filled with the old peace of Morton, because we love each other so deeply—and because we’re perfect, a perfect thing, you and I—not two separate people but one. And our love has lit a great, comforting beacon, so that we need never be afraid of the dark any more—we can warm ourselves at our love, we can lie down together, and my arms will be round you—’ She broke off abruptly, and they stared at each other. ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’ Angela whispered. And Stephen answered: ‘I know that I love you, and that nothing else matters in the world.’ Then, perhaps because of that glamorous evening, with its spirit of queer, unearthly adventure, with its urge to strange, unendurable sweetness, Angela moved a step nearer to Stephen, then another, until their hands were touching. And all that she was, and all that she had been and would be again, perhaps even to-morrow, was fused at that moment into one mighty impulse, one imperative need, and that need was Stephen. Stephen’s need was now hers, by sheer force of its blind and uncomprehending will to appeasement. Then Stephen took Angela into her arms, and she kissed her full on the lips, as a lover. CHAPTER 19 1 T hrough the long years of life that followed after, bringing with them their dreams and disillusions, their joys and sorrows, their fulfilments and frustrations, Stephen was never to forget this summer when she fell quite simply and naturally in love, in accordance with the dictates of her nature . To her there seemed nothing strange or unholy in the love that she felt for Angela Crossby. To her it seemed an inevitable thing, as much a part of herself as her breathing; and yet it appeared transcendent of self, and she looked up and onward towards her love—for the eyes of the young are drawn to the stars, and the spirit of youth is seldom earth-bound.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  6But Mary Llewellyn was no coward and no weakling, and one night, at long last, pride came to her rescue. She said: ‘I want to speak to you, Stephen.’ ‘Not now, it’s so late—to-morrow morning.’ ‘No, now.’ And she followed Stephen into her bedroom. For a moment they avoided each other’s eyes, then Mary began to talk rather fast: ‘I can’t stay. It’s all been a heart-breaking mistake. I thought you wanted me because you cared. I thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought—but I won’t accept your charity, Stephen, not now that you’ve grown to hate me like this—I’m going back home to England. I forced myself on you, I asked you to take me. I must have been mad; you just took me out of pity; you thought that I was ill and you felt sorry for me. Well, now I’m not ill and not mad any more, and I’m going. Every time I come near you you shrink or push me away as though I repelled you. But I want us to part quickly because. . . .’ Her voice broke: ‘because it torments me to be always with you and to feel that you’ve literally grown to hate me. I can’t stand it; I’d rather not see you, Stephen.’ Stephen stared at her, white and aghast. Then all in a moment the restraint of years was shattered as though by some mighty convulsion. She remembered nothing, was conscious of nothing except that the creature she loved was going. ‘You child,’ she gasped, ‘you don’t understand, you can’t understand—God help me, I love you!’ And now she had the girl in her arms and was kissing her eyes and her mouth: ‘Mary . . . Mary. . . .’ They stood there lost to all sense of time, to all sense of reason, to all things save each other, in the grip of what can be one of the most relentless of all the human emotions. Then Stephen’s arms suddenly fell to her sides: ‘Stop, stop for God’s sake—you’ve got to listen.’ Oh, but now she must pay to the uttermost farthing for the madness that had left those words unspoken—even as her father had paid before her. With Mary’s kisses still hot on her lips, she must pay and pay unto the uttermost farthing. And because of an anguish that seemed past endurance, she spoke roughly; the words when they came were cruel. She spared neither the girl who must listen to them, nor herself who must force her to stand there and listen. ‘Have you understood? Do you realize now what it’s going to mean if you give yourself to me?’ Then she stopped abruptly . . . Mary was crying. Stephen said, and her voice had grown quite toneless: ‘It’s too much to ask—you’re right, it’s too much. I had to tell you—forgive me, Mary.’

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  That, of course, is not exactly how Paul used the metaphor. His point is, “There are many members, yet one body” (12:20) and all depend on all. But the twin frames of the body image in 12:12–13 and 12:27 are of primary importance for Paul: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. That means, minimally, that the Christian assembly is like a human body, but one that belongs to Christ. But it also means, maximally, that there is an organic fusion between Christ and the Christian community insofar as both are transfused with the same Holy Spirit. Diversity and Hierarchy Some Corinthians must have set up a hierarchy of gifts and services with “tongues” or “speaking in tongues,” that is, the ecstatic utterance of non-speech, as the greatest of them all and those who possessed it as the most Spirit-filled Christians in the assemblies. In English the term for that spiritual gift is glossolalia, from the Greek words for tongue (glossa) and speaking (lalein), and Paul refers to such utterances over a dozen times from 12:10 to 14:39. But he not only opposes any primacy of glossolalia; he replaces that hierarchy with a completely different one. First, there is the well-known rhapsody on “the more excellent way” (12:31), which begins, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love (agap [image file=image_rsrc2XV.jpg] ), I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1), continues with the qualities of love (13:4–12), and concludes, “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (13:13). That section in 1 Corinthians 13 and its wider ambience in 1 Corinthians 12–14 makes it clear that “to love” means “to share” and that all other Spirit gifts or Spirit functions are worthless unless received, used, and shared with all for the common good. Second, and on that basic principle, prophets take precedence over glos-solalists because “those who prophesy speak to other people for their up-building and encouragement and consolation,” while “those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church” (14:3–4). Once again, the principle of common good is clear: “Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, strive to excel in them for building up the church” (14:12). Third, glossolalia speaks “to God,” but does not speak to the human mind, not of believers and not of nonbelievers:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  From the house they made their way to the stables, and still grave, Stephen told her friend about Raftery. Angela listened, assuming an interest she was very far from feeling—she was timid of horses, but she liked to hear the girl’s rather gruff voice, such an earnest young voice, it intrigued her. She was thoroughly frightened when Raftery sniffed her and then blew through his nostrils as though disapproving, and she started back with a sharp exclamation, so that Stephen slapped him on his glossy grey shoulder: ‘Stop it, Raftery, come up!’ And Raftery, disgusted, went and blew on his oats to express his hurt feelings. They left him and wandered away through the gardens, and quite soon poor Raftery was almost forgotten, for the gardens smelt softly of night-scented stock and of other pale flowers that smell sweetest at evening, and Stephen was thinking that Angela Crossby resembled such flowers—very fragrant and pale she was, so Stephen said to her gently: ‘You seem to belong to Morton.’ Angela smiled a slow, questioning smile: ‘You think so, Stephen?’ And Stephen answered: ‘I do, because Morton and I are one,’ and she scarcely understood the portent of her words, but Angela, understanding, spoke quickly: ‘Oh, I belong nowhere—you forget I’m the stranger.’ ‘I know that you’re you,’ said Stephen. They walked on in silence while the light changed and deepened, growing always more golden and yet more elusive. And the birds, who loved that strange light, sang singly and then all together: ‘We’re happy, Stephen!’ And turning to Angela, Stephen answered the birds: ‘Your being here makes me so happy.’ ‘If that’s true, then why are you so shy of my name?’ ‘Angela—’ mumbled Stephen. Then Angela said: ‘It’s just over three weeks since we met—how quickly our friendship’s happened. I suppose it was meant, I believe in Kismet. You were awfully scared that first day at The Grange; why were you so scared?’ Stephen answered slowly: ‘I’m frightened now—I’m frightened of you.’ ‘Yet you’re stronger than I am—’ ‘Yes, that’s why I’m so frightened, you make me feel strong—do you want to do that?’ ‘Well—perhaps—you’re so very unusual, Stephen.’ ‘Am I?’ ‘Of course, don’t you know that you are? Why, you’re altogether different from other people.’ Stephen trembled a little: ‘Do you mind?’ she faltered. ‘I know that you’re you,’ teased Angela, smiling again, but she reached out and took Stephen’s hand. Something in the queer, vital strength of that hand stirred her deeply, so that she tightened her fingers: ‘What in the Lord’s name are you?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know. Go on holding like that to my hand—hold it tighter—I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, don’t be absurd!’ ‘Go on holding my hand, I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, you’re hurting, you’re crushing my rings!’

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Had anyone tried to send the Sirens to group therapy or Sappho to the UCLA psych ward? Homer gave the Sirens a bad reputation. Falling in love with a Siren meant certain death, but perhaps this was the greatest love: to die in feeling. This was the greatest annihilation—the highest purpose—and the Sirens themselves were not evil. They were simply giving human beings the greatest gift they could possibly give them, to die intoxicated by love and lust. What better way to die? “I love you,” I said into his mouth and did not regret saying it. “I love you,” he said back into mine. “I love you I love you I love you I love you,” we said. In between our moans he looked at me with our noses almost touching, his dick going in and out of my pussy, and he said, “I’m going to let go, I’m going to let go.” It was such a funny way to say it. Maybe this was how they said it underneath the ocean. It was a testament to his differentness, the sense of an old soul I got from him in spite of the way he looked, and it made me love him more. As he began to come, his voice moved up an octave: a full scale that went through my whole body making me feel as though I was Sappho’s lyre. I gyrated against him too, making him come, helping him to let go. I was a vessel. I was gladly a vessel who was helping him so that he could abandon his own vessel: discard the wants of living in a body, the pain, the hard husk of it. He could discard his scales, which I still didn’t fully understand, and also his arms, which I knew well by now. I didn’t know what it felt like to be a man or what it felt like to have a tail, but I certainly understood the prison of the body. I knew, too, the desperation of not knowing exactly why we are here. I was proud to be a conduit for his escape. When he came he looked like he might cry. I felt him gush inside me and in that moment experienced the most maternal surge I have ever felt toward another human being. I felt both lusty and maternal. Then he lay there after with his bloody cheek pressed against my breasts, shaking. My breasts, which never were ample enough, suddenly seemed all I could need. Now I felt I understood that the heart was not the breast itself—it was the current underneath. You did not nurse from the breast itself, but from a place beyond it. The breast was only the bridge. Grown men needed nursing too. Perhaps he needed nursing most of all.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  And what of love? I felt certain that this could be nothing but love, and if this was only lust or infatuation or a simulation of love—well, then give me lust or infatuation. This was how I wanted love to feel. This was the love I wanted. I didn’t want the other kind of love, whatever that love was. I didn’t want the “conscious” kind. Had anyone ever tried to strip Cupid of his quiver? Had anyone tried to send the Sirens to group therapy or Sappho to the UCLA psych ward? Homer gave the Sirens a bad reputation. Falling in love with a Siren meant certain death, but perhaps this was the greatest love: to die in feeling. This was the greatest annihilation—the highest purpose—and the Sirens themselves were not evil. They were simply giving human beings the greatest gift they could possibly give them, to die intoxicated by love and lust. What better way to die? “I love you,” I said into his mouth and did not regret saying it. “I love you,” he said back into mine. “I love you I love you I love you I love you,” we said. In between our moans he looked at me with our noses almost touching, his dick going in and out of my pussy, and he said, “I’m going to let go, I’m going to let go.” It was such a funny way to say it. Maybe this was how they said it underneath the ocean. It was a testament to his differentness, the sense of an old soul I got from him in spite of the way he looked, and it made me love him more. As he began to come, his voice moved up an octave: a full scale that went through my whole body making me feel as though I was Sappho’s lyre. I gyrated against him too, making him come, helping him to let go. I was a vessel. I was gladly a vessel who was helping him so that he could abandon his own vessel: discard the wants of living in a body, the pain, the hard husk of it. He could discard his scales, which I still didn’t fully understand, and also his arms, which I knew well by now. I didn’t know what it felt like to be a man or what it felt like to have a tail, but I certainly understood the prison of the body. I knew, too, the desperation of not knowing exactly why we are here. I was proud to be a conduit for his escape.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She had taken off her jacket and looked very tall in her soft silk shirt and her skirt of dark serge. ‘Tired?’ she inquired, glancing down at the girl. ‘No, not a bit tired,’ smiled Mary. Stephen walked over to the stationary basin and proceeded to wash her hands under the tap, spotting her white silk cuffs in the process. Going to the cupboard she got out a clean shirt, slipped in a pair of simple gold cuff-links, and changed; after which she put on a new necktie. Mary said: ‘Who’s been looking after your clothes—sewing on buttons and that sort of thing?’ ‘I don’t know exactly—Puddle or Adèle. Why?’ ‘Because I’m going to do it in future. You’ll find that I’ve got one very real talent, and that’s darning. When I darn the place looks like a basket, criss-cross. And I know how to pick up a ladder as well as the Invisible Mending people! It’s very important that the darns should be smooth, otherwise when you fence they might give you a blister.’ Stephen’s lips twitched a little, but she said quite gravely: ‘Thanks awfully, darling, we’ll go over my stockings.’ From the dressing-room next door came a series of thuds; Pierre was depositing Stephen’s luggage. Getting up, Mary opened the wardrobe, revealing a long, neat line of suits hanging from heavy mahogany shoulders—she examined each suit in turn with great interest. Presently she made her way to the cupboard in the wall; it was fitted with sliding shelves, and these she pulled out one by one with precaution. On the shelves there were orderly piles of shirts, crêpe de Chine pyjamas—quite a goodly assortment, and the heavy silk masculine underwear that for several years now had been worn by Stephen. Finally she discovered the stockings where they lay by themselves in the one long drawer, and these she proceeded to unfurl deftly, with a quick and slightly important movement. Thrusting a fist into toes and heels she looked for the holes that were nonexistent. ‘You must have paid a lot for these stockings, they’re hand knitted silk;’ murmured Mary gravely. ‘I forget what I paid—Puddle got them from England.’ ‘Who did she order them from; do you know?’ ‘I can’t remember; some woman or other.’ But Mary persisted: ‘I shall want her address.’ Stephen smiled: ‘Why? Are you going to order my stockings?’ ‘Darling! Do you think I’ll let you go barefoot? Of course I’m going to order your stockings.’ Stephen rested her elbow on the mantelpiece and stood gazing at Mary with her chin on her hand. As she did so she was struck once again by the look of youth that was characteristic of Mary. She looked much less than her twenty-two years in her simple dress with its leather belt —she looked indeed little more than a schoolgirl.

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

  This is the origin of two of the most remarkable productions of Luther,—his little book on "Christian Freedom," and a dedicatory letter to Leo X. The beautiful tract on "Christian Freedom" is a pearl among Luther’s writings. It presents a striking contrast to his polemic treatises against Rome, which were intended to break down the tyranny of popery. And yet it is a positive complement to them, and quite as necessary for a full understanding of his position. While opposing the Pope’s tyranny, Luther was far from advocating the opposite extreme of license. He was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Epistle to the Galatians, which protests against both extremes, and inspired the keynote to Luther’s Tract. He shows wherein true liberty consists. He means liberty according to the gospel; liberty in Christ, not from Christ; and offers this as a basis for reconciliation. He presents here a popular summary of Christian life. He keeps free from all polemics, and writes in the best spirit of that practical mysticism which connected him with Staupitz and Tauler. The leading idea is: The Christian is the lord of all, and subject to none, by virtue of faith; he is the servant of all, and subject to every one, by virtue of love. Faith and love constitute the Christian: the one binds him to God, the other to his fellow-man. The idea is derived from St. Paul, who says, "Though I was free from all men, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more" (1 Cor. 9:19); and "Owe no man any thing, save to love one another" (Rom. 13:8). It was carried out by Christ, who was Lord of all things, yet born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem them who were under the law (Gal. 4:4); who was at once in the form of God, and in the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6, 7). The Christian life is an imitation of the’ life of Christ,—a favorite idea of the mediaeval mystics. Man is made free by faith, which alone justifies; but it manifests itself in love, and all good works. The person must first be good before good works can be done, and good works proceed from a good person; as Christ says, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). The fruit does not bear the tree, nor does the tree grow on the fruit; but the tree bears the fruit, and the fruit grows on the tree. So it is in all handicrafts. A good or bad house does not make a good or bad builder, but the good or bad builder makes a good or bad house. Such is the case with the works of men. Such as the man himself is, whether in faith or in unbelief, such is his work; good if it is done in faith, bad if in unbelief.