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 Sister Outsider (1984)

  Raising Black children — female and male — in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. And in order to survive they must let go. This is what mothers teach — love, survival — that is, self-definition and letting go. For each of these, the ability to feel strongly and to recognize those feelings is central: how to feel love, how to neither discount fear nor be overwhelmed by it, how to enjoy feeling deeply. I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine. I wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black self. For me, this task begins with teaching my son that I do not exist to do his feeling for him. Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly “inferior” capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity, becoming trapped in dependency and fear. As a Black woman committed to a liveable future, and as a mother loving and raising a boy who will become a man, I must examine all my possibilities of being within such a destructive system. Jonathan was three-and-one-half when Frances, my lover, and I met; he was seven when we all began to live together permanently. From the start, Frances’ and my insistence that there be no secrets in our household about the fact that we were lesbians has been the source of problems and strengths for both children. In the beginning, this insistence grew out of the knowledge, on both our parts, that whatever was hidden out of fear could always be used either against the children or ourselves — one imperfect but useful argument for honesty. The knowledge of fear can help make us free. for the embattled there is no place that cannot be home nor is. * For survival, Black children in america must be raised to be warriors. For survival, they must also be raised to recognize the enemy’s many faces.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  He is rather different from the God of Abraham, of revelation. Shaftesbury sees him more as the mind that not only designs but moves an d animates the whole. Theocles, the character in the dialogue The Moralist s who truly speaks for Shaftesbu ry , thus addresses Him: 0 mighty Genius! sole animating and inspiring power! author and subject of these thoughts! thy influence is universal, and in all things thou art inmost. From thee depend their secret springs of action. Tho u moves t them with an irresistible unwearied force, by sacred and inviolable laws, framed for the good of each particular being, as bes t may suit with the perfe cti on, life and vigour of the whole ... thou who art original soul, diffusive, vital in all, inspiriting the whole. 2 2 The g oal of lo v ing and affirming the order of the world could also be described as bringing our particular minds into h ar m on y with t he univers al Mor al Sentiments • 2.5 3 one: "the particular mind should seek its ha pp iness in conformity with the general one, and endeavour to resemble it in its highest simplicity and ex cellence". 23 This conception is what enables Shaftesbury to pose the issue of theism versus atheism in the surprising and disconcerting way he does in his Inquiry. H e takes it basically as a cosmological question. The theist is the one who believes "that everything is governed, ordered, or regulated for the best, by a designing principle or mind, necessarily good and permanent". 2 4 The para digm atheists are Epicureans. What it really turns on is the order o r lack of it in the cosmos. To grasp the universe as a single entity, like a tree, whose parts sympathize, 25 and which is ordered for the best, is what puts us on the path to God. We can see wh y Shaftesbury was unalterably opposed not only to h yper-Augustinian Christianity but to its offshoot in Lockean Deism. He utterly rejected a conception of God's law as external. The highest good doe sn't repose in any arbitrary will, but in the nature of the cosmos itself; and our love for it isn't commanded under threat of punishment, but comes spontaneously from our being. Sometimes he echoes closely the words of the Cambridge writers in denouncing a religion which would describe God as a jealous being, and man as submitted to his will through fear of punishment.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I’d never felt even a chord of passion strong enough to drive me to do that. I didn’t tell her because I was afraid of what she would think. Me—New York Times Bestseller of over a dozen sappy novels. “What did you write about?” I asked. “My mud vein.” I got a chill. “You wrote about your darkness? Why would you do that?” There was nothing pretentious about her. No show, no thriving to impress me. She didn’t even try to guard the ugly truth, which made every one of her words feel like a cold dousing of water to the face. “Because it was the truth,” she said, so matter of fact. And I fell in love with her. She didn’t have to try to be anything. And everything that she was was something that I was not. “I missed you,” I said. “Can I read it?” She shrugged. “If you want to.” I watched a trickle of sweat wind down her neck and disappear between her breasts. Her hair was damp, her face flushed, but I wanted to grab her and kiss her. “Come with me to my parents’. I want to have Christmas dinner with you.” I thought she was going to say no and I’d have to spend the next ten minutes convincing her. She didn’t. She nodded. I was too afraid to say anything as she walked with me to my car, in case she changed her mind. Without any objections, she climbed into the front seat and folded her hands in her lap. It was all very formal. As soon as we were on the road, I reached for the radio. I wanted to put on Christmas music. At least prepare her for the Christmas crack she was about to experience at the Nissley house. She grabbed my hand. “Can you leave it off?” “Sure,” I said. “Not a fan of music?” She blinked at me, then looked out the window. “Everyone is a fan of music, Nick,” she said. “But not you…?” “I didn’t say that.” “You implied it. I’m begging for a detail about you, Brenna. Just give me one.” “Okay,” she said. “My mother loved music. She played it in our house from morning ‘til night.” “And that made you dislike it?” We pulled into my parent’s driveway and she used the distraction to avoid answering my question. “Pretty,” she said as we slowed to a stop. My parents lived in a modest home. They’d spent the last ten years making upgrades. If she thought the outside was pretty I couldn’t wait to see what she thought of my mother’s pink granite kitchen counters, or the fountain depicting a peeing boy they installed in the middle of the foyer. When I lived at home we’d had linoleum and plumbing that only worked a tenth of the time. She made no comment about the giant reindeer lawn ornaments, or the wreath almost the size of the front door.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  When I asked you about it, you told me that we were all bound by something because we needed something to hold us together. What you wrap around your soul determines your outcome—that’s what you said to me. But I didn’t get it. I though that was crazy, until the day you held my hand, clamped over a knife, and pointed it at your body: both of us cutting into your skin. You bore my burdens that hour. Does that make sense? You took my self-loathing and bitterness, my promise to pay back the world, and you pointed them at yourself. I loved you then. Because you saw me. It’s the very instance that I woke up from a blinding, and knew that I was standing face to face with my soulmate. A concept I didn’t believe in until your soul healed mine. The darkness that formerly commanded me yielded to your light. That’s how I understood your tattoos. The ropes that bound me were no longer self-loathing and bitterness. They suddenly became you, but in a good way. I need those ropes to hold me together. I didn’t want to hurt myself anymore because it hurt you. Oh, God. I’m rambling. I just needed you to know. Every minute you spent getting to know me, I got to know me. Forgive me for not recognizing our soul-likeness sooner, while we still had time. The nature of love is that it conquers. Hate. Even bitterness. Mostly, it conquers self-loathing. I was sitting in a white room hating myself, until you breathed life back into me. You loved me so much that I started to love myself. Who would have thought that day that I was running out of the woods, I was running straight into the arms of my savior? Right out of an ugly life that had me conquered. I did not choose you, and you did not choose me. Something else chose for us. The snow covered me, and you covered me, and in that house—in pain, and cold, and hunger—I accepted unconditional love. You are my truth, Isaac, and you set me free. We are all going to die, but I’m going to die first. In the very last second of my life, I will think of you. Senna I guess I should start at the beginning. In 2012 Nate Sabin met me for the first time and called me, Mud Vein. After my initial shock receded, I realized that Nate was right; I did have a mud vein. It’s my defining feature. Being that this book is dedicated to his wife, I’ll just go ahead and thank the Sabin’s for being the type of people who inspire me and call me out on my shit. My dad, who has leukemia and is not afraid of anything. Thanks for the fearless gene. P.s.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  In my family it was: “You’re a Lorde, so that makes you special and particular above anybody else in the world. But you’re not our kind of Lorde, so when are you going to straighten out and act right?” Adrienne: And did you feel, there in the Harlem Writers’ Guild, the same kind of unwritten laws that you had to figure out in order to do right? Audre: Yes, I would bring poems to read at the meetings. And hoping, well, they’re gonna tell me actually what it is they want, but they never could, never did. Adrienne: Were there women in that group, older women? Audre: Rosa Guy was older than I, but she was still very young. I remember only one other woman, Gertrude McBride. But she came in and out of the workshop so quickly I never knew her. For the most part, the men were the core. My friend Jeannie and I were members but in a slightly different position; we were in high school. Adrienne: And so Tougaloo was an entirely different experience of working with other Black writers. Audre: When I went to Tougaloo, I didn’t know what to give or where it was going to come from. I knew I couldn’t give what regular teachers of poetry give, nor did I want to, because they’d never served me. I couldn’t give what English teachers give. The only thing I had to give was me. And I was so involved with these young people — I really loved them. I knew the emotional life of each of those students because we would have conferences, and that became inseparable from their poetry. I would talk to them in the group about their poetry in terms of what I knew about their lives, and that there was a real connection between the two that was inseparable no matter what they’d been taught to the contrary. I knew by the time I left Tougaloo that teaching was the work I needed to be doing, that library work — by this time I was head librarian at the Town School — was not enough. It had been very satisfying to me. And I had a kind of stature I hadn’t had before in terms of working. But from the time I went to Tougaloo and did that workshop, I knew: not only, yes, I am a poet, but also, this is the kind of work I’m going to do. Practically all the poems in Cables to Rage * I wrote in Tougaloo. I was there for six weeks. I came back knowing that my relationship with Ed was not enough: either we were going to change it or end it. I didn’t know how to end it because there had never been any endings for me. But I had met Frances at Tougaloo, and I knew she was going to be a permanent person in my life.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I just didn’t know how.” “You didn’t know how to come see me?” I ask, partially amused. He looks at my eyes, in them. So sadly. “It’s okay,” I say, slowly. “I get it.” “What do we do now?” he asks. I don’t know if he’s asking how we are supposed to live, or how we are supposed to finish this conversation. I don’t ever know what to do. “We live then we leave,” I say. “Do the best we can.” He runs his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. It puffs out and settles back down. It reminds me of when you’re baking a cake and you open the oven too early. I toy with the jagged edges of my hair, glancing up at him every so often. “Are things good? With you and Daphne?” I have no right to ask him, none at all. Especially considering that everything Elgin did was because of me. “No,” he says. “How can they be?” He shakes his head. “She has been supportive. I can’t complain there, but it was like they gave me a month and then they wanted the old me back. They being my family,” he tells me. “But I don’t know how to be him. I’m different.” Isaac was always so honest with his emotions. I wish I could be like that. I feel as if I need to say something. “I don’t have anyone to disappoint,” I confess. “I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder.” He looks startled. His black scrubs wrinkle as he leans toward me. “You’re loved,” he says. Love is a possession; it’s something that you own from the layers of people in your life. But if my life were a cake it would be un-layered, unbaked, missing ingredients. I isolated myself too soundly to own anyone’s love. “I love you,” says Isaac. “From the moment you ran out of the woods, I’ve loved you.” I don’t believe him. He’s a nurturer by profession and by person. He saw something broken and needed to heal it. He loves the process. As if reading my thoughts he says, “You have to believe someone sometime, Senna. When they tell you that. Otherwise you’ll never know what it feels like to be loved. And that’s a sad thing.” “How do you know?” I ask, brimming with anger. “It’s a big deal to say those words. How do you know that you love me?” He pauses for a long time. Then he says, “I was offered a way out.” “A way out? A way out of what?” But I spit that out too soon. It’s like a stone that drops between us.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Who would have thought that day that I was running out of the woods, I was running straight into the arms of my savior? Right out of an ugly life that had me conquered. I did not choose you, and you did not choose me. Something else chose for us. The snow covered me, and you covered me, and in that house—in pain, and cold, and hunger—I accepted unconditional love. You are my truth, Isaac, and you set me free. We are all going to die, but I’m going to die first. In the very last second of my life, I will think of you. Senna [image file=ack.jpg] I guess I should start at the beginning. In 2012 Nate Sabin met me for the first time and called me, Mud Vein. After my initial shock receded, I realized that Nate was right; I did have a mud vein. It’s my defining feature. Being that this book is dedicated to his wife, I’ll just go ahead and thank the Sabin’s for being the type of people who inspire me and call me out on my shit. My dad, who has leukemia and is not afraid of anything. Thanks for the fearless gene. P.s. Sorry I have so many tattoos. I hope I can still go to Heaven. Cindy Fisher, the best mother in the world. Our mansions will all sit in the shadow of yours. Stephen King, thank you for teaching me how to write. You’re a goddam genius. My friend and assistant, Serena Knautz, you are shrewd as a snake and harmless as a dove. You put love into action. I adore you. Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations, you are a true artist. This is the most beautiful cover I have ever seen. The vision was all you. Marie Piquette, my editor, I, am, sorry, I, use, so, many, comma’s. Christine Estevez for always being on my team. The blogging Jedi: Molly Harper of Tough Critic Book Reviews, Aestas Book Blog, Maryse’s Book Blog, Vilma’s Book Blog, Bec’s of Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews, Madison Says Book Blog and Shh Mom’s Reading Book Blog. Each of you gives blogging a different flavor. I appreciate each one of your voices and the time you take promoting my books. Vilma, that was the most beautiful review I’ve ever read. I’d also like to thank Madison Seidler, Luisa Hansen, Yvette Huerta, Rebecca Espinoza and my little Nina Gomez for their input and friendship. Jonathan Rodriguez for assuring me every day that I’m a genius (even though I can’t do fractions). Tosha Khoury, I am so blessed to have you. You get me. You get what I write. I don’t know anyone who believes in my books more than you. Amy Tannenbaum, my tiny, tough, agent.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  This brings me to the last consideration of the erotic. To share the power of each other’s feelings is different from using another’s feelings as we would use a kleenex. When we look the other way from our experience, erotic or otherwise, we use rather than share the feelings of those others who participate in the experience with us. And use without consent of the used is abuse. In order to be utilized, our erotic feelings must be recognized. The need for sharing deep feeling is a human need. But within the european-american tradition, this need is satisfied by certain proscribed erotic comings-together. These occasions are almost always characterized by a simultaneous looking away, a pretense of calling them something else, whether a religion, a fit, mob violence, or even playing doctor. And this misnaming of the need and the deed give rise to that distortion which results in pornography and obscenity — the abuse of feeling. When we look away from the importance of the erotic in the development and sustenance of our power, or when we look away from ourselves as we satisfy our erotic needs in concert with others, we use each other as objects of satisfaction rather than share our joy in the satisfying, rather than make connection with our similarities and our differences. To refuse to be conscious of what we are feeling at any time, however comfortable that might seem, is to deny a large part of the experience, and to allow ourselves to be reduced to the pornographic, the abused, and the absurd. The erotic cannot be felt secondhand. As a Black lesbian feminist, I have a particular feeling, knowledge, and understanding for those sisters with whom I have danced hard, played, or even fought. This deep participation has often been the forerunner for joint concerted actions not possible before. But this erotic charge is not easily shared by women who continue to operate under an exclusively european-american male tradition. I know it was not available to me when I was trying to adapt my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation. Only now, I find more and more women-identified women brave enough to risk sharing the erotic’s electrical charge without having to look away, and without distorting the enormously powerful and creative nature of that exchange. Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama. For not only do we touch our most profoundly creative source, but we do that which is female and self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society. * Paper delivered at the Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Mount Holyoke College, August 25, 1978. First published as a pamphlet by Out & Out Books.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  INTERACTIONS OF LIMERENCE AND LUSTAlthough it’s obvious that sex can and does exist without love and that lust often cares nothing about romance, it’s not so easy to assert that romance can exist without sex. Although it is relatively rare, some limerent attachments are never consummated in overt sexual behavior. In some cases the emotional risks of romance are so enormous that fear disrupts the physiological mechanisms of arousal or orgasm. Some emotionally intense relationships—most common among women but occasionally seen in male friendships too—have all of the hallmarks of limerence except no apparent sexual desire. Aside from such situations, however, the limerent object is almost always seen as at least a potential sexual partner. But because limerent attractions seek much more than physical gratification, they often pull the desirer in unexpected directions. I’ve known of several instances in which a person fell in love with someone of the “wrong” sex—that is, not the gender the person normally found erotically appealing.10 Most commonly, however, the lure of the limerent attraction involves a steamy matching of lusty desire with a profound need for emotional attachment. ENTER THE OBSTACLESStrong attractions, whether lusty or romantic or both, are difficult or impossible to ignore. By its nature, attraction is a primary sexual activator. But the erotic equation tells us that we will have a far stronger response to our attractions if they are made more difficult, challenging, or uncertain by having one or more obstacles to overcome. Some arousal-enhancing obstacles work their magic by blocking access to the object of desire—either before or during a sexual interaction. Notice how multiple obstacles between Grace, a middle-aged divorcee, and her younger lover accentuate their desire and launch them into an incredibly sensuous exchange: I had just come out of a very bad marriage and had sworn off guys. Then I met a wonderful man six years my junior. He was very attractive but I was afraid to have sex with him. He seemed so young and I so jaded. And besides, neither of us had enough privacy. One night after we had gone out to dinner, we came back to my apartment (which I had to myself for a change!) and we did some heavy petting. I began to let my guard down. He was so sweet; he kept saying that he loved me and wanted to show me how much if I’d let him. He said that he didn’t have to go home and we could spend the whole weekend together.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  **Voice — Frederico:** About a year ago I started dating again after being dumped by a lady I lived with for four years. She told me I didn’t have a clue about being intimate and constantly demanded that I tell her how I was feeling, which I thought I did. But it was never enough. After a while I gave up. I was pretty much convinced I didn’t know how to love a woman when I met Audrey at a friend’s party. Our flirting made me feel sexual again. The best part was that she was so friendly. That first night we stayed up until the wee hours getting to know each other and making out on her couch. She told me she had a girlfriend but also wanted a boyfriend. I admired her honesty. And since I enjoy pictures of two women getting it on I thought, hey, she’s just the wild type. Besides, her openness made me feel open too. I liked her more each time I saw her. One night Audrey introduced me to her girlfriend, which was more awkward than I thought it would be even though she seemed nice. Afterward Audrey and I had the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I wanted to turn her on more than her girlfriend. I even imagined that her girlfriend was spying on us through a crack in the curtains. The thing that blew me away was how much I wanted to be close to her, to tell her everything, all the stuff my old girlfriend tried to drag out of me was spilling out to Audrey and I was loving it. These days it still pisses me off that she decides how often we see each other (about two or three times a week). Most of my friends tell me I’m wasting my time, but they don’t understand what it’s like to be with her. Yes, I’ve considered cutting things off, but I can’t imagine feeling so good with anyone else. What can I say? I’m in love.

• From Sister Outsider (1984)

  Recently I have met young Black men about whom I am pleased to say that their future and their visions, as well as their concerns within the present, intersect more closely with Jonathan’s than do my own. I have shared vision with these men as well as temporal strategies for our survivals and I appreciate the spaces in which we could sit down together. Some of these men I met at the First Annual Conference of Third World Lesbians and Gays held in Washington D.C. in October, 1979. I have met others in different places and do not know how they identify themselves sexually. Some of these men are raising families alone. Some have adopted sons. They are Black men who dream and who act and who own their feelings, questioning. It is heartening to know our sons do not step out alone. When Jonathan makes me angriest, I always say he is bringing out the testosterone in me. What I mean is that he is representing some piece of myself as a woman that I am reluctant to acknowledge or explore. For instance, what does “acting like a man” mean? For me, what I reject? For Jonathan, what he is trying to redefine? Raising Black children — female and male — in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. And in order to survive they must let go. This is what mothers teach — love, survival — that is, self-definition and letting go. For each of these, the ability to feel strongly and to recognize those feelings is central: how to feel love, how to neither discount fear nor be overwhelmed by it, how to enjoy feeling deeply. I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine. I wish to raise a Black man who will recognize that the legitimate objects of his hostility are not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs him to fear and despise women as well as his own Black self. For me, this task begins with teaching my son that I do not exist to do his feeling for him. Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly “inferior” capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity, becoming trapped in dependency and fear. As a Black woman committed to a liveable future, and as a mother loving and raising a boy who will become a man, I must examine all my possibilities of being within such a destructive system.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  THE SEARCH FOR CLOSENESSOf all the impulses that motivate erotic adventures and daydreams, even those that appear to be completely impersonal, none is more fundamental than the urge to engage with another human being—if only for a moment. When sexologist and sociologist Dr. Ira Reiss set out to identify features that all sexual experiences have in common—regardless of historical setting or culture—he came up with only two: physical pleasure and self-disclosure.5 His insight is especially relevant to peak eroticism, during which ultra-personal desires are played out in relatively unedited form. To share your sexual quirks and eccentricities with another person is a bold act of self-revelation. No wonder you feel profoundly validated when your partner revels in your self-expression. Perhaps it’s self-disclosure combined with positive responses from their valued partners that cause virtually all members of The Group to recognize one or more of the closeness emotions either before, during, or after memorable sex: love, tenderness, affection, connection, unity (oneness), admiration, and appreciation. The urge to connect has the most dramatic aphrodisiac effects during limerence, when cravings to be close are so overpowering that the lovers merge into a joyous oneness. Particularly when romance is new, feelings of love and sexual enthusiasm are synergistic: each intensifies the other. For those in limerence, love is unquestionably the best aphrodisiac and may even seem to be the only one. Whenever The Group describes romantic peaks, the closeness emotions always appear. How could it be otherwise? For many people the desire to create a sense of connection even with a casual or anonymous partner is an erotic motivator. Of course, there is the desire to have skin to skin contact, to feel the weight and heat, to hear the sounds, and to savor the sight of an aroused other—all of which bring the participants into the closest possible physical proximity. Although some encounters involve no expressions of affection, more commonly the protagonists act as if they’re close—kissing, holding, caressing—at least part of the time, even if they know nothing about each other. Even for those who can remain emotionally cool when they’re sexually hot, the search for closeness is still woven into the fabric of their erotic motivation, no matter how fine or carefully concealed the thread. CLOSENESS AND THE FOUR CORNERSTONESAs you saw in the last chapter, the four cornerstones of eroticism become intertwined with arousal because they are universal human experiences that involve overcoming obstacles. Sometimes these existential barriers heighten excitement by stimulating your desire for closeness. You’ve no doubt noticed this effect if you’ve ever longed for someone who wasn’t readily available. Chances are your desire to be close increased in direct proportion to the difficulty of getting together. Similarly, if you’ve violated prohibitions by becoming involved with someone your friends, your family, or even you yourself considered inappropriate, you may have noticed that social disapproval made you cling more tightly to each other than you would have otherwise.

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

  At the start of his letter Paul recalls their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:3). And, again at the end, he encourages them to “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (5:8). What does Paul mean by love? To love meant to share, a love assembly was a share-assembly, a love meal was a share-meal. That is already clear in this present letter. “So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us” (2:8). Put together, then, the class status of the Thessalonian assembly with that loving as sharing; clearly the sharing was from want to want rather than from plenty to plenty. And do not think of it as humanly extensive charity, a free giving of our stuff, but as divinely distributive justice, a necessary sharing of God’s stuff. For Paul, a Christian assembly of sisters and brothers was one that had committed itself to sharing together just as in an ordinary human family because it actually was a divine family, the family of God. This commonality was basic to Pauline Christianity, and it explains the emphasis on working in this letter. The specter of the lazy freeloader already shadowed the theology of creation behind Christian sharing, and it continued into the post-Pauline letter we call 2 Thessalonians. Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. (2 Thess 3:6–12)

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

  I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray with the mind also; I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will sing praise with the mind also…. I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. (14:15–19) Again and again, Paul reverts to his basic principle: “Let all things be done for building up” (14:26). Finally, therefore, if there is glossolalia, there should also be interpretation, there should be somebody who can say what it means. Despite all those problems with that gift, however, Paul never says to stop it. Interpretation yes, order yes, peace yes, but “do not forbid speaking in tongues” (14:39). Still, the only hierarchy that Paul accepts is the primacy of those who best build up the community, and that can only be done by those who love, that is, those who share fully and completely what they have received as not their own to have, to use, or to boast about. All of that is, quite simply, Paul’s egalitarian vision in action of a Christian kenotic community that empties itself in love and service for others. But, as some at Corinth assured him, that is not how the wise and strong of this world operate, not outside Christianity and not inside it either. That is not, they could have said, the normalcy of either civilization or religion, which always work by wisdom and strength overpowering foolishness and weakness. To which Paul’s only reply would have been: Yes, but “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1:25).

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  But we are not quite there yet, at the threshold of the eighteenth century. This is the moment when the internalization of moral theory is established and b ecomes part of the wider culture. This is the century in which sentiment becomes important as a moral category, in a hos t of ways, including an influential theory of the moral sentiments. Shaftes bury himself seems to me too close to the ancient Stoic model t o have himself taken this step, at least fully and unambiguously. But his term 'affectio n ' strongly suggests internalization. And he does speak sometimes of a 'moral sense' , 4 6 which came to be a key term in the later theory of sentiment. Whether willingly or no, he certainly contributed to the develop m ent of this theory. This is one way in which at least his mode of expression gave his ancients-derived theory a modern twist. 2.. The other is also suggested in the word 'affection'. The ancient theories which Shaftes b ury drew on make harmony and equilibrium of the soul their major goal. Even when dealing with the way we treat others, balance and order are crucial. Justice and temperance are the primary virtues which ought to preside over our dealings with others. The injunction of the Stoic writer is well known, 4 7 that in commiserating with another for his misfortune, we ought indeed to talk consolingly, but not be moved by pity. This is one respect in which Christianity was radically different fro m pagan thought. The highest virtue w as a kind of love, unst i nting giving, whose paradigm exemplar gave his life for others. The centre of gravity of the mo ral l ife shifts. These two moral outlooks were fitted together in Christi an culture, not always in easy union, naturally, but perhaps most harmoniously in the famous Thomistic doctrine that superadds the three "theol ogi cal" virtues to the natural ones. Wi th the affirma t i on o f ordinary life, agape is integrated in a new wa y into an ethic of everyday existence. My work in my calling ought to be for th e general good. This insistence on practical help, on doing good for people, is carried on in the various semi-secularized successor ethics, e.g., with Bacon and Locke. The principal virtue in our dealing with others is now no lon g er ju st justice and temperance but beneficence. With the internalizati on o f ethical thought, where i nclinations ar e crucial, the motive of bene vole n c e bec omes the key to goodness. Shaftesbury is part wa y along in this shift.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  'Memo ry ' is the s oul's implicit knowl ed ge of itself. Something is in my mem ory wh e n l know it even though I am not thinking of it or focussing on it. But t o make this e x plicit and ful l knowledge, I hav e to formulate it. In the pa rticular ca se of the soul, the true latent knowledge I hav e of myself will be overlaid b y a ll so rts of false images. To dissipate these distqrted appearances and get to th e truth, I have to draw out the im p licit knowledge within {which also c om es from above). This comes about in · the word (verbum) that I for m ula te inwardly, and this constitutes intelligentia. But to understand m y true s el f i s to love it, and so with intelligence comes will, and with self-know l ed ge , self-love. The parallels with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, particularly w ith the Father's begetting of the Word, need no str essing. But what is str i ki ng here for our purp oses is that man shows himself most clearly as the ima g e o f G od in his inner self-presence and self-love. It is a kind of knowledge w h e re knower and known are one, coup led with love, which refle cts mo st fully G o d in our lives. And indeed, the i m ag e of the Trinity in us is the process wh e re by "I n lnteriore Homine , , • 13 7 w e st r iv e t o complete and perfect this self-presence and self-affirma tion. N o t h i n g sho ws more clearly than these images of the Trini ty how Augustin i a n i n w a rdn ess is bound up with radical reflexivity, and they also begi n to rn a k e d ea r how essentially linked is this doctrine of inwardness to Augus ti ne 's w h ole concep t ion of the relatio n of m a n to God. W e c an best see this if we relate this doct rine to another major difference w i t h P l a t o. I mentioned above that Augustine too sees the soul as potent i ally fa c i n g t w o w ays, towards the higher and immaterial, or towards the lowe r a nd s e n si b le. And these tw o directions of a tt entio n ar e also two directio ns of d e s i r e. A ug ustine speaks of two loves.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  This is r e lated to the right order of the soul as whole is to part, as englobing to englobed. But it is not more important just for this r e ason. Th e real point is that it is only on the level of the whole order that one can see t h at everything is ordered for the good. The vision of the good is at the very centre of Plato's doctrine of mo r al resources. The good of the whole, whose order manifests the Idea of th e Good, is the final good, the one which englobes all partial goods. It not o nly includes them but confer s a higher dignity on them; since the Good is wh at commands our categorical love a nd allegiance. It is the ultimate source o f strong evaluation, somethin g whic h stands on its own as worthy of bein g desired and sought, not just desirable given our existing goals and appetites. It provides the sta ndard of the desirable beyond the variation of de facto desire. In the light of the Good, we can see tha t our g o od, the proper order in o ur souls, has this categoric worth, which it enjoys as a proper part of th e whole order. Thus the good life for us is to be rul ed by reason not just as the vision o f correct order in our souls but a l so and more fundamentally as the vision of the good order of the whole. And we cannot see one of these orders without the other. For the right order in us is to be ruled by reason, whic h can n ot come about unless reason reaches its full realization which is in the pe rception of the Good; and at the same time, the perception of the Go o d is what makes us truly virtuous. The love of the eternal, good order i s t he ultimate source and the true form o f our love of good action and th e g ood life. The s urest basis for virtue is the pe rception of this order, which o ne cannot see without loving. That is why philosophy is the best safegu ar d o f virtue. Philosophers love the eternal truth, as against ordinary men w h o a re lovers of spectacles and the arts or are just men of action (476B-C).

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Frederico,. a member of The Group in his early thirties, describes his struggle to spend more time with his bisexual girlfriend. His story is a perfect example of the dynamic relationship among the four cornerstones and the search for connection: About a year ago I started dating again after being dumped by a lady I lived with for four years. She told me I didn’t have a clue about being intimate and constantly demanded that I tell her how I was feeling, which I thought I did. But it was never enough. After a while I gave up. I was pretty much convinced I didn’t know how to love a woman when I met Audrey at a friend’s party. Our flirting made me feel sexual again. The best part was that she was so friendly. That first night we stayed up until the wee hours getting to know each other and making out on her couch. She told me she had a girlfriend but also wanted a boyfriend. I admired her honesty. And since I enjoy pictures of two women getting it on I thought, hey, she’s just the wild type. Besides, her openness made me feel open too. I liked her more each time I saw her. One night Audrey introduced me to her girlfriend, which was more awkward than I thought it would be even though she seemed nice. Afterward Audrey and I had the hottest sex I’ve ever had in my life. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I wanted to turn her on more than her girlfriend. I even imagined that her girlfriend was spying on us through a crack in the curtains. The thing that blew me away was how much I wanted to be close to her, to tell her everything, all the stuff my old girlfriend tried to drag out of me was spilling out to Audrey and I was loving it. These days it still pisses me off that she decides how often we see each other (about two or three times a week). Most of my friends tell me I’m wasting my time, but they don’t understand what it’s like to be with her. Yes, I’ve considered cutting things off, but I can’t imagine feeling so good with anyone else. What can I say? I’m in love. Frederico’s desire to be close to Audrey is enhanced because he must share her affection with someone else. The fact that he wants more time with her than he can get assures that he has plenty of opportunities for longing. In addition, Frederick’s reference to his friends’ advice suggests that their disapproval strengthens his attachment, underscoring the sense of “us against the world” that energizes so many unorthodox relationship.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I was wrestling with my pride to tell her that I didn’t. I’d never in my life run out on dinner to finish a story. I’d never felt even a chord of passion strong enough to drive me to do that. I didn’t tell her because I was afraid of what she would think. Me—New York Times Bestseller of over a dozen sappy novels. “What did you write about?” I asked. “My mud vein.” I got a chill. “You wrote about your darkness? Why would you do that?” There was nothing pretentious about her. No show, no thriving to impress me. She didn’t even try to guard the ugly truth, which made every one of her words feel like a cold dousing of water to the face. “Because it was the truth,” she said, so matter of fact. And I fell in love with her. She didn’t have to try to be anything. And everything that she was was something that I was not. “I missed you,” I said. “Can I read it?” She shrugged. “If you want to.” I watched a trickle of sweat wind down her neck and disappear between her breasts. Her hair was damp, her face flushed, but I wanted to grab her and kiss her. “Come with me to my parents’. I want to have Christmas dinner with you.” I thought she was going to say no and I’d have to spend the next ten minutes convincing her. She didn’t. She nodded. I was too afraid to say anything as she walked with me to my car, in case she changed her mind. Without any objections, she climbed into the front seat and folded her hands in her lap. It was all very formal. As soon as we were on the road, I reached for the radio. I wanted to put on Christmas music. At least prepare her for the Christmas crack she was about to experience at the Nissley house. She grabbed my hand. “Can you leave it off?” “Sure,” I said. “Not a fan of music?” She blinked at me, then looked out the window. “Everyone is a fan of music, Nick,” she said. “But not you…?” “I didn’t say that.” “You implied it. I’m begging for a detail about you, Brenna. Just give me one.” “Okay,” she said. “My mother loved music. She played it in our house from morning ‘til night.” “And that made you dislike it?” We pulled into my parent’s driveway and she used the distraction to avoid answering my question. “Pretty,” she said as we slowed to a stop.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  All this was caused by a lack of inwardness in Israelite religion.18 The people followed other gods only because they did not truly know Yahweh. Their understanding of religion was superficial. Like the ritualists of India, Hosea was demanding greater awareness. Religious practices must no longer be taken for granted and performed by rote; people must become more conscious of what they were doing. Hosea was not talking about purely notional knowledge; the verb yada (“to know”) implied an emotional attachment to Yahweh, and an interior appropriation of the divine. It was not enough merely to attend a sacrifice or a festival. “I desire loyalty [hesed],” Yahweh complained, “and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God, not holocausts.”19 Hosea constantly tried to make the Israelites aware of the inner life of God. The exodus, for example, had not simply been an exercise of power on Yahweh’s part. When Yahweh had lived with the Israelites for forty years in the wilderness, he had felt like a parent teaching his children to walk, carrying them in his arms, and leading them like a toddler “with reins of kindness, with leading strings of love.” Yahweh had been like one “who lifts an infant against his cheek”; he had “stooped down” when he gave the people their food.20 Hosea was trying to make the people look beneath the surface of the ancient stories and appreciate the pathos of God. Amos and Hosea had both introduced an important new dimension to Israelite religion. Without good ethical behavior, they insisted, ritual alone was worthless. Religion should not be used to inflate communal pride and self-esteem, but to encourage the abandonment of egotism. And Hosea, in particular, was urging the Israelites to examine their inner lives, analyze their feelings, and develop a deeper vision based on introspection. Some of these qualities also appeared in the early portions of the Pentateuch, which were being produced in Israel and Judah at about this time.