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 Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  10 casting love as shared positive emotion doesn’t go nearly far enough: In Positivity (2009), I only scratched the surface by identifying love as any positive emotion shared within a safe interpersonal connection. 10 crosses emotions science with relationship science: From emotions science, I draw the view that love, like all emotions, is a momentary, biobehavioral response to changing circumstances, whether real or imagined. In other words, love is not lasting. I depart from traditional emotions science, though, by elevating love above other emotions, calling it our supreme emotion. There is no precedence for this in emotions science, which takes specific, discernable emotions—fear, anger, joy, pride—as roughly equal-status categories, each holding value for human survival in its own unique way. Under this democratic logic, no emotion is set apart as on an altogether different plane or scale of importance, not even love. That’s an idea I draw from relationship science, which unabashedly positions love relationships as larger, more special than ordinary relationships. Yet as I’ve suggested already, I part company with traditional relationship scientists by not defining or confining love to enduring or intimate relationships. 10 invested in this other person’s well-being: Kevin E. Hegi and Raymond M. Bergner (2010). “What is love? An empirically-based essentialist account.” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 27(5): 620–36. Not all attention paid to others is so benevolent. Earlier in my career, I articulated and investigated the damage caused by a very different form of other-focus, one I now see as the polar opposite of love. This was sexual objectification, which you could describe as investment in the physical appearance and sexuality of another person for one’s own sake, one’s own pleasure. See Barbara L. Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts (1997). “Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21(2): 173–206. See also Barbara L. Fredrickson, Lee Meyerhoff Hendler, Stephanie Nilson, Jean Fox O’Barr, and Tomi-Ann Roberts (2011). “Bringing back the body: A retrospective on the development of objectification theory.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 35(4): 689–96. 11 a yearlong interdisciplinary faculty seminar on integrative medicine: This was spearheaded by Dr. Rita Benn, director of education at the University of Michigan’s Integrative Medicine Program. Encouraged by my friend and colleague Professor Jane Dutton, I joined the Integrative Medicine Faculty Scholars Program in 2004–5. It was through this program that I was introduced to the work of Sandra Finkel, a longtime meditation instructor who eventually became my research collaborator. 12 warmed their connections with others: Barbara L. Fredrickson, Michael A. Cohn, Kimberly A. Coffey, Jolynn Pek, and Sandra Finkel (2008). “Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95(5): 1045–1062.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Love is also deeply personal. It unfurls within and throughout your mind and body like a wave, cresting with each new micro-moment of connection—that smile, that laugh, or that knowing and appreciative glance that you share with another. Yet even as these micro-moments are deeply personal and fleeting, they’ve also been targets of increasing scientific scrutiny. So now, for the first time, you can know and appreciate love not only through a personal, subjective lens but also through a scientific, objective lens. Through this scientific lens, you can better see and appreciate how your body and brain were made for love, and made to benefit from loving. Learn to seek love out more frequently and it can elevate you, your community, and our world far beyond what you and I can today envision. Opportunities for love abound. It’s up to you to nourish yourself with them. Acknowledgments The ideas about love that you’ll encounter here have been gestating in my mind and heart for years. Fittingly, they first arose through my connections with others. Some of these connections have been fleeting, others long-standing. Some have been mutual connections, with ideas forged through rich conversations and collaborations, others have been more one-sided, as I’ve privately mulled over and expanded on the words of other scholars. For the foundational idea that love is best seen as any positive emotion shared within a safe, interpersonal connection, I thank Carroll Izard. His 1977 book described love as moments of shared joy and shared interest, and convinced me that any accounting of the positive emotions should not omit love. What little I wrote about love in my first presentation of the broaden-and-build theory owed a great deal to Izard’s influence on my thinking. A deeper shaping of my views on love comes from the pioneering work on high-quality connections by my friend and University of Michigan colleague, Jane Dutton. I’ve long been inspired by her ways of seeing and describing the connective tissue that binds and energizes people in long-standing relationships and one-time encounters alike. Apart from her inspiring theoretical work, Jane is also an inspiring person, and I am thankful that our friendship has withstood the strain of my move from Ann Arbor. Other scholars whose work has deeply influenced my thinking about love and related ideas include Lisa Feldman Barrett, Kent Berridge, John Cacioppo, Laura Carstensen, Sy-Miin Chow, Steve Cole, Michael D. Cohen, Mike Csikszentmihalyi, Richie Davidson, Paul Ekman, Ruth Feldman, Shelly Gable, Eric Garland, Karen Grewen, Melissa Gross, Uri Hasson, Julianne Holt-Lunstad, David Johnson, Danny Kahneman, Dacher Keltner, Corey Keyes, Ann Kring, Bob Levenson, Kathleen Light, Marcial Losada, Batja Mesquita, Paula Niedenthal, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Keith Payne, David Penn, Chris Peterson, Bob Quinn, Cliff Saron, Oliver Schultheiss, Leslie Sekerka, Marty Seligman, Erika Rosenberg, Robert Vallerand, George Vaillant, and David Sloan Wilson. Although these people span the spectrum from my dearest friends to those I’ve yet to meet, the theoretical and empirical contributions of each have inspired me to build upon them.

• From Between Us

  viii ​“make each other up”: Richard A. Shweder, “Cultural Psychology: What Is It?” in Thinking through Cultures. Expeditions in Cultural Psychology, ed. Richard A. Shweder (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 73–110. Quote on p. 73. Chapter 1 Lost in Translation 4 ​collector’s item of culture-specific emotion words: A recent collection can be found in Tiffany W. Smith, The Book of Human Emotions (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2016). 4 ​contribute to each other’s sense of value or self-esteem: See for a similar description: Shinobu Kitayama and Hazel R. Markus, “The Pursuit of Happiness and the Realization of Sympathy: Cultural Patterns of Self, Social Relations, and Well-Being,” in Culture and Subjective Well-Being, ed. Ed Diener and Eunkook M. Suh (Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books, 2000), 113–61. 5 ​no one should feel or act any better: Also described by Han van der Horst, The Low Sky: Understanding the Dutch (The Hague: Scriptum Books, 1996), 34–35. 5 ​Differences also show in unpleasant emotions: The Dutch confrontational style that does not shy away from unpleasant emotions is in stark contrast to the “American cool” that historian Peter N. Stearns describes in American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style (New York: New York University Press, 1994). 5 ​You confront each other: The examples in the preceding sentence are from Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (London: William Heinemann, 1989), 146, who draws a similar contrast between Polish and North American styles of connection. 5 ​paint you or the relationship in the most favorable light: See Stearns, American Cool, for the contrast with American emotion culture; this book came out just around the time that I first arrived in the United States. 6 ​“into painful reminders”: Catherine A Lutz, Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 44. 6 ​Never in Anger: J. L. Briggs, “Emotion Concepts,” in Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 257–58, 284, 286. Copyright © 1970 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. 8 ​“painful process of self-discovery”: Quoted from Lutz, Unnatural Emotions, 11. 8 ​a small set of emotions that were “hard-wired”: E.g., Paul Ekman, “Are There Basic Emotions?,” Psychological Review 99, no. 3 (1992): 550–53; Carroll E. Izard, Human Emotions (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, LLC, 1977); Keith Oatley and Philip N. Johnson-Laird, “Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotions,” Cognition and Emotion 1, no. 1 (1987): 29–50.

• From Between Us

  Importantly, emotions are always meaningful in our relationships with other people. When I feel (or do!) hasham as a Bedouin woman, I expect the response will be favorable. I anticipate regaining my honor and dignity, because hasham shows I adopt the normative way of interpreting and responding to my potential breach of honor among Bedouins. When I feel (or do) gezellig in my Dutch environment, I assume the feeling to be shared and reciprocated. Actually, if it is not, the situation may abruptly stop being gezellig. When I love someone, at least in a U.S. American context, I want to share time and experiences with them, say “I love you” and hug, hold, and cuddle this person. The experience becomes a very different one if it is not reciprocated. In all cases, the emotions mark socially (in addition to personally) meaningful and important events, and involve the mutual alignment of people to each other. Any community that provides a set of experiences, understandings of the world, relationship practices, moral sensitivities, and values and goals may shape the emotions we have as individuals. Different cohorts, different socioeconomic groups, different religions, different gender cultures, and even different family cultures may provide emotions with their meaning. I have highlighted the way my Dutch upbringing has shaped my emotions, and contrasted it to my experiences in several North American contexts. I could have chosen any other perspective which undoubtedly helped to shape my emotions as well—as a woman, from a middle-class background, a boomer, the daughter of (secular) Holocaust survivors, a mother, a wife, a friend, or a professor. Meaning and the context of action would have been shaped by any and all of them. Are Emotions the Same Deep Down? So, what about this idea, that once you take the time to get to know somebody from another culture, once you surpass the superficial differences, you will recognize the feelings of people from other cultures, and comprehend their emotions? Is it true that we are all the same when it comes to our feelings? No. And we do not necessarily find out how similar we are once we try to communicate, either. When people come to the conclusion that others have feelings just like them, that conclusion may stem from their own projections. Scientists have been as guilty of projection as laypeople. Many psychological and anthropological explanations for cultural differences in emotions come down to saying that people in other cultures mislabel or misattribute their feelings, or alternatively hide them—the assumption being that their “real” feelings are more like ours. As will become clear in later chapters, the very concern for the real, deep, inner feelings of an individual may itself be exclusive to WEIRD cultures.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  One of the loveliest stories in the NT is the story of the anointing of Jesus’ head by the woman in the house of Simon the leper at Bethany. The woman loved Jesus, and this was the only way in which she could show her love. The dull, insensitive, unimaginative spectators criticized her for the reckless extravagance of what she had done. Jesus’ answer was: ‘She hath wrought a good, kalos, work upon me’ (Matt. 26.10; cp. Mark 14.6). That incident is the perfect illustration of all that kalos means. It was a demonstration of love; it was the act of a love which knew that only the best it had to give was good enough; it was the act of a love which refused to count the cost. It was the act of a love which set beauty far above mere utility; of a love which knew that giving can never be dictated by the cautious prudentialities of common sense. A deed which is kalos is a deed in which there is enshrined the beauty of love’s extravagance. The second usage in the NT which demonstrates the meaning of kalos is that it is the word which is used of Jesus in that title which is for many the most precious title of Jesus—the Good Shepherd (John 10.11, 14). The shepherd does not look after his sheep with only a cold efficiency. He looks after them with a sacrificial love. When the sheep are in trouble, he does not nicely calculate the risk of helping them; he gives his life for the sheep. He does not give so many hours’ service to the sheep per day, and carefully calculate that he must work so many hours a week. All through the day he watches over them, and all through the night he lies across the opening in the sheep-fold so that he is literally the door. Here we have the same idea again. The good shepherd is the shepherd whose service is a lovely and a heroic thing because it is a service, not rendered for pay, but rendered for love. The basic idea in the word kalos is the idea of winsome beauty; and we are bound to see that nothing can be kalos unless it be the product of love. Deeds which are kalos are the outcome of a heart in which love reigns supreme. The outward beauty of the deed springs from the inward magnitude of the love within the heart. There is no English word which fully translates kalos; there is no word which gathers up within itself the beauty, the winsomeness, the attractiveness, the generosity, the usefulness, which are all included in this word. Perhaps the word which comes nearest to it is the Scots word bonnie.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  In like manner, preaching may be a public duty; and it is so, for such as are bound to proclaim the Word of God to the people. At other times, it is a private exercise; as is the case, when, in a community, one of the religious gives a spiritual exhortation, or when the Fathers of the Desert used to address words of edification to the brethren who came to visit them. It is clear that St. Augustine refers to this private mode of instruction. For he says: “Can all the religious of a monastery speak spiritual words to the brethren who come to them?” Hence it is plain that his words are to be applied not to preachers, but to such as speak unto edification. For, as the Gloss says (1 Cor. ii.), “Speaking is a private exercise, preaching a public function.” They therefore who are employed publicly in the various spiritual exercises which we have mentioned are justified in accepting the means of livelihood from the faithful to whom they minister. But those who devote themselves to such works for their private edification, to the neglect of manual labour, do certainly transgress against the Apostolic precept. They belong to the category of those whom St. Paul rebukes, and whom he bids to “work in silence,” and to “eat their own bread,” It is of such men that St. Augustine speaks. This is made clear by his words: “Why should we not devote a part of our time to the observance of the Apostolic precepts?” Again he says: “One prayer from the mouth of an obedient man will be heard more speedily than ten that proceed from scomful lips.” Once more, “How great is their perversity! They will not obey what they read.” All these passages prove that St. Augustine denounces only those religious who apply themselves to spiritual exercises, in such a manner as to transgress the Apostolic precept. But those only, as we have before observed, can disobey this precept who are bound to fulfil it. They do not transgress it who neglect manual labour for the sake of public duties. Neither do they obey it who, instead of working with their hand, devote themselves to the exercise of contemplation. For (as has already been said), they are not impelled by sloth to escape from labour and to lead an idle life. They are, on the contrary, filled with such an abundance of divine love as to render them oblivious of every earthly care.” CHAPTER 5

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Now of all the gifts which God vouchsafed to mankind after they had fallen away by sin, the chief is that He gave His Son; wherefore it is written (Jn. 3:16): “God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” Consequently the chief sacrifice is that whereby Christ Himself “delivered Himself . . . to God for an odor of sweetness” (Eph. 5:2). And for this reason all the other sacrifices of the Old Law were offered up in order to foreshadow this one individual and paramount sacrifice—the imperfect forecasting the perfect. Hence the Apostle says (Heb. 10:11) that the priest of the Old Law “often” offered “the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but” Christ offered “one sacrifice for sins, for ever.” And since the reason of the figure is taken from that which the figure represents, therefore the reasons of the figurative sacrifices of the Old Law should be taken from the true sacrifice of Christ. Reply to Objection 1: God did not wish these sacrifices to be offered to Him on account of the things themselves that were offered, as though He stood in need of them: wherefore it is written (Is. 1:11): “I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves and lambs and buckgoats.” But, as stated above, He wished them to be offered to Him, in order to prevent idolatry; in order to signify the right ordering of man’s mind to God; and in order to represent the mystery of the Redemption of man by Christ. Reply to Objection 2: In all the respects mentioned above (ad 1), there was a suitable reason for these animals, rather than others, being offered in sacrifice to God. First, in order to prevent idolatry. Because idolaters offered all other animals to their gods, or made use of them in their sorceries: while the Egyptians (among whom the people had been dwelling) considered it abominable to slay these animals, wherefore they used not to offer them in sacrifice to their gods. Hence it is written (Ex. 8:26): “We shall sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians to the Lord our God.” For they worshipped the sheep; they reverenced the ram (because demons appeared under the form thereof); while they employed oxen for agriculture, which was reckoned by them as something sacred.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (1984)

  3 [image file=image_51.jpg] The Pleasures of MarriageThis definition of marriage as a relationship that is as exclusive as possible regarding the practice of the aphrodisia raises (or could raise) a number of questions pertaining to the integration, the role, the form, and the finality of acts of pleasure in the interplay of affective or statutory relations between husband and wife. In actual fact, one has to admit that even in the forms of reflection in which marriage occupies an important place, the economy of pleasures in the conjugal relationship is treated with a great deal of reserve. Marriage, in this rigorous ethics advocated by some, demands a monopoly of pleasure. But as to which pleasures will be allowed within marriage and which others excluded, little is said. However, two general principles are often evoked. First, it is made clear that the conjugal relation must not be foreign to Eros, to that love which some philosophers wished to reserve for boys; but neither must it ignore or exclude Aphrodite. Musonius, in the text where he shows that marriage, far from being a hindrance, is an obligation for the philosopher, affirms the greatness and value of the marital state. He invokes the three great deities who watch over it: Hera, whom “we address as the patroness of wedlock”; Aphrodite, since people have called “Aphrodision ergon the joining of wife and husband”; and Eros (to what indeed could the name be better applied “than to the lawful union of man and wife”?). Together, these three powers have the function of “bringing together man and woman for the procreation of children.”1 It is in the same manner that Plutarch will affirm the role of Aphrodite and Eros in that which properly constitutes the conjugal relationship.2

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (1984)

  In light of the above, one understands what was no doubt one of the most characteristic features of this art of being married—that attention to oneself and devotion to conjugal life could be closely associated. If relationship with a woman who is “the wife,” “the spouse,” is essential to existence, if human beings are conjugal individuals whose nature is fulfilled in the practice of shared life, then there could not be an essential and primary incompatibility between the relationship one establishes with oneself and the rapport one forms with the other. The art of conjugality is an integral part of the cultivation of the self. But the individual who is concerned about himself does not simply have to marry; he must give his married life a deliberate form and a particular style. This style, with the moderation it requires, is not defined by self-mastery alone and by the principle that one must govern oneself in order to be able to rule others. It is also defined by the elaboration of a certain form of reciprocity. In the conjugal bond that so strongly marks the existence of each person, the spouse, as privileged partner, must be treated as a being identical to oneself and as an element with whom one forms a substantial unity. Such is the paradox of this thematics of marriage in the cultivation of the self, as it was developed by an entire philosophy. The woman as spouse is valorized within it as the other par excellence. But the husband must also recognize her as forming a unity with himself. Compared with the traditional forms of matrimonial relations, the change was considerable. * Precept 20 also compares the good marriage to a rope that is strengthened by the intertwining of strands.26 2 [image file=image_51.jpg] The Question of MonopolyOne might expect that the treatises on matrimonial life would assign an important role to the regimen of sexual relations that must be established between husband and wife. In actual fact, the place reserved for them is relatively limited. It is as if the objectivation of the conjugal relation had preceded, and by far, the objectivation of the sexual relations that developed within it. As if all the effort and attention that needed to be devoted to living together continued to leave the question of conjugal sex in the shadows.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, Predestination presupposes election in the order of reason; and election presupposes love. The reason of this is that predestination, as stated above [176](A[1]), is a part of providence. Now providence, as also prudence, is the plan existing in the intellect directing the ordering of some things towards an end; as was proved above ([177]Q[22], A[2]). But nothing is directed towards an end unless the will for that end already exists. Whence the predestination of some to eternal salvation presupposes, in the order of reason, that God wills their salvation; and to this belong both election and love:—love, inasmuch as He wills them this particular good of eternal salvation; since to love is to wish well to anyone, as stated above ([178]Q[20], AA[2],3):—election, inasmuch as He wills this good to some in preference to others; since He reprobates some, as stated above [179](A[3]). Election and love, however, are differently ordered in God, and in ourselves: because in us the will in loving does not cause good, but we are incited to love by the good which already exists; and therefore we choose someone to love, and so election in us precedes love. In God, however, it is the reverse. For His will, by which in loving He wishes good to someone, is the cause of that good possessed by some in preference to others. Thus it is clear that love precedes election in the order of reason, and election precedes predestination. Whence all the predestinate are objects of election and love. Reply to Objection 1: If the communication of the divine goodness in general be considered, God communicates His goodness without election; inasmuch as there is nothing which does not in some way share in His goodness, as we said above ([180]Q[6], A[4]). But if we consider the communication of this or that particular good, He does not allot it without election; since He gives certain goods to some men, which He does not give to others. Thus in the conferring of grace and glory election is implied. Reply to Objection 2: When the will of the person choosing is incited to make a choice by the good already pre-existing in the object chosen, the choice must needs be of those things which already exist, as happens in our choice. In God it is otherwise; as was said above ([181]Q[20], A[2]). Thus, as Augustine says (De Verb. Ap. Serm. 11): “Those are chosen by God, who do not exist; yet He does not err in His choice.” Reply to Objection 3: God wills all men to be saved by His antecedent will, which is to will not simply but relatively; and not by His consequent will, which is to will simply.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) These last disciples were an example to such as leave their property for the love of Christ; now follows an example of others who postponed earthly affection to God. Observe how He calls them two and two, as He afterwards sent them two and two to preach. GREGORY. (Hom. in Ex. 17:1.) Hereby we are also silently admonished, that he who wants affection towards others, ought not to take on him the office of preaching. The precepts of charity are two, and between less than two there can be no love. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Rightly did He thus build the foundations of the brotherhood of the Church on love, that from such roots a copious sap of love might flow to the branches; and that too on natural or human love, that nature as well as grace might bind their love more firmly. They were moreover brothers; and so did God in the Old Testament lay the foundations of His building on Moses and Aaron, brothers. But as the grace of the New Testament is more abundant than that of the Old, therefore the first people were built upon one pair of brethren, but the new people upon two. They were washing their nets, a proof of the extremest indigence; they repaired the old because they had not whence they should buy new. And what shews their great filial piety, in this their great poverty they deserted not their father, but carried him with them in their vessel, not that he might aid in their labour, but have the enjoyment of his sons’ presence. CHRYSOSTOM. It is no small sign of goodness, to bear poverty easily, to live by honest labour, to be bound together by virtue of affection, to keep their poor father with them, and to toil in his service. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. We may not dare to consider the former disciples as more quick to preach, because they were casting their nets; and these latter as less active, because they were yet making ready only; for it is Christ alone that may know their differences. But perhaps we may say that the first were casting their nets, because Peter preached the Gospel, but committed it not to paper—the others were making ready their nets, because John composed a Gospel. He called them together, for by their abode they were fellow-townsmen, in affection attached, in profession agreed, and united by brotherly tenderness. He called them then at once, that united by so many common blessings they might not be separated by a separate call. CHRYSOSTOM. He made no promise to them when He called them, as He had to the former, for the obedience of the first had made the way plain for them. Besides, they had heard many things concerning Him, as being friends and townsmen of the others.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 3: The Care of the Self (1984)

  The treatise by Antipater had already appealed to this model in order to contrast conjugal affection with the other forms of friendship.24 He described the latter as combinations in which the elements remain independent of each other, like the seeds that one mixes and that can be separated again. The term mixis denotes this type of blending by juxtaposition. By contrast, marriage should be in the nature of a total fusion, like that observed between water and wine, which form by their mixture a new liquid. This same notion of matrimonial “crasis” is reencountered in Plutarch, in the thirty-fourth of the Marriage Precepts. It is used to distinguish between three types of marriage and to rank them in relation to one another. There are marriages that are contracted solely for the pleasures of the bed. They belong in the category of those mixtures that juxtapose separate elements, each of which retains its individuality. There are marriages that are concluded for reasons of self-interest. They are like those combinations in which the elements form a new, solid unity, but can always be dissociated from one another: e.g., the unity constituted by the parts of a frame. As for total fusion—the “crasis” that ensures the formation of a new unity that nothing can undo—only marriages in which the spouses are bound together by love can achieve it.25* By themselves these few texts cannot represent the actual practice of marriage in the first centuries of our era, or even sum up the theoretical debates to which it may have given rise. They have to be taken in their partiality, for what they present that was characteristic of certain doctrines and no doubt peculiar to a few limited milieus. But they reveal, albeit in fragments, the outlines of a “strong model” of conjugal existence. In this model, the relationship to the other that appears as the most fundamental of all is neither the blood relationship nor that of friendship; it is the relationship between a man and a woman when it is organized in the institutional form of marriage and in the common life that is superimposed on the latter. The familial system and the friendship network have doubtless retained a large part of their social importance. However, in the art of existence they lose some of their value in comparison with the tie that attaches two persons of different sexes. A natural privilege, at once ontological and ethical, is granted to this dual, heterosexual relationship at the expense of all others.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  All your waking moments give you opportunities to practice opening your heart. You choose the best way for you to do this. It may well be best to meet your new ideal of “loving all” by adopting the more modest aspiration of “loving one more” and then renewing this more achievable aspiration time and again. Your goal can be to see past the borders that traditionally constrain love, and to exclude no one. By nature’s design, your genetic and psychological makeup grant you the capacity to recognize, protect, and cherish your kin and the other special loved ones to whom you have bonded. Just as surely, however, evolution has also designed you to benefit from sharing micro-moments of love with even the most distant and dissimilar other. Don’t miss out on your chance to give love . . . and health . . . and oneness . . . freely, to all. CHAPTER 9 A Closing Loving Glance I NEVER KNEW HOW TO WORSHIP UNTIL I KNEW HOW TO LOVE. —Henry Ward Beecher After spending months building the case for this book for why it’s worth upgrading your view of love, I’ve become convinced that this simple call opens the door to an endless process. The work of science, after all, is never done. Even though the latest discoveries about love’s impact on your body, brain, behavior, and future prospects can fill volumes and fill you with amazement, it’s equally humbling to recognize how little we actually know about love’s full impact. New discoveries about love’s power will continue to unfold. As they do, you and I alike will be called to upgrade our views of love, time and again, to reimagine this life-stretching experience from the ground up once more. Whatever your prior beliefs about love, my hope is that I’ve piqued your curiosity to begin to see love as your body experiences it, as positivity resonance that can momentarily reverberate between you and virtually anyone else. Before these reverberations fade, they initiate biochemical cascades that help remake who you are, both in body and in mind. It’s also worth considering whether you’ve unwittingly placed constraints on your own experiences of love by following cultural norms. These constraints may have been holding you back from reaching your full potential for health and happiness, and from making deeper contributions to the lives of others. Beyond sharing the latest science on love, my aim in this book has been to release you from these constraints. The task of upgrading love remains incomplete without self-reflection and self-change.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  The last objection, brought against religious who preach, is that it is ambition on their part to seek permission to exercise this office. This is untrue , for a desire to preach inspired by charity is on the contrary praiseworthy. Isaiah (vi. 8) offered himself to the Lord, saying: “Lo: here I am: send me.” This function may likewise be meritoriously declined out of humility. Thus Jeremiah said (i. 6): “Ah, ah, ah, Lord God, I cannot speak, for I am a child.” This is evident from the Gloss of St. Gregory. The same view is found in VIII, quaest. I, cap. In scripturis. We must remember that ecclesiastical offices are accompanied both by dignity and by labour. Therefore, they may, on account of their dignity, be declined; and they may be desired, for the sake of the work. “ If a man desire the office of bishop, he desires a good thing,” says St. Paul (1 Tim. iii, 1). On these words St. Augustine says (XIX De civitate Dei), “The Apostle desired to explain what is meant by the episcopate and how far it may be desired, for the name implies labour not glory “ (cf. VIII quaest. I, qui episcopatum, also the Gloss on the same text). Hence if the labours of the episcopate be distinguished from its attendant dignity, it may laudably and without danger of ambition be desired. In like manner, a religious who seeks from a parish priest or a bishop permission to preach shows not that he is inspired by ambition, but that he is filled with the love of God and of his neighbour. CHAPTER 4 Are Religious Bound to Manual Labour?As no sufficient reasons can be found for excluding religious from apostolic labours, their enemies try to impede their work by representing that they are bound to labour with their hands; and that they are thus unable to prosecute the studies which would fit them for preaching or hearing confessions. The malice which inspires these efforts against the labours of religious is typified by the words of the enemies of Nehemiah, who said, “Come and let us make a league together” (2 Esdras vii.). The Gloss has the following commentary on this passage: “As the enemies of the holy City begged Nehemiah to come down to the plain, and there to form a league with them; so do heretics and bad Catholics desire to make friends with the faithful, not in order that they themselves may ascend to the heights of the Catholic faith and of good works, but in order to induce those that they know to be living virtuously to descend to sin and to false doctrine.”

• From Open (2009)

  But I can’t help myself. I’ve never seen a woman so beautiful. Standing still, she’s a goddess; in motion, she’s poetry. I’m a suitor, but also a fan. I’ve wondered for so long what Steffi Graf’s forehand feels like. I’ve watched her on TV and at tournaments and I’ve wondered how that ball feels when it comes flying off her racket. A ball feels different off every player’s racket—there are minute but concrete subtleties of force and spin. Now, hitting with her, I feel her subtleties. It’s like touching her, though we’re forty feet apart. Every forehand is foreplay. She hits a series of backhands, carving up the court with her famous slice. I need to impress her with my ability to take that slice and do whatever I want with it. But it’s harder than I thought. I miss one. I yell to her: You’re not going to get away with that again! She says nothing. She hits another slice. I sit down on my backhand and hit the ball as hard as I can. She nets the return. I yell: That shot pays a lot of bills for me! Again, nothing. She merely hits the next one deeper and slicier. Generally, during my practice sessions, Brad likes to keep busy. He chases balls, offers pointers, runs his mouth. Not this time. He’s sitting in the umpire chair, his eyes peeled, a lifeguard on a shark-infested beach. Whenever I look in his direction he mutters one word. Beautiful. Around the edges of the court, people are beginning to gather, to gawk. A few photographers snap photos. I wonder why. Is it the rarity of a male and female player practicing? Or is it that I’m catatonic and missing every third ball? From a distance, it looks as if Steffi is giving a lesson to a shirtless, grinning mute. After we hit for one hour and ten minutes, she waves and comes to the net. Thank you very much, she says. I trot to the net and say, The pleasure was all mine. I manage to act nonchalant, until she starts to use the net post to stretch out her legs. All the blood rushes to my head. I need to do something physical or I might lose consciousness. I’ve never stretched before, but now seems like a good time to start. I put a leg on the net post and pretend my back is flexible. We stretch, talk about the tour, complain about the travel, compare notes on different cities we’ve enjoyed. I ask, What’s your favorite city? When tennis is over, where do you imagine living? Oh. It’s a tie, I think. Between New York and San Francisco. I think: Have you ever thought of living in Las Vegas? I say: My two favorites also. She smiles. Well, she says. Thanks again. Any time. We do the European double-cheek kiss.

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

  Rather the cosmic good is loved, becau se it is essentially loveable, and that's all that need be said. Chri stian thought introduces a change, well articu lated in Aug ustin e. This natu ral bent to love the good can fail; we su ffer through the Fall from a perversion of the will . There are potential ly two loves in us, a hi gher one and a lower one, charity and concupis cence. As we were made by God, we love the good; but as we have become, we are drawn to evil . It may not be enough just to make the good evident to us; the will may have to be transformed by grace. This change is connected, as we saw above, with the development in Au gustine and in the cultu re that suc ceeded him of a language of inwardne ss. By the time we get to Shaftesbu ry's age, following the great Renaissan ce transpositions and intensi fications of inwardnes s I descri bed earlier, this language has become ine scapable . One can't help thinkin g in these terms. Sh aftesbury constantly expresses his Stoic convictions and sentiments in terms of a turn inwa rd, or a concern for wh at is within . 42 And he frequently speaks of the min d as a self, takin g both these terms to be virtually syn onym ou s with Epictetu s' 'hegemoni kon '.43 But there is a further step to moder n subj ectivization. This is where we come to offer a wholly different answer to the ques tion above, why do we love the cosmic (or any other) good? This answer points not to the intrinsic loveabil ity of the obj ect but to certain incli nations implanted in the sub ject. It is an answer of this kind that the word 'affection ' suggests to a mode rn. The expl anation turns on a feature of the lover's motivation . This is not to say that a 'modern' explan ation has to see goods as merely 'subje ctive', as sh adows cast by the subj ect on a neutral universe, wh ich is what the 'proje ction' theories of ethics I discussed in Part I hold. This has obvi ousl y been a major tenden cy of modern accoun ts, one of their majo r temptations, we might say. But this is not the only possible reason for an inward turn. There has been a strand of Christian thou ght, as we have recu rrently seen, whi ch has not accommodated easily to the ordered cosmos as the measure of the good. For Luther, man was to be un derstood not primarily as animal rationale, but as homo religiosus.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  On the contrary, “to enjoy is to adhere lovingly to something for its own sake,” as Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 4). But this is possible, even in regard to a thing which is not in our possession. Therefore it is possible to enjoy the end even though it be not possessed. I answer that, To enjoy implies a certain relation of the will to the last end, according as the will has something by way of last end. Now an end is possessed in two ways; perfectly and imperfectly. Perfectly, when it is possessed not only in intention but also in reality; imperfectly, when it is possessed in intention only. Perfect enjoyment, therefore, is of the end already possessed: but imperfect enjoyment is also of the end possessed not really, but only in intention. Reply to Objection 1: Augustine speaks there of perfect enjoyment. Reply to Objection 2: The will is hindered in two ways from being at rest. First on the part of the object; by reason of its not being the last end, but ordained to something else: secondly on the part of the one who desires the end, by reason of his not being yet in possession of it. Now it is the object that specifies an act: but on the agent depends the manner of acting, so that the act be perfect or imperfect, as compared with the actual circumstances of the agent. Therefore enjoyment of anything but the last end is not enjoyment properly speaking, as falling short of the nature of enjoyment. But enjoyment of the last end, not yet possessed, is enjoyment properly speaking, but imperfect, on account of the imperfect way in which it is possessed. Reply to Objection 3: One is said to lay hold of or to have an end, not only in reality, but also in intention, as stated above. OF INTENTION (FIVE ARTICLES)We must now consider Intention: concerning which there are five points of inquiry: (1) Whether intention is an act of intellect or of the will? (2) Whether it is only of the last end? (3) Whether one can intend two things at the same time? (4) Whether intention of the end is the same act as volition of the means? (5) Whether intention is within the competency of irrational animals? Whether intention is an act of the intellect or of the will?Objection 1: It would seem that intention is an act of the intellect, and not of the will. For it is written (Mat. 6:22): “If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome”: where, according to Augustine (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 13) the eye signifies intention. But since the eye is the organ of sight, it signifies the apprehensive power. Therefore intention is not an act of the appetitive but of the apprehensive power.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  We sit with our arms wrapped around each other, listening to the music—a soothing piano piece—mirroring the emotions in the car, the sweet tranquil calm after the storm. I snuggle into his arms, resting my head in the crook of his neck. He gently strokes my back. “Touching is a hard limit for me, Anastasia.” “I know. I wish I understood why.” After a while, he sighs, and in a soft voice he says, “I had a horrific childhood. One of the crack whore’s pimps…” His voice trails off, and his body tenses as he recalls some unimaginable horror. “I can remember that,” he whispers, shuddering. Abruptly, my heart constricts as I remember the burn scars marring his skin. Oh, Christian. I tighten my arms around his neck. “Was she abusive? Your mother?” My voice is low and soft with unshed tears. “Not that I remember. She was neglectful. She didn’t protect me from her pimp.” He snorts. “I think it was me who looked after her. When she finally killed herself, it took four days for someone to raise the alarm and find us… I remember that.” I cannot contain my gasp of horror. Holy mother fuck. Bile rises in my throat. “That’s pretty fucked-up.” “Fifty shades,” he murmurs. I press my lips against his neck, seeking and offering solace as I imagine a small, dirty, gray-eyed boy lost and lonely beside the body of his dead mother. Oh, Christian. I breathe in his scent. He smells heavenly, my favorite fragrance in the entire world. He tightens his arms around me and kisses my hair, and I sit wrapped in his embrace as Taylor speeds into the night. When I wake, we’re driving through Seattle. “Hey,” Christian says softly. “Sorry,” I murmur as I sit up, blinking and stretching. I am still in his arms, on his lap. “I could watch you sleep forever, Ana.” “Did I say anything?” “No. We’re nearly at your place.” Oh? “We’re not going to yours?” “No.” I sit up and gaze at him. “Why not?” “Because you have work tomorrow.” “Oh.” I pout. “Why, did you have something in mind?” I squirm. “Well, maybe.” He chuckles. “Anastasia, I am not going to touch you again, not until you beg me to.” “What!” “So that you’ll start communicating with me. Next time we make love, you’re going to have to tell me exactly what you want in fine detail.” “Oh.” He shifts me off his lap as Taylor pulls up outside my apartment. Christian climbs out and holds the car door open for me. “I have something for you.” He moves to the back of the car, opens the trunk, and pulls out a large gift-wrapped box. What the hell is this? “Open it when you get inside.” “You’re not coming in?” “No, Anastasia.” “So when will I see you?” “Tomorrow.” “My boss wants me to go for a drink with him tomorrow.”

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

  39 Natural affection is wh at holds societies together, and rightly un derstood it would bind the wh ole species. It is part of everyone' s inna te endowme nt, along with the sense of right and wrong, and this is wh at is forgotten by the proposers of the extri nsic theory. 40 The two features wh ich I find reflected in this term are (1) the in ternal ization, or we might say 'subj ectivization ', of a teleolo gical ethic of nature; and (2.) the transformation of an ethic of order, harmony , and equ ilibr ium into an ethic of benevolence . It's not de ar in each case how muc h Shaftes bu ry's thought itsel f reflected these changes. What is certain is that they were wh at his langu age suggested to his contemporaries and were fully evident in the moral sense theories that he helped in spire. 1. The ancient theories that Sh aftesbu ry drew on, those of Plato and the Stoics, weren 't expressed in the lan gua ge of inw ardness . And as I argued above, this was not simply a semantic acciden t.41 We love the good, and �he good we love is in the order of things, as well as in the wise soul, aligned with nature. Bu t the second of these orders is not self-sufficient: we only can have order in the soul in seeing and lovin g the order of things. For Plato this means having a vision of the Good ; for the Stoics this means seeing and affirming the cou rse of the world . This is what differentiates their ethic from that of the Epicu reans, who were in this respect the odd men out among ancient morali sts. For the great theories whic h played a domin ant role in the Eu ropean traditio n, the sou l's good involves loving the cosmic good. Bu t supposing we ask : Why do we love the cosmic good? The answer is simple: we are rational beings. Reason is underst ood sub stantive ly: rational ity is the power to grasp the order of things, itsel f a reflection of reason. No 1.5 6 • TH E AF FIR MA TI ON OF ORDI NARY LIF E other 'motivation al postulat e' is necessary. It is in the nature of rational being s to love rational order whe n they see it. The proble m is their inabil ity to see it. They are bl inded by their focus on sensib le thin gs; or they have false opinions ( dogmata) which take the form of passions. The focus is not inward, on the motivation 'in' the psyche, as we woul d say.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Quæst. Ev. i. 12.) Or, The leaven signifies love, because it causes activity and fermentation; by the woman He means wisdom. By the three measures He intends either those three things in man, with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with the whole mind; or the three degrees of fruitfulness, the hundred-fold, the sixty-fold, the thirty-fold, or those three kinds of men, Noe, Daniel, and Job. RABANUS. He says, Until the whole was leavened, because that love implanted in our mind ought to grow until it changes the whole soul into its own perfection; which is begun here, but is completed hereafter. JEROME. Or otherwise; The woman who takes the leaven and hides it, seems to me to be the Apostolic preaching, or the Church gathered out of divers nations. She takes the leaven, that is, the understanding of the Scriptures, and hides it in three measures of meal, that the three, spirit, soul, and body, may be brought into one, and may not differ among themselves. Or otherwise; We read in Plato that there are three parts in the soul, reason, anger, and desire; (R. P. iv. 439. λογιστιχὸν, ἐχιδνμπτιχὸυ, θνμοειδὲς) so we also if we have received the evangelic leaven of Holy Scripture, may possess in our reason prudence, in our anger hatred against vice, in our desire love of the virtues, and this will all come to pass by the Evangelic teaching which our mother Church has held out to us. I will further mention an interpretation of some; that the woman is the Church, who has mingled the faith of man in three measures of meal, namely, belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; which when it has fermented into one lump, brings us not to a threefold God, but to the knowledge of one Divinity. This is a pious interpretation; but parables and doubtful solutions of dark things, can never bestow authority on dogmas. HILARY. Or otherwise; The Lord compares Himself to leaven; for leaven is produced from meal, and communicates the power that it has received to a heap of its own kind. The woman, that is the Synagogue, taking this leaven hides it, that is by the sentence of death; but it working in the three measures of meal, that is equally in the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels, makes all one; so that what the Law ordains, that the Prophets announce, that is fulfilled in the developements of the Gospels. But many, as I remember, have thought that the three measures refer to the calling of the three nations, out of Shem, Ham, and Japhet. But I hardly think that the reason of the thing will allow this interpretation; for though these three nations have indeed been called, yet in them Christ is shewn and not hidden, and in so great a multitude of unbelievers the whole cannot be said to be leavened.