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 Trash (1988)

  It was redemption. But for Toni, sex was a matter of commitment; making love was a bond itself. She had her own cage, her own need for expiation, and she hated the way I could go away into my own head, the distance between us that she could not cross. She wanted a bridge across my nerves, a connection I could not break at will. Hanging out in the lab with me, she’d tease and flirt, laughing at the other lab assistants and the carefully serious expressions with which they’d clean rat shit off their fingers. The truth was Toni loved the lab, the perfectly square cinder-block rooms, the walls of cages, and the irritable way I’d stalk around with my broom and dustpan. She loved to follow me over in the evening to watch me sweep up the little gray turds and chopped-up computer printouts that lined the bottoms of the cages. Sipping from her omnipresent thermos of vodka and orange juice, she’d throw cashews at the bald-headed monkeys and tease me about how my ass moved when I bent over with my pan. Once I’d gotten so angry I’d grabbed her thermos and threatened to kick her out of “my” lab. “Oh sweetheart, you don’t want me to go,” she’d told me, and tried to coax me up on one of the big empty lab tables beside her. “Have a sip. Have a little smoke. Tell me how you always wanted to find somebody like me to tease you, and love you, and suck on your nipples till you’re howling at the moon.” “Oh yeah. Uh huh. I just always knew some black-eyed woman was gonna come along dying to fuck me silly in front of a bunch of toothless monkeys.” “Prescient. That’s what you were.” “Desperate, maybe. That’s what I was when I let you talk me into bringing you over here.” “Oh, girl.” She held a joint in her left hand and using her right hand only, she pulled out a match, struck it against the pack, lit the joint, took a puff, and then held it out to me. “Have a smoke and lighten up. I’m the one on your side, you know.” Her mouth was wide and soft, the right side turned up a little in that way made my hips feel loose. Above that mouth her black eyes were shining and bright. Sometimes when I wanted to make her feel good, I would make my own eyes widen, intensify my gaze, and give her the look of love she was giving me at that moment.

• From Trash (1988)

  The man who managed the fishing camp ran over with a string of dead fish and used them to beat the monkey off. I got my hand back with a web of fine toothy slices ridging my knuckles and wrist. The curious thing was that after that, I loved that monkey. When we’d go back to the fishing camp, I’d show off my gouged and dented fingers to the other kids and boast. “See. She ate a piece of me.” All the kids in the camp would come to see, then go over to toss fish heads and stones into her cage. They were awed and fascinated, and more than a little scared, too. The monkey, with her gnat-eaten neck and mad red eyes, shrieked and shrieked. Eventually, too many parents complained about the noise and the stink. They dropped the monkey, cage and all, into the center of the lake. Toni loved my story of the fishing camp, said it made her southern literature class come alive when she reread the books in my drawl. “Trailer parks and fishing camps—that’s where we growing our storytellers these days. You got possibilities, girl, as a true storyteller. Put a little work into it and you could be famous.” “Right, make a living at it, no doubt.” “Of a kind. Make some people happy anyway. You think about what a queer sort you are, girl, you and your finger-eating monkey. You southern dirt-country types are all alike. Faulkner would have put that stuff to use, made it a literary detail. Faulkner would have had you in here spouting soliloquies to the monkeys.” Toni pulled a library book out of her backpack and tossed it in my direction. “Or Flannery O’Connor. This one’s just like you, honey. She’d’ve given you a vision of Jesus with monkey’s blood. She’d have had you chop off your own fingers and feed them to the monkeys.” Toni hugged her pack to her ribs and rocked with giggles. “Shit, girl, it’s just too much, too Southern Gothic—catfish and monkeys and chewed-off fingers. Throw in a little red dirt and chicken feathers, a little incest and shotgun shells, and you could join the literary tradition.” I caught her shoulder with my hand and shook her, suddenly outrageously angry. “Shit and nonsense!” I cursed, but Toni just rolled in my grip and went on laughing. “Goddamn, honey. It’s all nonsense, like sexual obsession—nothing to do with reality nohow.” She pushed my hands away and pulled her pack on. “Remember, I’m the literature major around here. You just the anthropologist.” “Biologist. I told you I’m gonna switch over and become a biologist.” Toni shook her head indulgently. “Sure, then you’re gonna settle down, marry some sweet boy, and raise mean-assed daughters to please your mama. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  This petition she repeated until she fell asleep, to dream that in some queer way she was Jesus, and that Collins was kneeling and kissing her hand, because she, Stephen, had managed to cure her by cutting off her knee with a bone paper-knife and grafting it on to her own. The dream was a mixture of rapture and discom- ' fort, and it stayed quite a long time with Stephen. The next morning she awoke with the feeling of elation that comes only in moments of perfect faith. But a close examination of her knees in the bath, revealed them to be flawless except for old scars and a crisp, brown scab from a recent tumble — this, of course, was very disappointing. She picked off the scab, and that hurt her a little, but not, she felt sure, like a real house- maid’s knee. However, she decided to continue in prayer, and not to be too easily downhearted. For more than three weeks she sweated and prayed, and pestered poor Collins with endless daily questions: ‘Is your knee better yet? ? * Don’t you think my knee’s swollen? ’ ‘ Have you faith? ’Cause I have —’ ‘ Does it hurt you less, Collins? ° But Collins would always reply in the same way: ‘It’s no better, thank you, Miss Stephen.’ At the end of the fourth week Stephen suddenly stopped praying, and she said to Our Lord: ‘ You don’t love Collins, THE WELL OF LONELINESS 17 Jesus, but I do, and I’m going to get housemaid’s knee. You see if I don’t!” Then she felt rather frightened, and added more humbly: “I mean, I do want to—You don’t mind, do You, Lord Jesus? ’ The nursery floor was covered with carpet, which was obvi- ously rather unfortunate for Stephen; had it only been parquet like the drawing-room and study, she felt it would better have served her purpose. All the same it was hard if she knelt long enough — it was so hard, indeed, that she had to grit her teeth if she stayed on her knees for more than twenty minutes. This was much worse than barking one’s shins in the garden; it was much worse even than picking off a scab! Nelson helped her a little. She would think: ‘ Now I’m Nelson. I’m in the middle of the Battle of Trafalgar —I’ve got shots in my knees!’ But then she would remember that Nelson had been spared such torment. However, it was really rather fine to be suffering —it certainly seemed to bring Collins much nearer; it seemed to make Stephen feel that she owned her by right of this diligent pain.

• From Trash (1988)

  When I visit Mama, I always look first to her hands and feet to reassure myself. The skin of her hands is transparent—large-veined, wrinkled, and bruised—while her feet are soft with the lotions I rubbed into them every other night of my childhood. That was a special thing between my mother and me, the way she’d give herself the care of my hands, lying across the daybed, telling me stories of what she’d served down at the truck stop, who had complained and who tipped specially well, and most important, who had said what and what she’d said back. I would sit at her feet, laughing and nodding and stroking away the tightness in her muscles, watching the way her mouth would pull taut while under her pale eyelids the pulse of her eyes moved like kittens behind a blanket. Sometimes my love for her would choke me, and I would ache to have her open her eyes and see me there, to see how much I loved her. But mostly I kept my eyes on her skin, the fine traceries of the veins and the knotted cords of ligaments, seeing where she was not beautiful and hiding how scared it made me to see her close up, looking so fragile, and too often, so old.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Down the Rue de Rivoli they would walk arm in arm, until turning at last, they would pass the old church of St. Germain—the church from whose Gothic tower had been rung the first call to a most bloody slaying. But now that tower would be grim with silence, dreaming the composite dreams of Paris—dreams that were heavy with blood and beauty, with innocence and lust, with joy and despair, with life and death, with heaven and hell; all the curious composite dreams of Paris. Then crossing the river they would reach the Quarter and their house, where Stephen would slip her latchkey into the door and would know the warm feeling that can come of a union between door and latchkey. With a sigh of contentment they would find themselves at home once again in the quiet old Rue Jacob. 3 They went to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, and this visit seemed momentous to Mary. She gazed with something almost like awe at the woman who had had the teaching of Stephen. ‘Oh, but yes,’ smiled Mademoiselle Duphot, ‘I teached her. She was terribly naughty over her dictée; she would write remarks about the poor Henri—très impertinente she would be about Henri! Stévenne was a queer little child and naughty—but so dear, so dear—I could never scold her. With me she done everything her own way.’ ‘Please tell me about that time,’ coaxed Mary. So Mademoiselle Duphot sat down beside Mary and patted her hand: ‘Like me, you love her. Well now let me recall— She would sometimes get angry, very angry, and then she would go to the stables and talk to her horse. But when she fence it was marvellous—she fence like a man, and she only a baby but extrémement strong. And then. . . .’ The memories went on and on, such a store she possessed, the kind Mademoiselle Duphot. As she talked her heart went out to the girl, for she felt a great tenderness towards young things: ‘I am glad that you come to live with our Stévenne now that Mademoiselle Puddle is at Morton. Stévenne would be desolate in the big house. It is charming for both of you this new arrangement. While she work you look after the ménage; is it not so? You take care of Stévenne, she take care of you. Oui, oui, I am glad you have come to Paris.’ Julie stroked Mary’s smooth young cheek, then her arm, for she wished to observe through her fingers. She smiled: ‘Very young, also very kind. I like so much the feel of your kindness—it gives me a warm and so happy sensation, because with all kindness there must be much good.’

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

  Ascending above the vapors of concupiscence, it is transfused with light from the face of the Lord and comes to behold Him.1448 When the heart is fully changed into the fire of love, we know that God is all in all. Love possesses God and knows God. Love and vision are simultaneous. The five parts of the religious life, according to Hugo, are reading, reflection, prayer, conduct, and contemplation.1449 The word "love" was not so frequently on Hugo’s pen as it was on St. Bernard’s. The words he most often uses to carry his thought are contemplation and vision, and he has much to say of the soul’s rapture, excessus or raptus. The beatitude, "The pure in heart shall see God," is his favorite passage, which he quotes again and again to indicate the future beatific vision and the vision to which even now the soul may arise. The first man in the state of innocence lived in unbroken vision of

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

  Canticles, II. 5. "I am sick from love." Love towards God has its reward, but love loves without reference to reward. True love is sufficient unto itself. To be fully absorbed by love is to be deified.1433 As the drop of water dropped into wine seems to lose its color, and taste, and as the iron held in the glowing flame loses its previous shape and becomes like the flame, and as the air, transfused by the light of the sun, becomes itself like the light, and seems to be as the sun itself, even so all feeling in the saint is wholly transfused by God’s will, and God becomes all and in all. In Bernard’s eighty-six Sermons on the Song of Solomon, we have a continuous apostrophe to love, the love of God and the soul’s love to God. As sermons they stand out like the Petite Carême of Massillon among the great collections of the French pulpit. Bernard reached only the first verse of the third chapter. His exposition, which is written in Latin, revels in the tropical imagery of this favorite book of the Middle Ages. Everything is allegorized. The very words are exuberant allegories. And yet there is not a single sensual or unchaste suggestion in all the extended treatment. As for the historical and literal meaning, Bernard rejects all suggestion of it as unworthy of Holy Scripture and worthy only of the Jews, who have this veil before their faces.1434 The love of the Shulamite and her spouse is a figure of the love between the Church and Christ, though sometimes the soul, and even the Virgin Mary, is put in the place of the Shulamite. The kiss of SS. 1:2 is the Holy Spirit whom the second person of the Trinity reveals.1435 The breasts of the bride, 4:5, are the goodness and longsuffering which Christ feels and dispenses, Rom. 2:4. The Canticles are a song commemorating the grace of holy affection and the sacrament of eternal matrimony.1436 It is an epithalamial hymn; no one can hear who does not love, for the language of love is a barbarous tongue to him who does not love, even as Greek is to one who is not a Greek.1437 Love needs no other stimulus but itself. Love loves only to be loved again. Rhapsodic expressions like these welled up in exuberant abundance as Bernard spoke to his audiences at different hours of the day in the convent of Clairvaux. They are marked by no progress of thought. Aphoristic statement takes the place of logic. The same spiritual experiences find expression over and over again. But the treatment is always devout and full of unction, and proves the justice of the title, "the honey-flowing doctor,"—doctor mellifluus — given to the fervid preacher. The mysticism of St. Bernard centres in Christ. It is by contemplation of Him that the soul is filled with knowledge and ecstasy.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Minuccio marvelled at the greatness of the damsel's soul and at her cruel resolve and was sore concerned for her; then, it suddenly occurring to his mind how he might honourably oblige her, he said to her, 'Lisa, I pledge thee my faith, whereof thou mayst live assured that thou wilt never find thyself deceived, and after, commending thee of so high an emprise as it is to have set thy mind upon so great a king, I proffer thee mine aid, by means whereof I hope, an thou wilt but take comfort, so to do that, ere three days be past, I doubt not to bring thee news that will be exceeding grateful to thee; and to lose no time, I mean to go about it forthright.' Lisa, having anew besought him amain thereof and promised him to take comfort, bade him God speed; whereupon Minuccio, taking his leave, betook himself to one Mico da Siena, a mighty good rhymer of those days, and constrained him with prayers to make the following canzonet: Bestir thee, Love, and get thee to my Sire And tell him all the torments I aby; Tell him I'm like to die, For fearfulness concealing my desire. Love, with clasped hands I cry thee mercy, so Thou mayst betake thee where my lord doth dwell. Say that I love and long for him, for lo, My heart he hath inflamed so sadly well; Yea, for the fire wherewith I'm all aglow, I fear to die nor yet the hour can tell When I shall part from pain so fierce and fell As that which, longing, for his sake I dree In shame and fear; ah me, For God's sake, cause him know my torment dire. Since first enamoured, Love, of him I grew, Thou hast not given me the heart to dare So much as one poor once my lord unto My love and longing plainly to declare, My lord who maketh me so sore to rue; Death, dying thus, were hard to me to bear. Belike, indeed, for he is debonair, 'Twould not displease him, did he know what pain I feel and didst thou deign Me daring to make known to him my fire. Yet, since 'twas not thy pleasure to impart, Love, such assurance to me that by glance Or sign or writ I might make known my heart Unto my lord, for my deliverance I prithee, sweet my master, of thine art Get thee to him and give him souvenance Of that fair day I saw him shield and lance Bear with the other knights and looking more, Enamoured fell so sore My heart thereof doth perish and expire.

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

  In the life and death of the Redeemer, God’s purpose was to manifest. His love and thus to stir up love in the breast of man, and to draw man by love back to Himself. God might have redeemed man by a word, but He chose to set before man an exhibition of His love in Christ. Christ’s love constitutes the merit of Christ. The theory anticipates the modern moral influence theory of the atonement, so called. 5. Abaelard’s doctrine of sin likewise presents features of difference from the view current in his time.1385 The fall occurred when Eve resolved to eat the forbidden fruit, that is, after her desire was aroused and before the actual partaking of the fruit.1386 The seat of sin is the intention, which is the root, bearing good and bad fruit.1387 Desire or concupiscence is not sin. This intention, intentio, is not the simple purpose, say, to kill a man in opposition to killing one without premeditation, but it is the underlying purpose to do right or wrong. In this

• From Trash (1988)

  When I visit Mama, I always look first to her hands and feet to reassure myself. The skin of her hands is transparent—large-veined, wrinkled, and bruised—while her feet are soft with the lotions I rubbed into them every other night of my childhood. That was a special thing between my mother and me, the way she’d give herself the care of my hands, lying across the daybed, telling me stories of what she’d served down at the truck stop, who had complained and who tipped specially well, and most important, who had said what and what she’d said back. I would sit at her feet, laughing and nodding and stroking away the tightness in her muscles, watching the way her mouth would pull taut while under her pale eyelids the pulse of her eyes moved like kittens behind a blanket. Sometimes my love for her would choke me, and I would ache to have her open her eyes and see me there, to see how much I loved her. But mostly I kept my eyes on her skin, the fine traceries of the veins and the knotted cords of ligaments, seeing where she was not beautiful and hiding how scared it made me to see her close up, looking so fragile, and too often, so old. When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman’s hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I’ve come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes. I was too young to imagine my own death with anything but an adolescent’s high romantic enjoyment; I pretended often enough that I was dying of a wasting disease that would give lots of time for my aunts, uncles, and stepfather to mourn me. But the idea that anything could touch my mother, that anything would dare to hurt her, was impossible to bear, and I woke up screaming the one night I dreamed of her death—a dream in which I tried bodily to climb to the throne of a Baptist god and demand her return to me. I thought of my mama like a mountain or a cave, a force of nature, a woman who had saved her own life and mine, and would surely save us both over and over again. The wrinkles in her hands made me think of earthquakes and the lines under her eyes hummed of tidal waves in the night. If she was fragile, if she was human, then so was I, and anything might happen. If she were not the backbone of creation itself, then fear would overtake me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You must know, then, that according to that which the Provençals relate, there were aforetime in Provence two noble knights, each of whom had castles and vassals under him, called the one Sir Guillaume de Roussillon and the other Sir Guillaume de Guardestaing, and for that they were both men of great prowess in arms, they loved each other with an exceeding love and were wont to go still together and clad in the same colours to every tournament or jousting or other act of arms. Although they abode each in his own castle and were distant, one from other, a good half score miles, yet it came to pass that, Sir Guillaume de Roussillon having a very fair and lovesome lady to wife, Sir Guillaume de Guardestaing, notwithstanding the friendship and fellowship that was between them, become beyond measure enamoured of her and so wrought, now with one means and now with another, that the lady became aware of his passion and knowing him for a very valiant knight, it pleased her and she began to return his love, insomuch that she desired and tendered nothing more than him nor awaited otherwhat than to be solicited of him; the which was not long in coming to pass and they foregathered once and again. Loving each other amain and conversing together less discreetly than behoved, it befell that the husband became aware of their familiarity and was mightily incensed thereat, insomuch that the great love he bore to Guardestaing was turned into mortal hatred; but this he knew better to keep hidden than the two lovers had known to conceal their love and was fully resolved in himself to kill him. Roussillon being in this mind, it befell that a great tourneying was proclaimed in France, the which he forthright signified to Guardestaing and sent to bid him come to him, an it pleased him, so they might take counsel together if and how they should go thither; whereto the other very joyously answered that he would without fail come to sup with him on the ensuing day. Roussillon, hearing this, thought the time come whenas he might avail to kill him and accordingly on the morrow he armed himself and mounting to horse with a servant of his, lay at ambush, maybe a mile from his castle, in a wood whereas Guardestaing must pass.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And as though some mysterious cord stretched between them, Stephen’s heart was troubled at that very moment; intolerably troubled because of Morton, the real home which might not be shared with Mary. Ashamed because of shame laid on another, compassionate and suffering because of her compassion, she was thinking of the girl left alone in Paris—the girl who should have come with her to England, who should have been welcomed and honoured at Morton. Then she suddenly remembered some words from the past, very terrible words: ‘Could you marry me, Stephen?’ Mary turned and walked back to the Rue Jacob. Disheartened and anxious, David lagged beside her. He had done all he could to distract her mind from whatever it was that lay heavy upon it. He had made a pretence of chasing a pigeon, he had barked himself hoarse at a terrified beggar, he had brought her a stick and implored her to throw it, he had caught at her skirt and tugged it politely; in the end he had nearly got run over by a taxi in his desperate efforts to gain her attention. This last attempt had certainly roused her: she had put on his lead—poor, misunderstood David. 3Mary went into Stephen’s study and sat down at the spacious writing-table, for now all of a sudden she had only one ache, and that was the ache of her love for Stephen. And because of her love she wished to comfort, since in every fond woman there is much of the mother. That letter was full of many things which a less privileged pen had best left unwritten—loyalty, faith, consolation, devotion; all this and much more she wrote to Stephen. As she sat there, her heart seemed to swell within her as though in response to some mighty challenge. Thus it was that Mary met and defeated the world’s first tentative onslaught upon them. CHAPTER 431T here comes a time in all passionate attachments when life, real life, must be faced once again with its varied and endless obligations, when the lover knows in his innermost heart that the halcyon days are over. He may well regret this prosaic intrusion, yet to him it will usually seem quite natural, so that while loving not one whit the less, he will bend his neck to the yoke of existence. But the woman, for whom love is an end in itself, finds it harder to submit thus calmly. To every devoted and ardent woman there comes this moment of poignant regretting; and struggle she must to hold it at bay. ‘Not yet, not yet—just a little longer’; until Nature, abhorring her idleness, forces on her the labour of procreation.

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

  Here, then, was a large field of usefulness for a preacher. The convent library afforded special facilities for study. Zwingli made considerable progress in his knowledge of the Scriptures and the Fathers. He read the annotations of Erasmus and the commentaries of Origen, Ambrose, Jerome, and Chrysostom. He made extracts on the margin of his copies of their works which are preserved in the libraries at Zurich. He seems to have esteemed Origen, Jerome, and Chrysostom more, and Augustin less, than Luther did; but he also refers frequently to Augustin in his writings.32 We have an interesting proof of his devotion to the Greek Testament in a MS. preserved in the city library at Zurich. In 1517 he copied with his own hand very neatly the Epistles of Paul and the Hebrews in a little book for constant and convenient use. The text is taken from the first edition of Erasmus, which appeared in March, 1516, and corrects some typographical errors. It is very legible and uniform, and betrays an experienced hand; the marginal notes, in Latin, from Erasmus and patristic commentators, are very small and almost illegible. On the last page he added the following note in Greek: — "These Epistles were written at Einsiedeln of the blessed Mother of God by Huldreich Zwingli, a Swiss of Toggenburg, in the year one thousand five hundred and seventeen of the Incarnation, in the month of June.33 Happily ended."34 At the same time he began at Einsiedeln to attack from the pulpit certain abuses and the sale of indulgences, when Samson crossed the Alps in August, 1518. He says that he began to preach the gospel before Luther’s name was known in Switzerland, adding, however, that at that time he depended too much on Jerome and other Fathers instead of the Scriptures. He told Cardinal Schinner in 1517 that popery had poor foundation in the Scriptures. Myconius, Bullinger, and Capito report, in substantial agreement, that Zwingli preached in Einsiedeln against abuses, and taught the people to worship Christ, and not the Virgin Mary. The inscription on the entrance gate of the convent, promising complete remission of sins, was taken down at his instance.35 Beatus Rhenanus, in a letter of Dec. 6, 1518, applauds his attack upon Samson, the restorer of indulgences, and says that Zwingli preached to the people the purest philosophy of Christ from the fountain.36 On the strength of these testimonies, many historians date the Swiss Reformation from 1516, one year before that of Luther, which began Oct. 31, 1517. But Zwingli’s preaching at Einsiedeln had no such consequences as Luther’s Theses. He was not yet ripe for his task, nor placed on the proper field of action. He was at that time simply an Erasmian or advanced liberal in the Roman Church, laboring for higher education rather than religious renovation, and had no idea of a separation. He enjoyed the full confidence of the abbot, the bishop of Constance, Cardinal Schinner, and even the Pope. At Schinner’s

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

  It is not addressed to the king of France, and the implied comparison of Francis with Nero in the incidental reference to the Neronian persecution would have defeated such a purpose.411 Calvin, like Melanchthon and Zwingli, started as a humanist, and, like them, made the linguistic and literary culture of the Renaissance tributary to the Reformation. They all admired Erasmus until he opposed the Reformation, for which he had done so much to prepare the way. They went boldly forward, when he timidly retreated. They loved religion more than letters. They admired the heathen classics, but they followed the apostles and evangelists as guides to the higher wisdom of God. § 72. Calvin’s Conversion. 1532. Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms (Opera, XXXI. 21, 22, Latin and French in parallel columns), and his Reply to Sadolet (Opera, V. 389). See above, p. 296. Henry, I. ch. II. Stähelin, I. l6–28. Kampschulte, I. 230. Lefranc, 96 sqq. A brilliant career—as a humanist, or a lawyer, or a churchman—opened before Calvin, when he suddenly embraced the cause of the Reformation, and cast in his lot with a poor persecuted sect. Reformation was in the air. The educated classes could not escape its influence. The seed sown by Lefèvre had sprung up in France. The influence from Germany and Switzerland made itself felt more and more. The clergy opposed the new opinions, the men of letters favored them. Even the court was divided: King Francis I. persecuted the Protestants; his sister, Marguerite d’Angoulème, queen of Navarre, protected them. How could a young scholar of such precocious mind and intense studiousness as Calvin be indifferent to the religious question which agitated the universities of Orleans, Bourges, and Paris? He must have searched the Scriptures long and carefully before he could acquire such familiarity as he shows already in his first theological writings. He speaks of his conversion as a sudden one (subita conversio), but this does not exclude previous preparation any more than in the case of Paul.412 A city may be taken by a single assault, yet after a long siege. Calvin was not an unbeliever, nor an immoral youth; on the contrary, he was a devout Catholic of unblemished character. His conversion, therefore, was a change from Romanism to Protestantism, from papal superstition to evangelical faith, from scholastic traditionalism to biblical simplicity. He mentions no human agency, not even Volmar or Olivetan or Lefèvre. "God himself," he says, "produced the change. He instantly subdued my heart to obedience." Absolute obedience of his intellect to the word of God, and obedience of his will to the will of

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  through Leviticus were edited by Priestly writers. Deuteronomy was added to this corpus, but there was relatively little Deuteronomic editing in the first four books. Together with the Priestly edition of the Torah, Deuteronomy was a major influence on Jewish theology in the Second Temple period. The main emphasis of that theology was on the observance of the law. Those who kept the law would prosper and live long in the land. Those who did not keep the law would come to grief. This theology did not go unquestioned in Second Temple Judaism. We find a major critique of it in the book of Job. But Deuteronomic theology should not be construed too narrowly as a legalistic religion. At the heart of it stood the command to love the Lord God with all one’s heart and soul. The ordinances and commandments were concerned with human relations, with a strong emphasis on compassion for the disadvantaged in society. Jewish teachers in the Hellenistic period sometimes taught that the whole law could be summed up under two headings, love of God and love of one’s neighbor. The saying attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (Matt 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-28), on the twofold greatest commandment, sums up at least one strand of Deuteronomic theology as it developed in the Second Temple period.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  The Understanding of God No book of the Hebrew Bible is so rich in metaphorical expressions as Hosea. Often the metaphors are applied to Israel, either to express YHWH’s affection for her (“like grapes in the wilderness,” 9:10) or her wayward behavior (“a luxuriant vine,” 10:1). Even more striking is Hosea’s use of metaphor to portray God. We have already explored one such metaphor, the jealous husband. In chapter 11 Hosea develops another: the loving father. Here God remembers Israel as a child whom he taught to walk and lifted to his cheek. So now, despite their disobedience, he cannot bring himself to destroy them. “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (11:8-9). (Admah and Zeboiim were cities destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah.) On the one hand, God is portrayed in very human terms as someone who can be overcome by emotion. On the other hand, he is “God and no mortal” ( adam’, “man” in the generic sense of human being). What then is the difference between God and a human being? It is not that humans are guided by emotion, and God is not, but that God can overcome the more destructive emotions and be guided by the better, whereas human beings often succumb to the worst. We have no better way to imagine God than in the likeness of human beings, but we should attribute to God what is best in human nature and then some, not human weakness or malevolence. Unfortunately, the generous promise “I will not again destroy Ephraim,” made perhaps when Samaria survived the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, was not fulfilled. It is contradicted outright in 13:9: “I will destroy you, O Israel, who can help you?” God will not ransom them from the power of Sheol: “O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes” (13:14; this verse is cited in 1 Cor 15:55, in a very different sense). In the end, God’s burning anger seems to prevail. The contradictions in Hosea’s prophecy arose from the changing fortunes of Israel in its final years. They also illustrate one of the fundamental problems of all human speech about God. On

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  with the institution of marriage. According to Deuteronomy 22, if a man is caught lying with the wife of another, both must die. Also if a man lies with a woman who is betrothed, both are subject to the death penalty, except that if the incident happens in an isolated area the woman is not held accountable. In the case of a woman who is neither married nor betrothed, however, the penalty is much less severe: “The man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives” (Deut 22:29). The formulation in Deuteronomy implies that the young woman was forced. It does not appear, however, that premarital sex was regarded as a grievous matter so long as a marriage ensued. The perspective from which the Song of Songs is written, however, differs greatly from that of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is concerned with social control, from the viewpoint of the authorities in the society. The Song of Songs articulates the viewpoint of the lovers, who find love intoxicating, delightful, and irresistible. From this perspective there can be no question of condemnation, regardless of social disapproval. The Song is unique in the Bible in giving expression to the romantic and erotic feelings of a woman. The Song is one of only two books in the Hebrew Bible that does not mention God (the other is the book of Esther). Nonetheless, Rabbi Akiba declared it to be “the Holy of Holies.” The reason, perhaps, was the purity of the love expressed, which validates itself by its strength and beauty. Love is affirmed as an ultimate value in life. Nowhere is this expressed more powerfully than in 8:6-7: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. . . . Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned.” In the New Testament, the author of the Johannine epistles wrote: “If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). No doubt, the author had a less passionate kind of love in mind. Nonetheless, the saying might also be applied to the love expressed in the Song of Songs. Love so intense is perhaps as close as mortals can come to participation in something divine.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Few stories in the Hebrew Bible have such popular appeal as that of David and Goliath. It has become the proverbial story of the underdog. It has much in common with the classic Near Eastern myth of the combat of Marduk and Tiamat (Enuma Elish), with the Philistine in the role of the chaos monster. There is no suggestion, however, that David and Goliath are more than human. David triumphs by wit and agility over the huge but rather immobile Philistine. The Deuteronomist sees another dimension in the conflict. Goliath comes with sword and spear, but David comes in the name of the Lord of hosts (17:45). As in the story of the exodus, YHWH is the God of the underdog and outsider, and no human power can prevail against him. Despite its legendary character, the story of Goliath fits the most plausible scenario of David’s rise. He was successful in battle and outshone his master, King Saul. Hence the popular acclaim: Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. David, at this point, is still supposedly Saul’s loyal servant, but rivalry between the two men is inevitable. Their relationship is complicated by the friendship between David and Saul’s family. We are told that Jonathan, Saul’s son, loved David as himself (18:1). Much has been made of the relationship between David and Jonathan as a possible biblical model of a positive homosexual relationship. Homosexual attraction is certainly a factor in male bonding, especially in all-male institutions like the army (down to current times). (Homoerotic overtones have also been suspected in the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh.) But if there is a sexual dimension in this relationship, it is never acknowledged explicitly. David also has relationships with Saul’s daughters. The marriage with the elder daughter, Merab (18:17), is part of the secondary Goliath story. It is not found in the Old Greek. The story of Michal is more easily intelligible if there was no marriage to the elder daughter. Michal, like Saul, is eventually a tragic character. In 1 Samuel 18 the initiative for the marriage comes from Michal, who loves David, with Saul’s approval. David, then, cannot be accused of marrying for expediency. When David is estranged from Saul, Michal becomes the wife of another man, but David recalls her after Saul’s death, when he is trying to secure the kingship over all Israel. After the kingship has been

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  Those Sunday dinners were an opportunity for my father to catch up on the news of the world. He read the newspapers that were forbidden at the Center, and when dinner was over, he found reasons to stay on, watching television with my mother as the two of them held hands. It was often long after dark when he bade her a prolonged farewell in the front hall, while I headed off to bed. I wondered sometimes if the two of them weren’t driving Sister Catherine crazy. In my mind’s eye, I could visualize the tautness that would grip her face, particularly when my father would openly flout the rules. She couldn’t control them, and I relished the distress it must have been causing her. The true state of my parents’ marriage was brought home to me one Sunday evening at our intimate family dinner. It was a homey setting, a freshly pressed white linen tablecloth covering the round dining room table, in sharp contrast to the institutional setup in Still River that was devoid of tablecloths and even place mats. That evening, when my mother had gone into the kitchen to get dessert, my father turned to me and spoke, his words seeming to be carefully chosen. “My little princess,” he began (I relished that he still called me that), “if something should happen to me and I die at the Center, I want you to take my wedding ring from inside my scapular and put it on my finger in the casket. I want to be buried as a married man.” It was a poignant moment—my father making a plea to his now-worldly eldest daughter to ensure that the message was loud and clear that, although he was living a celibate religious life today, in his heart he was a married man who loved his wife. I was not prepared to probe his heart or his mind on the matter. Instead, I responded with all my heart. “I promise you I will do that, but you’re nowhere near dying. You just turned fifty.” His request might have been an opportunity to question him about the Center, about the breakup of the families, about why he and my mother made the sacrifices they did, but I wasn’t comfortable going down that path. Instead I buried my burning desire to tell him how much I wanted to see that ring back on his finger, the ring I had played with as a tiny child long before he had been forced to take it off. In my heart, I felt I knew the reason he was still at the Center—four of his children were still there, and he held firm to his belief that an education at the Center provided the best opportunity for a solid grounding in Catholic doctrine and morals. While Mary Catherine was about to graduate from high school, my youngest sister, Veronica, was not quite fourteen, with several years of school still ahead of her.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  V63In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child writes, “Cooking is not a particularly difficult art, and the more you cook and learn about cooking, the more sense it makes. But like any art it requires practice and experience. The most important ingredient you can bring to it is a love of cooking for its own sake.” I did not think it was possible for me to love cooking. I did not think such a love was allowed. I did not think I could love food or indulge in the sensual pleasures of eating. It did not occur to me that to cook for myself was to care for myself or that I was allowed to care for myself amidst the ruin I had let myself become. These things were forbidden to me, the price I paid for being so wildly undisciplined about my body. Food was fuel, nothing more, nothing less, even if I overindulged in that fuel whenever I could. But then I moved to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and lived in a town of about four thousand while attending graduate school. And after that I took my job in Charleston, Illinois, another small town. I became a vegetarian and realized that if I wanted to eat, I was going to have to prepare meals for myself or I would be relegated to a diet of iceberg lettuce and French fries. Around that same time, I started watching Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten’s cooking show on the Food Network, every day from four to five p.m., just after I got home from campus. It was a time to let the world go and relax. I love the show. I love everything about Ina. Her hair is always glossy and smooth in a perfectly coiffed dark bob. She wears a variation on the same shirt every day. I learned from the FAQs on her website that her shirt is custom-made, but she won’t divulge by whom. She is married to a man named Jeffrey who has a fondness for roast chicken, and if the show is any indication, their relationship is an adoring one. She is intelligent and wealthy and wears these traits comfortably but inoffensively. Ina loves rhetorical questions. “How good is that?” she’ll ask while sampling one of her delicious dishes. Or, “Who wouldn’t want that for their birthday?” while planning a surprise for one of her coterie of elegant Hamptons friends. Or, “We need a nice cocktail for breakfast, don’t we?” when preparing brunch for some of her many always attractive, wealthy, and often gay friends. There is one episode where she takes food (bagels and lox) on a trip to Brooklyn to eat more food (at a farmer’s market or some such). I love Ina Garten so much one of my wireless networks at home is named Barefoot Contessa. It’s like she’s watching over me that way.