Pride As Defense

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 This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  When the door opened behind me I stared at the homework on my desk and prepared a bland, innocent face. I turned and presented it to him. He was grinning. He crossed the room and sat on Skipper’s bed. Still grinning, he said, “Who won?” He had me tell the story again and again. Each time I told it he laughed and slapped his leg. I began by admitting, reluctantly, that I might have started the fight by calling Arthur a sissy; then, seeing how much pleasure it gave Dwight to hear this, I recalled that my actual words were “big fat sissy.” I told him I’d knocked Arthur down and I described his swollen eye. I allowed Dwight to think that I had kicked some very serious ass that day. “You actually gave him a black eye?” Dwight said. “Well, it wasn’t black yet” “But it was all puffed up?” I nodded. “Then it’s a shiner,” he said. “For sure.” I hedged the big question, the question of who had won. I let on that my victory had been less than decisive because Arthur had hit me in the ear when I wasn’t expecting it. “That was your fault,” Dwight told me. “You must have had your guard down. There’s no excuse for getting dry-gulched.” He started pacing the room. “I can show you a couple of moves that’ll leave little lord Gayle wondering what month he’s in.” At dinner that night Dwight had me repeat the story to Skipper and Norma, and then he told a story of his own. “When I was your age,” he said, “there was a kid who used to sit behind me in school and lip off all the time. He had what I call diarrhea of the mouth. Well, he lipped off just once too often and I told him to shut up. Oh yeah? he says. Who’s gonna make me? I am, I tell him. Oh yeah? he says. You and who else’s army? Just the three of us, I say. Me, myself, and I. “Well, after school that day he waits across the street with this friend of his and as soon as I come out of the building he yells something. I guess he thought I was just going to go home and forget about it. But I’ll tell you something. With people like that, you’ve got to hurt them, you’ve got to inflict pain. It’s the only thing they understand. Otherwise you’ve got them on your back for good. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience. “Okay. It was really cold out, really freezing. There were these frozen horse turds lying all over the place—road apples, we called them. So I picked one up and went over to this guy, but not acting tough, okay? Not acting tough . Acting more like, Oh gee, I’m so scared, please don’t hurt me.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  6 It should be noted that for both Paul and Matthew, the world is divided into these two categories: Jews and Gentiles (i.e., everyone else). Thus, ethnic identity is only relevant in these texts along this line of division. In other words, while being Jewish or not is of paramount importance, other ethnicities, such as Greek or Egyptian, carries no theological meaning at all beyond the fact that they are not Jewish. Such division of the world into two main categories, the in-group and everyone else, was quite common in antiquity; the Judeo-centric worldview of Matthew and Paul is simply a variant on a common theme. It does reveal, however, the primary discursive context from within which these authors write, and, consequently, how they self-identify religio-ethnical y. 101 Beyond Universalism and Particularism 101 being neutralized, stands at the hermeneutical center in these authors’ efforts to save the world. The results of the analysis presented here will show that the emerging mainstream church that canonized both Matthew and Paul, chose, in the end, to follow neither, as these authors’ Jewish teaching for Gentiles was turned into Gentile teaching for Jews. The reasons for this development are complex and explaining them would involve both theological and sociological analysis that cannot be undertaken within the limited space of a book chapter. The purpose of this essay is only to clarify what may be involved as the question of Gentile inclusion is asked, and to show how different groups in the first century, while maintaining a positive sense of the possibility of the salvation of the nations, chose radical y different paths to achieve it. In the following we shall first discuss how the wider issue of inclusion may be approached. Then, we shall deal, in turn, with three interrelated aspects involved as our authors tackle the issue of Gentile outsiders and the requirements for their salvation: ethnicity, theologies of salvation, and missionary strategies. Structuring the Question Twenty years ago, I wrote an article problematizing the use of the terms “universalism” and “particularism” in academic conversations.7 Somehow, regardless of how scholars applied these words, I found that the end result, mysteriously, always ended up being the same: Christianity was proclaimed, commendably, a “universalistic” religion, while Judaism was caught, lamentably, in “particularism.” 8 A closer look, however, at how these terms move in scholarly discourses reveal at least three very different, although connected, analytical concerns related to the image and status of the “other,” when issues of inclusion are highlighted. These three areas of study, I suggest, may provide helpful entry points for discussions of our topic, even though some of the terminology I used original y may benefit from further refinement. They may be summarized as follows9: 1. Ethnic Status a. Closed-Ethnic Religion: No converts accepted into an ethno-religious group. 10 b. Open-Ethnic Religion: Converts accepted into an ethno-religious group). 11 7 Runesson, “Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity?” 8 Cf. Donaldson, Jewish Patterns of Universalism, 1.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  The same boys who called her names at school would fuck her at night, fuck her or ask her to suck them, so that she had a public life where she was humiliated and a private life where she was desired. It was a kind of power, I suppose, or what felt like power, to both of us, we would talk on the phone and tell each other our adventures, hers in a boy’s stinking car or bedroom, mine in the toilets or the park; you slut, we’d say to each other, laughing, you dirty whore. She was two years older than I was, sixteen, a junior at our school, and she liked to call herself my teacher, though by that time really I think I had had more sex than she had; in a single night at the park I could have three or four guys, it didn’t take long for me to catch up. But it was the form our friendship took, that I was her student, that she would teach me how to be a whore. You have to be in love with them, she told me once, each one, you might hate them other times but you have to love them when you’re giving head, you have to imagine that you can never tell them, that the only way you can say it is by how you suck them. You have to give everything, she said, that’s the only way to give a blowjob. I hadn’t thought of her for years but I thought of her now, because that was how he sucked, taking me as deep as he could and then kissing the tip, taking my balls in his mouth, rubbing his face against me until it shone with his own saliva. It was a kind of love, or what felt like love, reverence maybe, worship, and it filled me up with something like pride, though that’s not the right word for it, something like arrogance or aggression, maybe that’s the way to put it, I felt myself becoming what he wanted.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  I could just make out the sounds of the game going on up the hill, the cheers, the drumming of feet in the stands. I listened with godly condescension. I was all alone where no one could find me, only the faint excitements of a game and some voices crying Concrete, Concrete, Concrete. My brother and I hadn’t seen each other in six years. After leaving Salt Lake I lost touch with him until, in the fall of my second year at Concrete High, he wrote me a letter and sent me a Princeton sweatshirt. The letter was full of impressive phrases—“In a world where contraception and the hydrogen bomb usurp each other as negative values...”—that I tried to use in conversation as if they had just occurred to me. I wore the sweatshirt everywhere, and told strangers who picked me up on the road that I was a Princeton student coming home for a visit. I even had my hair cut in a style called “The Princeton”—flat on top, long and swept back on the sides. I decided to make my way there. My mother was busy campaigning for Senator Jackson and John F. Kennedy. Dwight called Kennedy “the Pope’s candidate” and “the senator from Rome.” He didn’t like him, possibly because of his effect on my mother, who was stirred by Kennedy’s hopefulness and also a little in love with him. With her out of the house so much Dwight had grown casual about pushing me around. He didn’t really beat me but he kept the possibility alive. I hated being alone with him. My idea was to hitchhike to Princeton and hand myself over to Geoffrey. I had no money for the trip. To get it, I planned to forge a check. For some time I had been struck by the innocence of banks, the trusting way they left checkbooks out on the service tables for their customers. People walked in off the street, wrote down their wishes, then walked out again with their pockets full of money. There was nothing to keep me from taking a few blanks to fill out later. I couldn’t cash them in Chinook or Concrete, where I was too familiar to use a false name, but in another town it would be easy. I belonged to the Order of the Arrow, a Scout honor society whose annual banquet was to be held in Bellingham that year. I drove down in the afternoon with some other OA members from my troop, and shook loose from them soon after we arrived. First I went to a bank. Before going inside I put on the horn-rimmed glasses my mother had bought me so I could see the blackboards at school. They made me look owlish, but older. I walked across the bank to one of the tables and tore off a check from the convenience checkbook.

• From Paul and Matthew Among Jews and Gentiles: Essays in Honor of Terence L. Donaldson (2021)

  “Judaism”—a common-room discussion requiring several levels of abstraction. In this essay I have tried to examine with readers a different and simpler question, which is susceptible to at least partial (dis)confirmation: “How did Paul present himself to the groups of Christ-followers he established, in relation to Judaean law, custom, and culture?” Paul was a Judaean by ethnos, and that he could not change. He was indelibly circumcised, and he continued to follow at least some key moments in the Judaean calendar. The degree to which he “remained in the ancestral customs” of the Judaeans, as Josephus might have put it, is a different matter. Since most of what we all do comes from custom or habit, not rational analysis before each action, even if we could watch Paul acting in certain contexts we might not know what he was thinking or how he reconciled his thought with his actions. Where we can make some progress is with Paul’s self-representation to his “in Christ” groups in letters. From this it emerges, first, that he was sure of having been singled out by God, and son Christ, to prepare the chosen among the nations for rescue to heaven. Second, 67 This is Benedetto Croce’s summary, in The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico (trans. R. G. Collingwood; New York, NY: Macmil an, 1913), 157, of passages from Vico’s Scienza Nuova (1744), accessible in English in Thomas G. Bergin and Max H. Fisch, eds., The New Science of Giambattista Vico (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1948), such as l.vii (59); II.iv (127–128), and III (330). 39 Paul without Judaism 39 “The Announcement” he lays out to his groups lacked any Judaean requirements and required no biblical knowledge. Third, in response to those who thought that he should include Judaean content, he responded with a firm “No.” This was not because he had a different Judaism or because his groups were Gentiles. It was because, for him, being in Christ rendered every nomos, of Greeks or of Judaeans, a dead letter. Moses’ law too had served only until Christ. Paul was emphatical y not “under law.” Fourth, Paul declared as vividly as one could imagine his abandonment of the zeal he formerly had for his ancestral traditions. Fifth, he was happy to eat with non-Judaeans in a way that leading Judaean Christ-followers—Peter, Paul’s associate Barnabas, and a group from Jesus’ brother James—could not accept. Sixth, as word about these points got around, from Rome to Jerusalem, Paul’s Announcement caused deep offence to other Judaeans, whether Christ-followers or not. Seventh, Paul faced a rough reception from Judaeans everywhere, which included repeated whippings, because of The Announcement.

• From Post Office (1971)

  I lit up a cigar Joyce had given me and I told the midget, “That’ll be all, buster. Now see that I get back. And drive slowly. I don’t want to blow this game now.” I played the operator to please him. “Yes, sir, Mr. Chinaski. Yes, sir!” He admired me. He thought I was a son of a bitch. When I got in, Joyce asked, “Well, did you see everything?” “I saw enough,” I said. Meaning, that they were trying to knock me off. I didn’t know if Joyce was in on it or not. Then she started peeling my clothes off and pushing me toward the bed. “Now wait a minute, baby! We’ve already gone twice and it’s not even 2 p.m. yet!” She just giggled and kept on pushing. 3Her father really hated me. He thought I was after his money. I didn’t want his god damned money. And I didn’t even want his god damned precious daughter. The only time I ever saw him was when he walked into the bedroom one morning about 10:00. Joyce and I were in bed, resting up. Luckily we had just finished. I peered at him from under the edge of the cover. Then I couldn’t help myself. I smiled at him and gave him a big wink. He ran out of the house growling and cursing. If I could be removed, he’d certainly see to it. Gramps was cooler. We’d go to his place and I’d drink whiskey with him and listen to his cowboy records. His old lady was simply indifferent. She neither liked nor hated me. She fought with Joyce a lot and I sided with the old lady once or twice. That kind of won her over. But gramps was cool. I think he was in on the conspiracy. We had been at this cafe and eaten, with everybody fawning over us and staring. There was gramps, grandma, Joyce, and I. Then we got in the car and drove along. “Ever seen any buffalo, Hank?” gramps asked me. “No, Wally, I haven’t.” I called him “Wally.” Old whiskey buddies. Like hell. “We have them here.” “I thought they were just about extinct?” “Oh, no, we got dozens of ’em.” “I don’t believe it.” “Show him, Daddy Wally,” said Joyce. Silly bitch. She called him “Daddy Wally.” He wasn’t her daddy. “All right.” We drove on a way until we came to this empty fenced-in field. The ground sloped and you couldn’t see the other end of the field. It was miles long and wide. There was nothing but short green grass. “I don’t see any buffalo,” I said. “The wind’s right, “said Wally. “Just climb in there and walk a ways. You’ve got to walk a ways to see them.” There was nothing in the field. They thought they were being very funny, conning a city-slicker. I climbed the fence and walked on in. “Well, where are the buffalo?” I called back. “They’re there.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  The same boys who called her names at school would fuck her at night, fuck her or ask her to suck them, so that she had a public life where she was humiliated and a private life where she was desired. It was a kind of power, I suppose, or what felt like power, to both of us, we would talk on the phone and tell each other our adventures, hers in a boy’s stinking car or bedroom, mine in the toilets or the park; you slut, we’d say to each other, laughing, you dirty whore. She was two years older than I was, sixteen, a junior at our school, and she liked to call herself my teacher, though by that time really I think I had had more sex than she had; in a single night at the park I could have three or four guys, it didn’t take long for me to catch up. But it was the form our friendship took, that I was her student, that she would teach me how to be a whore. You have to be in love with them, she told me once, each one, you might hate them other times but you have to love them when you’re giving head, you have to imagine that you can never tell them, that the only way you can say it is by how you suck them. You have to give everything, she said, that’s the only way to give a blowjob. I hadn’t thought of her for years but I thought of her now, because that was how he sucked, taking me as deep as he could and then kissing the tip, taking my balls in his mouth, rubbing his face against me until it shone with his own saliva. It was a kind of love, or what felt like love, reverence maybe, worship, and it filled me up with something like pride, though that’s not the right word for it, something like arrogance or aggression, maybe that’s the way to put it, I felt myself becoming what he wanted.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. Not that when Christ is here said to be our Master, the Father is excluded, as neither when God is said to be our Father, is Christ excluded, Who is the Father of men. JEROME. It is a difficulty that the Apostle against this command calls himself the teacher of the Gentiles; and that in monasteries in their common conversation, they call one another, Father. It is to be cleared thus. It is one thing to be father or master by nature, another by sufferance. Thus when we call any man our father, we do it to shew respect to his age, not as regarding him as the author of our being. We also call men ‘Master,’ from resemblance to a real master; and, not to use tedious repetition, as the One God and One Son, who are by nature, do not preclude us from calling others gods and sons by adoption, so the One Father and One Master, do not preclude us from speaking of other fathers and masters by an abuse of the terms. CHRYSOSTOM. Not only does the Lord forbid us to seek supremacy, but would lead His hearer to the very opposite; He that is greatest among you shall be your servant. ORIGEN. Or otherwise; And if one minister the divine word, knowing that it is Christ that makes it to be fruitful, such a one professes himself a minister and not a master; whence it follows, He that is greatest among you, let him be your servant. As Christ Himself, who was in truth our Master, professed Himself a minister, saying, I am in the midst of you as one that ministers. (Luke 22:27.) And well does He conclude this prohibition of all vain-glory with the words, And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. REMIGIUS. Which means that every one who thinks highly of his own deserts, shall be humbled before God; and every one who humbles himself concerning his good deeds, shall be exalted with God. 23:1313. But woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

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

  THEOPHYLACT. Or we must understand that by, with man it is impossible, but not with God, He means, that when we listen to God, it becomes possible, but as long as we keep our human notions, it is impossible. There follows, For all things are possible with God; when He says all things, you must understand, that have a being; which sin has not, for it is a thing without being and substance.r. Or else: sin does not come under the notion of strength, but of weakness, therefore sin, like weakness, is impossible with God. But can God cause that not to have been done which has been done? To which we answer, that God is Truth, but to cause that what has been done should not have been done, is falsehood. How then can truth do what is false? He must first therefore quit His own nature, so that they who speak thus really say, Can God cease to be God? which is absurd. 10:28–3128. Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. 29. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the Gospel’s, 30. But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. 31. But many that are first shall be last; and the last first. GLOSS. (non occ.) Because the youth, on hearing the advice of our Saviour concerning the casting away of his goods, had gone away sorrowful, the disciples of Christ, who had already fulfilled the foregoing precept, began to question Him concerning their reward, thinking that they had done a great thing, since the young man, who had fulfilled the commandments of the law, had not been able to hear it without sadness. Wherefore Peter questions the Lord for himself and the others, in these words, Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. THEOPHYLACT. Although Peter had left but few things, still he calls these his all; for even a few things keep us by the bond of affection, so that he shall be beatified who leaves a few things.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  always behind his back, imitating his speech and way of walking, even betraying his secrets. I also got into fights. I didn’t fight Arthur again, but I had learned from him the trick of going crazy when insulted. I had also learned that getting hit a few times wouldn’t kill me and that other people, even Dwight, would treat me with a certain deference for a few days after a fight. And of course it made other boys think twice about their words, to know that they were accountable for them. All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded, but not in the way he wished. I defined myself by opposition to him. In the past I had been ready, even when innocent, to believe any evil thing of myself. Now that I had grounds for guilt I could no longer feel it. WHILE PEARL AND I waited in the car we did our best to get on each other’s nerves. Pearl hummed. Her humming had nothing to do with music. It held to no pattern of melody or rhythm but spun itself out endlessly, moronic as me cracking my knuckles, which was what I did to get her goat. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. We could keep this up for quite a while. Once it got boring I went for walks along the road, just far enough away that I could still see the tavern but Pearl couldn’t see me and would, I hoped, imagine herself abandoned, and become afraid. I stood on the roadside with my collar up and my hands in my pockets, watching the lights of passing cars. I was a murderer on the run, a drifter about to be swept up into the passion of a lonely woman . . . When I got tired of this I went back to the car. By now I would be lonely myself, dying to talk, but our official position was that we couldn’t stand each other. Pearl and I sat in our corners and stared out our windows until I couldn’t take another second of it; then I leaned over the seat and turned the radio on. Pearl warned me not to, but she didn’t really mean it. She wanted to listen to the radio as much as I did. We were both big fans of American Bandstand and the local product, Seattle Bandstand. She watched them at home. I watched them at the houses of kids along my route, staying for the length of a song and then tearing down the street to my next outpost, hooking papers over my head as I ran. I knew all the words to all the songs. So did Pearl. And as we sat in the

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  We have this treasure in earthenware pots, so that the extraordinary quality of the power may belong to God, not to us. We are under all kinds of pressure, but we are not crushed completely; we are at a loss, but not at our wits’ end; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are cast down, but not destroyed. We always carry the deadness of Jesus about in the body, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. Although we are still alive, you see, we are always being given over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal humanity. So this is how it is: death is at work in us—but life in you! (4:7–12) And with even more rhetorical emphasis he expounds the true apostolic life of suffering and shame as the very thing that ought to recommend itself, not as something to be ashamed of: We recommend ourselves as God’s servants: with much patience, with sufferings, difficulties, hardships, beatings, imprisonments, riots, hard work, sleepless nights, going without food, with purity, knowledge, great-heartedness, kindness, the holy spirit, genuine love, by speaking the truth, by God’s power, with weapons for God’s faithful work in left and right hand alike, through glory and shame, through slander and praise; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, yet very well known; as dying, and look—we are alive; as punished, yet not killed; as sad, yet always celebrating; as poor, yet bringing riches to many; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (6:4–10) Then even more dramatically, and now deliberately teasing his audience, he lists all his “achievements”—only they are all the wrong sort of thing, the things that show his weakness (11:21–12:7). The Lord himself had said to him, “My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness” (12:9). So he says: I will be all the more pleased to boast of my weaknesses, so that the Messiah’s power may rest upon me. So I’m delighted when I’m weak, insulted, in difficulties, persecuted, and facing disasters, for the Messiah’s sake. When I’m weak, you see, then I am strong. (12:9–10)

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

  JEROME. Where it is to be observed, that the disciples disputed by the way concerning the chief place, but Christ Himself sat down to teach humility; for princes toil while the humble repose. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. (Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc.) The disciples indeed wished to receive honour at the hands of the Lord; they also had a desire to be made great by Christ, for the greater a man is, the more worthy of honour he becomes, for which reason He did not throw an obstacle in the way of that desire, but brought in humility. THEOPHYLACT. For His wish is not that we should usurp for ourselves chief places, but that we should attain to lofty heights by lowliness. He next admonishes them by the example of a child’s innocence; wherefore there follows: And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them. CHRYSOSTOM. (Vict. Ant. e Cat. in Marc. Sed v. Chrys. Hom. in Matt. 58) By the very sight, persuading them to humility and simplicity; for this little one was pure from envy and vain glory, and from a desire of superiority. But He does not only say, If ye become such, ye shall receive a great reward, but also, if ye will honour others, who are such for my sake. Wherefore there follows: And when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me. BEDE. (ubi sup.) By which, He either simply shews, that those who would become greater must receive the poor of Christ in honour of Him, or He would persuade them to be in malice children, to keep simplicity without arrogance, charity without envy, devotedness without anger. Again, by taking the child into His arms, He implies that the lowly are worthy of His embrace and love. He adds also, In my name, that they might, with the fixed purpose of reason, follow for His name’s sake that mould of virtue to which the child keeps, with nature for his guide. And because He taught that He Himself was received in children, lest it should be thought that there was nothing in Him but what was seen, he added, And whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but Him that sent me; thus wishing, that we should believe Him to be of the same nature and of equal greatness with His Father. THEOPHYLACT. See, how great is humility, for it wins for itself the indwelling of the Father, and of the Son, and also of the Holy Ghost. 9:38–4238. And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. 39. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Others will perhaps accuse me of pulling the house down on top of myself, denying things that are basic to the faith. However, it seems to me—and I hope the rest of the book will demonstrate this—that, once the new way of looking at things is grasped, all that was best in the old way will be retained, but in a new framework through which it loses its frankly unbiblical elements. The new creation will indeed be “heavenly,” possessing in complete measure that heaven/earth overlap we sense fitfully in prayer, in scripture study, in the sacraments, and in working for God’s kingdom in the world. The human vocation certainly includes a strong and nonnegotiable moral element, which is enhanced rather than eliminated when placed within the larger category of the “image-bearing” vocation . And the means of salvation, as we shall see throughout this part of the book, does indeed involve the death of Jesus as the representative and then the substitute for his people, though not in the sense that many have understood those rather abstract categories. At the heart of it all is the achievement of Jesus as the true human being who, as the “image,” is the ultimate embodiment (or “incarnation”) of the creator God. His death, the climax of his work of inaugurating God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven, was the victory over the destructive powers let loose into the world not simply through human wrongdoing, the breaking of moral codes, but through the human failure to be image-bearers, to worship the Creator and reflect his wise stewardship into the world (and, to be sure, breaking any moral codes that might be around, but this is not the focus). And the reason his death had this effect was that, as the representative and substitute in the senses we shall explore in due course, he achieved the “forgiveness of sins” in the sense long promised by Israel’s prophets. Once we step away from Platonizing, moralizing, and paganizing schemes of thought and back into the world of Israel’s scriptures (“The Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the Bible”), this all makes sense, though it is a different kind of sense from what many Christians imagine. With that, we are ready to return to Luke’s story. When we left it a moment ago, the two disciples were on the road to Emmaus with the risen Jesus, who was offering a radical redefinition of Israel’s hope and explaining that this hope had, in fact, been accomplished through his death and resurrection. But when we look at the whole sweep of Luke’s two books, the gospel and Acts, we see the same kind of redefinition going on throughout.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  If he knew you sent me away, because you were jealous.” Starr had been halfway to the door, but she stopped and turned around. She looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. I was surprised at how fast the words poured out of me then. I was the one who never had words. “Men don’t like jealous women. You’re trying to make him a prisoner. He’s going to hate you. He might even break up with you.” And I liked the way she flinched, knowing I had caused the lines in her forehead. There was power in me now, where there had been none. She pulled down her sweater so her breasts were even more prominent, glanced at herself in the mirror. Then she laughed. “What do you know about men. You baby.” But I felt the doubt that had made her turn to the mirror, and kept going. “I know that men don’t like women who try to own them. They dump them.” Starr hovered by her dresser, uncertain now whether she should stop listening to me and get rid of me quick, or let me go on mining the possibilities of her doubts. She busied herself looking for another butt in the ashtray, found one that wasn’t so long, straightened it out between her fingers, and lit it with her powder-blue Bic lighter. “Especially when there’s nothing going on. I like you, I like him, I like the kids, I would never do anything to screw it up. Don’t you know that?” The more I said it, the less true it was. The angel on her bureau looked down, ashamed, afraid to see me. The rain drummed on the roof. “Swear you’re not interested in him?” she said finally, squinting against the vile smoke. She grabbed the Bible off the bedside table, a white leather Bible with red ribbons and a gilded edge. “Swear on the Bible?” I put my hand on it. It could have been the phone book for all I cared now. “I swear to God,” I said. SHE NEVER CALLED Children’s Services, but she watched my every move, every gesture. I wasn’t used to being watched, it made me feel important. I sensed a layer of myself had been peeled off that day in her bedroom, and what was under it glowed. One night she was late getting dinner, and as we were finishing, Uncle Ray glanced at the clock. “You’re going to be tardy if you don’t get a move on.” Starr leaned back in her seat and reached for the coffeepot behind her on the counter, poured herself a cup. “I guess they can get on without me for one night, don’t you think, baby?” The following week, she skipped two more meetings, and the third week, she actually missed church.

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

  The other presumption is an inordinate trust in the Divine mercy or power, consisting in the hope of obtaining glory without merits, or pardon without repentance. Such like presumption seems to arise directly from pride, as though man thought so much of himself as to esteem that God would not punish him or exclude him from glory, however much he might be a sinner. This suffices for the Replies to the Objections. OF THE PRECEPTS RELATING TO HOPE AND FEAR (TWO ARTICLES)We must now consider the precepts relating to hope and fear: under which head there are two points of inquiry: (1) The precepts relating to hope; (2) The precepts relating to fear. Whether there should be a precept of hope?Objection 1: It would seem that no precept should be given relating to the virtue of hope. For when an effect is sufficiently procured by one cause, there is no need to induce it by another. Now man is sufficiently induced by his natural inclination to hope for good. Therefore there is no need of a precept of the Law to induce him to do this. Objection 2: Further, since precepts are given about acts of virtue, the chief precepts are about the acts of the chief virtues. Now the chief of all the virtues are the three theological virtues, viz. hope, faith and charity. Consequently, as the chief precepts of the Law are those of the decalogue, to which all others may be reduced, as stated above ([2492]FS, Q[100], A[3]), it seems that if any precept of hope were given, it should be found among the precepts of the decalogue. But it is not to be found there. Therefore it seems that the Law should contain no precept of hope. Objection 3: Further, to prescribe an act of virtue is equivalent to a prohibition of the act of the opposite vice. Now no precept is to be found forbidding despair which is contrary to hope. Therefore it seems that the Law should contain no precept of hope. On the contrary, Augustine says on Jn. 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one another” (Tract. lxxxiii in Joan.): “How many things are commanded us about faith! How many relating to hope!” Therefore it is fitting that some precepts should be given about hope.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I was perhaps irresponsible, but I assumed that my rebelliousness was a virtue . As soon as I had left the store, I stared with curiosity at the business card that I carried. It didn’t say much: “Please hand to the bearer all schoolbooks required for the sixth-year class.” The name of the card’s owner was followed by a whole string of titles and honors: Doctorate, master’s degree, certificates, but the last line had been crossed out. Still, I was able to decipher it: Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce. Would my own success adopt the features of Monsieur Bismuth? A stout man, bald, with a shifty look in his eye, in an oak-paneled office with all the shelves full of leather-bound books? The school principal had been somewhat simple in his approval and admiration of the druggist’s successes, and had overlooked the spasms of his hands, his limping, his difficult inner struggle, his accent that he had only just managed to repress, his rejection of his whole identity. The day that I was at last daring enough to denounce the values of the middle class, the violence with which my sponsor defended them revealed to me how incapable he was of ever being a mere representative of this class, one who is undisturbed in his beliefs, through lack of any other awareness. “Let him be an example for you.” Never, I felt it that day, as I slowly walked back to our street, would I be able to be a druggist, to look at all like Monsieur Bismuth. To my pity for his infirmity, for his dreadful limping, there was now added, in spite of myself, some pride and contempt. Both my parents were tall and lithe, both of them of a strong and lively breed; I too, as a mere animal, gave promise of being well proportioned. Men who were small and fat made me laugh. But why were these unjust demands being made on me? Why was I expected, in exchange for a scholarship that covered the expenses of my studies, to abandon my dream that seemed to me still, at that time, to be so profound, so definitive ? I understood nevertheless the terms of our agreement: if I wanted to become anything worthwhile, I would often have to walk along that silent passage. If I chose that path, I would have to accept... or cheat. Because I was being allowed to enter high school, I already thought I had won the battle. But I was beginning to find out, too, that the struggle had only just begun. PART THREE The World ~ 4.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I even tried, for her, to achieve things that had never particularly interested me. Mina realized now what she had started and how difficult it all was; that was why she watched us so closely, as if stimulated by everything that seemed to defy fate in this situation. I allowed her to check my progress and swallowed my pride. I learned, for instance, with some displeasure that I shaved badly and not often enough and that people made remarks, behind my back, about how carelessly I dressed, about my noticeably North-African accent when I spoke French, and about the violence of my language. So Mina assumed the task of educating me. She was quite pitiless about it and pointed out to me each time there was a trace of tattletale gray about my collar, or a button missing from my jacket, or any stain that should be removed, or a tear that needed mending. At any other moment, I would have answered that my appearance didn’t matter to me, which wasn’t really true, and I would have demanded the right to be free in my violent criticism of the histrionics and the bowing and curtseying that characterized most of my friends. But Ginou was worth all this discipline to me. She was a middle-class girl, Mina would remind me, each time I feebly protested.

• From Vox (1992)

  135 how much freer you feel after your legs are waxed—it's almost as if you've become physically more limber—you want to leap around, and make high kicks, cavort.' I waited for that to sink in and then I said, 'Leona's a tiny Ukrainian woman, and she makes this growly sound as she rips the strips of muslin and wax off, rrr, and when she's done both my legs and there's no more hurting, she rubs lotion into them, and it's a surprisingly sensual ex perience.' Lawrence was silent for a second and then he said, 'I'm inexperienced with depilatory techniques. I've never known anyone who had her legs waxed.' I said, 'Let's have dinner.' " "What a tactician!" "Not really. Anyhow, we had dinner, which was pretty tame. Lawrence had many virtues, he had a kind of bony broad-shoulderedness, and a deliberate way of blinking and looking at you when you spoke, and he was quite smart—he was a patent lawyer. " "Ah. Patent in/Wngement?" "Yes indeed. But he had no conversational skills at all. He was putty in my hands. No, I'm actually making myself seem more completely sure of my powers than I felt—but still, I was pretty much in control. I started asking him how electrical things worked—you know, like what shortwave radio was, and how cordless telephones worked, and why it is that at drive-ins now you can hear the movie on the FM radio in your car. And he was full of interesting information, once you jump-started him

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints Course Guidebook (2023)

  13 2. Philip Neri: Playful Pragmatist Philip’s Unique Style Stories grew of Philip performing miraculous healings. He was on call not only for confession, healings, and last rites but also for childbirths that were going badly. He was also known to have visions and go into ecstasies, especially while celebrating mass. Philip yielded center stage readily to his disciples. He identified and cultivated their strengths, allowing them to develop as speakers or encouraging them as scholars. As musicians from the papal court began to attend, he encouraged them to share their talents. The community became a center for innovation in church music. His sermons took after his own style of speaking, which emblematized the principles of the Counter-Reformation. He addressed the theological and moral debates of the day, discussed Protestant claims and propaganda, and explored Christian doctrine. But by far the most popular of his exercises were Philip’s pilgrimage walks. The most well known was the Walk of the Seven Churches. This procession began as a small gathering of perhaps 30 people, but it eventually swelled to 2,000 people or more and stayed that size for much of Philip’s life. Philip had a horror of being considered a saint, and he did ridiculous things to convince people he wasn’t: He had his hair cut in church during mass, appeared disheveled, and played children’s games in the street. He even used his odd behavior to try to convince cardinals and popes that he wasn’t fit for high office.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  The Reynolds of this film was a modern-day squatter like good old Sug, respected because he refused to knuckle down and join the daily grind of working to get ahead. Smokey and the Bandit was the second highest grossing film in 1977, but most of its popularity was in the South and Midwest. Adding to the mix, in 1979, CBS launched The Dukes of Hazzard, the plots of which revolved around rebel moonshiners decked out in a bright red racing car, and a sexy kissing cousin named Daisy, whose trademark was her high-cut jean shorts. Denver Pyle was cast as Uncle Jesse, known for his overalls and countrified homilies; Pyle had previously played Briscoe Darling Jr., the surly father of a musical hillbilly clan in The Andy Griffith Show. 24 Wannabe bandits were among the thousands of spectators at NASCAR who launched into rebel yells, drank too much, and ogled the floozy on the float with her “big blonde hair and blossomy breasts” and cheap Dallas Cowgirl outfit. They embraced a certain species of freedom—the freedom to be a boor, out in the open and without regrets. The “upscale rednecks,” the rising white trash middle class, identified with these hillbilly racers, men who had escaped the overalls and gained as much respect as could be had in accepting wads of cash from Detroit. Class structure had not changed appreciably for the rural poor: money may have made a hillbilly or two reputable, but those left in the hills were not reaping any social benefits. “Upscale rednecks” had no trouble spotting those below them in their rearview mirrors. 25 Jimmy Carter’s presidency seemed to offer a break from past southern politicians. He was a born-again Christian and navy officer (with training in nuclear physics) who predicated his 1976 campaign on his refusal to lie to the voters. In the early days of the campaign, he gave an unusual stump speech to elementary school children in New Hampshire, proclaiming that the United States could have a “government as good and as honest and as decent and as competent and as compassionate and as filled with love as the American people.” Here was a sentimental democrat, a gospel-infused Christian populist, leaps and bounds from the anger-fueled populism of the old (redneck) South. 26 Of all his predecessors, Carter probably came closest to Frank Clement’s clean-cut demeanor, but he mostly kept his religious views to personal statements. He was no gyrating entertainer like Clement, nor (at five foot seven) was he a giant-sized jokester like “Big Jim” Folsom. He preferred to compare himself to Yale graduate and Tennessee liberal Estes Kefauver. The campaign rhetoric contained a “log cabin” story that captured the family’s rise, but it left out the fact that Jimmy grew up with a tennis court in the backyard.