Pride

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 Another Country (1962)

  Hear my cry, hear my call, Take my hand, lest I fall, Precious Lord! The applause was odd—not quite unwilling, not quite free; wary, rather, in recognition of a force not quite to be trusted but certainly to be watched. The musicians were now both jubilant and watchful, as though Ida had abruptly become their property. The drummer adjusted her shawl around her shoulders, saying, “You been perspiring, don’t you let yourself catch cold”; and, as she started off the stand, the piano-player rose and, ceremoniously, kissed her on the brow. The bass-player said, “Hell, let’s tell the folks her name.” He grabbed the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been listening to Miss Ida Scott. This is her first—exposure,” and he mopped his brow, ironically. The crowd laughed. He said, “But it won’t be her last.” The applause came again, more easily this time, since the role of judge and bestower had been returned to the audience. “We have been present,” said the bass-player, “at an historic event.” This time the audience, in a paroxysm of self-congratulation, applauded, stomped, and cheered. “Well,” said Vivaldo, taking both her hands in his, “it looks like you’re on your way.” “Were you proud of me?” She made her eyes very big: the curve of her lips was somewhat sardonic. “Yes,” he said, after an instant, gravely, “but, then, I’m always proud of you.” Then she laughed and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “My darling Vivaldo. You ain’t seen nothing yet.” “I’d like,” said Eric, “to add my voice to the general chorus of joy and gratitude. You were great, you really were.” She looked at him. Her eyes were still very big and something in her regard made him feel that she disliked him. He brushed the thought away as he would have brushed away a fly. “I’m not great yet,” she said, “but I will be,” and she raised both hands and touched her earrings. “They’re very beautiful,” he said, “your earrings.” “Do you like them? My brother had them made for me—just before he died.” He paused. “I knew your brother a little. I was very sorry to hear about his—his death.” “Many, many people were,” said Ida. “He was a very beautiful man, a very great artist. But he made”—she regarded him with a curious, cool insolence—“some very bad connections. He was the kind who believed what people said. If you told Rufus you loved him, well, he believed you and he’d stick with you till death. I used to try to tell him the world wasn’t like that.” She smiled. “He was much nicer than I am. It doesn’t pay to be too nice in this world.” “That may be true. But you seem nice—you seem very nice—to me.” “That’s because you don’t know me. But ask Vivaldo!” And she turned to Vivaldo, putting her arm on his.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  It was a clever piece, and I use that word advisedly. There was truth and insight there, but it was not profound. It was also very angry. As I spoke, I realized that I still had a lot of scores to settle with the church. When I had finished, the cameraman raised himself slowly into an upright position and gazed at me. “Phew!” he breathed, wiping his brow. When I went out into the control room, I found the rest of the crew staring at me dumbstruck, even the cool Nick. “Wow!” he said. And then he grinned. “You,” he told me, “are embarrassingly good!” Apparently nobody else had been able to do this. Without a TelePrompTer, most of the contributors had dried up after a few minutes. “And what you said was terrific,” Nick continued. “We’ll call it The Body of Christ. John is going to love it!” John apparently was the commissioning editor for religion at Channel 4. “But surely, if he’s religious, he won’t like this?” I asked. “No, no! You don’t understand.” Nick beamed at me. “John loathes religion! He’ll really go for this. Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you mind doing it again? Just so we can show him the best of two pilots?” As I drove back to North London, I felt not merely lighthearted but elated. After the second filming, which had gone even better than the first, Nick had swept me off with the crew for a celebration lunch. All kinds of nice things had been said, but the flattery, though very welcome, was of secondary importance. It was only when I was on my way home that I realized what I had done. I had walked into a studio and talked for twenty minutes about an idea of my own. Nobody had suggested the theme to me; it was an eccentric, perhaps even original, idea that I had thought up for myself. I remembered all those years at Oxford when I had sat tongue-tied in class, my mind able to function only when somebody else had kick-started it. In one small but vital respect, I had recovered. And the wonderful thing was that it had seemed so effortless. It had never occurred to me that I would not be able to talk coherently and persuasively. The healing had happened without my realizing it. It was partly due to all those years in the classroom. Day after day, hour after hour, I had been compelled to talk to a captive and often reluctant audience of adolescent girls. To hold their attention and convey the ideas and information that they needed, I had learned to think on my feet and make my material lively and interesting. And as a result, what had once seemed an impossible feat had become second nature.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Because I had no experience, Joel had feared that this could not work, but in fact, I sailed through it all precisely because I thought that this was how it was always done; and after a slightly shaky start beside the statue of Artemis in the Israel Museum, we zipped through the schedule at top speed, everybody looking progressively more cheerful until, by the end of the day, they were positively elated. Despite the pressures, it was the most relaxed filming I have ever done. There was no fussing with powder puffs, no tweaking of my hair, and no anguished discussion of my wardrobe—which last could have been because the crew had such a gloomy view of my appearance. “Karen! You are not a pretty girl,” Joel said on the first morning. “You have big teeth, and you walk clumsy. Okay! What we can do? We will just have to build the film around this!” Charming. But it was said with so little malice that it was impossible to take offense. Joel might have been remarking on the filmic qualities of a rock or a tree. And in any case, no one had time on this shoot to be upset by a chance remark. “Karen!” Joel also announced on the first day. “You are not in England now. Do not be a polite English lady. If you think I am unreasonable, tell me to get lost, to shut up—whatever you like!” For me, this was a novel invitation, and the first time I took Joel up on his offer, I was astonished at myself. We had just arrived in Caesarea, in the late afternoon, after a hectic day in Galilee. We had a considerable number of my pieces to shoot to camera before sunset, and tension was high. Joel was tired and anxious. When he snapped at me, rudely questioning the number of presentations we were about to do, I simply threw my script at him, told him to refresh his memory, and marched off to change my clothes behind a nearby rock. “I was proud of you! Really!” Joel told me afterward. “ ‘Refresh your memory’—it’s a good phrase, I must remember it.”

• From Bold Move

  In Marcus’s case, he was discriminated against, but because it activated his core belief, it put him at risk of dropping out of the program that he had worked hard to be accepted to. Today, I love my Latina identity, take pride in my curves, and often talk to my son about the fact that he is “Brazilian, Mexican, and American” and that all of those are part of him. I am trying to teach Diego to integrate his identities in a way that allows him more flexible beliefs about himself and to not get stuck in black-and-white thinking. But I won’t lie to you, whenever I am in a white-majority Harvard meeting with mostly high-power, older men, I still have trouble thinking “I am enough.” What changed for me is that I now proudly sit at the table! Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, Just ShiftI have been sharing examples in which my clients and I have faced painful deep core beliefs that are causing us significant distress. But Shifting is a skill that applies to more than just the “deep” stuff in life. It is actually a way of seeing the world: even when it is just small stuff, Shifting will help. For example, my husband, David, was teaching his graduate class last night, when he noticed one student had checked out. His brain immediately said, I am not engaging well with the students; I need to do better , which made him slightly anxious while teaching. But David has had his share of coaching on Shifting during our marriage, so he asked himself, What else might be happening here? and immediately he came up with a few possibilities: 1) it is a night class; perhaps the student is tired, and 2) maybe something happened for them and that is why they seem checked out. David’s Shift allowed him to keep teaching without his anxiety escalating. In this case, he actually had a nice surprise: the student came to him at break to tell him they were not feeling well so they were going home, and they apologized for being checked out. Our close friend John tends to get stuck in predictions that would confirm he is “not such a great friend.” I bet many of us have had a few thoughts like this, but John has become a pro at Shifting . The other day he came over and told me that the fact that I had not returned his text for a week had made him very anxious, afraid that he had upset me.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  “Because of our limited capacity, we don’t know what’s supposed to be next,” he said. “What I will say is that I don’t think it’s going to be from the bigger companies. I don’t see that happening. It’s going to be someone or a small group of people who are not going to be of the mindset of today. I think there’s a reason why the younger generation comes up with innovations. I don’t think it’s ageism. I think it’s just that as we get older, we tend to look at things from a different perspective, within a particular paradigm. The porn industry, at least the modern one, is getting into its forties now. I do have confidence that some interesting things will come out of the porn industry, I just don’t think it’s going to come from the big guys.” Dunia Montenegro is neither big nor a guy. She is a Brazilian-born porn performer, producer and entrepreneur, now based in Spain. Her career is in many ways a product of technology: she is one of a growing number of female performers who work for themselves rather than trying to make a go of it in the traditionally male-dominated porn-studio world. She runs her own website, which includes her own photos and movies along with those of a growing stable of other female performers. She also blogs and uses other interactive tools to maintain a more intimate connection with her customers. By using the technology to create a dedicated fan base, she is maintaining her customer base and dissuading them from drifting over to the tube sites. She has found a way to make the latest web tools profitable. “I love working on my website,” she told me. “I have done my blog every day for three years, and every day eight or nine thousand people in Spain and South America visit it. It’s very important to me.” Connecting directly with her fan base does more than foster an emotional bond that builds customer loyalty. It allows her to customize her product to meet her audience’s needs. “Every day I ask my fans, my customers, ‘What do you want? What can I shoot tomorrow? Give me a test.’ The fans tell, I do, and the people buy the videos.” The requests range from shooting a black-and-white movie to doing a scene with one of her fans. She fulfills almost all requests. She says her fans see her not as a celebrity but as a regular human being they can relate to and imagine themselves being friends with. “People want to see normal people,” she said. (That is vastly more true in Europe than in North America, where preferences lean more toward a surgically sculpted professional “porn-star look.” Montenegro’s perceived normalcy might explain why she has so little following in the United States, which is home to nearly forty-five million Hispanics.)

• From Wild (2012)

  The next morning I dressed in my hiking clothes—the same old stained sports bra and threadbare navy blue hiking shorts I’d been wearing since day 1, along with a new pair of wool socks and the last fresh T-shirt I’d have all the way to the end, a heather gray shirt that said UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY in yellow letters across the chest. I walked to the co-op with Monster on my back, my ski pole dangling from my wrist, and a box in my arms, taking over a table in the deli section of the store to organize my pack. When I was done, Monster sat tidily loaded down next to the small box that held my jeans, bra, and underwear, which I was mailing back to Lisa, and a plastic grocery bag of meals I couldn’t bear to eat any longer, which I planned to leave in the PCT hiker free box at the post office on my way out of town. Crater Lake National Park was my next stop, about 110 trail miles away. I needed to get back on the PCT and yet I was reluctant to leave Ashland. I dug through my pack, found my Strayed necklace, and put it on. I reached over and touched the raven feather Doug had given me. It was still wedged into my pack in the place I’d first put it, though it was worn and straggly now. I unzipped the side pocket where I kept my first aid kit, pulled it out, and opened it up. The condom I’d carried all the way from Mojave was still there, still like new. I took it out and put it in the plastic grocery bag with the food I didn’t want, and then I hoisted Monster onto my back and left the co-op carrying the box and the plastic grocery bag. I hadn’t gone far when I saw the headband man I’d met up at Toad Lake, sitting on the sidewalk where I’d seen him before, his coffee can and little cardboard sign in front of him. “I’m heading out,” I said, stopping before him. He looked up at me and nodded. He still didn’t seem to remember me—either from our encounter at Toad Lake or from a couple of days before. “I met you when you were looking for the Rainbow Gathering,” I said. “I was there with another woman named Stacy. We talked to you.” He nodded again, shaking the change in his can. “I’ve got some food here that I don’t need, if you want it,” I said, setting the plastic grocery bag down beside him. “Thanks, baby,” he said as I began to walk away. I stopped and turned. “Hey,” I called. “Hey!” I shouted until he looked at me. “Don’t call me baby,” I said. He pressed his hands together, as if in prayer, and bowed his head.

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

  The most important Latin apologists are Tertullian (d. about 220), Minucius Felix (d. between 220 and 230; according to some, between 161 and 200), the later Arnobius and Lactantius, all of North Africa. Here at once appears the characteristic difference between the Greek and the Latin minds. The Greek apologies are more learned and philosophical, the Latin more practical and juridical in their matter and style. The former labor to prove the truth of Christianity and its adaptedness to the intellectual wants of man; the latter plead for its legal right to exist, and exhibit mainly its moral excellency and salutary effect upon society. The Latin also are in general more rigidly opposed to heathenism, while the Greek recognize in the Grecian philosophy a certain affinity to the Christian religion. The apologies were addressed in some cases to the emperors (Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius) or the provincial governors; in others, to the intelligent public. Their first object was to soften the temper of the authorities and people towards Christianity and its professors by refuting the false charges against them. It may be doubtful whether they ever reached the hands of the emperors; at all events the persecution continued.91 Conversion commonly proceeds from the heart and will, not from the understanding and from knowledge. No doubt, however, these writings contributed to dissipate prejudice among honest and susceptible heathens, to spread more favorable views of the new religion, and to infuse a spirit of humanity into the spirit of the age, the systems of moral philosophy and the legislation of the Antonines. Yet the chief service of this literature was to strengthen believers and to advance theological knowledge. It brought the church to a deeper and clearer sense of the peculiar nature of the Christian religion, and prepared her thenceforth to vindicate it before the tribunal of reason and philosophy; whilst Judaism and heathenism proved themselves powerless in the combat, and were driven to the weapons of falsehood and vituperation. The sophisms and mockeries of a Celsus and a Lucian have none but a historical interest; the Apologies of Justin and the Apologeticus of Tertullian, rich with indestructible truth and glowing piety, are read with pleasure and edification to this day. The apologists do not confine themselves to the defensive, but carry the war aggressively into the territory of Judaism and heathenism. They complete their work by positively demonstrating that Christianity is the divine religion, and the only true religion for all mankind. § 38. The Argument against Judaism.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  But I realized that if I wanted to truly be radical in the world, truly see white and skinny as one way people are born as opposed to the physical supreme, which pours over into every other aspect of life, I had to decolonize my desire. I had to learn to desire myself, my body, my skin, my rhythms, my pleasure. I took pictures at first. The pictures weren’t necessarily explicit in the beginning. They were just selfies, before Instagram. I started with my face—how did I look smiling? Happy? Turned on? Shut down? Laughing? I took photos of every part of myself until I felt I knew more about my body, could tolerate myself, even like what I saw. Then it was time for short videos. I would create the videos during moments of self-love, and then use them the next time I felt like touching myself. These videos were not shared, they were not for anyone else’s eyes, opinions, or desires. That was radically important. The energy of them was purely self-adoration. I dated a woman once who told me she had done sexual healing work to get to a place of screaming out her own name when she orgasmed. I let that concept be a guide. How much could I love myself, literally? The results were life-changing. This practice changed the way I dressed, the way I walked, the way I flirted, the way I made love to others, the way I spoke—because I had seen, heard, and felt my power. I mean both my physical, earthly power, and the divine power inside of this body, this light brown, big, queer, glasses-wearing body. It wasn’t ego, it was sitting with what is and finding beauty. And now no one could take that from me, however they might regard my body. I was a pleasure unto myself, I was a guaranteed delight in my own hands and my own eyes. It was, and continues to be, magnificent. 4. Developing erotic awareness. This section could also be called Staying Curious. It can get rote. You learn the way to release whatever is building up in your body, alone or with others, and you return and walk that path over and over, because you know it will satisfy your need. This parallels with other aspects of life—you can learn what works and keep doing it and get by. But bringing curiosity into your sexual relationship with yourself and your lovers is related to the spiritual practice of cultivating a beginner’s mind. As often as possible, I approach the experience of sex as if it is my first time feeling my flesh, feeling myself awaken. In my thirties, this led me to discover a whole new landscape of pleasure in my body and then to be able to clearly let my lover know when it feels good, how it feels good, and what adjustments to make.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  It was a clever piece, and I use that word advisedly. There was truth and insight there, but it was not profound. It was also very angry. As I spoke, I realized that I still had a lot of scores to settle with the church. When I had finished, the cameraman raised himself slowly into an upright position and gazed at me. “Phew!” he breathed, wiping his brow. When I went out into the control room, I found the rest of the crew staring at me dumbstruck, even the cool Nick. “Wow!” he said. And then he grinned. “You,” he told me, “are embarrassingly good!” Apparently nobody else had been able to do this. Without a TelePrompTer, most of the contributors had dried up after a few minutes. “And what you said was terrific,” Nick continued. “We’ll call it The Body of Christ. John is going to love it!” John apparently was the commissioning editor for religion at Channel 4. “But surely, if he’s religious, he won’t like this?” I asked. “No, no! You don’t understand.” Nick beamed at me. “John loathes religion! He’ll really go for this. Look, I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you mind doing it again? Just so we can show him the best of two pilots?” As I drove back to North London, I felt not merely lighthearted but elated. After the second filming, which had gone even better than the first, Nick had swept me off with the crew for a celebration lunch. All kinds of nice things had been said, but the flattery, though very welcome, was of secondary importance. It was only when I was on my way home that I realized what I had done. I had walked into a studio and talked for twenty minutes about an idea of my own. Nobody had suggested the theme to me; it was an eccentric, perhaps even original, idea that I had thought up for myself. I remembered all those years at Oxford when I had sat tongue-tied in class, my mind able to function only when somebody else had kick-started it. In one small but vital respect, I had recovered. And the wonderful thing was that it had seemed so effortless. It had never occurred to me that I would not be able to talk coherently and persuasively. The healing had happened without my realizing it.

• From Wild (2012)

  The next morning when I woke, I had the campsite to myself. I sat at the picnic table and drank tea from my cooking pot while burning the last pages of The Novel. The professor who’d scoffed about Michener had been right in some regards: he wasn’t William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor, but I’d been utterly absorbed in his book nonetheless and not only for the writing. Its subject hit a chord in me. It was a story about many things, but it centered on the life of one novel, told from the perspectives of its author and editor, its critics and readers. Of all the things I’d done in my life, of all the versions of myself I’d lived out, there was one that had never changed: I was a writer. Someday, I intended to write a novel of my own. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t written one already. In the vision I’d had of myself ten years before, I felt sure I’d have published my first book by now. I’d written several short stories and made a serious stab at a novel, but I wasn’t anywhere close to having a book done. In the tumult of the past year it seemed as if writing had left me forever, but as I hiked, I could feel that novel coming back to me, inserting its voice among the song fragments and advertising jingles in my mind. That morning in Old Station, as I ripped Michener’s book into clumps of five and ten pages so they would burn, crouching next to the fire ring in my campsite to set them aflame, I decided to begin. I had nothing but a long hot day ahead of me anyway, so I sat at my picnic table and wrote until late afternoon. When I looked up, I saw that a chipmunk was chewing a hole in the mesh door of my tent in an attempt to get to my food bag inside. I chased it away, cursing it while it chattered at me from a tree. By then the campground had filled in around me: most of the picnic tables were now covered with coolers and Coleman stoves; pickup trucks and campers were parked in the little paved pull-ins. I took my food bag out of my tent and carried it the mile back to the café where I’d sat with Trina and Stacy the afternoon before. I ordered a burger, not caring that I’d be spending almost all of my money. My next resupply box was at the state park in Burney Falls, forty-two miles away, but I could get there in two days, now that I was finally able to hike farther and faster—I’d done two nineteen-milers back-to-back out of Belden. It was five on a summer day when the light stretched until nine or ten and I was the only customer, wolfing down my dinner.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  Deeply impressed with himself, Professor Sparkling took the last plane to Boston, sure now that he had a masterwork of twentieth-century music in his briefcase, polished, cleaned, restored, awakened from its dodecaphonic slumber by his profound scholarship and delicate musicological instinct. The next day was his day of giving piano lessons. Rhody was his very best student; and that morning she tore through the Tombeau de Couperin with such verve that, on a whim he didn’t himself quite understand, he turned toward her with an expression of great seriousness and seized her shoulders and told her that she alone must work up the new authorized version of Map . He made a copy of his own corrections for her so that she could incorporate them into her score. A week passed. Alan, gloating over his discoveries, played bits and pieces of Map for himself, and listened to it skimmingly in his head, but he devoted most of his time to finishing his article about it for The Quarterly of New Music . Since it was a formidably difficult work, he did not make any attempt to play the whole composition through, even sloppily, from beginning to end. That was what gifted students like Rhody were for, he felt. All that week Rhody devotedly practiced Map , conscious of what an honor it was to be the first person to reanimate the cleaned-up version. It soon became clear to her that Professor Sparkling’s enthusiasm was justified: Mascon Albedo stood revealed as no mere minor-league friend of Luciano Berio, but as a leaping titan of pianism. Though the surface of the piece had struck her ear at first as knotty and over-intellectual, as she perfected her performance of it she found that on the contrary it had an almost disturbing secondary sensual appeal: it made her exceedingly aware of the physical reality of her own playing. If the piece required her to play a simple A-flat-major triad with her left hand, she would feel in doing so as if the black A-flat and E-flat keys were soft, low, tree-covered hills, smoothed by forgotten glaciers, and the C between them a fog-filled valley, over which her poised fingers were parachuting very early in the morning; an ordinary pile of perfect fourths and fifths would slice through her like the stave of a hard-boiled-egg slicer; she could sense the felt-covered hammers thumping against the piano wires as gently as the noses of sheep in pens or fish against glass; she felt with extraordinary vividness her right foot making its little jumps on the sustain pedal, hosing off any recent blendings and allowing a new concord to rise up clean from its mud-wrestling past.

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

  His apostasy from Christianity, to which he was probably never at heart committed, Julian himself dates as early as his twentieth year, A.D. 351. But while Constantius lived, he concealed his pagan sympathies with consummate hypocrisy, publicly observed Christian ceremonies, while secretly sacrificing to Jupiter and Helios, kept the feast of Epiphany in the church at Vienne so late as January, 361, and praised the emperor in the most extravagant style, though he thoroughly hated him, and after his death all the more bitterly mocked him.63 For ten years he kept the mask. After December, 355, the student of books astonished the world with brilliant military and executive powers as Caesar in Gaul, which was at that time heavily threatened by the German barbarians; he won the enthusiastic love of the soldiers, and received from them the dignity of Augustus. Then he raised the standard of rebellion against his suspicious and envious imperial cousin and brother-in-law, and in 361 openly declared himself a friend of the gods. By the sudden death of Constantius in the same year he became sole head of the Roman empire, and in December, as the only remaining heir of the house of Constantine,64 made his entry into Constantinople amidst universal applause and rejoicing over escape from civil war. He immediately gave himself, with the utmost zeal, to the duties of his high station, unweariedly active as prince, general, judge, orator, high-priest, correspondent, and author. He sought to unite the fame of an Alexander, a Marcus Aurelius, a Plato, and a Diogenes in himself. His only recreation was a change of labor. He would use at once his hand in writing, his ear in hearing, and his voice in speaking. He considered his whole time due to his empire and the culture of his own mind. The eighteen short months of his reign Dec. 361-June 363) comprehend the plans of a life-long administration and most of his literary works. He practised the strictest economy in the public affairs, banished all useless luxury from his court, and dismissed with one decree whole hosts of barbers, cup-bearers, cooks, masters of ceremonies, and other superfluous officers, with whom the palace swarmed, but surrounded himself instead with equally useless pagan mystics, sophists, jugglers, theurgists, soothsayers, babblers, and scoffers, who now streamed from all quarters to the court. In striking contrast with his predecessors, he maintained the simplicity of a philosopher and an ascetic in his manner of life, and gratified his pride and vanity with contempt of the pomp and pleasures of the imperial purple. He lived chiefly on vegetable diet, abstaining now from this food, now from that, according to the taste of the god or goddess to whom the day was consecrated.

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

  They were purveyors of the dogma they had inherited from the Fathers. It was the aim of the Schoolmen to accomplish two things,—to reconcile dogma and reason, and to arrange the doctrines of the Church in an orderly system called summa theologiae. These systems, like our modern encyclopaedias, were intended to be exhaustive. It is to the credit of the human mind that every serious problem in the domains of religion and ethics was thus brought under the inspection of the intellect. The Schoolmen, however, went to the extreme of introducing into their discussions every imaginable question,—questions which, if answered, would do no good except to satisfy a prurient curiosity. Anselm gives the best example of treatises on distinct subjects, such as the existence of God, the necessity of the Incarnation, and the fall of the devil. Peter the Lombard produced the most clear, and Thomas Aquinas the most complete and finished systematic bodies of divinity. With intrepid confidence these busy thinkers ventured upon the loftiest speculations, raised and answered all sorts of doubts and ran every accepted dogma through a fiery ordeal to show its invulnerable nature. They were the knights of theology, its Godfreys and Tancreds. Philosophy with them was their handmaid,—ancilla,—dialectics their sword and lance. In a rigid dialectical treatment, the doctrines of Christianity are in danger of losing their freshness and vital power, and of being turned into a theological corpse. This result was avoided in the case of the greatest of the mediaeval theologians by their religious fervor. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura were men of warm piety and, like Augustine, they combined with the metaphysical element a mystical element, with the temper of speculation the habit of meditation and prayer. He is far from the truth who imagines the mediaeval speculations to be mere spectacular balloonings, feats of intellectual acrobatism. They were, on the contrary, serious studies pursued with a solemn purpose. The Schoolmen were moved with a profound sense of the presence of God and the sacrifice of the cross, and such treatments as the ethical portions of Thomas Aquinas’ writings show deep interest in the sphere of human conduct. For this reason, as well as for the reason that they stand for the theological literature of more than two centuries, these writings live, and no doubt will continue to live.1312 Following Augustine, the Schoolmen started with the principle that faith precedes knowledge—fides praecedit intellectum. Or, as Anselm also put it, "I believe that I may understand; I do not understand that I may believe" credo ut intelligam, non intelligo ut credam. They quoted as proof text, Isa. 7:9. "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established." Abaelard was an exception, and reversed the order, making knowledge precede faith; but all arrived at the same result. Revelation and reason, faith and science, theology and philosophy agree, for they proceed from the one God who cannot contradict himself.

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

  Convents became noted for religious warmth, and Bologna, Paris, and other localities acquired a fame for intellectual culture, but Rome’s reputation was based solely upon her authority as a seat of ecclesiastical prerogative. The sin of the popes was hierarchical pride, and yet we cannot help but be attracted by those imposing figures whose ideals of universal dominion equalled in ambition the boldest projects of the greater Roman emperors, but differed widely from theirs in the moral element which entered into them.1852 In this period the loftiest claims ever made for the papacy were realized in Western Europe. The pope was recognized as supreme in the Church over all bishops, and with some exceptions as the supreme ruler in temporal affairs. Protest there was against the application of both prerogatives, but the general sentiment of Europe supported the claims. To him belonged fulness of authority in both realms—plenitudo potestatis. The Pope and the Church. – favorite illustration used by Innocent III. to support the claim of supremacy in the Church was drawn from the relation the head sustains to the body. As the head contains the plenitude of the forces of the body, and has dominion over it, so Peter’s successor, as the head of the Church, possesses the fulness of her prerogatives and the right of rule over her. The pope calls others to share in the care of the Church, but in such a way that there is no loss of authority to the head.1853 Innocent II., in opening the second Lateran Council, had used the same figure, and declared that no ecclesiastical dignity was lawfully held except by permission of the Roman pontiff. According to Gregory VII., he can depose and appoint bishops as he wills. The principle that the Apostolic see is subject to no human jurisdiction, stated by Gelasius, 493, was accepted by Bernard, though Bernard protested against the pope’s making his arbitrary will the law of the Church.1854 The Roman church, said Lanfranc, 1072, is, as it were, the sum of all churches, and all other churches are, as it were, parts of it. The arrangement of all church matters is only authoritative when approved by Peter’s successors.1855 The Fourth Lateran formally pronounced the Roman Church the mother and teacher of all believers, and declared its bishop to be above the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria in rank and authority. Leo IX., d. 1054, asserted this pretension against Caerularius, the patriarch of Constantinople.1856 Innocent III. vindicated it by substituting a Latin patriarch for the Greek patriarch in that venerable see. The second council of Lyons, 1274, demanded that the Greeks should sign a document acknowledging the "full primacy" of the Roman pontiff and his right to rule over the universal Church.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  I don’t ask them to do more than they are capable of. But I might ask them to do more than they think they can do or more than they want to do. They need that. Our role as parents is not to do everything for our kids, but to help them believe in their own abilities and to encourage them in their purpose. In an interview with inc.com, Dr. Stephanie O’Leary, a clinical psychologist and author of Parenting in the Real World: The Rules Have Changed, insisted that letting children struggle, even fail, benefits them far more than doing everything for them. She stated, “Your willingness to see your child struggle communicates that you believe they are capable and that they can handle any outcome, even a negative one.” 1 Our kids need to know that they are more than able to be successful on their own. They need supportive parents, yes, but they don’t need helicopter parents hovering overhead, making sure they are constantly happy and always perfect. They might be frustrated in the moment, but the very fact that you believe in them enough to let them muddle through is teaching them self-confidence. Plus, by trying and failing and trying again, they learn problem-solving, perseverance, and a bit of humility. Those are invaluable gifts. Now, if we as parents realize that, don’t you think God does too? In case you haven’t noticed, God is not a helicopter God. He’s always there, of course, but He’s not anxiously controlling our progress, stepping in to fix our mistakes when we color outside the lines, or yelling at us when we accidentally shatter a flower vase. God continually encourages us to try new things, to fail, to learn, to try again, to grow. He’s with us and for us, but He doesn’t do everything for us. Instead, He cheers us on as we move forward in our purpose. PRAYER AND PURPOSE Purpose. Think about that word for a moment. It implies a potential, a calling, a goal. It means participating in life, not just letting life happen.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  learning the word for bathroom in a foreign language. You may not even leave your community. I would go so far as to say that if you can’t serve your local community, you don’t have any business crossing the world. Performative missions, charity photo-ops, and savior complexes are not how the world is going to see Jesus. They will see Jesus in your love. Start by loving those close to you, by letting God send you to your neighbor and co-worker and friend. Maybe He’ll send you to another nation, maybe not. But He will send you. Of that you can be sure. When you ask God to send you, you are praying to be used by Him to show His love to others. The prayer isn’t about tasks as much as about people. God’s purpose is always tied to people. That doesn’t mean you have to have a particular personality type. You might love meeting people, being in social situations, and interacting with others. Or you might be someone who wishes your plus-one at social events could be your cat. God created both extremes and everything in between. He made you, and He wants to send you. You have something to offer others: your personality, your gifts, your experiences, your wisdom, your perspective, your voice. And most of all, your love. Letting God “send” you doesn’t mean you will never fail. You will fail at times. We all do. You have to believe that your contribution outweighs your mistakes. Obviously you should avoid as many mistakes as possible and learn from the ones you do make. I’m not justifying incompetence here. But I think we struggle less with competence and more with confidence. You have to know your value to the team. And if you’re ever in doubt about that, go to God, the greatest coach of all, and let Him give you a locker room pep talk.

• From Wild (2012)

  The next morning I packed up Monster and walked to the store wearing my sandals, my boots tied to the frame of my pack. I sat at one of the nearby picnic tables waiting for the mail to arrive. I was eager to hike away not so much because I felt like hiking, but because I had to. In order to reach each resupply point on roughly the day I’d anticipated, I had a schedule to keep. In spite of all the changes and bypasses, for reasons related to both money and weather, I needed to stick to my plan to finish my trip by mid-September. I sat for hours reading the book that had come in my box—Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita—while waiting for my boots to arrive. People came and went in waves, sometimes gathering in little circles around me to ask questions about the PCT when they noticed my pack. As I spoke, the doubts I had about myself on the trail fell away for whole minutes at a time and I forgot all about being a big fat idiot. Basking in the attention of the people who gathered around me, I didn’t just feel like a backpacking expert. I felt like a hard-ass motherfucking Amazonian queen. “I advise you to put this on your résumé,” said an old woman from Florida adorned in a bright pink visor and a fistful of gold necklaces. “I used to work in HR. Employers look for things like this. It tells them that you’ve got character. It sets you apart from the rest.” The mailman pulled up around three. The UPS guy came an hour later. Neither one of them had my boots. My stomach sinking, I went to the pay phone and called REI. They hadn’t yet mailed my boots, the man I spoke to politely informed me. The problem was, they’d learned they could not get them to the state park overnight, so they wanted to send them by regular mail instead, but because they hadn’t known how to contact me to tell me this, they’d done nothing at all. “I don’t think you understand,” I said. “I’m hiking the PCT. I’m sleeping in the woods. Of course you couldn’t have gotten in touch with me. And I can’t wait here for—how long will it take for my boots to come in the regular mail?” “Approximately five days,” he replied, unperturbed.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  on my chart. My goal was to make sentences for 30 minutes, while practicing honoring my values, using expansive strategies, and feeling whatever was necessary for me to feel. I thought for a minute. Had I been creative? Had I been authentic? Had I been courageous? Yes, yes, and yes! Had I stuck to the time frame? Allowed for imperfection? Welcomed necessary feelings? Yes, yes, and yes again. There was plenty of success in my practice session, and to acknowledge that, I check-marked everywhere I had practiced successfully. Until my new expansive strategies and mind-set became the new default, I would have to make it part of my practice to be my own wise teacher, my own consistent coach. This kind of hijacking happens all the time in my work as a therapist. Let’s look at an exercise I use with my clients who have a fear of public speaking. The practice is to give a five-minute oral presentation in my office. There’s little point in doing the exercise without being prepared, so before the exercise I have each client complete an Expansion Chart. No amount of preparation, however, can quiet the monkey. Once the client begins to speak and those necessary emotions kick in, some hijacking inevitably occurs. When I ask the clients to give themselves a letter grade for how well they did, it is very common for them to tell me they presented terribly and give themselves a low grade. They will say things like, “My mind went blank. I was so nervous and I stuttered over my words.” When we revisit their Expansion Charts, however, and evaluate their presentation as a practice opportunity, they are surprised and relieved. When they ask themselves What values did I honor? What mind-sets did I employ? What strategies did I use? they realize the successful work they’ve done. Opportunity: Oral presentation Values: Courage, Authenticity, Growth, Risk Monkey Mind-set I must know what I am going to say, Expansive Mind-set It is more important for me to be on

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  He gazed at me, and then - more lingeringly - at Kitty. ‘To their new partnership, that will bring fame and fortune to us all in 1889, and ever after!’ We were at the parlour-table with Ma Dendy and the Professor, and now we joined our voices with his, and took up his toast; but Kitty and I exchanged one swift, secret glance, and I thought - with a little thrill of pleasure and triumph that I couldn’t quite suppress — poor man! how could he know what we were really celebrating?Only now did Walter present me with his package, and smile to see me open it. But I knew already what it would hold: a suit, a stage suit of serge and velvet, cut to my size to the pattern of one of Kitty’s - but blue to match my eyes, where hers was brown. I held it up against me, and Walter nodded. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘will make all the difference. Just you trot upstairs and slip that on, and then we’ll see what Mrs Dendy has to say about it.’I did as he asked; then paused for a moment to study myself in the glass. I had put on a pair of my own plain black boots and piled my hair up inside a hat. I had placed a cigarette behind my ear - I had even taken off my stays, to make my flat chest flatter. I looked a little like my brother Davy - only, perhaps, rather handsomer. I shook my head. Four nights before I had stood in the same spot, marvelling to see myself dressed as a grown-up woman. Now, there had been one quiet visit to a tailor’s shop and here I was, a boy - a boy with buttons and a belt. The thought, once again, was a saucy one; I felt I ought not to encourage it. I went down at once to the parlour, put my hands in my pockets and posed before them all, and made ready to receive their praises.When I stood turning upon the rug, however, Walter was rather subdued, and Mrs Dendy thoughtful. When, at their request, I took Kitty’s arm and we sang a quick chorus, Walter stood back, frowned, and shook his head.‘It’s not quite right,’ he said. ‘It grieves me to say it, but - it just won’t do.’I turned, in dismay, to Kitty. She was fiddling with her necklace, sucking at the chain and tapping with the pearl upon a tooth. She, too, looked grave. She said, ‘There is something queer about it; but I can’t say what...’I gazed down at myself. I took my hands from my pockets and folded my arms, and Walter shook his head again. ‘It’s a perfect fit,’ he said. ‘The colour is good. And yet there’s something - unpleasing - about it. What is it?’Mrs Dendy gave a cough. ‘Take a step,’ she said to me.

• From My People (2022)

  While the content of their various messages was often controversial, the common thread was Black pride—a pride that was manifest in ways that I would “discover,” as I had the Inkwell, and go on to share with readers. 7,000 Books on Blacks Fill a HomeThe New York Times MARCH 18, 1972 By the time Clarence L. Holte retired after more than twenty years as an advertising specialist in ethnic markets, he had a $400,000 hobby to come home to. “Honey, I wouldn’t give anything for this hobby,” the sixty-two-year-old bibliophile said as he talked recently about his collection of books of black literature and history. With more than seven thousand titles, acquired from all over the world, Mr. Holte’s collection is one of the largest and most valuable private collections. Although the collection is available to scholars, Mr. Holte discourages most other inquiries, preferring to refer students and others to the Arthur A. Schomburg Collection, which is housed in the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem. Mr. Holte’s facilities are also limited—the seven thousand books line most of the wall space in the modest five-room apartment he shares with his wife, Helen, overlooking what was once the site of the Polo Grounds. Mr. Holte has earned the gratitude of several historians who have used his collection, including Eileen Southern, who wrote The Music of Black America , published in 1970. Arna Bontemps, the black anthologist, poet, and historian, inscribed one edition of his book They Seek a City to Mr. Holte, calling him “Our No. 1 book collector.” Mr. Holte has also served as adviser to a major reprint corporation, utilizing titles from his collection as a basis for the reissuance of fifty-seven books. Some of his books, many of which he has had rebound, date back to the sixteenth century, like The Late Travels of S. Giacomo Baratti, an Italian Gentleman, into the Remote Countries of the Abissins or of Ethiopia Interior . Among his favorites are slave narratives, such as The History of Prince Lee Boo , Josia: The Maimed Fugitive , and Twenty-Eight Years a Slave . He studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and later became a pioneer in developing ethnic markets for Batten, Barton, Dustin & Osborn. Mr. Holte easily combined his hobby and his advertising work, making each complement the other. “The Ingenious American” series featuring blacks who made major cultural and technological contributions to this country was developed for the company that makes Old Taylor bourbon, and has now been made available to schools in pocket-sized reprints. The subjects were drawn from Mr. Holte’s collection. One book he’s “sure can’t be found any place else” is a census of Liberia, with tables showing the number of free blacks and former slaves from the United States who had settled in Liberia prior to 1843. It was prepared by the United States government in 1845, and contains 2,390 names.