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.

Page 145 of 174 · 20 per page

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  vb. Pi. beautify, glorify ;—‏ [פָּאר] ור Pf. 3 ms. sf. JAINA (obj. Isr.) Is 55° 60°; ¢. acc.‏ of temple; Jmpf. 1s. WBN 607; Inf. estr. NB‏ 8By149'. Hithp.‏ ענוים בִּישוּעָה 80 Ezr7”;‏ לי pers.:= boast, Jmpf.3 ms.‏ על.6 glorify oneself,‏ .1 WEN! Juz? Isto; as polite address to king,‏ Imv. ms. WENT Ex 8° (J), assume the honour‏ פארור over me (to decide) when, etc. 2. get glory to oneself, be glorified, by means of (3), of ”, WWE ANTE Ts 44%, so = אְֶפְאָר‎ 49% of people [by "[, 18% estr. הַתְפָּאָר‎ 607 1% TASB nm. 7 head-dress, turban (? orig. ornament) ;—abs. ‘B of bridegroom Is 61”, sign of joy v* (opp. mourning, and so) JISB Ez 24”, pl. sf. D8 ys (worn by men of position) ; of priests DAD “INB Ez 44%, “3B הַמִנְבָעַת שש‎ Ex 39% (P); pl. abs. פָּאָרִים‎ Is 3” (of luxurious women). n.f. beauty, glory;—’M Is 28°‏ תִפַּאּרַה1 Je 48"; ו‎ abs. and 036. תִּפָּאָרֶת‎ Is 3*+ 20 +; תִּפַאְרֶת‎ Pr 287+ 6t.; sf. ‘NSA Ts 4684 20% 36 1. beauty, ae Is 33; of garments 5 ו‎ Ez 16% 23s 65 2 Ch 3°; flock Je13”; a man Is 44"; city of Samaria 28%; diadem ."ץד‎ 2. glory: a. of rank: appa of h.p. Ex 28°°(P); “ NOY crown of glory Pr 4° 167 Is 62° Je 13° Ez16" 23”; greatness of monarch Est 1*; house of David and in- habitants of Jerus. Ze 127, 1b. of renown my ny? Dt 26" 1 Ch 22° "בי‎ 0. attri- bute of "718 1Chzg"3 ai DY T3631 Ch 20% ץ ת' עז‎ 8g"; זְרועַ ת'‎ Is 63”; hence ת'‎ in ‘’s sanctuary ץ‎ 96°, ISDA בִּית‎ Is 607 ef. 63° (of heavenly temple), 64°; “has 0's gift to Isr. 46° cf. 60° (also y 89" supr.); of future fruit of land 47; design. of ark of *~ 78". 3. a. honourof nation Isr. La 2 b. ae ying, boasting, of individ., Is 20° Pr 17° Tg" 20” 28"; warrior ות ה‎ Is 10”; nations Is 13 Ez24%, ת'‎ bap rod (sceptre) of olen Je48" (others 1). (doubtful +/).‏ פאר זז 1 [פארה]‎ n.f. bough ;—pl., all in fig.: of vine, abs. פארלת‎ Ez 17° (Baer (פראות‎ of cedar. Sf, פארתו‎ 31°(Kt; Y— Qr); פּארתָיו‎ v5, NHN va ור .1 שף TD‏ ,8% פארה1 Is 10% (van 4. 11 pat TSB).‏ T [פאר]‎ vb. denom. Pi. go over the boughs ;—Jmpf. 2 ms. "83 Dt 24” thow shalt not go over the boughs after thee (i.e. glean). TANG n.[m.] mng. dub.; only “A *83? Na 2% Jo 2°; Thes, all faces gather a glow - (glow with dread, fr. assumed ,(פאר/4‎ so We - SE Se . פארן ow; AE Hi al. gather in (their) beauty (+/I. 5; grow pale); Vrss AV gather blackness | 6 WS ₪ pot !), v. Dr; all very uncertain.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  One of the finest Legalist scholars was Han Fei (280–233), who became a minister of King Huang-Di of Qin. He was far less cynical than Lord Shang and believed that he had a noble mission to help humanity. In his essay “Solitary Indignation,” he saw himself as quite different from the other wandering shi who peddled what in his view were useless, impractical ideas. He and the other Legalists should be men of unimpeachable morality, and must dedicate themselves unswervingly to the highest interests of the prince.9 Han Fei knew that it was highly unlikely that a king would be a paragon of virtue, but he wanted to help an ordinary human being to become an effective ruler by setting up an efficient system. The ruler must find the right officials to work for him, and should be inspired by the desire to help his people. “He simply looks ahead for what will benefit the people. Therefore, when he imposes punishments on them, it is not out of hatred of the people, but he does so simply out of concern for them.”10 He should be impartial and unselfish, punishing friends and family if necessary and rewarding his enemies. A poem attributed to Han Fei gave the ruler’s wu wei almost mystical significance: By doing without knowledge, he possesses clear-sightedness, By doing without worthiness, he gets results, By doing without courage, he achieves strength.11 The law was not supposed to be a method of punishment and suppression. It was an education that would accustom king and subjects to behave in a different way. Once this reformation was complete, there would be no further need for punishments; everybody would act in accordance with the best interests of the state. Yet for all his good intentions, Han Fei also suffered a violent end; he was slandered and imprisoned, and in 233, rather than submit to execution, accepted the option of committing suicide. Before he had become a Legalist, Han Fei had studied under the most distinguished Confucian philosopher of his time and probably acquired much of his idealism from his teacher. Xunzi (c. 340–245), a passionate, poetic, yet rigorously rational thinker, managed to absorb insights of other philosophers into his own Confucian perspective and created a powerful synthesis.12 He did not think that Mohists, Yangists, and Legalists were wrong; they simply stressed only one side of a complex argument, and it was possible to learn something from them all. Xunzi was also profoundly influenced by Daoist ideas. His book was more cogently argued and organized than any other text of Axial Age China, yet at times his prose modulated easily into poetry and his logic into mystical insight.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  I swear that there is an energy to clothes when I see them—if I am listening and open. Sometimes you find yourself drawn to a garment that looks like not much on the hanger, and then you put it on and you realize it was calling you. I like to pay attention to that. amb. You mentioned how African Americans have a standard on being “clean” and “cool”—I agree, I feel like Black people work through so much related to class, combating white supremacy and setting culture with our clothing. Can you speak to any particularities of being a Black fashionista and dressing other Black bodies? Maori. I mentioned that my paternal grandfather was a haberdasher—he and his business partner replicated Italian-style suits for an all-Black clientele in the 1940s in Los Angeles. I didn’t know him, but I have also heard stories that he was someone who was meticulous in his dress—all the way down to matching his underwear to his outfit. I can relate to this attention to detail and love that it clearly was passed to me through Spirit. I also know that so much of this concern with appearance is an attempt to be more acceptable as a member of a marginalized community and isn’t unique to Black folks in the United States. I don’t necessarily consider myself a fashionista, but I do recognize my specific aesthetic references stemming from my mother exposing me to events like the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta when I was very young, her subscription to the Essence magazine of the 1980s and early 1990s, and coming of age at the height of so-called conscious hip-hop. My affinity for bangles and mixing of prints and bold earrings all come from this. At the same time, I also find myself particularly drawn to Japanese and Scandinavian designers, and I am not sure how much this has to do with my own Black body or is purely aesthetics. amb. I used to feel that as someone working to change the world I didn’t have time or energy for fashion or shouldn’t care. Have you experienced this? Maori. Yes! Somewhat, although it is less about time and energy versus “deserving” or “justice” around having beautiful things or caring about them instead of being focused on “the movement.” I find this to be an experience I have shared with other folks in the field as well. It’s a secret “Ooh, I like your bag,” which turns into a full-on dish session about secretly shopping and feeling badly about it. A lot of the stuff I shared earlier has to do with my ongoing conflict around fashion being seen as vapid or capitalist versus my actual passion for the dressed body. I often wonder, if I hadn’t been exposed to certain writing or activism at such a young age, would I have taken a different direction professionally.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  Dallas. Exactly. In Standing Rock, the other thing was that the kind of generally agreed upon tactic was the numbers. The strategy of having people there but also having the numbers with us because we’re in a fucking rural-ass area and you can only … there’s only so much that fifteen Native folks can do until we’re all fucking arrested and locked up. And so we had to make it accessible. We had to basically create a narrative that was accessible by all different levels. And “Water is life” built upon that.100 That was a role that I didn’t really plan. But it’s like a conscious effort. How do you make this successful? And also, like, the real-ass shit of misinformation and how destructive that can be. It’s like, all right, my role is to give reliable, as best as I can, information and do it in a way that’s also accessible. And humor is a part of that. Like, right in the heart of it, I’m like fucking sitting there and I’m like, man, you know what, I wanna just fucking livestream me doing some sledding down the hills and showing people having fun because that’s what happening in the camp, like, people were having fun. People were enjoying themselves, but yet the camera comes on and they play the narrative. They played into the dogma of it: We have to be hard. We have to be serious. amb. There’s something about being an Indigenous man, being an Indigenous leader and bringing that humor … it’s like, oh, this is actually one of our survival strategies. I had not really worked with Indigenous organizers before Ruckus.101 And then coming to Ruckus and being like, “Oh y’all are clowning me. And you’re clowning each other. Oh, everyone’s just laughing.” I mean, like, it’s all fun and games in direct response to how intense the trauma and pressure is. Does that resonate? Dallas. It resonates strongly. Honestly, I feel like Native communities would not have gotten to where we are if it wasn’t for the power to make light of the situation. And through that lens of humor and laughter critique the world around us. We didn’t have the agency to change the situation, we at least have the agency to critique it through laughter and humor. Native folks are some of the most cynical people on the planet, you can’t help but be when you’re going through the shit we’ve gone through. And you know every funeral, every dark moment, I think—from our community, the role of the spokesperson, or in our language the Évapaha, is the MC, and there’s an art to it. In our communities, my specific Dakota communities, you had your elected leaders, but then there was the spokesperson. And they were the speaker on behalf of everybody, and it’s still … that tradition carries today. Everything they say is fed to them. amb. It’s being fed through the community process?

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  So do sex workers feel pleasure at work? Yeah. Because you know what feels amazing? Surviving capitalism. Reclaiming the Gold Digger Is that wrong? For wanting more for myself? Wanting people to treat me with respect? But you know what? Next time they know better. —Nicki Minaj, “Pickle Juice,” 2010 A good girl stays grateful with crumbs. She may be broke, but damn she’s a good girl! Fuck that. Gold-digging whores hack the system and ask for too much—all the money, pleasure, and attention they damn well want. They recognize the value of their body and beauty, but also maybe more than anything else, the value of their time and attention. They know these are gold. Whores ask: Is this worth it? What’s in this for me? It isn’t always about money. Respecting and protecting our work and our bodies doesn’t always mean getting paid. But consider that women and femmes will always be under pressure to give up their sexuality and care for free. Under capitalism, putting a price on something is the best way to make work visible. Things change when we recognize our own worth, even just for ourselves. Women and femmes—all of us—deserve enough money to buy delicious food, a comfortable roof over our heads, and health care when we need it. We deserve enough money to take care of our families and friends. We deserve the money for ease, leisure, and luxuries in our lives. We deserve the pleasure of having enough. And we have the right to use our sexuality to get it. Thank you to M’Kali Hashiki, Pluma Sumaq, Clare Bayard, Karen Pittelman, Isaac Lev Szmonko, and the members of the Lambda Literary Retreat Non-Fiction “ho-hort” of 2017 for their invaluable feedback on this essay. 40 For the purposes of this essay, I will be using this definition of “femme” from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: Femme: A person who has one of a million kinds of queer femme or feminine genders. Part of a multiverse of femme gendered people who have histories and communities in every culture since the dawn of time. A queer gender that often breaks away from white, able bodied, upper middle class, cis ideas of femininity, remixing it to harken to fat or working class or Black or brown or trans or non-binary or disabled or sex worker or other genders of femme to grant strength, vulnerability and power to the person embodying them. A revolutionary gender universe. See Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “A Modest Proposal for a Fair Trade Emotional Labour Economy,” Bitch, July 13, 2017, https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/modest-proposal-fair-trade-emotional-labor-economy/centered-disabled-femme-color-working.

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.24 The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can require no less of ourselves.25 It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.26 This internal requirement toward excellence which we learn from the erotic must not be misconstrued as demanding the impossible from ourselves nor from others. Such a demand incapacitates everyone in the process. For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness. The aim of each thing which we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible. Within the celebration of the erotic in all our endeavors, my work becomes a conscious decision—a longed-for bed which I enter gratefully and from which I rise up empowered. Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult?

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  As someone who couldn’t run more than two miles, I felt that running a half-marathon was practically impossible—but possibly doable. Now, for some of you that would be a cakewalk. For others it would be way too much. The point is not to compare yourself to anyone else—it’s more about setting a physical challenge that is specific to you. And so, tired of becoming a corpse on the couch, I literally searched on Pinterest “half-marathon training for beginners.” Lo and behold, I began running, slowly adding miles over the three months of training. It wasn’t easy. I was about the slowest runner on the block, but I put in the time. Eventually the effort paid off. I’ll never forget the feeling when I crossed the finish line and ran the 13.1 miles (with some walking involved around miles ten and eleven, let’s be real). I remember feeling shocked by what my body could do. All those years when I underestimated myself and said that I “wasn’t a runner”—it was simply untrue. My body was stronger than I ever realized. And the best part? I’ve never had less anxiety than during that training time. Not only was the time spent exercising a meditative practice in its own way (I loved listening to music while I ran), my body felt more in balance than it had in years. While I was skeptical before of how much exercise could really help with anxiety, this experience made me a believer. Perhaps this will inspire you to come up with your own misogi. Or you can shoot for the recommended thirty minutes of exercise, three to five days a week to help reduce depressive and anxious symptoms. If your time is limited, even ten to fifteen minutes can make a difference. 166 If you were to do a misogi, what would yours be? YOU DO YOU When I first met Suma, she told me that she felt such pressure to just do therapy or take medication. She was especially hesitant to take medication. I totally respected her decision, reminding her that while it’s my job to let clients know all the treatment options available to them, it’s also important they pick self-care and healing strategies that work for them. This is where the incorporation of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices can be helpful. Many of these treatments have extensive histories. For example, China developed traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in 200 BC. Korea, Japan, India, and Vietnam also have their own long-standing traditional treatment interventions as well.

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

  The patriarch of Constantinople enjoyed indeed the favor of the emperor, and all the benefit of the imperial residence. New Rome was most beautifully and most advantageously situated for a metropolis of government, of commerce, and of culture, on the bridge between two continents; and it formed a powerful bulwark against the barbarian conquests. It was never desecrated by an idol temple, but was founded a Christian city. It fostered the sciences and arts, at a time when the West was whelmed by the wild waves of barbarism; it preserved the knowledge of the Greek language and literature through the middle ages; and after the invasion of the Turks it kindled by its fugitive scholars the enthusiasm of classic studies in the Latin church, till Greece rose from the dead with the New Testament in her hand, and held the torch for the Reformation. But the Roman patriarch had yet greater advantages. In him were united, as even the Greek historian Theodoret concedes,522 all the outward and the inward, the political and the spiritual conditions of the highest eminence. In the first place, his authority rested on an ecclesiastical and spiritual basis, reaching back, as public opinion granted, through an unbroken succession, to Peter the apostle; while Constantinople was in no sense an apostolica sedes, but had a purely political origin, though, by transfer, and in a measure by usurpation, it had possessed itself of the metropolitan rights of Ephesus523 Hence the popes after Leo appealed almost exclusively to the divine origin of their dignity, and to the primacy of the prince of the apostles over the whole church. Then, too, considered even in a political point of view, old Rome had a far longer and grander imperial tradition to show, and was identified in memory with the bloom of the empire; while New Rome marked the beginning of its decline. When the Western empire fell into the hands of the barbarians, the Roman bishop was the only surviving heir of this imperial past, or, in the well-known dictum of Hobbes, "the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof." Again, the very remoteness of Rome from the imperial court was favorable to the development of a hierarchy independent of all political influence and intrigue; while the bishop of Constantinople had to purchase the political advantages of the residence at the cost of ecclesiastical freedom. The tradition of the donatio Constantini, though a fabrication of the eighth century, has thus much truth: that the transfer of the imperial residence to the East broke the way for the temporal power and the political independence of the papacy.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I had once sat drooping on her parlour chair, expecting her to send me home with a sovereign. Now, when the ladies whispered of ‘this freak of Diana Lethaby’s’, I brushed the lint from the sleeve of my coat, drew my monogrammed hankie from my pocket, and smiled. When the autumn of 1892 became the winter, and then the spring of ’93, and still I kept my favoured place at Diana’s side, the ladies’ whispers faded. I became at last not Diana’s caprice; but simply, her boy.‘Come to supper, Diana.’‘Come for breakfast, Diana.’‘Come at nine, Diana; and bring the boy.’For it was always as a boy that I travelled with her now, even when we ventured into the public world, the ordinary world beyond the circle of Cavendish Sapphists, the world of shops and supper-rooms and drives in the park. To anyone who asked after me, she would boldly introduce me as ‘My ward, Neville King’; she had several requests for introductions, I believe, from ladies with eligible daughters. These she turned aside: ‘He’s an Anglo-Catholic, ma’am,’ she’d whisper, ‘and destined for the Church. This is his final Season, before taking Holy Orders ...’It was with Diana that I returned to the theatre again - flinching to find her lead me to a box beside the foot-lights, flinching again as the chandeliers were dimmed. But they were terribly grand, the theatres she preferred. They were lit with electricity rather than gas; and the crowd sat hushed. I could not see the pleasure in it. The plays I liked well enough; but I would more often turn my gaze to the audience - and there was always plenty of eyes and glasses, of course, that were lifted from the stage and fastened on me. I saw several faces that I knew from my old renter days. One time I stood washing my hands in the lavatory of a theatre and felt a gent look me over - he didn’t know that he had had my lips on him already, in an alley off Jermyn Street; later I saw him in the audience, with his wife. One time, too, I saw Sweet Alice, the mary-anne who had been so kind to me in Leicester Square. He also sat in a box; and when he recognised me, he blew a kiss. He was with two gents: I raised my brows, he rolled his eyes.

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

  Abel Lefranc: La Jeunesse de Calvin. Paris (33 rue de Seine), 228 pp. Comp. the biographies of Calvin by Henry, large work, vol. I. chs. I.–VIII. (small ed. 1846, pp. 12–29); Dyer (1850), pp. 4–10; Stähelin (1862) I. 3–12; *Kampschulte (1869), I. 221–225. "As David was taken from the sheepfold and elevated to the rank of supreme authority; so God having taken me from my originally obscure and humble condition, has reckoned me worthy of being invested with the honorable office of a preacher and minister of the gospel. When I was yet a very little boy, my father had destined me for the study of theology. But afterwards, when he considered that the legal profession commonly raised those who follow it, to wealth, this prospect induced him suddenly to change his purpose. Thus it came to pass, that I was withdrawn from the study of philosophy and was put to the study of law. To this pursuit I endeavored faithfully to apply myself, in obedience to the will of my father; but God, by the secret guidance of his providence, at length gave a different direction to my course. And first, since I was too obstinately devoted to the superstitions of popery to be easily extricated from so profound an abyss of mire, God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more burdened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness, I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that though I did not altogether leave off other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardor."380 This is the meagre account which Calvin himself incidentally gives of his youth and conversion, in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms, when speaking of the life of David, in which he read his own spiritual experience. Only once more he alludes, very briefly, to his change of religion. In his Answer to Cardinal Sadoletus, he assures him that he did not consult his temporal interest when he left the papal party. "I might," he said, "have reached without difficulty the summit of my wishes, namely, the enjoyment of literary ease, with something of a free and honorable station."381 Luther indulged much more freely in reminiscences of his hard youth, his early monastic life, and his discovery of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which gave peace and rest to his troubled conscience. John Calvin382 was born July 10, 1509,—twenty-five years after Luther and Zwingli,—at Noyon, an ancient cathedral city, called Noyon-la-Sainte, on account of its many churches, convents, priests, and monks, in the northern province of Picardy, which has given birth to the crusading monk, Peter of Amiens, to the leaders of the French Reformation and Counter-Reformation (the Ligue), and to many revolutionary as well as reactionary characters.383

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Unlike religious ideologies that have staked out the Book of Revelation for strip-mining apocalyptic fantasies to sell to an anxious but lucrative audience, or contemporary gnostic spiritualities that have mined sources like Black Elk to merchandise “spirit helpers” and “dream catchers,” I want to de-commercialize vision. The middle ground of vision is hard to find between these extremes of doubt and exploitation, but it is there beneath the inflated expectations both extremes have created. It is not better special effects or quicker enlightenment, but the quiet experience of the man or woman who follows the call of vision as a quest. In this sense, vision is not a shout, but a whisper; not an extravaganza of images, but a single picture. When I went out on the rooftop over forty years ago I had a vision. It was not a vision like Black Elk, or Daniel, or John of Patmos, but it was a vision. It did not include a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, but only a single character. It did not announce a grand design for the rest of my life, but only suggested a word of meaning that I could carry with me. I value this vision and share it because I want to rescue vision for all of us who live in an age that has few heroes and many cheap options for revelation. I believe that many of us have been shy about speaking of our own visions. We know they cannot duplicate the wonders of Black Elk. We also hesitate because vision has been so expropriated by fringe elements of religion we do not want to face ridicule. Therefore, we remain quiet about what we have seen. If I break this silence and speak of one of the visions I have had, do I run a risk? Yes, I am certain I do, especially in a time when spiritual vision is so suspect. But I believe the risk is worth it because, if we do not reclaim the presence of vision in our lives, we abandon the field to those who would occupy it for their own ends. In sharing my vision, I claim it is neither a rarity nor a commodity. In fact, it is a quite common, simple fact of our spiritual lives, an option available to any person who seeks it through his or her own quest. As I said in the last chapter, the quest in Native American theology is not reserved for the specialist. Black Elk was not the only Native person to have a vision. There were thousands, even millions who did. Over the centuries, as the vision quest was practiced in a great many traditional Native communities, generations of Native men and women went out in order to go within: that is, they made an intentional effort to receive a vision from God. We know very few of these visions. Perhaps some were as grand as the one Black Elk experienced.

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Smitty’s voice had fallen to a whisper, and everyone in the room began to smile. From a distance, reading the newspapers back in New York, I had shared in their pride, the same sort of pride that made me root for any pro football team that fielded a black quarterback. But something was different about what I was now hearing; there was a fervor in Smitty’s voice that seemed to go beyond politics. “Had to be here to understand,” he had said. He’d meant here in Chicago; but he could also have meant here in my shoes, an older black man who still burns from a lifetime of insults, of foiled ambitions, of ambitions abandoned before they’ve been tried. I asked myself if I could truly understand that. I assumed, took for granted, that I could. Seeing me, these men had made the same assumption. Would they feel the same way if they knew more about me? I wondered. I tried to imagine what would happen if Gramps walked into the barbershop at that moment, how the talk would stop, how the spell would be broken; the different assumptions at work. Smitty handed me the mirror to check his handiwork, then pulled off my smock and brushed off the back of my shirt. “Thanks for the history lesson,” I said, standing up. “Hey, that part’s free. Haircut’s ten dollars. What’s your name, anyway?” “Barack.” “Barack, huh. You a Muslim?” “Grandfather was.” He took the money and shook my hand. “Well, Barack, you should come back a little sooner next time. Your hair was looking awful raggedy when you walked in.” Late that afternoon, Marty picked me up in front of my new address and we headed south on the Skyway. After several miles, we took an exit leading into the southeast side, past rows of small houses made of gray clapboard or brick, until we arrived at a massive old factory that stretched out over several blocks. “The old Wisconsin Steel plant.” We sat there in silence, studying the building. It expressed some of the robust, brutal spirit of Chicago’s industrial past, metal beams and concrete rammed together, without much attention to comfort or detail. Only now it was empty and rust-stained, like an abandoned wreck. On the other side of the chain-link fence, a spotted, mangy cat ran through the weeds. “All kinds of people used to work in the plant,” Marty said as he wheeled the car around and started back down the road. “Blacks. Whites. Hispanics. All working the same jobs. All living the same kind of lives. But outside the plant, most of them didn’t want anything to do with each other. And these are the church people I’m talking about. Brothers and sisters in Christ.”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Mrs Dendy followed his gaze, then gave a tremendous cough. ‘Well, Nancy!’ she said, ‘and look at you! You have become quite the handsome young lady - and right beneath our noses!’And at that, Kitty herself turned to me - and showed me such a look of wonder and confusion that it was as if, just for a second, she had never seen me before; and I do not know whose cheeks at that moment were the pinker - mine, or hers.Then she gave a tight little smile. ‘Very nice,’ she said, and looked away; so that I thought, miserably, that the dress must suit me even less than I had hoped, and readied myself for a wretched party.But the party was not wretched; it was gay and genial and loud, and very crowded. The manager had had to build a platform from the end of the stage to the back of the pit, to carry us all, and he had hired the orchestra to play reels and waltzes, and set tables in the wings bearing pastries and jellies, and barrels of beer and bowls of punch, and row upon row of bottles of wine.We were much complimented, Kitty and I, on our new dresses; and over me, in particular, people smiled and exclaimed - mouthing at me across the noisy hall, ‘How fine you look!’ One woman - the conjuror’s assistant - took my hand and said, ‘My dear, you’re so grown-up tonight, I didn’t recognise you!’: just what Mrs Dendy had said an hour before. Her words impressed me. Kitty and I stood side by side all evening but when, some time after midnight, she moved away to join a group that had gathered about the champagne tables, I hung back, rather pensive. I wasn’t used to thinking of myself as a grown-up woman, but now, clad in that handsome frock of blue and cream, satin and lace, I began at last to feel like one - and to realise, indeed, that I was one: that I was eighteen, and had left my father’s house perhaps for ever, and earned my own living, and paid rent for my own rooms in London. I watched myself as if from a distance - watched as I supped at my wine as if it were ginger beer, and chatted and larked with the stage-hands, who had once so frightened me; watched as I took a cigarette from a fellow from the orchestra, and lit it, and drew upon it with a sigh of satisfaction.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  This political struggle for power between popes and emperors would inform the religiously inspired violence of the Crusading period; both sides were competing for political supremacy in Europe, and that meant gaining the monopoly of violence. In 1074 Gregory’s crusade had no takers; twenty years later, the response from the laity would be very different. [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II, another Cluniac monk, addressed a Peace Council at Clermont in southern France and summoned the First Crusade, appealing directly to the Franks, the heirs of Charlemagne. We have no contemporary record of this speech and can only infer what Urban might have said from his letters.37 In keeping with the recent reforms, Urban urged the knights of France to stop attacking their fellow Christians and instead fight God’s enemies. Like Gregory VII, Urban urged the Franks to “liberate” their brothers, the Eastern Christians, from “the tyranny and oppression of Muslims.”38 They should then proceed to the Holy Land to liberate Jerusalem. In this way the Peace of God would be enforced in Christendom and God’s war fought in the East. The Crusade, Urban was convinced, would be an act of love in which the Crusaders nobly laid down their lives for their eastern brothers, and in leaving their homes they would secure the same heavenly rewards as monks who abjured the world for the cloister.39 Yet for all this pious talk, the Crusade was also essential to Urban’s political maneuvers to secure the libertas of the Church. The previous year he had ousted Henry IV’s antipope from the Lateran Palace, and at Clermont he excommunicated King Philip I of France for making an adulterous marriage. Now by dispatching a massive military expedition to the East without consulting either monarch, Urban had usurped the royal prerogative of controlling the military defense of Christendom.40

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

  Leo first took advantage of the distractions of the North African church under the Arian Vandals, and wrote to its bishops in the tone of an acknowledged over-shepherd. Under the stress of the times, and in the absence of a towering, character like Cyprian and Augustine, the Africans submitted to his authority (443). He banished the remnants of the Manichaeans and Pelagians from Italy, and threatened the bishops with his anger, if they should not purge their churches of the heresy. In East Illyrian which was important to Rome as the ecclesiastical outpost toward Constantinople, he succeeded in regaining and establishing the supremacy, which had been acquired by Damasus, but had afterward slipped away. Anastasius of Thessalonica applied to him to be confirmed in his office. Leo granted the prayer in 444, extending the jurisdiction of Anastasius over all the Illyrian bishops, but reserving to them a right of appeal in important cases, which ought to be decided by the pope according to divine revelation. And a case to his purpose soon presented itself, in which Leo brought his vicar to feel that he was called indeed to a participation of his care, but not to a plentitude of power (plenitudo potestatis). In the affairs of the Spanish church also Leo had an opportunity to make his influence felt, when Turibius, bishop of Astorga, besought his intervention against the Priscillianists. He refuted these heretics point by point, and on the basis of his exposition the Spaniards drew up an orthodox regula fidei with eighteen anathemas against the Priscillianist error.

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

  As to the social position of monasticism in the system of ecclesiastical life: it was at first, in East and West, even so late as the council of Chalcedon, regarded as a lay institution; but the monks were distinguished as religiosi from the seculares, and formed thus a middle grade between the ordinary laity and the clergy. They constituted the spiritual nobility, but not the ruling class; the aristocracy, but not the hierarchy of the church. "A monk," says Jerome, "has not the office of a teacher, but of a penitent, who endures suffering either for himself or for the world." Many monks considered ecclesiastical office incompatible with their effort after perfection. It was a proverb, traced to Pachomius: "A monk should especially shun women and bishops, for neither will let him have peace."301 Ammonius, who accompanied Athanasius to Rome, cut off his own ear, and threatened to cut out his own tongue, when it was proposed to make him a bishop.302 Martin of Tours thought his miraculous power deserted him on his transition from the cloister to the bishopric. Others, on the contrary, were ambitious for the episcopal chair, or were promoted to it against their will, as early as the fourth century. The abbots of monasteries were usually ordained priests, and administered the sacraments among the brethren, but were subject to the bishop of the diocese. Subsequently the cloisters managed, through special papal grants, to make themselves independent of the episcopal jurisdiction. From the tenth century the clerical character was attached to the monks. In a certain sense, they stood, from the beginning, even above the clergy; considered themselves preëminently conversi and religiosi, and their life vita religiosa; looked down with contempt upon the secular clergy; and often encroached on their province in troublesome ways. On the other hand, the cloisters began, as early as the fourth century, to be most fruitful seminaries of clergy, and furnished, especially in the East, by far the greater number of bishops. The sixth novel of Justinian provides that the bishops shall be chosen from the clergy, or from the monastery. In dress, the monks at first adhered to the costume of the country, but chose the simplest and coarsest material. Subsequently, they adopted the tonsure and a distinctive uniform. § 34. Influence and Effect of Monasticism.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But whilst eliminating the question about the amount of our efforts as one which psychology will never have a practical call to decide, I must say one word about the extraordinarily intimate and important character which the phenomenon of effort assumes in our own eyes as individual men. Of course we measure ourselves by many standards. Our strength and our intelligence, our wealth and even our good luck, are things which warm our heart and make us feel ourselves a match for life. But deeper than all such things, and able to suffice unto itself without them, is the sense of the amount of effort which we can put forth. Those are, after all, but effects, products, and reflections of the outer world within. But the effort seems to belong to an altogether different realm, as if it were the substantive thing which we are, and those were but externals which we carry. If the 'searching of our heart and reins' be the purpose of this human drama, then what is sought seems to be what effort we can make. He who can make none is but a shadow; he who can make much is a hero. The huge world that girdles us about puts all sorts of questions to us, and tests us in all sorts of ways. Some of the tests we meet by actions that are easy, and some of the questions we answer in articulately formulated words. But the deepest question that is ever asked admits of no reply but the dumb turning of the will and tightening of our heartstrings as we say, "Yes, I will even have it so!" When a dreadful object is presented, or when life as a whole turns up its dark abysses to our view, then the worthless ones among us lose their hold on the situation altogether, and either escape from its difficulties by averting their attention, or if they cannot do that, collapse into yielding masses of plaintiveness and fear. The effort required for facing and consenting to such objects is beyond their power to make. But the heroic mind does differently. To it, too, the objects are sinister and dreadful, unwelcome, incompatible with wished-for things. But it can face them if necessary, without for that losing its hold upon the rest of life. The world thus finds in the heroic man its worthy match and mate; and the effort which he is able to put forth to hold himself erect and keep his heart unshaken is the direct measure of his worth and function in the game of human life. He can stand this Universe. He can meet it and keep up his faith in it in presence of those same features which lay his weaker brethren low. He can still find a zest in it, not by 'ostrich-like forgetfulness,' but by pure inward willingness to face the world with those deterrent objects there. And hereby he becomes one of the masters and the lords of life. He must be counted with henceforth; he forms a part of human destiny. Neither in the theoretic nor in the practical sphere do we care for, or go for help to, those who have no head for risks, or sense for living on the perilous edge. Our religious life lies more, our practical life lies less, that it used to, on the perilous edge. But just as our courage is so often a reflex of another's courage, so our faith is apt to be, as Max Müller somewhere says, a faith in some one else's faith. We draw new life from the heroic example. The prophet has drunk more deeply than anyone of the cup of bitterness, but his countenance is so unshaken and he speaks such mighty words of cheer that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his own.

• From The Great Believers (2018)

  She laughed. “I don’t know about fantastic. You should’ve seen me at twenty-five. Hell, you have seen me at twenty-five. Didn’t I look fantastic?” “You did.” “Now you and I have work to do, because I don’t just want you to have the art, I know you need provenance, and my memory is still perfect. I can tell you when and where every one of those pieces was done.” “That would be invaluable.” He could hear Frank and Phoebe yelling at their children in the basement. Debra was angrily washing dishes. Yale told Nora about the Sharps, about their willingness to help. “If we got the ball rolling,” he said, “these works could be hanging in the gallery while you’re still around to see it.” “Well, I like that. I do. What needs to happen?” Heavy footsteps ascended the basement stairs. He told her, quickly, about needing professional shots of the work for authentication, how there were separate experts for each artist. “And eventually they’ll want to see it in person. If you’re willing to put the pieces in our hands,” he said, “then they’d come to us. We’d handle it all.” Frank was in the doorway. Nora said, “That seems smart, doesn’t it?” Yale wished Bill and Roman would come back inside, but then he didn’t want anything to break the spell. The whole room felt like a soufflé that had just risen, like the slightest shake would destroy it. Frank pressed both hands into the doorframe. He said, “You’re giving away millions of dollars.” His voice a cyclone in a bottle. “Your grandkids won’t be able to go to Northwestern if you do this.” Nora said, “Stanley, won’t you come in here?” “I would consider this undue influence,” Frank said. “Is that the legal term, Stanley? Undue influence?” Stanley had entered the room, and he gave Yale a wary look. “This is where you want your own counsel present. Just—so you don’t have to deal with any of this a year from now, two years from now.” Yale checked his watch. Only 4 p.m. Frank said, “Then I want my own counsel present.” “You’re welcome to that,” Yale said. Roman was back, reporting that it had started to snow. Nora said, “You certainly do bring the weather, Mr. Tishman!” Yale squinted at the window. Had this been predicted? They’d had the radio off the whole drive up. It was falling steadily, thickly. A mixed blessing, at best: Frank might not be able to send for his own lawyer from Green Bay, but this would slow the Northwestern counsel down significantly. The Northwestern counsel, whose name, for Pete’s sake, was Herbert Snow. A cosmic joke. “May I use your restroom?” asked Yale, and Roman, who’d already found it, pointed through the dining room. Yale passed the polished table, the curio cabinets, and entered the kitchen—the kind of kitchen every grandmother ought to have. Herbs on the windowsill, shelves of cookbooks.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Their liturgy takes place in a feudal castle rather than a church or monastery, and their clergy are not abbots or bishops but hermits, many of them former knights. Galahad, not the pope, is Christ’s representative on earth. The knight’s loyalty to his earthly lord is a sacred duty and no other commitment can supersede it: “For the heart of the knight must be so hard and unrelenting to his sovereign’s foe that nothing in the world can soften it. And if he gives way to fear, he is not of the company of knights, a veritable companion, who would sooner meet death in battle than fail to uphold the quarrel of their lord.” 115 Killing the enemies of his king, even if they are Christians, is just as holy as killing the Muslim enemies of Christ. The ecclesiastical establishment found it impossible to control the knights’ dissident Christianity. Aware that they were in an unassailable position, these knights simply refused to comply with the Church’s demands. 116 “Everybody should honor [them],” wrote an early thirteenth-century cleric, “... for they defend Holy Church, and they uphold justice for us against those who would do us harm.... Our chalices would be stolen from before us at the table of God and nothing would ever stop it.... The good would never be able to endure if the wicked did not fear knights.” 117 Why should knights obey the Church? Their victories alone proved that they had a special relationship with the Lord of Hosts. 118 Indeed, one poet argued, the physical effort, skill, tenacity, and courage that warfare required made it “a much nobler work” than any other occupation and put the knight in a superior class of his own. Chivalry, claimed another knight, was “such a difficult, tough and very costly thing to learn that no coward ventures to take it on.” 119 Knights regarded fighting as an ascetic practice that was far more challenging than a monk’s fasts or vigils. A knight knew what real suffering was: every day he took up his cross and followed Jesus onto the battlefield. 120 Henry of Lancaster (1310–61), hero of the first phase of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, prayed that the wounds, pain, fatigue, and danger of the battlefield would enable him to endure for Christ “such afflictions, labors, pains, as you chose, and not merely to win a prize nor to offset my sins, but purely for love of you, as you Lord have done for love of me.” 121 For Geoffroi de Charny, fighting on the other side, the physical struggle of warfare gave his life meaning. Prowess was the highest human achievement because it required such extreme “pain, travail, fear, and sorrow.” Yet it also brought “great joy.”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I jumped to my feet, thrust Cyril at her, then hurried to the steps at the side of the platform and ran up them, two at a time. The chairman saw me and half-rose to block my path, but I waved him back and stepped purposefully over to the sweating, sagging Ralph.‘Oh, Nance,’ he said, as close to tears as I had ever seen him. I took his arm and gripped it tight, and held him in his place before the crowd. They had grown momentarily silent - through sheer delight, I think, at seeing me leap, so dramatically, to Ralph’s side. Now I took advantage of their hush to send my voice across their heads in a kind of roar.‘So you don’t care for mathematics?’ I cried, picking up the speech where Ralph had let it falter. ‘Perhaps it’s hard to think in millions; well, then, let us think in thousands. Let us think of three hundred thousand. What do you think I am referring to? The Lord Mayor’s salary?’ There were titters at that: there had been a bit of a scandal, a couple of years before, about the Lord Mayor’s wages. Now I gratefully singled out the titterers and addressed myself to them. ‘No missis,’ I said, ‘I’m not talking of pounds, nor even of shillings. I am talking of persons. I am talking of the amount of men, women, and children who are living in the workhouses of London - of London! the richest city, in the richest country, in the richest empire, in all the world! - at this very moment, as I speak now ...’I went on like this; and the titters grew less. I spoke of all the paupers in the nation; and of all the people who would die in Bethnal Green, that year, in a workhouse bed. ‘Shall it be you that dies in the poorhouse, sir?’ I cried — I found myself adding a few little rhetorical flourishes to the speech, as I went along. ‘Shall it be you, miss? Or your old mother? Or this little boy?’ The little boy began to cry.Then: ‘How old are we likely to be, when we die?’ I asked. I turned to Ralph - he was gazing at me in undisguised wonder - and called, loudly enough for the crowd to hear, ‘What is the average age of death, Mr Banner, amongst the men and women of Bethnal Green?’He stared at me dumbfounded for a second, then, when I pinched the flesh of his arm, sang out: ‘Twenty-nine!’