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 Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  The appeal worked. Although Evelyn died a few days later, the ward nurses told us that, swayed by Sal’s words, she had had a tearful reconciliation with her daughter. I was very proud of Sal. It was our group’s first triumph! Two more patients joined, and after several months Paula and I were persuaded that we had learned enough to begin working with larger numbers of patients. Now she began to recruit in earnest. Her contacts with the American Cancer Society soon generated a number of referrals. After we had interviewed and accepted seven new patients, all with breast cancer, we officially opened our group for business. At our first full-sized group meeting Paula surprised me when she began the session by reading aloud an old Hasidic tale: A rabbi had a conversation with the Lord about Heaven and Hell. “I will show you Hell,” said the Lord and led the rabbi into a room containing a large round table. The people sitting around the table were famished and desperate. In the middle of the table was an enormous pot of stew which smelled so delicious that the rabbi’s mouth watered. Each person around the table held a spoon with a very long handle. Although the long spoons just reached the pot, their handles were longer than would-be diners’ arms: thus, unable to bring food to their lips, no one could eat. The rabbi saw that their suffering was terrible indeed. “Now I will show you Heaven,” said the Lord, and they went into another room, exactly the same as the first. There was the same large round table, the same pot of stew. The people, as before, were equipped with the same long-handled spoons—but here everyone was well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The rabbi could not understand. “It is simple, but it requires a certain skill,” said the Lord. “In this room, you see, they have learned to feed each other.” Although Paula’s independent decision to start the session by reading the parable threw me off balance, I let it pass. That’s her way, I thought, knowing that we had not yet worked out our roles and our collaboration in the group. Besides, her judgment was impeccable—it remains to this day the most inspired beginning of a group I have ever witnessed. What to name the group? Paula suggested the “Bridge Group.” Why? Two reasons. First, the group created a bridge from one cancer patient to another. Second, it was a group where we put our cards on the table. Hence, the Bridge Group. A typical Paula touch.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  For Renee, pregnancy ushered in a self-acceptance she had never felt. “Pregnancy was a healing experience for me. I was sexually abused as a child, and had always loathed any signs of womanliness in my body. I’d been at war with my thighs for twenty-five years. I was hospitalized for an eating disorder the year before I got pregnant. In fact, I was so skinny I didn’t even think I could get pregnant. I hadn’t had a regular period in years. But the minute I saw that plus sign in the EPT everything changed. It was the first time in my life that food became decontaminated. I relished watching my body grow ripe. For once in my life my breasts were naturally round and I was so proud. Most of my friends complained of the discomfort and weight gain. But for me, I felt like it was finally OK to look like a woman. I gave birth naturally; it was powerful. I was amazed by what my body could do and what it could endure. I was capable of so much more than I thought. Ever since, when I make love, I pursue that intensity.” For Julie, a mother of three, motherhood has brought a positive new identity. “In my early twenties I dressed like a boy: big sweaters, jeans, size-nine Keds. It was a total denial of femininity and a feminist distrust of its motives. I mistook appreciation for objectification, and didn’t trust that a man might be interested in me beyond my availability as a sexual object. These days the pants are stylish, tight, and fun; the blouses show cleavage. Finally, I’m the kind of woman my Italian father would recognize, and who would make my mother blush—greedy, sexy, entitled. Why? I feel safe now. I have no one’s eye to catch. I’m already caught, thoroughly enmeshed in the needs and desires of others (four males as it turns out). And I am finding freedom in this place, where there is no power game. I don’t have to respond to anyone I haven’t already chosen. As a mother I’m not afraid to be sexual, sensual, to assert my desire.” When Daddy Sings the Baby Blues For every man like Warren, who feels sexually abandoned when his wife becomes a mother, there is a man like Leo, whose libido makes a break for it on the way home from the delivery room. Dwindling desire in mothers is, in some ways, old news. We might not like it, but we can at least make sense of it. But what are we to make of the father who can no longer eroticize the mother of his children? This story, though just as common, is admitted far less frequently.

• From Story of O (1954)

  Ten days before the end of July, Sir Stephen drove O back to Paris. The irons attached to the left lobe of her belly’s cleft, proclaiming in bold letters that she was Sir Stephen’s personal property, came about a third of the way down her thigh and, at every step, swung back and forth between her legs like the clapper of a bell, the inscribed disk being heavier and longer than the ring to which it was attached. The marks made by the branding iron, about three inches in height and half that in width, had been burned into the flesh as though by a gouging tool, and were almost half an inch deep: the lightest stroke of the finger revealed them. From these irons and these marks, O derived a feeling of inordinate pride. Had Jacqueline been there, instead of trying to conceal from her the fact that she bore them, as she had tried to hide the traces of the welts raised by the riding crop which Sir Stephen had wielded during those last days before her departure, she would have gone running in search of Jacqueline, to show them to her. But Jacqueline was not due back for another week. René wasn’t there. During that week, O, at Sir Stephen’s behest, had several summer dresses made, and a number of evening gowns of a very light material. He allowed her only two models, but let her order variations on both: one with a zipper all the way down the front (O already had several like it), the other a full skirt, easy to lift, always with a corselet above, which came up to below the breasts and was worn with a high-necked bolero. All one had to do was remove the bolero and the shoulders and breasts were bare, or simply to open it if one desired to see the breasts. Bathing suits, of course, were out of the question; the nether irons would hang below the suit. Sir Stephen had told her that this summer she would have to swim naked whenever she went swimming. Beach slacks were also out. However, Anne-Marie, who was responsible for the two basic models of dresses, knowing where Sir Stephen’s preference lay in using O, had proposed a type of slacks which would be supported in front by the blouse and, on both sides, have long zippers, thus allowing the back flap to be lowered without taking off the slacks. But Sir Stephen refused. It was true that he used O, when he did not have recourse to her mouth, almost invariably as he would have a boy. But O had had ample opportunity to notice that when she was near him, even when he did not particularly desire her, he loved to take hold of her womb, mechanically as it were, take hold of and tug at her fleece with his hand, to pry her open and burrow at length within. The pleasure O derived from holding Jacqueline in much the same way, moist and burning between her locked fingers, was ample evidence and a guarantee of Sir Stephen’s pleasure. She understood why he did not want any extraneous obstacles set in the path of that pleasure.

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

  “Yo, Chuckles.” He held up his hands. They were bleeding. “Don’t hit trees, Jack. Okay?” I said I wouldn’t. “Don’t hit trees.” I WAS LYING on my back with Huff kneeling on me, slapping my cheeks. He said, “Speak to me, dicklick,” and I said, “Hi, Huff.” Everybody laughed. Huff’s pompadour had come unstuck and was hanging in long strands over his face. I smiled and said, “Hi, Huff.” I WAS WALKING along a branch. I was way out on it, over the far lip of the gully where the cement bank began. They were all looking up at me and yelling. They were fools, my balance was perfect. I bounced on the branch and flapped my arms. Then I put my hands in my pockets and strolled out along the branch until it broke. I didn’t feel myself land, but I heard the wind leave me in a rush. I was rolling sideways down the hillside with my hands still in my pockets, rolling around and around like a log, faster and faster, picking up speed on the steep cement. The cement ended in a drop where the earth below had washed away. I flew off the edge and went spinning through the air and landed hard and rolled downhill through the ferns, bouncing over rocks and deadfall, the ferns rustling around me, and then I hit something hard and stopped cold. I was on my back. I could not move, I could not breathe. I was too empty to take the first breath, and my body would not respond to the bulletins I sent. Blackness came up from the bottom of my eyes. I was drowning, and then I drowned. WHEN I OPENED my eyes I was still on my back. I heard voices calling my name but I did not answer. I lay amidst a profusion of ferns, their fronds glittering with raindrops. The fronds made a lattice above me. The voices came closer and still I did not answer. I was happy where I was. There was movement in the bushes all

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

  When my mother joined the rifle club she recruited several other wives, and more couples signed up as time went on. It had been a loose society of beery guys who liked to plink at cans, but that changed. Some of the new members were serious shooters, and after the club got smeared by a couple of other clubs the old members either got serious themselves or dropped out. My mother did well at matches. She loved to win. Winning made her jaunty and bright. Her shooting jacket was covered with badges and ribbons, but Dwight’s jacket had none, because he always lost. He claimed that the Remington target rifle he’d bought was imperfectly balanced. He bought another, and when that also proved defective he bought a third. He continued to lose, but it wasn’t from lack of trying. He spent two or three nights a week practicing at the club, and used the long hallway in our house as a dry-firing range. He fixed a target to the door at one end and sighted down at it from the other, arms twined through the straps, cheek mashed to the stock. Breathe in, breathe out, squeeze off. Breathe in, breathe out, squeeze off. When I came in from my paper route I often found myself looking down the barrel of Dwight’s latest piece, which he, in outrageous violation of the code governing even unloaded weapons, held on me until I moved out of the way. Dwight made Pearl and me come along when the club had matches in other towns. They always turned out the same: my mother did well and Dwight choked. He pretended not to care, but on the drive home he began to sulk. His face darkened, his lower lip protruded, his neck sank down into his shoulders. Pearl and I kept quiet in the backseat until one of us forgot and started humming, or said something. Then Dwight snarled so viciously that my mother felt obliged to put in a soothing word. He turned on her and said that as far as he knew he was still the father of this so-called family, or did she have another candidate? “Dwight. . .” she said. “Dwight,” he mimicked, not sounding at all like her. Then, until we reached Marblemount, he railed at her for refusing to

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

  us both. After that, whenever we felt particularly close we turned on each other. Arthur was an easy target. His voice cracked. He bathed twice a day but always gave off an ammoniac hormonal smell, the smell of growth and anxiety. He played no sports and was still a Second Class Scout, a truly pitiful rank for someone his age. As long as I didn’t call him a sissy I could cut him to pieces. I was a sitting duck myself, and Arthur had a map of my nerves. With feline insouciance he could produce a word that would knock me breathless and send me stumbling blind from the house. Sometimes he set Pepper on me. Pepper would yap at my heels all the way down the street while Arthur stood at his door and urged him on, knowing that I liked the little mutt too much to defend myself. We had these blowups often. We’d stay clear of each other for a few days, then Arthur would call up and invite me over as if nothing had happened, and I would go. THE GATHERING OF the Tribes was held in a high school just outside Seattle. My event was the swimming meet. I carried an overnight bag with my swimming trunks and towel, and a change of clothes for Arthur and me so our uniforms wouldn’t give us away when we left: Glenvale later that day and began hitching our way north. During the Gathering I kept my distance from Arthur. I didn’t want to be associated with him, and not only because of what we were planning. His uniform was baggy and unadorned, his manner supercilious. He stood at the edges of the events and made sarcastic remarks. He didn’t look like a serious Scout. I did. I held Star rank. I had a new uniform and plenty of things to wear on it. Patrol leader’s insignia. The Order of the Arrow. A sash with several merit badges. To look at my merit badges you would have thought I could be dropped anywhere, in any season, just as I was, and in no time improvise a shelter and kindle a fire and snare an animal for dinner. You would have thought I could navigate by the stars. Name trees. Find, in any terrain, exactly those plants that would nourish me and toss them up in a mouthwatering salad. And I actually could have done some of those things. The details began to fade as soon as I got the badges, but I had learned a rough kind of competence and ease in the woods. It was a gift of priceless worth. But I did not guess its value then. Then I was mainly interested in covering myself with enough insignia to look sharp, which, to my way of thinking, I did.

• From Story of O (1954)

  IV The OwlWhat O failed completely to understand now was why she had ever been hesitant to speak to Jacqueline about what René rightly called her true condition. Anne-Marie had warned her that she would be changed when she left Samois, but O had never imagined the change would be so great. With Jacqueline back, more lovely and radiant than ever, it seemed natural to her to be no more reticent about revealing herself when she bathed or dressed than she was when she was alone. And yet Jacqueline was so disinterested in others, in anything that did not pertain directly to herself, that it was not until the second day after Jacqueline arrived back and by chance came into the bathroom just as O was stepping out of the tub, that O jingled her irons against the porcelain to draw her attention to the odd noise. Jacqueline turned her head, and saw both the disk hanging between her legs and the black stripes crisscrossing her thighs and breasts. “What in the world’s the matter?” she said. “It’s Sir Stephen,” O replied. And she added, as though it were something to be taken completely for granted: “René gave me to him, and he’s had me pierced with his rings. Look.” And as she dried herself with the bath towel she came over to Jacqueline, who was so staggered she had slumped onto the lacquered bathroom stool, close enough so that Jacqueline could take the disk in her hand and read the inscription; then, slipping down her bathrobe she turned around and pointed to the initials S and H engraved in her buttocks and said: “He also had me branded with his monogram. As for the rest, that’s where I was flogged with a riding crop. He generally whips me himself, but he also has a Negro maid whip me.” Dumbfounded, Jacqueline gazed at O. O burst out laughing and made as though to kiss her. Terror-stricken, Jacqueline pushed her away and fled into her own room. O leisurely finished drying herself, put on her perfume, and combed her hair. She put on her corset, her stockings, her mules, and when she opened the bathroom door she encountered Jacqueline’s gaze in the mirror, before which she was combing her hair, without having the vaguest notion what she was doing. “Lace up my corset, will you?” she said. “You really do look astonished. René’s in love with you, didn’t he say anything to you about it?” “I don’t understand,” Jacqueline said. And she lost no time revealing what surprised her the most. “You look as though you were proud of it, I don’t understand.” “You will, after René takes you to Roissy. By the way, have you already slept with him?” Jacqueline’s face turned a bright crimson, and she was shaking her head in denial with such little conviction that once again O burst out laughing.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I could say nothing to please the officials, and had certainly one or two hard things to say. I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: ‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.’ The Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could. Here is the letter to the Viceroy referred to above: ‘As you are aware, after careful consideration, I felt constrained to convey to Your Excellency that I could not attend the Conference for reasons stated in the letter of the 26th instant (April), but after the interview you were good enough to grant me, I persuaded myself to join it, if for no other cause, then certainly out of my great regard for yourself. One of my reasons for abstention and perhaps the strongest was that Lokamanya Tilak, Mrs. Besant and the Ali Brothers, whom I regard as among the most powerful leaders or public opinion, were not invited to the Conference. I still feel that it was a grave blunder not to have asked them, and I respectfully suggest that blunder might be possibly repaired if these leaders were invited to assist the Government by giving it the benefit of their advice at the Provincial Conferences, which I understand are to follow. I venture to submit that no Government can afford to disregard the leaders, who represent the large masses of the people as these do, even though they may hold views fundamentally different. At the same time it gives me pleasure to be able to say that the views of all parties were permitted to be freely expressed at the Committees of the Conference. For my part, I purposely refrained from stating my views at the Committee at which I had the honour of serving, or at the Conference itself. I felt that I could best serve the objects of the Conference by simply tendering my support to the resolutions submitted to it, and this I have done without any reservation. I hope to translate the spoken word into action as early as the Government can see its way to accept my offer, which I am submitting simultaneously herewith in a separate letter.

• From Story of O (1954)

  At the same time, by a feeling diametrically opposed to the terror she inspired in her—a contradiction O was unable to explain—O experienced a kind of pride that this servant of Sir Stephen (and just what was her relation to Sir Stephen, and why had he entrusted her with this task as costume and make-up assistant for which she seemed so poorly suited?) was a witness to the fact that she too—like so many others, perhaps, whom she had guided in the same way, and why should she think otherwise?—was worthy of being used by Sir Stephen. For perhaps Sir Stephen did love her, without a doubt he did, and O sensed that the time was not far off when he would no longer be content to let her suspect it but would declare it to her—but to the very degree that his love and desire for her were increasing, he was becoming more completely, more minutely, and more deliberately exacting with her. Thus retained by his side for whole mornings, during which he sometimes scarcely touched her, waiting only to be caressed by her, she did whatever he wanted of her with a sentiment that must be qualified as gratitude, which was all the greater whenever his request took the form of a command. Each surrender was for her the pledge that another surrender would be demanded of her, and she acquitted herself of each as though of a duty performed; it was odd that she should have been completely satisfied by it, and yet she was. Sir Stephen’s office, situated directly above the yellow and gray drawing room where he held sway in the evening, was smaller and had a lower ceiling. It contained neither settee nor sofa, only two Regency armchairs upholstered in a tapestry with a floral pattern. O sat in one occasionally, but Sir Stephen generally preferred to keep her near at hand, at arm’s length, and while he was busy with other things, to none the less have her seated on his desk, to his left. The desk was set at right angles to the wall, which allowed O to lean back against the shelves which contained some dictionaries and leather-bound phone books. The telephone was snug against her left thigh, and every time the phone rang she jumped. It was she who picked up the receiver and answered, saying: “May I ask who’s calling?” then either repeating the name out loud and passing the receiver to Sir Stephen, or, if he signaled to her, making some excuse for him. Whenever he had a visitor, old Norah would announce him, Sir Stephen would have him wait long enough for Norah to conduct O back to the room where she had undressed and where, after Sir Stephen’s visitor had left, she would come to fetch her again when Sir Stephen rang for her.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Your wife knows you love her. What she wants is to feel desired by you. She wants to know your hunger, to taste the delicate flavors of your craving, and to see it as a match for her own. Your inability to let go, to surrender to your own hedonistic designs, is infuriating to her. Your passivity is irritating, and your considerateness is the opposite of her fantasy of unrestrained rapture. Your lustiness would be an open endorsement for her own ardor. It’s hard to let go with someone who doesn’t.” The masturbation experiment was only a partial success—it went so-so, as these things sometimes do, but there was no dramatic transformation. James’s self-consciousness got the better of him. He had always marshaled masturbation as a private pleasure, and he had no desire to share it. But what happened a few days later was a real turning point. James and Stella had a row. She was upset, convinced that things would never change. His first impulse was to hold her, but he was afraid it wasn’t what she wanted. She seemed so angry with him. But he pushed through his awkwardness and held her anyway. Though she wasn’t responsive at first, he maintained his embrace. In the past, James had always retreated, focusing solely on her cues for readiness. He was organized by her. This time, he made his own choice, laid claim to his own feelings, and was surprisingly aroused. He rubbed her back, and she began to calm down. She knew he was there, and that he could contain her. He could withstand her intensity. One intensity dominoed another, and this led to what they both recounted separately as “wonderful lovemaking.” Theirs wasn’t an ecstatic fulfillment; rather, they reveled in a quiet passion, the simple understanding of two bodies reunited after a long absence. It takes two people to create a pattern, but only one to change it. James gleefully described himself in a later session as “bold and persistent,” and was amazed by how the feeling of being in charge literally charged him up. By taking control he was finally able to lose control. The sexual prison he and Stella had carefully constructed had begun to unlock. Freeing himself from his chronic reactive stance, even momentarily, filled him with hope and gave him a glimpse into the erotic possibilities that lay ahead. For the first time in years he found himself fantasizing about his wife—what they might do together, where they might do it. He reclaimed a part of himself that had been completely lost in anxiety.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  When God raised Jesus from the dead, he not only declared that Jesus really was his “son” (1:3–4), the one he had “sent” into the world to undertake his purpose (8:3–4); he also vindicated him against the charges of being a false Messiah, declaring him to be in the right. This could then be seen as a legal verdict, with the same two meanings (covenantal and forensic) as before: Jesus really was Israel’s representative, the Messiah, fulfilling God’s covenant purposes; and Jesus was “in the right,” despite the verdict of the court that had sent him to his death. And with that verdict, announced in Jesus’s resurrection, God also declared the same verdict over those who would be “in the Messiah”: “They are freely declared to be in the right, to be members of the covenant, through the redemption which is found in the Messiah, Jesus” (3:24). Justification takes place “in the Messiah.” What God said of Jesus in his resurrection God says of all who are “in him.” People sometimes play the language of “justification” off against the language of “incorporation,” but this is clearly a mistake. We see the same point (being justified in the Messiah) in Galatians 2:17, or for that matter Philippians 3:9. This is why, summing up the argument in 4:24–25, he says that Jesus was “handed over because of our trespasses and raised because of our justification.” It isn’t that the resurrection of Jesus causes that “justification.” Rather, it is the sign that this justification has in principle taken place on the cross. As Paul says in Romans 5:9, we are justified “by his blood”; and, as he declares in 1 Corinthians 15:17, “If the Messiah wasn’t raised, . . . you are still in your sins”—a throwaway remark, and all the more important because of it. Here we are near the heart of Paul’s theology, and indeed of this present book: on the cross the real revolution took place, and the resurrection is the first sign that it has happened. Among many results of this revolution, justification takes its vital place, partly because of the assurance of sins forgiven, but also because of the assurance of membership in Abraham’s family (again, as in Gal. 3). Behind both of these, there is for Paul the sense that with the victory of the cross the powers that have ruled the world, the idols that have kept the human race in their grip, have been overthrown. As in John 12:30–32, this is the necessary step before the peoples of the world can be set free from their present “rulers” and drawn to Israel’s Messiah.

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

  generally of a military character; dreamed them so elaborately that I knew the histories of my comrades, saw their faces, heard their voices, felt grief when my heroism was insufficient to save them. As the dusk turned to night Dwight would send Pearl out with messages for me: Dad says you better get a move on, or else. Dad says hustle your buns, or else. ONE NIGHT A week I went to Boy Scout meetings. To make sure that I wouldn’t just play grab-ass at the meetings but really do some serious scouting, as he had done when he was my age, Dwight signed up as Assistant Scoutmaster. He gave me an outsize uniform that Skipper had once worn. For himself he bought a new uniform and all the accoutrements. Unlike the Scoutmaster, who wore jeans and sneakers with his regulation shirt, Dwight came to every meeting in the full plumage of insignia and braid and scarves, wearing shoes that I had spit-shined as he looked on to point out spots I’d missed or brought to an imperfect luster. While the Scoutmaster ran the meetings Dwight stood against the wall or chatted with the older boys, smoking and laughing at their jokes. We always left the meetings together, like father and son, smiling and waving good-bye, then walked home in silence. As soon as we got home, Dwight sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of Old Crow and reviewed my performance. I hadn’t paid attention during the announcements. I’d spent too much time goofing off with the wrong boys. I’d forgotten to check for the tongue during artificial respiration. Why couldn’t I remember that? Check for the goddam tongue! I could work on some poor drowned sonofabitch till the cows came home but it wasn’t going to do squat for him if he’d swallowed his tongue. Was that so hard to remember? And I would say No, next time I’d remember, but the truth was I hadn’t forgotten at all, I just didn’t want to put my fingers in some kid’s mouth after he’d been eating peanut butter and crackers. If I ever came across an actual drowned person I would do everything I was supposed to do, even the business with the tongue; I just couldn’t perform solemn and efficient resuscitation upon the body of a boy who was whispering that his pud was waterlogged and in need of a big squeeze. But I liked being a Scout. I was stirred by the elevated diction in which we swore our fealty to the chaste chivalric fantasies of Lord Baden-Powell. My uniform, baggy and barren though it was, made me feel like a soldier. I became a

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  The reworking or renegotiation of a traumatic experience, as we saw with Sammy, represents a process that is fundamentally different from traumatic play or reenactment. Left to their own devices, most children, not unlike Lauren in the above example, will attempt to avoid the traumatic feelings that their play evokes. But with guided play, Sammy was able to “live his feelings through” by gradually and sequentially mastering his fear . Using this stepwise renegotiation of the traumatic event and Pooh Bear’s companionship, Sammy was able to emerge as the victor and hero. A sense of triumph and heroism almost always signals the successful conclusion of a renegotiated traumatic event. By following Sammy’s lead after setting up a potentially activating scene, joining in his play and making the game up as we went along, Sammy got to let go of his fear. It took minimal direction (30–45 minutes) and support to achieve the unspoken goal of aiding him to experience a corrective outcome. * Recall the discussion in Chapter 4 of Beatrice Gelder’s work demonstrating how attuned we humans are to the survival-based postures of others. These findings also relate to research on mirror neurons. A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when it observes the same action performed by another animal. Thus, the neuron mirrors the behavior of the other, as though the observer herself were performing the very same act. Such neurons have been directly observed in primates and are found in the premotor cortex and in the insula and cingulate, suggesting their importance in communicating internal bodily states and emotions. The neuroscientist Stephanie Preston, the Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal and other neuroscientists have independently posited that the mirror neuron system is centrally involved in empathy and that since it is the body that is being mirrored, intimate moments are nonverbal in nature. In humans, brain activity consistent with that of mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. See Chapter 4 for specific references to this research. † I do this to help her keep connected with me as she goes inside, as well as to feel more grounded. ‡ This is an important difference between “talk therapy” and body-oriented therapy. Rather than trying to help patients make new meanings or understand their problems, body therapy creates a space for the “body story” to unfold and complete. When this occurs, new meanings and insights emerge spontaneously, generated by the patients themselves, as an integral part of this process. § The sense of a foreshortened life, of wordless despair, is a central characteristic of severe trauma.

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

  by the people of other nations. From a set of pre-World War I English encyclopedias he had bought at a yard sale, Dwight read me long passages on French history (tumultuous, despotic, distinguished by the Gallic taste for conspiracy and betrayal), French culture (full of Gallic wit and high spirits, but generally derivative, superficial, arid, and atheistic), and the French national character (endowed with a certain Gallic warmth and charm, but excitable, sensual, and, on the whole, unreliable). Pearl burned. She could not accept that I was going to live in Paris. I added to her unhappiness by treating her with condescension. I also condescended to Arthur and my other friends, as if they had served their purpose and were already dematerializing into quaint, vaporous memories. At school I asked for and received permission to take time off from my regular studies to complete a series of “special projects” on the history, culture, and national character of France. All my impressions of Paris came from American movies, in which everyone wore berets and striped jerseys and sat around smoking cigarettes while accordian music played in the background. It was the same instrument I heard in the background of my mother’s Piaf records. But I didn’t know that it was an accordian. I thought it was a harmonica, and that everyone in Paris knew how to play one. So I bought a harmonica, a Hohner Marine Band, and wandered around Chinook blowing on it, honking out moony approximations of “La Vie en Rose” and the theme from Moulin Rouge to prepare myself for my new life in Paris, France. I WAS SUPPOSED to leave as soon as I finished seventh grade so I’d have the summer to study French and learn my way around before starting school in the fall. My mother had made reservations for me on planes from Seattle to New York, and New York to Paris. She was about to drive me down to Mount Vernon to apply for a passport when my uncle changed the plan. He wrote that he and his wife had had second thoughts about the original idea. It simply didn’t make sense for us to go to the immense trouble and cost of uprooting me from my family, my community, and my school, not to mention my language, only to do it all over again a year later. It took more than a year to get to know a country as complex as France. And there was also the question of authority. They gathered that I had a history of discipline problems. How could

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Without his having to ask them overtly, the children started quitting school, one after the other, very early. Worn away by my father’s daily reminders of their expense, frightened by his asthma attacks, they felt guilty and spontaneously began to want to find a job. When I managed insidiously to persuade them to stay till the sixth year, all they gained thereby was a final examination at the end of the year. Convinced of their failure in spite of the heavy sacrifices already made, they were sure that the struggle was futile, and didn’t even dare turn up for the test. But I myself had now gone too far and was too conscious of my own ambition to turn back. On the contrary, the constant aggression, the mournful speeches which ceaselessly strengthened my feelings of guilt, all this gave a considerable importance to my studies. I brought to them a kind of passion, an avidity that my schoolmates could not understand, pleasant amateurs that they were. Like Loriot’s chocolates, so expensive for me, I swallowed as much of it all as I could. For whole years, I raced against time, making each day, each hour of my life count and conform literally to a strict schedule. I wanted to come up in the world, to succeed, but succeed at what? I wasn’t sure, but still had to keep going. I set myself provisional goals, stations on the long road I traveled: to win this prize and get ahead of that student. Since, at that age, knowledge and experience are so easily confused, my teachers believed me very mature and told me so. My major teacher in the third year noted “an energetic intellect” on my report card at the end of the year. I had the highest average in the second year and was probably Marrou’s best student in the first. The kids at school told me, and they would certainly not have made it up to please me, that Poinsot, our philosophy teacher, had said: “He’s the most intelligent student I’ve ever had, and I’ve been teaching for sixteen years.” One day I read that intellectual and sexual precociousness went together, and that many famous men had also been sexually very gifted. After questioning my friends, I came to believe that I was clearly ahead of them there too. I no longer doubted my genius and my pride was thereby increased. The appreciations expressed by my teachers filled my heart with happiness and made me laugh when I was alone. Sometimes, when I thought of these compliments as I walked along the street, I had to clench my teeth until they hurt in order not to smile like an idiot.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  But before that climactic moment, what else do we know about Paul’s biographical identity? BETWEEN TARSUS AND DAMASCUS First, with regard to religious and educational status, Paul and Luke agree that Paul was a fervent Pharisaic Jew. That may seem obvious, but some of his fellow Jews and fellow Christians—then and now—judged Paul an apostate from both Judaism and Christianity. But in his own mind, heart, and conscience, he lived and died as a Jew—a Messianic or Christian Jew, to be sure—but with both adjective and noun inextricably interlinked. Listen to his own words: I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. (Rom. 11:1) Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. (2 Cor. 11:22) I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. (Gal. 1:14) Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;…as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Phil. 3:5–6) Also, in 2 Corinthians 11:26 Paul lists the dangers he has faced, one of which is “danger from my own people (genous ).” Notice that the danger is not from “Jews,” but from “my own people.” Luke’s Acts has similar information, but it is given there as autobiographical information on Paul’s own lips: I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city. (21:39) I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city [Jerusalem] at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today. (22:3) I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. (23:6) I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee. (26:5) To understand the term “Pharisees” you must ignore the bitter polemical (because closely intrafamilial?) attacks against them in the gospels. Think, instead, of their purity laws as the visible and sacramental signs of invisible and spiritual sanctity, of being, as the Lukan Paul says, “zealous for God.” We also think that Luke is probably upgrading rather than just describing Paul’s religio-educational status by naming him not only “a Pharisee,” but a “son of Pharisees,” and having him “brought up in this city [Jerusalem] at the feet of Gamaliel.” It seems much more likely that Paul received his higher religious education at Damascus rather than Jerusalem. But in any case, if Gamaliel were his teacher at Jerusalem, Paul did not follow his master’s advice on how to handle dissident Christian Jews. Gamaliel proposed to “keep away from these men and let them alone” (Acts 5:38), but Paul, as we see below, persecuted them.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But now let us leave this and look somewhat to the first principles of things, whereby thou wilt see that we all get our flesh from one same stock and that all souls were by one same Creator created with equal faculties, equal powers and equal virtues. Worth it was that first distinguished between us, who were all and still are born equal; wherefore those who had and used the greatest sum thereof were called noble and the rest abode not noble. And albeit contrary usance hath since obscured this primary law, yet is it nowise done away nor blotted out from nature and good manners; wherefore he who doth worthily manifestly showeth himself a gentleman, and if any call him otherwise, not he who is called, but he who calleth committeth default. Look among all thy gentlemen and examine into their worth, their usances and their manners, and on the other hand consider those of Guiscardo; if thou wilt consent to judge without animosity, thou wilt say that he is most noble and that these thy nobles are all churls. With regard to his worth and virtue, I trusted not to the judgment of any other, but to that of thy words and of mine own eyes. Who ever so commended him as thou didst in all those praiseworthy things wherefor a man of worth should be commended? And certes not without reason; for, if mine eyes deceived me not, there was no praise given him of thee which I saw him not justify by deeds, and that more admirably than thy words availed to express; and even had I suffered any deceit in this, it is by thyself I should have been deceived. An, then, thou say that I have committed myself with a man of mean condition, thou sayst not sooth; but shouldst thou say with a poor man, it might peradventure be conceded thee, to thy shame who hast so ill known to put a servant of thine and a man of worth in good case; yet poverty bereaveth not any of gentilesse; nay, rather, wealth it is that doth this. Many kings, many great princes were once poor and many who delve and tend sheep were once very rich. The last doubt that thou broachest, to wit, what thou shouldst do with me, drive it away altogether; an thou in thine extreme old age be disposed to do that which thou usedst not, being young, namely, to deal cruelly, wreak thy cruelty upon me, who am minded to proffer no prayer unto thee, as being the prime cause of this sin, if sin it be; for of this I certify thee, that whatsoever thou hast done or shalt do with Guiscardo, an thou do not the like with me, mine own hands shall do it. Now begone; go shed tears with women and waxing cruel, slay him and me with one same blow, an it seem to thee we have deserved it.'

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  The way the book of 2 Maccabees is constructed suggests that this was what the writer intended to say. Right after this horrible scene of torture and death, Judas Maccabeus and his followers begin their surprisingly successful revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes. This leads to the establishment of the Maccabean (or “Hasmonean”) family as rulers of the independent kingdom of Judaea for the next century and more. This was the more remarkable in that, though they were a priestly family (1 Macc. 2:1), there is little evidence that they were Zadokites, that is, from the high-priestly family itself; and, naturally, if as priests they were descended from Aaron, they could not claim to be descendants of David. They nevertheless functioned as priest-kings, in fact, as a “royal priesthood.” Our earlier discussion of the renewed human vocation, as in Revelation 1, 5, and 20 and other parts of the New Testament, comes suddenly into new focus as a matter of history, not simply of literary imagination: here, through the suffering of the martyrs, the defeat of the pagans, and the cleansing the Temple is a kingdom of priests! The claim of the seventh brother in 2 Maccabees 7 emphasizes the first point. The victory and the cleansing came because the suffering of the martyrs somehow brought to an end the sufferings of the people as a whole, which had been caused by their sins. Now the victory over the pagans could begin. I do not suppose that the author of Revelation was consciously alluding to the Hasmonean priest-kings. Nor do I imagine that 1 Peter 2:9, which also invokes Exodus 19:6, had in mind the claims of that dynasty, which by the middle of the first century AD had passed into ignominious history, having failed to prevent the Roman invasion, the rise of Herod, and many other ills. But the parallel does indicate the ways in which the larger implicit story of Israel, anchored in the ancient scriptures, could be brought back to life not just in theory but also in concrete practice. The hundred-year reign of the Maccabean priest-kings may be seen as a distant cousin of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah’s people, the “reigning priesthood,” in Revelation 20:6. The theoretical basis for the claims made by 2 Maccabees about the effect of the martyrs’ sufferings is explained in a revealing passage that has some additional similarities to early Christian reflection. The terrible sufferings that the Jews endured during the period of Syrian domination, says the writer, had a particular purpose.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I pretended, however, to reject too pure, too refined a language, one that follows rules that are too strict. It was the meaning that mattered and must by itself dictate the words that would describe this meaning. I would use slang or invent my own words, or put down blatantly incorrect ones if the proper ones seemed ineffective. I no longer know whether I was really sincere. Perhaps I felt that, despite all my efforts, I would never be as adept at the language as my companions whom birth had endowed with an almost perfect linguistic equipment. The monthly report for Monsieur Bismuth reminded me that my efforts were not entirely for myself. The envious respect of the other students was a source of pleasure for me, and the compliments of my teacher for all my work were a compensation. I saw how the others looked around when I volunteered to recite in class, and how the teacher smiled. In these looks and smiles I could see myself victorious, like a young god. True, I worked like a brute; it was largely for this taste of revenge that I struggled so relentlessly for prizes and honors. But none of the other boys ever suspected what these things meant to me. What I wanted was more than their processed schoolbook learning. I began to discover the world of books and to catalogue it; I read tons of printed paper, at meals, in the street until the school bell rang, in bed until one in the morning. Sometimes, in my assignments, I would quote an author who was not in our required readings and, in fact, well beyond the normal range of an adolescent. My surprised teachers would then ask me to see them after class; after paying me an initial compliment, they generally tried to discourage me from such precocious readings. Of these meetings, I retained nothing but the attention that had been paid to me and the pleasure given my gratified pride; and I continued to read. In this manner I changed very quickly and began to regain my self-confidence, but remained all the more easily offended and hurt, and all the more resentful.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Would I have dared to tell you about all this foolishness if I had not ultimately realized that intelligence and work cannot themselves guarantee the happiness or the value of a man? At that time, however, I believed firmly that they could; I had to believe it. For it was only through my struggles in school that I could triumph, assert myself, and vindicate myself. The quarterly report cards were my bulletins of victory. The pleasure and pride I took in them gave me the greatest satisfactions of my adolescence. They made my family’s sighs and my father’s asthma attacks bearable to me. My homework was done in a room where six children played, shrieked, and argued; sometimes they were joined by little friends and cousins, and by the shrieking, vulgar, and piercing voices of my aunts. I scarcely dared to silence them because they always suspected me of impertinence. Occasionally, I was so exasperated by a difficult assignment in Latin or mathematics that I jumped from my chair and shouted at the children. The hypocritical women then scolded the children gently and pretended to sympathize with me, but calmly went on with the shindy on their own account. The children would remain quiet for a while, but, soon carried away by their games, became as noisy as before; and the noise would go on. Finally, I reached the point where I could read a difficult book on a seat in the street in the midst of clanging streetcars or traffic or the screaming Mediterranean crowds, surely the noisiest in the world. Could I have continued without my fierce will and my ability to ignore my surroundings? Yet, at what nervous cost did I achieve it! With these same efforts, the same passion, I might have become a successful man. You can, of course, succeed in spite of all difficulties, but you must relinquish a piece of fur or of flesh at each contest and, more often than not, you die somewhere along the road. Sometimes you end up elsewhere; then you realize that the goal you had set yourself wasn’t really so worthwhile after all.