Relief

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 The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  This is a favourite New Testament idea. No doubt it goes back to the picture of Jesus as the light of the world, the light that enlightens everyone (John 1:9, 9:5). As Thomas Bilney, the sixteenth-century Protestant martyr, said: ‘When I heard the words, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” it was as if day suddenly broke in the midst of a dark night.’ The light of knowledge and joy and guidance breaks in upon men and women with Christ. So entwined with this idea did Christianity become that enlightenment (phōtismos) became a synonym for baptism, and to be enlightened (phōtizesthai) became a synonym for to be baptized. That is, in fact, the way many people have read this word here; and they have taken this passage to mean that there is no possibility of forgiveness for sins committed after baptism; and there have been times and places in the Church when baptism has been postponed to the moment of death in order to be safe. We shall discuss that idea later. Christians have tasted the free gift that comes from heaven. It is only in Christ that we can be at peace with God. Forgiveness is not something we can ever win; it is a free gift. It is only when we come to the cross that our burden is rolled away. Christians are men and women who know the immeasurable relief of experiencing the free gift of the forgiveness of God. Christians are sharers in the Holy Spirit. They have a new directive and a new power in their lives. They have discovered the presence of a power that can both tell them what to do and enable them to do it. Christians have tasted the fair word of God. That is another way of saying that they have discovered the truth. It is a human characteristic instinctively to follow truth as the blind long for light; it is part of the penalty and the privilege of being human that we can never rest content until we have learned the meaning of life. In God’s word, we find the truth and the meaning of life. Christians have tasted the powers of the world to come. Both Jews and Christians divided time into two ages. There was this present age (ho nun aiōn), which was wholly bad; and there was the age to come (ho mellōn aiōn), which would be wholly good. Some day, God would intervene; there would come the shattering destruction and the terrible judgment of the day of the Lord, and then this present age would end and the age to come would begin. But Christians are men and women who here and now are tasting the blessedness of the age which is God’s.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  And now my father had made them look like decadent zombies. I thought we were ruined. But my older brother came home from school that week with a photocopy of my father’s article that his teachers in both social studies and English had passed out to their classes; John was a hero to his classmates. There was an enormous response in the community: in the next few months I was snubbed by a number of men and women at the tennis club, but at the same time, people stopped my father on the street when we were walking together, and took his hand in both of theirs, as if he had done them some personal favor. Later that summer I came to know how they felt, when I read Catcher in the Rye for the first time and knew what it was like to have someone speak for me, to close a book with a sense of both triumph and relief, one lonely isolated social animal finally making contact. I started writing a lot in high school: journals, impassioned antiwar pieces, parodies of the writers I loved. And I began to notice something important. The other kids always wanted me to tell them stories of what had happened, even—or especially—when they had been there. Parties that got away from us, blowups in the classroom or on the school yard, scenes involving their parents that we had witnessed—I could make the story happen. I could make it vivid and funny, and even exaggerate some of it so that the event became almost mythical, and the people involved seemed larger, and there was a sense of larger significance, of meaning. I’m sure my father was the person on whom his friends relied to tell their stories, in school and college. I know for sure that he was later, in the town where he was raising his children. He could take major events or small episodes from daily life and shade or exaggerate things in such a way as to capture their shape and substance, capture what life felt like in the society in which he and his friends lived and worked and bred. People looked to him to put into words what was going on. I suspect that he was a child who thought differently than his peers, who may have had serious conversations with grown-ups, who as a young person, like me, accepted being alone quite a lot. I think that this sort of person often becomes either a writer or a career criminal. Throughout my childhood I believed that what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about. It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head. I read more than other kids; I luxuriated in books. Books were my refuge.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Meanwhile Duke Theseus returned to Athens with all of his company; he travelled in ceremonial state, and in festive guise, since he did not wish to dishearten the people by dwelling on the accident. It was widely reported that Arcite was not in danger of death, and that he would soon recover from his wounds. There was another reason for celebration, too, since not one of the combatants had been slain in the tournament. There were many who were badly injured, especially one whose breastbone was broken by a spear, but no one had died. Some of the knights had sweet-smelling ointment for their wounds, while others had magical charms to work on broken limbs and broken heads. Many of the fighters could be seen gulping down the fermentation of herbs, even sage, in order to heal themselves. Sage is good for convulsions. Hence the saying, ‘Why should a man die when sage grows in the garden?’ Theseus also did his best to comfort and to cheer them and, according to the laws of good hospitality, he organized a revel that would last all night. He also issued a proclamation in which he stated that no one had been defeated or disgraced. It had been a noble tournament, an affair of honour to all concerned, subject only to the whim of fate. There was no shame in being captured and dragged to the stake by twenty armed men; Palamon had not surrendered but had been manhandled by knights, yeomen and servants. Even his horse had been beaten with staves. He had no reason to be ashamed or humiliated. His bravery was clear for all to see. So Theseus calmed both sides of the dispute, and prevented any outburst of anger or resentment. In fact they embraced one another like brothers. The duke gave them gifts, their worth determined by their rank, and organized a lavish feast that lasted for three days; then he escorted the two kings, Emetreus and Lycurgus, royally out of his lands. Every man went home well pleased by the adventure, and the final words among them all were ‘Farewell! Good fortune!’ Now I will return to the two Thebans. The breast of Arcite was terribly swollen by his injury; the pressure on his heart increased, and the blood was clotted beyond the remedy of any physician. It was trapped, corrupted and seething in his body, and could not be released by cupping or bleeding or herbal cure. The animal spirits of the body were not powerful enough to expel the rotting matter. So all the vessels of his lungs began to swell, and all the muscles of his breast were paralysed by the venom. He could neither vomit nor excrete. That part of his body was thoroughly broken down. Life held no dominion there. And if there comes a time when the powers of nature no longer work, then the benefits of medicine are worthless. It is time for church. Arcite must surely die.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  He’d been stone-cold sober since entering the hospital, and reading a lot more about chaos theory, particularly about the work of Mitchell Feigenbaum, a physicist at Los Alamos who had made a study of the transition between order and turbulence. Dad said he was damned if Feigenbaum didn’t make a persuasive case that turbulence was not in fact random but followed a sequential spectrum of varying frequencies. If every action in the universe that we thought was random actually conformed to a rational pattern, Dad said, that implied the existence of a divine creator, and he was beginning to rethink his atheistic creed. “I’m not saying there’s a bearded old geezer named Yahweh up in the clouds deciding which football team is going to win the Super Bowl,” Dad said. “But if the physics—the quantum physics—suggests that God exists, I’m more than willing to entertain the notion.” Dad showed me some of the calculations he’d been working on. He saw me looking at his trembling fingers and held them up. “Lack of liquor or fear of God—don’t know which is causing it,” he said. “Maybe both.” “Promise you’ll stay here until you get better,” I said. “I don’t want you doing the skedaddle.” Dad burst into laughter that ended in another fit of coughing. DAD STAYED IN THE hospital for six weeks. By then he’d not only beaten back the TB, he’d been sober longer than any time since the Phoenix detox. He knew that if he went back to the streets, he’d start drinking again. One of the hospital administrators got him a job as a maintenance man at an upstate resort, room and board included. He tried to talk Mom into going with him, but she flatly refused. “Upstate’s the sticks,” she said. So Dad went alone. He called me from time to time, and it sounded like he’d put together a life that worked for him. He had a one-room apartment over a garage, enjoyed doing the repairs and upkeep on the old lodge, loved being back within walking distance of untamed country, and was staying sober. Dad worked at the resort through the summer and into the fall. As it began to turn cold again, Mom called him and mentioned how much easier it was for two people to stay warm during the winter, and how much Tinkle the dog missed him. In November, after the first hard frost, I got a call from Brian, who said that Mom had succeeded in persuading Dad to quit his job and return to the city. “Do you think he’ll stay sober?” I asked. “He’s already back on the booze,” Brian said. A few weeks after Dad got back, I saw him at Lori’s. He was sitting on the sofa with an arm around Mom and a pint bottle in his hand. He laughed. “This crazy-ass mother of yours, can’t live with her, can’t live without her.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  But then something happened. A hellborn fury rose up from the ground, despatched from the dark world by Pluto at the request of Saturn. The horse started with fright at the apparition, reared up and then fell on its side. Before Arcite could leap from his saddle he was thrown off and pitched headlong on to the ground. He lay there as if he were already dead, his chest shattered by his own bow; the blood ran into his face, so that it seemed to turn black. Immediately he was taken up and carried to the palace of Theseus. He was cut out of his armour and gently laid in a bed. He was still alive and conscious, crying out all the time for Emily. Meanwhile Duke Theseus returned to Athens with all of his company; he travelled in ceremonial state, and in festive guise, since he did not wish to dishearten the people by dwelling on the accident. It was widely reported that Arcite was not in danger of death, and that he would soon recover from his wounds. There was another reason for celebration, too, since not one of the combatants had been slain in the tournament. There were many who were badly injured, especially one whose breastbone was broken by a spear, but no one had died. Some of the knights had sweet-smelling ointment for their wounds, while others had magical charms to work on broken limbs and broken heads. Many of the fighters could be seen gulping down the fermentation of herbs, even sage, in order to heal themselves. Sage is good for convulsions. Hence the saying, ‘Why should a man die when sage grows in the garden?’ Theseus also did his best to comfort and to cheer them and, according to the laws of good hospitality, he organized a revel that would last all night. He also issued a proclamation in which he stated that no one had been defeated or disgraced. It had been a noble tournament, an affair of honour to all concerned, subject only to the whim of fate. There was no shame in being captured and dragged to the stake by twenty armed men; Palamon had not surrendered but had been manhandled by knights, yeomen and servants. Even his horse had been beaten with staves. He had no reason to be ashamed or humiliated. His bravery was clear for all to see. So Theseus calmed both sides of the dispute, and prevented any outburst of anger or resentment. In fact they embraced one another like brothers. The duke gave them gifts, their worth determined by their rank, and organized a lavish feast that lasted for three days; then he escorted the two kings, Emetreus and Lycurgus, royally out of his lands. Every man went home well pleased by the adventure, and the final words among them all were ‘Farewell! Good fortune!’

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  When I bring it in, they pore over it like it is some kind of Rosetta stone. It is typed on paper that has become crisp with age. There are annotations, smudges, and rings left by coffee and by red wine. It strikes me as being a brave document, rather like the little engine who could on the morning after. How Do You Know When You’re Done?This is a question my students always ask. I don’t quite know how to answer it. You just do. I think my students believe that when a published writer finishes something, she crosses the last t, pushes back from the desk, yawns, stretches, and smiles. I do not know anyone who has ever done this, not even once. What happens instead is that you’ve gone over and over something so many times, and you’ve weeded and pruned and rewritten, and the person who reads your work for you has given you great suggestions that you have mostly taken—and then finally something inside you just says it’s time to get on to the next thing. Of course, there will always be more you could do, but you have to remind yourself that perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. There’s an image I’ve heard people in recovery use—that getting all of one’s addictions under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed. I think this perfectly describes the process of solving various problems in your final draft. You get a bunch of the octopus’s arms neatly tucked under the covers—that is, you’ve come up with a plot, resolved the conflict between the two main characters, gotten the tone down pat—but two arms are still flailing around. Maybe the dialogue in the first half and the second half don’t match, or there is that one character who still seems one-dimensional. But you finally get those arms under the sheets, too, and are about to turn off the lights when another long sucking arm breaks free. This will probably happen while you are sitting at your desk, kneading your face, feeling burned out and rubberized.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Constance of course set up a great lamentation, in which her child joined. But then the Holy Virgin placed her mantle around her. In the course of his struggles with Constance the steward fell overboard and was instantly drowned. He had merited his punishment. So Christ kept Constance undefiled. See the result of foul sensuality! It does not only darken the mind and mar the judgement. It can kill. The end of blind lust, the end of the dread deed itself, is misery. How many men have found that even the intention of committing that sin is enough to destroy them, whether they accomplish it or not? How did this weak woman have the strength to defend herself against the wretch? How was it that the giant Goliath was slain by the young and untested David? How dared he even look upon that monster’s dreadful face? His strength was derived from the grace of Christ. Who gave Judith the courage and endurance to murder Holofernes in his tent and to lift the chosen people out of their misery? I say that it was all God’s work. And that same God instilled might and vigour within Constance herself. So the ship sailed on through the narrow strait that separates Gibraltar from the tip of Africa. The wind came from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, driving the vessel in all directions and in none. Constance was weary unto death when one day the Virgin Mary, blessed among women, brought an end to all her woe with an act of goodness. Let us leave her for a moment, however, and turn to her father. The emperor of Rome had learned, from diplomatic correspondence out of Syria, that all of the Christians had been slain at the banquet in Damascus. Of course he had also discovered that the wicked mother of the sultan had dishonoured his daughter and cast her adrift. So he decided to take revenge. He sent his principal senator, with royal authority, to Syria. He sent all of his lords and knights, too, with express orders to deliver condign vengeance. For a long time the Roman forces burned and pillaged and killed whatever and whomever they found in the capital. When they had meted out the punishment, they set sail again for Rome. It so happened that the Roman senator, while making his progress across the sea, came upon the little ship in which Constance was marooned. He did not know who she was, or how she came to be there. And for her part Constance would not speak. She would rather die than reveal her condition.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  He may have looked as pale as a ghost, but he was heavy enough. If only he had kept hold of his ladle, and never uncorked a bottle. He would have been a better horseman, that’s for sure. Harry Bailey came up to the Manciple. ‘You can see for yourself how drunk he is. He could no more tell a story than my horse. I don’t know whether he has been drinking wine or ale, but the effect is the same. He talks through his nose. And did you hear that sneeze? He has a bad cold as well. I don’t suppose he can keep on his saddle and talk at the same time. He can hardly ride a straight line. If he falls from his horse a second time, it will be very difficult to hoist him up again. So, sir, please take his place. Tell us a story. I must mention one thing, though, before you begin. I think you were unwise to criticize him so publicly. One of these days he may pay you back, and lay some small charge against you. He may find fault with your accounts, for example, or with your expenses. I know that he has dealings with you. Trifles can sometimes cause a lot of trouble.’ ‘God forbid that should happen. As you say, it is not difficult to point out small mistakes. I would rather pay for his horse than get into a legal tangle with him. I didn’t mean to upset him. Honestly. It was a joke. And do you know what? I know how to calm him down. Here in my satchel I have a flask of good Rhenish wine. Shall we have a bit of fun? Roger of Ware will gulp this down in a second. Just see if I’m wrong. He cannot refuse a drink.’ The Manciple was not wrong. The Cook took up the flask, and drained it in a moment. He really did not need the wine, of course. He had drunk more than enough already. Then he returned the flask and, as far as he was able, thanked the Manciple. ‘Thashwasgood.’ Our Host laughed out loud. ‘I am convinced now,’ he said, ‘that we will have to take strong liquor with us wherever we go. It is a sovereign remedy for strife. It turns fights and arguments into love-feasts. Blessed is thy name, Bacchus, god of wine. You can make the greatest enemies the best of friends. I will worship you from this time forward! Now, sir Manciple, we turn to you. Will you tell us your tale?’ ‘I will. With pleasure.’

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Let’s travel on to the court without delay.’ When they arrived at the palace, the knight attended the queen as he had promised her. He announced that he had an answer to the burning question. You can imagine the excitement among all the women. The wives, the paramours, the maids, the widows, all came to the court. The queen was there, too, ready to give judgement before the assembly. Everyone was waiting to hear what he would say. The queen called for silence, and then ordered the knight to come forward. ‘Tell us now, gentle knight,’ she asked him, ‘what is your answer? What do women desire most?’ The knight did not hang his head, like a beast in its stall. He stepped forward and, before them all, responded to her in a ringing voice. ‘My liege, my lady, women desire to have sovereignty over their husbands and over their lovers. They wish to dominate them. Kill me if you wish. But that is the truth. I stand here before you. Do with me as you will.’ There was a general murmur of approval. Not a wife or widow or virgin disagreed with what he said. They all concurred that he had won his life. As soon as this was clear, the old crone came forward. ‘Justice!’ she called. ‘Justice, sovereign queen! Before the court disperses, listen to my plea. I was the one who taught this answer to the knight. I made him swear an oath that, in return, he would grant me any wish that lay within his power. I vow to you that I am

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  I was sure of it. Sort of. I began to stalk around his living room, like a trial lawyer making her case to the jury, explaining various aspects of the book, some of which, in my desire not to appear too obvious, I had forgotten to put down at all. I filled in lots of spaces, describing things that existed between the characters that I had assumed were clear. I was ranting—twenty-eight years old, savagely hung over, feeling like I was about to die—but I told him who the people were and what the story was. I sketched in the underpinnings of their lives and thought out loud how I could solve the bigger problems of plot and theme, how I could simplify some things and deepen others. I was not thinking about what I was going to say. Words were just pouring out of me, and when I was done, he looked at me, and said, “Thank you.” We sat side by side on his couch for a while, in silence. Finally he said, “Listen. I want you to write that book you just described to me. You haven’t done it here. Go off somewhere and write me a treatment, a plot treatment. Tell me chapter by chapter what you just told me in the last half hour, and I will get you the last of the advance.” And I did. I arranged to stay with some friends in Cambridge for a month, and there I sat down every day and wrote five hundred to a thousand words describing what was going on in each chapter. I discussed who the characters were turning out to be, where they’d been, what they were up to, and why. I quoted directly from the manuscript sometimes, using some of the best lines to instill confidence in both me and my editor, and I figured out, over and over, point A, where the chapter began, and point B, where it ended, and what needed to happen to get my people from A to B. And then how the B of the last chapter would lead organically into point A of the next chapter. The book moved along like the alphabet, like a vivid and continuous dream. The treatment was forty pages long. I mailed it from Cambridge, and flew home. It worked. My editor gave me the last of the advance, which I used to pay back my aunt and to buy time so I could write a final draft. This time I knew exactly what I was doing. I had a recipe. The book came out the following autumn and has been the most successful of my novels. Whenever I tell this story to my students, they want to see the actual manuscript of the plot treatment.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  I had escaped from Welch once, and now, breathing in those same old smells of turpentine, dog hair, and dirty clothes, of stale beer and cigarette smoke and unrefrigerated food slowly going bad, I had the urge to bolt. But Mom and Dad were clearly proud, and as I listened to them talk—interrupting each other in their excitement to correct points of fact and fill in gaps in the story—about their fellow squatters and the friends they’d made in the neighborhood and the common fight against the city’s housing agency, it became clear they’d stumbled on an entire community of people like themselves, people who lived unruly lives battling authority and who liked it that way. After all those years of roaming, they’d found home. • • • I graduated from Barnard that spring. Brian came to the ceremony, but Lori and Maureen had to work, and Mom said it would just be a lot of boring speeches about the long and winding road of life. I wanted Dad to come, but chances were he’d show up drunk and try to debate the commencement speaker. “I can’t risk it, Dad,” I told him. “Hell,” he said. “I don’t have to see my Mountain Goat grabbing a sheepskin to know she’s got her college degree.” The magazine where I’d been working two days a week had offered me a full-time job. What I needed was a place to live. For several years, I had been dating a man named Eric, a friend of one of Lori’s eccentric-genius friends, who came from a wealthy family, ran a small company, and lived alone in the apartment on Park Avenue in which he’d been raised. He was a detached, almost fanatically organized guy who maintained detailed time-management logs and could recite endless baseball statistics. But he was decent and responsible, never gambled or lost his temper, and always paid his bills on time. When he heard that I was looking for a roommate to share an apartment, he suggested I move in with him. I couldn’t afford half the rent, I told him, and I wouldn’t live there unless I could pay my own way. He suggested that I begin by paying what I could afford, and as my salary went up, I could increase the payment. He made it sound like a business proposition, but a solid one, and after thinking it over, I agreed. When I told Dad about my plans, he asked if Eric made me happy and treated me well. “Because if he doesn’t,” Dad said, “I will by God kick his butt so hard, his asshole will be up between his shoulder blades.” “He treats me fine, Dad,” I said.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  I walked up and down the path, moving batches of paper around, paper-clipping self-contained sections and scribbling notes to myself on how to shape or tighten or expand each section in whatever necessary way. I noticed where things were missing—transitions, vital information we needed to know before what happened could make any sense—and then, on a blank piece of paper, I blocked in what I thought was needed and lay the page on the pile where it fit in. This page held some space, perhaps for whole scenes, in the way that—after a loss—a great friend holds some space for you in which to grieve or find your bearings. Scribbling notes on various sections to indicate that in fact something was at stake there, I went ahead and let bad things happen to these people whom I had been protecting. I found places where I could lean on them harder, push them, load them up in a way that would make their catastrophe inevitable, and I blocked the catastrophe in, too. Then, when I was sure, I stacked up all the pages in their new order and set about writing a third draft. I wrote that draft short assignment by short assignment, making each section, no matter how small or seemingly casual, as good as I could. I took out whole paragraphs that I loved, paragraphs I’d shoehorned into the book because I liked the writing or the image or the humor. I worked on it for eight or nine months, sending off the first third, which my editor was amazed by, and then the second section, which he loved. I finished the third section around the time I broke up with a man with whom I’d been involved for some time. I had a brainstorm: I would mail the third section off, borrow the money to fly to New York, and spend a week there, doing the line editing of the book with my editor and, at the same time, getting away from this man I was breaking up with. Also, I could collect the last third of the advance that Viking owed me and do a little retail therapy in New York City. I wrote to my editor to say I was coming. He did not say not to. I told the man I was involved with to move all of his stuff out of the house. I borrowed a thousand dollars from my aunt, promising her that I would pay it back by the end of the month. And then I flew to New York. My first morning there, I put on my girl-writer dress and heels and went to meet my editor. I figured we would start editing together that very morning, and then he could give me the last of the advance. It would turn out that I had bounced back from this devastating setback and that truth and beauty had once again triumphed.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  So instead of staring miserably at the computer screen trying to will my way into having a breakthrough, I say to myself, “Okay, hmmm, let’s see. Dying tomorrow. What should I do today?” Then I can decide to read Wallace Stevens for the rest of the morning or go to the beach or just really participate in ordinary life. Any of these will begin the process of filling me back up with observations, flavors, ideas, visions, memories. I might want to write on my last day on earth, but I’d also be aware of other options that would feel at least as pressing. I would want to keep whatever I did simple, I think. And I would want to be present. [image file=Image00006.jpg] In the beginning, when you’re first starting out, there are a million reasons not to write, to give up. That is why it is of extreme importance to make a commitment to finishing sections and stories, to driving through to the finish. The discouraging voices will hound you—“This is all piffle,” they will say, and they may be right. What you are doing may just be practice. But this is how you are going to get better, and there is no point in practicing if you don’t finish. I went through a real crisis of faith about two-thirds of the way through my last novel. The thing is that I had gotten twenty-seven bad reviews in a row on my previous novel, and I was feeling just the merest bit unsure about my skills and the joys of publication. But during that crisis of faith, I made a commitment to the characters in the new novel, instead of to the book itself. So I spent a little time at my desk every day, just writing down memories of my family, my youth. I went for walks and to lots of matinees, and I read. I spent as much time as I could outdoors while I waited for my unconscious to open a door and beckon. It finally did. I did not have some beautiful Hallmark moment when I threw back my shoulders with a big smile, dusted off my old hands, and got back to work. Rather, it was like catching amoebic dysentery. I was just sitting there minding my business, and then the next minute I rushed to my desk with an urgency I had not believed possible. It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what’s keeping things running right. We’re bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below. With that fact in mind, people like me make up all these rules to give us the illusion that we are in charge. I need to say to myself, they’re not needed, hon. Just take in the buggy pleasures.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  The Upanishadic sages were among the first to articulate another of the universal principles of religion—one that had already been touched upon in the Purusha myth. The truths of religion are accessible only when you are prepared to get rid of the selfishness, greed, and self-preoccupation that, perhaps inevitably, are ingrained in our thoughts and behavior but are also the source of so much of our pain. The Greeks would call this process kenosis, “emptying.” Once you gave up the nervous craving to promote yourself, denigrate others, draw attention to your unique and special qualities, and ensure that you were first in the pecking order, you experienced an immense peace. The first Upanishads were written at a time when the Aryan communities were in the early stages of urbanization; logos had enabled them to master their environment. But the sages reminded them that there were some things—old age, sickness, and death— that they could not control; some things—such as their essential self—that lay beyond their intellectual grasp. When, as a result of carefully crafted spiritual exercises, people learned not only to accept but to embrace this unknowing, they found that they experienced a sense of release. The sages began to explore the complexities of the human psyche with remarkable sophistication; they had discovered the unconscious long before Freud. But the atman, the deepest core of their personality, eluded them. Precisely because it was identical with the Brahman, it was indefinable. The atman had nothing to do with our normal psycho-mental states and bore no resemblance to anything in our ordinary experience, so you could speak of it only in negative terms. As the seventh-century sage Yajnavalkya explained: “About this Self [atman] one can only say ‘not … not’ [neti… neti].”53 You can’t see the Seer who does the seeing. You can’t hear the Hearer who does the hearing; you can’t think with the Thinker who does the thinking; and you can’t perceive the Perceiver who does the perceiving. This Self within the All [Brahman] is this atman of yours.54 Like the Brahmodya, any discussion of the atman in the Upanishads always ended in silence, the numinous acknowledgment that the ultimate reality was beyond the competence of language.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  21 VIX NEVER FOUND OUT how Gus happened to be driving down the road early that morning. Or how he knew the Homeport was looking for mid- season replacements. She got in beside him and stared straight ahead. He didn’t try to make small talk. He asked only one question and that not until they’d stopped to buy juice and doughnuts which they ate overlooking the cemetery in Chilmark. “You want to talk about it?” he asked. She shook her head. “You sure you don’t want to go home?” Gus said. She thought he meant Santa Fe and shook her head again. No way could she deal with her parents now. The Homeport hired her just like that, without even checking her references. It meant a big cut in salary unless she could make it up in tips. But as she explained over the phone to Joanne, the owner of the cleaning service, her circumstances had changed and she couldn’t come back. “What about Caitlin?” Joanne asked. “I can’t speak for her.” “Well, this is very disappointing,” Joanne said. “You and Caitlin were the perfect team. I depended on you to finish the season.” “I’m really sorry. It was a great job. But I have no choice.” Joanne didn’t get it and tried wooing her back with more money. “I’m sorry,” she said again, feeling even more foolish. “I’ve already taken another job.” Joanne sucked in her breath. “With the competition?” Joanne never referred to the other cleaning services by name. “No ... at the Homeport.” “The Homeport? Why would you want to work there?”

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Busco alrededor un acomodador con una linterna, estando muy segura que este teatro no los contrata, en especial a esta hora de la noche, pero la única linterna que tengo está en mi teléfono, y los pisos están oscuros. Al no ver a nadie, tomo mi bufanda y mi bolso y subo a la siguiente fila, inclinándome y mirando bajo los asientos para ver si puedo ver mi teléfono. Cuando no encuentro nada. Subo a la siguiente fila y luego a la siguiente, muy segura de que lo escuché deslizarse. Ya que las filas de asientos están inclinadas, no pudo haber ido muy lejos. Maldición. Moviéndome a la siguiente fila, dejo mis cosas y me arrodillo, mirando bajo las filas a mi izquierda y derecha, tanteando con las manos. Un par de largas piernas, cubiertas por jeans están al frente, y alzo la mirada, viendo a un hombre sentado con los dedos llenos de palomitas a medio camino de su boca. Baja la mirada hacia mí con las cejas levantadas. —Lo siento —susurro, metiendo mi cabello tras mi oreja—. Dejé caer mi bebida y mi teléfono se deslizo a alguna parte. ¿Le importaría…? Duda un momento y luego parpadea, enderezándose. —Sí, claro. —Mueve su bandeja a un lado y se levanta, sacando algo de su bolsillo—. Toma. Enciende la linterna de su teléfono y se agacha, iluminando bajo los asientos. Inmediatamente, veo mi teléfono bajo el asiento a su lado y lo tomo. Gracias a los cielos. Ambos nos ponemos de pie, y mis hombros se relajan. No puedo permitirme un reemplazo ahora. Paso los dedos sobre la pantalla, asegurándome de no sentir grietas. —¿Todo bien? —pregunta. —Sí, gracias. Apaga su linterna y estira la mano, pasando sus dedos por la parte inferior de mi teléfono, los lleva a su nariz, oliendo. —Es… —Hace una mueca—. ¿Vino? Bajo la mirada al suelo, viendo que está de pie sobre la bebida que derrame tres filas arriba. —Oh cielos. —Lo miro—. Lo siento mucho. ¿Está por todas partes? —No, no, está bien. —Suelta una risita, y sus labios se curvan más hacia un lado con su sonrisa, mientras se aparta del desastre—. No sabía que vendían licor aquí. Agarro mi bufanda y limpio mi teléfono. —Oh, no lo hacen —respondo suavemente, para no perturbar a los otros en la sala—. Acabo de salir del trabajo. Mi jefa me la dio por… mmm —sacudo la cabeza, buscando las palabras—, para, eh… celebrar. —¿Celebrar? —Shh —sisea alguien. Ambos miramos al tipo una fila atrás y en el extremo derecho, quien nos está disparando una mirada fulminante de reojo. Ni los avances ni la película han comenzado todavía, y no estamos en su línea de visión, pero supongo que estamos molestándolo. Me muevo, de regreso a mi bolso. El hombre ayudándome toma su bebida y palomitas y me sigue, y puedo percibir el ligero aroma de su gel de baño. —Solo voy a alejarme del desastre —indica.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  To hold on to the mundane self, therefore, was a delusion that led inescapably to pain, frustration, and confusion, which one could escape only by acquiring the deep, liberating knowledge that the Brahman was their atman, the truest thing about them. 52 The Upanishadic sages were among the first to articulate another of the universal principles of religion—one that had already been touched upon in the Purusha myth. The truths of religion are accessible only when you are prepared to get rid of the selfishness, greed, and self-preoccupation that, perhaps inevitably, are ingrained in our thoughts and behavior but are also the source of so much of our pain. The Greeks would call this process kenosis, “emptying.” Once you gave up the nervous craving to promote yourself, denigrate others, draw attention to your unique and special qualities, and ensure that you were first in the pecking order, you experienced an immense peace. The first Upanishads were written at a time when the Aryan communities were in the early stages of urbanization; logos had enabled them to master their environment. But the sages reminded them that there were some things—old age, sickness, and death— that they could not control; some things—such as their essential self—that lay beyond their intellectual grasp. When, as a result of carefully crafted spiritual exercises, people learned not only to accept but to embrace this unknowing, they found that they experienced a sense of release. The sages began to explore the complexities of the human psyche with remarkable sophistication; they had discovered the unconscious long before Freud. But the atman, the deepest core of their personality, eluded them. Precisely because it was identical with the Brahman, it was indefinable. The atman had nothing to do with our normal psycho-mental states and bore no resemblance to anything in our ordinary experience, so you could speak of it only in negative terms. As the seventh-century sage Yajnavalkya explained: “About this Self [atman] one can only say ‘not ... not’ [neti... neti].” 53 You can’t see the Seer who does the seeing. You can’t hear the Hearer who does the hearing; you can’t think with the Thinker who does the thinking; and you can’t perceive the Perceiver who does the perceiving. This Self within the All [Brahman] is this atman of yours. 54 Like the Brahmodya, any discussion of the atman in the Upanishads always ended in silence, the numinous acknowledgment that the ultimate reality was beyond the competence of language. Authentic religious discourse could not lead to clear, distinct, and empirically verified truth. Like the Brahman, the atman was “ungraspable.” You could define something only when you saw it as separate from yourself.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Sharkey HE’S JET-LAGGED. Feels like shit. Took the red-eye from L.A. where the big guys at Cal Tech tried to convince him to do his graduate work. But M.I.T.’s after him, too. He’s going to meet with them on Monday. Until then he’s not going to make his decision. Abby’s asked him to make a toast to Lamb. Something short, she said. Something humorous. He’s promised to try. He’s been rehearsing it in his mind. He hates the idea of standing up in front of all those people. When the time comes he raises his glass of champagne. To Lamb ... he says, a father who knows when to leave well enough alone. The crowd grows quiet, like he’s said something disrespectful when he meant to convey how lucky he feels that Lamb never pushed, that Lamb accepted him as he was, as he is. He was just trying to thank him, that’s all. So how come they’re all looking at him like that? Before he has the chance to figure it out Lamb is at his side, his arm around his shoulders. Thanks, Shark, he says. No father could ask for a better son! Then it’s Caitlin’s turn and every guy in the room is drooling. And she’s smiling at all of them, letting them think it’s a possibility. To Lamb ... she says, the best man I’ve ever known. And I’ve known more than my share. Daniel AT LEAST he stands up and makes a proper toast, which is more than he can say for the bitch. Christ, you could hear the guests hold their breath when she finished, until Lamb laughed. Laughed and kissed Caitlin, telling her no father could ask for a more loving and spirited daughter. Leave it to Lamb to get out of an uncomfortable situation. He’s got to hand it to him. The guy is never at a loss. He should be running for office.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  P’s cosmogony is, first, a gentle polemic against Babylonian religion that would have been balm to the exiles’ bruised spirits. Marduk may have appeared to defeat Yahweh, but in reality Yahweh was far more powerful. Like all ancient cosmogonies, this was no creation ex nihilo. Elohim simply brings order to preexistent chaos, “when earth was wild and waste (tohu va bohu), darkness over the face of Ocean, rushing-spirit hovering over the face of the waters.” 66 The Ocean would immediately have recalled Tiamat, but instead of being a frightening goddess, it was merely the raw material of the universe. The sun, moon, and stars were not deities but functionaries, timekeepers that brought light to the earth. 67 The “great sea-serpents” were no longer threatening adversaries like Yam or Lotan but simply God’s creatures. He did not have to slaughter or split them in two, and at the end of the day, he blessed them. 68 Marduk’s victory had to be reactivated every year in order to make the cosmos viable, but Yahweh finished his creative work in a mere six days and was able to rest on the seventh. This was a nonviolent cosmogony. When P’s first audience heard the opening words “At the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth,” they would have expected a story of fearsome battles. But P surprised them: there was no fighting, no killing. Unlike Marduk, Elohim did not have to fight to the death to create an ordered cosmos; instead he simply issued a series of commands: “Let there be light!” “Let the earth sprout forth with sprouting growth!” “Let there be lights in the dome of the heavens, to separate the day from the night” and each time, without any struggle at all, “it was so.” 69 Yahweh had no competition and was the sole power in the universe. 70 But there was no stridency in P’s polemic. On the last day of his creation, Elohim “saw everything that he had made and here: it was exceedingly good.” 71 P knew that some of the exiles routinely cursed the Babylonians, but, he implied, this was not the way to go because God had blessed everything that he had made. Everybody should be like Elohim, resting calmly on the Sabbath and blessing all his creatures without exception—even, perhaps, the Babylonians. This was emphatically not intended as a literal account of the physical origins of life. P was saying something much more relevant to the exiles.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “You’re absolutely sure, Chick Pea?” she asked. “Go on now,” Ed told her. “I’ve got my own private nurse.” Frankie looked at Vix for confirmation. Vix said, “It’s okay ... really.” When they were finally alone, her father said, “Big surprise, eh? Thought the old heart would just keep ticking, you know?” “Well, now it will.” “Till the next time.” “The next time won’t be for twenty years, at least.” “Twenty years. How old will you be then?” “Forty-four, almost forty-five.” She couldn’t imagine herself middle- aged. “Think you’ll be married by then, have some kids?” “I don’t know. Maybe.” “Or maybe you’re going to be one of those career women.” “Every woman’s a career woman these days, Dad.” She sat beside him, took his hand. “One of my roommates is in law school and the other one is climbing up the ABC ladder so fast she’ll probably be running the network by the time she hits thirty.” He smiled at her. “You’re a good girl, Vix. Always were. I told Frankie, ‘Vix is dependable. She’ll come if you need her.’ ” Vix swallowed hard. “How’s Caitlin? You see her lately?” She shook her head. “Not lately.” “Too bad. Got to keep in touch with your old friends. Old friends know you best.” She nodded. “You call Tawny?” “Yes.” “How’d she take it?” “She hopes you get better soon. She sends her love.” “Love, huh? That’s a good one.” He laughed. And Vix laughed with him. Vix was grocery shopping at Kaune’s, stocking up on heart healthy foods for him, when she wheeled her cart into the fresh produce aisle and found Phoebe, selecting avocados. “I’m thinking of a chicken and guacamole salad,” Phoebe said, as if she and Vix were in the middle of a conversation. “What do you think?” “High in cholesterol. Avocados, that is.” Vix tried to remember the last time she’d seen Phoebe, but couldn’t. Phoebe looked fantastic. She could have passed for Caitlin’s big sister. Vix wondered if she had staples in her scalp. “I suppose you know Caitlin’s on the Vineyard,” Phoebe said. Vix dropped the honeydew melon she was holding. It split open, spilling its runny guts all over the floor. Phoebe went right on talking, as if she hadn’t even noticed. “She says she needs to get back to basics. She’s going to raise sheep and spin wool and live a simple life. She thinks she’s Rumpelstiltskin,” Phoebe said. “Or maybe it’s Rapunzel. I always confuse the two.” “Rapunzel’s the one with the hair,” Vix heard herself saying, as a guy with a mop appeared and began to clean up the mess. Phoebe sniffed a box of strawberries. “Mmm ... sweet. Want some?” “My father’s allergic to strawberries.” “Too bad. How’s he doing?” “Pretty well, considering.” “Send him my best.” “I will.” As she began to push her cart away Phoebe turned. “Vix ... give Caitlin a call.”