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 Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Whatever one’s position, one can feel better than those who have not progressed so far.”10 And, as I describe in the prologue, there was a perverse game of real-life Snakes and Ladders perpetually being played within this hierarchical structure. As people moved in and out of favour with our guru, their position in the hierarchy would change. Someone could go from living at Wolf’s Den to being excommunicated, living with Limori’s son and daughter-in-law as their nanny and housekeeper. When that person returned to favour, they would return to Wolf’s Den and their job as nanny might be filled by someone new, who was “bringing in bad energy” and needed to clean up their act. Those of us living in Vancouver knew that we’d slipped a few notches in the group hierarchy if Limori stopped taking our phone calls or ignored us on Thursday night. But whatever one’s status in the group, exalted flavour of the month or miscreant, our belief was that life outside the group, among those who did not serve God, was profoundly worse than anything we could encounter inside it. It was a very black-and-white world I began to live in, and a black-and-white morality that I adopted. Inside group: good. Outside group: bad. What Limori says: Truth. What anyone else says: to be confirmed or denied by Limori. And honestly, it was a relief to fold myself into a doctrine and morality that had no uncertainty. I didn’t even think of it as morality; everything was simply The Truth or Not The Truth. For those of us living in Vancouver, the cult was non-residential. That is, we all lived in our own homes and had jobs that occupied our days. Debbie, Amber and I became good friends, going to movies and dinners on the weekend. Spiritual topics were never far from our conversation, and any challenge that any one of us encountered at work or with family was always examined, using our much-loved spiritual rhetoric. My friendship with Michael continued to grow as well. He was never far from my thoughts, and we spent many an afternoon in his shoebox-sized apartment getting to know one another. His girlfriend, Jessica, was naturally suspicious of our relationship, but she had nothing to fear from me. Despite the fact that I was falling in love with Michael, I was completely unaware of my own feelings for him and had no interest in examining them. My upbringing, combined with a naturally shy and introverted personality, meant that by the time I met Michael I was more than slightly emotionally stunted, so indeed, I was no threat to Jessica. I was simply grateful to have Michael’s friendship and mentorship. He was a darn good listener, too. As my friendships with Michael, Debbie, Amber and others in the group continued to strengthen, so did my attachment to Limori and her teachings.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  I was very happy when the chore was over. Limori/Azeen didn’t have much to say to me afterwards, much to my relief. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered what any of us had shared. This was simply an exercise in confession. We were baring our souls in an exercise that bound us to Limori and increased that false sense of intimacy between us. (I really did not want to know about Norman and his intimate relationship with his wife – that’s an image I will never be able to scour from my brain.) At the end of day two, when every last person had read the contents of their notepad (except Limori of course; she didn’t participate in these exercises – that would have lowered her to our level), relief and a small sense of accomplishment spread through the room. Limori told us it was a good beginning and that now we could build on this work in the following days at the workshop. During the evening of the second day we were free to do as we liked. Most of us relaxed in the lodge: reading, playing cards, drawing or chatting with one another. One member of the group, Victor, was a shy, gentle, somewhat socially awkward man in his late fifties. He was an engineer, whose family origins were Estonian. Tall and reed thin, he reminded me a bit of Ichabod Crane. Very much an introvert, Victor kept to himself and during free time at workshops he would often go off by himself, to his cabin or for a walk in the woods. An avid outdoorsman who loved canoeing and kayaking, he was the sort of person who was obviously much more comfortable in communion with nature than with people. As a group, we often teased him about his idiosyncratic habits and I am not proud of the borderline abuse he received from me and his other peers in the group simply because he was a bit different. One of the strongest underlying messages that took hold in the group was that to be different was dangerous. We were all required to fit into a mould that had limited parameters, from the clothes we wore (“women should be feminine and wear skirts and dresses, and men should take pride in their appearance and not dress in a sloppy way”) to any inclination to have close relationships outside the group, to speech patterns that were outside the group norm. So Victor’s inclination to spend time by himself, possibly the result of an introvert’s natural need to recharge by being alone, often made him the target of teasing or, in more serious cases, of being workshopped by Limori. On the third day of the workshop, as we settled into our chairs in the living room, Limori began the day by channelling a meditation.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “Let’s get some other bidders in here,” Bud pleaded. “This is the finest animal we’ve had in here all week. SEVEN, I GOT SEVEN, NOW HALF, GIMME HALF—” The slaughterhouse man nodded. You could see he was feeling competitive, perhaps a little jealous of his privilege to buy any damn animal he wanted. Maybe he had also heard Doris’s remark about his portliness and thought he’d give her something to think about. By now everyone in the bleachers was watching Doris. Bud also looked reluctantly in her direction. “Who’ll give me eight?” he said. Doris was very still, then said, “I’m sorry, Sonny.” “I know. Thanks, that meant a lot to me.” “SEVEN AND A HALF, GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE—” Sonny tipped his hat. “EIGHT THOUSAND in back,” Bud said. “I’VE GOT EIGHT, GIMME NINE, EIGHT NOW NINE-NINE-NINE…” Doris squeezed Sonny’s hand. Then the slaughterhouse man upped the bid, who knows why, maybe out of spite. It was far beyond a bargain for the purposes he had in mind. “Nine thousand! Nine from the gentleman in front,” Bud cried. “Now we’re talking folks. This is one splendid animal, certainly worth more than that. Who’ll give me ten? TEN-TEN-TEN.” Sonny nodded. “Ten thousand dollars! Someone make it eleven, do I hear eleven?” Bud said, looking at the slaughterhouse man. But the slaughterhouse man shook his head, having made his point, and awarded Sonny a pitying smile. “Sold!” Bud said, “to Sonny Lamb, his own damn bull!” —Sonny drove through the gate of the Apache Springs Ranch around sunset. They were on nine thousand acres an hour south of Marfa and sixty miles from the Mexican border, about as isolated as anybody on the whole continent. Land out here went for a thousand dollars an acre, but it was hardscrabble and in a good season could support only one cow per fifty acres. Lately, it’d been hard to make a go of it with a hundred acres per cow. It wasn’t just the grass dying in the drought, the water was drying up everywhere, stock ponds were shrinking, the earth was beginning to crack into jigsaw pieces. The sky was still light but the valley between the red mesas was soaking in the evening penumbra under a new moon. Had he thought it through, Sonny might have waited another hour till it was dark enough to unload Joaquin without Lola noticing. That would give him time to think up a plausible explanation. But there she was, standing on the porch. Sonny gave her a cheery-looking wave as he passed on his way to the pasture. Lola tracked him down as he was prodding Joaquin out of the trailer. “You bought your own bull?” she said. Sonny hated to disappoint Lola for a million reasons, one of which was that she could make him feel like a total fuck-up. Which he was not. “How’d you know?” “It was on the radio.”

• From What My Bones Know (2022)

  I was shocked. Lacey? Lacey had a book deal. She’s on television sometimes. She has great hair and is from a nice neighborhood in a nice part of the country. People at my office respected Lacey. “You have no idea how relieved I am that you have it,” I frantically typed back. “I thought everyone who had it was a trainwreck. I’ve been spiraling. But you seem totally together.” “I’m not totally together! Nobody is. But I’m here to tell you I’ve done a whole lot of healing. I’ve accepted that I’ll always have more to do, but I’ve made leaps and bounds and it feels manageable in ways I could not have imagined years ago.” She sent me her number. Lacey and I texted for a few minutes. I didn’t know her intimately enough to share my deepest fears with her, and I didn’t want to burden her, either. But her cheerful, exclamation-marked texts showed me, at the very least, that survival wasn’t impossible. Somehow, there would be another side of this thing. A way out, if only I could find it. Lacey said the road would be long and difficult. That sounded about right, considering I was endeavoring to relearn how to be a person. I wanted to learn to be happy and strong and independent so I could support others instead of letting my own depression always take center stage. I wanted to learn how to be a better friend, partner, family member, to invest in permanent relationships. I wanted to be the kind of woman people didn’t leave. I had to find out what was salvageable, if I had good qualities underneath all of those layers of trauma and hurt and workaholism. In order to do that, Lacey said, she’d needed time and space. Long walks in the middle of the day to practice holding awkward, painful new revelations. The ability to step away from her writing when she felt overwhelmed and sad. “The important thing was learning how to take good care of myself. To treat myself kindly,” she told me. And so I knew with certainty what I had to do. The very next day, on April 1, I officially gave my one month’s notice to leave the job I’d wanted my whole life. I told my boss, “Healing needs to be my job now.” [image file=image_rsrc3E4.jpg] PART II [image file=image_rsrc3E5.jpg] CHAPTER 12 [image file=image_rsrc3E3.jpg] I’d always fantasized about indulging in a nervous breakdown. I watched Girl, Interrupted with a twisted, jealous fervor, felt envy when I saw celebrities enter rehab. What entitlement. What privilege, to just let life fall to the wayside, to stop working and pretending and just fall apart. To let my grief-swollen brain split at the seams and spend my days crying and sitting in therapy and drinking lemonade in meditative silence on a manicured lawn. And what impossibility. Because rent.

• From Shunned (2018)

  “No Randy, no Ross,” I said, the words catching in my throat. Ross looked older then, his freckles faded, his hair more burnished than red. His blue eyes looked right through me. “Do you have anything else you want to tell me?” he asked. He knew why I’d come. I just needed to say the words. “Yes,” I said, just as the waiter refilled our coffee cups. Ross didn’t take his eyes away from mine. I took a deep breath. “I’ve moved on, Ross. I’ve gotten involved with someone.” As I held his gaze, his eyes filled with tears. “So here are the words you’ve been wanting to hear: you’re free.” He kept looking at me, expressionless except for the watery eyes. “Free, free, free,” I said in a gentle, steady tone. Ross leaned his head back to keep the tears from streaming down his face. He worked to regain his composure. “I’ve expected this for a long while,” he said, “but hearing it feels terrible.” He wiped his nose with the napkin. “I thought I’d be happy to hear this, but I’m not.” Relief and a bone-tired peace came over me, sitting there, being honest, telling him the truth. Never underestimate the power of an honest answer, even if it means disappointing someone you love. We can all recover from disappointment, but lying about who we really are and how we really feel keeps everyone in chains. Just saying these words made me stronger, more resolved. I sat back in my chair and let out a sigh. “What’s his name?” “No names,” I said, adamant. “I’m afraid to ask how long this has been going on,” he said. “Then don’t ask,” I said, my voice clipped. I felt the absurdity of the situation, confessing to something that happened a year ago, as if it were occurring in the present. “I wanted to tell you sooner, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing you say to a person over the phone.” “I suppose not,” Ross nodded, resigned. “And I was afraid you’d blab to everyone, and I couldn’t do that to my family. I want them to hear this from me, not through the grapevine.” “Probably a good call,” he said. The check was delivered to our table, and Ross picked it up. “Let me get this—a small price to pay for news of my freedom.” He had become distant and lethargic. “Your family will be devastated not to be able to see you.” “As if they have no choice as to how they’ll react or treat me.” I could feel anger rising in my throat. “They won’t see it that way, and you know it.” “No kidding.” I knew he was right. He understood, as I did, that my family would turn away from me if I were to be disfellowshipped. “Mom thinks I’m having breakfast with you to discuss getting back together.” “Hope springs eternal,” Ross said. “She’s in for a grim reckoning.”

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  “I suppose I missed my window of opportunity to shower,” he said as he put on a green CULVER CREEK BASKETBALL T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “Oh well. There’s always tomorrow. And it’s not cold. It’s probably eighty.” Grateful to have slept fully dressed, I just put on shoes, and the Colonel and I jogged to the classrooms. I slid into my seat with twenty seconds to spare. Halfway through class, Madame O’Malley turned around to write something in French on the blackboard, and Alaska passed me a note. Nice bedhead. Study at McDonald’s for lunch? Our first significant precalc test was only two days away, so Alaska grabbed the six precalc kids she did not consider Weekday Warriors and piled us into her tiny blue two-door. By happy coincidence, a cute sophomore named Lara ended up sitting on my lap. Lara’d been born in Russia or someplace, and she spoke with a slight accent. Since we were only four layers of clothes from doing it, I took the opportunity to introduce myself. “I know who you are.” She smiled. “You’re Alaska’s freend from FlowReeda.” “Yup. Get ready for a lot of dumb questions, ’cause I suck at precalc,” I said. She started to answer, but then she was thrown back against me as Alaska shot out of the parking lot. “Kids, meet Blue Citrus. So named because she is a lemon,” Alaska said. “Blue Citrus, meet the kids. If you can find them, you might want to fasten your seat belts. Pudge, you might want to serve as a seat belt for Lara.” What the car lacked in speed, Alaska made up for by refusing to move her foot from the accelerator, damn the consequences. Before we even got off campus, Lara was lurching helplessly whenever Alaska took hard turns, so I took Alaska’s advice and wrapped my arms around Lara’s waist. “Thanks,” she said, almost inaudibly. After a fast if reckless three miles to McDonald’s, we ordered seven large french fries to share and then went outside and sat on the lawn. We sat in a circle around the trays of fries, and Alaska taught class, smoking while she ate. Like any good teacher, she tolerated little dissension. She smoked and talked and ate for an hour without stopping, and I scribbled in my notebook as the muddy waters of tangents and cosines began to clarify. But not everyone was so fortunate. As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, “Wait, wait. I don’t get it.” “That’s because you have eight functioning brain cells.” “Studies show that marijuana is better for your health than those cigarettes,” Hank said. Alaska swallowed a mouthful of french fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew smoke at Hank. “I may die young,” she said. “But at least I’ll die smart. Now, back to tangents.” one hundred days before “NOT TO ASK the obvious question, but why Alaska? ” I asked.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Onias was no less enamored of the Laffertys, and what they could do to advance his ambitions for the School of the Prophets. Applying the full brunt of their prodigious energy, the Lafferty brothers dived headlong into the tedious chore of printing, folding, and collating more than fifteen thousand of Onias’s pamphlets, then addressing and mailing them to LDS leaders around the country. “It was like a miracle to us,” Onias says, “for what would have taken us several months to accomplish in our spare time, they were able to accomplish in two weeks working day and night.” By early 1984 the newly established School of the Prophets was meeting on a weekly basis, usually at the Provo home of the Laffertys’ mother, Claudine, upstairs from the family chiropractic clinic. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the five brothers, the school got off to a flying start. Onias appreciated the Laffertys’ pivotal role in his school’s successful launch. The Laffertys, it seemed to him, were heaven-sent. Onias soon got confirmation that in fact they were. On January 8, he received a revelation in which God explained that before the Lafferty boys were even born, He had singled them out “to be an elect people, for they are the true blood of Israel and the chosen seed.” Six weeks later, Onias received another revelation in which God commanded him to appoint Ron Lafferty bishop of the school’s Provo chapter, which he gladly did. All the younger brothers, including Dan, clearly looked up to Ron—as indeed they had their entire lives. When Ron assumed the bishop’s responsibilities, everyone in the School of the Prophets approved. Ron’s promotion to a position of authority lifted his morale at a moment when such a boost was sorely needed, because the prior months had delivered an avalanche of setbacks and disappointments. As Ron recorded in a journal entry, The events of the past year have caused me to do a great deal of research and scripture study and spend a great deal of time on my knees in prayer. I have been stripped of all my material wealth, my family has divorced me and moved to Florida, I have been unjustly excommunicated from the church that I love so dearly. Ron no longer had a job or a regular paycheck. He was regarded as a pariah by his church and community. Because the home he’d so painstakingly built with his own hands had been taken from him, he was reduced to living out of his 1974 Impala station wagon—the only asset of any value still in his possession. And yet he claimed in his journal to be grateful for such humiliations, saying, “These experiences have caused me to establish a personal relationship with my Father in Heaven and He has revealed to me, at least in part, the outcome of all these trials.” Though Ron claimed to enjoy wearing a hair shirt, however, his actions suggested otherwise.

• From The Vagina Bible (2019)

  We don’t know if a moisturizer is helpful skin maintenance for women who feel fine but are looking for preventative care. It seems medically intuitive that it may not be a bad idea to try, especially if you are in your forties or older, or if you chronically remove hair or can’t give up irritants like soaps or wipes. It is also probably useful if you have incontinence or a skin condition that affects your vulva, such as lichen simplex chronicus (an eczema-like condition) or lichen sclerosus. If you have a skin condition that affects your vulva, it is always a good idea to discuss a moisturizer with your health care provider before you start. I started a moisturizer when I hit menopause, and my vulva started to feel more supple after a few weeks. I didn’t realize how accustomed I had become to the dryness and how much I look forward to the “ah” moment that immediately follows application. If you don’t feel dry or use any regular products on your skin that irritate, a moisturizer is probably one of those things to try, see how you like it, and go from there. Are there downsides to moisturizing? Some products can block pores and lead to folliculitis (basically acne on the vulva). There is also the risk of irritation and allergic reactions and the hassle of using something chronically. I understand some women love applying creams or ointments as a beauty regimen, but for me it seemed like one more thing I was going to forget, so it took some dedication to get a regimen going. Maybe it just made me feel old to have to start to use a moisturizer? I’m over it now, but it took a few weeks. What Is the Best Moisturizer? No moisturizer has been specifically studied for the vulva, so this is an area where I can only offer general guidance. Here are some common products and the available data: • COCONUT OIL: This has been studied on the skin of premature babies with no ill effects, and it performed better than mineral oil in preventing water loss from the skin. Lipids from the oil coat the skin, and it may have beneficial anti-inflammatory activity. It also has only one ingredient, so if it irritates there is no big mystery to solve. It is cheaper than many other options, absorbs well, and smells nice. Some researchers have suggested virgin coconut oil, obtained without chemicals or heat, might offer even more anti-inflammatory activity, but there is no good data to support that hypothesis. Coconut oil is both an emollient and an occlusive agent. • OLIVE OIL: This has been studied as a vulvar moisturizer for breast cancer survivors who could not use estrogen and was well tolerated. It is also an emollient and has occlusive properties.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  struggle. We shall see in Daniel 10 that each people was thought to have a heavenly “prince” or protector. The “prince” of Israel was the archangel Michael. Most probably, it is Michael who is depicted as “one like a son of man” coming with the clouds of heaven. Of course, the vision in chapter 7 is still addressed to the situation of the Jewish people. The offensive “little horn” is Antiochus Epiphanes, who attempted to change the sacred festivals and the law (7:25). The Jews are given into his power for “a time, two times, and half a time,” or three and a half years. But eventually Israel’s heavenly allies, the holy ones, prevail. The Jewish people are “the people of the holy ones of the Most High” who receive the lasting kingdom in 7:27. Daniel’s vision dramatizes the conflict in which the Jews found themselves in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. On the one hand, it claims that this crisis is worse than might be thought: it is nothing less than an eruption of primordial chaos. But it is also reassuring, for the end of the story is known. The holy ones will eventually prevail, and the Most High will pronounce judgment. The conflict will be resolved on the heavenly level. The appropriate response on the part of the Jewish people is not to take up arms in its own defense but to wait for the deliverance from heaven. All of this will be spelled out more clearly in the last revelation of the book. Daniel 8 The vision in chapter 8 resembles chapter 7 in that it develops the image of the little horn. In this case, however, there are no beasts from the sea. At first Daniel sees a fight between a ram, representing Persia, and a goat, representing Greece. The goat wins, but “at the height of its power, the great horn was broken,” a reference to the early death of Alexander the Great. In its place grew four horns, representing the successors of Alexander in the separate kingdoms of Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. One of these (Syria) sprouts the little horn that becomes Antiochus Epiphanes. This little horn grows as high as the host of

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Joe now notices his shoulders pulling up and off to the right. He becomes aware of his arm wanting to turn the wheel to the right just as he hears the crash and buckling of metal. Tom asks Joe to ignore the crash for the moment, focus on the sensation, and complete the turn to the right. Joe makes the turn in his body and “avoids” the accident. He has some more mild shaking that is quickly followed by a tremendous amount of relie f even though he knows the accident did happen. Tom asks Joe to return to the point where he first saw the yellow fender and the man through the windshield. From there they move to the moment where he hears the first clang of metal. As these images are accessed, Joe feels his body being thrown to the left, while at the same time, it is pulling back in the opposite direction. He feels like he is being propelled forward and his back muscles are trying, unsuccessfully, to pull him back. Tom encourages Joe to keep feeling his back muscles. Joe experiences increased tension as he focuses on the muscles. He then experiences a slight feeling of panic. At that point, Joe’s back muscles release and he breaks into a sweat. He shakes and trembles deeply for several minutes. At the end of this, Joe discovers himself feeling peaceful and safe. Joe knows that the accident happened. He knows that he tried to avoid it. He knows that he wanted to go back to talk to his wife. Each of these experiences are equally real for him. It doesn’t seem like one is real and the others are made up; they appear as different outcomes to the same event, both equally real. In the few days following the release of the energy stored in trauma, the symptoms in Joe’s right arm and back cleared up significantly. It is important to recognize that the pain he was experiencing was related to impulses he had that had not been completed. The first impulse was to turn the steering wheel to the right and to go back to talk to his wife. The second was to turn right to avoid the accident. A third was the muscles in his back that were trying to pull him back. Being encouraged to complete each of these actions, Joe was able to release the stored energy associated with the impulses, even if it was after the fact. We can see that this process offers a way to allow responses to complete and images to become more connected (associated). Images that are constricted become expanded, while stored energy is released through gradual discharge and completio n one step at a time. 17. First Aid for Children Delayed Traumatic Reactions

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

  Under Umar’s leadership, the Arabs burst out of the peninsula, initially in small local raids but later in larger expeditions. As they expected, they met little opposition. The armies of both the great powers had been decimated, and the subject peoples were disaffected. Jews and Monophysite Christians were sick of harassment from Constantinople, and the Persians were still reeling from the political upheaval that had followed Khosrow II’s assassination. Within a remarkably short period, the Arabs forced the Roman army to retreat from Syria (636) and crushed the depleted Persian army (637). In 641 they conquered Egypt, and though they had to fight some fifteen years to pacify the whole of Iran, they were eventually victorious in 652. Only Byzantium, now a rump state shorn of its southern provinces, held out. Thus, twenty years after the Battle of Badr, the Muslims found themselves masters of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. When they finally subdued Iran, they fulfilled the dream that had eluded both the Persians and Byzantines and re-created Cyrus’s empire.45 It is hard to explain their success. The Arabs were accomplished raiders but had little experience of protracted warfare and had no superior weapons or technology.46 In fact, like the Prophet, in the early years of the conquest period, they gained more territory by diplomacy than by fighting: Damascus and Alexandria both surrendered because they were offered generous terms.47 The Arabs had no experience of state building and just adopted Persian and Byzantine systems of land tenure, taxation, and government. There was no attempt to impose Islam on the subject peoples. The people of the book—Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians—became dhimmis (“protected subjects”). Critics of Islam often denounce this arrangement as evidence of Islamic intolerance, but Umar had simply adapted Khosrow I’s Persian system: Islam would be the religion of the Arab conquerors—just as Zoroastrianism had been the exclusive faith of the Persian aristocracy—and the dhimmis would manage their own affairs as they had in Iran and pay the jizya, a poll tax, in return for military protection. After centuries of forcible attempts by the Christian Roman Empire to impose religious consensus, the traditional agrarian system reasserted itself, and many of the dhimmis found this Muslim polity a relief.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  of the law leads to the conclusion that a man makes himself pleasing to God by obedience. 174 'Thus the Jewish religion, as presented by the Tannaites, remains a religion in which the normal relationship with God is built on the righteousness of man and the goodwill (Wohlgefallen) of God which is achieved by it.' 175 Here the ideas of mercy and election, which Sjoberg saw and tried to hold in balance, have finally fallen away. The refutation of Sjoberg's view is simple. Sanhedrin IO.I by its very wording (literally, 'All Israel- there is for them a share in the world to come'; thus 'All Israelites have') indicates that it applies to individuals, not just to the continuation of the Israelite nation. The exceptions which follow further show that individuals not excluded are counted in. Most decisive, however, are the detailed efforts to work out how individuals atone for their trans gressions. To repeat our frequent conclusion, the universal view is that every individual Israelite who indicates his intention to remain in the coven ant by repenting, observing the Day of Atonement and the like, will be for given for all his transgressions. The passages on repenting and atoning in order to return to God, which are ubiquitous in the literature, presuppose the covenantal relationship between God and all the members of Israel. In dealing with the individual, one cannot dismiss his membership in the covenant of God with Israel. 1 76 The statements of reward and punishment, on the other hand, do not indicate how one earns salvation. Their opposite would not be that God is merciful and saves, but that there is no correspond ence between God's rewards and man's behaviour: that God is arbitrary. If it appears that within this world God is not being just, one may rest assured that justice will be done in the world to come. The Israelite in the covenant will be punished for transgressions - by suffering, by death and even after death if necessary - but he is saved by remaining in the covenant given by God. Thus, for example, R. Akiba believed in strict punishment for deeds. Suffering reveals that one has sinned and is being punished, 1 77 and God will not show mercy to the righteous by refraining from punishing them for their transgressions. 178 But this describes God's behaviour within the covenant, not how one is saved. R. Akiba agreed with the statement that all Israelites have a share in the world to come, which is indicated by his glossing it by listing a few (a very few) exceptions. Further, in one sense even God's punishment of the sins of the righteous is itself mercy, since it indicates that one is being punished here in order not to be punished hereafter. Mercy and justice are not truly in conflict, nor is strict reward and punishment for deeds an alternative soteriology to election and atonement.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  More than two hundred years later the Christian convert Augustine, then a brilliantly successful young orator, was walking through the streets of Milan one night, dreading the speech he had to give the following day in praise of the emperor. In the midst of these anxieties he noticed a drunken beggar. Why, Augustine asked himself, did this beggar seem so happy, when he himself was so miserable? Augustine later described his overwhelming relief when at last he gave up his career, his ambition, the woman who had lived with him and borne him a son, as well as his impending marriage to a wealthy heiress, for the freedom of celibacy and renunciation. His pagan contemporaries regarded such renunciation not only as social suicide but as the worst impiety and dishonor. But Augustine came to believe that it meant no more than “dying to the world”—destroying the false self, constructed according to worldly custom and tradition, in order to “raise his own life above the world.”3 Ascetically inclined Christians even projected their idealized celibacy back into Paradise, as we shall see, and turned the story of the first marriage into a story of two virgins whose sin and consequent sexual awakening ended in their expulsion from the “Paradise of virginity” into marriage and all its attendant sufferings, from labor pains to social domination and death.4 The renowned teacher and bishop Gregory of Nyssa (c. 331–395 C.E.) declared, “Marriage, then, is the last stage of our separation from the life that was led in Paradise; marriage therefore … is the first thing to be left behind; it is the first station, as it were, for our departure to Christ.”5 Even today, an adolescent who takes time to think before plunging into ordinary adult society—into marriage, and the double obligations of family and career—may hesitate, for such obligations usually cost nothing less than one’s life, the expense of virtually all one’s energy attempting to fulfill obligations to family and society, especially if one also wants to be recognized and celebrated within one’s community. It is in this sense that Christian renunciation, of which celibacy is the paradigm, offered freedom—freedom, in particular, from entanglement in Roman society. In classical Greek and Roman society, a young man or woman who hesitated or refused to marry the person chosen by his or her family would be considered insubordinate or possibly even insane. Many parents expected their daughters to marry at about the age of puberty or soon after; in aristocratic circles, advantageous marriages sometimes were arranged when the children were as young as six or seven. Through marriage, as the historian Peter Brown says, “a girl was conscripted as a fully productive member by her society, as was her spouse.”6 Young men were expected to marry between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five and then to place themselves at the service of their communities, according to their family tradition and station.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  I turned some kind of corner when, at Alain Ducasse New York, I was offered a painfully extensive discourse on the water selections—a lengthy distraction which bled out any possibility of joy from what was already a dark, stiff, and humorless exercise in pomposity. My meal at Joel Robuchon's new concept operation in Paris, L'Atelier, was a welcome relief, and seemed to light the way for other chefs to serve high-style food in more comfortable, less stuffy surroundings. And Martin Picard's outrageously over the top Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal was an answered prayer, a loud, defiant, and joyous "fuck you!" to convention for which I was (obviously) very grateful. When I find a chef or a restaurant I love, I tend to make a cause of it—to get hyperbolic. But I feel a real sense of relief, a return to sanity and reason, when I eat at St. John in London, or at Martin's Au Pied, or at Avec in Chicago. When it's finally and only about the food, and all the nonsense and artifice are stripped away. When I can be certain the words "truffle oil" will never issue from a waiter's mouth, and no sauce shall be foamed, and nothing will be served in a shot glass except tequila. A LIFE OF CRIME Writing incessantly about food is like writing porn. How many adjectives can there be before you repeat yourself? How many times can you write variations on the tale of the lonely housewife, temporarily short of funds, and the horny but hunky delivery boy who's not averse to negotiating for that pizza? How many times can you describe a fucking salad without using the word "crisp"? So it's always a pleasure when I'm given the opportunity to write about something that doesn't involve food or chefs. I do have other interests. Crime is one of them. ADVANCED COURSES I think all the international travel began to make it easier for me to see and appreciate my own country, and I stopped sneering and started looking at the flyover and the red states not as the enemy but as strange and potentially wonderful foreign lands. It certainly helps that it's usually the chefs and cooks I meet first, but after sitting down to eat with ex-Khmer Rouge, for instance, or being hosted with incredible generosity by former VC cadre leaders—and a lot of other Very Nice People who've done some Very Bad Things—I began to be (I like to think) less judgmental about my own country. I mean, if I can get drunk with a bunch of probably murderous Russian gangsters and have a good time, why can't I get along with an Evangelical Republican from Texas? This was an early grope at being comfortable with that vast space between the coasts, a coming to terms with my own snobbery. NAME DROPPING DOWN UNDER Written for a British magazine, and dripping with Britishisms.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  In contrast, like the other adults who did not want to emulate their parents’ marriage, Gary had a clear agenda. One of the lessons he drew from watching his parents was that he wanted to have better communication in his own marriage. “That wasn’t hard,” he quipped, “because my parents hardly talked except about us kids. Communication isn’t talking baseball or even children. It’s solving problems. I had this notion that admitting to problems meant that you’d end up in a big, screaming fight feeling misunderstood and angry for days. But I’ve really learned from Sara that it doesn’t have to be that way, that you can discuss your differences and actually have the tension get less, not bigger. That’s been a huge relief to me.” In his anxieties over dealing with conflicts, Gary sounded a lot like Karen. The difference is that Gary eventually learned how to argue without feeling the world would crash down on his head. Karen never could. Gary had the enormous advantage of having seen his parents cooperate consistently over many years in situations involving the children. Their cooperation made it easier for him to learn from Sara how to deal with differences directly, without fear that they will rock the marriage. He was also greatly reassured by Sara’s firm belief that problems in a marriage are meant to be resolved. The multiple parts of Gary’s legacy from his parents were evident in two marital crises that Gary described. The first reflects Gary’s legacy from his father of a steely resolve to fight for the marriage and the belief that one has to give it priority over other relationships.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  goat carried the sin of the people into the wilderness could hardly feel any relief when it went out of sight. The Priestly laws in Leviticus may give the impression that the sacrifices work automatically, but elsewhere in the Bible we often find an awareness that rituals are only effective when they give expression to genuine human intentions. We shall find that the prophets were often very critical of the sacrificial cult when it was not accompanied by the practice of justice (see especially Amos 5). The psalmists also were aware of the limits of ritual. “For you have no delight in sacrifice,” says Ps 51:16-17. “If I were to give a burnt offering you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Leviticus, however, assumes that God is pleased by burnt offerings and that the ritual is effective when it is performed properly. The Consecration of Priests The instructions for the building of the tabernacle included directions for the consecration of the sons of Aaron as priests in Exodus 29. The actual consecration is described in Leviticus 8–10. Aaron is given a special tunic and a breastplate equipped with Urim and Thummim, which were used to consult the Lord. We do not know exactly what the Urim and Thummim were. Scholars have speculated that they were some form of dice that could be rolled so as to get either a positive or a negative answer to a question. In any case, it is of interest that the high priest was equipped to engage in divination, which is a function that we associate more usually with prophets. It is also noteworthy that the priests were anointed with oil. Anointing was widely used in the ancient Near East to indicate a raise in status. In Israel the king was anointed. The Hebrew verb “to anoint” is mashach. An anointed one is a mashiach, the word commonly rendered in English as messiah . After the Babylonian exile, when there no longer was a king in Israel, the term “messiah” (mashiach) came to designate a future king. But a priest could also be called mashiach, and

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  likely that we have two reports of the same incident from different vantage points. There is no doubt that Judah was brought to its knees by the Assyrians. For the survivors in Jerusalem, however, the more remarkable thing was that the city was not destroyed. This unexpected deliverance is celebrated in the story of the angel of the Lord. It contributed to the myth of the inviolability of Zion, which we have seen in connection with the temple ideology. According to Ps 46:5, “God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.” Psalm 48 tells how kings who came up against Jerusalem were seized with panic and fled. It is possible that these psalms were inspired by the fact that Sennacherib did not destroy Jerusalem. More probably, the belief that the city was protected by YHWH was older, but it was powerfully reinforced by this deliverance. A century later, the confidence inspired by this myth would prove to be false when the city was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Conquest of Jerusalem Year 7, month of Kislimu: The king of Akkad moved his army into Haddi land, laid siege to the city of Judah, and the king took the city on the second day of the month Addaru. He appointed in it a [new] king to his liking, took heavy booty from it, and brought it into Babylon. Babyonian Chronicle, trans. A. Leo Oppenheim; ANET, 564. The End of the Kingdom of Judah The “good” King Hezekiah is followed in 2 Kings 21 by Manasseh, who reigns for fifty-five years and does “more wicked things than all the Amorites did, who were before him” (21:11). Manasseh does everything of which the Deuteronomists disapprove, restoring the high places that Hezekiah had torn down, erecting altars for Baal, and even making his son “pass through fire” as a burnt offering. He is also said to have practiced soothsaying and dealt with mediums. How far these practices were traditional in Judah and how far they were introduced by Manasseh under Assyrian influence, is disputed. At least the high places and the worship of Baal were traditional, although the cult of Baal

• From Opening Up by Writing It Down (2016)

  You can appreciate the irony of this situation. This man had come into the polygrapher’s office a free man, safe in the knowledge that polygraph evidence was not allowed in court. Nevertheless, he confessed. Now, his professional, financial, and personal life was on the brink of ruin. He was virtually assured of a prison term. Despite these realities, he was relaxed and at ease with himself. Later, when a policeman came to handcuff and escort him to jail, he warmly shook the polygrapher’s hand and thanked him for all he had done. Several months later, the polygrapher received a warm Christmas card written by the former bank vice president with the federal penitentiary as the return address. Even when the costs are high, the confession of painful secrets can reduce anxiety and physiological stress. Whereas being the center of the conversation in a group may be fun, revealing pent-up thoughts and feelings can be liberating—even if they end up sending you to prison. Psychosomatics, Self-Knowledge, and Healing Here’s a little tip about researchers in psychology: Many of them study topics that are most troublesome or relevant for them personally. It is possible that Jamie was interested in emotion and health issues because of family issues earlier in his life. He was probably drawn to the area of psychosomatics by virtue of having had asthma as a child. He grew up in West Texas, a very dry and flat part of the world. During his adolescence, asthma attacks became a routine feature of the windy part of winter (as opposed to the windy parts of spring, summer, and fall). At the time, he reasoned that pollen and dust that had blown in from New Mexico and Nevada were to blame. In college, he never had any wheezing bouts except when he went home for the Christmas holidays. The pollen and dust again. During his last year in college, however, his parents came to visit him in Florida in late November. The day they arrived, he developed asthma. All of a sudden, the profound realization hit him that there was more to asthma than pollen. We don’t want to be judgmental here, but one could reasonably argue that long-standing conflicts with his parents were linked to his upper respiratory system. Interestingly, once he saw the parent–asthma connection, he never wheezed again. It was far too embarrassing.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  more important in popular Israelite religion than in the writings that are preserved in the Bible. Little is said about Azazel here, and it is difficult to know just what role he ever played in Israelite religion. He was apparently important enough at some point that he had to be appeased by the offering of a goat. The goat is not killed but is simply sent out into the wilderness, where Azazel presumably lived. Our purpose in considering Leviticus 16 here is not to speculate on the origin of Azazel, but to reflect on the way in which the ritual works. The priest “shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat. . . . The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities” (16:21-22). Iniquities (sins) are not material objects that can be packaged and put on an animal’s head. They are deeds that people have done (murder, for example), and in many cases they cannot be undone. The action of the priest, then, is symbolic, and the effectiveness of his action depends on the belief of everyone involved. When the ritual is performed correctly, the sins of the people are deemed to be carried away into the wilderness. Just as a judge in a court has the power to declare someone guilty or innocent, the priest has the power to declare sin forgiven. The legitimacy of a court depends on the consensus of a society. Similarly, the effectiveness of a ritual depends on its acceptance within a society. It is assumed in Leviticus that these rituals are prescribed by God and that sin is forgiven because God so declares it. God, however, speaks through the priest. While we cannot verify the divine acceptance of the ritual, we can assess its effect on the people who practiced it. We can imagine that people who approached the Day of Atonement burdened by a sense of sin would feel a great sense of relief as they watched the goat bearing their sins disappear into the wilderness. Such people might well resolve to avoid sinful conduct in the future, although this is not necessarily the case. We can also understand that an individual who made an offering for sin would be pardoned not only by God but by the society that acknowledged the validity of the ritual. The efficacy of the ritual, however, depends on its acceptance. A person who did not believe that the

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

  She got lots of support for taking responsibility for herself rather than for her son and his illness. After a few months of trying on these new ideas, she noticed that her health was improving and she was able to do things for herself—and even have a little fun once in a while. Coping with her son’s illness turned out to be an opportunity for Samantha to change basic assumptions that she had operated from her whole life. She actually believes now that she is responsible for herself and that her son is responsible for himself. She has a stake in something she can control—her own health and well-being—which she is not going to sacrifice for something she can’t control—her son’s. She doesn’t assume responsibility for him even when he fails. Whatever your anxiety and worries are based on, when you choose to act with a mind-set based on your personal values—and not the monkey’s—you will get new experience that supports that mind-set. Your consciousness will integrate this new experience and expand. With repeated new experiences, your old perfectionist, need-to-be-certain, over-responsible mind-sets will break down. You’ll learn to believe in the new expansive mind-set you have chosen. Expansive thinking will become your new default. Living with Purpose, Achieving Your Goals [image "40%" file=Image00062.jpg] As you become less limited by the monkey’s bias toward safety and more resilient to its alarms of perceived threats, you will begin to take the risks necessary to meet your larger personal goals. Things you only dreamed about doing before will begin to appear doable. Maria, as you recall, longed to travel. The values she cherished most were curiosity and spontaneity, but she was afraid to go more than ten miles or so from her doctor and her hospital. All that has changed now. First of all, Maria is delighted to report that she has far fewer uncomfortable physical sensations. This is partially because she isn’t constantly scanning her body for them anymore. It’s also because when she does happen to feel something uncomfortable, she doesn’t look it up on the Internet. When she doesn’t feed her worry, there’s less to worry about. She feels healthier and less stressed. After all her practicing tolerance for uncertainty regarding physical symptoms, Maria has noticed she is more willing to be uncertain in other areas of her life. She doesn’t second-guess her financial investments anymore, she is bold and decisive when shopping, and the number one thing she Googles now is travel locations. After years of hugging the shoreline Maria is making up for lost time. She just returned from a month in South America, a destination she would have been terrified to travel to before. Maria is living according to her own values now—explore, explore, explore! Increased Compassion and Self-Esteem Eric, like all perfectionists, held himself to an impossible standard. He wasn’t allowed to make mistakes.