Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 144 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  26:36–3836. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. 37. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. 38. Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. REMIGIUS. The Evangelist had said a little above, that when they had sung an hymn they went out to the mount of Olives; to point out the part of the mount to which they took their way, he now adds, Then came Jesus with them to a garden called Gethsemane. RABANUS. Luke says, To the mount of Olives, (Luke 22:39.) and John, Went forth over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, (John 18:1.) which is the same as this Gethsemane, and is a place where He prayed at the foot of mount Olivet, where is a garden, and a Church now builtr JEROME. Gethsemane is interpreted, ‘The rich valley;’ and there He bade His disciples sit a little while, and wait His return whilst He prayed alone for all. ORIGEN. For it was not fitting that He should be seized in the place where He had sate and eaten the Passover with His disciples. Also He must first pray, and choose a place pure for prayer. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. Ixxxiii.) He says, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder, because the disciples adhered inseparably to Christ; but it was His practice to pray apart from them, therein teaching us to study quiet and retirement for our prayers. DAMASCENE. (de. Fid. Orth. iii. 24.) But seeing that prayer is the sending up the understanding to God, or the asking of God things fitting, how did the Lord pray? For His understanding needed not to be lifted up to God, having been once united hypostatically to God the Word. Neither could He need to ask of God things fitting, for the One Christ is both God and Man. But giving in Himself a pattern to us, He taught us to ask of God, and to lift up our minds to Him. As He took on Him our passions, that by triumphing over them Himself, He might give us also the victory over them, so now He prays to open to us the way to that lifting up to God, to fulfil for us all righteousness, to reconcile His Father to us, to pay honour to Him as the First Cause, and to shew that He is not against God.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: Matters concerning the Godhead are, in themselves, the strongest incentive to love [‘dilectio,’ the interior act of charity; cf. Q[27]] and consequently to devotion, because God is supremely lovable. Yet such is the weakness of the human mind that it needs a guiding hand, not only to the knowledge, but also to the love of Divine things by means of certain sensible objects known to us. Chief among these is the humanity of Christ, according to the words of the Preface [*Preface for Christmastide], “that through knowing God visibly, we may be caught up to the love of things invisible.” Wherefore matters relating to Christ’s humanity are the chief incentive to devotion, leading us thither as a guiding hand, although devotion itself has for its object matters concerning the Godhead. Reply to Objection 3: Science and anything else conducive to greatness, is to man an occasion of self-confidence, so that he does not wholly surrender himself to God. The result is that such like things sometimes occasion a hindrance to devotion; while in simple souls and women devotion abounds by repressing pride. If, however, a man perfectly submits to God his science or any other perfection, by this very fact his devotion is increased. Whether joy is an effect of devotion?Objection 1: It would seem that joy is not an effect of devotion. As stated above (A[3], ad 2), Christ’s Passion is the chief incentive to devotion. But the consideration thereof causes an affliction of the soul, according to Lam. 3:19, “Remember my poverty . . . the wormwood and the gall,” which refers to the Passion, and afterwards (Lam. 3:20) it is said: “I will be mindful and remember, and my soul shall languish within me.” Therefore delight or joy is not the effect of devotion. Objection 2: Further, devotion consists chiefly in an interior sacrifice of the spirit. But it is written (Ps. 50:19): “A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit.” Therefore affliction is the effect of devotion rather than gladness or joy. Objection 3: Further, Gregory of Nyssa says (De Homine xii) [*Orat. funebr. de Placilla Imp.] that “just as laughter proceeds from joy, so tears and groans are signs of sorrow.” But devotion makes some people shed tears. Therefore gladness or joy is not the effect of devotion. On the contrary, We say in the Collect [*Thursday after fourth Sunday of Lent]: “That we who are punished by fasting may be comforted by a holy devotion.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (de Cons. Ev. iii. 11.) And they gave him to drink wine mingled with gall. Mark says, mingled with myrrh. Matthew put gall (Mark 15:23.) to express bitterness, but wine mingled with myrrh is very bitter; though indeed it might be, that gall together with myrrh would make the most bitter. JEROME. The bitter vine makes bitter wine; this they gave the Lord Jesus to drink, that that might be fulfilled which was written, They gave me also gall for my meat. (Ps. 69:21.) And God addresses Jerusalem, I had planted there a true vine, how art thou turned into the bitterness of a strange vine? (Jer. 2:21.) AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. That Mark says, But he received it not, we understand to mean that He would not receive it to drink thereof. For that He tasted it Matthew bears witness; so that Matthew’s, He could not drink thereof, means exactly the same as Mark’s, He received it not; only Mark does not mention His tasting it. That He tasted but would not drink of it, signifies that He tasted the bitterness of death for us, but rose again the third day. HILARY. Or, He therefore refused the wine mingled with gall, because the bitterness of sin is not mingled with the incorruption of eternal glory. 27:35–3835. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. 36. And sitting down they watched him there; 37. And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 38. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. GLOSS. (non occ.) Having described how Christ was led to the scene of His Passion, the Evangelist proceeds to the Passion itself, describing the kind of death; And they crucified him. AUGUSTINE. (Lib. 83. Quæst. q. 25.) The Wisdom of God took upon Him man, to give us an example how we might live rightly. It pertains to right life not to fear things that are not to be feared. But some men who do not fear death in itself, yet dread some kinds of death. That no sort of death is to be feared by the man who lives aright, was to be shewn by this Man’s cross. For of all the modes of death none was more horrible and fearful than this.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  In the morning he no longer knew anything about everything. – Doctor Grabow tried to treat this ailment with an evening drink of blueberry juice; but that didn't help at all. The inhibitions to which Hanno's body was subject, the pains he suffered, did not fail to evoke in him that serious feeling of premature experience that one calls precociousness and even if it did not appear often and was not in the least obtrusive, as if it were held down by an overriding talent with good taste, it still expressed itself here and there in the form of a melancholy superiority... "How are you, Hanno ?” asked one of his relatives, his grandmother, the Buddenbrook ladies from Breite Strasse ... and a small, resigned puckering of his mouth, a shrug of his shoulders covered in the blue sailor's collar, was the whole answer. "Do you like going to school?" "No," Hanno answered calmly and with a frankness that, in the face of more serious matters, does not consider it worth lying about such matters. "Not? Oh! But you have to learn: writing, arithmetic, reading..." "And so on," said little Johann. No, he didn't like going to the old school, that former convent school with cloisters and Gothic vaulted classrooms. Absences because of indisposition and complete inattention when his thoughts lingered on some harmonic connection or the still unsolved wonders of a piece of music which he had heard from his mother and Mr. Pfühl did not exactly encourage him in the sciences, and the assistant teachers and seminarians who taught him to taught these lower classes, and whose social inferiority, mental oppression, and physical unkemptness he felt inspired him, along with fear of punishment, a secret contempt. Herr Tietge, the arithmetic teacher, a small old man in a greasy black coat, who had already worked in the institution at the time of the late Marcellus Stengel, Hanno's relationship to his little comrades was generally of a completely alien and superficial nature; Only with one of them did he have a strong bond, and that since the first days of school, and that was a child of noble origin but completely neglected appearance, a Count Mölln with the first name Kai. It was a boy of Hanno's stature, but not in a Danish sailor's habit like Hanno's, but in a poor suit of an indefinite color, missing a button here and there, and showing a large patch on the buttocks. His hands, protruding from the too-short sleeves, appeared impregnated with dust and earth and an invariably light gray color, but they were narrow and exceedingly finely formed, with long fingers and long, pointed nails. And to these hands corresponded the head, which, neglected, unkempt, and not very clean, was naturally endowed with all the marks of a pure and noble race.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  "I could cite many things," it said elsewhere, "if I were willing to discover my passions alone..." Well, the Consul ignored that and began a few lines here and there from the time of his marriage and his read first paternity. To be honest, this union hadn't been what you would call a love match. His father patted him on the back and drew his attention to rich Kröger's daughter, who gave the company a handsome dowry; he wholeheartedly agreed and from then on he honored his wife as the companion whom God had trusted in him... It was no different with his father's second marriage. "A good man, a good man, A man of complaisance"... he trilled softly in the bedroom. It was a pity how little sense he had for all those old records and papers. He kept his feet firmly on the present and did not concern himself much with the family's past, although in the past he had added a few notes in his somewhat squiggly handwriting to the thick gilt-edged notebook, mainly concerning his first marriage. The Consul opened the sheets, which were stronger and rougher than the paper he had stuck in himself, and which were already beginning to turn yellow... Yes, Johann Buddenbrook must have loved this first wife, the daughter of a Bremen merchant, in a touching way, and the one short year that he had been able to spend at her side seemed to have been his best. " L'année la plus heureuse de ma vie ," it said, underlined with a wavy line, at the risk of Madame Antoinette reading it... But then Gotthold came and the child ruined Josephine ... Strange remarks were made, for that matter, on rough paper. Johann Buddenbrook seemed to have honestly and bitterly hated this new creature, from the moment when its first bold movements had caused the mother horrible pain, until it was born healthy and lively, while Josephine, the bloodless head rummaged in the pillows, passed away - and never forgiving this unscrupulous intruder, who grew up strong and carefree, for having murdered his mother... The Consul did not understand that. She died, he thought, fulfilling the high duty of woman, and I would have tenderly passed on my love for her to the being to whom she gave life and which she left me when she departed ...

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  Waking up to that smile, the one I fell in love with when the world was just ours. I open the bottle and shut my eyes. A twist of fate spilling cold over a lonely glass. A reminder to forget the forgotten again. Another day spent slowly slipping away from you. Reality Love and loss share the same unmade bed. Pen Portrait I watched as you reached for the ice cream. Standing naked, body pressed up against the humming fridge. A wispy trail of bluish gray smoke spiraling up from a dying cigarette. Held precariously in the other hand, ash falling to the floor. A just-fucked wetness between your legs. Your little smile captured in grainy black and white. By the click of a camera. Twisted Trees A fearsome wind cannot compel the weakest branch to gladly yield. Yet, the faintest breath upon your lips— and I have fallen against my will. [image file=image_rsrc2H3.jpg] Roses Roses wear blindfolds, Violets crack whips, candle wax dripping, teeth biting lips. The Picnic It was a sticky cotton candy kind of day. The sun smiling, tickled and teased by wispy white clouds. Bright yellow butterflies danced a flowery waltz with buzzing bees, while a shadowy wave rippled across the sleepy meadow of lush green. Its chilly touch, painting tiny goose bumps on pale, winter-kissed legs. Your orange dress hitched up, panties kicked off, my hand exploring the wetness between your thighs. Our lips thirsty for each other. Two strangers lost. In the tangled arms of unquenchable desire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Why are you crying?” “I think I’ve just found the love of my life,” she replied. Lost Lost is a lovely place to find yourself. Surrender Imagine the possibilities, of a question posed by pretty knees, kneeling. Your eyes cast downward, pleading, red lips parted, and a mouth slowly opened. The answer given, a soft moan, swallowed. Raindrops We fell asleep as lovers do, listening to the raindrops pitter-patter on the old tin roof, hands entwined and souls secretly smiling. The Blindfold Sophia opened the pretty pink gift-wrapping paper and picked up the black velvet blindfold from inside. Attached was a note written in flowing ink, which read: Are you ready for instructions? She collapsed onto the bed, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, a quiet smile gently touching each blushing cheek. The Visitor In soft candlelight you came, a pale white ghost, stepping shy from shadows, coy, slipping quietly into a restless sleep, where all modesty and demure lay discarded, stripped naked, by a fantasy awakened within a dream. The Race We ran. Faces flushed, bare feet sinking into wet sand, our warm breath little clouds of misty white, taken by the chilly morning air. A single wave broke, sending frothy foam sliding across our ankles, the cold biting deep.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  My guide and companion in this was a young man I met after a week or so, a well set-up, rather tongue-tied little chap called Bill Hawkins. I had noticed him early on, and was not surprised to find that he spent a lot of time in the gym: he had a fine torso and packed shoulders. We played a few games of draughts together on my first Sunday evening. He clearly wanted to talk to me, but was uncertain how to go about it, so I drew him out. It transpired that he had been for over a year the lover of a teenage boy who trained at the sports club in Highbury where Bill was employed. They saw each other every day, and were blissfully happy, though Alec, as the boy was called, avoided his old friends and caused concern to his parents by his singular behaviour. Twice Bill and Alec went to Brighton and spent the weekend in a guesthouse owned by a friend of the sports club manager: if anyone asked questions they were to pretend to be brothers, for Bill himself was only eighteen, and Alec was a couple of years younger. After a while, though, Alec became more distant, and it soon became clear that he was involved with another man. Bill, in all the torments of first love, took precipitately to drink, and would make a nuisance of himself banging on the door of Alec’s parents’ house. Then foolish, intimate letters were written: and found, by the parents. They showed them to Alec’s new friend, an insurance salesman with a Riley whom they, in a fine hypocritical fashion, considered more suitable and respectable than poor, passionate, uncontrollable Bill. Together the salesman and the parents took the letters to the police. Bill, when questioned, did nothing to conceal his feelings. He was sent down for eighteen months with hard labour.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Oh god, that woman... she's a fairy! How is Hanno, Tom?” 'He's about to have dinner with Frau Jungmann. It's too bad that it still doesn't really want to move forward with its walking..." 'It'll come, Tom, it'll come! How are you satisfied with Ida?” "Oh, how could we not be content..." They passed the rear stone hallway, leaving the kitchen on the right, and exited through a glass door, up two steps, into the delicate and fragrant flower garden. "Well?" asked the senator. It was warm and still. The scents of the neatly delineated beds hung in the evening air, and the fountain, surrounded by tall lilac irises, sent its jet with peaceful splashing towards the dark sky, where the first stars were beginning to gleam. In the background, a small flight of steps flanked by two low obelisks led up to a raised gravel square, on which stood an open wooden pavilion, which, with its awning lowered, sheltered a few garden chairs. On the left the property went through a wall separated from the neighboring garden; on the right, however, the side wall of the adjoining house was clad over its entire height with a wooden scaffolding, which was destined to be covered with creepers over time. There were a few currant and gooseberry bushes on the sides of the stairway and the pavilion square; but only one large tree was there, a gnarled walnut tree, which stood against the wall to the left. "The thing is," Mrs. Permaneder replied hesitantly, while the siblings slowly began to walk around the front seat on the gravel path... "Tiburtius writes..." »Klara?!« asked Thomas ... »Please, briefly and without any fuss!« 'Yes, Tom, she's lying down, she's in a bad way, and the doctor's afraid it's tubercles... tuberculosis of the brain... hard as it is for me to pronounce. Look here: this is the letter your husband is writing to me. This insert, which is addressed to Mother and which, he says, says the same thing, we should give her after we've prepared it a bit. And then here is this second insert: also written to Mother and by Klara herself, very uncertainly, in pencil. And Tiburtius says that she herself said that these were her last lines, because the sad thing was that she didn't bother to live. She always longed for heaven..." concluded Mrs. Permaneder and wiped her eyes. The senator walked by her side in silence, hands behind his back, head bowed low.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  He passed the avenue that led to the little town and drove along the "front row" ... Hanno pressed his head into the corner of the car and looked past Ida Jungmann, who was sitting across from him on the back seat, fresh-eyed, white- haired and bony, and out the window. The morning sky was whitish overcast, and the Trave threw small waves that swept swiftly before the wind. Now and then raindrops tingled against the panes. At the exit of the "front row" people sat in front of their front doors and mended nets; barefoot children ran up and looked curiously at the wagon. They stayed here... As the carriage left the last houses, Hanno leaned forward to see the lighthouse once more; then he leaned back and closed his eyes. "Next year again, Hannochen," said Ida Jungmann in a deep, comforting voice; but that encouragement was just enough to set his chin in a trembling motion and let the tears well up from under his long eyelashes. His face and hands were tanned from the sea air; but if one had pursued the aim of making him harder, more energetic, fresher and more resilient with this bathing stay, one had miserably failed; he was filled with this hopeless truth. His heart had only become much softer, more pampered, more dreamy, more sensitive through those four weeks of sea devotion and contained peace, and only much less able to remain brave at the prospect of Mr. Tiedge's Rule Detri, and at the thought of memorizing the history numbers and grammatical ones rules, the desperately careless throwing away of books and the deep sleep to escape everything, the fear in the morning and before the hours, the catastrophes, the hostile Hagenstroms and the demands But then the morning drive cheered him up a little, amid the chirping of birds along the water-filled tracks of the country road. He thought of Kai and seeing him again, of Herr Pfühl, the piano lessons, the grand piano and his harmonium. Incidentally, tomorrow was Sunday, and the first day of school, the day after tomorrow, was still safe. Ah, him still felt a little sand from the beach in his button-up boots... he wanted to beg old Grobleben to leave him in them all the time... if only it could all start again, that with the worsted skirts and that with the Hagenstroms and the rest. He had what he had. He wanted to remember the lake and the spa garden when everything was storming in on him again, and a very brief thought of the sound of the small waves in the evening in the silence, coming far away from the mysterious slumbering distance against the bulwark should make him so confident, so untouchable against all odds...

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. Or otherwise; My soul is sorrowful even unto death; as much as to say, Sorrow is begun in me, but not to endure for ever, but only till the hour of death; that when I shall die for sin, I shall die also to all sorrow, whose beginnings only are in me. Tarry ye here, and watch with me; as much as to say, The rest I bade sit yonder as weak, removing them from this struggle; but you I have brought hither as being stronger, that ye may toil with me in watching and prayer. But abide you here, that every man may stay in his own rank and station; since all grace, however great, has its superior. JEROME. Or the sleep which He would have them forego is not bodily rest, for which at this critical time there was no room, but mental torpor, the sleep of unbelief. 26:39–4439. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. 40. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? 41. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 42. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. 43. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. 44. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

• From Science and Religion (2006)

  69 Brahe, who had recently transferred to Rudolf II’s court in Prague; when Tycho died in 1601, Kepler inherited his post as imperial mathematician. For 12 years, he lived at Linz and was invited to London by James I and to a chair at Bologna but declined both. Kepler’s life was fraught with problems from the outset: His parents became bankrupt, his wife and three children died young, his mother was tried as a witch, his salary was rarely paid, and he seemed always caught in sectarian cross¿ re. Lemaître, Georges (18941966): The “father of Big-Bang cosmology” was born in Charleroi, Belgium; studied humanities at a Jesuit school; volunteered in the Belgian army in 1914; and after the armistice, began studies of physics and mathematics and for the priesthood. He received a Ph.D. in 1920 and was ordained in 1923. In the same year, he studied with Arthur Eddington at Cambridge, then with Shapley at Harvard, and ¿ nally, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He returned to Belgium in 1925 and, in 1927, published a paper containing arguments for an expanding universe; his views were accepted only slowly, but he won over Einstein in 1935. Later in life, Lemaître was involved with computer development. He received numerous distinctions both Belgian and international, including membership in the Ponti¿ cal Academy of Sciences (1936), and was the president of that body from 1960. Lorini, Niccolò (dates unknown): A minor Dominican friar at Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Wrote a letter of complaint against Galileo and his followers to the Inquisition, thus precipitating the Galileo affair. Mersenne, Marin (15881648): Although initially a religious writer and supporter of Aristotle, Mersenne became one of the most important researchers and promoters of the “New Science” of the 17 th century. He advocated a mathematical approach to nature and created a huge correspondence network and academy for the exchange of scienti ¿ c ideas. A Minim friar from 1611 and priest from 1612, Mersenne was also a staunch supporter of Galileo by the early 1630s. He studied acoustics, mathematics, the speed of sound, the barometer, falling bodies, and other topics; encouraged other scholars, including Gassendi, Descartes, and Huygens; and published proli¿ cally.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  He can’t help it: He wants to get on with this, and get it over, and get on out. For years now, Carol and Jim have given Jay every tool at their disposal so that, essentially, he could one day make his escape. They found this place, in Marion, all those years ago, having come straight in from the West without even knowing what their new jobs might be, knowing only that Iowa was where they would raise the family. Marion had been the place where Jim had lived before moving to Illinois as a 14-year-old, and Carol had grown up in a twelve-child Catholic family on a farm north of tiny little Lourdes, and Iowa was the place. Jim wound up inspecting low-and moderate-income family leased homes for the city of Cedar Rapids. Carol landed as an elementary school music teacher. The jobs are good and Jim’s is almost perfectly flexible, and they have weekends off, and these jobs allow the Borschels to fashion their existence significantly around what Jay (and now Hannah) needs in the way of support. And, inevitably, Jay is drifting ever so slightly away from them now, and as much as Carol has done to ignore that fact, there are some days when the truth of it has no place to go. Senior Night tends to be one of those kinds of days. Put it this way: When they walk you into the big room and hand you the rose, it means your son is going away. Jim has to be retrieved and reminded to go join Carol and Jay for the ceremony, which also includes wrestling staff and cheerleaders and the other seniors—Mitch Benfer, Shawnden Crawford and Kyle Minehart. It isn’t really Jim’s thing. He’s the kind of dad who somehow usually finds his way to the wrestling room while practice is still going on, one of those people who, before you know it, is out there with some jayvee kid, helping him learn one of the multiple variations of the basic moves that Doug Streicher and his staff teach. And Jim’s rewards all come down there, in the room with the mats and the stereo. When he was in the tenth grade, weary of sitting the bench on the basketball team, he fell into wrestling; by the time he was a senior, he was a conference champion. He loved the work. He loved how much it hurt after a hard practice. He admired the ethic. Later on, as a dad, he ran the kids’ program at Linn-Mar for a while. Now he’s just sort of one of those guys who is always there, ready to answer a question or work a technique. He gets paid nothing for it. He asks for nothing in return. He pays the freight. The ones who really love it, they usually find a way to hang around. The families file into the oversized gym, with its dozen rows of overhead lights.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. Or, because the number six seems to denote toil and labour, and the number seven repose, He says that forgiveness should be given to all brethren who live in this world, and sin in the things of this world. But if any commit transgressions beyond these things, he shall then have no further forgiveness. JEROME. Or understand it of four hundred and ninety times, that He bids us forgive our brother so oft. RABANUS. It is one thing to give pardon to a brother when he seeks it, that he may live with us in social charity, as Joseph to his brethren; and another to a hostile foe, that we may wish him good, and if we can do him good, as David mourning for Saul. 18:23–3523. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. 24. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. 25. But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26. The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 27. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. 28. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. 29. And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. 30. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt. 31. So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done. 32. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: 33. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? 34. And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. 35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. CHRYSOSTOM. That none should think that the Lord had enjoined something great and burdensome in saying that we must forgive till seventy times seven, He adds a parable. JEROME. For it is customary with the Syrians, especially they of Palestine, to add a parable to what they speak; that what their hearers might not retain simply, and in itself, the instance and similitude may be the means of retaining.

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  Vodka I couldn’t begin to count the countless memories I’ve lost with each pour of the vodka bottle. Every one washed away beneath an icy sip or six of liquid forgetfulness. A mind shot to pieces by a forever empty glass. Yet somewhere hidden within a haze, a fog that descends with the rising sun, a hangover of you remains. Untouched by hands or salty tears that quench this morning thirst. A fading hint of perfume lost on an empty pillow. The stray black hair lying alone in the sink. Your toothbrush dry and carelessly abandoned. A photograph framed in dust and cobwebs. Suddenly, I remember all that you were. She was a ghost of a girl, hauntingly beautiful, wonderfully lost — breaking hearts and crying holy water tears . . . A reminder of lips pressed hard against lips. My hand between your legs, the little pleated skirt hitched up. Pulling your hair and fucking you hard. The soft moans and whispered words. A cat purring, curled up against the tiny rose tattoo on your hip. Waking up to that smile, the one I fell in love with when the world was just ours. I open the bottle and shut my eyes. A twist of fate spilling cold over a lonely glass. A reminder to forget the forgotten again. Another day spent slowly slipping away from you. Reality Love and loss share the same unmade bed. Pen Portrait I watched as you reached for the ice cream. Standing naked, body pressed up against the humming fridge. A wispy trail of bluish gray smoke spiraling up from a dying cigarette. Held precariously in the other hand, ash falling to the floor. A just-fucked wetness between your legs. Your little smile captured in grainy black and white. By the click of a camera. Twisted Trees A fearsome wind cannot compel the weakest branch to gladly yield. Yet, the faintest breath upon your lips — and I have fallen against my will. Roses Roses wear blindfolds, Violets crack whips, candle wax dripping, teeth biting lips. The Picnic It was a sticky cotton candy kind of day. The sun smiling, tickled and teased by wispy white clouds. Bright yellow butterflies danced a flowery waltz with buzzing bees, while a shadowy wave rippled across the sleepy meadow of lush green. Its chilly touch, painting tiny goose bumps on pale, winter-kissed legs. Your orange dress hitched up, panties kicked off, my hand exploring the wetness between your thighs. Our lips thirsty for each other. Two strangers lost. In the tangled arms of unquenchable desire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Why are you crying?” “I think I’ve just found the love of my life,” she replied. Lost Lost is a lovely place to find yourself.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  It so happened that this word became specially connected with the Christian and with the Christian Church. The Christian was exactly in this position—he lived in a community, and he undertook all the duties of that community, but his citizenship was in heaven. Clement writes his letter from the Church paroikousē (the present participle) at Rome to the Church paroikousē at Corinth. Polycarp uses the same way of speaking when he writes to the Church at Philippi. The Church was in these places, but the true home of the Church was not there. Now there comes a very interesting development. The word paroikos means a ‘resident alien’; the verb paroikein meant to stay in a place, but not to be a naturalized citizen of it. So the noun paroikia came to mean ‘a body of aliens in the midst of any community’; and it is from this word paroikia that the English word ‘parish’ is derived. The Christian community is a body of people who live in this world, but who have never accepted the standards and the methods and the ways of this world. Their standards are the standards of God. They accept the law of the place wherein they dwell, but beyond them and above them, for them there stands the law of God. The Christian is essentially a person whose only real citizenship is citizenship of the Kingdom of God. The idea of the Christian as a stranger and a pilgrim in the world became so much part of Christian thought that it is worthwhile to consider it a little further. (i) In the ancient world to be a stranger in a strange place was to be unhappy. It is true that there was respect for the stranger. In Greek religion one of the titles of Zeus was Zeus Xenios. ‘Zeus, the god of strangers’; and strangers were held to be under the protection of the gods; but none the less there was a certain wretchedness in the lot of the stranger. The Letter of Aristeas (249) has it: ‘It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s own land; a foreign land brings contempt to the poor, and to the rich it brings suspicion that they have been exiled because of some evil they have done.’ Ecclesiasticus (29.22-28) has a famous and wistful passage about the lot of the stranger: Better the life of the poor under a shelter of logs, Than sumptuous fare in the house of strangers. With little or with much, be contented; So wilt thou not have to bear the reproach of thy wandering. An evil life it is to go from house to house, And where thou art a stranger thou must not open thy mouth. A stranger thou art in that case, and drinkest contempt; And besides this thou wilt have to bear bitter things: ‘Come hither, sojourner, from the face of honour, My brother is come as my guest, I have need of my house.’

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  “I love you, but, I just can’t live with you anymore,” the words she wrote with a voice frail and broken. A miserable ending to our magnificent love story. One that my pencil still refuses to write to this day. A Final Kiss May my last breath, be it faint, and whisper thin, meet death quietly. A final kiss, buried gently, within the warmth, of the only lips, I ever lived, to truly love. Fireworks She had a mind like a box of fireworks and hands that played recklessly with matches. The Apple Orchard He floated upon a gentle sea of rippling green. Where little yellow butterflies danced drunk pirouettes on the windy stage. Reading the words written by fluffy white poets who wrote ever-changing prose across an endless blue page. “Apples are funny things,” he said. “You can never be sure of what you are getting until you take that first bite.” His hand reaches slowly for the half-empty vodka bottle. “This afternoon I discovered an apple so wonderfully perfect, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the outstretched hand of a wicked old witch.” She pulled up her white cotton panties, brushing an ant from a grass-stained knee. “I’ve been called many things before but never an apple,” she laughed. Stormy Weather We made love on stormy summer nights. Our kisses wet and furious like rain running wild across the naked ground. Her gentle moans lost in the rumble of thunder. [image file=image_rsrc2H9.jpg] I Love You The most beautiful sound in the world to me is not forest birdsong or babbling brooks or even the ringing of church bells. It’s hearing you whisper “I love you” over and over again. Lollipops Yellow taxi tires screech to a sudden stop. A door slams shut. Steps stirring up swirling pavement puddles. Tripping over rusty tin cans in the cobblestone lane. Anticipation finally arrives in the shape of a corner shop. Rain-streaked heart-shaped windows. A seductive wink from a sultry flashing neon sign. Lollipops, meticulously written in silver scripted letterpressed letters. A place where generous sprinklings of sugary sex are swapped for a handful of crumpled dollar bills. A promise becomes permission. I walk you slowly through the red leather door. Little kitten heels and long white socks. A cotton candy smile. Nipples fighting hard against the tight tunic top that I bought you last summer. A ridiculously short gray pleated woolen skirt. Tired candles yawn. Casting cryptic shadows across the pink and cream striped hallway, where glory holes wait. You kneel down. I push the shiny black token into the slot. You look up at me. Eyes begging softly. I lean down and quietly whisper words, best left unsaid. A thick hard cock suddenly appears from a hole in the wall. Beautifully gift-wrapped in black cellophane and a red velvet ribbon bow. Furtive fingers reaching out. Silently untying.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I longed to tell him, whom I could completely trust; but my trust to Arthur, enforced by the whole way I was living my life, had become an unbreakable code to me, that is to say a principle of honour as well as an enigma. I merely shrugged. ‘And that fight, for God’s sake.’ I shrugged again. Could he really believe the fight story? ‘It’s all pretty much a mystery to you, isn’t it?’ I said, both proud and pained at the unplanned and inexplicable way things stood. There was nothing I could adduce in evidence of Arthur’s charm. ‘Sometimes I just put my arms round his shoulder and burst into tears.’ ‘I’m not surprised,’ was James’s comment. At the Corry the mood was perverse. A few bull-necked mutants were hogging the weights, the room was crowded, and crossness was given voice to. Bradley was training for a contest the following week, and did so many presses that he lost count and, red-faced and shuddering, insisted on starting again. Others, who worked out for more trivial reasons, forced to stand around, lapsed from their normally passing and formal chat into extended conversations, like housewives with shopping waiting for a bus. ‘I know—well, that’s what she said.’ ‘But have you seen her since?’ ‘Only briefly, and then I couldn’t say anything, because of course you-know-who was in attendance.’ ‘I really like her actually; from what I’ve seen of her, that is.’ It was the typical transsexual talk of the place, which had been confusing to me at first and which had thrown poor James into deep dejection when he innocently overheard a boy he had a crush on talking of his girlfriend. It was all a game, any man in the least attractive being dubbed a ‘she’ and only males too dire for such a conceit being left an unadorned ‘he’ or, occasionally, sinisterly, ‘mister’—as in the poisonous declaration ‘I trust you won’t be seeing Mister Elizabeth Arden again.’ ‘You know that new girl behind the bar?’ one square-jawed athlete enquired of his bearded companion. ‘What, the blonde, you mean—no, she’s been there a while.’ ‘No, not her, no, the dark one with big tits.’ ‘I’m not sure I’ve seen her. Nice, is she?’ It was conversation thrown out with a complex bravado, its artifice defiant as it was transparent. I half listened to it as I waited, and looked around at the dozens of bodies, squatting, lying, straining, muscles sliding to the surface in thick-veined upper arms, shoulders bending and pumping, the sturdiness of legs under pressure, the dark stains on singlets that adhered to the sweating channel of the back, the barely perceptible swing of cocks and balls in shorts and track-suits, with, permeating it all, the clank and thud of weights and the rank underarm essence of effort.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  So many changes will come about, things that I haven’t even begun to think of, can’t think of. Will Taha stay with me, will they want to live here? Niri, I believe, lives with her mother and an old uncle out west somewhere … I thought of the appalling magnanimity I will have to show & realising I wd not be able to control myself if I saw him again so soon I went out, had a further drink or two at Wicks’s & then as evening came on found myself wandering somnambulistically towards Clarkson’s Cottage. It was welcome enough: I needed some narcotic, some soulless distraction. The broken light has been replaced, so it was rather bright in there. There was a sort of businessman at one end in a raincoat & that thin, anxious little chap who’s always there & keeps Cave at the other. He reminds me of a college servant, making sure that the gentlemen are happy—his payment, I suppose, being the dubious pleasure of having a jolly good look. I took up my position in the middle & fiddled about for a bit as my brief mood of anticipation dwindled & then there was a familiar clippety-clop & Chancey Brough came in & force majeure took the stall on my right. He had the most tremendous & businesslike pee—he must have been saving it up for hours so as to seem (vain hope!) an authentic convenience-patron—& then weighed his immense tackle in the palm of his hand for a while. We obviously cdn’t remain where we were, but I knew his sticking-power & so I buttoned up & slipped off, tipping my hat with a polite ‘Good evening’ & best wishes to his wife. I went along Old Compton Street, wishing Sandy were still there, & rather wanting a pal to get drunk with. The Leicester Square lavs seemed a possibility, so I popped in, but there were all the usual faces turning expectantly, Major Sprague & that butler from Kensington Palace & a few anxious youngsters on the make. Andrews tells me you can have a wonderful whirl at Victoria these days with all the tommies & tars; he picked up a couple of the latter there some time last week & had the night of his life, if he is to be believed. I wandered down towards Trafalgar Square, thinking I might get a bus, but the sunset came on & I was suddenly flooded with misery again & just gave it all up & went back to the Club for a chop & a glass of beer & was wretchedly rude to anybody who approached me. ———

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  Vodka I couldn’t begin to count the countless memories I’ve lost with each pour of the vodka bottle. Every one washed away beneath an icy sip or six of liquid forgetfulness. A mind shot to pieces by a forever empty glass. Yet somewhere hidden within a haze, a fog that descends with the rising sun, a hangover of you remains. Untouched by hands or salty tears that quench this morning thirst. A fading hint of perfume lost on an empty pillow. The stray black hair lying alone in the sink. Your toothbrush dry and carelessly abandoned. A photograph framed in dust and cobwebs. Suddenly, I remember all that you were. She was a ghost of a girl, hauntingly beautiful, wonderfully lost—breaking hearts and crying holy water tears . . . A reminder of lips pressed hard against lips. My hand between your legs, the little pleated skirt hitched up. Pulling your hair and fucking you hard. The soft moans and whispered words. A cat purring, curled up against the tiny rose tattoo on your hip. Waking up to that smile, the one I fell in love with when the world was just ours. I open the bottle and shut my eyes. A twist of fate spilling cold over a lonely glass. A reminder to forget the forgotten again. Another day spent slowly slipping away from you. Reality Love and loss share the same unmade bed. Pen Portrait I watched as you reached for the ice cream. Standing naked, body pressed up against the humming fridge. A wispy trail of bluish gray smoke spiraling up from a dying cigarette. Held precariously in the other hand, ash falling to the floor. A just-fucked wetness between your legs. Your little smile captured in grainy black and white. By the click of a camera. Twisted Trees A fearsome wind cannot compel the weakest branch to gladly yield. Yet, the faintest breath upon your lips— and I have fallen against my will. Roses Roses wear blindfolds, Violets crack whips, candle wax dripping, teeth biting lips. The Picnic It was a sticky cotton candy kind of day. The sun smiling, tickled and teased by wispy white clouds. Bright yellow butterflies danced a flowery waltz with buzzing bees, while a shadowy wave rippled across the sleepy meadow of lush green. Its chilly touch, painting tiny goose bumps on pale, winter-kissed legs. Your orange dress hitched up, panties kicked off, my hand exploring the wetness between your thighs. Our lips thirsty for each other. Two strangers lost. In the tangled arms of unquenchable desire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Why are you crying?” “I think I’ve just found the love of my life,” she replied. Lost Lost is a lovely place to find yourself.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  Carol wears black slacks and a Linn-Mar cardinal-red top, her reddish-brown hair slightly tousled. As the Borschels enter, Streicher does his thing as the greeter, shaking their hands, shaking Jay’s hand rather formally. Jay is stoic, trying not to take it too seriously for fear his mom will fall apart completely. Streicher, ever the coach, has a program of that night’s lineup rolled up and sticking up out of his back right pocket, and the ever-present pen poised above his right ear like an unsmoked cigarette. The whole ceremony feels like it’s over before it begins, which only fits: Jim once said that while the little-kid wrestling stuff seemed to go on and on, this entire high school experience has gone by in a blinding flash. The one thing Jim ever really worried over, with Jay, is what they might talk about if they had no wrestling. On his own, Jim had asked himself that question. He made it a point to tell himself that when this was all over, he would take Jay and just head off somewhere down the Wapsipinicon River—“the Wapsie,” they call it—and do some fishing, go somewhere where the phone doesn’t ring. Jay’s year has begun to fade into a series of calls and interviews and projections and evaluations, and the college thing has seemed like such an unbelievably big damn deal, and he hasn’t even made it to the Barn yet. Jim can sense in his son the long, slow beginning of a burnout. He wants Jay to get through this thing in one piece, and get the hell out. They are speaking the same language without either one knowing it. But it is Carol’s moment, really, Senior Night. It is a mother’s kind of a thing. Jay’s relationship with his mother—and his father, too, really—is loose but not unstructured; Carol is the one whom both kids like to tease about her faulty memory, or press on the soft spots in her household politics. In his final year at home Jay has taken that liberty and stretched it about as far as it will go, crunching Carol with straight-faced insult after insult while eating the food that she painstakingly prepares for him at dinner. He talks over her, tells her point-blank that she’s wrong, needles her with intimations that maybe he’ll head out this night for the strip club. He knows how to push her buttons, which is to say, he’s a senior. But he does so completely secure in the knowledge that Carol will always snap back into place. Jay has the luxury of thinking that he knows the greatest secret about his mom, which is that she will be there for him no matter what. Carol Borschel has done nothing, so far as anyone connected with the family can tell, to ever discourage that kind of deep-seated security. As for the here and now, Senior Night, Carol decided to fully contain her heartbreak.