Shame

Passages

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

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• From The City of God

  And consequently he goes on, "Thou hast holden me by my right hand, and by Thy counsel Thou hast guided me, and with glory hast taken me up;" as if all earthly advantages were left-hand blessings, though, when he saw them enjoyed by the wicked, his feet had almost gone. "For what," he says, "have I in heaven, and what have I desired from Thee upon earth?" He blames himself, and is justly displeased with himself; because, though he had in heaven so vast a possession (as he afterwards understood), he yet sought from his God on earth a transitory and fleeting happiness,--a happiness of mire, we may say. "My heart and my flesh," he says, "fail, O God of my heart." Happy failure, from things below to things above! And hence in another psalm he says, "My soul longeth, yea, even faileth, for the courts of the Lord."[419] Yet, though he had said of both his heart and his flesh that they were failing, he did not say, O God of my heart and my flesh, but, O God of my heart; for by the heart the flesh is made clean. Therefore, says the Lord, "Cleanse that which is within, and the outside shall be clean also."[420] He then says that God Himself,--not anything received from Him, but Himself,--is his portion. "The God of my heart, and my portion for ever." Among the various objects of human choice, God alone satisfied him. "For, lo," he says, "they that are far from Thee shall perish: Thou destroyest all them that go a-whoring from Thee,"--that is, who prostitute themselves to many gods. And then follows the verse for which all the rest of the psalm seems to prepare: "It is good for me to cleave to God,"--not to go far off; not to go a-whoring with a multitude of gods. And then shall this union with God be perfected, when all that is to be redeemed in us has been redeemed. But for the present we must, as he goes on to say, "place our hope in God." "For that which is seen," says the apostle, "is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."[421] Being, then, for the present established in this hope, let us do what the Psalmist further indicates, and become in our measure angels or messengers of God, declaring His will, and praising His glory and His grace.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  other hand, the Kingdom of God can be established by nothing except righteous life and action. There is nothing in social Christianity which is likely to breed or reinforce superstition. The more the social gospel engages and inspires theological thought, the more will religion be concentrated on ethical righteousness. The social gospel is bound to be a reformatory and christianizing force inside of theology. Theology is the esoteric thought of the Church. Some of its problems are unknown and unintelligible except where the Church keeps an interest in them alive. Even the terminology of theology is difficult for anyone to understand unless he has lived under church influence for years. Jesus and his followers were laymen. The people felt that his teaching was different from the arguments of their theologians, less ponderous and more moving. When Christianity worked its way from the lower to the higher classes, its social sympathies became less democratic and fraternal, its language less simple, and its ideas more speculative, elaborate and remote. Origen felt he had to apologize for the homely Greek and the simple arguments of Jesus. Theology became an affair of experts. The first duty of the laymen was to believe with all their hearts what they could not possibly understand with all their heads. The practical result has been that laymen have always assented as they were told, but have made an unconscious private selection of the truths that seemed to contain marrow for them. The working creed of the common man is usually very brief. A man may tote a large load of theology and live on a small part of it. If ministers periodically examined their church members as professors examine their classes, they would find that a man can be in the rain a long time and not become wetter under the skin. Even in the Middle Ages, when all philosophy was theology and when religious doubt was rare, the laity seem to have had their own system of faith. In the memoirs of statesmen and artists and merchants, in the songs of the common people, and in the secret symbolism of the masons and other gilds, we find a simple faith which guided their life. They believed in God and his law, in immortality and retribution, in Christ and his mercy, in the abiding difference between righteousness and evil, and by this faith they tried to do their duty where God had given them their job in life. The social gospel approximates lay religion. It deals with the ethical problems of the present life with which the common man is familiar and which press upon his conscience. Yet it appeals to God, his will, his kingdom; to Christ, his spirit, his law. Audiences who are estranged from the Church and who would listen to theological terminology with frank scorn, will listen with absorbed interest to religious thought when it is linked with their own social

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Wait! Stop action, Myrna! Here we are again, back in that space. Listen to me. I do not disagree—the dating situation is rough. Hear me: I do not disagree. But our job is to help you make changes in yourself that might make the situation better. Look, I’ll put it straight. You’re an intelligent and attractive woman, very attractive. If you weren’t tied up by disturbing feelings—like resentment and anger, fear and competitiveness—then you’d have no trouble meeting a suitable man.” Myrna felt shaken by Dr. Lash’s bluntness. Although she knew she should stay and respond to his point, she persisted in her agenda. “You’ve never said anything before about my being attractive.” “You don’t consider yourself attractive?” “Sometimes, sometimes not. But I don’t get much affirmation from men. I could use some direct feedback from you.” Ernest paused. How much to say? Knowing he’d have to repeat his words to the countertransference seminar in a few weeks gave him pause. “I have a hunch that if men aren’t responding to you, it’s not because of your physical appearance.” “If you were single, would you respond to my physical appearance?” “Same question; I’ve already answered that. Just a minute ago I said you were an attractive woman. So, tell me, what are you really asking now?” “No, I’m asking a different question. You say I’m attractive, but you haven’t said whether you would respond to my attractiveness.” “Respond?” “Dr. Lash, you’re hedging. I think you know what I mean. If you had met me not as a patient but in some singles situation, then what? Would you check me out in ten seconds and then walk away? Or flirt with me, or maybe try for a one-night stand, planning to walk away afterward?” “Can we take a look at what’s going on between us today? You’re really putting me on the spot. How come? What’s your payoff for that? What’s going on inside, Myrna?” “But aren’t I doing what you’ve said I should be doing, Dr. Lash? Talking about our relationship, about the here-and-now?” “I agree. No question, things have changed here—and for the better. I feel better about the way we’re working, and I hope you do too.” Silence. Myrna refused to meet Ernest’s gaze. “I hope you do too,” Ernest tried again. Myrna nodded, ever so slightly. “You see? Your nod, that microscopic, that embryonic nod! Three millimeters at best. That’s what I mean. I could hardly see it. It’s as though you want to give me as little as possible. That’s what puzzles me. It seems to me that you’re primarily asking, not talking, about our relationship.” “But you said—and said it more than once—that the first stage of change was getting feedback.” “Getting and assimilating feedback. Right. But in our last few hours you’ve just been collecting feedback—more of a question-and-answer format. I mean, I give you feedback, and you then proceed to another question.” “Rather than?”

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

  JEROME. Let the heretic Eunomius therefore blush hereat who claims to himself such a knowledge of the Father and the Son, as they have one of anothera. But if he argues from what follows, and props up his madness by that, And he to whom the Son will reveal him, it is one thing to know what you know by equality with God, another to know it by His vouchsafing to reveal it. AUGUSTINE. (De Trin. vii. 3.) The Father is revealed by the Son, that is, by His Word. For if the temporal and transitory word which we utter both shews itself, and what we wish to convey, how much more the Word of God by which all things were made, which so shews the Father as He is Father, because itself is the same and in the same manner as the Father. AUGUSTINE. (Quæst. Ev. i. 1.) When He said, None knoweth the Son but the Father, He did not add, And he to whom the Father will reveal the Son. But when He said, None knoweth the Father but the Son, He added, And he to whom the Son will reveal him. But this must not be so understood as though the Son could be known by none but by the Father only; while the Father may be known not only by the Son, but also by those to whom the Son shall reveal Him. But it is rather expressed thus, that we may understand that both the Father and the Son Himself are revealed by the Son, inasmuch as He is the light of our mind; and what is afterwards added, And he to whom the Son will reveal, is to be understood as spoken of the Son as well as the Father, and to refer to the whole of what had been said. For the Father declares Himself by His Word, but the Word declares not only that which is intended to be declared by it, but in declaring this declares itself. CHRYSOSTOM. If then He reveals the Father, He reveals Himself also. But the one he omits as a thing manifest, but mentions the other because there might be a doubt concerning it. Herein also He instructs us that He is so one with the Father, that it is not possible for any to come to the Father, but through the Son. For this had above all things given offence, that He seemed to be against God, and therefore He strove by all means to overthrow this notion. 11:28–3028. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Ernest! Is that really you?” “Of course it’s me. I’m very late, days late. But it’s me.” Ernest paused. He had expected anger and was thrown off by her pleasant tone. “You seem surprised,” he added. “Very surprised. I never thought to hear your voice again.” “I must see you. Things seem unreal, but the sound of your voice is waking me up. We have much to do: I a lot of apologizing and explaining and you a lot of forgiving.” “Of course I’ll see you. But on one condition. No explaining or forgiving—they’re not needed.” “Dinner tomorrow? Eight?” “Fine. I’ll cook.” “No.” Ernest remembered his suspicions about the chanterelle stew. “My turn. Leave dinner to me.” He arrived at Artemis’s home laden with takeout dishes from the Nanking, a hole-in-the-wall on Kearny with San Francisco’s worst decor and best Cantonese food. By nature a feeder, he eagerly laid the various packages out on the table, identifying each for Artemis. He was crestfallen when she told him she was a vegan and would have to pass on many of the dishes, including the superb Rolling Lettuce Chicken and Five Mushroom Beef. Thank God, Ernest chanted silently, for the rice, the steamed pea sprouts, and the vegetarian dumplings! “I have some things to say to you, and I’m not known for reserve,” he said as they sat down at her table. “My friends all say I’m a compulsive revealer, so I warn you, here goes—” “Remember my conditions.” Artemis put her hand upon Ernest’s arm. “No apologies, no explaining needed.” “Not sure I can honor the conditions, Artemis. As I told you the other night, I take my work as a healer very seriously. It’s me, it’s my life, and I can’t switch it on and off. So I’m absolutely mortified at the damage I’ve inflicted on you. I acted inhumanly. For us to make such love—beautiful love, love that I’ve never imagined possible—and then for me to desert you without a word, it’s indefensible—I can’t put it any other way—I acted inhumanly. My thoughtlessness must have devastated you. You must have wondered again and again what kind of man I am and why I treated you so vilely.” “I’ve told you before, I don’t worry about such things. Naturally I was disappointed, but I understood fully. Ernest,” she added gravely, “I know why you left me that night.” “You know, do you?” Ernest said playfully, finding her naïveté charming. “I don’t believe you know as much as you think you do about that night.” “I’m certain,” she said emphatically, “I know far more than you think I do.” “Artemis, you couldn’t even imagine what happened to me that night. How could you? I left you because of a dream—a horrible and very private vision. What can you know of it?” “I know it all, Ernest. I know about the cat and about the poisonous water and about the statue standing in the middle of the lake.”

• From How the Bible Actually Works (2019)

  seems like the kind of thing civilized societies were created to prevent. And it probably doesn’t send a message of unconditional love to the remaining siblings. Probably doesn’t make a good evangelistic conversation starter either. Am I wrong, or is inflicting physical pain as child rearing a recurring theme? I suppose it would have been nice if God had handed us a Bible with a chapter in it called “FAQs on Godly Rules for Parenting” that didn’t include capital punishment and told us what the “right way” and “discipline” are, so we didn’t crank out little hellions. But that’s not what we have. If the Bible’s purpose was to provide for us clear and unchanging direction about basic pressing matters like, “How do I raise my kids well?”—it wouldn’t generate so many obvious questions. I’m not writing a child-rearing book, at least not until my adult children let me know whether they intend to sign the Do Not Resuscitate form, should it ever come to that. I’m just saying that what the Bible says about raising children is ambiguous once we pay attention to the details. It’s even morally suspect in places, in need of being questioned—even interrogated. And here is the bigger point of all this: How the Bible addresses this one topic of child rearing is a window onto how inadequate (and truly unbiblical) a rulebook view of the Bible as a whole is. It unravels once you start pulling the thread. The Bible seems intent on pointing us in another direction entirely. Fools and Finances Before we move on to the Bible as a whole, let’s stay with Proverbs a bit longer —yes, the book we just looked at with all that unhelpful parenting advice. But give it a chance. Proverbs actually makes it loud and clear that seeking wisdom rather than grabbing for answers is what this life of faith is about. Proverbs is a book of wisdom, after all. Tucked away toward the end of the book of Proverbs, minding their own business, not trying to grab our attention but just waiting to be found, are back- to-back bits of wisdom that completely contradict each other: Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes. (26:4–5)

• From Between Us

  The anthropologist Heidi Fung found that Taiwanese mothers cultivated shame in similar manners. They took and created opportunities for children to feel shame. The mother of three-year-old Didi, a Taiwanese toddler, scolded him when he approached the researcher’s camcorder: “Eh, eh, Didi! What has Mama told you? You never [listen] . . . You cannot! I’m going to spank you. You are a child who doesn’t obey rules.” She threatened to ostracize him, and put him aside: “We don’t want you; you stand here.” And she told him to control himself: “Look how ugly your crying will be on tape.” Didi’s sister joined in, calling him “ugly monster” and adding “shame on you.” Fung assures us that shaming was not intended to harm or ostracize the child, but rather to “transmit the cultural values of discretion shame [ . . . ] teaching children how to be part of society, to include them rather than to set them apart.” Just as Oliver’s dad and I created opportunities for Oliver to feel the right emotions at the right time, so did Didi’s mother and sister. Each in our own ways, Didi’s mother and sister and we, Oliver’s parents, nudged our children to feel and express the culturally desired emotions. The emotion in each case was a different one, because we valued different socialization goals. Our family lived in the United States, and we wanted our child to think highly of himself, to take his unique place in the world, and distinguish himself. Didi’s mother wanted to teach her child propriety, as valued in Taiwanese contexts; the norm for Didi was to be aware of his proper place, by feeling shame. We each induced the emotions that made our children valued members of their respective cultures. In short: emotions help us become part of our culture. Raising a Child Who Feels Good about Themselves Anthropologist Naomi Quinn observes that “Small children bask in their parent’s, often public, praise long before they comprehend what feats of accomplishment will be required of them if they are going to continue gaining approval from others and feeling good about themselves.” She was describing American middle-class families who draw attention to anything worthy of pride, such as turning a book right side up. In one research program comparing middle-class white American moms and kids from the Chicago area with Taiwanese (middle-class) moms and their young children, the U.S. mothers spontaneously brought up self-esteem in interviews about their parenting goals: “I want them to be comfortable with themselves” or “I want them to develop self-confidence.” These moms were convinced that self-esteem was the source of all healthy development, essential to making their children happy, resilient, successful, and strong enough to try on new things. In a culture where happiness, success, and excitement are central goals, feeling good about yourself is indispensable.

• From Between Us

  Whenever I present cultural differences in shame, colleagues have asked me if “exotic” examples of shame are really the same emotion. Was Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s CEO, really ashamed, as Dorothy was? Could Toyoda’s apologies have been an expression of embarrassment, or could he have been merely polite? Was Aslan’s aggression an “expression” of the anger following his shame rather than of shame “itself”? And did the Egyptian Bedouin women have an emotion at all, or were they merely rule-abiding? Do people in other cultures not mislabel their emotions? Are we talking about the same shame in all these cases? Shame, like anger, is part of a relationship. Depending on the (projected) responses of others, shame runs a very different course. “Right” shame is successful at performing the act of reintegration in the community; “wrong” shame further alienates the person who feels shame. Right shame may either be the relational act of propriety or modesty, or interestingly enough, the awareness that your social position is under threat and needs to be reclaimed; wrong shame may be the “wanting to dissolve into nothing,” or perhaps, having lost honor irrecoverably. Right shame is an awareness of others’ perspective, wrong shame is the realization that you fall short. For instance, Japanese college students reporting shame were on average more focused on being judged by others (“I focused on what the other(s) is/(are) thinking of me”), and U.S. college students were focused on falling short of the standard (“I blamed myself for the outcome of the situation”). Spanish students (from an honor culture) associated shame more with “public evaluations,” while Dutch students associated shame more with “self-failure.” There are perhaps some universal themes that run through shame episodes, such as a bid for acceptance, but there is no reason to think that shame is characterized by an invariant feeling, or that it runs the same course. As with anger, the question about the “same shame” stems from a MINE perspective. Not only is it primarily concerned with the feeling of shame, but it also assumes that shame has an invariant essence. Once we take an OURS perspective, the question of what shame “really is” becomes moot. It is a collection of episodes in which the relational act can be recognized as some form of seeking social inclusion. Each episode of shame runs a different course, depending on its cultural significance, the projected or actual responses of others, the kinds of relationships in which they take place, and the collective ideals for personhood and relationships.

• From Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex (1905)

  Partial Impulses.—For the rest, the influence of seduction does not aid us in unravelling the original relations of the sexual impulse, but rather confuses our understanding of the same, inasmuch as it prematurely supplies the child with the sexual object at a time when the infantile sexual impulse does not yet evince any desire for it. We must admit, however, that the infantile sexual life, though mainly under the control of erogenous zones, also shows components in which from the very beginning other persons are regarded as sexual objects. Among these we have the impulses for looking and showing off, and for cruelty, which manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and which only later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life; but along with the erogenous sexual activity they are noticeable even in the infantile years as separate and independent strivings. The little child is above all shameless, and during its early years it evinces definite pleasure in displaying its body and especially its sexual organs. A counterpart to this desire which is to be considered as perverse, the curiosity to see other persons' genitals, probably appears first in the later years of childhood when the hindrance of the feeling of shame has already reached a certain development. Under the influence of seduction the looking perversion may attain great importance for the sexual life of the child. Still, from my investigations of the childhood years of normal and neurotic patients, I must conclude that the impulse for looking can appear in the child as a spontaneous sexual manifestation. Small children, whose attention has once been directed to their own genitals—usually by masturbation—are wont to progress in this direction without outside interference, and to develop a vivid interest in the genitals of their playmates. As the occasion for the gratification of such curiosity is generally afforded during the gratification of both excrementitious needs, such children become voyeurs and are zealous spectators at the voiding of urine and feces of others, After this tendency has been repressed, the curiosity to see the genitals of others (one's own or those of the other sex) remains as a tormenting desire which in some neurotic cases furnishes the strongest motive power for the formation of symptoms.

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

  PSEUDO-AUGUSTINE. (App. Serm. 79.) For to Peter were delivered the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to him were entrusted an innumerable multitude of people, who were wrapped up in sin. But Peter was somewhat too vehement, as the cutting off the car of the High Priest’s servant betokens. If he then who was so stern and so severe had obtained the gift of not sinning, what pardon would he have given to the people committed to him? Therefore Divine Providence suffers him first to be holden of sin, that by the consciousness of his own fall he might soften his too harsh judgment towards sinners. When he wished to warm himself at the fire, a maid came to him, of whom it follows, But a certain maid beheld him, &c. AMBROSE. What meaneth it, that a maid is the first to betray Peter, whereas surely men ought the more easily to have recognised him, save that that sex should be plainly implicated in our Lord’s murder, in order that it might also be redeemed by His Passion? But Peter when discovered denies, for better that Peter should have denied, than our Lord’s word should have failed. Hence it follows, And he denied, saying, Woman, I know him not. AUGUSTINE. (ut sup.) What ails thee, Peter, thy voice is suddenly changed? That mouth full of faith and love, is turned to hatred and unbelief. Not yet awhile is the scourge applied, not yet the instruments of torture. Thy interrogator is no one of authority, who might cause alarm to the confessor. The mere voice of a woman asks the question, and she perhaps not about to divulge thy confession, nor yet a woman, but a door-keeper, a mean slave. AMBROSE. Peter denied, because he promised rashly. He does not deny on the mount, nor in the temple, nor in his own house, but in the judgment-hall of the Jews. There he denies where Jesus was bound, where truth is not. And denying Him he says, I know him not. It were presumptuous to say that he knew Him whom the human mind can not grasp. For no one knoweth the Son but the Father. (Matt. 11:17). Again, a second time he denies Christ; for it follows, And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou wert also one of them. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Ev. lib. iii. c. 6.) And it is supposed that in the second denial he was addressed by two persons, namely, by the maid whom Matthew and Mark mention, and by another whom Luke speaks of. With respect then to what Luke here relates, And after a little while, &c. Peter had already gone out of the gate, and the cock had crowed the first time, as Mark says; and now he had returned, that, as John says, he might again deny standing by the fire. Of which denial it follows, And Peter said, Man, I am not.

• From Between Us

  If shame in WEIRD cultures is “wrong” because it marks your own failure clearly visible to others, shame in honor cultures is “right,” even as it is deeply disturbing. Shame is right because it tracks threats to your and your family’s (group’s) social position, which shows you share the central cultural concern of honor. Shame is everywhere in honor cultures. And when shame is recognized, it leads you to take action to protect your own and your family’s honor. Often this is done by showing your strength—anger is a good, but not the only, way to restore your honor; some psychologists claim that it is not even the most important one. In any case, you must act in a way that claims your honor, or else you will lose your position—fragile as it is. Is the shame-turned-anger in honor cultures different from humiliated fury? I would argue it is, for two reasons. First, as we have seen above, shame is the “right” response to extremely undesirable events in honor cultures, whereas in WEIRD cultures it is “wrong.” Importantly, shame in honor cultures helps to achieve the important task of protecting honor; shame in WEIRD cultures, though certainly marking an awareness that others’ acceptance is at stake, does nothing to achieve important cultural tasks. Second, shame-turned-anger takes place in the social world as a negotiation of positions (it is primarily OURS), whereas humiliated fury is a shift of the individual’s attributions of unhappy outcomes—from self to other (it is primarily MINE). Under some circumstances, shame in honor cultures may also consist of the awareness of potential threats to honor, and the behavior warding them off. Shame in this latter sense protects feminine honor: the (sexual) modesty of the female relatives, on which the family honor depends. Among the Egyptian Bedouins, hasham (roughly translated as “shame”) is a dignified way for women, considered weak and dependent, to achieve respect and honor. Hasham is part of the modesty code that individuals adopt as matter of self-respect and pride, rather than an obligation. Shame, and the deferent behaviors associated (e.g., veiling, avoiding contact), are moral in this context. They mitigate any negative consequences that modesty breaches might bring for the less powerful. This shame is perhaps closer to the shame seen in cultures with a fixed hierarchy of positions, and in fact there may be a fixed hierarchy between men and women in honor cultures. The Course of Shame

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

  AMBROSE. For he preferred to deny himself rather than Christ, or because he seemed to deny being of the company of Christ, he truly denied himself. BEDE. In this denial then of Peter we affirm that not only is Christ denied by him who says that He is not Christ, but by him also, who, being a Christian, says he is not. AMBROSE. He is also asked a third time; for it follows, And about the space of one hour after, another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow also was with him. AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Ev. ut sup.) What Matthew and Mark call after a little while, Luke explains by saying, about the space of one hour after; but with regard to the space of time, John says nothing. Likewise when Matthew and Mark record not in the singular but in the plural number those who conversed with Peter, while Luke and John speak of one, we may easily suppose either that Matthew and Mark used the plural for the singular by a common form of speech, or that one person in particular addressed Peter, as being the one who had seen him, and that others trusting to his credit joined in pressing him. But now as to the words which Matthew asserts were said to Peter himself, Truly thou art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee; as also those which to the same Peter John declared to have been said, Did not I see thee in the garden? whereas Mark and Luke state that they spoke to one another concerning Peter; we either believe that they held the right opinion who say that they were really addressed to Peter; (for what was said concerning him in his presence amounts to the same as if it had been said to him;) or that they were said in both ways, and that some of the Evangelists related them one way, some the other. BEDE. But he adds, For he is a Galilæan; not that the Galilæans spoke a different language from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who indeed were Hebrews, but that each separate province and country having its own peculiarities could not avoid a vernacular tone of speech. It follows, And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. AMBROSE. That is, I know not your blasphemies. But we make excuse for him. He did not excuse himself. For an involved answer is not sufficient for our confessing Jesus, but an open confession is required. And therefore Peter is not represented to have answered this deliberately, for he afterwards recollected himself, and wept. BEDE. Holy Scripture is often wont to mark the character of certain events by the nature of the times in which they take place. Hence Peter who sinned at midnight repented at cock-crow; for it follows, And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. The error he committed in the darkness of forgetfulness, he corrected by the remembrance of the true light.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  I grew up in Ujepest, a few miles outside Budapest. My father, Janos, your grandfather, worked as a machinist in a large plant that assembled buses. When I was seventeen I moved to Budapest. I had several reasons. For one thing, Budapest offered better jobs for a young woman. But the main reason, and I am ashamed to tell you this about your own family, is that my father was like an animal, preying on his own child. He made repeated advances to me when I was too young to defend myself and finally despoiled me when I was thirteen. My mother knew about this but pretended not to know and refused to defend me. In Budapest I moved in with my Uncle Laszlo, my father’s brother, and Aunt Juliska, who arranged a position for me to assist her in the house where she worked as a cook. I learned to cook and to bake and, a few years later, took Aunt Juliska’s place when she became sick with consumption. When Aunt Juliska died the next year, Uncle Laszlo behaved like my father and demanded that I take Aunt Juliska’s place beside him in bed. I couldn’t endure that and so moved out on my own. Everywhere men were predatory—like animals. Everyone, the other servants, the delivery boy, the butcher, made lewd comments and leered and tried to touch me whenever I passed. Even the master tried to put his hand under my skirts. I moved to 23 Vaci Ut in the center of Budapest near the Danube, and there, for the next ten years, I lived alone. Men leered and groped me wherever I went, and I protected myself by pulling my world in around me, making it smaller and smaller. I stayed unmarried and lived my small, happy life with my cat, Cica. And then a monster, Mr. Kovacs, moved into the upstairs flat and with him his cat, Merges. Merges means “rageful” in Hungarian [Artemis drew the name out with a Magyar intonation—Mare-gesh], and that beast was well named. He was a vicious, hideous, black-and-white cat direct from hell and he terrorized my poor Cica. Over and over Cica returned home cut and bleeding. She lost an eye to infection; one of her ears was half torn off.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  If you know Homer Simpson, the fictional character on the animated television series The Simpsons, you instantly recognize this familiar burst of self-incrimination. He uses it whenever he catches himself doing something stupid. Try your best Homer imitation now. If you’re good at it, you can actually feel the tension and tightness that this mere syllable creates in your body and mind. It’s as if your heart and whole inner self recoil into a closed fist. If you can sense this tightness, I’ll bet that your heart rate and blood pressure just shot up as well. Of course, this is only a momentary surge. Yet just imagine the damage this way of treating yourself could do over a lifetime. Homer is lucky to be a cartoon character: He need not experience the physical wear and tear that inevitably trails this trademarked emotional habit. Nearly everyone hears voices, in the form of inner self-talk. What do you say—either out loud or silently to yourself—when things go wrong? Do you berate yourself, speaking to yourself in a harsh, scolding tone? Does your own inner critic, like Homer, have its own particular catchphrase? Being your own worst critic is only one form of negative self-talk. Other forms abound. Maybe your own self-talk is decidedly more anxious. Maybe you worry too much, second-guessing your every action, expecting the worst at every turn. Or perhaps the voices you hear keep your mind running in circles, questioning over and again why things have happened to you as they have, ruminating over every unpleasant episode. How many times each day do you saddle yourself with needless negativity in one form or another? You might find the answer to this question especially illuminating. To discover it, get one of those old-school handheld counters and keep it in your pocket for a day. Tick it off every time your inner critic, inner worrywart, or inner ruminator speaks up. Your total for the day counts up the number of times your body and mind have tightened into a defensive, closed-off stance. True, some of this inner negativity is inevitable. There is no such thing as a negativity-free life. Yet just like your number of reps in weightlifting, the number of times that you speak negatively to yourself each day builds up a hardness in you. Maybe speaking harshly or pessimistically to yourself is not your problem. Perhaps instead, your own particular modus operandi is to praise yourself excessively, giving yourself inner high fives and pats on the back for any accomplishment, while at the same time turning a blind eye to your shortcomings. Whereas other people can’t seem to shake the habit of self-denigration and self-flagellation, focusing too much as they do on the negative, maybe your love-limiting habit comes in the form of excessive self-praise and self-aggrandizement, focusing too exclusively on the positive.

• From How the Bible Actually Works (2019)

  obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord (Col. 3:20). “Put your toys away. If you don’t, you’ll make baby Jesus cry. You don’t want to see baby Jesus cry, do you?” Some parents love this one. Another New Testament letter, the book of Ephesians, adds that honoring your father and mother is the first of the Ten Commandments that comes with a promise: so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth (6:3). So, the Bible contains death threats? As a general guideline I believe that children should obey their parents, but as an absolute rule to live by it sounds like a license for child abuse. Are we really meant to conclude that children should always obey their parents no matter what—like, every single time, without fail? What if the parents are neo- Nazis—or Calvinists? What if they are drunk or abusive? Should those kinds of parents be obeyed in everything as an acceptable duty in the Lord ? Is there no room here for pushback or just common sense? Maybe so, but it would certainly help avoid misunderstandings if all these passages began, “Generally speaking . . .” What we read, however, sounds uncomfortably like an unalterable command written by an inspired biblical author taking dictation from God. After all, this is the Bible and when God’s word says “obey your parents in everything,” who are we to pick and choose? Or perhaps we readers are meant to insert “generally speaking” and then figure things out on our own as situations come up—in other words, to be wise. That’s what I think. The Bible also includes child-rearing instructions that I have no intention of doing ever. Back to Proverbs: Do not withhold discipline from your children; if you beat them with a rod, they will not die (23:13). I am relieved that beating my child with a rod (aka discipline) will only result in deep bruising and some broken ribs, but not death. * Still, this passage sounds more like a sure ticket to a visit from Child Services than day-to-day godly parenting advice. A disturbing echo can be found in the book of Exodus concerning the treatment of slaves: a slaveholder who strikes a slave with a rod is only punishable if the slave dies right away (21:20). Maybe children, like slaves, are property? That would at least explain this: If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son, . . . his father and his mother . . . shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. (Deut. 21:18–21) Okay, I’m not doing that. Not that I haven’t been tempted, but no. Getting the townsfolk together to stone your son to death for stubbornness

• From The City of God

  For even Porphyry promises some kind of purgation of the soul by the help of theurgy, though he does so with some hesitation and shame, and denies that this art can secure to any one a return to God; so that you can detect his opinion vacillating between the profession of philosophy and an art which he feels to be presumptuous and sacrilegious. For at one time he warns us to avoid it as deceitful, and prohibited by law, and dangerous to those who practise it; then again, as if in deference to its advocates, he declares it useful for cleansing one part of the soul, not, indeed, the intellectual part, by which the truth of things intelligible, which have no sensible images, is recognised, but the spiritual part, which takes cognizance of the images of things material. This part, he says, is prepared and fitted for intercourse with spirits and angels, and for the vision of the gods, by the help of certain theurgic consecrations, or, as they call them, mysteries. He acknowledges, however, that these theurgic mysteries impart to the intellectual soul no such purity as fits it to see its God, and recognise the things that truly exist. And from this acknowledgment we may infer what kind of gods these are, and what kind of vision of them is imparted by theurgic consecrations, if by it one cannot see the things which truly exist. He says, further, that the rational, or, as he prefers calling it, the intellectual soul, can pass into the heavens without the spiritual part being cleansed by theurgic art, and that this art cannot so purify the spiritual part as to give it entrance to immortality and eternity. And therefore, although he distinguishes angels from demons, asserting that the habitation of the latter is in the air, while the former dwell in the ether and empyrean, and although he advises us to cultivate the friendship of some demon, who may be able after our death to assist us, and elevate us at least a little above the earth,--for he owns that it is by another way we must reach the heavenly society of the angels,--he at the same time distinctly warns us to avoid the society of demons, saying that the soul, expiating its sin after death, execrates the worship of demons by whom it was entangled. And of theurgy itself, though he recommends it as reconciling angels and demons, he cannot deny that it treats with powers which either themselves envy the soul its purity, or serve the arts of those who do envy it. He complains of this through the mouth of some Chaldæan or other: "A good man in Chaldæa complains," he says, "that his most strenuous efforts to cleanse his soul were frustrated, because another man, who had influence in these matters, and who envied him purity, had prayed to the powers, and bound them by his conjuring not to listen to his request. Therefore," adds Porphyry, "what the one man bound, the other could not loose." And from this he concludes that theurgy is a craft which accomplishes not only good but evil among gods and men; and that the gods also have passions, and are perturbed and agitated by the emotions which Apuleius attributed to demons and men, but from which he preserved the gods by that sublimity of residence, which, in common with Plato, he accorded to them.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  In his great work The City of God, Augustine is prepared to associate the Fall directly with the embarrassment of losing this sexual self-control: ‘the punishment which was a kind of evidence of their disobedience’, including Adam’s first experience of an erection. As Genesis 3.7 tells us, their shame led to their making themselves loincloths (campestria) – Augustine used the Latin word that signified the covering for the genitals worn by Roman athletes.[14] The Western Church was thus launched on an inescapable association between shame and sex, not excluding marital sexuality, and for many commentators over the last three centuries that has earned Augustine a dark reputation for shaping Western Christianity’s variety of the ancient Christian negativity on sex.[15] Yet it is important to note that alongside Augustine’s gingerly discussion of sex in the Garden of Eden, before and after, he returns to that theme of Paul’s so often neglected in later Christianity: the mutual sexual debt of husband and wife (1 Cor. 7.3). Sex is fundamental to marriage. He does read on from there to Paul’s evident personal distaste for the implications of the marital debt, and Paul’s observation (1 Cor. 7.6) that God’s tolerance for the enjoyment of marital sex is ‘by way of concession’ – in Augustine’s Latin ‘per veniam’, which has the implication of ‘indulgence towards a fault’. A sin, in other words, but not a fatal one: the later Western concept of ‘venial sin’ is struggling to be born, making marital intercourse inherently sinful, particularly if it is entered with no purpose of procreation, yet not beyond redemption. Then Augustine must turn to Ephesians 5.32 and draw on its description of marriage as a mystērion, especially as a mystērion of the relationship between Christ and his Church. Translating that word with its typically Greek broad raft of reference, which might just signify ‘hidden meaning’, Latin-speakers had opted for sacramentum. Augustine rightly noted its etymology: sacramentum had started life as the unbreakable oath that Roman soldiers swore to the Emperor. The Latin word was not yet blossoming into the full Western notion of ‘sacrament’, but it did give ballast to the common opinion in the Church that marriage was as indissoluble as a military oath. Augustine enlarged on its oneness, without generally descending in his biblical exegesis as far as Jerome’s absurdities: thus, as a relationship of unity, a lifelong marriage reflected the heavenly Jerusalem, where (as Psalm 133 reminds us) brethren dwell together in unity. So when affirming that marriage should not be subject to normal Roman or Jewish customs of divorce, Augustine specifically ruled out the exception that Matthew’s Gospel had made to Christ’s command against divorce (Matt. 5.32). The Western Church took note.

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

  Know what I mean?” I nodded, and presented her with an expression that was meant to register dawning comprehension. “Good!” she said. She slapped her palms down on the table. “Ready to try again? I said that I was. Sister James led me back to the confessional. I knelt and began again: “Bless me Father, for—” “All right,” he said. “We’ve been here before. Just talk plain.” “Yes Father.” Again I closed my eyes over my folded hands. “Come come,” he said, with a certain sharpness. “Yes, Father.” I bent close to the screen and whispered, “Father, I steal.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What do you steal?” “I steal money, Father. From my mother’s purse when she’s in the shower.” “How long have you been doing this?” I didn’t answer. “Well?” he said. “A week? A year? Two years?” I chose the one in the middle. “A year.” “A year,” he repeated. “That won’t do. You have to stop. Do you intend to stop?” “Yes, Father.” “Honestly, now.” “Honestly, Father.” “All right. Good. What else?” “I’m a backbiter.” “A backbiter?” “I say things about my friends when they’re not around.” “That won’t do either,” he said. “No, Father.” “That certainly won’t do. Your friends will desert you if you persist in this and let me tell you, a life without friends is no life at all.” “Yes, Father.” “Do you sincerely intend to stop?” “Yes, Father.” “Good. Be sure that you do. I tell you this in all seriousness. Anything else?” “I have bad thoughts, Father.” “Yes. Well,” he said, “why don’t we save those for next time. You have enough to work on.” The priest gave me my penance and absolved me. As I left the confessional I heard his own door open and close. Sister James came forward to meet me again, and we waited together as the priest made his way to where we stood. Breathing hoarsely, he steadied himself against a pillar. He laid his other hand on my shoulder. “That was fine,” he said. “Just fine.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You have a fine boy here, Sister James.” She smiled. “So I do, Father. So I do.” Just after Easter Roy gave me the Winchester .22 rifle I’d learned to shoot with. It was a light, pump-action, beautifully balanced piece with a walnut stock black from all its oilings. Roy had carried it when he was a boy and it was still as good as new. Better than new. The action was silky from long use, and the wood of a quality no longer to be found. The gift did not come as a surprise. Roy was stingy, and slow to take a hint, but I’d put him under siege. I had my heart set on that rifle. A weapon was the first condition of self-sufficiency, and of being a real Westerner, and of all acceptable employment—trapping, riding herd, soldiering, law enforcement, and outlawry.

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

  According to Deut 25:5-10, if a man died without a son, his brother should marry the widow and raise up an heir to the deceased (this is known as the levirate law). The brother could refuse but would then be put to shame before the elders of the town. The purpose of this law was to prevent the widow from marrying outside the family, thereby alienating the family property, but it also was a way of ensuring that the widow would be taken care of. There are only two stories in the Hebrew Bible that illustrate the working of the levirate. One is the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis, where Judah refuses to honor the practice and Tamar takes matters into her own hands. The other is the story of Ruth. In the case of Ruth, we are not told which brother died first, or why the other did not take the widow to wife. For the purposes of the story, the two seem to have died at the same time. Naomi plaintively tells her daughters-in-law that she has no sons in her womb that they could hope to marry. Accordingly, she urges them to return to the houses of their parents until they should find new husbands. Orpah is persuaded to do this, but Ruth persists in going with Naomi: “Where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Ruth thereby abandons the relative security of staying with her own people in an act of fidelity to her mother-in-law and to the family of her dead husband. The first chapter ends with the return of the two destitute women to Bethlehem (which literally means “house of bread”) and the lament of Naomi that although she went away full the Lord has brought her back empty. Her emptiness is all the more striking in the context of the barley harvest that was about to begin. The second chapter introduces another character who has a crucial role in the story. Elimelech has a rich kinsman named Boaz. Naomi had not mentioned the existence of this relative to Ruth in chapter 1. The levirate law, as formulated in Deuteronomy, applied only to brothers. Boaz would not have been under any legal obligation to help a distant kinswoman, nor do the women claim anything from him as a matter of right. Instead, Ruth proposes to support the women for a while by gathering ears of grain left by the reapers. (Biblical law requires the reapers to leave something for the poor and the alien: Lev 19:9-10; 23:22; Deut

• From What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (2013)

  These days, in New York, she was trying to wean herself from oil by wearing her hair fairly short. But she hadn’t yet quit; she didn’t expect to. “It’s so common. I don’t think I know a single black woman who doesn’t use it. It’s just something we have to do. To make our hair look more white. I hate it. It reminds me of what I am and what I’m not.” She added, “I’ve read The Bluest Eye,” and she talked about the lessons of Toni Morrison’s novel. “I know how I should be, I know the way it’s supposed to go—the whole empowerment thing. In college I wrote essays out the wazoo about everyone being equal and equally beautiful. I don’t feel any of that.” Her college was close to 100 percent white; her friends were an insular group of black women. They talked often of the black pop stars and students they fantasized about, of the superiority of black men—the size of their penises, the hairlessness of their skin. Her gay friends now—white, Asian—did the same. And all the while what she felt was that to be the focus of a white man’s violent need—“all of my fantasies are of a white man; and except when he is faceless, he is beautiful, beautiful beyond words; he is tall, with azure eyes and thick, dark hair”—would be to know, in the most absolute way, that she was desirable. The waiter was tall enough, broad-shouldered, with blue eyes and dark hair. “He was gorgeous,” she said later. She stepped into the bathroom; he followed, turning on the faucet, opening the tap fully, the water loud. How much noise is kissing going to make? she asked silently, as they began. He leaned back against the wall, pulling her toward him. She braced her palms against the tile on either side of his shoulders; his fingers spanned her ass. At some point, he slid his cock out of his pants; she felt it rigid near her waist. She wished she was the one with her back to the wall, but it didn’t matter—the thought was crushed by the strength of his hands. The faucet went on providing its white noise. “Suck it,” he told her. Even more than his features, his voice now seemed to spring directly from her imagination, her moments of private lust: the way the two words he repeated held not even the undertone of a question. She lifted her hands away from the wall, straightened, took a step back. Again, he told her what he wanted. “I have to go,” she said. “No, you don’t.” “I have to go.” “Stay.” When she tried, when she turned, she couldn’t get the lock unbolted. “I’ve been drinking,” she protested. “I have a boyfriend.” “Do you really?” He held her forcefully. “I have a boyfriend,” she lied. “I need to go.”