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 Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (2007)

  Rather, I wanted the dress with the matching white patent-leather shoes. To provide me some consolation, my mother bought me a wedding gown for my Barbie doll. I’d dress Ken in his groom suit, with the jacket on backwards and with white construction paper for the clerical collar. Then, practicing what I learned from my friends, I’d have Barbie, in her bride dress, take Communion from Ken every morning before school. Second, that year a friend on the school bus said to me, “You killed our Lord.” “I did not,” I responded with some indignation. Deicide would be the sort of thing I would have recalled. “Yes, you did,” the girl insisted. “Our priest said so.” Apparently, she had been taught that “the Jews” were responsible for the death of Jesus. Since I was the only one she knew, I must be guilty. But at the time I did not understand the reasons for the charge or have the means to address it. I was convinced that priests wore special collars to keep them from lying. Since the priest wasn’t dead, the charge had to be true. When that horrible trip from school was finally over—and thank heaven these were the 1960s, when mommies met their kids at the bus stop—I was in hysterics. Calming me down, my mother learned what had so traumatized me. She assured me that my friend had misspoken. Calls were made, and—to the enormous credit of the local diocese—this hateful teaching was stopped. But I had become obsessed. I initially concluded that the priest had misinterpreted his Bible. It must have been a translation error, I thought, since even in second grade I knew from Hebrew school that it was easy to make a translation error. So I decided I’d learn to read the Christian Bible (no one told me it was in Greek), find the problem, solve it, and then go on to do other things, like learn how to knit or to establish world peace. That was forty-three years ago; I’m still working. The following year, by the way, was the publication of Nostra Aetate, the Vatican document stating that all Jews are not directly responsible for Jesus’s death. I also asked my parents if I might attend catechism with my friends. I had Hebrew school two days a week after school; my friends had catechism the other two days. So my parents agreed. “As long as you remember who you are,” they said, “go learn.” On occasion I’d go, and I loved it! When I couldn’t go, I’d pump my friends for the stories they were learning, and I’d listen to Sunday morning Mass on television (whenever I could skip Sunday school) to get more details. My general reaction to Gospel stories was one of familiarity. Jesus meets a woman at a well and concerns about marriage emerge, just as with Abraham’s servant and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah. Jesus is a good shepherd, just like David.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  the nation. The highly exclusive Order of the First Families of Virginia was established in 1912, its members claiming that their lineage could be traced back to English lords and Lady Rebecca Rolfe—whom we all know as the ennobled and Anglicized Pocahontas. 16 Statues are the companions of elite societies in celebrating paternal lineage and a new aristocracy. They tell us that some families (and some classes) have a greater claim as heirs of the founding promise. Municipal and state leaders have supported the national hagiography in bold form by constructing grand monuments to our colonial city fathers. The version of John Winthrop that the Revolutionary John Adams had favored, dressed in Shakespearean or Tudor- Stuart attire and with an ornate ruff collar and hose, first graced the Back Bay of Boston in 1880. But the largest such memorial is the twenty-seven-ton statue of William Penn perched atop City Hall in Philadelphia. After it was completed in 1901, no structure in the entire city was permitted to be taller than Penn’s Quaker hat until 1987, ensuring that the founder’s sovereign gaze towered over the City of Brotherly Love, commemorating the colonizing act of territorial possession. In British law, ownership was measured by standing one’s ground— that is, holding and occupying the land. Land itself was a source of civic identity. This principle explains as well the totem value of “Plymouth Rock,” the large stone discovered long after the last Pilgrim breathed New England air, christened in the eighteenth century as the first piece of land on which the Mayflower settlers stood. 17 Commemoration of this kind begs the following questions: Who were the winners and losers in the great game of colonial conquest? Beyond parceling the land, how were estates bounded, fortunes made, and labor secured? What social structures, what manner of social relationships did the first European Americans really set in motion? Finding answers to these questions will enable us to fully appreciate how long-ago-established identities of haves and have-nots left a permanent imprint on the collective American mind. Americans’ sketchy understanding of the nation’s colonial beginnings reflects the larger cultural impulse to forget—or at least gloss over—centuries of dodgy decisions, dubious measures, and outright failures. The “Lost Colony” of Roanoke was just one of many unsuccessful colonial schemes. Ambitious- sounding plans for New World settlements were never more than ad hoc notions or overblown promotional tracts. The recruits for these projects did not necessarily share the beliefs of those principled leaders molded in bronze—the

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The bus is too hot. The fabric under my arms is damp, and I can smell myself. Something is wrong with me. But I don't have to tell anyone. Brandon doesn't have to know, remember? The woman in the men's suit doesn't either. She has no idea that a single glance in my direction, her eyes on my skin, would keep me awake all night, fantasizing. It's my secret. I'll keep it here, with me. I can visit my secret whenever I want. Knowing this feels luxurious. That's the word for it. Luxurious. The place where I keep this secret is padded and dim, the feeling when you lie back in the bath and the water covers your ears. I can climb inside it anytime I want, anywhere—on the bus, in a swiveling chair in the jury box—and I can think of her. No one has to know.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” (John 18:15–17) It is significant that nothing is said about that other disciple who is presumably the same as the Beloved Disciple, denying Jesus! The transference of that peculiarly or even uniquely Markan literary-theological structure from Mark 14:53–72 into John 18:13–27 persuades me to accept, at least as a working hypothesis, the dependence of John’s passion account on Mark’s. Hence my third major presupposition about the intracanonical gospels is that Jolin is dependent on the synoptic gospels at least and especially for the passion narratives (here I agree with Maurits Sabbe [1991: 355–388, 467–513; 1994; 1995]) and for the resurrection narratives (with Frans Neirynck [1982: 181–488; 1991: 571–616]). Once again, if that is wrong, everything I build on it is invalid. And again, the same goes for the opposite position. PRESUPPOSITIONS ABOUT THE EXTRACANONICAL GOSPELS Exactly the same principles used in determining relations between the intracanonical gospels are used for those between intracanonical and extracanonical gospels. For direct literary dependence: in this situation, genetic relationship is established by finding specific stylistic traits of one gospel within another gospel and using redactional confirmation to explain why that latter version used the former as it did. In the absence of such traits giving evidence of direct literary dependence in either direction, independence may be hypothetically proposed. For indirect literary dependence: in this situation, where no specific stylistic traits of one gospel are present in another, redactional confirmation is the only method available to argue in either direction. Those principles will be exemplified in what follows, but an even more basic problem must first be faced. Fixing the Evidence? Why is it necessary to make a distinction here between intracanonical and extracanonical gospels if exactly the same principles establish dependence or independence among them all? Go back and read the epigraph to this section, a passage from Luke Johnson’s book The Real Jesus , with its accusations that my method is “fixed”; that I have given an early date and independent status to “virtually all apocryphal materials” and a correspondingly late date and dependent status to “virtually all intracanonical materials”; and that my only arguments are citations from “like-minded colleagues.” Something clearly happens to collegial courtesy, scholarly integrity, and academic accuracy when extracanonical gospels enter the debate. But, since principles and not just polemics are concerned in that indictment, let me use it to review my methodology. First, it is very, very serious to charge that another scholar has “fixed” his research methodology. Our only integrity as scholars is not to be right and correct but to be honest and public. “Fixing” data entails a deliberate intention to deceive. When one scholar accuses another of fixing the evidence, somebody has lost his integrity. Others will have to decide whether it is Johnson or myself.

• From The John Dominic Crossan Essential Set (Jesus; The Birth of Christianity; The Power of Parable; The Greatest Prayer) (2004)

  In other words, for Jesus in Matthew’s new law—the fulfilled and renew ed Torah—the positive nonviolence of loving enemies is derived from and modeled on the very character of God. By now, my first question seems answered with an absolute negative. Jesus solemnly forbids any rhetorical violence in the opening frame of those six moral escalations and any ideological violence in their closing frame. But, if the question of ideologically based rhetorical violence by Jesus starts—fortunately—with a negative answer, it later receives—unfortunately—an equally positive answer. That will be my second step in this second point. The alternative answer—also in Matthew—is that Jesus is rhetorically violent. On the other hand, then, watch what happens after those inaugural commands from Jesus at the start of the new Torah. Focus on just one word, a word that is, on the one hand, an insult by name-calling, and, on the other, rather far from prayer for persecutors or love for enemies. That word is “hypocrites.” As soon as Matthew finishes those six commands, these follow immediately: Whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others…. Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites ; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others…. Whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites , for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. (6:2, 5, 16) Maybe that repeated use of “the hypocrites” might be excused its rhetorical violence despite a startling location right after those framing antitheses forbidding insulting names and demanding loving prayer. But Matthew later elevates that name-calling into a ghastly chapter-long chant—on the lips of Jesus: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (23:13) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (23:15) Woe to you, blind guides (23:16) You blind fools!…How blind you are! (23:17, 19) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (23:23) You blind guides! (23:24) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!…You blind Pharisees! (23:25, 26) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (23:27) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! (23:29) You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? (23:33) My present emphasis is not just against nasty name-calling in general, but about the glaring discrepancy between this gospel parable’s Jesus in Matthew 5 and the one in Matthew 23. Jesus opens by absolutely forbidding ideologically based rhetorical violence, but closes by doing himself precisely what he has earlier forbidden. Think, therefore, about this: Does Jesus change his mind or does Matthew change his Jesus? MY THIRD POINT ALSO has two steps. The first one asks whether that contradiction between the Jesus of Matthew 5 and the Jesus of Matthew 23 is just some random exception or whether Matthew’s Jesus is regularly presented as rhetorically violent.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  Pocahontas’s death. Smith was a military adventurer, a self-promoter, a commoner, who had the annoying habit of exaggerating his exploits. His rescue story perfectly mimicked a popular Scottish ballad of the day in which the beautiful daughter of a Turkish prince rescues an English adventurer who is about to lose his head. Though an Anglican minister presided over Princess Pocahontas’s marriage to the planter John Rolfe, one member of the Jamestown council dismissed her as the heathen spawn of a “cursed generation” and labeled her a “barbarous[ly] mannered” girl. Even Rolfe considered the union a convenient political alliance rather than a love match. 11 We should not expect Disney to get that right when the fundamental principle of the classless American identity—sympathetic communion—is at stake. The film builds on another mythic strand of the oft-told tale: it is John Smith (blond and brawny in his animated form), not Rolfe, who takes on the role of Pocahontas’s lover. Exaggerating her beauty and highlighting her choice to save Smith and become an ally of the English is not new. When a less-than-flattering portrait appeared in 1842, making her plump and ungainly, and not the lovely and petite Indian princess, there was a storm of protest over what one critic called a “coarse and unpoetical” rendering. Her Anglicized beauty is nonnegotiable; her primitive elegance makes her assimilation tolerable. Indeed, it is all that makes acceptance of the Indian maiden possible. 12 The Pocahontas story requires the princess to reject her own people and culture. This powerful theme has persisted, as the historian Nancy Shoemaker observes, because it contributes to the larger national rationale of the Indians’ willing participation in their own demise. Yet this young girl did not willingly live at Jamestown; she was taken captive. In the garden paradise of early Virginia that never was, war and suffering, greed and colonial conquest are conveniently missing. Class and cultural dissonance magically fade from view in order to remake American origins into a utopian love story. 13 • • • Can we handle the truth? In the early days of settlement, in the profit-driven minds of well-connected men in charge of a few prominent joint-stock companies, America was conceived of in paradoxical terms: at once a land of fertility and possibility and a place of outstanding wastes, “ranke” and weedy backwaters, dank and sorry swamps. Here was England’s opportunity to thin out its prisons and siphon off thousands; here was an outlet for the unwanted, a way

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Bab. 47°, of Jerus. Ez 167 237°” זְנוּניף)‎ NYY; all three obj. of act. vb.); chiefly euphem. for cohabit., ע/‎ M2 Ly 18% (v. גלה‎ Pi. 1a); fig. of Jerus. (vb. pass.) Ez 16°; ’Y 8) in same meaning Ly 20%" (H; of both sexes); ‘y also 188916 (H); ע'‎ DD cover nakedness Gn g* (J), Ex 28 (P; ע'‎ WW3), Ho 2" (fig. of Isr.), Ez 16° (of Jerus.); reviling words are yas ע'‎ nvap mo20” (ef. Doughty Peerat28) | ₪ ערות דבר.‎ nakedness of a thing, i.e. prob. indecency, im- proper behaviour Dt 23” 24"(v. Dr). 3. fig. 7280 ע'‎ Gn 42°" (E), 1.6. its exposed, unde- fended parts (Ar. 3/5). TAM y n.f. nakedness ;—alw. abs, ע'‎ ;— ע'-בשת‎ 1 (in) nakedness, (in) shame (fig. of town Shaphir); of Jerus. ‘Y} DIY Hz 167+ 3 > (v. OY sub 11. (עור‎ ; of bow Hb 3° (v. IT. wy). bare, naked place‏ | . גנג |. גד מער ([מערה]1 (hence Mapadév, Marathon, acc. to 10‏ bare place, or space: estr. YAN‏ .1—; )4 Ju 20% bare (open) space of Geba‘ (si vera 1.‏ K 7° according‏ 1 כְּמַעַר-איש 31M);‏ .זז but v.‏ to the clear space on each (plate, v. md). 2.‏ sf. JY Na 3° fig. of Nineveh (pudenda exposed‏ in shameful punishment; cf. 717Y).‏ 1 מערת‎ n.pr.loc. in Judah Jos 15%, MayapoA, ‘AGL Ma(a)pod. n.m. ""** and (Is 7”) 2. razor,‏ תערז sheath ;—1. a. razor, abs.’N2 nba 187% (fig.);‏ Vaya‏ עלד Nu 6%, obj. of‏ לא יעבר עלדראש subj. of‏ כָּת' מִלְטָש abs.‏ ;51 1 ת' הִַּלָבִים (P), cf. estr.‏ 87 (sim. of tongue). b. estr.1BBI’N Je 36”‏ *52 ץש =~penknife. 2. sheath, always sf. of sword:‏ 1S‏ שלף MIWNA 2 8 208; of drawing sword, ‘MD‏ Ez 21°29 “AD NYA vy? ; of sheath-‏ הציא FD‏ ,)17° Ez 21,‏ השב ing, TAOS ‘BOND Je 47°; MAAN‏ Tany n.([m.] wild ass (prob. Aram. loan- word (=Heb. 878), ,רדא‎ SIM; Syr. Js; = Mand. sin; 61. Hom*S 15 ;-—Jb 39°. ine ער‎ vb. arrange or set in order (N H id.; also roll dough, Y ערף‎ ?0.; Ph. ערכת‎ CIS*™-4 valuation, Bloch, but dub.; Ar. 5 i. contend in battle, S25, aS 7x2 battle-* ground); —Qal Pf. 3 ms.’y Jb 32% 2 Ch 13%, וע‎ consec. Ly 1 6°; ‘HD Nu 23*+, etc.; Impf. 3 ms. FWY? Ex 277!+, ete.; mv. TW 789 TY

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Ez 14°; Jmpf. 3 ms. WY Ex22"+4,‏ פַתִּיתִי,א ז ; "בה פַתּתֶךּ. = etc.; Jmv.°3 Jur 4” 16°; Inf. estr.‏ Pi: a MADD ))163%%%*( Ho 2°; --. persue‏ woman Ho2"(fig., ’ssubj.), seduce, virgin Ex 22";‏ entice, husband Ju 4 0‏ deceive, 253” Pr24* (yet ef. v Hiph.‏ ,2 .16% supr.); subj.’, obj. proph., Je 207 Ez 14°,‏ שת ope eee‏ ב כ ?22% 1K‏ Impf. 3 ms. WHA: 1. be persuaded, Pr 25-9‏ be deceived, Je "20"; by *, Ez 14°.‏ .2 1 יפת‎ n. pr.m. third son of Noah, 100060 ;— nar: nav א'‎ MEY Gn 9% (J), 7, 102(P)=1 Ch i , Gng™r10” (J); ); יפת‎ 98(J), 5°76" 10(P),rChr*. 1 פתוּאָל‎ n.pr.m. father of prophet Joel Jot (G Badoun), 1. 6. (בְּתוּאֶל‎ ה .0---; n.pr.loc. home of Balaam‏ פתור1 פ' loc. TUNE Nu 22°, 9060006, A Babovpa; DIN‏ Dt 23°, but om. 5 69 ;—ef. As. Pitru (on‏ נהרים W. bank of upper Euphr.) Schr ¥GF 2205 COT Nu 22,5 Pi D1 Pa 269 Dr Bsstines DB. ; Eg. Pe-d-ruW MM As. u. Eur. יו‎ LONE] v. nna. els פתח‎ vb. open (NH id.; Ph. פתח‎ ; As. piti, panes Sab. פתח‎ Os2™6 xix 86), 197; ג‎ 535; Eth. 6-1dh:; Aram. MB, uX9; Nab. _ Niph. Pf Y enticed unto Jb 31°. Piel Pf. 2 ms. NAB Pr 24%; sf.°3NNB 76 207; aman to sin Pr . ו‎ cf. ן 1 ְ Palm. nn) ;—Qal Pf. 3 ms.’b 2K 15"+, ete.; | Impf. 3 ms. WHEY Ex 21"4; 3 mpl. sf. יפַתְחוּם‎ Ne 13”, etc.; Imv. ms. nnB 2K13"+; fs. ‘nna nnd

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  tI. TW n.pr.loc. Can. city in the Negeb, | Apad (Egypt. ‘a-ru-d@ WMM4*™ Ber-108 170); Ju 1, “yr Nu 21' (JE)=33%, Jos 12" (D, A(v)pad, A GL Aéep); prob, mod. Z'el Arad, 164 miles 8. of Hebron; ef. GFM%" Buh] Se" 1? — n.pr.m. Benjamite 1 Ch 8°, Qpnp, ©‏ ערד מז A Apod, GL Apad.‏ vb. be naked, bare (Ar. Ge be‏ | ערהזז [Pi] lay bare (cf. Bloch Lub);‏ ערה naked ; Ph.‏ As. dru, nakedness, also desert waste (cf. [TW] ,‏ infr.) 23002295 ** and reff.; NH Y= BH, ©‏ in Lexx) ;— Pi. Pf. -‏ -ב:26[ TROY; Syr.‏ = 53% יעָרָה ms. Is 22° Zp2"; Impf. 3 ms.‏ 3 mpl. ;‏ 3 41% ז /ו fs. WN Gn24”; 2 ms. juss. WA‏ 3 Inf. abs.‏ ;1377 ער MY") 2 Ch 24"; mv. mpl.‏ Hb 3 (Ges'™");—1. lay bare Is 3” 22°‏ עָרוּת Zp 2** (indef. subj.); of laying foundations bare, —‏ i - 9 + i 1 0 i.e. tearing down walls, ete. Hb 3” (yet on text > v. Now), abs. ערו‎ ny שש‎ 2. lay bare by removing contents, empty, water-jar Gn24” — (J; + dy loc.), chest 2Ch 24". 3. pour out, > נש אַלִַתְּעָר שי‎ 41%)1.0.8187(. Hiph. Pf. 3 ms. | My: 1. make naked, of sexual offences Ly — 20% (both || 3). | 5. pour out, NBD הָע'‎ | WI Is ב‎ (fig. for slay, cf.Qal3). | .פא‎ pass. 01 Hiph. 2: 3 ms. רוח‎ WY TS Isao (fig.) until there be poured upon us a spirit from on high. Hithp. 1. /mpf. 2 fs. WOR” La 4” thou shalt make thyself naked (of Edom — under fig. of drunken woman). 2. Pt. מִתְעָרֶה‎ p 37% usu. pouring himself, i.e. spread- = ing himself out like a tree (Bae doubts; Du nbyn lifting himself up, cf. G). n.f. bare place ;—pl. NW Is 197‏ [ערה]1 (si vera interpr.; << 69 ay(e):, Ki Saad reeds).‏ my ~, nf. nakedness, pudenda ; — abs. ע'‎ Ex 28% Ly 18° ; usu. 086. NYY Gn 9”+4, sf. JN Ex 20% (Ginsb), Lv 18"; FOV Is 47°+; jn- Ly 20”, -תָהּ‎ 187+; sf. 3 11. -1--;""ץ עֶרְוָתֶן‎ pudenda, of man, ’Y 18) implying shameful ex- posure Gn 9” (J); mostly of woman : fig. of Jerus. (c. 78) La 1° Ez 16"; usu. c. mba: lit. ע'‎ nban i.e. be exposed to view Ex 20” (Ginsb; van d. H. v*; E),so, as shameful punishment, עריה = fig. of Egypt Is 20*(gloss acc. to Du Che Di-Kit),

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  I had said nothing because I knew my mother would be afraid for us. I knew what her fear would look like, the firm set of her jaw as she took it all in. I was afraid of her silence because the contents of my head would rush in to fill it. I could have filled swimming pools, municipal reservoirs, with shame. She’d think I was crazy. My mother would have some kind of judgment, even if she never said a word. In the emergency room that night, she said little: I’m glad you’re okay. She didn’t have to say more for me to hear it. I feared her judgment because it was my own. 11I thought I knew myself, I said. Until Nora, I really thought I did. What the hell happened to me? My therapist uncrossed his legs, recrossed them in the other direction. What if you think of it this way, he said. Imagine you went to a doctor, and they told you that you had cancer. They started to plot out a course of treatment, but you said, “No! Stop! I won’t start treatment until I know how, and why, I got this.” Do you really need answers before you can start to heal? But but but, I said. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] Another approach. Let’s say you’re a writer, I said. Say something strange has happened to you, and you want to write a story about it. The story has got to make sense somehow. If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t work. Go on, my therapist said. When I was thirty-six years old, I became fixated on a woman I hardly knew. I’d felt pretty straight for my whole life, straight enough to call myself “straight.” Now I was obsessed with a woman. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I’m listening, he said. Here I thought I knew myself. I must have missed something. I can’t be crazy. This is the only explanation: I just missed the signs. So I do this whole archeological dig on myself, comb through every story of every person I’ve ever wanted or dated or loved, looking for glimmers of gayness. I want to find that it was in me all along, because I’d rather be clueless than crazy. See, I’ve got to make sense! People cohere. If they don’t, they must be nuts, and I’m not nuts. I’m just clueless, that’s all. Sure, the therapist says. I’ve heard that story. It’s true for a lot of people. But if you’re hoping to find evidence that confirms the story you want to tell, you’re going to find it. Not because it’s actually there but because you’re biased. It’s confirmation bias: you’ll find it because you want to find it. I looked past him out the window, wondering how long I could stare at the sunlight bouncing off the windshield of a car parked across the street.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  At the first sign of party discomfort, he sank into a long disquisition on the shoe factories that propped up the local economy in the nineteenth century—why, for two decades New Canaan was the second-largest shoe-manufacturing center in the country!—where the old factories had been situated (one on the site of the present firehouse) and how the industry weakened after 1850. Did you know they tried to build a railroad to attract business at that point, but no one was taking! Hard to imagine that Boland was a regular fixture on the party circuit until you realized that behind the white hair and thick glasses lurked the true cheater’s heart. He hated his wife. He had slapped a drink out of her hand in public once, when he was losing a game of backgammon at the country club; he had insulted her to her friends. It had gotten back to her. Still they were married. Still he talked. Sometimes you saw him trapping the same victim for forty-five minutes or more. The endless chatter about history or local elections or town meetings concealed some empty part of himself—the area where he buffered his own wounds, where he concealed the regret about his own miserable life. And since he no longer worked—Boland had invested in Xerox at the right moment—he had nowhere to take his misanthropy but to parties. But as the years went by, Elena noticed, his wife grew stronger. She grew more self-assured. She never appeared at parties with him. She seemed forever to be crossing Fairfield County on the Merritt Parkway in search of the arts, wherever they lurked. Betty Boland had become, in her dark green Mercedes-Benz, one of the informed of New Canaan. Elena imagined that the two of them slept in separate rooms now. Like so many of the older, Protestant couples, they were courteous, charming, and estranged. So Mark Boland wanted a little of this key business. And that was why Elena was talking to him. She wanted to see it up close. —Goodness, Elena, I’m sorry, he said. —Not at all, she said. These things happen. Just have to get back on the horse, I guess. That’s why you show up chez Halford. You never know how it’s going to turn out. Boland smiled. A little too long. —Yes, that’s right. —Mark and I were just talking about the weather, Maria interrupted. —The weather, Elena said. —Yes, well, it’s supposed to freeze up tonight. Quite dangerous by morning time, Maria said. —Most dangerous storm in some time, Boland said. Have you and Benjamin made arrangements? —Arrangements? —Well, yes. And when this aside had been exhausted, Boland launched back into his historical ramblings. Canaan Parish, separated by the Perambulation Line, he was saying, had at one time been composed of a Stamford section and a Norwalk section. Probably they had storms then, too, storms of this very type.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  It seems you’ve had a panic attack, the nurse said. She patted me on the shoulder. Let’s get you some rest. Then she handed me an Ativan and a paper cup of water. This was how I came out to my mother. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] It was a notable omission, not saying anything earlier to her. I never feared being ostracized, preached at, beaten up, packed off to conversion therapy, or any of the tragic and even deadly consequences that coming out can lead to. I had the luxury of knowing that I would be okay. But my mother is my only living parent, and I didn’t want to upset her, disappoint her. I had told her nothing because I had hoped it would blow over. Given enough time, enough muscle, there wouldn’t be anything to come out about. Why talk about a hypothetical? And it wasn’t like I was single, able to accommodate my desire without repercussions for others; I was married, I was a mother. Coming out would not only be about my sexuality—which, for all its peril, at least has nice cultural precedents. My mother is a Rachel Maddow fan. Six months after jury duty, my mother invited me out to see Carol. She loves going to the movies; this was just another film for her. Sitting in the theater, I said nothing about its peculiar resonance. To come out, I’d have to also come out about our open relationship. However I explained it, I knew it would look like a blazing red flag to most people. I knew this because it looked like a red flag to me. I reminded myself that plenty of healthy marriages are open, even if the noisy and dominant norm is monogamy. I repeated this to myself with the shaky fervor of a new convert: Our marriage is valid, no matter its parameters. It was valid before, and it was valid now. I did not want to be divorced, a divorcée. I did not want June to be a child of divorce, shuttling back and forth between houses, towing her purple Frozen suitcase with “Family Forever” in curling script across the lid. Divorce would be a failure, a public admission of error, a giant fucking mess. No, I didn’t want to talk about it. What Brandon and I were doing, it belonged to the province of us. We owed no explanation. We were a team, us versus the world. And isn’t that marriage: to be united against the world’s demands, sorrows, and pain? To keep it between us, as something that we were working on, would be a testament to our bond, to us as a unit.

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

  Eleazar then chose death over dishonor as a matter of dignity. Second Maccabees tells in gruesome detail the story of a mother and seven sons. The first brother invokes Deuteronomy 32 by affirming that God will have compassion on his servants. The second is more specific: “The king of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life because we have died for his laws” (2 Macc 7:9). The faith of the brothers, then, is essentially the same as that of the “wise” in Daniel: they give up their lives in this world in the hope of exaltation after death. In 2 Maccabees, however, the resurrection has a distinctly physical character. One brother offers his hands to be cut off because he is confident that he will get them back again (7:11). The emphasis on bodily resurrection seems to be inspired by the circumstances of the story, where the bodies of the young men are subjected to torture. The words of the sixth brother shed light on another aspect of the situation. He tells the king that “we are suffering these things on our own account because of our sins against our own God” (7:18). Nonetheless, the king should not think that he will escape punishment. The theology of the brothers here follows a pattern familiar from the Hebrew Bible. Suffering is assumed to be a punishment for sin. Antiochus, like Assyria in Isaiah 10, is the rod of YHWH’s anger. But his own motivation is evil, and he will not escape punishment. Second Maccabees 8 proceeds with the story of Judas Maccabee. In this account, Judas begins by imploring God to respond to the blood of the innocent victims of the persecution. Then God’s wrath was turned to mercy. Chapter 9 reports the death of Antiochus Epiphanes. As in 1 Maccabees, the dying king realizes the mistake he made in attacking the Jews. According to 2 Maccabees, however, he even vows to become a Jew if he recovers. His promises, however, are in vain. Second Maccabees 10 describes the recapture and purification of Jerusalem and the temple. The remainder of the book is devoted to the military exploits of Judas, up to the defeat of Nicanor. Chapter 13 reports that the arch-villain Menelaus met a fate worthy of his deeds. He was accused before the king as being responsible for all the troubles in Jerusalem and was thrown into a tower full of ashes. (This method of execution is not otherwise attested.) One other episode from the story of Judas is worthy of note. In chapter 12, Judas and his men take up the bodies of Jews who had fallen in battle.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  He was working hard, and I knew it. Every time we argued, we wound up here: I felt mean, cruel. I didn’t want to be cruel. I didn’t want to be crazy. I wanted to be reasonable. He was running Delancey and now Essex too, which was barely off the ground. We shouldn’t have rushed to open it before the baby came. It had been bad advice. We had three babies: Delancey, Essex, and June. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] At my six-week postpartum checkup, the doctor peered closely at my perineum. You can hardly even see a scar, he announced. It’s healed beautifully! I could hear the grin even with his face out of sight. Elation swelled my chest. He had expected this, but I hadn’t believed him. Now I lay on the exam table, heels in the cold plastic cups of the stirrups, and looked at June in her car seat on the floor, asleep in a green fleece hat. My body, I reeled, did all this. In my senior year of college, I’d taken a class about the ethics of medical interventions, and for it I’d written an essay about my irregular periods and probable infertility. I was stunned by how little it seemed we knew about bodies, despite centuries of scientific research and study. Female bodies, in particular, remain barely within our comprehension, because the majority of studies have been on male bodies, white male bodies.26 I’d assumed that my body was one way, that it was empty. Now its tally of amazements was growing in plain sight. What birth control do you plan to use? my doctor asked matter-of-factly, peeling off his gloves. My eyes snapped to his face. Oh, I squeaked. I haven’t even thought about it. Condoms? Have you and Brandon thought about having sex? he asked. I shook my head. Well, you’re healed enough now to get back to it. You can have sex anytime you’d like. Okay, I said. I didn’t expect to want it soon, but okay. I know everything is different, he said, and that caring for a baby is hard work. But you should think about it soon—you know, get back on the horse. Hadn’t this man just been examining my injured vagina? Now we were talking about intercourse, and he was urging me to have it. Sex is vital to a relationship, he pronounced. If it’s not reestablished, the relationship can suffer. Sometimes a husband will look elsewhere. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] I remember the night it started. It was November 13, 2012, and June was nine weeks old. That night she slept from seven to seven with only one waking, our best night yet. I was awake for most of it.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the country in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the neighbourhood, to suspect any part of what had really passed between Mrs. Smith and myself—and I resolved therefore on calling at the cottage, in my way to Honiton. The sight of your dear sister, however, was really dreadful; and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone. You were all gone I do not know where. I had left her only the evening before, so fully, so firmly resolved within my self on doing right! A few hours were to have engaged her to me for ever; and I remember how happy, how gay were my spirits, as I walked from the cottage to Allenham, satisfied with myself, delighted with every body! But in this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling. Her sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately—I never shall forget it—united too with such reliance, such confidence in me!—Oh, God!—what a hard-hearted rascal I was!” They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke. “Did you tell her that you should soon return?” “I do not know what I told her,” he replied, impatiently; “less than was due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more than was justified by the future. I cannot think of it.—It won’t do.—Then came your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her kindness and confidence. Thank Heaven! it did torture me. I was miserable. Miss Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it gives me to look back on my own misery. I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid, rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are only triumph and exultation to me now. Well, I went, left all that I loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was only indifferent. My journey to town—travelling with my own horses, and therefore so tediously—no creature to speak to—my own reflections so cheerful—when I looked forward every thing so inviting!—when I looked back at Barton, the picture so soothing!—oh, it was a blessed journey!” He stopped. “Well, sir,” said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for his departure, “and this is all?” “All!—no:—have you forgot what passed in town? That infamous letter? Did she show it you?” “Yes, I saw every note that passed.”

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  She’s probably seen my wedding ring. If she has, she’s read me. I see it now: a satin sash across my chest with the whole story embroidered on it. I’m straight, married for nearly a decade, with a house in the suburbs, a not-quite-three-year-old, a family dog, and two restaurants that I own with my husband. Shame creeps along my cheek like a spider. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] When I cannot watch her, I think about watching her. I think all the time about it. I leave the house each morning with my thermos of coffee, thinking. I walk down our street, turn the corner, walk a few more blocks, and board the bus, thinking. One morning mid-trial I catch the headline of a fellow bus rider’s newspaper: the Supreme Court had ruled on Obergefell vs. Hodges, making same-sex marriage legal across the United States. I choke back a sob, elated, disbelieving. Then I want to cry for a different reason, and I cannot tell anyone why. I think about her wrists and her white teeth. I wonder what she thinks about me. Then I remember not to think about that, because she probably doesn’t think about me, and if she does, it cannot be good. I am a woman wearing a wedding ring while staring at a person who is not her spouse. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] The judge is speaking again, and I’m not listening. I’m watching the woman in the suit. Under the crisp lapels of her jacket, there’s a swelling across her chest, a softness that says female. I wonder what it would feel like to put my arm around her. Her shoulders would be solid, more substantial than my own. If I think on it, I can feel them under my triceps, sound as a fence. I wonder what she wears when she’s not wearing this suit, on the weekends or after work. I wonder what her friends call her. I wonder what she would look like next to me in a photo. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] I’ve had crushes since being with Brandon. A few, mostly little things, banal. We’d joke about them. For years, he nursed a crush on the actress Natalie Portman. It was like that. Safe. But I’d had another type of crush too, other men I’d wanted without saying a word. There were only one or two of them, but these men loomed over us. I never called his attention to their elephantine shadows. Telling him would have made them more real, made actual people out of these dark shapes, made distractions into danger. It would have frightened us both. Instead, I chipped away at the shadows privately, interrogated them into submission. Do I want to be someone who cheats? No. I don’t want to be someone who would do that. Am I willing to do that to Brandon? No. He doesn’t deserve that. Can I get what I want by cheating, without also getting what I don’t want? No. No, no. Always no.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  tabs n.f. insult, reproach, ignominy ; —abs.’3 Is 45%+ gt.; estr. mba Je 20"+4 3 +; ef, 53 Th 209+ 3t., etc.; pl. niep3 Mi 2° Is 0 FOF 50°;—1. specif., insult, reproach,’ לא יג‎ 1 2* reproaches do not cease; מוּסר כְּכְמּתִי‎ Jb20°=my beshaming (insulting) correction, i.e. the correc- tion which insults me. 2. in gen., reproach, ignominy, opp. N32 43; הלך בּכ'‎ Is 45° go into ignominy (+A, n>) ; oft. || בשת‎ 15 30° 617 44" subj. of NBD Je 3” our ignominy covereth us, so under fig. of garment, after vad ¥ 357 ) + חפר ,בוש‎ in v*), 109”; || BY ץ‎ 69° (subj. of 22 D3), Je 51° (¢d.; בוש‎ in || cl.), ¥78" (+h בשת |( | ג‎ + BID 69%; || את‎ Pr18®; ||P) 16 מג בוש) "20 16 כ' עולם‎ ||61.(; 4253 Ez 16% )80. ||( ; oft. in Ezek. נשא כ'‎ bear ignominy, Ez 16% (|| ל (בוש‎ (0932 in || cl.); 32758 (all +32 NS with those who go down to the pit; ref. to ignominious death), 367 39° (si vera 1.== 00007 the humihating sense of undeserved kindness from ”; but txt. dub., Hi Co, q.v., ] ;נשו [ כ‎ Sm Da defend) ; nda נשא‎ הגוים‎ , i.e.caused by the nations, 3 4* 36°, also v® (|| D"2Y NBN), prob. also +89" (rd. N93, cf. VB Che Bae); Sy "WR BMayiny DNB וכ‎ Ex 44". n.f. ignominy ;—only estr. mapas‏ בִּלְמוּתז poy Je 23" (|| Dv NEI),‏ tabs n.pr.loc. (si vera 1.( Ez 27, named after WWS, G Xappav; =mod. Kalwddha near Bagdad, .acc, to ו‎ Schr °°; but txt.dub.v. Co; ¥ 1), whence Mez 5 Herrin 93-43 077 Media ; JKi Hi Co 9253 (N27) Asshur was as thine apprentice (v. sub (למר‎ in trading; but sense not very prob. 484, trp (van d. H, so Norzi; Baer עה‎ n.pr.loc. in Babylonia, Gn 10” (J), G Xadan D1"** prop.identif. with Bab. Kul-wnuw=Zirla (conquered by Sargon in 710: COT 6210; Amoa but dubious, and site of Zirlab unknown. = t ַּלְנָה‎ Am 6’, - 1310. city (conquered by Assyria under Sargon} poss.='33 (q.v.) Ez 27%, 60 om. in Am Xahavyy 18 ד‎ 0" ; perh. = Kullani (Wk1 Se 2 i.e. (Tomkins *584 795.1%% 1( Kullanhou, ne Aleppo, conquered by Tiglath-Pileser 1 738 (COT*™); or (Di) Kunulua (KG?" K 410) SE. of Antioch (cf. Dr4™®?). 1 mee) vb. faint (Ar. £5 is be pale of fa 5 oF gray (of daylight), weak-eyed, s<S\ blind birth ; Syr. ox9 be blind), only fig.—Qal 3 ms. W327? ב6 ץ כ'‎ faint (with longin for thee (|| P22 מה ל‎ : Tomas n.pr.m. 1. attendant of Da 28 19% %=]003 v"; G in all ,סא‎ GL A paap. 2. in n.loc. כְמָהֶם‎ NA Je 417 (Kt ,(כמוהם‎ 61. M2 p. 158 supr. {i795 2 S 19%, v. foregoing. TVD .מָה.צ‎ WD v. sub 2 p. 455 supr. .כָּמְהֶם Je 41” Kt, v.‏ כמוהם

• From Wild (2012)

  “We were trying to find the Gathering too,” I said. “We heard it was here.” “We’re hiking the Pacific Crest Trail,” added Stacy. “I. Need. Food!” wailed the waif on the rock. “I’ve got some you’re welcome to,” I said to her. “But it’s up at the lake.” She only looked at me, her face expressionless, her eyes glazed. I wondered how old she was. She seemed to be my age, and yet she could’ve passed for twelve. “Do you have room in your car?” asked the Australian confidentially. “If you two are headed back to Ashland, I’d catch a ride with you.” “We’re on foot,” I said to her blank stare. “We have backpacks. We left them up at the lake.” “Actually, we are going to Ashland,” said Stacy. “But it’ll take us about twelve days to get there.” The two of us laughed, though no one else did. They all piled back into the truck and drove away a few minutes later, and Stacy and I walked the trail back to Toad Lake. The two couples were sitting with Rex when we returned and we all hiked back up to the PCT together, though it wasn’t long before I was bringing up the rear, the last to limp into camp that night near dark, hindered by the catastrophe of my feet. “We didn’t think you were going to make it,” said Sarah. “We thought you’d already stopped to camp.” “Well, I’m here,” I replied, feeling stung, though I knew she meant only to console me about my foot troubles. In the midst of our drinking and storytelling back in Castle Crags, Sam had joked that my trail name should be the Hapless Hiker after I’d told them about my various misadventures. I’d laughed at the time—the Hapless Hiker seemed a fairly apt name—but I didn’t want to be that hiker. I wanted to be the hard-ass motherfucking Amazonian queen. In the morning, I rose before the others, quietly mixing my Better Than Milk into my pot with cold water and mildly stale granola and raisins. I’d woken from another Bigfoot dream, almost exactly the same as the two previous ones. As I ate my breakfast, I found myself listening carefully for sounds in the still-dark trees. I hiked away before the others even emerged from their tents, happy to get a head start. Exhausted, slow, and footsore as I was, hapless as I might be, I was keeping up with the others—the people I thought of as real hikers. Seventeen and nineteen miles a day, day after day, had become de rigueur. An hour out, I heard an enormous crashing in the bushes and trees beside me. I froze, unsure of whether to yell or remain perfectly quiet. I couldn’t help it: silly as it was, that man with the Bigfoot mask in my dreams flashed through my mind.

• From The Second Sex (1949)

  Granted, boys too at puberty feel their body as an embarrassing presence, but because they have been proud of their virility from childhood, it is toward that virility that they proudly transcend the moment of their development; they proudly exhibit the hair growing between their legs, and that makes men of them; more than ever, their sex is an object of comparison and challenge. Becoming adults is an intimidating metamorphosis: many adolescents react with anxiety to a demanding freedom; but they accede to the dignified status of male with joy. On the contrary, to become a grown-up, the girl must confine herself within the limits that her femininity imposes on her. The boy admires undefined promises in the growing hair: she remains confused before the “brutal and finished drama” that limits her destiny. Just as the penis gets its privileged value from the social context, the social context makes menstruation a malediction. One symbolizes virility and the other femininity: it is because femininity means alterity and inferiority that its revelation is met with shame. The girl’s life has always appeared to her to be determined by this impalpable essence to which the absence of the penis has not managed to give a positive image: it is this essence that is revealed in the red flow that escapes from between her thighs. If she has already assumed her condition, she welcomes the event with joy: “Now you are a lady.” If she has always refused it, the bloody verdict strikes her like lightning; most often, she hesitates: the menstrual stain inclines her toward disgust and fear. “So this is what these words mean: being a woman!” The fate that until now has weighed on her ambivalently and from the outside is lodged in her belly; there is no escape; she feels trapped. In a sexually egalitarian society, she would envisage menstruation only as her unique way of acceding to an adult life; the human body has many other more repugnant servitudes in men and women: they easily make the best of them because as they are common to all they do not represent a flaw for anyone; menstrual periods inspire horror in adolescent girls because they thrust them into an inferior and damaged category. This feeling of degradation will weigh heavily on the girl. She would retain the pride of her bleeding body if she did not lose her self-respect as a human being. And if she succeeds in preserving her self-respect, she will feel the humiliation of her flesh much less vividly: the girl who opens paths of transcendence in sports, social, intellectual, and mystical activities will not see a mutilation in her specificity, and she will overcome it easily. If the young girl often develops psychoses in this period, it is because she feels defenseless in front of a deaf fate that condemns her to unimaginable trials; her femininity signifies illness, suffering, and death in her eyes, and she is transfixed by this destiny.

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

  When Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Egypt for the second time (in 168 B.C.E.), Jason attempted unsuccessfully to stage a coup. When the king heard of fighting in Jerusalem, he thought that the city was in revolt and sent in the troops. Shortly after this he took measures to suppress the Jewish religion. According to 2 Maccabees, the temple became a place where prostitutes had intercourse with Gentiles and Jews were compelled to celebrate a festival in honor of the Greek god Dionysus. The account of these events in 2 Maccabees is generally more satisfactory than that of 1 Maccabees. It becomes clear that the king’s actions were not entirely unprovoked but were a response to what he perceived as rebellion on the part of the Jews. Nonetheless, the attempt to suppress the Jewish religion is extraordinary in antiquity and remains extremely puzzling. Some scholars suspect that the persecution may have been the idea of Menelaus, as a way of crushing the opposition of traditional Jews. All the ancient accounts, however, place the responsibility on the king. It may be, as some ancient authors suggest, that the king regarded the Jewish religion as barbaric. It was certainly highly distinctive in the ancient world, in its insistence on monotheism and rejection of idolatry. On this account, the king would have been trying to make it like a Greek cult, in effect, to “normalize” it. But his actions are still hard to explain. There was no precedent in the Greek world for an attempt to suppress a cult in this manner. Better precedents, in fact, can be found in the biblical tradition, notably in the reform of King Josiah (2 Kings 22–23), which suppressed the cults of the Israelite high places. In placing so much emphasis on the Hellenistic reform, 2 Maccabees represents the basic conflict as one between Hellenism and Judaism. Yet it should be noted that on any account the “reforms” of Jason and the building of the gymnasium encountered no significant opposition. It was only when the king attempted to suppress the traditional forms of Jewish worship that a revolt broke out. The essential conflict, then, was not over broad cultural issues but over the freedom of the Jewish people to practice their traditional religion as they saw fit. Bronze coin issued under Antigonus II, last of the Hasmonean kings, showing the sevenbranched menorah from the Temple. Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Second Maccabees dwells at length on the deaths of the martyrs, those Jews who refused to violate their religion and suffered death instead. Second Maccabees 6:18-31 tells the story of an old man named Eleazar who refused to eat swine’s flesh. The people supervising the persecution urged him to pretend to eat it, but he refused on the grounds that such pretense was not worthy of a man of his age.