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 Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Feeling her way around my kitchen, she manages to mold little balls of corn bread into patties she fries up for us, and by day, she takes calls from her program friends and knits for me by feel alone a sweater the color of daffodils with the three-D pattern of a tree blooming up the front. The day before the transplant, in a packed doctors’ office, we waltz to the front of the line to see the doctor, as Mr. Whitbread arranged, everybody watching us pass like we were majorettes. Though I’d expected to feel radically glad—for once having the leg up that the rich always have—my throat sours as I look behind us, for we pass up all manner of near-blind children, including one knobby-kneed broomstick of a boy with a black eye patch; plus an entire family from Pakistan who’ve waited—their son explained—eighteen months and spent their savings journeying to get their father’s eye cancer seen to. They aren’t waiting for transplants, necessarily, but just getting to the doctor before them feels like cheating. After the surgery, Mother lies with her head wrapped, wanly jok ing that she feels like playing pin the tail on the donkey. She listens to cassettes of The Cloud of Unknowing , Buddhist sutras, Centering Prayer , the writings of mystic Simone Weil—all brought from the hometown library. Afternoons, young Dev likes to lead her around the yard, joyfully stranding her in front of the azalea bush. Or he dons a plastic knight’s helmet and hands her a stick, batting at it with his plastic sword till she’s holding a stub. One evening I’m in the kitchen cleaning up dishes when he rushes in, claiming Mother stole the last cookie from him and threatened to slap him. She comes behind holding the cookie to her chest. Her story is they were doing watercolors together, and when she idly reached for the last cookie on the plate, he snatched it up and scampered to the other side of the table. Give him the cookie, Mother. But he had three. I had one broken one. He’s the baby, Mother. He gets the cookie. She gives me a pitiful stare and announces it was the last one. I promise to fetch another package after the dishes, and she hands it over to Dev, who nyah-nyahs her a few times, then leaves the room doing a victory dance. You can’t slap him, Mother. She stares at me with two different eyes—one blue, one green. The green one has a brown nick in it, like a fault in ice. I didn’t want to smack him, she tells me. It would’ve just been instinctual. Batching your pants is instinctual, Mother. We don’t batch our pants. We don’t beat babies. That’s what civilization is all about—reining in those pesky instincts. Dev’s never been slapped. She huffs, Maybe that’s what’s wrong with him.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Dev peered in. Jonathan said, Mine is brie and kiwi fruit. Dev reached for it, and Jonathan cupped one hand around it. It has less sugar than yours. His next sentence was so remarkable, I noted it down in my journal: I first had this sandwich in Vienna…. Perhaps Evan’s flinch stemmed from the day Dev had elected to yank Jonathan’s mittens from his coat pocket, bolt up the stairs while Evan and Warren chased after him, and fling them into the toilet. Warren fished them out with a pencil and offered to launder them. When I got the ziploc bag from my husband, I tossed the mittens into the trash among the potato peelings. I just didn’t want to deal with them—or the whole starchy Cambridge milieu. So the mittens stop me dropping Dev off, or the puking. My head spends much of its day pumping out reasons for not doing what I should the way a magician draws long strings of scarves from a sleeve. Warren drops him now, an act that brings him endless praise. How great, the teachers say every day when I fetch Dev, that Warren drops him off! And isn’t it great that I pick him up? Then spend all day and night with him? I once asked . From their stunned expressions, I could guess that it wasn’t. Not so much. About once a week Warren asks for the laundered mittens, and I pretend to rummage around before wandering away, giving in to my failure as a laundress—read: mother. The other couples in the center look so blithe. They plead academic poverty but drive swanky foreign cars and live sweatered in cashmere. They take family vacations in beachy climes with grandparents who plunk seashells into buckets their toddler grandchildren tote while the couple slips off to the local bookstore or bakery to canoodle over steaming coffee. Our nearest grandparents are assiduously hands-off. Though Mrs. Whitbread had cranked out six kids like linked hot dogs, Warren’s upbringing was almost Victorian in its chill. By his testament, he’d been presented from time to time like a petit four, scrubbed up and bathrobed before bedtime for kisses. Otherwise, he’d been banished to a gulag nursery guarded by some icy servant. During our own requisite holidays at the great house, we spent hours chasing Dev through rooms big as skating rinks packed with costly breakables, which we weren’t allowed to move out of kid reach. A sofa lined with antique dolls stared at Dev with insouciant porcelain faces he squirmed in my arms to get at. Once, from exhausted spite, I let him smash one. As for Mr. Whitbread, he seemed to eye Dev’s festive ramblings as he might have a cockroach’s. He once made the boy cry by calling him—beyond my earshot, of course— an ignorant little crud .

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  77. WB 4, 1250, April 9, 1528; 1364, Dec. 6, 1528. Metzsch wanted Luther to publish on the issue. 78. WB 4, 1253, April 12, 1528, 443:12; 442:8–10; 442:7; she was the sister-in-law of the Wittenberg printer Georg Rhau. See also WB 6, 1815, May 10, 1531. See also for some local cases in which Luther was cited as advisor, StadtA Witt, 35 [Bc 24], Privat Protocoll von Hofgerichtsurtheilen…(Thomas Heyllinger notary). 79. See, for example, WB 4, 1179, 1205, 1304, and Beilage, 1309. 80. WB 5, 1523, Feb. 1, 1530, 226:23–25. 81. WB 5, 1526, 232:20–23. For the full text, see 1526, Feb. 1, 1530, 230–36. 82. WB 4, 972, Jan. 17, 1526; and see Luther’s letter, 975, Jan. 25, 1526, 22. Topler’s marriage was arranged by her relatives and celebrated in Nuremberg, and it was consummated, probably against her will. When questioned by the official ( Schösser ) at Allstedt, she explained that her sister and relatives had sent her books when she was in the convent telling her that the spiritual estate was damned and she should leave; so she got in touch with Kern to instruct her, and left the convent. See Otto Clemen, “Die Leidensgeschichte der Ursula Toplerin,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte 7 (1932): 161–70: “But to have sex with him was never in her heart” (162). God had now illuminated her so that “she had realised that she would not be saved without her previous convent vows” (163). When he had tried to force her to return to Allstedt she would not sleep with him, so her relatives (Sigmund Fürer and Leo Schürstab) made a rod for him, telling him “Magister, she has a devil in her, if you want to drive it out, whip her till we tell you to stop” (164). This he did; he had also beaten her many times and threatened her with a knife. Topler was related to the leading Nuremberg families of the Tucher, Nützel and Pömer. It is not clear whether Topler wanted to return to the convent as her abbess wanted her to do, but she would not have been the only ex-nun to consider reentry. Ottilie von Gersen, Müntzer’s widow, wrote to Duke Georg of Saxony when she was left destitute after Müntzer’s execution, noting that she had heard that Georg believed she should reenter the convent; she was willing to do so if he thought it right. Müntzer, Briefwechsel, 506. 83. WB 5, 1433, April 23, 1530 (to Catharina Jonas); in fact Luther’s gynecological predictions proved wrong and Catharina gave birth to yet another son, Luther writing to congratulate Jonas on being the creator of five sons. But the child died soon after birth, and Luther did his best to console him. 84. WB 4, 1257, May 1, 1528, 447:1–2. 85. Plummer, From Priest’s Whore, 218; Baylor, ed. and trans., Revelation and Revolution, 135. Thomas Müntzer, Außgetrückte emplössung des falschen Glaubens der vngetrewen welt, Nuremberg 1524 [VD 16 M 6745], fo. E ii (r).

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Tearing it open, I’d lifted a copy, thumbed it, and tried to tell myself it was some worthy stone added to poetry’s great mountain. But I hid it out of eyeshot in my study—the sight of it made me sick. First books rarely get the attention they deserve, the other poet says with a kind look. I explain that virtually all copies sold were, I’m guessing, bought by my sister, who gave twenty or thirty for Christmas that year. He tells me the story of a writer who—on finding his own first book remaindered in a used bookstore—opened to the flyleaf only to discover his own signature above the note To Mum and Dad …. He gestures behind me, where the secretary is making her way up the hall, and I grab my armload of contraband copies before scuttling off like a burglar with the house silver. A few people are starting to trickle through the halls, and I seize up, overcome with a sense of inadequacy to teach anybody anything. I simply can’t be the only dumb person in this place one more instant. Before I can stop myself, I loudly say, Let’s start a contest for who hasn’t read the most important book. I raise my hand like a testifying evangelist to shout, I haven’t read Spenser’s Faerie Queene . Who hasn’t read a greater book? A friend pokes his head from an office, yelling, I never read Moby-Dick . Somebody behind me says, I haven’t read Byron’s Don Juan . A passing scholar corrects the pronunciation to what I guess must be super-anglicized Oxfordese, saying, Don Jew-wan . Pompous effing fop, I think. You should be shot. Another voice hasn’t read a word by Virginia Woolf. Students are starting to gape. Later, in my shared cubicle along a line of hissing radiators, I spread dozens of copies and start assembly-line stapling Mr. Nabokov’s memoir, the sentences I once worshipped now streaming in a hieroglyphic blur off my eyeballs, flooding me with gall.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  When Swaggart got wind of Bakker’s sexual relationship with Jessica Hahn, he “took on Jim Bakker like a pit bulldog taking on a French poodle,” one of Swaggart’s former aides recalled. “Just ripped him to shreds, destroyed the man.” 119 Next, Bakker turned on Jerry Falwell, who had come to the rescue of PTL, and accused him of exploiting the situation to get control of the network. Falwell retaliated by calling a press conference where he produced sworn affidavits by men who claimed to have had homosexual relations with Jim Bakker, together with a note from Tammy Faye listing what she wanted from PTL in return for going quietly: $300,000 a year for Jim, and $100,000 for herself; royalties on all PTL records and books; their $400,000 mansion, two cars, security staff, legal fees, plus the fees of the accountants who were trying to sort out the Bakkers’ highly irregular finances. The grand fundamentalist enterprise seemed to have ended in a barren, unedifying cul-de-sac. The year before the scandals, Falwell had been full of confidence. He had renamed the Moral Majority “the Liberty Federation,” and declared that many of its members would be running for office in the 1988 elections at the local, state, and federal levels. But after the PTL debacle, Falwell resigned on November 4, 1987, from the presidency of the Moral Majority and the Liberty Federation and announced that his political career was over. He would never again work for a candidate as he had for Ronald Reagan, and never again lobby for legislation. In the wake of the scandals, the income from his own Old Time Gospel Hour had declined, and Falwell felt compelled to return to his private Gospel ministry. 120 He would still surface from time to time to fulminate about the nation’s ills, but he could no longer look forward to the imminent creation of a coalition of religious conservatives that would take America by storm. When Pat Robertson’s bid for the presidency failed, the fundamentalist offensive, which had started in 1979 with such great hopes, seemed to have failed. The New Christian Right, discredited, appeared to have ignominiously fizzled out, and though Christians would individually continue to lobby and try to bring voters to the polls, it was generally assumed by secularists that the fundamentalist threat was over. However, fundamentalism was not dead; it had, in fact, entered a new and more extreme phase in America. On November 28, 1987, Randall Terry, a born-again Christian from upstate New York, led three hundred “rescuers” to an abortion clinic in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. They held a service on what Terry described as “the doorstep of hell” for almost eleven hours, praying, singing psalms, and preventing women and staff from entering the clinic. By the end of the day, 211 of the “rescuers” had been arrested, but, Terry recorded triumphantly, “no babies died.”

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Abdu himself had argued that the Koran presents men and women as equal before God, and that traditional rulings concerning divorce or polygamy were not essential to Islam: they could and should be changed. 78 The lot of women had improved. Muhammad Ali had established a school that trained women in elementary medical procedures; by 1875 about three thousand Egyptian girls attended the mission schools, and in 1873 the government established the first state primary school for girls, and a secondary school the following year. Visitors noted that women were seen more frequently in public; some were discarding the veil, and by the end of the century, women were publishing articles in journals, and becoming doctors and teachers. Change was already under way when the British arrived, and, though there was still a long way to go, a start had been made. The veiling of women is neither an original nor a fundamental practice in Islam. The Koran does not command all women to cover their heads, and the habit of veiling women and secluding them in harems did not become common in the Islamic world until some three generations after the Prophet’s death, when Muslims began to copy the Christians of Byzantium and Zoroastrians of Persia, who had long treated their women in this way. But the veil was not worn by all women; it was a mark of status and worn by women of the upper classes, not by peasants. Qassim Amin’s book, however, brought the peripheral practice of veiling right into the heart of the debate about modernization. He insisted that unless the veil were abolished, the Muslim world would remain in a degraded state. Partly as a result of the furor arising from Tahrir al-Mara, the veil became for many Muslims a symbol of Islamic authenticity, whereas for many Westerners, the veil was and is “proof” of an ineradicable misogyny in Islam. Amin was not the first to see the veil as a symbol of everything that was wrong with Islam. When the British arrived, they were appalled by the practice, even though most Western men at this date derided feminism, wanted their own wives securely at home, and opposed the education and enfranchisement of women. Lord Cromer was typical in this respect: he was one of the founders in London of the Men’s League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage, yet in his monumental book on Egypt, he expressed great concern about the status of Muslim women. 79 Their degraded state was a canker that began its destructive work early in childhood, as infants perceived the oppression of their mothers, and had eaten into the whole system of Islam. The practice of veiling was the “fatal obstacle” that prevented Egyptians from attaining that “elevation of thought and character which should accompany the introduction of Western civilization.”

• From Shunned (2018)

  With that, Ms. Levy asked us to open our math books. I took a deep breath and began to relax, another test of faith endured. That evening, as we washed dinner dishes, I relayed the entire scene to my mother in great detail. “‘Different paths to God.’” As she echoed Ms. Levy’s words, she shook her head. “‘None of them is wrong.’ Ha! They can’t all be right.” Her movements under the sudsy water became more rigorous. “She rescued you with lies,” she said. Her words stung. Mom was insulting me and my new hero. I was aware that we didn’t agree with Ms. Levy’s logic, but it didn’t seem like the time to nitpick. Scanning my mother’s profile, I saw her jaw shoot out as it hardened. Was she disappointed that I had not confronted Ms. Levy? “Mom, please don’t say anything to her.” I grabbed her arm and summoned a whiny, pleading tone. “I don’t want to make a big deal about this. Ms. Levy is my favorite teacher, and I don’t want to upset her.” “Well, of course not, Lindy. Ms. Levy may be misguided in her religious perspective, but she’s very kind. I’ll send her a thank-you note for being so thoughtful. And I’m very proud of you. Jehovah is proud of you, too.” These words were sufficient to comfort me, and I started to relax. I finished drying the dishes, basking in maternal and celestial approval. Several incidents like this occurred throughout my school years, and I continued to feel the isolation of being different from my classmates. But even stronger than that powerful discomfort was the deeper satisfaction of knowing in my heart that Jehovah was pleased with my faith. A momentary good time wasn’t worth my everlasting life. Over time, this separation from the rest of the world became a badge of honor as I refrained from participating in all sorts of activities, like birthday parties, my high school prom, and dating. It wasn’t that I didn’t prefer to fit in; it was that I never questioned I was doing The Right Thing, avoiding worldly celebrations that had roots in ancient pagan rituals and traditions that could lead to unwholesome alliances with the world. By adulthood, I had squelched all fears of standing out at work. My siblings and friends all shared the same experience: we found understanding and our sense of belonging in the safe embrace of our family and the Witness community. Ross nudged me with his elbow. Another Scripture had been cited. I found it and followed along, more by rote than by awareness. Nick’s words kept reverberating like a catchy radio jingle: “Do you think you have the answer?” they echoed now. “Yes,” I had said.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  She turns to Warren, Do you think she’s an alcoholic ? How insulting, I think, and brace myself for Warren’s assessment, already dredging up a defense: I’ve never been five minutes late to pick up Dev. I’m a room parent, for God’s sake. I lead toddlers around the aquarium on a rope. No, he says. (How my love for him doth bloom, the drinking mind thinks.) She likes a drink. (Or nine, the scolding, sober part of me thinks.) But who doesn’t? he concludes. (Those WASPs down so much sauce—the sober mind observes—that Warren wouldn’t know a dipsomaniac if one hit him with a polo mallet.) That’s the kind of courtroom convened in my skull, prosecution and defense. Back home the next morning, while Dev blanks out at the TV, I sneak around, reaching under beds and into the hamper, gathering ratholed beer cans and wine bottles. Once Warren’s home, I drive around to unload them from the hatchback like body parts into dumpsters all over town. I also rotate liquor stores, telling each indifferent proprietor that I’m having a spectacular party—myself the honored guest. One morning before New Year’s, I’m trying to jam Dev into his coat, and he’s slipping around in my hands like a greased pig. I get one arm in, and he collapses laughing on the floor. I’ve been pondering the doctor’s suggestion as I say to Warren, Let’s quit drinking. Sure, Warren says, why not. He crimps the top of his lunch sack. He, by the way, doesn’t need to quit drinking, and being full-time at both work and grad school—and being I’m a sneaky bitch—he’s missing the gallons I drink. From my hands, Dev breaks free and dashes into the living room while I say, It’s not like we’re going to a party. Going after Dev, Warren tells me not to start, for I gripe nonstop about our lack of social life. He returns with our maniacally snickering son tucked under one arm like a baguette. Warren asks me to toss Dev’s coat upside down on the floor . Okay, dip and flip, sweetie, Warren says, setting Dev so he stands with his feet at his coat’s hood. Dev bends over, dips his hands in his coat sleeves, then upends the coat over his head. Good man, I say as Warren starts to clip a mitten to a sleeve. I ask him where—with his own patriarch’s testy disposition—he mastered parenting. He’s hitching the second mitten on as Dev lurches to smooch, my cheek. Hoisting him up, Warren says, I imagine what my father would’ve done with me, then do the opposite. I tug at Warren’s sleeve so he curves his tall form down, seeming to tolerate my peck on his lips. (Is this true or only my faulty interpretation?) The familiar masculine odor of him sends down my spine a surge of ardor as if stirred from a muddy aquarium bottom.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Dobbins shrugged his shoulders. "What's serious? I was a kid. The thing is, I believed in God and all that, but it wasn't the religious part that interested me. Just being nice to people, that's all. Being decent." "Right," Kiowa said. "Visit sick people, stuff like that. I would've been good at it, too. Not the brainy part—not sermons and all that—but I'd be okay with the people part." Henry Dobbins was silent for a time. He smiled at the older monk, who was now cleaning the machine gun's trigger assembly. "But anyway," Dobbins said, "I couldn't ever be a real minister, because you have to be super sharp. Upstairs, I mean. It takes brains. You have to explain some hard stuff, like why people die, or why God invented pneumonia and all that." He shook his head. "I just didn't have the smarts for it. And there's the religious thing, too. All these years, man, I still hate church." "Maybe you'd change," Kiowa said. Henry Dobbins closed his eyes briefly, then laughed. "One thing for sure, I'd look spiffy in those robes they wear—yust like Friar Tuck. Maybe I'll do it. Find a monastery somewhere. Wear a robe and be nice to people." "Sounds good," Kiowa said. The two monks were quiet as they cleaned and oiled the machine gun. Though they spoke almost no English, they seemed to have great respect for the conversation, as if sensing that important matters were being discussed. The younger monk used a yellow cloth to wipe dirt from a belt of ammunition. "What about you?" Dobbins said. "How?" "Well, you carry that Bible everywhere, you never hardly swear or anything, so you must—" "I grew up that way," Kiowa said. "Did you ever—you know—did you think about being a minister?" "No. Not ever." Dobbins laughed. "An Indian preacher. Man, that's one I'd love to see. Feathers and buffalo robes." Kiowa lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and for a time he didn't speak. Then he sat up and took a drink from his canteen. "Not a minister," he said, "but I do like churches. The way it feels inside. It feels good when you just sit there, like you're in a forest and everything's really quiet, except there's still this sound you can't hear." "Yeah." "You ever feel that?" "Sort of." Kiowa made a noise in his throat. "This is all wrong," he said. "What?" "Setting up here. It's wrong. I don't care what, it's still a church." Dobbins nodded. "True." "A church," Kiowa said. "Just wrong." When the two monks finished cleaning the machine gun, Henry Dobbins began reassembling it, wiping off the excess oil, then he handed each of them a can of peaches and a chocolate bar. "Okay," he said, "didi mau, boys. Beat it." The monks bowed and moved out of the pagoda into the bright morning sunlight. Henry Dobbins made the washing motion with his hands.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone. Not to my parents, not to my brother or sister, not even to my wife. To go into it, I've always thought, would only cause embarrassment for all of us, a sudden need to be elsewhere, which is the natural response to a confession. Even now, I'll admit, the story makes me squirm. For more than twenty years I've had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away, and so by this act of remembrance, by putting the facts down on paper, I'm hoping to relieve at least some of the pressure on my dreams. Still, it's a hard story to tell. All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit. Certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968. Tim O'Brien: a secret hero. The Lone Ranger. If the stakes ever became high enough—f the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough—I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future. In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did? I tried to swallow it back. I tried to smile, except I was crying. Now, perhaps, you can understand why I've never told this story before. It's not just the embarrassment of tears. That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart. A moral freeze: I couldn't decide, I couldn't act, I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity. All I could do was cry. Quietly, not bawling, just the chest-chokes. At the rear of the boat Elroy Berdahl pretended not to notice. He held a fishing rod in his hands, his head bowed to hide his eyes. He kept humming a soft, monotonous little tune. Everywhere, it seemed, in the trees and water and sky, a great worldwide sadness came pressing down on me, a crushing sorrow, sorrow like I had never known it before. And what was so sad, I realized, was that Canada had become a pitiful fantasy. Silly and hopeless. It was no longer a possibility. Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave. That old image of myself as a hero, as a man of conscience and courage, all that was just a threadbare pipe dream. Bobbing there on the Rainy River, looking back at the Minnesota shore, I felt a sudden swell of helplessness come over me, a drowning sensation, as if I had toppled overboard and was being swept away by the silver waves. Chunks of my own history flashed by. I saw a seven-year-old boy in a white cowboy hat and a Lone Ranger mask and a pair of bolstered six-shooters; I saw a twelve-year-old Little League shortstop pivoting to turn a double play; I saw a sixteen-year-old

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This is one aspect of his thinking that is difficult to understand today and where the gulf that separates our world from his seems at its greatest. In this book I have tried to show why it mattered. Luther’s theological legacy was a view of human nature that escaped the split between flesh and spirit that has dogged so much of the history of Christianity, and has given rise to a profound suspicion of sexuality and an unbending moralism. Not so with Luther: Whatever else he was, he was no killjoy. He saw sexuality as sinful but only in the way that all our actions are sinful, and this perspective freed him to be remarkably positive about the body and physical experience. His religiosity had nothing saccharine about it. His relationship with God was not that of a believer cheerfully confident of having been “saved.” It was wrested from his Anfechtungen and it engaged all his intellectual and emotional capacities. He would pray for hours a day, conversing with God, but this never gave him happy assurance: For Luther, doubt always accompanied faith. Melanchthon described how, in one debate, Luther suddenly became unsure that he was right, and he left the room, falling on his bed and praying. 49 This was not how one would expect a university professor to behave: He was utterly engaged in the subject under discussion, and shaken to the core by the thought that he might have been mistaken. Luther’s extraordinary openness, his honest willingness to put everything on the line, and his capacity to accept God’s grace as a gift he did not merit are his most attractive characteristics. Luther is a difficult hero, nonetheless. His writings can be full of hatred, and his predilection for scatological rhetoric and humor is not to modern taste. He could be authoritarian, bullying, overconfident; his domineering ways overshadowed his children’s lives and alienated many of his followers. His intransigent capacity to demonize his opponents was more than a psychological flaw because it meant that Protestantism split very early, weakening it permanently and leading to centuries of war. His anti-Semitism was more visceral than that of many of his contemporaries, and it was also intrinsic to his religiosity and his understanding of the relation between the Old and the New Testament. It cannot just be excused as the prejudice of his day. His greatest intellectual gift was his ability to simplify, to cut to the heart of an issue—but this also made it difficult for him to compromise or see nuance. And yet only someone with an utter inability to see anyone else’s point of view could have had the courage to take on the papacy, to act like a “blinkered horse” looking neither to right nor left, but treading relentlessly onward regardless of the consequences.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ὀφλισκάνω Soph. Ant. 470, Eur., ΡΙαΐ.: impf. ὠφλίσκανον Dem. 864: fut. ὀφλήσω Soph. O.T. 511, Eur., Plat.: pf. ὥφληκα Ar. Nub. 34, etc. : aor. ὥφλησα Lys. 136.1 (where perh. however ὠφείλησεν should be restored, as in Ar. Av. 115), Walz Rhett. 8. 243, (mpoo—) Alciphr. 3. 26; in correct writers the aor. in use is ὦφλον, inf. ὀφλεῖν, part. ὀφλών, —sometimes wrongly written ὄφλειν, ὄφλων, as if there were an Att. pres. ὄφλω ; but this pres., though quoted by Gramm. (Arcad. 158. 26, E. M. 232.9), only occurs in late writers as Dio Chr., Aristid., Alciphro, Eust., etc., and prob. originated in the error of writing ὄφλειν, ὄφλων for ὀφλεῖν, ὀφλών, as in Eur, Bacch. 854, Plat. Apol. 39 B, ν. Elmsl. Ach. 689, Heracl. 985 :---ὀφλέω is prob. a still later form ; for in Hesych. ὀφλεῖ should be corrected ὄφλει ; ὥφλεε in Hdt. 8. 26 is an error for ὦφλε (which is given by some Mss.): a pres. ὀφλίσκω is cited by Suid. ; ὀφλάνω by Phot. and Hesych. (From same Root as ὀφείλω, 4. ν.) To owe, properly of one condemned to pay a fine, Zo be liable to pay, ζημίαν Eur. Med. 581, etc.; χρήματα Lys. 159.17; πέντε τά- Aayta Ar. Pax 172; χιλίας δραχμάς Plat. Apol. 36 A; εἴκοσι μνᾶς Xen. An. 5. 8,1; τὴν ἐπωβελίαν Isocr. 373 C. 2. δίκην ὀφλεῖν to be cast in a suit, lose one’s cause; ὠφληκέναι δίκην Ar. Nub. 34, Av. 1457 ; ἣν τις ὄφλῃ παρὰ τοῖς ἄρχουσι δίκην Tw Id. Eccl. 655; so, ὀφλεῖν δίαιταν to lose in an arbitration, Isae. 111. 7, Dem. 862. 2, εἴς. ; ἐρήμην da. τὴν δίκην to let judgment go against one by default, Antipho 131.1; Opa. ἐξούλης Andoc. 10. 15; κλοπῆς ἕνεκα τὰς εὐθύνας ὀφλ. Aeschin. 55.17. 3. absol. to be cast, to be the losing party, μέλλων ὀφλή- σειν Ar. Nub. 777; Kar’ ὀφλὼν ἀπέρχεται Id. Ach. 689, cf. Thuc. 3. 70, Plat. Legg. 745 A; ὀφλεῖν τῷ δημοσίῳ ἐπί τινι for an offence, Dem. 998. 23. 4. c. gen. criminis, ὀφλὼν ἁρπαγῆς Te καὶ κλοπῆς δίκην Aesch. Ag. 534 (cf. ἐκτίνων) ; then often without δίκην, ὠφληκὼς φόνου Sound guilty of murder, Plat. Legg. 873 Β 54.; ὀφλ. τραύματος éx προ- νοίας Ib. 877 B; ὀφλ. κλοπῆς, δώρων Andoc. το. 20; ἀστρατείας, ἀπο- στασίου Dem. 732. 23., 790.2: but also, Ὁ. c. gen. poenae, θανάτου δίκην ὀφλ. Plat. Apol. 39 B, Legg. 856 Ὁ. II. generally, of any- thing which one deserves or brings on oneself, αἰσχύνην, βλάβην Opa. to bring infamy, loss on oneself, incur them, Eur. Hel. 67, Andr. 188 ; Opa. γέλωτα to be laughed at, Id. Med. 403, Ar. Nub. 1035; Tue by one, Eur. Bacch. 854; παρά τινι, πρός τινα Plat. Phaedo 117 A, Hipp. Ma. 282 A. 2. δειλίαν ὀφλ. (much like ὀφλ. δίκην δειλίας), to incur a charge of cowardice, get a character for cowardice, δειλίην ὥφλεε πρὸς βασιλῆος he drew upon himself the reproach of cowardice from the king, Hdt. 8. 26, cf. Eur. Heracl. 985; so, μώρῳ μωρίαν ὀφλι- σκάνω Soph, Ant. 470, cf. Eur. Med. 1227, etc.; αὐθαδία τοι σκαιότητ᾽ Opa. Soph. Ant. 1028; ἀπ᾽ ἐμᾶς φρενὸς οὔποτ᾽ ὀφλήσει Eur. Hec. 327, Ion 443; ἄνοιαν Dem. 16. 24; αἰσχύνην 18. 26.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ὄνειδος, τό, (said to mean originally axy report of one, one’s reputa- tion, character, like κλέος, κλῃδών, Lat fama, Eust. 88. 15., 647. 36; but the passages he cites—tovr’ ὄν. οὐ καλόν Soph. Ph. 477; Θήβαις κάλλιστον ὄν. Eur. Phoen. 821 ; καλὸν ὄν. Id. Med. 514.1. A. 305,—are plainly ironical; indeed the sense of reproach lay in the Root, v. infr.): I. onl Hom. downwards, reproach, rebuke, censure, blame, esp. by word, ὀνείδεα μυθήσασθαι, λέγειν, βάζειν Il. 1. 201. 2. 222, Od. 17. 461, εἴς. ; αἱ δὴ ἐμῇ κεφαλῇ κατ᾽ ὀνείδεα χεῦαν 22. 463: ὄνειδος ἔχειν to be in disgrace, Hat. 9. 713 ὀνείδη κλύειν Aesch. Pers. 7573 ὄν. ὀνειδίζειν Soph. Ph. 523; ὄν. λιπεῖν τινι Eur. Heracl. 301; ὄν. φέρει it brings reproach, Plat. Rep. 500 Ὁ ; ὄνειδός [ἐστι], c. inf., Eur. Andr. 410; ὄνειδός τινι περιθεῖναι Antipho 131. 313 “περιάπτειν Lys. 164.13; ὀνειδῶν καὶ κακῶν μεστούς Dem. 603.6; ws ἐν ὀνείδει by way of reproach, Plat. Gorg. 512 Ὁ, cf. Rep. 431 A, Symp. 180 E; ὀνείδει ἐνέχεσθαι, συν- έχεσθαι Legg. 808 E, 944E :—pl., κολάζειν ὀνείδεσι with censures, Ib. 847 A; ὀνείδη ἔχειν τὰ μέγιστα Rep. 344 B; ὄν. ἐπιφέρειν Arist. Eth. Ν, 4.2, 22. 2. matter of reproach, a reproach, disgrace, σοὶ γὰρ ἐγὼ. - κατηφείη καὶ ὄνειδος Il. τό. 498; gol μὲν δὴ .. κατηφείη καὶ ov., εἰ... 17.556, cf. Hdt. 2. 36; c. gen., τὸ... πόλεως OV. the reproach of the city, Aesch. Theb. 5395 αὑτῆς ὄν. Soph, O.C. 984; ὄν. Ἑλλάνων Id. Aj. 1191 ; τὸ λύσιον ὄν. Plat. Phaedr. 277 A; so, Oedipus calls his daughters τοιαῦτ᾽ ὀνείδη, Soph. O. T. 1494, cf. Ar. Ach. 855, Dem. 458. 5. (The Skt. Root seems to be nid (vituperare, spernere) ; cf. Goth. ga-naitjain (ἀτιμᾶν), nait-eins (βλασφημία); so that ὁ-- must be euphon. ) ὀνεῖον, τό, an ass-stable, Suid. ὄνειος, a, ov, of an ass, Ar. Eq. 1300: ὄν. γάλα ass’s milk, Dem. ap. Phylarch. 65, Arist. H. A. 3. 20, 13; Ov. doxds an ass’s skin, Polyb. 8. 23, 33 Tas ὀνείας ᾿ματτύας a hash of ass’s flesh, Sophil. Παρακατ. 1. 5. ὄνειος, Ion. ὀνήϊος, ον, (ὀνίνη μι) useful, Nic. ΑἹ. 548, Hesych. ; later 1055 in Tzetz. Lyc. 621, Suid. :—lIon. Sup. ὀνήιστος, ἡ, ov, the most useful, serviceable, Anaxag. 4, Pythag. ap. Diog. L. 8. 49, Heraclit. ib. 9. 2, Phoenix Coloph. ap. Ath. 495 D, Aretae. Cur. M. Ac. 1. 4, etc.; ὀνήιστον πονέεσθε exert yourselves to the utmost, Ap. Rh. 2. 335; ὕδρωπος ὀνήιστα the most effectual remedy for the dropsy, Aretae. Cur. M. Diut. 2. 2. ὀνειράξομαι, Dep. to be given to dreaming, Eccl. ὄνειραρ, ν. sub ὄνειρος. ὀνειράτιον, τό, Dim. of ὄνειρος, Schol. Ap. Rh. 2. 197. ὀνείρειος, a, ον, dreamy, of dreams, ἐν ὀνειρεΐῃσι πύλῃσι at the gates of dreams, Od. 4. 809; ἐν πύλαις, ὀνειρείαις, Babr. 30. 8. ὀνειρήεις, εσσα, ev,=foreg., Orph. H. 85. 14. ὀνειρο-γενής, és, born of a dream, Heliod. 9. 25.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  This is one story I've never told before. Not to anyone. Not to my parents, not to my brother or sister, not even to my wife. To go into it, I've always thought, would only cause embarrassment for all of us, a sudden need to be elsewhere, which is the natural response to a confession. Even now, I'll admit, the story makes me squirm. For more than twenty years I've had to live with it, feeling the shame, trying to push it away, and so by this act of remembrance, by putting the facts down on paper, I'm hoping to relieve at least some of the pressure on my dreams. Still, it's a hard story to tell. All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth, bravely and forthrightly, without thought of personal loss or discredit. Certainly that was my conviction back in the summer of 1968. Tim O'Brien: a secret hero. The Lone Ranger. If the stakes ever became high enough—f the evil were evil enough, if the good were good enough—I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage that had been accumulating inside me over the years. Courage, I seemed to think, comes to us in finite quantities, like an inheritance, and by being frugal and stashing it away and letting it earn interest, we steadily increase our moral capital in preparation for that day when the account must be drawn down. It was a comforting theory. It dispensed with all those bothersome little acts of daily courage; it offered hope and grace to the repetitive coward; it justified the past while amortizing the future. In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty-one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the

• From Shunned (2018)

  But I was still in the clutches of a certain way of thinking, responding to the experience of being evaluated. I adapted my exit to the religion’s terms, believing that was the only way to be decent and noble. While I’d made huge strides in expanding my point of view about life and the world, I hadn’t fully developed my capacity for independent thinking and still slipped into my pattern of “being good.” I had waited about twenty minutes when Ray came out to get me. I followed him back into the library, where Jeremy was now standing, leaning against one of the bookshelves with his arms folded at his chest. There was a solemn mood about the room. I sensed there was a protocol, so I sat and waited. Ray spoke first. “As a judicial elder body, we’ve made the decision to expel you from the true Christian congregation. The charge is adultery. The biblical grounds for this ruling can be found in many places in the Scriptures. I’ll read just one of them.” His Bible was already opened to the passage he now read from. “First Corinthians 5:11–13: ‘But now I am writing you to quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.’ “You have openly confessed your sins and we, regrettably, see no sign of remorse or repentance. Therefore, it is our responsibility to keep the rest of the congregation spiritually clean.” He turned to another Scripture. “Second Thessalonians 3:14. ‘But if anyone is not obedient to our word through this letter keep this one marked, stop associating with him, that he may become ashamed.’” Potter broke in now, raising his opened Bible. “And 1 Timothy 1:20 says to ‘reprove before all onlookers persons who practice sin, that the rest also may have fear.’ For this reason, Linda, to cultivate a healthy fear of sin within the congregation, we will publicly announce your disfellowshipping in one week, from the stage, at the beginning of the service meeting.” I remembered times gone by when I’d sat in those meetings and heard similar announcements. They were brief and stated with a lot of gravity and always made me sad for the person who had so clearly lost their way. It was tantamount to hearing a death sentence, since the person was no longer guaranteed life. It was not outside the bounds of kindness to offer sympathy to the family members still in The Truth.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  "So tell me," his father would have said. Slowly then, circling the lake, Norman Bowker would have started by describing the Song Tra Bong. "A river," he would've said, "this slow flat muddy river." He would've explained how during the dry season it was exactly like any other river, nothing special, but how in October the monsoons began and the whole situation changed. For a solid week the rains never stopped, not once, and so after a few days the Song Tra Bong overflowed its banks and the land turned into a deep, thick muck for a quarter mile on either side. Just muck—no other word for it. Like quicksand, almost, except the stink was incredible. "You couldn't even sleep," he'd tell his father. "At night you'd find a high spot, and you'd doze off, but then later you'd wake up because you'd be buried in all that slime. You'd just sink in. You'd feel it ooze up over your body and sort of suck you down. And the whole time there was that constant rain. I mean, it never stopped, not ever." "Sounds pretty wet," his father would've said, pausing briefly. "So what happened?" "You really want to hear this?" "Hey, I'm your father." Norman Bowker smiled. He looked out across the lake and imagined the feel of his tongue against the truth. "Well, this one time, this one night out by the river ... I wasn't very brave." "You have seven medals." "Sure." "Seven. Count 'em. You weren't a coward either." "Well, maybe not. But I had the chance and I blew it. The stink, that's what got to me. I couldn't take that goddamn awful smel//." "If you don't want to say more—" "I do want to." "All right then. Slow and sweet, take your time." The road descended into the outskirts of town, turning northwest past the junior college and the tennis courts, then past Chautauqua Park, where the picnic tables were spread with sheets of colored plastic and where picnickers sat in lawn chairs and listened to the high school band playing Sousa marches under the band shell. The music faded after a few blocks. He drove beneath a canopy of elms, then along a stretch of open shore, then past the municipal docks, where a woman in pedal pushers stood casting for bullheads. There were no other fish in the lake except for perch and a few worthless carp. It was a bad lake for swimming and fishing both. He drove slowly. No hurry, nowhere to go. Inside the Chevy the air was cool and oily-smelling, and he took pleasure in the steady sounds of the engine and air-conditioning. A tour bus feeling, in a way, except the town

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  Over the next few weeks Linda wore her new red cap to school every day. She never took it off, not even in the classroom, and so it was inevitable that she took some teasing about it. Most of it came from a kid named Nick Veenhof. Out on the playground, during recess, Nick would creep up behind her and make a grab for the cap, almost yanking it off, then scampering away. It went on like that for weeks: the girls giggling, the guys egging him on. Naturally I wanted to do something about it, but it just wasn't possible. I had my reputation to think about. I had my pride. And there was also the problem of Nick Veenhof. So I stood off to the side, just a spectator, wishing I could do things I couldn't do. I watched Linda clamp down the cap with the palm of her hand, holding it there, smiling over in Nick's direction as if none of it really mattered. For me, though, it did matter. It still does. I should've stepped in; fourth grade is no excuse. Besides, it doesn't get easier with time, and twelve years later, when Vietnam presented much harder choices, some practice at being brave might've helped a little. Also, too, I might've stopped what happened next. Maybe not, but at least it's possible. Most of the details I've forgotten, or maybe blocked out, but I know it was an afternoon in late spring, and we were taking a spelling test, and halfway into the test Nick Veenhof held up his hand and asked to use the pencil sharpener. Right away a couple of kids laughed. No doubt he'd broken the pencil on purpose, but it wasn't something you could prove, and so the teacher nodded and told him to hustle it up. Which was a mistake. Out of nowhere Nick developed a terrible limp. He moved in slow motion, dragging himself up to the pencil sharpener and carefully slipping in his pencil and then grinding away forever. At the time, I suppose, it was funny. But on the way back to his seat Nick took a short detour. He squeezed between two desks, turned sharply right, and moved up the aisle toward Linda. I saw him grin at one of his pals. In a way, I already knew what was coming. As he passed Linda's desk, he dropped the pencil and squatted down to get it. When he came up, his left hand slipped behind her back. There was a half-second hesitation. Maybe he was trying to stop himself; maybe then, just briefly, he felt some small approximation of guilt. But it wasn't enough. He took hold of the white tassel, stood up, and gently lifted off her cap. Somebody must've laughed. I remember a short, tinny echo. I remember Nick Veenhof trying to smile. Somewhere behind me, a girl said, "Uh," or a sound like that. Linda didn't move.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  and it was no longer a question that could be decided by an act of pure reason. Intellect had come up against emotion. My conscience told me to run, but some irrational and powerful force was resisting, like a weight pushing me toward the war. What it came down to, stupidly, was a sense of shame. Hot, stupid shame. I did not want people to think badly of me. Not my parents, not my brother and sister, not even the folks down at the Gobbler Café. I was ashamed to be there at the Tip Top Lodge. I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing. Some of this Elroy must've understood. Not the details, of course, but the plain fact of crisis. Although the old man never confronted me about it, there was one occasion when he came close to forcing the whole thing out into the open. It was early evening, and we'd just finished supper, and over coffee and dessert I asked him about my bill, how much I owed so far. For a long while the old man squinted down at the tablecloth. "Well, the basic rate," he said, "is fifty bucks a night. Not counting meals. This makes four nights, right?" I nodded. I had three hundred and twelve dollars in my wallet. Elroy kept his eyes on the tablecloth. "Now that's an on-season price. To be fair, I suppose we should knock it down a peg or two." He leaned back in his chair. "What's a reasonable number, you figure?" "I don't know," I said. "Forty?" "Forty's good. Forty a night. Then we tack on food—say another hundred? Two hundred sixty total?" "I guess." He raised his eyebrows. "Too much?" "No, that's fair. It's fine. Tomorrow, though ... I think I'd better take off tomorrow." Elroy shrugged and began clearing the table. For a time he fussed with the dishes, whistling to himself as if the subject had been settled. After a second he slapped his hands together. "You know what we forgot?" he said. "We forgot wages. Those odd jobs you done. What we have to do, we have to figure out what your time's worth. Your last job—how much did you pull in an hour?" "Not enough," I said. "A bad one?" "Yes. Pretty bad." Slowly then, without intending any long sermon, I told him about my days at the pig plant. It began as a straight recitation of the facts, but before I could stop myself I was talking about the blood clots and the water gun and how the smell had soaked into my skin and how I couldn't wash it away. I went on for a long time. I told him about wild hogs squealing in my dreams, the sounds of butchery, slaughterhouse sounds, and how I'd sometimes wake up with that greasy pig-stink in my throat. When I was finished, Elroy nodded at me.

• From The Things They Carried (1990)

  the smokestacks, the canneries, the arsenals at Hartford, the Minnesota forests, the machine shops, the vast fields of corn and wheat—they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders—and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry. After the chopper took Lavender away, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross led his men into the village of Than Khe. They burned everything. They shot chickens and dogs, they trashed the village well, they called in artillery and watched the wreckage, then they marched for several hours through the hot afternoon, and then at dusk, while Kiowa explained how Lavender died, Lieutenant Cross found himself trembling. He tried not to cry. With his entrenching tool, which weighed 5 pounds, he began digging a hole in the earth. He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war. All he could do was dig. He used his entrenching tool like an ax, slashing, feeling both love and hate, and then later, when it was full dark, he sat at the bottom of his foxhole and wept. It went on for a long while. In part, he was grieving for Ted Lavender, but mostly it was for Martha, and for himself, because she belonged to another world, which was not quite real, and because she was a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey, a poet and a virgin and uninvolved, and because he realized she did not love him and never would. Like cement, Kiowa whispered in the dark. I swear to God—boom, down. Not a word. I've heard this, said Norman Bowker. A pisser, you know? Still zipping himself up. Zapped while zipping. All right, fine. That's enough. Yeah, but you had to see it, the guy just— I heard, man. Cement. So why not shut the fuck up? Kiowa shook his head sadly and glanced over at the hole where Lieutenant Jimmy Cross sat watching the night. The air was thick and wet. A warm dense fog had settled over the paddies and there was the stillness that precedes rain. After a time Kiowa sighed. One thing for sure, he said. The lieutenant's in some deep hurt. I mean that crying jag—the way he was carrying on—it wasn't fake or anything, it was real heavy-duty hurt. The man cares. Sure, Norman Bowker said. Say what you want, the man does care. We all got problems. Not Lavender. No, I guess not, Bowker said. Do me a favor, though. Shut up? That's a smart Indian. Shut up.