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

  an Aramaic paraphrase of Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, has a colorful retelling of the story of Abram and Sarai in Egypt. First, Abram is warned in a dream that the Egyptians will try to kill him, and that Sarai must protect him by saying that he is her brother. The Egyptians are amazed at the beauty of Sarai and describe it to Pharaoh in detail. Sure enough, the pharaoh takes Sarai and tries to kill Abram, but Sarai says he is her brother. Then God afflicts Pharaoh with “a chastising spirit” so that he is unable to approach Sarai, much less have intercourse with her. Finally, Abram is asked to pray for the king, and only then do the Egyptians learn the cause of the affliction—that Sarai is Abram’s wife. Pharaoh’s outrage is tempered by the fact that he needs Abram to pray for him and expel the evil spirit, and so he sends Abram away with lavish gifts. In this form of the story, the primary concern again is that Sarai not be defiled, but the actual deception is placed in her mouth rather than in Abram’s, and it has an honorable and urgent motive. Fathers and Sons Another set of issues is raised in the Abraham cycle by the question of an heir who should inherit the promise. At first, Abraham worries that “the heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus” (Gen 15:2). Then he has a child, Ishmael, by Hagar, Sarah’s slave girl. Here again there is an ethnographic aspect to the story: Ishmael becomes the ancestor of a desert tribe. Like the story of Jacob and Esau, the account of Ishmael explains how Israel was defined over against its neighbors by divine choices that seem quite arbitrary. But this story, too, raises moral questions, not only for modern sensibilities. The story is told twice, with variations, in Genesis 16 (J) and 21 (E). In the J account, the conflict between Hagar and Sarai arises when Hagar becomes pregnant and looks on Sarai with contempt. Abram makes no attempt to defend her but allows Sarai to do as she pleases, so that Hagar has to flee. The angel of the Lord intervenes and persuades Hagar to return, by promising that her son will have plentiful offspring, even though he will be “a wild ass of a man” and will live “at odds with his kin.” But Hagar is also told to submit to her mistress.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  She and I shared the same sense of humor and were kindred spirits on account of each of us having recently broken up with a boyfriend. Her boss had a way of inviting us for drinks after work at the 99 Club, a pub frequented by Boston’s equivalent of Wall Street traders. It was a pleasant way to end the day before I headed to my evening classes at Boston University, where I was now enrolled. One afternoon, as he was leaving the office, he asked in an offhand way, “Want to catch a drink at the 99?” “Sure,” I replied, thinking I could have one quick drink before evening school. I walked into the pub. He was there at the bar, talking to the bartender, and he offered me a seat on the barstool next to him, a broad smile across his face. A drink was awaiting me. What I next remember is waking up in my own bed in the pitch black, naked, in pain and aware that a man was getting out of my bed. I was jolted out of my sleepiness and stared in shocked silence as the man slipped into his trousers, picked up his shoes, and tiptoed out of my bedroom. His gait, the eyeglasses—they told me who he was, the broker who had offered to buy me a drink. The apartment door shut behind him, and I lay motionless, racking my brain to try to recreate the events of the prior evening. For hours I lay awake—too stunned to cry, too mortified to call anyone. How did this happen? How could I have let it happen? The next morning, I was the first to arrive at the office, taking my place at the receptionist’s desk that faced the elevators, and thus allowed me to greet each person who arrived. Long after normal starting hours, the elevator door opened and out stepped the criminal of the prior evening. I grabbed a telephone as though I were engaged in conversation, refusing to look at him as he strode past my desk and on to his elegant office. Will he apologize to me? I wondered. How naïve I was to think there might be any remorse in that man. Did he think perhaps that I had no idea what had transpired, that I was dead to the world when he sneaked out of my apartment? I wanted to scream at him, to punch him in the face, but that would entail sharing my nightmare with the whole office. Would anyone even believe me? I had never heard of such a thing happening to a person—it would be my word against his—he the big producer versus me the pretty receptionist who wore miniskirts. A combination of shame and the fear of retaliation silenced me.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  They were regarded with hatred and suspicion and contempt. In Sparta, xenos was the equivalent of barbaros, barbarian. One man writes complaining that he was despised ‘because I am a xenos’. Another writes that, however poor a home is, it is better to live at home than epi xenēs, in a foreign country. When clubs had their common meal, those who sat down to it were divided into members and xenoi. Xenos can even mean a refugee. All their lives, the patriarchs were foreigners in a land that was never their own. (b) In 11:9, he uses the word paroikein, to stay for a time, of Abraham. A paroikos was a resident alien. The word is used of the Jews when they were captives in Babylon and in Egypt. Anyone called paroikos was not considered much above a slave in the social scale and had to pay an alien tax. Such people were always outsiders and only became members of the community as a result of payment. (c) In 11:13, he uses the word parepidēmos. A parepidēmos was a person who was staying there temporarily and who had a permanent home somewhere else. Sometimes, the stay was strictly limited. A parepidēmos was someone in lodgings, someone without a home in a particular place at a particular time. All their lives, the patriarchs were men who had no settled place that they could call home. It is to be noted that, in the ancient world, to dwell in a foreign land was considered humiliating; a certain stigma was attached to the foreigner in any country. In the Letter of Aristeas, the writer says: ‘It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s native land; a foreign land brings contempt to poor men and shame to rich men, for there is the lurking suspicion that they have been exiled for the evil they have done.’ In Ecclesiasticus (29:22–8), there is a wistful passage: Better is the life of the poor under their own crude roof than sumptuous food in the house of others. Be content with little or much, and you will hear no reproach for being a guest. It is a miserable life to go from house to house; as a guest you should not open your mouth; you will play the host and provide drink without being thanked and besides this you will hear rude words like these: ‘Come here, stranger, prepare the table; let me eat what you have there.’ ‘Be off, stranger, for an honoured guest is here; my brother has come for a visit, and I need the guestroom. ’ It is hard for a sensible person to bear scolding about lodging and the insults of the moneylender. At any time, it is an unhappy thing to be a stranger in a foreign land; but, in the ancient world, to this natural unhappiness there was added the bitterness of humiliation. All their days, the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Lullus was born in Palma on the island of Majorca. His father had gained distinction by helping to wrest the Balearic islands from the Saracens. The son married and had children, but led a gay and licentious life at court and devoted his poetic gifts to erotic sonnets. At the age of thirty-one he was arrested in his wild career by the sight of a cancer on the breast of a woman, one of the objects of his passion, whom he pursued into a church, and who suddenly exposed her disease. He made a pilgrimage to Campostella, and retired to Mt. Randa on his native island. Here he spent five years in seclusion, and in 1272 entered the third order of St. Francis. He became interested in the conversion of Mohammedans and other infidels and studied Arabic under a Moor whom he had redeemed from slavery. A system of knowledge was revealed to him which he called "the Universal Science," ars magna or ars generalis. With the aid of the king of Aragon he founded, in 1276 on Majorca, a college under the control of the Franciscans for the training of missionaries in the Arabic and Syriac tongues. Lullus went to Paris to study and to develop his Universal Science. At a later period he returned and delivered lectures there. In 1286 he went to Rome to press his missionary plans, but failed to gain the pope’s favor. In 1292 he set sail on a missionary tour to Africa from Genoa. In Tunis he endeavored in vain to engage the Mohammedan scholars in a public disputation. A tumult arose and Lullus narrowly escaped with his life. Returning to Europe, he again sought to win the favor of the pope, but in vain. In 1309 he sailed the second time for Tunis, and again he sought to engage the Mohammedans in disputation. Offered honors if he would turn Mohammedan, he said, "And I promise you, if you will turn and believe on Jesus Christ, abundant riches and eternal life." Again violently forced to leave Africa, Lullus laid his plans before Clement V. and the council of Vienne, 1311. Here he presented a refutation of the philosophy of Averrhoes and pressed the creation of academic chairs for the Oriental languages. Such chairs were ordered erected at Avignon, Paris, Oxford, Salamanca, and Bologna to teach Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic.893 Although nearly eighty years old the indefatigable missionary again set out for Tunis. His preaching at Bougia led, as before, to tumults, and Lullus was dragged outside of the city and stoned. Left half dead, he was rescued by Christian seamen, put on board a ship, and died at sea. His bones are preserved at Palma.

• From The Girls (2016)

  goodbye when I left, like she didn’t mind, though I could sense her watchful gaze on my back. Every time Russell nodded at me like that, my heart contracted, despite the strangeness. I was eager for our encounters, eager to cement my place among them, as if doing what Suzanne did was a way of being with her. Russell never fucked me—it was always other stuff, his fingers moving in me with a technical remove I ascribed to his purity. His aims were elevated, I told myself, unsullied by primitive concerns. “Look at yourself,” he said whenever he sensed shame or hesitance. Pointing me toward the fogged mirror in the trailer. “Look at your body. It’s not some stranger’s body,” he said evenly. When I shied away, goofing some excuse, he took me by the shoulders and pointed me back at the mirror. “It’s you,” he said. “It’s Evie. Nothing in you but beauty.” The words worked on me, even if only temporarily. A trance overtaking me when I saw my reflection—the scooped breasts, even the soft stomach, the legs rough with mosquito bites. There was nothing to figure out, no complicated puzzles—just the obvious fact of the moment, the only place where love really existed. Afterward he’d hand me a towel to clean myself, and this seemed like a great kindness. When I returned to her purview, there was always a brief period when Suzanne was cool to me. Even her movements were stiff, as if braced, a lull behind her eyes, like someone asleep at the wheel. I learned quickly how to compliment her, how to ride by her side until she forgot to be aloof and deigned to pass her cigarette to me. It would occur to me later that Suzanne missed me when I left, her formality a clumsy disguise. Though it’s hard to tell—maybe that is only a wishful explanation. — The other parts of the ranch flash in and out. Guy’s black dog that they called by a rotating series of names. The wanderers who passed through the ranch that summer, crashing for a day or two before leaving. Denizens of the brainless dream, appearing at all hours of the day with woven backpacks and their parents’ cars. I didn’t see anything familiar in how quickly Russell talked them out of their possessions, put them on the spot so their generosity became a forced theater. They handed over pink

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Her son was at first dumb with astonishment. Then he reasoned with his mother: 'Senpatji did not kill my father out of personal enmity. He bore my father no hatred. He could not ad otherwise, since the Lord commanded it. He is not really my father's enemy. If you wish to avenge him, it is the Lord Jibudayu whom I ought to kill, not my friend Senpatji. We owe him much gratitude for his kindness. Think, mother: I cannot kill him. We have no right to kill him.' But his mother was angry, and cried: 'I know that you cannot kill him; you are too cowardly and soft. If I had known that he was my husband's murderer I should never have accepted his help. I would rather have Starved to death than see you form a friendship with him. But I tell you that you are wrong to abandon your revenge because of your love, and, if you do so, you smirch the honour of a samurai. If you are such a coward I no longer know you. I will avenge him myself.' And, seizing her dagger, she rushed forth. But her son caught her by the sleeve, and said: 'If you are so firmly determined to avenge my father, there is nothing for me to do but obey you. I shall kill him with my own hands. I pray you not to do it yourself, mother. I beg you to be calm.'And he made ready his vengeance. His love with Senpatji had already lasted for more than two years, and yet he was now compelled to destroy that man to whom he had vowed both affection and assistance for ever. He could not, however, kill him without telling him his reason for doing so. So that evening he called Senpatji to his room, but he was pale and weighed down with sorrow. Senpatji at once perceived this, and said to him: 'Dear Shynosuke, you seem very sad this evening. Are you in trouble? Tell it to me, that I may share it.' Shynosuke sighed, touched by these gentle words; and Senpatji again urged him to open his heart. Then Shynosuke confessed to him: 'Oh, what a wretched business is this human life! I am the son of Shingokei Disaki. You know yourself what you did to my father. I am aware that you could not do otherwise, and that you acted at your master's command. But as the son of a samurai I cannot overlook the matter. At that time I was Still in my mother's womb. Truly I am sorry to kill you, for you have been good to my mother and myself. I am in great distress.'

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  enjoying the games I had been given when I was sick. When I refused to be the child they knew and accepted me to be, I was called impudent and my muteness sullenness. For a while I was punished for being so uppity that I wouldn't speak; and then came the thrashings, given by any relative who felt himself offended. • • • We were on the train going back to Stamps, and this time it was I who had to console Bailey. He cried his heart out down the aisles of the coach, and pressed his little-boy body against the window pane looking for a last glimpse of his Mother Dear. I have never known if Momma sent for us, or if the St. Louis family just got fed up with my grim presence. There is nothing more appalling than a constantly morose child. I cared less about the trip than about the fact that Bailey was unhappy, and had no more thought of our destination than if I had simply been heading for the toilet.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 20—Jewish Identity and Rebuilding after Exile 135 commentary. These same basic actions have been done repeatedly as people gather in their synagogues. Thus, many now remember Ezra as the one who defined Jewish identity around the centrality of Jewish law. ● If we follow this theme into Nehemiah chapter 10, attention continues to focus on the community’s distinctiveness. Commitment to the law means not intermarrying with outsiders, observing the weekly Sabbath day, and paying for sacrifices to be offered in the temple. In the vast expanse of the Persian Empire, this community can say that it has an identity that is distinctively shaped by the Law of Moses. Rebuilding the Walls ‹ Nehemiah, a Jewish man, is a servant of the Persian king. In chapter 1, he is in the Persian city of Susa, and the year is about 445 B.C. Some travelers tell Nehemiah that despite all the efforts at rebuilding, the walls of Jerusalem are still in a shambles, which Nehemiah regards as shameful. Walls were important for protection and to give a city a sense of grandeur. T o live among ruined walls was a disgrace; thus, Nehemiah is determined to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. ‹ The Persian king authorizes the project and allows Nehemiah to lead another group back to Jerusalem to begin the work. But when he arrives in Jerusalem, conflict breaks out almost immediately. The officials who govern the Persian provinces surrounding Jerusalem are highly critical of the project, which they see as a dangerous act of self-assertion. They accuse Nehemiah of strengthening the city’s defenses to achieve greater political independence and more influence. They begin a campaign of harassment to stop the rebuilding. ‹ The efforts to halt the project involve the threat of attack against the workers, but Nehemiah establishes successful defenses, and by the end of chapter 6, the project is complete. T o increase the population, the nearby towns and villages send 10 percent of their people to live in Jerusalem. Then, in chapter 12, there’s a festival to dedicate the walls. This well-defined and well-protected city now helps the community assert its own unique place within the empire.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Some 200 years after this came the terrible persecution by the Emperor Diocletian. When peace came after the storm, the one test some wanted to apply to every surviving member of the Church was: ‘Did you deny Christ and so save your life?’ And, if any had denied their Lord, they would have shut the door on them once and for all. The sociologist Kermit Eby tells of a French churchman who, when asked what he did during the French Revolution, whispered: ‘I survived.’ This is the condemnation of those who loved life more than they loved Christ. It was never meant to be built up into a doctrine that there is no forgiveness for post-baptismal sin. Who can possibly say that another person is beyond the forgiveness of God? What it is meant to show is the terrible seriousness of choosing existence instead of loyalty to Christ. The writer to the Hebrews goes on to say a tremendous thing. Those who fall away crucify Christ again. This is the point of the great Quo vadis legend. It tells how, in the Neronic persecution, Peter was caught in Rome and his courage failed. Down the Appian Way, he fled for his life. Suddenly, there was a figure standing in his path. It was Jesus himself. ‘Domine,’ said Peter, ‘quo vadis? Lord, where are you going?’ ‘I am going back to Rome to be crucified again, this time in your place.’ And Peter, shamed into heroism, turned back to Rome and died a martyr’s death. Late in Roman history, there was an emperor who tried to put back the clock. Julian wanted to destroy Christianity and bring back the old gods. His attempt ended in defeat. The playwright Henrik Ibsen makes him say: ‘Where is he now? Has he been at work elsewhere since that happened at Golgotha? ... Where is he now? What if that, at Golgotha, near Jerusalem, was but a wayside matter, a thing done, as it were, in the passing? What if he goes on and on, suffers and dies and conquers again and again, from world to world?’ There is a certain truth there. Behind the thought of the writer to the Hebrews, there is a tremendous conception. He saw the cross as an event which opened a window into the heart of God. He saw it as showing in a moment of time the suffering love which is forever in that heart. The cross said to men and women: ‘That is how I have always loved you and always will love you. This is what your sin does to me and always will do to me. This is the only way I can ever redeem you.’

• From The Girls (2016)

  throw half of everything away, but then the dorms got a mice infestation and I couldn’t.” She reminded me of Connie, the same shy way she plucked her shirt away from her belly. Connie, who’d be at the high school in Petaluma. Crossing the low steps, eating lunch at the splintered picnic tables. I had no idea how to think of her anymore. Jessamine was hungry for my stories of home, imagining I lived in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. In a house the sherbet pink of California money, a gardener sweeping the tennis court. It didn’t matter that I was from a dairy town and told her so: other facts were bigger, like who my grandmother had been. The assumptions Jessamine made about the source of my silence at the beginning of the year, all of it—I let myself step into the outline. I talked about a boyfriend, just one in a series of many. “He was famous,” I said. “I can’t say who. But I lived with him for a while. His dick was purple,” I said, snorting, and Jessamine laughed, too. Casting a look in my direction all wrapped up in jealousy and wonder. The way I had looked at Suzanne, maybe, and how easy it was to keep up a steady stream of stories, a wishful narrative that borrowed the best of the ranch and folded it into a new shape, like origami. A world where everything turned out as I’d wanted. I took French class from a pretty, newly engaged teacher who let the popular girls try on her engagement ring. I took art class from Miss Cooke, earnest with first-job anxiety. The line of makeup I could sometimes see along her jaw made me pity her, though she tried to be kind to me. She didn’t comment when she noticed me staring into space or resting my head on my folded arms. Once she took me off campus for malteds and a hot dog that tasted of warm water. She told me how she had moved from New York to take her job, how the city asphalt would reflect sheets of sun, how her neighbor’s dog shit all over the apartment stairs, how she’d gone a little crazy. “I would eat just the corners of my roommate’s food. Then it would all be gone, and I would get sick.” Miss Cooke’s glasses pinched her eyes. “I’ve never felt so sad, and there was no real reason for it, you know?” She waited, obviously for me to match the story with one of my own. Expecting a sad, manageable tale of the defection of a hometown boyfriend or a mother in the hospital, the cruel whispers of a bitchy

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And because of those eyes with their constant menace, Stephen must play her conciliatory role; and this she must do in spite of his rudeness, for now he was openly rude and hostile. And he bullied. It was almost as though he took pleasure in bullying his wife when Stephen was present; her presence seemed to arouse in the man everything that was ill-bred, petty and cruel. He would make thinly-veiled allusions to the past, glancing sideways at Stephen the while he did so; and one day when she flushed to the roots of her hair with rage to see Angela humble and fearful, he laughed loudly: ‘I’m just a plain tradesman, you know; if you don’t like my ways, then you’d better not come here.’ Catching Angela’s eye, Stephen tried to laugh too. A soul-sickening business. She would feel degraded; she would feel herself gradually losing all sense of pride, of common decency, even, so that when she returned in the evening to Morton she would not want to look the old house in the eyes. She would not want to face those pictures of Gordons that hung in its hall, and must turn away, lest they by their very silence rebuke this descendant of theirs who was so unworthy. Yet sometimes it seemed to her that she loved more intensely because she had lost so much—there was nothing left now but Angela Crossby. 2Watching this deadly decay that threatened all that was fine in her erstwhile pupil, Puddle must sometimes groan loudly in spirit; she must even argue with God about it. Yes, she must actually argue with God like Job; and remembering his words in affliction, she must speak those words on behalf of Stephen: ‘Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.’ For now in addition to everything else, she had learnt of the advent of Roger Antrim. Not that Stephen had confided in her, far from it, but gossip has a way of travelling quickly. Roger spent most of his leisure at The Grange. She had heard that he was always going over from Worcester. So now Puddle, who had not been much given to prayer in the past, must argue with God, like Job. And perhaps, since God probably listens to the heart rather than to the lips, He forgave her.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  But the writer to the Hebrews goes on to outline our duty to others in the most practical way. He sees that duty extend in three directions. (1) We must encourage one another to noble living . We can do that best by setting a good example. We can do it by reminding others of their traditions, their privileges and their responsibilities when they are likely to forget them. It has been said that a saint is someone in whom Christ stands revealed; we can seek always to encourage others to goodness by showing them Christ. We may remember how the dying soldier looked up at Florence Nightingale as she helped the wounded of the Crimean War, and murmured: ‘You’re Christ to me.’ (2) We must worship together . There were some among those to whom the writer of the Hebrews was writing who had abandoned the habit of meeting together. It is still possible for some to think that they are Christians and yet abandon the habit of worshipping with God’s people in God’s house on God’s day. They may try to be what James Moffatt called ‘a pious particle’, a Christian in isolation. Moffatt distinguishes three reasons which keep people from worshipping with their fellow Christians. (a) They may not go to church because of fear . They may be ashamed to be seen going to church. They may live or work among people who laugh at churchgoers. They may have friends who have no time for that kind of thing and may fear their criticism and contempt. They may, therefore, try to be secret disciples; but it has been well said that this is impossible because either ‘the discipleship kills the secrecy or the secrecy kills the discipleship’. It would be a good thing if we remembered that, apart from anything else, to go to church is to demonstrate where our loyalty lies. Even if the sermon is poor and the worship uninspiring, the church service still gives us the chance to show to others what side we are on. (b) They may not go because they are over-particular . They may shrink from contact with people who are ‘not like them’. There are congregations which are as much clubs as they are churches. There may be congregations where a form of social snobbery is practised. We must never forget that there is no such thing as a ‘common’ person in the sight of God. It was for all , not only for the ‘respectable’ classes, that Christ died. (c) They may not go because of conceit . They may believe that they do not need the Church or that they are intellectually beyond the standard of preaching there. Social snobbery is bad, but spiritual and intellectual snobbery is worse.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Anyone called paroikos was not considered much above a slave in the social scale and had to pay an alien tax. Such people were always outsiders and only became members of the community as a result of payment. (c) In 11:13, he uses the word parepidēmos. A parepidēmos was a person who was staying there temporarily and who had a permanent home somewhere else. Sometimes, the stay was strictly limited. A parepidēmos was someone in lodgings, someone without a home in a particular place at a particular time. All their lives, the patriarchs were men who had no settled place that they could call home. It is to be noted that, in the ancient world, to dwell in a foreign land was considered humiliating; a certain stigma was attached to the foreigner in any country. In the Letter of Aristeas, the writer says: ‘It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s native land; a foreign land brings contempt to poor men and shame to rich men, for there is the lurking suspicion that they have been exiled for the evil they have done.’ In Ecclesiasticus (29:22–8), there is a wistful passage: Better is the life of the poor under their own crude roof than sumptuous food in the house of others. Be content with little or much, and you will hear no reproach for being a guest. It is a miserable life to go from house to house; as a guest you should not open your mouth; you will play the host and provide drink without being thanked and besides this you will hear rude words like these: ‘Come here, stranger, prepare the table; let me eat what you have there. ’ ‘Be off, stranger, for an honoured guest is here; my brother has come for a visit, and I need the guestroom. ’ It is hard for a sensible person to bear scolding about lodging and the insults of the moneylender. At any time, it is an unhappy thing to be a stranger in a foreign land; but, in the ancient world, to this natural unhappiness there was added the bitterness of humiliation. All their days, the patriarchs were strangers in a strange land. That image became a picture of the Christian life and is found in the works of the early Church fathers. Tertullian said of the Christian: ‘He knows that on earth he has a pilgrimage but that his dignity is in heaven.’ Clement of Alexandria said: ‘We have no fatherland on earth.’ Augustine said: ‘We are sojourners exiled from our fatherland.’ It was not that the Christians were foolishly other-worldly, detaching themselves from the life and work of this world; but they always remembered that they were people on the way. There is an unwritten saying of Jesus: ‘The world is a bridge.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  5 “Thou shall not be dirty” and “Thou shall not be impudent” were the two commandments of Grandmother Henderson upon which hung our total salvation. Each night in the bitterest winter we were forced to wash faces, arms, necks, legs and feet before going to bed. She used to add, with a smirk that unprofane people can't control when venturing into profanity, “and wash as far as possible, then wash possible.” We would go to the well and wash in the ice-cold, clear water, grease our legs with the equally cold stiff Vaseline, then tiptoe into the house. We wiped the dust from our toes and settled down for schoolwork, cornbread, clabbered milk, prayers and bed, always in that order. Momma was famous for pulling the quilts off after we had fallen asleep to examine our feet. If they weren't clean enough for her, she took the switch (she kept one behind the bedroom door for emergencies) and woke up the offender with a few aptly placed burning reminders. The area around the well at night was dark and slick, and boys told about how snakes love water, so that anyone who had to draw water at night and then stand there alone and wash knew that moccasins and rattlers, puff adders and boa constrictors were winding their way to the well and would arrive just as the person washing got soap in her eyes. But Momma convinced us that not only was cleanliness next to Godliness, dirtiness was the inventor of misery. The impudent child was detested by God and a shame to its parents and could bring destruction to its house and line. All adults had to be addressed as Mister, Missus, Miss, Auntie, Cousin, Unk, Uncle, Buhbah, Sister, Brother and a thousand other appellations indicating familial relationship and the lowliness of the addressor. Everyone I knew respected these customary laws, except for the powhitetrash children. Some families of powhitetrash lived on Momma's farm land behind the school. Sometimes a gaggle of them came to the Store, filling the whole room, chasing out the air and even changing the well-known scents. The children crawled over the shelves and into the potato and onion bins, twanging all the time in their sharp voices like cigar-box guitars. They took liberties in my Store that I would never dare. Since Momma told us that the less you say to whitefolks (or even powhitetrash) the better, Bailey and I would stand, solemn, quiet, in the displaced air. But if one of the playful apparitions got close to us, I pinched it. Partly out of angry frustration and partly because I didn't believe in its flesh reality. They called my uncle by his first name and ordered him around the Store. He, to my crying shame, obeyed them in his limping dip-straight-dip fashion. My grandmother, too, followed their orders, except that she didn't seem to be servile because she anticipated their needs. “Here's sugar, Miz Potter, and here's baking powder.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Every bar had its social customs, it seemed. At the Ideal one must share Monsieur Pujol’s lewd jokes; at Le Narcisse one must gravely shake hands with the Patron. The Patron was tall and exceedingly thin—a clean-shaven man with the mouth of an ascetic. His cheeks were delicately tinted with rouge, his eyelids delicately shaded with kohl; but the eyes themselves were an infantile blue, reproachful and rather surprised in expression. For the good of the house, Dickie ordered champagne; it was warm and sweet and unpleasantly heady. Only Jeanne and Mary and Dickie herself had the courage to sample this curious beverage. Wanda stuck to her brandy and Pat to her beer, while Stephen drank coffee; but Valérie Seymour caused some confusion by gently insisting on a lemon squash—to be made with fresh lemons. Presently the guests began to arrive in couples. Having seated themselves at the tables, they quickly became oblivious to the world, what with the sickly champagne and each other. From a hidden recess there emerged a woman with a basket full of protesting roses. The stout vendeuse wore a wide wedding ring—for was she not a most virtuous person? But her glance was both calculating and shrewd as she pounced upon the more obvious couples; and Stephen watching her progress through the room, felt suddenly ashamed on behalf of the roses. And now at a nod from the host there was music; and now at a bray from the band there was dancing. Dickie and Wanda opened the ball—Dickie stodgy and firm, Wanda rather unsteady. Others followed. Then Mary leant over the table and whispered: ‘Won’t you dance with me, Stephen?’ Stephen hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she got up abruptly and danced with Mary. The handsome young man with the tortured eyebrows was bowing politely before Valérie Seymour. Refused by her, he passed on to Pat, and to Jeanne’s great amusement was promptly accepted. Brockett arrived and sat down at the table. He was in his most prying and cynical humour. He watched Stephen with coldly observant eyes, watched Dickie guiding the swaying Wanda, watched Pat in the arms of the handsome young man, watched the whole bumping, jostling crowd of dancers. The blended odours were becoming more active. Brockett lit a cigarette. ‘Well, Valérie darling? You look like an outraged Elgin marble. Be kind, dear, be kind; you must live and let live, this is life. . . .’ And he waved his soft, white hands. ‘Observe it—it’s very wonderful, darling. This is life, love, defiance, emancipation!’ Said Valérie with her calm little smile: ‘I think I preferred it when we were all martyrs!’ The dancers drifted back to their seats and Brockett manœuvred to sit beside Stephen. ‘You and Mary dance well together,’ he murmured. ‘Are you happy? Are you enjoying yourselves?’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  A fine face, very pleasing, yet with something about it that went ill with the hats on which Anna insisted—large hats trimmed with ribbons or roses or daisies, and supposed to be softening to the features . Staring at her own reflection in the glass, Stephen would feel just a little uneasy: ‘Am I queer looking or not?’ she would wonder, ‘Suppose I wore my hair more like Mother’s?’ and then she would undo her splendid, thick hair, and would part it in the middle and draw it back loosely. The result was always far from becoming, so that Stephen would hastily plait it again. She now wore the plait screwed up very tightly in the nape of her neck with a bow of black ribbon. Anna hated this fashion and constantly said so, but Stephen was stubborn: ‘I’ve tried your way, Mother, and I look like a scarecrow; you’re beautiful, darling, but your young daughter isn’t, which is jolly hard on you.’ ‘She makes no effort to improve her appearance,’ Anna would reproach, very gravely. These days there was constant warfare between them on the subject of clothes; quite a seemly warfare, for Stephen was learning to control her hot temper, and Anna was seldom anything but gentle. Nevertheless it was open warfare, the inevitable clash of two opposing natures who sought to express themselves in apparel, since clothes, after all, are a form of self-expression. The victory would be now on this side, now on that; sometimes Stephen would appear in a thick woollen jersey, or a suit of rough tweeds surreptitiously ordered from the excellent tailor in Malvern. Sometimes Anna would triumph, having journeyed to London to procure soft and very expensive dresses, which her daughter must wear in order to please her, because she would come home quite tired by such journeys. On the whole, Anna got her own way at this time, for Stephen would suddenly give up the contest, reduced to submission by Anna’s disappointment, always more efficacious than mere disapproval. ‘Here, give it to me!’ she would say rather gruffly, grabbing the delicate dress from her mother . Then off she would rush and put it on all wrong, so that Anna would sigh in a kind of desperation, and would pat, readjust, unfasten and fasten, striving to make peace between wearer and model, whose inimical feelings were evidently mutual. Came a day when Stephen was suddenly outspoken: ‘It’s my face,’ she announced, ‘something’s wrong with my face.’ ‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Anna, and her cheeks flushed a little, as though the girl’s words had been an offence, then she turned away quickly to hide her expression.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  The play I saw in 1960 was the same version that Adolf Hitler saw in 1930 and 1934 (the tercentenary year)—that is, both before and after he became chancellor of Germany. His review: “Never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.” My interest in and focus on the historical Jesus started that day in Oberammergau. But its memory meant that for me history would have to be laced with theology and that I could never reconstruct the historical Jesus as dispassionately as I might, say, the historical Alexander. Only good, honest, and accurate history might save Christian faith from a theological anti-Judaism as the continuing seedbed for racial anti-Semitism. That was why, after my return to Chicago in 1961, I joined Rabbi Shaalman on a Sunday morning TV program called (from memory) Deicide or Genocide? It was also why my very first scholarly article was called “Anti-Semitism and the New Testament” (Theological Studies, 1965). Starting with my 1973 book In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus , and for the next twenty years at DePaul University in Chicago, that subtitle was the heart of my scholarly research and professional life. During those years my emphasis was always on history rather than theology, and questions of personal faith were bracketed as irrelevant for academic discourse. I myself, however, was always very aware of them. All of that started to change in 1991. In that year I published the big Jesus book I had been preparing in bits and pieces across those two decades. I actually wrote The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant for my academic peers and intended to raise the question of sources and methods for historical Jesus research. That did not happen, but something else did, and as far as I am concerned, it was much more important in the long run. Peter Steinfels, noting that two Roman Catholics—both of whom were educated at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome but only one of whom was still a priest, the other being an ex-priest—had published books on the historical Jesus that fall, compared John Meier’s A Marginal Jew and my Historical Jesus as the front-page Christmas story in The New York Times for December 23, 1991. His story “Peering Past Faith to Glimpse the Jesus of History” was reprinted by other papers nationally and internationally. What happened next surprised me immensely. I might have expected invitations to speak at seminaries or universities, but instead I was invited to lecture in churches —weekends of three or four lectures as well as sermons at Sunday services.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  It was Jesus himself. ‘ Domine ,’ said Peter, ‘ quo vadis? Lord, where are you going?’ ‘I am going back to Rome to be crucified again, this time in your place.’ And Peter, shamed into heroism, turned back to Rome and died a martyr’s death. Late in Roman history, there was an emperor who tried to put back the clock. Julian wanted to destroy Christianity and bring back the old gods. His attempt ended in defeat. The playwright Henrik Ibsen makes him say: ‘Where is he now? Has he been at work elsewhere since that happened at Golgotha? … Where is he now? What if that , at Golgotha, near Jerusalem, was but a wayside matter, a thing done, as it were, in the passing? What if he goes on and on, suffers and dies and conquers again and again, from world to world?’ There is a certain truth there. Behind the thought of the writer to the Hebrews, there is a tremendous conception. He saw the cross as an event which opened a window into the heart of God. He saw it as showing in a moment of time the suffering love which is forever in that heart. The cross said to men and women: ‘That is how I have always loved you and always will love you. This is what your sin does to me and always will do to me. This is the only way I can ever redeem you.’ As long as there is sin, there is always in God’s heart this agony of suffering and redeeming love. Sin does not only break God’s law; it breaks his heart. It is true that, when we fall away, we crucify Christ again. Further, the writer to the Hebrews says that, when we fall away, we make a mocking show of Christ . How is that? When we sin, the world will say: ‘So that is all that Christianity is worth. So that is all this Christ can do. So that is all the cross achieved.’ It is bad enough that, when a church member falls into sin, he or she brings personal shame and discredit on the Church; but what is worse is that the sin of one individual brings taunts and jeers of others upon Christ . We may note a final thing. It has been pointed out that in the letter to the Hebrews there are four impossible things. There is the impossibility of this passage. The other three are: (1) It is impossible for God to lie (6:18). (2) It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin (10:4). (3) Without faith, it is impossible to please God (11:6).

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  But you said, in the last days brother would turn against brother, and children against their parents. That there would be a gnashing of teeth and a rendering of flesh. Father, forgive this child, I beg you, on bended knee.” I was crying loudly now. Momma's voice had risen to a shouting pitch, and I knew that whatever wrong I had committed was extremely serious. She had even left the Store untended to take up my case with God. When she finished we were all crying. She pulled me to her with one hand and hit me only a few times with the switch. The shock of my sin and the emotional release of her prayer had exhausted her. Momma wouldn't talk right then, but later in the evening I found that my violation lay in using the phrase “by the way.” Momma explained that “Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Light,” and anyone who says “by the way” is really saying, “by Jesus,” or “by God,” and the Lord's name would not be taken in vain in her house. When Bailey tried to interpret the words with: “White-folks use ‘by the way’ to mean while we're on the subject,” Momma reminded us that “whitefolks' mouths were most in general loose and their words were an abomination before Christ.”

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  You didn't buy soda last month, you'll probably be needing some.” Momma always directed her statements to the adults, but sometimes, Oh painful sometimes, the grimy, snotty-nosed girls would answer her. “Naw, Annie …”—to Momma? Who owned the land they lived on? Who forgot more than they would ever learn? If there was any justice in the world, God should strike them dumb at once!—“Just give us some extry sody crackers, and some more mackerel.” At least they never looked in her face, or I never caught them doing so. Nobody with a smidgen of training, not even the worst roustabout, would look right in a grown person's face. It meant the person was trying to take the words out before they were formed. The dirty little children didn't do that, but they threw their orders around the Store like lashes from a cat-o'-nine-tails. When I was around ten years old, those scruffy children caused me the most painful and confusing experience I had ever had with my grandmother. One summer morning, after I had swept the dirt yard of leaves, spearmint-gum wrappers and Vienna-sausage labels, I raked the yellow-red dirt, and made half-moons carefully so that the design stood out clearly and masklike. I put the rake behind the Store and came through the back of the house to find Grandmother on the front porch in her big, wide white apron. The apron was so stiff by virtue of the starch that it could have stood alone. Momma was admiring the yard, so I joined her. It truly looked like a flat redhead that had been raked with a big-toothed comb. Momma didn't say anything but I knew she liked it. She looked over toward the school principal's house and to the right at Mr. McElroy's. She was hoping one of those community pillars would see the design before the day's business wiped it out. Then she looked upward to the school. My head had swung with hers, so at just about the same time we saw a troop of the powhitetrash kids marching over the hill and down by the side of the school. I looked to Momma for direction. She did an excellent job of sagging from her waist down, but from the waist up she seemed to be pulling for the top of the oak tree across the road. Then she began to moan a hymn. Maybe not to moan, but the tune was so slow and the meter so strange that she could have been moaning. She didn't look at me again. When the children reached halfway down the hill, halfway to the Store, she said without turning, “Sister, go on inside.” I wanted to beg her, “Momma, don't wait for them. Come on inside with me. If they come in the Store, you go to the bedroom and let me wait on them. They only frighten me if you're around.