Tenderness

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 Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Now she folded her arms. ‘In this house, Miss Astley, that’s possibly the very worst argument you could have hit upon.’ As she spoke, however, the front door opened and Ralph appeared. He had an evening paper under one arm, and Cyril under the other. ‘My word,’ he said, ‘look at the shine on this step! I am frightened to tread on it.’ He saw me and smiled - ‘Hallo, still here?’ - then he glanced about the room. ‘And look at all this! I haven’t come into the wrong parlour, have I?’ Florence stepped across to him to take the baby, then propelled him out towards the kitchen. Here I heard him exclaiming very warmly - first over Annie, and then over the beef and potatoes, and finally over the pineapple. Florence struggled with Cyril for a moment: he was squirming and fractious and about to cry. I went to her, and - with terrible boldness, for the last baby I had held had been my cousin’s child, four years before: and he had screamed in my face - I said, ‘Give him to me, babies love me.’ She handed him over and, through some extraordinary miracle - perhaps I was holding him so inexpertly, the grip quite stunned him - he fell against my shoulder, and sighed, and grew calm. I might have thought, if I had had more experience in the matter, that the sight of her foster-son content and still in another girl’s arms would be the last thing to convince a mother to allow that girl to stay in her own house; and yet, when I looked at Florence again I saw that her eyes were upon me, and her expression - as it had been once, last night - was strange and almost sad, but also desperately tender. One curl had worked its way out of her knot of hair, and hung, rather limply, over her brow. When she raised a hand to brush it from her eye, it seemed to me that the finger came away a little damp at the tip. I thought: Blimey, I was wasted in male impersonation, I should have been in melodrama. I bit my lip, and gave a gulp. ‘Good-bye, Cyril,’ I said, in a voice that shook a little. ‘I must put on my damp bonnet now, and head off into the darkening night, and find some bench to sleep on...’ But this, after all, proved too much. Florence sniffed, and her face grew stern again. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You may stay - for a week. And if the week works out, we shall try it for a month: you may have a share of the family salary, I suppose, for the sake of watching Cyril and keeping house. But if it does not work, then you must promise me, Miss Astley, that you will go.’

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The princess and her entourage were greatly moved by the falcon’s plight, but they did not know how to comfort her. Canacee decided to take the bird home, cradling her in her lap, and then she began to wrap up the self-inflicted wounds with bandages and plasters. The princess also took rare herbs from the garden of the palace, making ointments and other medicines from them; she tried everything in her power to heal the hawk. She even made a pen of wickerwork by the side of her bed, draped in blue velvet cloths, where the bird might rest. Blue, of course, is the colour of faithfulness. The outside of this cage was painted green, and on it were depicted the images of all the false birds of the world - the owls, the tercelets, the lecherous sparrows. There were also placed here, in derision, the portraits of those little chatterers known as magpies. How they scold and chide! So I will leave Canacee in the company of her ailing hawk. I will say no more about her magic ring until a later occasion, when I will tell you how the poor bird regained her repentant lover. The old books relate how this reunion was accomplished by the son of Genghis Khan, Cambalus. I think I have mentioned him before. Anyway, he was the one who brought the birds together. Enough of that. I now want to proceed to tales of battle and adventure. I have many marvels to impart to you. I will tell you the history of Genghis Khan, the great conqueror. Then I will speak of Algarsif, the oldest son of the mighty warrior, who won his wife by magical means. He would have been in great danger, if he had not been saved by that wondrous horse of brass. Then I will narrate the adventures of another warrior who fought the two brothers for the hand of their sister, Canacee. There is so much to tell you! I will begin again where I left off. PART THREE Apollo was riding in his chariot so high that he entered the house of cunning Mercury - ‘What’s the matter? Why are you putting your finger to your lips?’ Here folwen the wordes of the Frankeleyn to the Squier, and the wordes of the Hoost to the Frankeleyn

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

  Back in chapter 1, I first underscored the power of a particular meditation practice, known as loving-kindness meditation, or LKM. LKM is an activity, honed over millennia in various Buddhist traditions, designed to condition your heart to be more open and loving. Although Buddhist in origin, LKM can be used to deepen any faith tradition, or be practiced without one. Here, throughout part II, I show you the ropes for how to practice LKM yourself. In each chapter, I introduce one or more facets of LKM, each designed to stretch your goodwill in new directions. Before I turn to the first meditation activity, however, I offer a few framing thoughts to help you get the most out of LKM, especially if you are completely new to it. As a preparatory tool for creating positivity resonance, LKM is well worth trying out. My research program confirms that it can open up many fresh possibilities for you. First and foremost, LKM helps you recondition your habitual ways of responding to others. Odds are you cruise through much of your day wrapped up in a cocoon of self-absorption, tightly woven with all of your wishes, plans, and goals of the moment. You consider what you’ll wear, eat, and do, and where you’ll go. You prioritize things on your to-do list. You puzzle over what you’ll say in an upcoming encounter that you suspect may be difficult. You, after all, are the lead character in the play that is your own day and life. Others play bit parts. They are not particularly consequential to the overall arch of your plotline, and by consequence they often undergo little character development in the script that your mind follows. You sometimes even treat them as though they were mere props, inanimate objects that populate the setting, yet bear no real importance to you or your day. Why wouldn’t it be this way? The play is all about you. You see where the illustration is going. Each person is, after all, the star of his or her own play and day. If you dropped the script of your own day and picked up the script of another person’s day, this other person would suddenly undergo considerable character development. You’d come to appreciate his or her own wishes, plans, and goals. You’d understand that this person isn’t merely a bit part or prop, but rather fully human, like you. Just like you, this person is full of yearnings and strivings, hopes and insecurities. This is true of every person. It’s equally true of all those with whom you cross paths, as well as all those you’ll never meet, not even once.

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

  In this chapter, I share techniques for accessing two forms of love that may perhaps be less intuitive to you: loving through and despite another’s suffering, and loving through and despite another’s good fortune. Compassion: Meeting Suffering with Love By nature’s design, we all recoil from pain. Suppose you’re cooking dinner with brand-new cookware and mistakenly pick up that fancy, all-metal, oven-ready pot lid, forgetting to use a pot holder. It’s only natural that you drop the lid in a clamor as you yank your hand away. The haste of your recoil probably spares several layers of skin. And so it may seem with suffering of all sorts. Your first instinct may often be to look, leap, or pull away, or otherwise hang back. Increasing your distance from the source of pain can seem like the best way to spare yourself the added suffering that may come from being too close to it. Compassion does just the opposite. It moves toward suffering, not away from it. It seeks connection, not distance. Compassion is what rouses the father who, without a moment’s thought, rushes toward his bloodied child after a playground accident, scooping her up in his arms to comfort her and attend to her wounds. It fuels the hospice volunteer, who reads poetry to the gentleman she met just last week who’s facing imminent death from colon cancer. It can move you to gently place your hand on a coworker’s arm, as you absorb her recounting of the difficulties her family is now enduring. Indeed, the latest evidence from studies of primates (both human and nonhuman) suggests that compassionate responding like this is just as natural, just as hardwired, and just as beneficial to our species as is our evolved instinct to recoil from burning sensations and other forms of physical pain. Compassion is love. It flowers when you recognize some kind of physical or emotional pain within the other person. I dare say that no human experience is purely 100 percent good. Life experiences are instead virtually always some rich amalgam of good and bad. Think of it as a vibrant tapestry, in which the gilded threads of love and good fortune are interwoven among the darker threads of pain, sorrow, and loss. Equally true, no human experience is purely 100 percent bad, nor need it be. Even the heaviest of human experiences—sudden grief or joblessness, natural or human-orchestrated disasters and other brushes with mortality—can be lightened appreciably when you recollect simple truths such as “this too shall pass” or “I’m not in this alone.” Indeed, such braiding of adversity with hope and love, of destructive with more reassuring emotions, is the secret to resilience. Resilient people are the ones who bend without breaking and who eventually bounce back from even the most difficult life challenges.

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

  Nevertheless, the internal evidence of the Apocalypse itself, and a comparison with the fourth Gospel, favor an earlier date, before the destruction of Jerusalem, and during the interregnum which followed the death of Nero (68), when the beast, that is the Roman empire, was wounded, but was soon to be revived (by the accession of Vespasian). If there is some foundation for the early tradition of the intended oil-martyrdom of John at Rome, or at Ephesus, it would naturally point to the Neronian persecution, in which Christians were covered with inflammable material and burned as torches. The unmistakable allusions to imperial persecutions apply much better to Nero than to Domitian. The difference between the Hebrew coloring and fiery vigor of the Apocalypse and the pure Greek and calm repose of the fourth Gospel, to which we have already alluded, are more easily explained if the former was written some twenty years earlier. This view has some slight support in ancient tradition,598 and has been adopted by the majority of modern critical historians and commentators.599 We hold, then, as the most probable view, that John was exiled to Patmos under Nero, wrote the Apocalypse soon after Nero’s death, A.D. 68 or 69, returned to Ephesus, completed his Gospel and Epistles several (perhaps twenty) years later, and fell asleep in peace during the year of Trajan, after A.D. 98. The faithful record of the historical Christ in the whole fulness of his divine-human person, as the embodiment and source of life eternal to all believers, with the accompanying epistle of practical application, was the last message of the Beloved Disciple at the threshold of the second century, at the golden sunset of the apostolic age. The recollections of his youth, ripened by long experience, transfigured by the Holy Spirit, and radiant with heavenly light of truth and holiness, are the most precious legacy of the last of the apostles to all future generations of the church. § 43. Traditions Respecting John.600 The memory of John sank deep into the heart of the church, and not a few incidents more or less characteristic and probable have been preserved by the early fathers. Clement of Alexandria, towards the close of the second century, represents John as a faithful and devoted pastor when, in his old age, on a tour of visitation, he lovingly pursued one of his former converts who had become a robber, and reclaimed him to the church.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  This was a law code, its language as technical and reticent as any legal ruling. In Middle Eastern treaties, to “love” meant to be helpful and loyal and to give practical support. Earlier biblical authors had commanded the Israelites to confine tribal loyalty (hesed) to their fellow Jews, but this was not true of P, whose purity regulations are remarkable in that other people are never regarded as contaminating. 61 The foreigner was not to be shunned but loved. Impurity came only from yourself, not from your enemies. P insisted that Israelites must honor all life. Death was the great contaminator. It was an insult to come into the presence of the living God without undergoing a simple ritual of purification after coming into contact with the death of one of his creatures. In the dietary laws forbidding the eating of “unclean” animals, P developed a modified version of the Indian ideal of ahimsa. Like other ancient peoples, the Israelites did not regard the ritual slaughter of animals as killing; sacrifice was universally held to give the beast posthumous existence, and it was usually forbidden to eat an animal that had not been ritually consecrated in this way. P permitted the Israelites to sacrifice and consume only domestic animals from their own flocks. These were the “pure” or “clean” animals, which were members of the community; during their lifetime they must be allowed to rest on the Sabbath, and nobody could harm them in any way. 62 But the “unclean” animals—dogs, deer, and other wild creatures— must not be killed at all; it was forbidden to trap, exploit, or eat them under any circumstances. 63 This was not because they were “dirty.” It was perfectly all right to touch them while they were alive. They became unclean only after death. 64 The law that forbade contact with a dead animal’s corpse protected it: because the carcass could not be skinned or dismembered, it was not worthwhile to hunt or trap it. For the same reasons, those animals classed as “abominations” (sheqqets) must be avoided only when they were dead. These tiny “swarming creatures” were vulnerable and should inspire compassion; because they were prolific and “teemed,” they enjoyed God’s blessing, so it was an “abomination” to harm them. 65 God had blessed the unclean animals on the day of creation, and had saved pure and impure animals during the Flood. To damage any one of them was an affront to his holiness. This is the context in which we should read P’s most famous work, the creation hymn in the first chapter of Genesis. Like all ancient cosmogonies, its purpose was primarily therapeutic. In Babylon, the Israelites would have been painfully aware of the magnificent New Year rituals in Esagila that celebrated Marduk’s victory over Tiamat.

• From We Were Here (2011)

  WE WERE HERE CaptionMax Page 11 3/23/2011 1:23:42 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on newspaper) because it matters... we ask you to volunteer O Shanti Project 1:23:43 ED (VO) (CONT’D) I saw an ad in the Bay Area Reporter. Shanti Project was looking for people who’d be willing to be a buddy to someone with this illness. 1:23:53 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on newspaper) Shanti Training 1:23:53 ED (VO/ON) (CONT’D) And I took the second Shanti volunteer training that occurred here in San Francisco. And I got matched with someone immediately. I hadn’t met a person with AIDS yet who was just kind of like off on his own and like expecting that someone was gonna come and like he- help him. And um, I just remember going to his apartment and here’s him opening the door and-- 1:24:33 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on memorial photo) Ed Banks 1:24:34 ED (VO/ON) (CONT’D) He said his name was Ed. I said, s- my name is Ed, too. And, you know, like lo and behold, my way of being with gay men suddenly was perfect. Like, hi. Like, who- who are you? How are you doing? I took my training in July of eighty-three, and of course I was close to all these gay men. There were seven gay men working in this office, and I was coming in and telling them, like oh my God, and, you know, they think it’s- it’s transmitted sexually, and they’re thinking condoms is a way to protect us, and they’re telling us (sniffs) don’t use poppers. And I go, it’s already like disseminating information. 1:25:28 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on newspaper) GAY PHYSICIANS KNOCK POPPERS No ‘Smoking Gun’ Gay Diseases Still Baffle Scientists 1:25:30 ED (VO/ON) (CONT’D) Back then especially there was this whole dynamic about

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born for domestic happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-manner’d; it could never be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities ruffled a calm he was so qualified every way to maintain or restore. Without those great or shining qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a noise in the world, he had all those humble ones that compose the softer social merit: plain common sense, set off with every grace of modesty and good nature, made him, if not admired, what is much happier: universally beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the beauties of his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion, neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had afterwards full occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that season of giddiness and levity, would have touched my heart very little, had it been lodged in a person less the delight of my eyes, and idol of my senses. But to return to our situation. After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder, Charles got up, and taking a passionate leave of me for a few hours, went to town, where concerting matters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together to my late venerable mistress’s, from whence I had, but the day before, made my elopement, and with whom he was determined to settle accounts, in a manner that should cut off all after reckonings from that quarter. Accordingly they went; but by the way, the Templar, his friend, on thinking over Charles’s information, saw reason to give their visit another turn, and, instead of offering satisfaction, to demand it. On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles, whom they knew, and from the earlyness of my escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way, making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him probably for a fresh cully. But the Templar soon checked their forwardness, by enquiring for the old lady, with whom he said, with a grave-like countenance, that he had some business to settle. Madam was immediately sent for down, and the ladies being desired to clear the room, the lawyer asked her, severely, if she did know, or had not decoyed, under pretence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just come out of the country, called Frances or Fanny Hill, describing me withal as particularly as he could from Charlie’s description.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  Sula and Nel engage in performative gestures deeply rooted literally and symbolically in the erotic, homosocial, and sexual. The passage not only emphasizes a fluidity of gender and sexuality, but also embodies intimacy and sexuality in its physicality without an utterance or vocalized discourse. Moreover, it also reflects the notion that sexuality and intimacy are, in and of themselves, their own language-aural, sonic, orgasmic-that exceeds syntax yet has its own verbosity. While there is no spoken word, but rather a politics of silence that is palpable, the passage itself utilizes another language, a language and iconography of intimacy, that manifests in a lexicon rife with metaphoric references to sexuality, the sexualized body, and erotic acts: "twigs" and "holes," symbolic genitalia, alongside the "bare spot" and textured "intricate patterns" that, after deep and "strenuous digging," culminate with the "two holes" together becoming one. Much could be extrapolated from the passage that would bear claim to myriad interpretations regarding the specificity of Sula and Nel's sexualized acts, especially regarding where they are situated along a continuum of sexualities. I am less concerned about categorizing the sexualized experience of these girls-twelve years old, "wishbone thin and easy-assed," as the narrative voice describes-within a limited topography, and more interested in illuminating the ways in which they perform an external manifestation of their sexualities or sexual desires vis-a-vis acts that neither gender/sexualize the body nor regulate their intimacy through men.23 Their intimate exchange defies conventionality, transgressing restrictions of female sexuality, particularly those expressed in the script (and racialized/ nationalist discourses undergirding it), thus the necessity for its privatization. To this end, the interlocking event with Chicken Little-who, upon infringing on their "illicit" sexual grass play, is eradicated-is consequential and, as I will illustrate, latently sexual.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Though neither of us was much of a talker, we brought out a chatty streak in each other. Those nights we discussed everything, opened up to each other with unusual candor. Woodell told me in detail about his injury. If I was ever tempted to take myself too seriously, Woodell’s story always reminded me that things could be worse. And the way he handled himself was a constant, bracing lesson in the virtue, and value, of good spirits. His injury wasn’t typical, he said. And it wasn’t total. He still had some feeling, still had hopes of marrying, having a family. He also had hopes of a cure. He was taking an experimental new drug, which had shown promise in paraplegics. Trouble was, it had a garlicky aroma. Some nights on our office-hunting expeditions Woodell would smell like an old-school pizzeria, and I’d let him hear about it. I asked Woodell if he was—I hesitated, fearing I had no right—happy. He gave it some thought. Yes, he said. He was. He loved his work. He loved Blue Ribbon, though he sometimes cringed at the irony. A man who can’t walk peddling shoes. Not sure what to say to this, I said nothing. Often Penny and I would have Woodell over to the new house for dinner. He was like family, we loved him, but we also knew we were filling a void in his life, a need for company and domestic comforts. So Penny always wanted to cook something special when Woodell came over, and the most special thing she could think of was Cornish game hen, plus a dessert made from brandy and iced milk—she got the recipe from a magazine—which left us all blotto. Though hens and brandy put a serious dent in her twenty-five-dollar grocery budget, Penny simply couldn’t economize when it came to Woodell. If I told her that Woodell was coming to dinner, she’d reflexively gush: “I’ll get some capons and brandy!” It was more than wanting to be hospitable. She was fattening him up. She was nurturing him. Woodell, I think, spoke to her newly activated maternal streak. I struggle to remember. I close my eyes and think back, but so many precious moments from those nights are gone forever. Numberless conversations, breathless laughing fits. Declarations, revelations, confidences. They’ve all fallen into the sofa cushions of time. I remember only that we always sat up half the night, cataloging the past, mapping out the future. I remember that we took turns describing what our little company was, and what it might be, and what it must never be. How I wish, on just one of those nights, I’d had a tape recorder. Or kept a journal, as I did on my trip around the world. Still, at least I can always call to mind the image of Woodell, seated at the head of our dinette, carefully dressed in his blue jeans, his trademark V-neck sweater over a white T.

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

  He also needed a particular motion, one that we couldn’t achieve in the comfort of a rocking chair, but only by walking. For at least the first year of his life, then, my husband or I would slowly pace across the tiny nursery, holding him in our arms, for up to thirty minutes or more. He trained us well. We learned that we could only place him in his crib after he’d succumbed to a deep sleep. Anything less would lead to another long bout of pacing. With so many things to juggle as new parents, not to mention our own sleep deprivation, my husband and I began to dread the time-sink of this bedtime ritual. We’d yearn to be released from the shadowy nursery so that we could tackle the mounting dishes and laundry, make headway on a few more work projects by e-mail, or collapse into our own bed. Then, my husband discovered a radical shift that changed everything. He gave up thinking about where else he could be and immersed himself in this parenting experience. He tuned in to our son’s heartbeat and breath. He appreciated his warmth, his weight in his arms, and the sweet smell of his skin. By doing so, he transformed a parental chore into a string of loving moments. When my husband shared his secret with me, we each not only enjoyed this bedtime ritual all the more, but our son also fell more swiftly into his deep sleep. Looking back, I now recognize that even though we were physically present with our son as we had walked him to sleep, at first we were not also emotionally present. I have no doubts that infants can pick up on mismatches between their parents’ outward actions and inner experiences. In our case, this mismatch had initially prevented the joys and benefits of cross-generational positivity resonance from emerging. Our boys are now nine and twelve, and their bedtime rituals have changed accordingly. Yet it strikes me that, living less than a mile from our kids’ school, my husband and I still have the same opportunity for a walking connection with our kids each day. Yet in the mad dash to get the kids to school on time each weekday, it’s easy to find any excuse to drive. We all know the virtues of walking. It’s good for our bodies, our brains, as well as the environment. What often goes unrecognized, however, is the good it does for our relationships. It offers up the time, physical copresence, and shared movements to satisfy our and our kids’ daily craving for connection. Of course, we can still spoil this chance by being mentally and emotionally elsewhere, by letting headlines, e-mails, and tweets draw us to favor our phones over our kids, for instance.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  God would “walk about” in their midst, as he had once walked with Adam in the cool of the evening. 59 Babylon would become the new Eden because the rituals of separation would heal the long estrangement from the divine. But holiness also had a strong ethical component, because it involved absolute respect for the sacred “otherness” of every single creature. Even though they kept themselves apart, Israelites must not despise the foreigner: “If a stranger lives with you in your land, do not molest him. You must treat him like one of your own people and love him as yourselves, for you were strangers in Egypt.” 60 It was a law based on empathy and compassion, the ability to feel with the other. The experience of one’s own pain must lead to an appreciation of other people’s suffering. When P spoke of “love” he did not mean emotional tenderness. This was a law code, its language as technical and reticent as any legal ruling. In Middle Eastern treaties, to “love” meant to be helpful and loyal and to give practical support. Earlier biblical authors had commanded the Israelites to confine tribal loyalty (hesed ) to their fellow Jews, but this was not true of P, whose purity regulations are remarkable in that other people are never regarded as contaminating. 61 The foreigner was not to be shunned but loved. Impurity came only from yourself, not from your enemies. P insisted that Israelites must honor all life. Death was the great contaminator. It was an insult to come into the presence of the living God without undergoing a simple ritual of purification after coming into contact with the death of one of his creatures. In the dietary laws forbidding the eating of “unclean” animals, P developed a modified version of the Indian ideal of ahimsa . Like other ancient peoples, the Israelites did not regard the ritual slaughter of animals as killing; sacrifice was universally held to give the beast posthumous existence, and it was usually forbidden to eat an animal that had not been ritually consecrated in this way. P permitted the Israelites to sacrifice and consume only domestic animals from their own flocks. These were the “pure” or “clean” animals, which were members of the community; during their lifetime they must be allowed to rest on the Sabbath, and nobody could harm them in any way. 62 But the “unclean” animals—dogs, deer, and other wild creatures— must not be killed at all; it was forbidden to trap, exploit, or eat them under any circumstances. 63 This was not because they were “dirty.” It was perfectly all right to touch them while they were alive. They became unclean only after death.

• From Ulysses (Kindle edition — verify full work) (1922)

  While the residents of Brewster Place come together to rally against the negligence they experience as tenants in the building, Sophie, a neighbor who lives across from Theresa and Lorraine-and whose suspicions regarding them are confirmed when she witnesses them in a provocative situation through their unshaded window-attempts to galvanize the community against what she considers "that bad element that done moved in this block amongst decent people" (140). It escalates into a larger conversation, open for public and communal consumption, wherein the other women on Brewster Place disagree with Sophie, whom they essentially think has no business inserting herself into the personal affairs of the two women. Even as Sophie attempts to have the tenants of Brewster Place evict Theresa and Lorraine, whom she argues are "sinning against the Lord," others, especially Mattie and Etta Mae, point to the complexity of the Bible in terms of people, like Sophie, not "be[ing] a busybody in other people's matters," as well as her "let[ting] the Lord take care of it" (140). Ultimately, if anyone is ostracized, it is Sophie rather than Theresa and Lorraine. What this reflects are the redemptive powers of the Bible and biblical discourse that challenge a politics of repression and admonition generally associated with sexuality, especially "illicit" sex outside the confines of marriage, in institutionalized/organized religion. Moreover, even as they question privately the relationship between "the two," Mattie and Etta eventually conclude that, "`I've loved some women deeper than I ever loved any man, [... a]nd there been some women who loved me more and did more for me than any man ever did. [...] Maybe it's not so different. [...] Maybe that's why some women get so riled up about it, 'cause they know deep down it's not so different after all"' (141). In the public setting and in their private dialogue about Theresa and Lorraine's sexualities, Mattie and Etta, among other tenants, refuse to demarcate and alienate "the two" on the basis of their sexual character, nor do they ascribe power to difference. Instead, they bond together in allegiance rather than allow something, in this case one's sexual preference, to militate against solidarity and divide them. They challenge reductive conceptualizations and notions regarding lesbianism, even delegitimizing rationalizations based on biblical ideologies or readings. What they do, then, is destabilize the politics of difference, engaging instead in the process of female bonding and solidarity. As Audre Lorde contends with regard to black women, sexuality, and bonding: As Black women we have the right and responsibility to define ourselves and to seek our allies in common cause [...]. But most of all, as Black women we have the right and responsibility to recognize each other without fear and to love where we choose. Both lesbian and heterosexual Black women today share a history of bonding and strength to which our sexual identities and our other differences must not blind us.18

• From Educated (2018)

  In the space of a moment, he had accepted our claim to ride him, to his being ridden. He had accepted the world as it was, in which he was an owned thing. He had never been feral, so he could not hear the maddening call of that other world, on the mountain, in which he could not be owned, could not be ridden. I named him Bud. Every night for a week I watched Shawn and Bud gallop through the corral in the gray haze of dusk. Then, on a soft summer evening, I stood next to Bud, grasping the reins while Shawn held the halter steady, and stepped into the saddle. —SHAWN SAID HE WANTED out of his old life, and that the first step was to stay away from his friends. Suddenly he was home every evening, looking for something to do. He began to drive me to my rehearsals at Worm Creek. When it was just the two of us floating down the highway, he was mellow, lighthearted. He joked and teased, and he sometimes gave me advice, which was mostly “Don’t do what I did.” But when we arrived at the theater, he would change. At first he watched the younger boys with wary concentration, then he began to bait them. It wasn’t obvious aggression, just small provocations. He might flick off a boy’s hat or knock a soda can from his hand and laugh as the stain spread over the boy’s jeans. If he was challenged—and he usually wasn’t—he would play the part of the ruffian, a hardened “Whatcha gonna do about it?” expression disguising his face. But after, when it was just the two of us, the mask lowered, the bravado peeled off like a breastplate, and he was my brother. It was his smile I loved best. His upper canines had never grown in, and the string of holistic dentists my parents had taken him to as a child had failed to notice until it was too late. By the time he was twenty-three, and he got himself to an oral surgeon, they had rotated sideways inside his gums and were ejecting themselves through the tissue under his nose. The surgeon who removed them told Shawn to preserve his baby teeth for as long as possible, then when they rotted out, he’d be given posts. But they never rotted out. They stayed, stubborn relics of a misplaced childhood, reminding anyone who witnessed his pointless, endless, feckless belligerence, that this man was once a boy.* —IT WAS A HAZY summer evening, a month before I turned fifteen. The sun had dipped below Buck’s Peak but the sky still held a few hours of light. Shawn and I were in the corral. After breaking Bud that spring, Shawn had taken up horses in a serious way. All summer he’d been buying horses, Thoroughbreds and Paso Finos, most of them unbroken because he could pick them up cheap. We were still working with Bud.

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

  1. Apostles. These were originally twelve in number, answering to the twelve tribes of Israel. In place of the traitor, Judas, Matthias was chosen by lot, between the ascension and Pentecost.701 After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Paul was added as the thirteenth by the direct call of the exalted Saviour. He was the independent apostle of the Gentiles, and afterward gathered several subordinate helpers around him. Besides these there were apostolic men, like Barnabas, and James the brother of the Lord, whose standing and influence were almost equal to that of the proper apostles. The Twelve (excepting Matthias, who, however, was an eye-witness of the resurrection) and Paul were called directly by Christ, without human intervention, to be his representatives on earth, the inspired organs of the Holy Spirit, the founders and pillars of the whole church. Their office was universal, and their writings are to this day the unerring rule of faith and practice for all Christendom. But they never exercised their divine authority in arbitrary and despotic style. They always paid tender regard to the rights, freedom, and dignity of the immortal souls under their care. In every believer, even in a poor slave like Onesimus, they recognized a member of the same body with themselves, a partaker of their redemption, a beloved brother in Christ. Their government of the church was a labor of meekness and love, of self-denial and unreserved devotion to the eternal welfare of the people. Peter, the prince of the apostles, humbly calls himself a "fellow-presbyter," and raises his prophetic warning against the hierarchical spirit which so easily takes hold of church dignitaries and alienates them from the people. 2. Prophets. These were inspired and inspiring teachers and preachers of the mysteries of God. They appear to have had special influence on the choice of officers, designating the persons who were pointed out to them by the Spirit of God in their prayer and fasting, as peculiarly fitted for missionary labor or any other service in the church. Of the prophets the book of Acts names Agabus, Barnabas, Symeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul of Tarsus, Judas and Silas.702 The gift of prophecy in the wider sense dwelt in all the apostles, pre-eminently in John, the seer of the new covenant and author of the Revelation. It was a function rather than an office. 3. Evangelists, itinerant preachers, delegates, and fellow-laborers of the apostles—such men as Mark, Luke, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Epaphras, Trophimus, and Apollos.703 They may be compared to modern missionaries. They were apostolic commissioners for a special work. "It is the conception of a later age which represents Timothy as bishop of Ephesus, and Titus as bishop of Crete. St. Paul’s own language implies that the position which they held was temporary. In both cases their term of office is drawing to a close when the apostle writes."704 § 61. Presbyters or Bishops. The Angels of the Seven Churches. James of Jerusalem.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  In a famous Talmudic story, it was said that Hillel had formulated a Jewish version of Confucius’s Golden Rule. One day, a pagan had approached Hillel and promised to convert to Judaism if Hillel could teach him the entire Torah standing on one leg. Hillel replied: “What is hateful to yourself, do not to your fellow man. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go learn it.” 3 It was a provocative and daring piece of exegesis. Hillel did not mention any of the doctrines that seemed central to Judaism—the unity of God, the creation of the world, the Exodus, Sinai, the 613 commandments of the Torah, or the Promised Land. The essence of Jewish teaching was the disciplined refusal to inflict pain on other human beings: everything else was only “commentary.” Rabbi Yohanan had absorbed this lesson. Shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, when he and his companions had occasion to walk past the ruined temple buildings, Rabbi Joshua had been unable to contain his grief: “Woe is it that the place, where the sins of Israel find atonement, is laid waste.” But Rabbi Yohanan replied calmly, “Grieve not, we have an atonement equal to the Temple, the doing of loving deeds, as it is said, ‘ I desire love and not sacrifice.’ “ 4 Kindness would replace the temple ritual; compassion, one of the pillars on which the world depended, was the new priestly task. Compassion was also the key to the interpretation of scripture. As Hillel had pointed out, everything in the Torah was simply a “commentary”—a mere gloss—on the Golden Rule. Scholars had a mandate to reveal the core of compassion that lay at the heart of all the legislation and narratives of the Bible—even if this meant twisting the original meaning of the text. In this spirit, Rabbi Akiva, Yohanan’s successor, insisted that the chief principle of the Torah was “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” 5 Only one of the rabbis disagreed, preferring the simple sentence “This is the roll of Adam’s descendants,” because it revealed the unity of the entire human race. 6 In Rabbinic Judaism, the religion of Israel came of age, developing the same kind of compassionate ethos as the Eastern traditions. The rabbis regarded hatred of any human being made in God’s image as tantamount to atheism, so murder was not just a crime against humanity but a sacrilege: “Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image.” 7 God had created only one man at the beginning of time to teach us that the destruction of a single life was equivalent to annihilating the entire world; conversely, to save a life redeemed the whole of humanity. 8 To humiliate anybody, even a slave or a goy, was a sacrilegious defacing of God’s image 9 and a malicious libel denied God’s existence.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  “Months ago,” he said, “I lose my home. Typhoon Billie.” The storm had completely wiped away the Japanese islands of Honshu and Kyushu, along with two thousand houses. “Mine,” Fujimoto said, “was one of houses.” “I’m very sorry,” I said. He nodded, looked at the water. He’d started over, he said. As the Japanese do. The one thing he hadn’t been able to replace, unfortunately, was his bicycle. In the 1960s bicycles were exorbitantly expensive in Japan. Kitami now joined us. I noticed that Fujimoto got up right away and walked off. I mentioned to Kitami that Fujimoto had learned his English from GIs, and Kitami said with pride that he’d learned his English all by himself, from a record. I congratulated him, and said I hoped one day to be as fluent in Japanese as he was in English. Then I mentioned that I was getting married soon. I told him a bit about Penny, and he congratulated me and wished me luck. “When is wedding?” he asked. “September,” I said. “Ah,” he said, “I will be in America one month after, when Mr. Onitsuka and I attend Olympics in Mexico City. We might visit Los Angeles.” He invited me to fly down, have dinner with them. I said I’d be delighted. The next day I returned to the United States, and one of the first things I did after landing was put fifty dollars in an envelope and airmail it to Fujimoto. On the card I wrote: “For a new bicycle, my friend.” Weeks later an envelope arrived from Fujimoto. My fifty dollars, folded inside a note explaining that he’d asked his superiors if he could keep the money, and they’d said no. There was a PS: “If you send my house, I can keep.” So I did. And thus another life-altering partnership was born. ON SEPTEMBER 13, 1968, Penny and I exchanged our vows before two hundred people at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in downtown Portland, at the same altar where Penny’s parents had been married. It was one year, nearly to the day, after Miss Parks had first walked into my classroom. She was again in the front row, of a sort, only this time I was standing beside her. And she was now Mrs. Knight. Before us stood her uncle, an Episcopal priest from Pasadena, who performed the service. Penny was shaking so much, she couldn’t raise her chin to look him, or me, in the eye. I wasn’t shaking, because I’d cheated. In my breast pocket I had two miniature airplane bottles of whiskey, stashed from my recent trip to Japan. I nipped one just before, and one just after, the ceremony. My best man was Cousin Houser. My lawyer, my wingman.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  So I went to my jeweler and had them find a Rolex watch from 1972.” He hands me the watch. It’s engraved: With thanks for taking a chance on me. As usual, I say nothing. I don’t know what to say. It wasn’t much of a chance. He was pretty close to a sure thing. But taking a chance on people—he’s right. You could argue that’s what it’s all been about. I GO OUT to the kitchen, pour another glass of wine. Returning to my recliner, I watch Penny needlepoint for a while and the mental images come tumbling faster and faster. As if I’m needlepointing memories. I watch Pete Sampras crush every opponent at one of his many Wimbledons. After the final point he tosses his racket into the stands—to me! (He overshoots and hits the man behind me, who sues, of course.) I see Pete’s archrival, Andre Agassi, win the U.S. Open, unseeded, and come to my box after the final shot, in tears. “We did it, Phil!” We? I smile as Tiger drains the final putt at Augusta—or is it St. Andrews? He hugs me—and holds on for many seconds longer than I expect. I roll my mind back over the many private, intimate moments I’ve shared with him, and with Bo Jackson, and with Michael Jordan. Staying at Michael’s house in Chicago, I pick up the phone next to the bed in the guestroom and discover that there’s a voice on the line. May I help you? It’s room service. Genuine, round-the- clock, whatever-your-heart-desires room service. I set down the phone, my mouth hanging open. They’re all like sons, and brothers—family. No less. When Tiger’s father, Earl, dies, the church in Kansas holds fewer than one hundred, and I’m honored to be included. When Jordan’s father is murdered, I fly to North Carolina for the funeral and discover with a shock that a seat is reserved for me in the front row. All of which leads me back, of course, to Matthew. I think of his long, difficult search for meaning, for identity. For me. His search often looked so familiar, even though Matthew didn’t have my luck, or my focus. Nor my insecurity. Maybe if he’d had a little more insecurity... In his quest to find himself, he dropped out of college. He experimented, dabbled, rebelled, argued, ran away. Nothing worked. Then, at last, in 2000, he seemed to enjoy being a husband, a father, a philanthropist. He got involved in Mi Casa, Su Casa, a charity building an orphanage in El Salvador. On one of his visits there, after a few days of hard, satisfying work, he took a break. He drove with two friends to Ilopango, a deep-water lake, to go scuba diving. For some reason he decided to see how deep he could go. He decided to take a risk that even his risk-addicted father would never take. Something went wrong. At 150 feet my son lost consciousness.

• From From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (2004)

  Perpetua was a highly educated woman who was able to compose in Latin, and she had kept this diary. Somebody, a Christian, later discovered the diary. It was bequeathed to Christians who survived this particular martyrdom in early third century North Africa. Somebody took the diary that Perpetua had prepared and added a short preface to it. Then, he or she added an ending to it that actually describes her martyrdom. The diary records the events transpiring while she was in prison awaiting her martyrdom. It is therefore quite a remarkable and unique piece of literature that we have the Martyrdom of Perpetua. Included in this diary is a record of what happened to her and her fellow Christian martyrs while they were awaiting their executions. It records accounts of her trials, her reactions, her fears, and it also includes a series of visions that she had while awaiting her death, where she described dreams that she had had, which were symbolic of what she expected to have happen to her. One of the most gripping elements of the story was the reaction that Perpetua herself records toward her poor father, not economically poor, but as a poor fellow whose daughter was facing death and refused to recant in the face of her approaching execution. Her father was a pagan who didn’t understand why she was insisting on dying for the faith. He tried in vain to get her to see reason for his sake, and for the sake of her own child. She had a young infant who was still nursing, and he was trying to get her to recant, because this baby was hers, and if she died, what was to happen to the child? He’s also, of course, trying to get her to recant for her own sake. Let me read several passages from this diary of Perpetua’s about her reaction towards her father: 201 While we were still under arrest [she says in her diary] my father, out of love for me, was trying to persuade me, and to shake my resolution. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘do you see this vase here, for example, or water pot, or whatever?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ he said, and I told him, ‘Could it be called by any other name than what it is?’ He said, ‘No.’ ‘Well, so, too, 1, cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.’ At this, my father was so angered by the word ‘Christian’ that he moved towards me as though he would pluck my eyes out, but he left it at that, and departed, vanquished, along with his diabolical arguments. She therefore considers his arguments to be diabolical, so she was rejecting her father, who after all, was just concerned for her own well-being. A little later, we have another account:

• From From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (2004)

  Outline I. In the previous lecture, we saw some of the reasons for the violent opposition to Christians throughout the empire. A. Christians were seen as a threat to society because they refused to worship the state gods. Disasters that struck could be seen by pagans, then, as divine retribution for cities that harbored such “atheists.” B. Moreover, Christians were thought to be morally reprehensible and, therefore, socially dangerous. C. Christians, of course, denied that they were dangerous, and many of them refused to recant their beliefs even in the face of violent opposition and concerted official efforts. D. In this lecture, we will shift from considering the persecution from the pagan perspective (why did pagans act this way?) to the Christian perspective (how did Christians react to their opposition?). II. We have already seen that some Christians recanted of their faith in the face of violent opposition. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 64 A. This is clearly stated in the letter of the Christians of Vienne and Lyons. B. It can also be seen in the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the story of Quintus, a Christian who voluntarily offered himself as a martyr, until he became terrified of the consequences and recanted. C. We know of some Christian groups who opposed martyrdom on theological grounds—that Christ died precisely so that his followers would not have to do so. These Christians maintained that it was God’s will to do (in bad faith) what the authorities insisted on and, thus, live. D. It is difficult to know how many Christians recanted or pretended to recant in the face of physical torment. E. Most of the surviving accounts are written by Christians who celebrate martyrdom and want to show the supernatural strength given the martyrs in the face of their death, as seen in the accounts of the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons and of the martyrdom of Polycarp. III. A similar message of a Christian stalwart bearing up in the face of death can be seen in the powerful account of the martyrdom of Perpetua. A. Perpetua was a 22-year-old recent mother and new convert to Christianity, living in North Africa around 203 A.D. B. The story of her martyrdom for the faith is based in part on a firsthand account—her own diary kept while in prison—in which she records what happened to her and her fellow Christian martyrs, her reactions, her fears, and a series of visions she had while awaiting her death. C. One of the most gripping elements of the story is her reaction to her poor father, a pagan who does not understand why she is insisting on dying for the faith and who tries in vain to get her to see reason—for his sake, the sake of her child, and for her own sake. D. She spurns his pleas, however, relinquishes her child, and goes to her death willingly, even eagerly.