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

  The effect of Christianity upon this gigantic social evil is that of a peaceful and gradual care from within, by teaching the common origin and equality of men, their common redemption and Christian brotherhood, by, emancipating them from slavery unto spiritual freedom, equality, and brotherhood in Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but all are one moral person (Gal. 3:28). This principle and the corresponding practice wrought first an amelioration, and ultimately the abolition of slavery. The process was very slow and retarded by the counteracting influence of the love of gain and power, and all the sinful passions of men; but it was sure and is now almost complete throughout the Christian world; while paganism and Mohammedanism regard slavery as a normal state of society, and hence do not even make an attempt to remove it. It was the only wise way for the apostles to follow in dealing with the subject. A proclamation of emancipation from them would have been a mere brutum fulmen, or, if effectual, would have resulted in a bloody revolution of society in which Christianity itself would have been buried. Paul accordingly sent back Onesimus to his rightful master, yet under a new character, no more a contemptible thief and runaway, but a regenerate man and a "beloved brother," with the touching request that Philemon might receive him as kindly as he would the apostle himself, yea as his own heart (Philem. 16, 17). Such advice took the sting out of slavery; the form remained, the thing itself was gone. What a contrast! In the eyes of the heathen philosophers (even Aristotle) Onesimus, like every other slave, was but a live chattel; in the eyes of Paul a redeemed child of God and heir of eternal life, which is far better than freedom.1190 The New Testament is silent about the effect of the letter. We cannot doubt that Philemon forgave Onesimus and treated him with Christian kindness. In all probability he went beyond the letter of the request and complied with its spirit, which hints at emancipation. Tradition relates that Onesimus received his freedom and became bishop of Beraea in Macedonia; sometimes he is confounded with his namesake, a bishop of Ephesus in the second century, or made a missionary in Spain and a martyr in Rome, or at Puteoli. 1191 Paul and Philemon. The Epistle is at the same time an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Paul. It reveals him to us as a perfect Christian gentleman. It is a model of courtesy, delicacy, and tenderness of feeling. Shut up in a prison, the aged apostle had a heart full of love and sympathy for a poor runaway slave, made him a freeman in Christ Jesus, and recommended him as if he were his own self. Paul and Pliny.

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

  At last he completed his active obedience by the passive obedience of suffering in cheerful resignation to the holy will of God. Hated and persecuted by the Jewish hierarchy, betrayed into their hands by Judas, accused by false witnesses, condemned by the Sanhedrin, rejected by the people denied by Peter, but declared innocent by the representative of the Roman law and justice, surrounded by his weeping mother and faithful disciples, revealing in those dark hours by word and silence the gentleness of a lamb and the dignity of a God, praying for his murderers, dispensing to the penitent thief a place in paradise, committing his soul to his heavenly Father he died, with the exclamation: "It is finished!" He died before he had reached the prime of manhood. The Saviour of the world a youth! He died the shameful death of the cross the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, a free self, sacrifice of infinite love, to reconcile the world unto God. He conquered sin and death on their own ground, and thus redeemed and sanctified all who are willing to accept his benefits and to follow his example. He instituted the Lord’s Supper, to perpetuate the memory of his death and the cleansing and atoning power of his blood till the end of time. The third day he rose from the grave, the conqueror of death and hell, the prince of life and resurrection. He repeatedly appeared to his disciples; he commissioned them to preach the gospel of the resurrection to every creature; he took possession of his heavenly throne, and by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit he established the church, which he has ever since protected, nourished, and comforted, and with which he has promised to abide, till he shall come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead. This is a meagre outline of the story which the evangelists tell us with childlike simplicity, and yet with more general and lasting effect than could be produced by the highest art of historical composition. They modestly abstained from adding their own impressions to the record of the words and acts of the Master whose "glory they beheld, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

• From An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)

  This work of Segneri is written against persons who continue in sins under pretence of their devotion to St. Mary, and in consequence he is led to draw out the idea which good Catholics have of her. The idea is this, that she is absolutely the first of created beings. Thus the treatise says, that "God might have easily made a more beautiful firmament, and a greener earth, but it was not possible to make a higher Mother than the Virgin Mary; and in her formation there has been conferred on mere creatures all the glory of which they are capable, remaining mere creatures," p. 34. And as containing all created perfection, she has all those attributes, which, as was noticed above, the Arians and other heretics applied to our Lord, and which the Church denied of Him as infinitely below His Supreme Majesty. Thus she is "the created Idea in the making of the world," p. 20; "which, as being a more exact copy of the Incarnate Idea than was elsewhere to be found, was used as the original of the rest of the creation," p. 21. To her are applied the words, "Ego primogenita prodivi ex ore Altissimi," because she was predestinated in the Eternal Mind coevally with the Incarnation of her Divine Son. But to Him alone the title of Wisdom Incarnate is reserved, p. 25. Again, Christ is the First-born by nature; the Virgin in a less sublime order, viz. that of adoption. Again, if omnipotence is ascribed to her, it is a participated omnipotence (as she and all Saints have a participated sonship, divinity, glory, holiness, and worship), and is explained by the words, "Quod Deus imperio, tu prece, Virgo, potes." 11. Again, a special office is assigned to the Blessed Virgin, that is, special as compared with all other Saints; but it is marked off with the utmost precision from that assigned to our Lord. Thus she is said to have been made "the arbitress of every _effect_ coming from God's mercy." Because she is the Mother of God, the salvation of mankind is said to be given to her prayers "_de congruo_, but _de condigno_ it is due only to the blood of the Redeemer," p. 113. Merit is ascribed to Christ, and prayer to St. Mary, p. 162. The whole may be expressed in the words, "_Unica_ spes mea Jesus, et post Jesum Virgo Maria. Amen." Again, a distinct _cultus_ is assigned to Mary, but the reason of it is said to be the transcendent dignity of her Son. "A particular _cultus_ is due to the Virgin beyond comparison greater than that given to any other Saint, because her dignity belongs to another order, namely to one which in some sense belongs to the order of the Hypostatic Union itself, and is necessarily connected with it," p. 41. And "Her being the Mother of God is the source of all the extraordinary honours due to Mary," p. 35.

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

  (15:40–41) In that group there are both unnamed women and that named threesome, which is then repeated twice: “Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid” (15:47) and “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him” (16:1). In other words, just as Mark has a primary, named, male threesome—Peter, James, and John—so also does he have a primary, named, female three-some—Mary, Mary, and Salome. In what follows—and as always with Mark—we must pay special attention to the sequence and structure of his story in order to understand his purpose and intention: Opening negative example: twelve named males do not believe Jesus (10:32a–45) First positive example: one unnamed female believes Jesus (14:3–9) Second positive example: one unnamed male believes Jesus (15:39) Closing negative example: three named females do not believe Jesus (16:1–8) In the structure of 10:32–16:8 Mark interweaves and contrasts three different aspects of discipleship, name, gender, and belief, but, for him, name dominates the other two aspects. He does so by framing two positive examples with two negative examples. In all of this, we must continually remember that we are reading historical parable or parabolic history; that is, we are reading the history of Jesus around the year 30 CE made into parable by Mark around the year 70. We have already seen Mark’s opening negative example, how those twelve named male disciples paid no attention to Jesus’s triple prophecy of his death and resurrection in 8:31–9:1; 9:31–37; and 10:33–45. We also saw how their obtuse indifference reached a climax in 10:33–45, which both concludes that section and opens the final one in Mark’s narrative. Next comes Mark’s first positive example . In 14:3–9 an unnamed woman anoints Jesus with “costly ointment” at a banquet in Bethany. That is certainly a beautiful gesture, but why does it get this amazing accolade from Jesus: “Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (14:9). What exactly has that unnamed woman done to achieve such a special status and receive such a unique promise? She has, quite simply, believed Jesus. If you are going to die and rise, she thinks, I better anoint you now, because there may not be another chance. “You will not always have me,” says Jesus. “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial” (14:7–8). She is, as it were, the first Christian, and she believed before any empty tomb was found or risen vision was granted. For her, Easter was the word of Jesus, and she believed it. Mark might be imagining her among those unnamed women mentioned, as seen above, in 15:40–41. Recall that Mark began his story by recording how “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God” (1:14).

• From The Great Believers (2018)

  Fiona gave up on her questions and scooted closer so she could stroke the skin between Yale’s eyebrows. He couldn’t stand to be touched anywhere else anymore, but that one spot worked. He closed his eyes. He said, “When I was a kid, I used to shut my eyes in the car when we were ten minutes from home. And then I tried to feel it, feel that last corner that was the driveway. I tried not to count the turns, just sense when we were home. And I usually could.” Fiona said, “I did the exact same thing.” “And when I couldn’t breathe, I was doing it too, but with—you know, with the end of things. And I know I’ll wind up doing it again. I’ll lie here with my eyes closed, and it feels like, Okay, this is it. This must be it. Only it’s not.” “Sometimes it was like that with the car too,” Fiona said. “Didn’t you ever have that? It would feel like you were done, and you’d open your eyes, and it was just a red light.” “Yes. Yeah, it’s like that.” He was glad she didn’t tell him he was being morbid. “That glow of the red light,” she said. “Do you remember how magical the glow of a red light at night was? As a kid? Just being outside after dark.” He remembered. He thought he might cry then, thought his body might wrack itself with dry tears, but Fiona stopped stroking his forehead and when he opened his eyes he saw that she was already crying herself, and it stopped him. He said, “I’m okay. It’s okay.” But she was shaking her head fast and he saw, turning, how tightly she gripped the bar of his bed. Her face had gone pale even as her cheeks had gone red. He said, “Fiona. What.” “My back hurts.” “Your back?” “I think—” “Hey. Hey, it’s okay.” She gasped in air as if she’d been holding her breath, which maybe she had. “The thing is, it keeps spasming like two minutes apart. But it’s in the back.” “That sounds like contractions, Feef.” “It’s probably just those false ones, those Brixton whatevers. But I keep thinking maybe I should like—no, don’t do that!” Yale had pressed his call button. “Why’d you do that?” “Maybe don’t have your baby on the AIDS ward.” “I’m not having—it’s not due for four weeks.” “And I wasn’t supposed to die till I was eighty.” Debbie was already in the doorway. “Not me this time,” Yale said. Fiona said, “I’m okay.” “You don’t look okay,” Debbie said. “Is there—there’s a maternity ward here, right? Or do I have to go around to the ER?” “Heavens! Well yes, we do provide that service. One-stop shopping. Let’s get you a wheelchair.” “They’re not even that bad,” Fiona said. “I mean, I’m basing that on the movies, people screaming and whatever, but they’re not that strong.

• From An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)

  And so was it with the Church at large. She started with suffering, which turned to victory; but when she was set free from the house of her prison, she did not quit it so much as turn it into a cell. Meekness inherited the earth; strength came forth from weakness; the poor made many rich; yet meekness and poverty remained. The rulers of the world were Monks, when they could not be Martyrs. 2. Immediately on the overthrow of the heathen power, two movements simultaneously ran through the world from East to West, as quickly as the lightning in the prophecy, a development of worship and of asceticism. Hence, while the world's first reproach in heathen times had been that Christianity was a dark malevolent magic, its second has been that it is a joyous carnal paganism;--according to that saying, "We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Yet our Lord too was "a man of sorrows" all the while, but softened His austerity by His gracious gentleness. 3. The like characteristic attends also on the mystery of His Incarnation. He was first God and He became man; but Eutyches and heretics of his school refused to admit that He was man, lest they should deny that He was God. In consequence the Catholic Fathers are frequent and unanimous in their asseverations, that "the Word" had become flesh, not to His loss, but by an addition. Each Nature is distinct, but the created Nature lives in and by the Eternal. "Non amittendo quod erat, sed sumendo quod non erat," is the Church's principle. And hence, though the course of development, as was observed in a former Chapter, has been to bring into prominence the divine aspect of our Lord's mediation, this has been attended by even a more open manifestation of the doctrine of His atoning sufferings. The passion of our Lord is one of the most imperative and engrossing subjects of Catholic teaching. It is the great topic of meditations and prayers; it is brought into continual remembrance by the sign of the Cross; it is preached to the world in the Crucifix; it is variously honoured by the many houses of prayer, and associations of religious men, and pious institutions and undertakings, which in some way or other are placed under the name and the shadow of Jesus, or the Saviour, or the Redeemer, or His Cross, or His Passion, or His sacred Heart. 4.

• From The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple's Guide (2003)

  Aware of his turbulent past, I said, “I know your parents were harsh and punitive, but you just have to tell me where in the world your resilience and stick-to-it-iveness comes from. There must have been someone in your past who believed in you. Who might that have been?” After minutes of silence that seemed like years, Sol tearfully responded, “My grandmother loved me. She was very affectionate. She never yelled at me. She didn’t have to. My grandmother never uttered an unkind word. She just hugged and kissed me.” Again, a long silence. “I guess my grandfather believed in me too. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, he let me know that I was okay. I recall that his words of support were confusing because at the time, I was always getting so many negative messages from my parents. But my grandfather loved me unconditionally.” As Sol spoke about his grandparents, I could see his expression change. He sat up in his chair. The tears stopped. Memories of his grandparents lit his face with smiles. And he gradually began to talk about his strength in coping with his childhood, in overcoming his fears, in being successful as a man, father, and husband. And finally, I got the full picture of his sexual relationship with his wife. Although he struggled to maintain his erections from time to time, it was by no means a pervasive problem. In fact, despite some rocky starts, he more often than not managed to maintain an erection long enough for both he and his wife to experience orgasms. He didn’t share his successes with past therapists because when he mentioned them casually, they seemed disinterested in these “flukes.” They were more interested in the problem—his anxiety and the times his penis became flaccid—and as a result, so was he—so much so that he had become obsessed with it. But our conversation was a turning point for Sol. My fascination with his strength and resilience made him more curious about those parts of himself, and as he began to think of himself not as damaged goods but as a person who rose above adversity, his sexual confidence increased as well. I saw Sol and his wife for several more sessions, and their marriage was blooming. This is not to say that Sol never had difficulties with erections again. He did. But I helped him and his wife to understand setbacks are incredibly common. They just had to figure out what they needed to do to get things back on track and then do it without getting frustrated or upset. And that’s what they did. For that matter, that’s what they’re probably still doing.

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

  It was, of course, utterly possible to oppose that anti-monarchical ideology with a pro-monarchical one. In Psalm 2, for example, the ruler can be called by God to be both king and emperor, to be anointed as Son of God and King of Zion. But, despite such defenses, prophetic criticism would not go away. Food and Life . Recall the widows, orphans, poor, and afflicted who were supposed to be the special concern of divinity and monarchy from Mesopotamia through Ugarit into Egypt. In the northern part of the Jewish homeland during the ninth century B.C.E. , the prophets Elijah and Elisha opposed foreign gods and royal injustices as twin sides of the same coin. But they did not simply talk about widows and orphans, they did something about them. And their deeds, not just their words, were remembered. Recall in what follows that in a patriarchal society “widows and orphans” are a fixed pair. Both are systematically vulnerable as lacking normal male protection—the widow lacking a husband, the “orphan” lacking a father. In 1 Kings 17:8–16 a poor widow with a single orphan son is dying of hunger. Elijah miraculously and continuously replenishes the widow’s meal and oil. Then, in 17:17–24, her son dies and Elijah miraculously raises him to life again. A similar but much more developed set of miracles is recorded of Elijah’s successor, Elisha. In 2 Kings 4:1–7 a poor widow with only some oil in her house is about to lose her two children as slaves to creditors. Elisha miraculously fills every jar she can find with oil and she pays her debts. Then, in 4:8–37, he promises a son to a wealthy but barren woman and later raises him from the dead when he dies of sunstroke. But those two prophets not only helped widows and orphans, they also ruthlessly opposed the local pagan god Baal and toppled a Jewish dynasty that had accepted his worship. All of that went together, from their viewpoint. The Jewish god Yahweh was a divinity demanding traditional righteousness and justice. The pagan god Baal presumed a far less egalitarian society. Different divinities begat different monarchies, and those begat different rights and justices. There is, however, one very significant story where foreign divinity and domestic injustice come clearly together. The Jewish king Ahab was married to a Phoenician princess named Jezebel, and as part of what he considered sensible foreign relations, he combined the worship of God, the covenantal deity of his people, with that of Baal, the fertility-bringing deity of the local pagans. In 1 Kings 21:2 King Ahab asks Naboth for his vineyard, “that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” That might seem fair enough to us. The king does not exercise royal right or eminent domain; he does not simply take it.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  I went with them to a consultation at the plastic surgeon’s office. We didn’t mention that we’d been together for only seven months. I sat in the waiting room while Ash was in surgery, then brought them to my house to recover. When June joined us the following day, she and I promptly came down with fevers, and the three of us spent the weekend at various degrees of supine, lined up against the headboard of the bed like a display of broken-down dolls. I was exhausted; it was too much. I was angry at myself for taking this on a week after our divorce. I should have let Ash recuperate at their own apartment. But then there would be moments. June was fascinated by the surgical drains, the grenade-shaped bulbs that hung from skinny plastic tubes draped over Ash’s shoulders. She wanted to watch Ash empty them, an event that sent me hiding in the living room. Why did you have your boobs taken off, again? I heard June’s voice from the bathroom. We’d talked casually with her, a few times, about how some people are boys, and some people are girls, and some people don’t really feel like either, and some people feel like both. Well, replied Ash, having boobs just didn’t seem like me. Have you ever put on a shirt, or maybe pants, that didn’t feel like “you”? And that you wanted to take off, because you didn’t like how you felt in them? I sat on the sofa and grinned, listened to them chitchat like old friends. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] One morning I left early to teach a workshop. June was kneeling on the floor in front of the kitchen cabinets, pulling out a ziplock baggie to fill with coins she’d been collecting. She and Ash were going on an adventure: the pancake house, then the zoo. June was excited to buy something from the gift shop with her money. Later in the afternoon, we’d work in the yard, and I’d water Fairy Meadow, June’s name for the still-bare patch of dirt where the sewer guys had dug to access the line. We’d scattered some wildflower seeds there, though I realized as we did it that I hadn’t prepared the soil. We were dumping seeds on dry, baked dirt. But June was very protective of Fairy Meadow and didn’t want anyone to step on it, not even the dog. Sometimes when she was asleep I wanted to go outside in secret, work the soil properly, and replant it, make it all work out for her. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] I thought often about what I wanted June to learn or take away, if anything, from those months. I remember thinking once that the most important thing I wanted was for her to understand what it meant to empathize, to be truly kind. Then I changed my mind; that wasn’t quite it.

• From The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple's Guide (2003)

  If things get heated in a good way, take a time-out from talking. If things get heated in a bad way, take a time-out too. When you’re discussing differences in how you feel about your sexual relationship, you may find yourselves getting angry or defensive or saying the same things over and over. If this happens, agree to stop talking about sex for a while, and go do something else for a while, either together or alone. Plus, you should always keep in mind that it’s important not to say anything in the heat of the moment that you’ll regret later. People feel vulnerable when it comes to their sexuality. If you say something hurtful, your spouse is likely to remember it and hold a grudge for a long time to come. Be careful and thoughtful. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to hear yourself. Prolonging an argument because you are trying to win your partner over won’t work very well. You need to approach each other with more openness and caring. If you’re arguing about sex, you’re probably not listening to each other, and this would be a very good time to pull out your active listening skills. Really hear how your spouse feels. Make sure s/he knows that you’ve heard him or her. Good things happen when people feel heard. One of the most touching moments I’ve ever had with couples happened just a few weeks ago. Lanie and Dennis came in with garden-variety marital problems: a hectic lifestyle, a lack of time together, not enough communication, too much sarcasm, and the usual complications that are created when an extrovert and introvert go to social functions together. It wasn’t until several sessions into our work together that Lanie began to talk about her lack of sexual desire. It concerned her because she used to look forward to sex with her husband. Now, they made love once every two weeks, and even that was an effort for her. When Lanie talked about her lack of interest in sex, Dennis, a rather talkative man, was unusually quiet. As she pondered all the possible reasons she might not be feeling sexually inspired, Dennis listened on. Eventually, I turned to him and said, “I know that Lanie is trying to find out why her libido isn’t what it used to be, but in the meantime, how are you doing? What’s going on with you?” Dennis went on to say, “Lanie is interested only if everything is perfect. And by perfect, I mean absolutely everything has to be in order. Otherwise she just says no. Sometimes I wish she would be more spontaneous or a little more flexible. If we’ve had a great evening together and we’re feeling close, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Maybe tonight . . . maybe she’d be willing to make love even though it’s not on her schedule.’ But it doesn’t happen. I just have to wait for her to be in the mood.”

• From The Second Sex (1949)

  It may happen that in a matrilineal system she has a very high position: but—beware—the presence of a woman chief or a queen at the head of a tribe absolutely does not mean that women are sovereign: the reign of Catherine the Great changed nothing in the fate of Russian peasant women; and they lived no less frequently in a state of abjection. And cases where a woman remains in her clan and her husband makes rapid, even clandestine visits to her are very rare. She almost always goes to live under her husband’s roof: this fact is proof enough of male domination. “Behind the variations in the type of descent,” writes Lévi-Strauss, “the permanence of patrilocal residence attests to the basic asymmetrical relationship between the sexes which is characteristic of human society.” Since she keeps her children with her, the result is that the territorial organization of the tribe does not correspond to its totemic organization: the former is contingent, the latter rigorously constructed; but in practice, the first was the more important because the place where people work and live counts more than their mystical connection. In the more widespread transitional regimes, there are two kinds of rights, one based on religion and the other on the occupation and labor on the land, and they overlap. Though only a secular institution, marriage nevertheless has great social importance, and the conjugal family, though stripped of religious signification, is very alive on a human level. Even within groups where great sexual freedom is found, it is considered conventional for a woman who brings a child into the world to be married; alone with an offspring, she cannot constitute an autonomous group; and her brother’s religious protection does not suffice; a husband’s presence is required. He often has many heavy responsibilities for the children; they do not belong to his clan, but it is nonetheless he who feeds and raises them; between husband and wife, and father and son, bonds of cohabitation, work, common interest, and tenderness are formed. Relations between this secular family and the totemic clan are extremely complex, as the diversity of marriage rites attests. In primitive times, a husband buys a wife from a foreign clan, or at least there is an exchange of goods from one clan to another, the first giving over one of its members and the second delivering cattle, fruits, or work in return. But as husbands take charge of wives and their children, it also happens that they receive remuneration from their brides’ brothers. The balance between mystical and economic realities is an unstable one. Men often have a closer attachment to their sons than to their nephews; it is as a father that a man will choose to affirm himself when such affirmation becomes possible. And this is why every society tends toward a patriarchal form as its development leads man to gain awareness of himself and to impose his will.

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

  William Byrd’s lazy lubber. He was the English vagrant wandering the countryside. If anything about him was new, it was that some observers granted him a folksy appeal: though coarse and ragged in his dress and manners, the post-Revolutionary backwoodsman was at times described as hospitable and generous, someone who invited weary travelers into his humble cabin. Yet his more favorable cast rarely lasted after the woods were cut down and settled towns and farms appeared. As civilization approached, the backwoodsman was expected to lay down roots, purchase land, and adjust his savage ways to polite society—or move on. Whereas Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson envisioned Americans as a commercial people suited to a grand continent, those who wrote about the American breed during the nineteenth century conceived a different frontier character. This new generation of social commentators paid particular attention to a peculiar class of people living in the thickly forested Northwest Territory (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin), along the marshy shores of the Mississippi, and amid the mountainous terrain and sandy barrens of the southern backcountry (western Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, plus the new states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and northern Alabama), and later the Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri Territories. In the heyday of James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), who gave early America the fearless forest guide known as Leatherstocking, the abstract cartography of the Enlightenment yielded to the local color of the novelist in describing the odd quirks of the rustic personality. Americans were starting to develop a mythic identity for themselves. The reading public was more attuned to travelers’ accounts than they were to grid plans and demographic numbers. As Americans looked west, and many moved farther away from cities and plantations along the East Coast, they discovered a sparsely settled wasteland. In place of Jefferson’s sturdy yeoman on his cultivated fields, they found the ragged squatter in his log cabin. 3 The presumptive “new man” of the squatter’s frontier embodied the best and the worst of the American character. The “Adam” of the American wilderness had a split personality: he was half hearty rustic and half dirk-carrying highwayman. In his most favorable cast as backwoodsman, he was a homespun philosopher, an independent spirit, and a strong and courageous man who shunned fame and wealth. But turn him over and he became the white savage, a ruthless brawler and eye-gouger. This unwholesome type lived a brute existence in a dingy log cabin, with yelping dogs at his heels, a haggard wife, and a mongrel brood of brown and yellow brats to complete the sorry scene.

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

  Most probably, he believed that if Israel focused on the service of YHWH and avoided international intrigue, the threat would not have arisen in the first place. This judgment may be naïve from a historical point of view. Assyria would have demanded tribute in any case. But the prophet was right that Israel only ensured its own destruction by its attempts to resist Assyria and to form coalitions against it, and that attempts to solve its problems by changing kings were futile. The Understanding of God No book of the Hebrew Bible is so rich in metaphorical expressions as Hosea. Often the metaphors are applied to Israel, either to express YHWH’s affection for her (“like grapes in the wilderness,” 9:10) or her wayward behavior (“a luxuriant vine,” 10:1). Even more striking is Hosea’s use of metaphor to portray God. We have already explored one such metaphor, the jealous husband. In chapter 11 Hosea develops another: the loving father. Here God remembers Israel as a child whom he taught to walk and lifted to his cheek. So now, despite their disobedience, he cannot bring himself to destroy them. “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (11:8-9). (Admah and Zeboiim were cities destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah.) On the one hand, God is portrayed in very human terms as someone who can be overcome by emotion. On the other hand, he is “God and no mortal” ( adam’, “man” in the generic sense of human being). What then is the difference between God and a human being? It is not that humans are guided by emotion, and God is not, but that God can overcome the more destructive emotions and be guided by the better, whereas human beings often succumb to the worst. We have no better way to imagine God than in the likeness of human beings, but we should attribute to God what is best in human nature and then some, not human weakness or malevolence. Unfortunately, the generous promise “I will not again destroy Ephraim,” made perhaps when Samaria survived the invasion of Tiglath-pileser, was not fulfilled. It is contradicted outright in 13:9: “I will destroy you, O Israel, who can help you?” God will not ransom them from the power of Sheol: “O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes” (13:14; this verse is cited in 1 Cor 15:55, in a very different sense). In the end, God’s burning anger seems to prevail. The contradictions in Hosea’s prophecy arose from the changing fortunes of Israel in its final years. They also illustrate one of the fundamental problems of all human speech about God.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  There is only the mystery of communion, of that sacramental chemistry by which the mundane is transformed into the holy. It can happen with bread and wine. It can also happen with breath and blood, within the finite reality of the human body. When we place ourselves in the path of grace, when we open our minds and hearts to receive the presence of God, we are in the thin place of transformation. The quest becomes tangible because it becomes embodied. It is not a flight of the mind to imagine transcendence, but a movement of the very substance of human life to the place of meeting we can only describe as incarnation. The Incarnation is God’s vision quest. That sentence is the most concise way to express the doctrine of the Incarnation from the Native American viewpoint. The Incarnation has all of the classic elements of a quest. God experiences a time of preparation (the first vision quest of Jesus). God expresses a need for the support of community (the second vision quest of Jesus). God endures a test on behalf of all people (the third vision quest of Jesus). God makes a transforming lament that heals the world (the fourth vision quest of Jesus). From the perspective of Native American tradition, the idea that God would take human form to experience the vision quest makes sense. Jesus becomes one of the human family, the tribe of the human beings, in order to do the work of transformation that a quest is designed to do. For Native people, contact with God does not occur only in the abstractions of the mind, but in the everyday physical engagement of the body. The sweat lodge is physical. The vision quest is physical. The experience of God is physical. The Incarnation, therefore, is transformation made tangible. The human quest is the risk of intimacy with God. It is going out to attempt to discover God and enter into communion with God. But without the Incarnation, that level of communion would remain as disembodied as relationships on the Internet. A message might be passed between us, a kind of cosmic photo of God shared on the digital screen of spirituality, but the flesh and blood intimacy of physical contact would elude us. God would remain a dream, not an experience. The graphic story of the gospels tells us how God lived through the quest. It allows us to enter into God’s own time of preparation. It lets us become among those friends who support God in this intention. It shows us how God does go out into “thin” places to seek a deeper reality. It describes what God sees and hears during the quest. It explains the nature of the sacrifice involved and it reveals the final outcome of the quest as the finite and the infinite merge into a vision beyond anything we might have imagined.

• From The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women: How to Become Orgasmic for a Lifetime (2011)

  I’ve found sexual play without orgasm satisfying in other ways. Orgasms are not the end-all and be-all of making love. One woman told me that she used to place a great deal of importance on having an orgasm during each and every sexual encounter, until she fell in love with someone whom she could only meet in public situations where it was impossible for him to go down on her. Since she doesn’t have orgasms except through oral stimulation, she didn’t come with him. And yet, she said it was deeply satisfying just to be sexual with him. Women who come easily can sometimes will an orgasm to occur, but the key is knowing that they can do so. If you are afraid of not coming, it is very unlikely you’ll be able to will it to happen. As Dr. Joan Spiegel told me: An orgasm is like a sneeze—it either happens or it doesn’t. So you can choose to tie yourself in knots trying to come, or let it be until such time as it happens of its own accord. And if your lover is the one getting stressed out, then address that as an issue of its own: why does your lover feel like she or he has to “give” you an orgasm? Believe me, deep breathing and relaxation can do wonders for your sex life. I know how it feels getting tied in knots: you tense everything up and hold your breath—and then there is no release. There you are, as tight as a bow, and nowhere to go. If you find this happening in your lovemaking, I would recommend stopping everything for a few moments and taking a few deep breaths. Relax all those tensed-up muscles, breathe into your abdomen, and then let all your breath out. Give yourself permission to stop and breathe whenever you find yourself getting overly tense. Believe me, deep breathing and relaxation can do wonders for your sex life. Despite her need to keep it from her friends, Rita says her lack of orgasm is no longer an issue with her lovers: In my sexual relationships, recently I’ve been fine with it, because it’s something that I’ve negotiated.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  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 White Oleander (1999)

  It amazed me to see the white flesh and purple spines communicating across a gap no less enormous than deep space, a miracle in six inches of water. She touched me that way, my cheeks, my arms, and I too reached out to her. El cielo es azul . We were on Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women. I was a little girl in a faded dress, sunburned, barefoot, hair white as dandelion floss. The streets were crushed shell where we stood in line at the tortilla shop every morning with the Mexican women. ¿Cuál es su nombre? Su hija es más guapa, they said, Your daughter is too pretty, and touched my hair. My mother’s skin peeling like paint. Her eyes bluer than the sky, azul claro . In a big hotel colored pink and orange, a man with a dark mustache smelled like crushed flowers. There were taxis and music, and my mother went out in embroidered dresses pulled low off the shoulders. But then he was gone, and we moved on to the Island of Women. My mother was waiting for something there, I didn’t know what. We bought our tortillas every day, walked back to the little whitewashed bungalow with our string bag, past small houses with grated windows and the doors opened like frames. Inside were pictures on the walls, grandmothers with fans, sometimes there were books. We ate shrimp with garlic in outdoor restaurants on the beach. Camarones con ajo . Some fishermen caught a hammerhead shark and dragged it up onto the beach. It was twice the size of the little boats the fishermen used, and everyone came to the beach to look at it, to pose alongside its monstrous head, as wide as I was tall. Battalions of teeth showed in its humorless grin. I was afraid when my mother left me on the beach to swim out on the soft blue. What happened if the shark came, and the water turned red and the bones came through? WHENEVER I WOKE , there was Demerol. Doctors in masks, nurses with soft hands. Flowers. Their smiles like nectar. There were IVs and other children, dressings and Tom and Jerry on the TV, balloons and strangers. Just tell us, just tell. Schutzstaffel. Plainclothes. How could I begin to describe Starr, with her nightgown all twisted around, unloading a .38 into my room. I preferred to think about Mexico. In Mexico the faces were weathered and soft as soap. These buzzing noises in my room were only the mosquitoes in our bungalow on the Island of Women. ON A FULL MOON NIGHT , something moved her, and we left with only our passports and money in a belt under her dress. I threw up on the ferry. We slept on a new beach, far to the south.

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

  The first Vision is a fair specimen of the book, which opens like a love story, but soon takes a serious turn. The following is a faithful translation: 1. "He who had brought me up, sold me to a certain Rhoda at Rome.1282 Many years after, I met her again and began to love her as a sister. Some time after this, I saw her bathing in the river Tiber, and I gave her my hand and led her out of the river. And when I beheld her beauty, I thought in my heart, saying: ’Happy should I be, if I had a wife of such beauty and goodness.’ This was my only thought, and nothing more. "After some time, as I went into the villages and glorified the creatures of God, for their greatness, and beauty, and power, I fell asleep while walking. And the Spirit seized me and carried me through a certain wilderness through which no man could travel, for the ground was rocky and impassable, on account of the water. "And when I had crossed the river, I came to a plain; and falling upon my knees, I began to pray unto the Lord and to confess my sins. And while I was praying, the heaven opened, and I beheld the woman that I loved saluting me from heaven, and saying: ’Hail, Hermas!’ And when I beheld her, I said unto her: ’Lady, what doest thou here?’ But she answered and said: ’I was taken up, in order that I might bring to light thy sins before the Lord.’ And I said unto her: ’Hast thou become my accuser?’ ’No,’ said she; ’but hear the words that I shall say unto thee. God who dwells in heaven, and who made the things that are out of that which is not, and multiplied and increased them on account of his holy church, is angry with thee because thou hast sinned against me.’ I answered and said unto her: ’Have I sinned against thee? In what way? Did I ever say unto thee an unseemly word? Did I not always consider thee as a lady? Did I not always respect thee as a sister? Why doest thou utter against me, O Lady, these wicked and foul lies?’ But she smiled and said unto me: ’The desire of wickedness has entered into thy heart. Does it not seem to thee an evil thing for a just man, if an evil desire enters into his heart? Yea, it is a sin, and a great one (said she). For the just man devises just things, and by devising just things is his glory established in the heavens, and he finds the Lord merciful unto him in all his ways; but those who desire evil things in their hearts, bring upon themselves death and captivity, especially they who set their affection upon this world, and who glory in their wealth, and lay not hold of the good things to come.

• From Wild (2012)

  “Thank you for all your help with lightening my pack,” I said to Albert when we had a moment alone before he departed. He looked wanly up at me from his bed on the tarp. “I couldn’t have done it myself.” He gave me a weak smile and nodded. “By the way,” I said, “I wanted to tell you—about why I decided to hike the PCT? I got divorced. I was married and not long ago I got divorced, and also about four years ago my mom died—she was only forty-five and she got cancer suddenly and died. It’s been a hard time in my life and I’ve sort of gotten offtrack. So I …” He opened his eyes wider, looking at me. “I thought it would help me find my center, to come out here.” I made a crumpled gesture with my hands, out of words, a bit surprised that I’d let so many tumble out. “Well, you’ve got your bearings now, haven’t you?” he said, and sat up, his face lighting up despite his nausea. He rose and walked slowly to Ed’s truck and got in beside his son. I clambered into the back with their backpacks and the box of things I no longer needed and rode with them as far as the general store. When we reached it, Ed stopped for a few moments; I jumped out with my box and waved to Albert and Matt, hollering good luck. I felt a stinging rush of affection as I watched them drive away. Ed would return in a few hours, but most likely I’d never see Albert and Matt again. I would be hiking into the High Sierra with Doug and Tom the next day, and in the morning I’d have to say goodbye to Ed and Greg too—Greg was laying over in Kennedy Meadows another day, and though he would certainly catch up to me, it would likely be a fleeting visit, and then he too would pass out of my life. I walked to the porch of the general store and put everything but the foldable saw, the special high-tech flash for my camera, and the miniature binoculars into the PCT hiker free box. Those I packed into my old resupply box and addressed it to Lisa in Portland. As I sealed my box with a roll of tape Ed had loaned me, I kept having the feeling that something was missing. Later, as I walked the road back to the campground, I realized what it was: the fat roll of condoms. Every last one was gone. PART THREE RANGE OF LIGHTWe are now in the mountains and they are in us … JOHN MUIR, My First Summer in the Sierra If your Nerve, deny you – Go above your Nerve – EMILY DICKINSON

• From Like Family

  By the time I got Ned back into the chair and wheeled him down to his room, Berry had made all of the beds. Each of the other four men sat straight and clean in their wheelchairs with lab robes tucked behind their hips. When I tried to thank her, she shrugged it off. “It’s a shit job,” she said, and strode off toward the break room and her cigarette. What I liked about Berry: when she was up to her elbows in some patient’s nasty linen, she could laugh about it, her face saying Look at my life. Can you believe this, can you even fucking believe it? Once, when I was on my afternoon break with Teresa and some of the other girls, Berry walked into the room with her arm around Andy, a patient who lived upstairs with most of the other ambulatory men. Andy was sweet and harmless and nutty as a squirrel. He spent his afternoons plotting with his roommate Albert about how they were going to make a break for it, right out the gate to hop a train to Reno. Berry stood there, gave Andy’s shoulder an elaborate squeeze and said, with perfect gravity, “Mom, Dad, Andy and I are getting married.” Andy grinned beneath the brim of his John Deere cap, his hair tufting from the sides like spring weeds. Berry was fastidious about her cigarettes. She never lit one unless she could finish it, and when she got down to the filter, she stabbed the butt against the ashtray or asphalt or upturned sole of her shoe. She wore her waist-length strawberry-blond hair in a low ponytail. Stoner hair, I might have said in high school, and she did remind me of the girls who cut classes to hang out in the parking lot of the Circle K drinking rum-diluted Coke in huge paper cups, their boyfriends draped over their shoulders or hanging from the back pockets of their tight jeans. Berry used charcoal to line the inside rim of her lower lids, something else those stoner girls did, but her skin was so fair it made her look a little like a witch, dark and hard and knowing. Because I knew she’d laugh her ass off, I wrote a song about the aftermath of laxative day and left it paper-clipped to the back of Berry’s time card. We decided the tune should be “Roll Out the Barrel” because Tuesday-night shit detail involved hosing out the linen from four or five garbage cans. The smell could have killed a cat. We wrote another song together, in the parking lot on our breaks. This one was to the tune of “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” and was called “Is Your Penis Circumcised?” Every time we got to the “Is the foreskin smooth or scaly?” part, we cracked up and had to start over. We laughed so hard we bent low and held our sides; we laughed so hard we cried.