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.

Page 56 of 145 · 20 per page

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Ruth cried softly against my stomach. I ran my fingers through her hair. “I wanted him to love me so much. And after that he did. I knew he cared about me before, but I didn’t think he’d be able to accept that I wasn’t growing up to be a man. But after that day we didn’t pretend to hunt anymore. We just went for walks. He loved those hills more than any human being. I was so proud he’d take me up there with him.” She reached for a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Want to hear something funny?” she smiled. “Years later I reminded him about the man we met on the hill and Uncle Dale told me it never happened like that. He said it must have been one of the spirits of the Senecas who walk those hills. I didn’t know if it really happened or not. I do know that something changed between me and Dale that day, and I know it was teal hard for him to admit.” I rolled my head gently against the pillows until I found a place on my skull that didn’t hurt. My eyelids fluttered. “Jess, fight to stay awake, honey. Please. Wake up, Jess.” That’s the last thing I heard her say before I lost consciousness. In the days that followed I drifted in and out of awareness. A woman came into the bedroom with Ruth. Their hands felt reassuring on my body. Ruth propped me up while the woman cleaned a spot on my scalp that hurt real bad. When she was done she wrapped my whole head in gauze. Ruth helped me sit up and urged me to drink through a straw. I saw my Stone Butch Blues 287 blood was everywhere: sponge-print circles on the wall behind the bed, soaked stains in Ruth’s beautiful embroidered pillowcases. As the days passed I could hear the sound of Ruth’s weeping replace the steady hum of her sewing machine. Even in a state of semi-consciousness I knew I asked too much of Ruth this time. My blood was all over her life, and the stains weren’t going to scrub out. One morning I felt her lips on my forehead and opened my eyes. I forgot about my jaw and tried to speak. When I couldn’t, I grabbed my face. She put her hands over mine. “It’s OK, honey. You're getting better. Look at me. Let me see your eyes.” She held my head between her hands as though it was a crystal ball. When I saw her expression I wondered what had made me think I had to ask for her love.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  scandalous love affairs. She had died giving birth to Mary. Mary’s father was William Godwin (1756–1836), a celebrated writer and philosopher who advocated many radical ideas, including the end of private property. Famous writers would come to see the child Mary, for she was an object of fascination, with striking red hair like her mother, the most intense eyes, and an intelligence and imagination far beyond her years. The Williamses would have almost certainly known about her meeting the poet Percy Shelley when she was sixteen and their infamous love affair. Shelley, of aristocratic origins and due to inherit a fortune from his wealthy father, had married a young beauty named Harriet, but he left her for Mary, and along with Mary’s stepsister Claire, they traveled through Europe, living together and creating a scandal everywhere they went. Shelley was an ardent believer in free love and an avowed atheist. His wife Harriet subsequently committed suicide, which Mary would forever feel guilty about, even later imagining that the children she had had with Shelley were somehow cursed. Shortly after the death of Harriet, Mary and Percy got married. The Williamses would undoubtedly know about the Shelleys’ relationship with the other great rebel of the time, the poet Lord Byron. They had all spent time together in Switzerland, and it was there, inspired by a midnight discussion of horror stories, that Mary got the inspiration for her great novel Frankenstein , written when she was nineteen. Lord Byron had his own scandals and numerous love affairs. The three of them became a magnet for endless rumors, Lord Byron now living in Italy as well. The English press had dubbed them “the League of Incest and Atheism.” At first Mary paid scant attention to the new English couple on the scene, even after a few dinners together. She found Jane Williams a bit dull and pretentious. As Mary wrote to her husband, who was away for a few weeks: “Jane is certainly very pretty but she wants animation and sense; her conversation is nothing particular and she speaks in a slow, monotonous tone.” Jane was not well read. She loved nothing more than to arrange flowers, play the pedal harp, sing songs from India, where she had lived as a child, and pose rather prettily. Could she be that superficial? Every now and then Mary would catch Jane staring at her with an unpleasant look, which she quickly covered over with a cheerful smile. More important, a common friend who had known the Williamses in their travels across Europe had warned Mary in a letter to keep her distance from Jane. Edward Williams, however, was quite charming. He seemed to worship Shelley and to want to be like him. He had aspirations to be a writer. He was so eager to please and be of service. And then one day he told Mary the story of the romance between him and Jane, and Mary was quite moved.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  No amount of advice I’d ever received from the older butches, however, prepared me for the moment when I knelt between Angie’s legs and had no idea of what to do. “Wait,” she said, pressing her fingertips against my thighs, “let me.” She gently guided the cock inside of herself. “Wait,” she repeated, “don’t push. Be gentle. Let me get used to you inside of me before you move.” I carefully lay on top of Angie. After a moment her body relaxed against me. “Yes,” Angie said as I moved with her, following her lead. I found if I tried to think about what I was doing, I lost the rhythm of her body. So I stopped thinking, “Yes.” She grew more excited. Angie became wilder in my arms. It scared me, I didn’t know what was happening. Suddenly she started to cry out and yanked my hair. I stopped moving. There was a long pause. Her body slumped beneath me. One of her arms flopped over her head against the pillow in annoyance. “Why did you stop?” she asked quietly. “T thought I was hurting you.” “Hurting me?” Her voice rose a bit. “Haven’t you ever?” She stopped mid-sentence. “Sweetheart,” she said to me, searching my face for the truth, “have you ever been with a woman before?” So much blood pumped into my face that the room spun around. I turned away from her, but I was still inside of her. “Wait,” she said, putting her hands firmly on my ass. “Pull out of me gently, careful, ah, OK.” Angie got up slowly and brought back a pack of cigarettes, matches, an ashtray, and a bottle of whiskey. “Pm sorry,” she said. I turned away from her. “Listen to me, Jess. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you'd never been with a woman before. The first time should be special. It’s sort of a big responsibility, you know? C’mere, baby,” she pulled me against her. I lay quietly in her arms. Billie Holiday was singing on the radio. We both felt how close my mouth was to her breast at the same moment, and something flared between us. “Roll overt,” she told me. I did. “Relax. I won’t hurt you.” She straddled my waist and began to Stone Butch Blues 175 massage my shoulders through my T-shirt. I could feel the strength of the muscles in her thighs. I rolled over and she stayed over me. I reached up for her face and pulled her down to kiss me. She gave me another chance. I did better that time. We held each other for a long time without speaking. Then she laughed. “That,” she said, “was great. That was really wonderful.” It was so nice of her to say that. She guided me out of her slowly, then kissed me all over my face and made me laugh. “You're really very sweet,” she told me, “you know that?”

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  I touch your shoulder with the gentleness Trevor showed me back in the river. Trevor who, wild as he was, wouldn’t eat veal, wouldn’t eat the children of cows. I think now about those children, taken from their mothers and placed in boxes the size of their lives, to be fed and fattened into soft meat. I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter. All freedom is relative—you know too well—and sometimes it’s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough. For a few delirious moments in the barn, as Trevor and I fucked, the cage around me became invisible, even if I knew it was never gone. How my elation became a trap when I lost control of my inner self. How waste, shit, excess, is what binds the living, yet is always present and perennial in death. When the calves are finally butchered, surrendering their insides is often their final act, their bowels shocked from the sudden velocity of endings. I squeeze your wrist and say your name. I look at you and see, through the pitch dark, Trevor’s eyes—Trevor whose face has, by now, already begun to blur in my mind—how they burned under the barn lamp as we dressed, shuddering quietly from the water. I see Lan’s eyes in her last hours, like needful drops of water, how they were all she could move. Like the calf’s wide pupils as the latch is opened, and it charges from its prison toward the man with a harness ready to loop around its neck. “Where am I, Little Dog?” You’re Rose. You’re Lan. You’re Trevor. As if a name can be more than one thing, deep and wide as a night with a truck idling at its edge, and you can step right out of your cage, where I wait for you. Where, under the stars, we see at last what we’ve made of each other in the light of long-dead things—and call it good.

• From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir (2004)

  I stop the Van beside an unidentifiable form asleep on a bench, offer to watch the radio. Jeff knows why I stay behind, but he doesn’t ask about it. I write in the log, 3:05, _____ on a bench, the common by the bandstand. Jeff squats beside the bench, to see if John Doe is breathing, to see if he’s hungry, to see if he’s covered. Scooping bodies off our filthy streets . Who is our John Doe? What does this feel like? 25°. Snow builds a monochromatic city. The statues stare over the shapes of sleeping men, whitening. Still not cold enough to drive the hard-core guys inside. Bobbie Blue-Eyes. Jimmy the Hat. Black George. Indian Dave. The blankets that cover them are now also white. Jeff comes back. It’s Paul , he says, he just wants another blanket . I write, “Paul Carney, blanket.” Jeff shakes the blanket out—a red sail in a white sea—dusts off what snow he can, drapes the rough wool over the shape of Paul. Paul’s shape fills the bench, the blanket becomes a fort. His breath fills the fort, heats it. Words come from Paul’s head. A knock on my window—Denis Delaney, his face covered with tar. His knuckle leaves a black kiss on the glass. Always wild, but even for Denis this is another level. I get out, mention the tar. Denis tells me it came from the Lord, The Lord offered His cup and I drank it, drank its sweetness, to drain the evil out. The Lord did this because Denis is the devil. How so? I ask. I cut people up, he answers. A new map of the city has been created, several maps, actually, transparent layers, they can be laid one on top of the other. One shows only fire hydrants, another only stoplights, another each school. My map would show the places one could sleep if one was or became or planned to be homeless. It would show each bench, each church step, each bridge, each horizontal, each patch of grass. We ask Paul if he wants to go back to the shelter with us but we know he won’t go. No, no, he says, I’m just out here enjoying a little fresh air. I do my best thinking out here. We got him to talk to a psych doctor once, the doctor asked if he heard things other people don’t. Sure, Paul answered, I hear birds in the morning when everyone’s sleeping, I hear trees rustling when no one’s around . We convince Denis to come for a ride, I lay a blanket on the seat, give him cigarettes, coffee. I say, Let’s go talk to someone about the Lord. He stares at the tip of his cigarette, murmurs into it. Oily light, steam rising from cracks in the asphalt, rivers of heat flowing beneath the streets, the center of the earth boiling, heat factories on the edge of the highway, acid rain.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  I hate and love your battered hands for what they can never be. — It’s Sunday. I am ten. You open the salon door and the acetone from yesterday’s manicures immediately stings my nostrils. But our noses soon adjust, like they always do. You don’t own the salon, but it’s your task to run it each Sunday—the slowest day of the week. Inside, you switch on the lights, plug in the automated pedicure chairs, the water gurgling through pipes under the seats as I head to the breakroom to make instant coffee. You say my name without glancing up and I know to walk over to the door, unlock it, flip the Open sign back out to the street. That’s when I see her. About seventy, her hair white and windblown across a narrow face with mined-out blue eyes, she has the stare of someone who had gone beyond where she needed to go but kept walking anyway. She peers into the shop, clutching a burgandy alligator purse with both hands. I open the door and she steps inside, hobbling a bit. The wind had blown her olive scarf off her neck, and it now hangs on one shoulder, brushing the floor. You stand, smile. “How I hep you?” you ask in English. “A pedicure, please.” Her voice is thin, as if cut with static. I help her out of her coat, hang it on the rack, and lead her to the pedicure chair as you run the air jets in the foot tub, fill the bubbling water with salts and solvents. The scent of synthetic lavender fills the room. I hold her arm and help her onto the seat. She smells of dried sweat mixed with the strong sweetness of drugstore perfume. Her wrist throbs in my grip as she lowers herself into the seat. She seems even frailer than she looks. Once she eases back in the leather chair, she turns to me. I can’t hear her over the water jets but can tell by her lips that she’s saying, “Thank you.” When the jets are done, the water warm, an emerald green marbled with white suds, you ask her to lower her feet into the tub. She won’t budge. Her eyes closed. “Ma’am,” you say. The salon, usually bustling with people or music or the TV with Oprah or the news, is now silent. Only the lights hum above us. After a moment, she opens her eyes, the blue ringed pink and wet, and bends over to fiddle with her right pant leg. I take a step back. Your stool creaks as you shift your weight, your gaze fixed on her fingers. The pale veins on her hands shiver as she rolls up her pant leg. The skin is glossy, as if dipped in a kiln. She reaches lower, grabs her ankle, and, with a jerk, detaches her entire lower leg at the knee. A prosthesis.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Then I felt her body move closer and we kind of melted together. I discovered all the sweet surprises a femme can give a butch: her hand on the back of my neck, open on my shoulder, or balled up like a fist. The feel of her belly and thighs against mine. Her lips almost touching my ear. The music stopped and she started to pull away. I held her hand gently. “Please?” I asked. “Honey,” she laughed, “you just said the magic word.” We danced a few slow songs in a row. Our bodies swung effortlessly in the circle of dance. The slightest shift in the pressure of my hand on her back changed the motion of her body. I never ground my thigh into her pelvis. I knew she had been wounded there. Even as a young butch that was the place I protected myself. I felt her pain, she knew mine. I felt her desire, she aroused mine. Finally the music stopped and I let her go. I kissed her on the cheek and thanked her. I crossed the dance floor to my table. I was forever changed. Jacqueline patted my thigh and flashed me a sweet smile. The other femmes—male and female—looked at me differently. As the world beat the stuffing out of us, they tried in every way to protect and nurture our tenderness. My capacity for tenderness was what they’d seen. 32 Leslie Feinberg The other butches had to recognize me as sexual now, a competitor. Even Al looked at me differently. As painful as this whole ritual had been, it was nothing less than a rite of passage. I didn’t feel cocky. It taught me that humility was exactly the correct emotion when seeking to unleash the power of a woman’s passion. Strong to my enemies, tender to those I loved and respected. That’s what I wanted to be. Soon I would have to put these qualities to the test. But for the moment, I was happy. The next Friday night at the bar was boisterous. We all laughed and danced. Out of the corner of my eye I looked for Yvette. Jacqueline must have known it because she explained to me that Yvette’s pimp wouldn’t let her have a steady butch. My stomach tightened in rage. I still kept an eye out for her. After all, a pimp can’t know everything that’s going on, right? When the red light flashed over the bar, I took myself to the women’s bathroom and assumed my post on the toilet. A long time passed. I heard thumping and several shouts. Then it was quiet. I peeked outside the bathroom. All the stone butches and drag queens were lined up facing the wall, hands cuffed behind their backs. Several of the femmes who the cops knew were prostitutes were getting roughed up and separated from the rest. I knew by now it would take at least a blow job to get them out of jail tonight.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She nodded. “Well, then it has a little twist when I say that, doesn’t it? Alright, Pll make you red meat. But I warn you, I’m going to expand your appetite.” What a wonderful offer! But why was she being nice to me now? I shopped that afternoon for new chinos and a dress shirt. I stopped at the farmer’s market and 276 = Leslie Feinberg bought Queen Anne’s Lace jelly, just because I loved the way it sounded. I found fat blueberries at Balducci’s and a Miles Davis tape at Tower Records that I was sure she didn’t have. Ruth laughed with pleasure at the small shower of gifts. “These blueberries are going to be our dessert. And I think Pll use a spoonful of this jelly for our tea. But how did you know I wanted this concert tape?” I smiled shyly. “I’m your neighbor.” Ruth laughed. “That you are. Sit down.” Her kitchen was layered with smells. Ruth set a huge salad in front of me. There were yellow-and- orange blossoms in the bowl along with greens I'd never seen before. My eyes filled with tears. “Ruth, there’s flowers in my salad.” Ruth smiled. “Those are nasturtiums. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” “Can I eat them?” She nodded. I shook my head. “‘T hate to eat this. It’s like a work of art.” Ruth sat down next to me. “That’s part of how starved you’ve been. I think you’re afraid this is the last beautiful thing that’s going to happen to you, and you want to hold onto it.” “How did you know that?” Ruth smiled. “Pm your neighbor. It’s a wonderful salad, Jess. I made it just for you to enjoy. But the next one will be luscious, too.” I blushed and put down my fork. “You know when your leg falls asleep how it hurts when the citculation starts again? I’m not sure I want to hope. I don’t want to get disappointed again.” Ruth patted my arm. “We both already know all about disappointment. Let’s not anticipate it.” She got up and put on the music I’d brought her. As Tate the salad, tears ran down my cheeks for no apparent reason. Ruth smiled. “It’s balsamic vinegar. Isn’t it wonderful?” How could I explain why the tastes of nasturtium and balsamic vinegar on my tongue made me cry? “I’m sorry,” I wiped my eyes. “This is just why you didn’t want to let me in, isn’t it? Why are you being so nice to me now?” Ruth put down her fork and covered my hand with hers. “I’m sorry I was so cold. I misunderstood you. I thought you were frightened and confused and I was afraid you’d sap my strength. After you backed off I realized I couldn’t figure you out—that’s a very attractive quality in my book. You seemed to be much stronger and calmer than Id first given you credit for. So I changed my mind.” Ruth smiled, “It’s a woman’s prerogative.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I blushed, which made her laugh and kiss me all over my flushed face again. “You really are pretty,’ I told her. She made a face and leaned over for a cigarette. I shook my head. “How come you make yout living from your looks and you don’t know how beautiful you are?” “That’s why,” she laughed bitterly. “Whatever it is they find attractive, you figure it must be pretty ugly. You know?” I didn’t, but I nodded. “Will you still respect me in the morning?” she demanded. “Will you marry me?” I asked her. We both laughed and hugged each other, but the sad thing is, I think we were each kind of serious. 76 Leslie Feinberg Angie looked at me long and hard. “What?” I was worried. “What?” She ran her hands through my hair. “I just wish I could make you feel that good. You’re stone already, aren't your” I dropped my eyes. She lifted my chin up and looked me in the eyes. “Don’t be ashamed of being stone with a pro, honey. We’re in a stone profession. It’s just that you don’t have to get stuck in being stone, either. It’s OK if you find a femme you can trust in bed and you want to say that you need something, or you want to be touched. Do you know what I mean?” I shrugged. She kept talking. “I remember when I was a little kid, I saw a bunch of the older kids in a circle in the playground. I went over to see what they were doing.” I got up on one elbow to listen. “There was this big beetle. The kids were poking it with a stick. The bug just kind of curled up to protect itself” She snorted, “God knows I been poked with enough sticks.” I kissed her on the forehead. “God,” she said, “by the time we’re old enough to have sex, we’te already too ashamed to be touched. Ain’t that a crime?” I shrugged. “Will you trust me a little?” she asked. I tensed. “T won't touch you any place you’ve been hurt, I promise. Turn over, baby,” she whispered. She lifted the back of my T-shirt. “God, your back looks like raw hamburger. Did I do that to your” I laughed. “God, it’s bleeding a little. Did I hurt you?” I shook my head. “What a butch,” she laughed. Angie’s hands rubbed all the soreness out of my shoulders and lower back. She slid her nails down my back and sides, and soon her mouth followed the same trail. I clenched the pillowcase in my fists. I knew it pleased her that I writhed under her touch.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “What finally made you decide to let me in?” Ruth squeezed my hand. “The color of my hair is my declaration to the world that ’'m not hiding. It’s a hard color to stand behind, but I do it to celebrate my life and my decisions. Most people are embarrassed by the color of my hair. It took a very special person to compare it to the color of sumac.” I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know if I’m a man or a woman?” “No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much about you.” I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you first met me?” She nodded. “Yes. At first I thought you were a straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was liberated from all of that.” I smiled. “T didn’t want you to think I was a man. I wanted you to see how much mote complicated I am. I wanted you to like what you saw.” Ruth brushed my cheek with her fingertips. I shivered. “Well, I didn’t understand right away, but I thought you were awfully cute and handsome and interesting-looking,” Even Ruth’s words were gifts. I dropped my eyes so she couldn’t see my Stone Butch Blues 277 hunger for her attention. “Oh, Ruth. I wish we had out own words to describe ourselves, to connect us.” Ruth stood up and opened the broiler. “I don’t need another label,” she sighed. “T just am what I am. I call myself Ruth. My mother is Ruth Anne; my grandmother was Anne. That’s who I am. That’s where I come from.” I shrugged. “I don’t want another label either. I just wish we had words so pretty we'd go out of our way to say them out loud.” As Ruth set the plate down I stared at the steak. “What are these little sprigs of things on top?” I asked. “Sage.” She spooned tiny carrots and miniature squash onto my plate. She opened the oven door and served me steaming bread and sweet butter. Every bit tasted like music in my mouth. “Now we'll have the wonderful dessert you brought,” Ruth said. She filled two earthen bowls with blueberries, drizzled them with heavy cream, and sprinkled them with sugar. I blinked away tears and squeezed her arm. “Ruth ...” The words got stuck in my throat. She covered my hand with hers. “I know all about hunger, Jess.” She lifted her mug. “To friendship?” 278 = Leslie Feinberg I clinked my mug against hers. “Yes,” I answered, “to our friendship.” I shopped for used furniture, the first sign of my own spring thaw. Ruth seemed more excited than I did

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  There was a knock at the bathroom doot. I unlocked it. Annie came into my arms and kissed me deeply. She put her hand gently between my thighs and squeezed the sock. “I got a lot of pleasure out of this tonight,” she said. “It was like magic.” My body tensed, and she withdrew her hand. I stroked her hair. “All magic is illusion,” I admitted. The light was on when I returned to the bedroom. I clicked it off. Annie came back and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Hungry?” she asked me. “Mmm,” I pulled her back on top of me and kissed her until I realized I was making promises I couldn’t keep. “I’m tired,’ I said, “but I want to hold you.” Annie came into my arms and nestled against my shoulder. “You are one strange man.” “Whatdya mean?” “First of all, I never met a guy who wasn’t afraid of a little bit of woman’s blood. But you know what’s the weirdest about you?” Every muscle in my body got hard, except the sock. Annie laughed. “Relax, baby. ’m not complaining. What really blew me away is that you knew I had to take care of my kid and you didn’t demand my attention till she went to bed. That, and the fact that even my ex-husband never did the dishes, and he’s the one that dirtied most of them.” Annie shook her head. “You don’t fuck like some other guys, either.” I rolled over on my stomach protectively. She massaged my shoulders. “I mean, you take your time, you know. It’s like you got a brain in your dick instead of a dick for a brain, you know?” We both laughed and rolled around on the bed together. I fell asleep, safe in her arms. The first voice I awoke to was Kathy’s. “Can I turn on the cartoons?” Annie mumbled, “Go ahead.” Shortly afterward she kissed me on the ear and got up to make breakfast. While Annie cooked pancakes, Kathy sat on my lap and told me everything she could think of about Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Annie tried to hide her pleasure at watching us together. “She’s usually scared of men,” Annie said when Kathy left the room. “You're real good with her.” I noticed Annie’s body language as she cooked. “Something on your mind?” I asked. She turned and wiped her hands on her apron. “T know this is crazy to ask you.” “Go ahead,’ I said. “Well, my sister’s getting married tomorrow, and, well, it’s crazy, I mean it’s too short notice and you didn’t commit to nothing last night—” “Yeah, sure,” I said. Annie sat down in a kitchen chair next to mine. “You really don’t mind?” “T really don’t mind, as long as you understand.” She pressed her fingertips against my lips. “My heart asks for more sometimes,” she said, “but my head wants the same thing you do.” I nodded.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. But she is of no slight merit of whom it is said, From the time that she entered has not ceased to kiss my feet, so that she knew not to speak aught but wisdom, to love aught but justice, to touch aught but chastity, to kiss aught but modesty. GREGORY. (ubi sup.) But it is said to the Pharisee, My head with oil thou didst not anoint, for the very power even of Divinity on which the Jewish people professed to believe, he neglects to celebrate with due praise. But she hath anointed my feet with ointment. For while the Gentile people believed the mystery of His incarnation, it proclaimed also His lowest powers with the highest praise.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, The spiritual regeneration, which takes place in Baptism, is in a certain manner likened to carnal generation: wherefore it is written (1 Pet. 2:2): “As new-born babes, endowed with reason desire milk [Vulg.: ‘desire reasonable milk’] without guile.” Now, in carnal generation the new-born child needs nourishment and guidance: wherefore, in spiritual generation also, someone is needed to undertake the office of nurse and tutor by forming and instructing one who is yet a novice in the Faith, concerning things pertaining to Christian faith and mode of life, which the clergy have not the leisure to do through being busy with watching over the people generally: because little children and novices need more than ordinary care. Consequently someone is needed to receive the baptized from the sacred font as though for the purpose of instructing and guiding them. It is to this that Dionysius refers (Eccl. Hier. xi) saying: “It occurred to our heavenly guides,” i.e. the Apostles, “and they decided, that infants should be taken charge of thus: that the parents of the child should hand it over to some instructor versed in holy things, who would thenceforth take charge of the child, and be to it a spiritual father and a guide in the road of salvation.” Reply to Objection 1: Christ was baptized not that He might be regenerated, but that He might regenerate others: wherefore after His Baptism He needed no tutor like other children. Reply to Objection 2: In carnal generation nothing is essential besides a father and a mother: yet to ease the latter in her travail, there is need for a midwife; and for the child to be suitably brought up there is need for a nurse and a tutor: while their place is taken in Baptism by him who raises the child from the sacred font. Consequently this is not essential to the sacrament, and in a case of necessity one alone can baptize with water. Reply to Objection 3: It is not on account of bodily weakness that the baptized is raised from the sacred font by the godparent, but on account of spiritual weakness, as stated above. Whether he who raises anyone from the sacred font is bound to instruct him?Objection 1: It seems that he who raises anyone from the sacred font is not bound to instruct him. For none but those who are themselves instructed can give instruction. But even the uneducated and ill- instructed are allowed to raise people from the sacred font. Therefore he who raises a baptized person from the font is not bound to instruct him.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  306 The History of Christianity II õ But fundamentalist and evangelical missions exploded, and Catholics and Mormons did quite well too. During the Cold War, many of these conservative missionaries saw themselves as evangelists not only for the gospel, but also on behalf of American civil religion. In other words, they were spiritual foot soldiers in the global battle against communism. õ One example: the evangelist Bob Pierce, a Baptist minister. As a traveling preacher, he spent a lot of time in Korea. He was overwhelmed by the suffering he saw, especially the suffering of children who had lost their parents in war. In 1950, he founded a Christian charity called World Vision to help care for those orphans, although World Vision’s mission soon expanded to include a lot of different kinds of relief work— everything from disaster relief to help for victims of sex trafficking. õ Pierce was convinced that the charity and preaching shouldn’t go in only one direction: Korean Christians had a lot to teach Americans, too. He published a book called The Untold Korea Story in which he raved about Korean Christians’ religious zeal. õ In the decades since then, World Vision has grown into a huge international organization that works in more than 90 countries, and its theology has become more ecumenical. Evangelicals, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians all work there. 307Lecture 31—Culture Wars and the Christian Right THE 1960s AND 1970s õ Next, this lecture will turn to the origins of the movement that has come to be known as the Christian right. That term refers to the organizations and activists that grew up in the late 1970s with the aim of mobilizing voters to restore the authority of the Bible in the public sphere and to roll back many of the social changes of the 1960s. õ The Christian right is not synonymous with conservative Christians or evangelicals. Many Christians who call themselves evangelical or conservative have dissented from some of the ideas and tactics of the activists about to be covered. õ The worldview that motivated these activists grew from the early Cold War cultural and geopolitical situation. Below are five of their primary principles. 1. America is a Christian nation. A traditional reading of the Bible should rule over every sphere of culture. 2. White, native-born Protestants—and a few others who agree with them—should be in charge of that culture, at least in America. The racial component is a complicated one, often not explicit; it has troubled many conservative Christians. But most scholars (including most Christian scholars) agree that it is very important to understanding this movement. 3. The ideal family is the heterosexual nuclear family, where sex is bound within marriage and the wife submits to her husband’s authority. 4. The free market is the only Christian way to do business. 5. It’s America’s duty to defend these values around the world.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: The spiritual regeneration effected by Baptism is somewhat like carnal birth, in this respect, that as the child while in the mother’s womb receives nourishment not independently, but through the nourishment of its mother, so also children before the use of reason, being as it were in the womb of their mother the Church, receive salvation not by their own act, but by the act of the Church. Hence Augustine says (De Pecc. Merit. et Remiss. i): “The Church, our mother, offers her maternal mouth for her children, that they may imbibe the sacred mysteries: for they cannot as yet with their own hearts believe unto justice, nor with their own mouths confess unto salvation . . . And if they are rightly said to believe, because in a certain fashion they make profession of faith by the words of their sponsors, why should they not also be said to repent, since by the words of those same sponsors they evidence their renunciation of the devil and this world?” For the same reason they can be said to intend, not by their own act of intention, since at times they struggle and cry; but by the act of those who bring them to be baptized. Reply to Objection 2: As Augustine says, writing to Boniface (Cont. duas Ep. Pelag. i), “in the Church of our Saviour little children believe through others, just as they contracted from others those sins which are remitted in Baptism.” Nor is it a hindrance to their salvation if their parents be unbelievers, because, as Augustine says, writing to the same Boniface (Ep. xcviii), “little children are offered that they may receive grace in their souls, not so much from the hands of those that carry them (yet from these too, if they be good and faithful) as from the whole company of the saints and the faithful. For they are rightly considered to be offered by those who are pleased at their being offered, and by whose charity they are united in communion with the Holy Ghost.” And the unbelief of their own parents, even if after Baptism these strive to infect them with the worship of demons, hurts not the children. For as Augustine says (Cont. duas Ep. Pelag. i) “when once the child has been begotten by the will of others, he cannot subsequently be held by the bonds of another’s sin so long as he consent not with his will, according to” Ezech. 18:4: “‘As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.’ Yet he contracted from Adam that which was loosed by the grace of this sacrament, because as yet he was not endowed with a separate existence.” But the faith of one, indeed of the whole Church, profits the child through the operation of the Holy Ghost, Who unites the Church together, and communicates the goods of one member to another.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. The little ones are those that are but lately born in Christ, or those who abide without advance, as though lately born. But Christ judged it needless to give command concerning not despising the more perfect believers, but concerning the little ones, as He had said above, If any man shall offend one of these little ones. A man may perhaps say that a little one here means a perfect Christian, according to that He says elsewhere, Whoso is least among you, he shall be great. (Luke 9:48.) CHRYSOSTOM. Or because the perfect are esteemed of many as little ones, as poor, namely, and despicable. ORIGEN. But this exposition does not seem to agree with that which was said, If any one scandalizes one of these little ones; for the perfect man is not scandalized, nor does he perish. But he who thinks this the true exposition, says, that the mind of a righteous man is variable, and is sometimes offended, but not easily. GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) Therefore are they not to be despised for that they are so dear to God, that Angels are deputed to be their guardians; For I say unto you, that in heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ORIGEN. Some will have it that an Angel is given as an attendant minister from the time when in the laver of regeneration the infant is born in Christ; for, say they, it is incredible that a holy Angel watches over those who are unbelieving and in error, but in his time of unbelief and sin man is under the Angels of Satan. Others will have it, that those who are foreknown of God, have straightway from their very birth a guardian Angel. JEROME. High dignity of souls, that each from its birth has an Angel set in charge over it! CHRYSOSTOM. Here He is speaking not of any Angels, but of the higher sort; for when He says, Behold the face of my Father, He shews that their presence before God is free and open, and their honour great. GREGORY. (Hom. in Ev. 34. 12) But Dionysius says, that it is from the ranks of the lesser Angels that these are sent to perform this ministry, either visibly or invisibly, for that those higher ranks have not the employment of an outward ministry. GREGORY. (Mor. ii. 3.) And therefore the Angels always behold the face of the Father, and yet they come to us, for by a spiritual presence they come forth to us, and yet by internal contemplation keep themselves there whence they come forth; for they come not so forth from the divine vision, as to hinder the joys of inward contemplation.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  With this continual awareness we can see what really matters, how petty squabbles and side pursuits are irritating distractions. We want that sense of fulfillment that comes from getting things done. We want to lose the ego in that feeling of flow, in which our minds are at one with what we are working on. When we turn away from our work, the pleasures and distractions we pursue have all the more meaning and intensity, knowing their evanescence. See the mortality in everyone. In 1665 a terrible plague roared through London, killing close to 100,000 inhabitants. The writer Daniel Defoe was only five years old at the time, but he witnessed the plague firsthand and it left a lasting impression on him. Some sixty years later, he decided to re-create the events in London that year through the eyes of an older narrator, using his own memories, much research, and the journal of his uncle, creating the book A Journal of the Plague Year . As the plague raged, the narrator of the book notices a peculiar phenomenon: people tend to feel much greater levels of empathy toward their fellow Londoners; the normal differences between them, particularly over religious issues, vanish. “Here we may observe,” he writes, “. . . that a near View of Death would soon reconcile Men of good Principles, one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy Scituation in Life, and our putting these Things far from us, that our Breaches are fomented, ill blood continued. . . . Another Plague Year would reconcile all these Differences, a close conversing with Death, or with Diseases that threaten Death, would scum off the Gall from our Tempers, remove the Animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing Eyes.” There are plenty of examples of what seems to be the opposite— humans slaughtering thousands of fellow humans, often in war, with the sight of such mass deaths not stimulating the slightest sense of empathy. But in these cases, the slaughterers feel separate from those they are killing, whom they have come to see as less than human and under their power. With the plague, no one is spared, no matter their wealth or station in life. Everyone is equally at risk. Feeling personally vulnerable and seeing the vulnerability of everyone else, people’s normal sense of difference and privilege is melted away, and an uncommon generalized empathy emerges. This could be a natural state of mind, if we could only envision the vulnerability and mortality of others as not separate from our own.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  He picked at a hole in his grass-stained white Vans. His nail scraped at the leather in the sneaker, the hole widening. I hadn’t noticed, until then, the crickets chirping. The day dimmed around us. Trevor said, “I think it sucks to be the sun ’cause he’s on fire.” I heard what I thought was another cricket, a closer one. The throb, a thudded beating. But Trevor, still sitting, legs spread, had let his penis, soft and pink, hang out from the pant leg of his shorts, and was now pissing. The stream rattled on the slanted metal roof before falling off the side, dribbling onto the dirt below. “And I’m putting out the fire,” he said, his lips curled in concentration. I turned away, but kept seeing him, not Trevor, but the boy in Ohio, the one who will soon be found by the hour I had just passed through, unscathed. Together, with nothing to say, we spat, one by one, the grapefruit seeds stored in our cheeks. They fell on the tin roof in big fat drops and blued as the sun sank fully behind the trees. — One day, after overtime at the clock factory, the boy’s mother came home to a house littered with hundreds of toy soldiers, their curled plastic lives spread like debris across the kitchen tiles. The boy usually knew to clean up before she came home. But this day he was lost in the story he made of their bodies. The men were in the midst of saving a six-inch Mickey Mouse trapped in a prison made of black VHS tapes. When the door opened, the boy leapt to his feet but it was too late. Before he could make out his mother’s face, the backhand blasted the side of his head, followed by another, then more. A rain of it. A storm of mother. The boy’s grandmother, hearing the screams, rushed in and, as if by instinct, knelt on all fours over the boy, making a small and feeble house with her frame. Inside it, the boy curled into his clothes and waited for his mother to calm. Through his grandmother’s trembling arms, he noticed the videocassettes had toppled over. Mickey Mouse was free. — A few days after the shed roof, the grapefruit, I found myself sitting shotgun in Trevor’s truck. He fished the Black & Mild from the chest pocket of his T-shirt, laid it gently across his kneecaps. Then he grabbed the box cutter from his other pocket and cut a lengthwise slit along the cigarillo before emptying its contents out the window. “Open the glove,” he said. “Yeah. No, under the insurance. Yeah, right there.”

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  You get so high, by accident. So high that when you take the subway to Little Russia, to the beach there, you remember almost none of the trip aside from a few bright, distant fragments. Being in a drugstore and feeling like you were a sacrifice to the Minotaur. Hot sand. Her touching your back with cool lotion. (There are photos of the three of you, evidence of your presence there. You’re smiling, and you look unbearably soft.) Then, it is your birthday. There is a party. You’re too high to stand up so you sit, legs splayed and head heavy, with your back against the stove. People keep coming and sitting next to you and talking, and you keep realizing, in this drifting, belated way, that they’re concerned for you. You try to explain that you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re just high, but whatever you’re actually saying, people do not seem convinced. Val visits you on the floor, brings you pieces of cheese. You stick one in your mouth, meditate on its smooth mouthfeel and nutty sweetness. You like her so much. She is so kind and open, and you respect her fortitude. Another piece, this one salty and crumbly, so pleasant in the way it comes apart. How did you get so lucky, to have all of these new people in your life? The next piece is fresh mozzarella, and as Val helps you stand you think to yourself mozzarella is basically water cheese and then you go to another room and fall asleep. Dream House as Meet the ParentsIn the car from New York, your girlfriend is high and quiet. She reeks of weed, and is about to meet your parents for the first time. You are angrier than you’ve ever been with her. “We’re gonna meet my parents in, like, an hour. I don’t understand why you would do this.” “You’ve never had to meet someone’s parents when you’re the first girlfriend,” she snaps. “They look at you in this way and it’s unbearable.” You are silent. “They won’t be able to tell,” she says. “Now you can’t even help me drive,” you say. “I have to do this all on my own.” You inch through New York this way, the car filled with the silent, wavy heat of your respective angers. In Allentown, your parents are very nice to her. Dream House as Here Comes the BrideIn DC, she meets your college friends, whose reactions to her range from sweet and excited to reserved. (Sam has gotten to them, you realize with a panic. You haven’t successfully contained the situation.)

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  what we do. With this continual awareness we can see what really matters, how petty squabbles and side pursuits are irritating distractions. We want that sense of fulfillment that comes from getting things done. We want to lose the ego in that feeling of flow, in which our minds are at one with what we are working on. When we turn away from our work, the pleasures and distractions we pursue have all the more meaning and intensity, knowing their evanescence. See the mortality in everyone. In 1665 a terrible plague roared through London, killing close to 100,000 inhabitants. The writer Daniel Defoe was only five years old at the time, but he witnessed the plague firsthand and it left a lasting impression on him. Some sixty years later, he decided to re-create the events in London that year through the eyes of an older narrator, using his own memories, much research, and the journal of his uncle, creating the book A Journal of the Plague Year . As the plague raged, the narrator of the book notices a peculiar phenomenon: people tend to feel much greater levels of empathy toward their fellow Londoners; the normal differences between them, particularly over religious issues, vanish. “Here we may observe,” he writes, “. . . that a near View of Death would soon reconcile Men of good Principles, one to another, and that it is chiefly owing to our easy Scituation in Life, and our putting these Things far from us, that our Breaches are fomented, ill blood continued. . . . Another Plague Year would reconcile all these Differences, a close conversing with Death, or with Diseases that threaten Death, would scum off the Gall from our Tempers, remove the Animosities among us, and bring us to see with differing Eyes.” There are plenty of examples of what seems to be the opposite— humans slaughtering thousands of fellow humans, often in war, with the sight of such mass deaths not stimulating the slightest sense of empathy. But in these cases, the slaughterers feel separate from those they are killing, whom they have come to see as less than human and under their power. With the plague, no one is spared, no matter their wealth or station in life. Everyone is equally at risk. Feeling personally vulnerable and seeing the vulnerability of everyone else, people’s normal sense of difference and privilege is melted away, and an uncommon generalized empathy emerges. This could be a natural state of mind, if we could only envision the vulnerability and mortality of others as not separate from our own. With our philosophy, we want to manufacture the cleansing effect that the plague has on our tribal tendencies and usual self- absorption. We want to begin this on a smaller scale, by looking first at those around us, in our home and our workplace, seeing and imagining their deaths and noting how this can suddenly alter our