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 Blue Nights (2011)

  John the Divine on the afternoon she wove the stephanotis into her braid and cut the peach-colored cake from Payard. There were aspects of living in that house overlooking the Pacific that he failed to mention—he failed to mention for example the way the wind would blow down through the canyons and whine under the eaves and lift the roof and coat the white walls with ash from the fireplace, he failed to mention for example the king snakes that dropped from the rafters of the garage into the open Corvette I parked below, he failed to mention for example that king snakes were locally considered a valuable asset because the presence of a king snake in your Corvette was understood to mean (I was never convinced that it did) that you didn’t have a rattlesnake in your Corvette—but the following is what he did mention. I can quote what he mentioned exactly because after he mentioned it he wrote it down. He wanted her to have it in his words, his exact memory, in his exact words, of her childhood: The house didn’t have any heat—it had old baseboard heaters, but we were always afraid they’d burn the place up—and so we heated it from this huge walk-in fireplace in the living room. In the morning I’d get up and bring in wood for the day—we used about a cord of wood a week—and then I’d get Q up and make her breakfast and get her ready for school. Joan was trying to finish a book that year, and she would work until two or three in the morning, then have a drink and read some poetry before she came to bed. She always made Q’s lunch the night before, and put it in this little blue lunchbox. You should have seen those lunches: they weren’t your basic peanut butter and jelly school-box lunch. Thin little sandwiches with their crusts cut off, cut into four triangular pieces, kept fresh in Saran Wrap. Or else there would be homemade fried chicken, with little salt and pepper shakers. And for dessert, stemmed strawberries, with sour cream and brown sugar . So I’d take Q to school, and she’d walk down this steep hill. All the kids wore uniforms—Quintana wore a plaid jumper and a white sweater, and her hair—she was a towhead in that Malibu sun—her hair was in a ponytail. I would watch her disappear down that hill, the Pacific a great big blue background, and I thought it was as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen. So I said to Joan, “You got to see this, babe.” The next morning Joan came with us, and when she saw Q disappear down that hill she began to cry.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  TBut, perhaps,' she said, carefully, *you feel differently now. Please say so if you do.' She waited for my answer for a moment. Then: Tou know, I'm not really the emancipated girl I try to be at all. I guess I just want a man to come home to me every night. I want to be able to sleep with a man without being afraid he's going to knock me up. Hell, I want to be knocked up. I want to start having babies. In a way, it's really all I'm good for.' There was silence again. Is that what you want?' Tes,' I said, Tve always wanted that.' I turned to face her, very quickly, or as though strong hands on my shoulders had turned me around. The room was darkening. She lay on the bed watching me, her mouth slightly open and her eyes like lights. I was 164 James Baldwin terribly aware of her body, and of mine. I walked over to her and put my head on her breast. I wanted to he there, hidden and still. But then, deep within, I felt her moving, rush- ing to open the gates of her strong, walled city and let the king of glory come in. Dear Dad, I wrote, I won't keep any secrets from you anymore, I found a girl and I want to marry her and it wasn't that I was keeping sec- rets from you, I just wasn't sure she wanted to marry me. But she's finally agreed to risk it, poor soft-headed thing that she is, and we're plan- ning to tie the knot while we're still over here and make our way home by easy stages. She's not French, in case you're worried (I know you don't dislike the French, it's just that you don't think they have our virtues— I might add, they don't.) Anyway, Hella— her name is Hella Lin- coln, she comes from Minneapolis, her father and mother still live there, he's a corporation lawyer, she's just the little woman— Hella would like us to honeymoon here and it goes without saying that I like anything she likes. So. Now will you send your loving son some of his hard- earned money. Tout de suite. That's French for pronto. Hella—the photo doesn't really do her jus- tice—came over here a couple of years ago to study painting. Then she discovered she wasn't a painter and just about the time she was ready to throw herself into the Seine, we met, and 165 GIOVANNI'S ROOM the rest, as they say, is history. I know you'll love her. Dad, and she'll love you. She's already made me a very happy man. Hella and Giovanni met by accident, after Hella had been in Paris for three days. During those three days I had not seen him and I had not mentioned his name.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  I watched, too, the familiar pouting movement she made to distend the network of her close-fitting veil drawn too tight over her face, and as I write this, the touch of reticulated tenderness that my lips used to feel when I kissed her veiled cheek comes back to me—flies back to me with a shout of joy out of the snow-blue, blue-windowed (the curtains are not yet drawn) past.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Now that I Am Forever with Child How the days went While you were blooming within me I remember each upon each— The swelling changed planes of my body— And how you first fluttered, then jumped And I thought it was my heart. How the days wound down And the turning of winter I recall, with you growing heavy Against the wind. I thought Now her hands Are formed, and her hair Has started to curl Now her teeth are done Now she sneezes. Then the seed opened. I bore you one morning just before spring— My head rang like a fiery piston My legs were towers between which A new world was passing. From then I can only distinguish One thread within running hours You . . . flowing through selves Toward you. Spring III Spring is the harshest Blurring the lines of choice Until summer flesh Swallows up all decision. I remember after the harvest was over When the thick sheaves were gone And the bones of the gaunt trees Uncovered How the dying of autumn was too easy To solve our loving. To a Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On He, through the eyes of the first marauder Saw her, catch of bright thunder, heaping Tea and bread for her guardian dead Crunching the nut-dry words they said And (thinking the bones were sleeping) He broke through the muffled afternoon Calling an end to their ritual’s tune With lightning-like disorder: Leave the bones, Love! Come away From these summer breads with the flavour of hay— Your guards can watch the shards of our catch Warming our bones on some winter’s day! Like an ocean of straws the old bones rose Fearing the lightning’s second death. There was little time to wonder At the silence of bright thunder As, with a smile of pity and stealth She buttered fresh scones for her guardian bones And they trampled him into the earth. Father Son and Holy Ghost I have not ever seen my fathers grave. Not that his judgment eyes have been forgotten Nor his great hands print On our evening doorknobs One half turn each night and he would come Misty from the worlds business Massive and silent as the whole day’s wish, ready To re-define each of our shapes— But that now the evening doorknobs Wait, and do not recognize us as we pass. Each week a different woman Regular as his one quick glass each evening— Pulls up the grass his stillness grows Calling it weed. Each week A different woman has my mother’s face And he, who time has Changeless Must be amazed, who knew and loved but one.

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  Let us remember that in ancient society, with its view of slavery, Paul took a considerable risk in sending Onesimus back at all. So, it can be argued that Philemon is not really only a personal letter. It is indeed written to Philemon and to the church in his house. And, further, it has also to be read at Colosse. What, then, is Paul doing? Knowing the risk that he takes in sending Onesimus back, he is mobilizing church opinion both in Laodicaea and in Colosse in his favour. The decision about Onesimus is not to be left to Philemon; it is to be the decision of the whole Christian community. It so happens that there is one little, but important, linguistic point, which is very much in favour of this view. In verse 12, the Revised Standard Version makes Paul write that he has sent back Onesimus to Philemon. The verb is anapempein; this is the regular verb - it is more common in this sense than in any other - for officially referring a case to someone for decision. And verse 12 should most probably be translated: `I am referring his case to you' - that is, not only to Philemon but also to the church in his house. There is a lot to be said for this view. There is only one difficulty. In Colossians 4:9, Onesimus is referred to as one of you, which certainly looks as if he is a Colossian. But E. J. Goodspeed, who states this view with such scholarship and persuasiveness, argues that Hierapolis, Laodicaea and Colosse were so close together, and so much a single church, that they could well be regarded as one community, and that, therefore, one of you need not mean that Onesimus came from Colosse, but simply that he came from that closely connected group. If we are prepared to accept this, the last obstacle to the theory is removed. The Continuation of the Story Goodspeed does not stop there. He goes on to reconstruct the history of Onesimus in a most moving way. In verses 13-14, Paul makes it quite clear that he would very much have liked to keep Onesimus with him. `I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.' He reminds Philemon that he owes him his very soul (verse 19). He says, with charming wit: `Let me have this benefit from you in the Lord!' (verse 20).

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  here. I met him*—he laughed— 'in a cinema T We both laughed. Vetait un film du far west, avec Gary Cooper." This seemed terribly funny, too; we kept laughing until the waiter came with our bottle of white wine. 'Well/ said Giovanni, sipping the wine, his eyes damp, 'after the last gun shot had been fired and all the music came up to celebrate the triumph of goodness and I came up the aisle, I bumped into this man—Guillaume and I excused myself and walked into the lobby. Then here he came, after me, with a long story about leaving his scarf in my seat because, it appeared, he had been sitting behind me, you understand, with his coat and his scarf on the seat before him and when I sat down I pulled his scarf down with me. Well, I told him I didn't work for the cinema and I told him what he could do with his scarf—but I did not really get angry because he made me want to laugh. He said that all the people who worked for the cinema were thieves and he was sure that they would keep it if they so much as laid eyes on it, and it was very expensive, and a gift from his mother and— oh, I assure you, not even Garbo ever gave such a performance. So I went back and of course there was no scarf there and : James Baldwin 82 when I told him this it seemed he would fall dead right there in the lobby. And by this time, you understand, everybody thought we were to- gether and I didn't know whether to kick him or the people who were looking at us; but he was very well dressed, of course, and I was not and so I thought, well, we had better get out of this lobby. So we went to a cafe and sat on the terrace and when he had got over his grief about the scarf and what his mother would say and so on and so on, he asked me to have supper with him. Well, naturally, I said no; I had certainly had enough of him by that time, but the only way I could prevent another scene, right there on the terrace, was to promise to have supper with him a few days later—I did not intend to go,' he said, with a shy grin, T)ut when the day came, I had not eaten for a long time and I was very hungry.' He looked at me and I saw in his face again something which I have fleetingly seen there during these hours under his beauty and his bravado, terror, and a terrible desire to please; dreadfully, dreadfully moving, and it made me want, in anguish, to reach out and comfort him.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  I was the hottest guy in the neighborhood.” After some practice, I got brave and asked a question of my own. “Do you want a foot rub with some cream?” “No, but I want a Cheeto,” he replied. Carole, my therapist, told me to take it a step further with a technique she called “talking about talking about it,” meaning start a conversation about how to approach the topic and what might happen when you do. “Let him know that you will likely have big emotions around it,” she said. I had a vision of sitting down with a supersize tissue box and a Valium patch as she continued, “As long as that’s OK, and not too painful or stressful for him, tell him that you’re willing to try.” Sounded reasonable to me. Here’s a good place to mention that if you feel compelled to broach this kind of conversation, your loved one may not be open to it, and that’s OK. Not everyone nearing death wants to address these topics head-on. Just as there is a lot of diversity in how we, as individuals, want to live, there’s diversity in how we want to die, too. I recently learned a story about an actress named Suzanne Smith, who died at age 45 after living with breast cancer for 20 years. Suzanne was adamantly opposed to having these conversations with her loved ones. Weeks before she died, if someone brought up the word hospice, God help them. True to her spirit, in her death and in her life, she was a spitfire. Even after Suzanne was in hospice and had what is known as “the death rattle,” a sign that death is imminent, she managed to eke out, “I . . . want . . . to . . . live.” And she did, for two more days. That may not sound like a lot, but given her condition, the nurses assured her family that it was nothing short of remarkable. When someone is dying, we have to respect and even celebrate not only their desires but who they are. One way or another, they will let you know what they need. With Carole’s expert help, the next time I saw my dad, I sat down with a wad of tissues bundled in my pocket and said, “I’d like to talk to you about how to talk about death, Dad. I want to do this as best as I can, but I’m probably going to be awkward, fearful, and, at times, tearful. Is this something you’d still like to do?” “I’d like that very much, love. I don’t have many people I can talk to about this, and it’s on my mind a lot these days. To be honest, it can be quite lonely.” I started by asking him if there was anything he wanted to experience before he died. “I want to have a little fun every day.” A game of gin rummy would suffice, he said.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  “It was getting mashed, Mother,” I dared to protest, turning away to the icebox. “I’ll fetch the meat.” I was surprised at my own brazenness in answering back. But something in my voice interrupted my mother’s efficient motions. She ignored my implied contradiction, itself an act of rebellion strictly forbidden in our house. The thumping stopped. “What’s wrong with you, now? Are you sick? You want to go to your bed?” “No, I’m all right, Mother.” But I felt her strong fingers on my upper arm, turning me around, her other hand under my chin as she peered into my face. Her voice softened. “Is it your period making you so slow-down today?” She gave my chin a little shake, as I looked up into her hooded grey eyes, now becoming almost gentle. The kitchen felt suddenly oppressively hot and still, and I felt myself beginning to shake all over. Tears I did not understand started from my eyes, as I realized that my old enjoyment of the bone-jarring way I had been taught to pound spice would feel different to me from now on, and also that in my mother’s kitchen, there was only one right way to do anything. Perhaps my life had not become so simple, after all. My mother stepped away from the counter and put her heavy arm around my shoulders. I could smell the warm herness rising from between her arm and her body, mixed with the smell of glycerine and rose-water, and the scent of her thick bun of hair. “I’ll finish up the food for supper.” She smiled at me, and there was a tenderness in her voice and an absence of annoyance that was welcome, although unfamiliar. “You come inside now and lie down on the couch and I’ll make you a hot cup of tea.” Her arm across my shoulders was warm and slightly damp. I rested my head upon her shoulder, and realized with a shock of pleasure and surprise that I was almost as tall as my mother, as she led me into the cool darkened parlor. Uses of the Erotic The Erotic as Power There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives. We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Sometimes you gurgle while asleep and I know tender places still intrigue you. Now when you question me on love shall I recommend a dictionary or myself? You are the child of wind and ravens I created always my daughter I cannot recognize the currents where you swim and dart through my loving upstream to your final place of birth but you never tire of hearing how I crept out of my mother’s house at dawn, with an olive suitcase crammed with books and fraudulent letters and an unplayed guitar. Sometimes I see myself flash through your eyes in a moment caught between history and obedience that moment grows each day before you comply as, when did washing dishes change from privilege to chore? I watch the hollows deepen above your hips and wonder if I have taught you Black enough until I see all kinds of loving still intrigue you as you grow more and more dark rude and tender and unfraid. What you took for granted once you now refuse to take at all even I knock before I enter the shoals of furious choices not my own that flood through your secret reading nightly, under cover. I have not yet seen you, but I hear the pages rustle from behind closed doors. Moving Out or The End of Cooperative Living I am so glad to be moving away from this prison for black and white faces assaulting each other with our joint oppression competing for who pays the highest price for this privilege I am so glad I am moving technicoloured complaints aimed at my head mash themselves on my door like mosquitoes sweep like empty ladles through the lobby of my eyes each time my lips move sideways the smile shatters on the in thing that races dictator through our hallways on concrete faces on soul compactors on the rhetoric of incinerators and plastic drapes for the boiler room on legends of broken elevators blowing my morning cool avoiding me in the corridors dropping their load on my face down 24 stories of lives in a spectrumed madhouse pavillion of gnats and nightmare remembering once we all saved like beggars to buy our way into this castle of fantasy and forever now I am so glad to be moving.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  “No, the same sort of thing happened again, although this was the only time Mom really lost it in front of us. But after that incident I started to notice more and there were plenty of times when Dad would get home late or he’d talk about a customer, particularly a female customer, and I’d see Mom start to get tense. Later, I’d hear them in their room arguing and there were some mornings when Dad wasn’t there and Mom would be in her room with a headache. Once I asked her why she was crying and she told me it was because she had a headache and hadn’t had her morning tea. That’s when I started to bring her tea in bed on the weekends. I couldn’t understand why she was so mad and suspicious of Dad, but I couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy.” Children cannot stand to see their parents cry. When a marriage is in trouble, youngsters are eager to rescue an unhappy parent even though they cannot fathom the cause of adult troubles. Gary had no ability to connect his mother’s headaches with her emotional distress or depression. Her effort to explain her illness by relating it to “not having morning tea” confused her son, although it did give him something to do to help her. What’s interesting about Gary’s story is the detail of his memory. Whether he understood adult feelings is moot. But everything he saw was indelibly etched into his memory, and this became the template of his expectations of family life. “I see now what you mean by the indoor version of your family. Do you think there was any real basis for your mother’s suspicions?”

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'SROOM 177 1 don't remember. Yes, I guess so. I guess he metGiovanni at the sametime I did.' 'What madeyougo to livewithhim?' 1 told you. I wasbroke and he hadthis room — ' *Butthat can't have been theonly reason/ *0h, well/ I said,1likedhim.' *Anddon'tyoulikehimany more?' Tmvery fond of Giovanni.You didn't see him at his best tonight, buthe's avery nice man/ I laughed;coveredbythe night, em- boldenedbyHella'sbody andmy own,and pro- tected by the toneofmyvoice, I found great reliefinadding: 1 lovehim,ina way.Ireally do/ 'Heseems tofeelthat youhave a funny way of showingit.' 'Oh,well/ I said, 'these people haveanother style from us. They're muchmore demonstra- tive.I can'thelp it. Ijustcan't — do all that.' Tes/ shesaid, thoughtfully, Tve noticed that/ Tou've noticed what?' TCidshere — they think nothingof showing a lotof affection foreachother.It'ssort of a shock atfirst. Then you begin tothink it's sort of nice.' It is sort ofnice/ I said. 'Well/saidHella, 1think we oughtto take Giovanni outto dinnerorsomething one of thesedays.After all,he did sort ofrescue you.' That's a goodidea/ 1 said.1don't know what 178 JamesBaldwin he'sdoing these daysbutI imagine he'll have a freeevening/ *Does hehang aroundwith Jacquesmuch?' *No, I don'tthinkso.I thinkhejust ran into Jacques tonight/ I paused.l*mbeginning to see/ I said,carefully, 'that kids likeGiovanni are in a difficult position.This isn't,youknow, the landof opportunity— there'snoprovision made forthem. Giovanni's poor, Imean he comes frompoorfolks, and thereisn't really muchthat he cando. And for whathe can do, there'sterrific competition.And, atthat, very little money, notenoughfor them tobeableto thinkof buildingany kind of future. That's why somanyof them wanderthe streets and turnintogigolosand gangstersandGod knows what.' It's cold,*she said, *out here in the Old World.' Well,if s pretty coldout there inthe New One, too,' I said. If s coldout here, period.' Shelaughed. 'Butwe — wehave our love to keep us warm.' We'renot the firstpeoplewhothought that as they layinbed.' Nevertheless,we lay silent and still ineach other's armsforawhile. 'Hella/ I saidat last. Tes?' *Hella, whenthemoneygets here, let'stake it and get out of Paris/ 'Get out ofParis?Wheredo you want to go?' 1 don'tcare. Just out.I'm sick ofParis. I want

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

  3. He feeds His people with the food of Angels, and gives them Bread from Heaven which has in it everything that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste. He shows His substance and that sweetness to the devout communicant; and, as He came not to be ministered unto but to minister, He serves every man’s will; and the Bread of Heaven which He gives is turned to every man’s liking, that all may find refreshment and strength in Him. When the Bride says that she eats the honeycomb with the honey, she means that her soul feeds on the sweetness of the Flesh of Jesus and on the sweetness of His Godhead. When she says that she drinks wine with milk, she means that she drinks the sweetness of the Blood of Jesus with the sweetness of all spiritual consolation in gladness and peace. (3) The third chief effect of our Lord’s Body is the strengthening of souls; and that in three ways: 1, in crushing the devils; 2, in bearing sorrow and pain; 3, in doing good works. 1. When David’s men found the Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread to eat and water to drink, he was refreshed and strengthened; then he went with David to the robbers and smote them. The Egyptian is the sinner whom preachers bring to Jesus by conversion. Such a one, being strengthened by the Bread of our Lord’s Body, often becomes one of the leaders of the army of God, and crushes the devils. As the Philistines fell before the holocaust of Samuel, when he offered a lamb, so the devils fall before the Body of the spotless Lamb of God. Jesus, if we love Him, gives us strength against all the powers of darkness. 2. Achab, King of Israel, put the prophet Micheas in prison and fed him with bread of affliction. He is cast into prison who in this world suffers adversity; and the bread of affliction with which he is sustained is the bread of eternal life by which he is strengthened to bear all his trials. As St. Paul, in the great storm at sea when his ship was nearly lost, told those who were in danger with him to take food for the health of their bodies, so in every danger of our heavenward way Jesus gives us Himself for the health of the soul.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  But parting with the Mulligans was really painful: Mrs. Mulligan was a dear, kind woman who would have mothered the whole race if she could; one of those sweet Irish women whose unselfish deeds and thoughts are the flowers of our sordid human life. Her husband too was not unworthy of her; very simple and straight and hard-working, without a mean thought in him, a natural prey to good fellowship and songs and poteen. On Friday afternoon I left New York for Chicago with Mr. Kendrick. The country seemed to me very bare, harsh and unfinished, but the great distances enthralled me; it was indeed a land to be proud of, every broad acre of it spoke of the future and suggested hope. My first round, so to speak, with American life was over. What I had learned in it remains with me still. No people is so kind to children and no life so easy for the handworkers; the hewers of wood and drawers of water are better off in the United States than anywhere else on earth. To this one class and it is by far the most numerous class, the American democracy more than fulfills its promises. It levels up the lowest in a most surprising way. I believed then with all my heart what so many believe today, that all deductions made, it was on the whole, the best civilization yet known among men. In time, deeper knowledge made me modify this opinion more and more radically. Five years later I was to see Walt Whitman, the noblest of all Americans, living in utter poverty at Camden, dependent upon English admirers for a change of clothes or a sufficiency of food, and Poe had suffered in the same way. Bit by bit the conviction was forced in upon me that if the American democracy does much to level up the lowest class, it is still more successful in leveling down the highest and best. No land on earth is so friendly to the poor illiterate toilers, no land so contemptuous-cold to the thinkers and artists, the guides of humanity. What help is there here for men of letters and artists, for the seers and prophets? Such guides are not wanted by the idle rich and are ignored by the masses, and after all the welfare of the head is more important even than that of the body and feet. What will become of those who stone the prophet? and persecute the teachers? The doom is written in flaming letters on every page of history. * * * LIFE IN CHICAGO! Chapter VI.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  You know, I still feel in my wrists certain echoes of the pram-pusher’s knack, such as, for example, the glib downward pressure one applied to the handle in order to have the carriage tip up and climb the curb. First came an elaborate mouse-gray vehicle of Belgian make, with fat autoid tires and luxurious springs, so large that it could not enter our puny elevator. It rolled on sidewalks in slow stately mystery, with the trapped baby inside lying supine, well covered with down, silk and fur; only his eyes moved, warily, and sometimes they turned upward with one swift sweep of their showy lashes to follow the receding of branch-patterned blueness that flowed away from the edge of the half-cocked hood of the carriage, and presently he would dart a suspicious glance at my face to see if the teasing trees and sky did not belong, perhaps, to the same order of things as did rattles and parental humor. There followed a lighter carriage, and in this, as he spun along, he would tend to rise, straining at his straps; clutching at the edges; standing there less like the groggy passenger of a pleasure boat than like an entranced scientist in a spaceship; surveying the speckled skeins of a live, warm world; eyeing with philosophic interest the pillow he had managed to throw overboard; falling out himself when a strap burst one day. Still later he rode in one of those small contraptions called strollers; from initial springy and secure heights the child came lower and lower, until, when he was about one and a half, he touched ground in front of the moving stroller by slipping forward out of his seat and beating the sidewalk with his heels in anticipation of being set loose in some public garden. A new wave of evolution started to swell, gradually lifting him again from the ground, when, for his second birthday, he received a four-foot-long, silver-painted Mercedes racing car operated by inside pedals, like an organ, and in this he used to drive with a pumping, clanking noise up and down the sidewalk of the Kurfürstendamm while from open windows came the multiplied roar of a dictator still pounding his chest in the Neander valley we had left far behind.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  As no conversation was possible because of Mademoiselle’s deafness, my friend and I decided to bring her next day the appliance which we gathered she could not afford. She adjusted the clumsy thing improperly at first, but no sooner had she done so than she turned to me with a dazzled look of moist wonder and bliss in her eyes. She swore she could hear every word, every murmur of mine. She could not for, having my doubts, I had not spoken. If I had, I would have told her to thank my friend, who had paid for the instrument. Was it, then, silence she heard, that Alpine Silence she had talked about in the past? In that past, she had been lying to herself; now she was lying to me. Before leaving for Basle and Berlin, I happened to be walking along the lake in the cold, misty night. At one spot a lone light dimly diluted the darkness and transformed the mist into a visible drizzle. “Il pleut toujours en Suisse” was one of those casual comments which, formerly, had made Mademoiselle weep. Below, a wide ripple, almost a wave, and something vaguely white attracted my eye. As I came quite close to the lapping water, I saw what it was—an aged swan, a large, uncouth, dodo-like creature, making ridiculous efforts to hoist himself into a moored boat. He could not do it. The heavy, impotent flapping of his wings, their slippery sound against the rocking and plashing boat, the gluey glistening of the dark swell where it caught the light—all seemed for a moment laden with that strange significance which sometimes in dreams is attached to a finger pressed to mute lips and then pointed at something the dreamer has no time to distinguish before waking with a start. But although I soon forgot that dismal night, it was, oddly enough, that night, that compound image—shudder and swan and swell—which first came to my mind when a couple of years later I learned that Mademoiselle had died.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Sometimes she drinks a lot. Her first husband broke her heart, but she quickly married again. “The missionaries lied to us so much about our bodies,” she said, indignantly, “telling us they were dirty and we had to cover them up, and look now who is running about in bikinis on the Riviera, or naked and topless! I had a friend . . .” and she starts another story, like one most of these women tell, of a special woman friend who loved her past explaining. Sweet-faced Emily tells of the militant young comrades in Soweto, their defiance of the old ways, carrying their determination for change into the streets. She demonstrates for us a spirited and high-stepping rendition of their rousing machine-gun dance. She does not like to listen to the other women singing hymns. Emily, who loved her best friend so much she still cannot listen to the records they once enjoyed together, and it is five years already since her friend died. Linda of the hypnotic eyes who was questioned once by the South African police every single day for an entire month. About Zamani Soweto Sisters and subversive activities, such as a tiny ANC flag stitched on the little dead boy’s pocket in the corner of a funeral procession quilt. “The quilts tell stories from our own lives. We did not know it was forbidden to sew the truth, but we will caution the women never to stitch such a thing again. No, thank you, I do not wish to take a cup of tea with you.” I can hear her grave dignity speaking. She finishes the tale with a satisfied laugh. Linda has a nineteen-year-old daughter. The women joke and offer us their daughters to introduce to our sons and nephews in america. No one offers us their sons for our daughters. Mariah lives next door to a famous woman writer in Soweto and offers to carry a letter to her from Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. Posted mail from abroad so often does not reach its destination in Soweto. Round, quick, and with a brilliant smile, Mariah sits near the top of the executive board of Zamani. There is a presence about her of a successful African market woman, sharp, pleasant, outgoing, and awake to every opportunity. Sofia keeps the books. She is quietly watchful and speaks with that soft humor that is shared by many of the women. She lives and sews alone now that her children are grown and gone away. She likes the way Gloria does her hair, and they discuss different hair preparations. Her eyes are encouraging and attentive as she sits and sews with tiny, rhythmical stitches. Vibrant young Etta of the beautiful body dances excitement in our frequent spontaneous dancing. She is also learning to run the film cameras. Etta is always laughing and full of frolic, and some of the older women watch her and shake their heads with that particular Black women’s look.

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  Letters in those days were delivered by hand, and therefore no address was necessary. So, the titles of the New Testament letters are not part of the original letters at all. They were inserted afterwards when the letters were collected and published for all the Church to read. When we study Ephesians closely, we find that it is extremely unlikely that it was written to the church at Ephesus. There are internal reasons for arriving at that conclusion. (i) The letter was written to Gentiles. The recipients were `Gentiles by birth, called "the uncircumcision" by those who are called "the circumcision" . . . at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise' (2:11-12). Paul urges that they ,no longer live as the Gentiles live' (4:17). The fact that they were Gentiles did not of itself mean that the letter could not have been written to Ephesus; but it is something to note. (2) Ephesians is the most impersonal letter Paul ever wrote. It is entirely without personal greetings and without the intimate personal messages of which the other letters are so full. That is doubly surprising when we remember that Paul spent longer in Ephesus than in any other city - no less than three years (Acts 20:31). Further, there is no more intimate and affectionate passage in the whole New Testament than Acts 20:17-35, where we have Paul's farewell talk to the elders of Ephesus, before he left Miletus on his last journey. It is very difficult to believe in the light of all this that Paul would have sent a letter to Ephesus which was so impersonal. (3) The indication of the letter is that Paul and the recipients did not know each other personally and that their knowledge of each other came by hearsay. In Paul writes: `I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus.' The loyalty of the people to whom he was writing was not something he had experienced but something about which he had been told. In 3:2, he writes to them: `For surely you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given to me for you.' That is to say: `Surely you have heard that God gave me the special task and office of being the apostle to Gentiles such as you.' The Church's knowledge of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles was something of which they had heard, but not something which they knew by personal contact with him. So, within itself, the letter bears signs that it does not fit the close and personal relationship which Paul had with the church at Ephesus. These facts might be explained; but there is one external fact which settles the matter. In r:r, none of the great early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament contains the words in Ephesus. They all read: `Paul ... to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus.'

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

  AUGUSTINE. (de Con. Ev. lib. iii. c. 5.) Now Luke says, But Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far; which is what Matthew records, Put thy sword up into its sheath. Nor will it move you as contrary thereto, that Luke says here that our Lord answered, Suffer ye thus far, as if He had so spoken after the blow to shew that what was done had pleased Him so far, but He did not wish it to proceed farther, seeing that in these words which Matthew has given, it may rather be implied that the whole circumstance in which Peter used the sword was displeasing to our Lord. For the truth is, that upon their asking, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? He then answered, Suffer ye thus far, that is, be not troubled with what is about to happen. They must be permitted to advance so far, that is, to take Me, and so to fulfil the things which were written of Me. For he would not say, And Jesus answering, unless He answered this question, not Peter’s deed. But between the delay of their words of question to our Lord and His answer, Peter in the eagerness of defence struck the blow. And two things cannot be said, though one may be said and another may be done, at the same time. Then, as Luke says, He healed him who was struck, as it follows, And he touched his ear, and healed him. BEDE. For the Lord is never forgetful of His lovingkindness. While they are bringing death upon the righteous, He heals the wounds of His persecutors. AMBROSE. The Lord in wiping away the bloody wounds, conveyed thereby a divine mystery, namely, that the servant of the prince of this world, not by the condition of His nature but by guilt, should receive a wound on the ear, for that he had not heard the words of wisdom. Or, by Peter so willingly striking the ear, he taught that he ought not to have a ear outwardly, who had not one in a mystery. But why did Peter do this? Because he especially obtained the power of binding and loosing; therefore by his spiritual sword he takes away the interior ear of him who understandeth not. But the Lord Himself restores the hearing, shewing that even they, if they would turn, might be saved, who inflicted the wounds in our Lord’s Passion; for that all sin may be washed away in the mysteries of faith.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Darkly risen the moon speaks my eyes judging your roundness delightful. from From a Land Where Other People Live (1973) Progress Report These days when you do say hello I am never sure if you are being saucy or experimental or merely protecting some new position. Sometimes you gurgle while asleep and I know tender places still intrigue you. Now when you question me on love shall I recommend a dictionary or myself? You are the child of wind and ravens I created always my daughter I cannot recognize the currents where you swim and dart through my loving upstream to your final place of birth but you never tire of hearing how I crept out of my mother’s house at dawn, with an olive suitcase crammed with books and fraudulent letters and an unplayed guitar. Sometimes I see myself flash through your eyes in a moment caught between history and obedience that moment grows each day before you comply as, when did washing dishes change from privilege to chore? I watch the hollows deepen above your hips and wonder if I have taught you Black enough until I see all kinds of loving still intrigue you as you grow more and more dark rude and tender and unfraid. What you took for granted once you now refuse to take at all even I knock before I enter the shoals of furious choices not my own that flood through your secret reading nightly, under cover. I have not yet seen you, but I hear the pages rustle from behind closed doors.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Who pays his crops to the sun When the fields are parched by drought Will mourn the lost water while waiting another rain. But who shall dis-inter these girls To love the women they were to become Or read the legends written beneath their skin? Those who loved them remember their child’s laughter. But he whose hate has robbed him of their good Has yet to weep at night above their graves. Years roll out and rain shall come again. But however many girls be brought to sun Someday A man will thirst for sleep in his southern night Seeking his peace where no peace is And come to mourn these children Given to the dust. A Lover’s Song Give me fire and I will sing you morning Finding you heart And a birth of fruit For you, a flame that will stay beauty Song will take us by the hand And lead us back to light. Give me fire and I will sing you evening Asking you water And quick breath No farewell winds like a willow switch Against my body But a voice to speak In a dark room. Suspension We entered silence Before the clock struck Red wine is caught between the crystal And your fingers The air solidifys around your mouth. Once-wind has sucked the curtains in Like fright, against the evening wall Prepared for storm ​ Before the room Exhales ​ Your lips unfold. Within their sudden opening I hear the clock Begin to speak again. I remember now, with the filled crystal Shattered, the wind-whipped curtains Bound, and the cold storm Finally broken, How the room felt When your word was spoken— Warm As the center of your palms And as unfree. from Cables to Rage (1970) for Elizabeth and Jonno my presents Rooming houses are old women Rooming houses are old women rocking dark windows into their whens waiting incomplete circles rocking rent office to stoop to community bathrooms to gas rings and under-bed boxes of once useful garbage city issued with a twice-a-month check the young men next door with their loud midnight parties and fishy rings left in the bathtub no longer arouse them from midnight to mealtime no stops inbetween light breaking to pass through jumbled up windows and who was it who married the widow that Buzzie’s son messed with?