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 82 of 145 · 20 per page

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  It fell to the linoleum, slumped into its tail. I was going to be fired, I thought. But instead, when I told Paul I had no choice but to work less, he asked if this meant I was giving notice. If you’re quitting on me, you little shit, I’ll have your balls, he said. I’ll wrap them up like quail eggs. I’ll tie on a blue ribbon to match, I’ll send them compliments of Paul Conti to— No, I just need to cut down my hours. I’ll find someone to fill in. More insults followed, but he sounded tired, listless, as though forced to recite old lines. Christ, all right, he said, as long as he didn’t notice the change. Once home, I pulled out a bottle of gin. I finished the first glass, and I was pouring a second when I heard the rush of footsteps. Phoebe swept in, jingling the keys I’d had copied. She held a paint-striped mask; a floor-length cape swung and trailed around her legs. I’ve come straight from a costume party, she said. In Liesl’s suite. It was so hot, but I kept the mask on until I left. I think I should get a prize. No one except Julian could figure out who I was. What did you tell them? That I’m the queen of Tajikistan. I abdicated the throne to enroll here. Tajikistan, I said. I don’t think it has a queen. Will, that’s my point. She’d brought an opened bottle of champagne, which she tipped into the nearest cup. Froth dribbled onto the torn gold label. That’s for you, she said, unzipping salt-stained boots. She kissed me, tongue flickering in my mouth. With a laugh, she broke free. I was talking in a big circle of people, she said. But then, I thought, What the hell am I doing? I want to be with Will. She listed, taking a half-spin. I helped Phoebe lie down. I forgot to be careful. She asked what I was up to, and I said, I’m celebrating. I’ve settled the problem with the restaurant: I found a solution Paul can live with— What restaurant? Who’s Paul? Even then, I still could have fixed the mistake. But in the low-wattage lamplight, Phoebe’s face was shining. It floated like a reflection, detached, the pale, thin shape I knew as I did my own. I’m tired of lying, I said. I explained about Paul. I waited tables at a place called Michelangelo’s. Each time I claimed to be in a library carrel, I’d had to go to the restaurant. I didn’t have a carrel. I studied at home. She’d known about my mother’s illness, the pills; I’d told Phoebe my father left us while I was on a mission trip to Beijing, but now I outlined what had followed. The financial problems. Debt; going bankrupt. Double-shift nights. The profound shame of owing money in a small town.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  7 “If there is a poor man among you, one of your fellow Israelites, in d any of your cities in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not e be heartless, nor f close-fisted with your poor brother; 8 but you shall freely open your hand to him, and shall generously lend to him g whatever he needs. 9 “Beware that there is no wicked thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release (remission, pardon), is approaching,’ and your eye is hostile (unsympathetic) toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing [since he would not have to repay you]; for he may cry out to the LORD against you, and it will become a sin for you. 10 “You shall freely and generously give to him, and your heart shall not be resentful when you give to him, because for this [generous] thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings. 11 “For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor in your land.’ 12 “If your fellow Israelite, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you shall set him free [from your service]. 13 “When you set him free, you shall not let him go away empty-handed. 14 “You shall give him generous provisions from your flock, from your threshing floor and from your wine press; you shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. 15 “And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were [once] a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you these things today. 16 “Now if the servant says to you, ‘I will not leave you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is doing well with you; 17 then take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall [willingly] be your servant always. Also you shall do the same for your maidservant. [Ex 21:6 ] 18 “It shall not seem hard to you when you set him free, for he has served you six years with double the service of a hired man; so the LORD your God will bless you in everything you do. 19 “You shall consecrate (set apart) to the LORD your God all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock. You shall not work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. 20 “You and your household shall eat it every year before the LORD your God in the place [for worship] which the LORD chooses.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Tame, and nasty with it: like most such fellows, when you come up against 'em." "And do you think you're not tame?" "Maybe not quite!" At length she saw in the distance a yellow light. She stood still. "There is a light?" she said. "I always leave a light in the house," he said. She went on again at his side, but not touching him, wondering why she was going with him at all. He unlocked, and they went in, he bolting the door behind them. As if it were a prison, she thought! The kettle was singing by the red fire, there were cups on the table. She sat in the wooden armchair by the fire. It was warm after the chill outside. "I'll take off my shoes, they are wet," she said. She sat with her stockinged feet on the bright steel fender. He went to the pantry, bringing food: bread and butter and pressed tongue. She was warm: she took off her coat. He hung it on the door. "Shall you have cocoa or tea or coffee to drink?" he asked. "I don't think I want anything," she said, looking at the table. "But you eat." "Nay, I don't care about it. I'll just feed the dog." He tramped with a quiet inevitability over the brick floor, putting food for the dog in a brown bowl. The spaniel looked up at him anxiously. "Ay, this is thy supper, tha nedna look as if tha wouldna get it!" he said. He set the bowl on the stairfoot mat, and sat himself on a chair by the wall, to take off his leggings and boots. The dog, instead of eating, came to him again, and sat looking up at him, troubled. He slowly unbuckled his leggings. The dog edged a little nearer. "What's amiss wi' thee then? Art upset because there's somebody else here? Tha'rt a female, tha art! Go an' eat thy supper." He put his hand on her head, and the bitch leaned her head sideways against him. He slowly, softly pulled the long silky ear. "There!" he said. "There! Go an' eat thy supper! Go!" He tilted his chair towards the pot on the mat, and the dog meekly went, and fell to eating. "Do you like dogs?" Connie asked him. "No, not really. They're too tame and clinging." He had taken off his leggings and was unlacing his heavy boots. Connie had turned from the fire. How bare the little room was! Yet over his head on the wall hung a hideous enlarged photograph of a young married couple, apparently him and a bold-faced young woman, no doubt his wife. "Is that you?" Connie asked him. He twisted and looked at the enlargement above his head. "Ay! Taken just afore we was married, when I was twenty-one." He looked at it impassively. "Do you like it?" Connie asked him.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "_I_ do! Because I've suffered more from them. In the abstract, I've no idea. When I get with a Lesbian woman, whether she knows she's one or not, I see red. No, no! But I wanted to have nothing to do with any woman any more. I wanted to keep to myself: keep my privacy and my decency." He looked pale, and his brows were sombre. "And were you sorry when I came along?" she asked. "I was sorry and I was glad." "And what are you now?" "I'm sorry, from the outside: all the complications and the ugliness and recrimination that's bound to come, sooner or later. That's when my blood sinks, and I'm low. But when my blood comes up, I'm glad. I'm even triumphant. I was really getting bitter. I thought there was no real sex left: never a woman who'd really 'come' naturally with a man: except black women, and somehow, well, we're white men: and they're a bit like mud." "And now, are you glad of me?" she asked. "Yes! When I can forget the rest. When I can't forget the rest, I want to get under the table and die." "Why under the table?" "Why?" he laughed. "Hide, I suppose. Baby!" "You do seem to have had awful experiences of women," she said. "You see, I couldn't fool myself. That's where most men manage. They take an attitude, and accept a lie. I could never fool myself. I knew what I wanted with a woman, and I could never say I'd got it when I hadn't." "But have you got it now?" "Looks as if I might have." "Then why are you so pale and gloomy?" "Bellyful of remembering: and perhaps afraid of myself." She sat in silence. It was growing late. "And you do think it's important, a man and a woman?" she asked him. "For me it is. For me it's the core to my life: if I have a right relation with a woman." "And if you didn't get it?" "Then I'd have to do without." Again she pondered, before she asked: "And do you think you've always been right with women?" "God, no! I let my wife get to what she was: my fault a good deal. I spoilt her. And I'm very mistrustful. You'll have to expect it. It takes a lot to make me trust anybody, inwardly. So perhaps I'm a fraud too. I mistrust. And tenderness is not to be mistaken." She looked at him. "You don't mistrust with your body, when your blood comes up," she said. "You don't mistrust then, do you?" "No, alas! That's how I've got into all the trouble. And that's why my mind mistrusts so thoroughly." "Let your mind mistrust. What does it matter!" The dog sighed with discomfort on the mat. The ash-clogged fire sank. "We _are_ a couple of battered warriors," said Connie. "Are you battered too?" he laughed. "And here we are returning to the fray!"

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She slipped out of the room again, and up to the blue boudoir on the first floor. She sat in the window, and saw him go down the drive, with his curious, silent motion, effaced. He had a natural sort of quiet distinction, an aloof pride, and also a certain look of frailty. A hireling! One of Clifford's hirelings! "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." Was he an underling? Was he? What did he think of _her_? It was a sunny day, and Connie was working in the garden, and Mrs. Bolton was helping her. For some reason, the two women had drawn together, in one of the unaccountable flows and ebbs of sympathy that exist between people. They were pegging down carnations, and putting in small plants for the summer. It was work they both liked. Connie especially felt a delight in putting the soft roots of young plants into a soft black puddle, and cradling them down. On this spring morning she felt a quiver in her womb too, as if the sunshine had touched it and made it happy. "It is many years since you lost your husband?" she said to Mrs. Bolton, as she took up another little plant and laid it in its hole. "Twenty-three!" said Mrs. Bolton, as she carefully separated the young columbines into single plants. "Twenty-three years since they brought him home." Connie's heart gave a lurch, at the terrible finality of it. "Brought him home!" "Why did he get killed, do you think?" she asked. "He was happy with you?" It was a woman's question to a woman. Mrs. Bolton put aside a strand of hair from her face, with the back of her hand. "I don't know, my Lady! He sort of wouldn't give in to things: he wouldn't really go with the rest. And then he hated ducking his head for anything on earth. A sort of obstinacy, that _gets_ itself killed. You see he didn't really care. I lay it down to the pit. He ought never to have been down pit. But his dad made him go down, as a lad; and then, when you're over twenty, it's not very easy to come out." "Did he say he hated it?"

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  9 Do not complain against one another, believers, so that you will not be judged [for it]. Look! The Judge is standing b right at the door. 10 As an example, brothers and sisters, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord [as His messengers and representatives]. 11 You know we call those blessed [happy, spiritually prosperous, favored by God] who were steadfast and endured [difficult circumstances]. You have heard of the patient endurance of Job and you have seen the Lord’s outcome [how He richly blessed Job]. The Lord is full of compassion and is merciful. [Job 1:21 , 22 ; 42:10 ; Ps 111:4 ] 12 But above all, my fellow believers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but let your yes be [a truthful] yes, and your no be [a truthful] no, so that you may not fall under judgment. [Matt 5:34–37 ] 13 Is anyone among you suffering? He must pray. Is anyone joyful? He is to sing praises [to God]. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He must call for the elders (spiritual leaders) of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with c oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another [your false steps, your offenses], and pray for one another, that you may be healed and restored. The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) can accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God—it is dynamic and can have tremendous power]. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours [with the same physical, mental, and spiritual limitations and shortcomings], and he prayed d intensely for it not to rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. [1 Kin 17:1 ] 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its crops [as usual]. [1 Kin 18:42–45 ] 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you strays from the truth and falls into error and [another] one turns him back [to God], 20 let the [latter] one know that the one who has turned a sinner from the error of his way will save that one’s soul from death and cover a multitude of sins [that is, obtain the pardon of the many sins committed by the one who has been restored]. James 1 a 1:1 James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, was the half brother of Jesus. He became a believer after the resurrection of Jesus and was later martyred for his faith. b 1:2 Lit brethren . c 1:11 Lit the beauty of its face perishes . d 1:17 Lit of turning .

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Was it horrid for you?" she asked, as she sat opposite him at table. He was too thin; she saw it now. His hand lay as she knew it, with that curious loose forgottenness of a sleeping animal. She wanted so much to take it and kiss it. But she did not quite dare. "People are always horrid," he said. "And did you mind very much?" "I minded, as I always shall mind. And I knew I was a fool to mind." "Did you feel like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail? Clifford said you felt like that." He looked at her. It was cruel of her at that moment: for his pride had suffered bitterly. "I suppose I did," he said. She never knew the fierce bitterness with which he resented insult. There was a long pause. "And did you miss me?" she asked. "I was glad you were out of it." Again there was a pause. "But did people _believe_ about you and me?" she asked. "No! I don't think so for a moment." "Did Clifford?" "I should say not. He put it off without thinking about it. But naturally it made him want to see the last of me." "I'm going to have a child." The expression died utterly out of his face, out of his whole body. He looked at her with darkened eyes, whose look she could not understand at all: like some dark-flamed spirit looking at her. "Say you're glad!" she pleaded, groping for his hand. And she saw a certain exultance spring up in him. But it was netted down by things she could not understand. "It's the future," he said. "But aren't you glad?" she persisted. "I have such a terrible mistrust of the future." "But you needn't be troubled by any responsibility. Clifford would have it as his own, he'd be glad." She saw him go pale, and recoil under this. He did not answer. "Shall I go back to Clifford, and put a little baronet into Wragby?" she asked. He looked at her, pale and very remote. The ugly little grin flickered on his face. "You wouldn't have to tell him who the father was." "Oh!" she said; "he'd take it even then, if I wanted him to." He thought for a time. "Ay!" he said at last, to himself. "I suppose he would." There was silence. A big gulf was between them. "But you don't want me to go back to Clifford, do you?" she asked him. "What do you want yourself?" he replied. "I want to live with you," she said simply. In spite of himself, little flames ran over his belly as he heard her say it, and he dropped his head. Then he looked up at her again, with those haunted eyes. "If it's worth it to you," he said. "I've got nothing." "You've got more than most men. Come, you know it," she said.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Hands full, I picked a path through the paint- stained, strewn bodies of Liesl’s cast. It was the play’s final night. In ripped tulle, howling, actors had flitted across the blacklit stage. They pelted the back wall with vines, then fell in piles. I still wasn’t sure what I’d seen; when I asked Julian if he could fill me in, he whispered, Believe me, it’s my third time watching this, oh, exhibit, and I’ve quit raising questions. I’ve filed it with all the world’s riddles that lack solutions. What’s life, and so forth. I sat down with Julian and his friend again. Liesl lifted a mottled face, the veil lopsided. I adore you, she said, taking the glass. She leaned forward; when she settled back, the costume slipped to the side. Panties showed: a strip of cloth, flashing red. Julian readjusted the lace rags. Underpants, angel, he said. She laughed, jolting the drink. Jules, tell Phoebe about the time we dressed up the Hale statue, she said. Oh, Christ, the— Catgut! They both doubled up, barely able to talk. In high school, they gasped. It was a stunt they’d pulled. This recollection led to others, old tales, boarding-school hijinks, but it was all right. I laughed along. Julian, tired, slid down, leaning his head on my thigh. I kissed the white line of his part. I’d wait. If for a short while, Julian had split himself open. Now pain, like light, leaked through his cracked surface. Within days, he’d tell me about the brother who died before he was born. I can’t live up to him, he’d explain. He’s the ideal, this ghoul sibling. Since I exist, I can’t help upsetting them. Liesl licked spilled alcohol from the back of a hand, and I thought of the whine she’d used to tell Julian she wanted a drink, the expectation that he, a man, would hop to her bidding. I once heard him ask Liesl where she learned to manipulate men. Stepfathers, plural, she told him, lifting one side of a thin-lipped mouth as though it were a joke. I hadn’t talked much with Liesl, but I would: in time, she’d confide in me, as well. The dad she’d idolized, who left; the men like beads on the string of a furious mother’s life. The anorexic spells. She’d been locked up in a clinic. Obliged to eat, to weigh in. Like a pig for the kill, she said. – I kept listening. Often, at parties, I could be found in the kitchen, a back porch, eliciting still more troubles. If people cried, I held damp hands. With the squash recruit, too; the ball-pit poet, the flautist; Tim, then Phil, it wasn’t lust. Plain lust, I’d have respected. Instead, I craved the postcoital talks, the truths told in bed. I ate pain. I swilled tears. If I could take enough in, I’d have no space left to fit my own.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  17 Show respect for all people [treat them honorably], love the brotherhood [of believers], fear God, honor the king. 18 e Servants, be submissive to your masters with all [proper] respect, not only to those who are good and kind, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if a person endures the sorrow of suffering unjustly because of an f awareness of [the will of] God. 20 After all, what kind of credit is there if, when you do wrong and are punished for it, you endure it patiently? But if when you do what is right and patiently bear [undeserved] suffering, this finds favor with God. Christ Is Our Example 21 For [as a believer] you have been called for this purpose, since Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you may follow in His footsteps. 22 HE COMMITTED NO SIN , NOR WAS DECEIT EVER FOUND IN HIS MOUTH . [Is 53:9 ] 23 While being reviled and insulted, He did not revile or insult in return; while suffering, He made no threats [of vengeance], but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges fairly. 24 He personally carried our sins in His body on the g cross [willingly offering Himself on it, as on an altar of sacrifice], so that we might die to sin [becoming immune from the penalty and power of sin] and live for righteousness; for by His wounds you [who believe] have been h healed. 25 For you were continually wandering like [so many] sheep, but now you have come back to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. [Is 53:5 , 6 ] 1 Peter 3 Godly Living 1 I N THE same way, you wives, be a submissive to your own husbands [subordinate, not as inferior, but out of respect for the responsibilities entrusted to husbands and their accountability to God, and so partnering with them] so that even if some do not obey the word [of God], they may be won over [to Christ] without discussion by the godly lives of their wives, [Eph 5:22 ] 2 when they see your modest and respectful behavior [together with your devotion and appreciation—love your husband, encourage him, and enjoy him as a blessing from God]. 3 Your adornment must not be merely external—with interweaving and elaborate knotting of the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or [being superficially preoccupied with] dressing in expensive clothes; 4 but let it be [the inner beauty of] the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality and unfading charm of a gentle and peaceful spirit, [one that is calm and self-controlled, not overanxious, but serene and spiritually mature] which is very precious in the sight of God.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Still panting with their exertions, each wrapped in an army blanket, but the front of the body open to the fire, they sat on a log side by side before the blaze, to get quiet. Connie hated the feel of the blanket against her skin. But now the sheet was all wet. She dropped her blanket and kneeled on the clay hearth, holding her head to the fire, and shaking her hair to dry it. He watched the beautiful curving drop of her haunches. That fascinated him today. How it sloped with a rich downslope to the heavy roundness of her buttocks! And in between, folded in the secret warmth, the secret entrances! He stroked her tail with his hand, long and subtly taking in the curves and the globe-fulness. "Tha's got such a nice tail on thee," he said, in the throaty caressive dialect. "Tha's got the nicest arse of anybody. It's the nicest, nicest woman's arse as is! An' ivry bit of it is woman, woman sure as nuts. Tha'rt not one o' them button-arsed lasses as should be lads, are ter! Tha's got a real soft sloping bottom on thee, as a man loves in 'is guts. It's a bottom as could hold the world up, it is." All the while he spoke he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hands. And his fingertips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire. "An' if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman as couldna shit nor piss." Connie could not help a sudden snort of astonished laughter, but he went on unmoved. "Tha'rt real, tha art! Tha'rt real, even a bit of a bitch. Here tha shits an' here tha pisses: an' I lay my hand on 'em both an' like thee for it. I like thee for it. Tha's got a proper, woman's arse, proud of itself. It's none ashamed of itself, this isna." He laid his hand close and firm over her secret places, in a kind of close greeting. "I like it," he said. "I like it! An' if I only lived ten minutes, an' stroked thy arse an' got to know it, I should reckon I'd lived _one_ life, sees ter! Industrial system or not! Here's one o' my lifetimes." She turned round and climbed into his lap, clinging to him. "Kiss me!" she whispered. And she knew the thought of their separation was latent in both their minds, and at last she was sad.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I wished I could ask how he’d survived giving up so much. But in general, he avoided talking about life as a Christian. He’d joke; otherwise, he pushed it to the side. With me, too, once I told him about my mother’s death, he shied from bringing it up. It was like high school, after the crash, when even close friends had failed to ask about it: afraid, I think, to remind me I was grieving. They hadn’t known it wasn’t possible, since I didn’t, at any point, forget. Instead, Will hustled. He strove. It felt as though, having lost the infinite, he couldn’t waste what little time he had. On piled Post-its, to-do lists proliferated. He brushed his teeth while underlining Plotinus. If he had to watch a film for class, he fit in dumbbell lifts, as well. He walked fast, then studied past dawn. But he also slowed his pace to mine. During the college tricentennial parade, while people with blue flags pushed down Whiting Street, he kept his arm circling my shoulders, firm, so that I wouldn’t be carried away from him. Unlike most of my Edwards friends, he could be depended upon. If he said he’d do something, he did it; if he promised to meet me at a specific time, he was there. He liked to help. To fix. The tap dripped in my suite bathroom. I said I’d call the Edwards service line, but Will, wielding pliers, solved it first. He’d been an Eagle Scout. Still am, he said. He’d kitted out a survival go-bag with basic supplies, stashing it beneath his bed: iodine tablets, a wind-up flashlight. Rubbing alcohol. Packs of food. Within a month, he zipped provisions in for me, as well. But I still didn’t feel, or want, as he did. When we did start having sex—less, perhaps, because I wanted to, than to please him—he often slept with a hand cupping my head, as if to protect me from bad dreams. In his tranquil face, I could picture the stolid kid he’d have been, reliable, walking to his bedridden mother with a glass full of milk—

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  5 Then the sons of Israel said, “Which one from all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the LORD ?” For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the LORD at Mizpah, saying, “He shall certainly be put to death.” 6 And the sons of Israel felt sorry [and had compassion] for their brother Benjamin and said, “One tribe has been cut off from Israel today. 7 “What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn [an oath] by the LORD that we will not give them any of our daughters as wives?” Provision for Their Survival 8 And they said, “Which one is there of the tribes from Israel that did not come up to Mizpah to the LORD ?” And behold, [it was discovered that] no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly. 9 For when the people were assembled, behold, there was not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead there. 10 And the congregation sent twelve thousand of the most courageous men there, and commanded them saying, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the sword, including the women and the children. 11 “And this is the thing that you shall do; you shall utterly destroy every male and every woman who a is not a virgin.” 12 And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had not known a man intimately; and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan. 13 Then the whole congregation sent word to the [surviving] sons of Benjamin who were at the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace to them. 14 So [the survivors of] Benjamin returned at that time, and they gave them the women whom they had kept alive from the women of Jabesh-gilead; but there were not enough [to provide wives] for them. 15 And the people were sorry [and had compassion] for [the survivors of the tribe of] Benjamin because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. 16 Then the elders of the congregation said, “What shall we do for wives for those [men] who are left, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed?” 17 They said, “There must be an inheritance for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe will not be wiped out from Israel.

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

  Thessalonica,1135 a large and wealthy commercial city of Macedonia, the capital of "Macedonia secunda," the seat of a Roman proconsul and quaestor, and inhabited by many Jews, was visited by Paul on his second missionary tour, A.D. 52 or 53, and in a few weeks he succeeded, amid much persecution, in founding a flourishing church composed chiefly of Gentiles. From this centre Christianity spread throughout the neighborhood, and during the middle ages Thessalonica was, till its capture by the Turks (A.D. 1430), a bulwark of the Byzantine empire and Oriental Christendom, and largely instrumental in the conversion of the Slavonians and Bulgarians; hence it received the designation of "the Orthodox City." It numbered many learned archbishops, and still has more remains of ecclesiastical antiquity than any other city in Greece, although its cathedral is turned into a mosque. To this church Paul, as its spiritual father, full of affection for his inexperienced children, wrote in familiar conversational style two letters from Corinth, during his first sojourn in that city, to comfort them in their trials and to correct certain misapprehensions of his preaching concerning the glorious return of Christ, and the preceding development of "the man of sin" or Antichrist, and "the mystery of lawlessness," then already at work, but checked by a restraining power. The hope of the near advent had degenerated into an enthusiastic adventism which demoralized the every-day life. He now taught them that the Lord will not come so soon as they expected, that it was not a matter of mathematical calculation, and that in no case should the expectation check industry and zeal, but rather stimulate them. Hence his exhortations to a sober, orderly, diligent, and prayerful life. It is remarkable that the first Epistles of Paul should treat of the last topic in the theological system and anticipate the end at the beginning. But the hope of Christ’s speedy coming was, before the destruction of Jerusalem, the greatest source of consolation to the infant church amid trial and persecution, and the church at Thessalonica was severely tried in its infancy, and Paul driven away. It is also remarkable that to a young church in Greece rather than to that in Rome should have first been revealed the beginning of that mystery of anti-Christian lawlessness which was then still restrained, but was to break out in its full force in Rome.1136 The objections of Baur to the genuineness of these Epistles, especially the second, are futile in the judgment of the best critics.1137 The Theoretical Theme:: The parousia of Christ. The Practical Theme: Christian hope in the midst of persecution.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  It was late, almost morning. I left the bed when a man behind the partition began yelling. I was still in the previous night’s clothes, though with ankle-length hospital socks covering my feet. Torn tights chafed my crotch. I walked the half-mile home, the sidewalk cold through thin fabric. Mica specks, like felled stars, prickled the stone. But most of it was filth. I avoided broken glass, ripped foil bags. Slicks of fresh dog shit. I picked each step through trash. The sun was rising. I hadn’t been allowed outside, when I was a child, without putting on sun lotion. My mother’s light, cool hands patted protective liquid on my face. She fastened a wide-brim hat beneath my chin, tying the ribbons in a firm knot, loops aligned. Such pains she’d taken, for the little I’d since become. 10.WILLI stayed the night with Phoebe. In the morning, I watched as she slept, netted in white sheets. Nostrils flared with each long inhale. Pearl studs glinted at slim earlobes. Minute, fish-scale veins patterned Phoebe’s eyelids in faint blue. The birthmark speckling a left clavicle, slight indents at both temples—from the start, I wanted Phoebe memorized. In the old-gold light of morning, I had the idea she might have been a wild sea-creature who’d washed onshore, luck’s gift, legs tucked like a mermaid’s tail. I learned to swim before I could walk, she’d said. But I was so involved with the piano, I went three years without using my own pool. It was still early, not quite six. I waited as long as I could; at last, I tried shaking Phoebe awake, but she rolled toward the wall. – I left Platt Hall as a drunk slouched past, the label on his bottle dissolving. I wished he’d solicit cash; in the mood I was in, spilling with goodwill, I’d have relished giving him something. If I’d been riding the bus, I’d have looked around to find a person who could use my seat. Instead, I thought to check my phone, and I saw I’d missed a call. I listened to the message my mother had left: the station-wagon engine had died. In the shop, she’d learned that fixing it would cost hundreds of dollars. While she could enlist a church friend to provide rides to and from work, they lived on opposite sides of town. She needed the engine fixed as soon as possible. When I knew she’d be up, I called. I don’t have the money, not yet, but I’ll figure it out, I promised.

• From Hot Rods: Gay Erotic Stories (2011)

  You are inside him. Call him beautiful. Call him things like: My baby. Sweet baby. Say: “You’re my beautiful boy.” Tell him how much you love being inside him. That his smooth, sweet body is yours now. He is thirty-four and you’re in your mid-forties. You are ten years older than him. He has never been anyone’s boy before, but it’s as if he’s been waiting all this time for someone like you. Be his Daddy. Listen when he tells you that he’s usually the top. “I’m always the one who fucks,” he says. So you say: “Do you like it this way now?” Say: “My boy.” He is on his back and you are inside him and he looks calmer and more content that he’s ever been. You’ve known him for three weeks, though it feels like longer. He’s a DJ. He is tall and skinny and Latin brown. You like tall skinny men. You like tall skinny men with long hair. You met him at an exhibition of a friend of yours, a woman painter who’s been doing a series of pieces about the London clubbing scene. Your boy sat for her with his long brown hair that falls halfway down his back, and his thick metal earrings and his shirt off, a life-sized swallow on his chest. If a dozen things were different he’d look like James Dean; he has the same wild, wiry energy in the painting and in life. Tell him he is beautiful. Tell him how peaceful he looks. Wonder if this calmness that you bring him is not too confusing, a result, perhaps, of your need to control him. You have been known to want to control. You are not unlike so many of us who have grown up unloved. You are not part of the clubbing scene. Your shiatsu guy says you should go dancing twice a week. “Even in your own living room,” he says. “Get more movement into your body.” He says you’ve got huge muscle mass but it’s become stagnant. “Stagnation,” he says, “is a word they use a lot in shiatsu.” And you think, as you go in and out of your boy, making him happy, that this must be the perfect movement, the perfect flowing gesture, this back and forth, this gentle back and forth in and out of another human being—it must be the most soothing and crazy-making…just fucking crazy-making…to have part of your body enter the body of another human being—so you turn him onto his side. Now hold him from behind. Hold him close to you. Your boy against his Daddy. Press your stomach to his back. Don’t move. Feel the bulk of your stomach against the concave of his smooth slim back, then start that gentle back and forth again. Say: “Is that nice?” Say: “Can I keep fucking you like this?” And he says, because he is a man who is Latin: “Make love to me, papi.

• From Hot Rods: Gay Erotic Stories (2011)

  I want you to make love to me.” For a moment, think that these words might scare you into softening, that too much tenderness might put you off, but the desperation and hunger in his voice keep you hard and make you enfold him and raise him up, and yourself, onto all fours so his hands are on the wall behind the bed and you are holding him, spooning, Big C against little c, the opening of quotation marks. Say: “You’re my baby. My beautiful, beautiful baby.” And he says, yes, he says, yes, he says: “Make love to me.” You think he might cry. You cannot see his face, but you know his eyes are closed and he is easing himself into this newfound role, this place he has not been to before. Say: “Why did you come up to me at the exhibition?” Say: “What made you talk to me?” Smile when he says: “You talked to me.” You like being bigger and older. You like it when he calls you “Mister Professor.” You like that his whole body fits into yours, like a Russian doll. You are his shell and his flesh. He is skin and bone and you love it. He is everything you wanted to be at his age. Think of envy and the number of times you have seduced men you’ve wanted to be. Tall skinny men; men, admit it, with zero percent body fat. Muscles are not important to you. Be glad. Enjoy his body. Enjoy the way your boy pushes himself back into you so that you can go deeper. Go deeper. Fold your arms around his chest and pull him to you. Roll onto your back and carry him with you so that he lies with his back against your chest, his long brown hair falling into your face. Let it fall. Thrust into him. You like that word: Thrust. You like words like shove and ram and bang. Say these words to him, or think them. Think about banging and thrusting and slamming into him. And do it. Lift his body, lift his whole body with your body and push into him with each upward movement, and as you come back onto the bed pull him against you. Keep your arms around him. Tell him: “Arch your back,” so that he can press against you, draw you deeper into him. You have been told that you are good at this. There are men who call you especially for this, who fall in love with you just because you can do this to them: make them feel like your boy. Think about your parents and about lovemaking. You were never a Daddy before your father died. You were the age your boy is now when you lost him. It’s been ten years since the death of your father. Don’t feel guilty about these thoughts. It’s just a game, this thing between you and your boy.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He looked up at her with the full glance that saw everything, registered everything. At the same time, the infant crying in the night was crying out of his breast to her in a way that affected her very womb. "It's awfully nice of you to think of me," he said laconically. "Why shouldn't I think of you?" she exclaimed with hardly breath to utter it. He gave the wry, quick hiss of a laugh. "Oh, in that way!... May I hold your hand for a minute?" he asked suddenly, fixing his eyes on her with almost hypnotic power, and sending out an appeal that affected her direct in the womb. She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly dim and dazed, looking down in a sort of amazement at the rather tender nape of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning dismay, she could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless nape of his neck, and he trembled with a deep shudder. Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his full, glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it. From her breast flowed the answering, immense yearning over him; she must give him anything, anything. He was a curious and very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, trembling uncontrollably, and yet at the same time detached, aware, aware of every sound outside. To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still, quite still. Then, with dim, compassionate fingers, she stroked his head, that lay on her breast. When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, in their suède slippers and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire. "And now, I suppose you'll hate me!" he said in a quiet, inevitable way. She looked up at him quickly. "Why should I?" she asked. "They mostly do," he said; then he caught himself up. "I mean ... a woman is supposed to." "This is the last moment when I ought to hate you," she said resentfully. "I know! I know! It should be so! You're _frightfully_ good to me...." he cried miserably. She wondered why he should be miserable. "Won't you sit down again?" she said. He glanced at the door.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  My phone died, she said. I didn’t notice it until a minute ago. Hope rose, then fell. While she hung her coat and pashmina, I took a long, sustaining swig of tonic-splashed gin. The plaid skirt twitched on Phoebe’s thighs, brass buttons gleaming. The phone had tolled through its full five rings before it prompted me to leave a message, which meant it had been on. If it hadn’t, the phone would have shunted me to Phoebe’s voicemail with just one ring. No, each time I called, the phone had vibrated. She’d pulled it out, seen Will, and put it back in the bag. I was able to see what she’d done, in such detail that I knew it had to be true. When I could, I asked how she’d gotten home. I drove, she said. I, well, John Leal did. I was too tired. I’ll make tea. Do you want anything? Getting up, I went to the sink. I’ll do it, she said, but she hesitated, then sat. I filled the kettle. From the cupboard, I took down the aged puerh I’d bought in Beijing’s tea bazaar, a labyrinth I’d spent hours roving, intent on finding what she’d like best. It’s the king of teas, the merchant had explained, pouring me a sample cup. Unable to decide, I’d tried so much tea I’d had to piss outside, behind the building. I broke off a piece. I crumbled it into the mesh basket. Puerh leaves unfurled, like relaxing fists. You should have something, she said. I don’t want tea. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten. I hadn’t, I realized. In a panic, I’d failed to eat since morning. She could tell, by looking at me, if I needed to eat. I took Phoebe the cup. She leaned into my side. With an arm swathed in cashmere, the soft fibers prickling, she pulled me close. My breathing slowed. Once, not long ago, she’d pointed to a picture on Julian’s wall, a child with his arms flung out. Posed like a kite, she’d said. A kite, I repeated, the word unrolling a tableau of blanched sand. Heat. Light. Surfboards gliding, iridescent; swimmers beaded with sea foam. Harlequin kites spooled high, lolloping toward the sun. In that childhood photo, I couldn’t avoid noticing a crucifixion pose, while she saw—a kite. I’d loved Phoebe’s pagan mind, unpolluted with His blood. Phoebe, forgive me, I should have said, help me, but then she shifted to drink the puerh. Let go, I moved to sit at the table, a tall vase of white phlox dividing us. She inhaled steam. Wire hangers, I said. What?

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

  These prefaces excel alike in brevity, taste, and tact, but with this characteristic difference: the Evangelist modestly withholds his name and writes in the pure interest of truth a record of the gospel of peace for the spiritual welfare of all men; while the great pagan historians are inspired by love of glory, and aim to immortalize the destructive wars and feuds of Greeks and barbarians. Contents of the Gospel of Luke. After a historiographic preface, Luke gives us: first a history of the birth and infancy of John the Baptist and Jesus, from Hebrew sources, with an incident from the boyhood of the Saviour (Luke 1 and 2). Then he unfolds the history of the public ministry in chronological order from the baptism in the Jordan to the resurrection and ascension. We need only point out those facts and discourses which are not found in the other Gospels and which complete the Synoptic history at the beginning, middle, and end of the life of our Lord.1003 Luke supplies the following sections: I. In the history of the Infancy of John and Christ: The appearance of the angel of the Lord to Zacharias in the temple announcing the birth of John, Luke 1:5–25. The annunciation of the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary, 1:26–38. The visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth; the salutation of Elizabeth, 1:39–45. The Magnificat of the Virgin Mary, 1:46–56. The birth of John the Baptist, 1:57–66. The Benedictus of Zacharias, 1:67–80. The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, 2:1–7. The appearance of the angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem, and the "Gloria in excelsis," 2:8–20. The circumcision of Jesus, and his presentation in the Temple, 2:21–38. The visit of Jesus in his twelfth year to the passover in Jerusalem, and his conversation with the Jewish doctors in the Temple, 2:41–52. To this must be added the genealogy of Christ from Abraham up to Adam; while Matthew begins, in the inverse order, with Abraham, and presents in the parallel section several differences which show their mutual independence, Luke 3:23–38; comp. Matt. 1:1–17. II. In the Public Life of our Lord a whole group of important events, discourses, and incidents which occurred at different periods, but mostly on a circuitous journey from Capernaum to Jerusalem through Samaria and Peraea (9:51–18:14). This section includes— 1. The following miracles and incidents: The miraculous draught of fishes, 5:4–11. The raising of the widow’s son at Nain, 7:11–18. The pardoning of the sinful woman who wept at the feet of Jesus, 7:36–50. The support of Christ by devout women who are named, 8:2, 3. The rebuke of the Sons of Thunder in a Samaritan village, 9:51–56. The Mission and Instruction of the Seventy, 10:1–6. Entertainment at the house of Martha and Mary; the one thing needful, 10:38–42. The woman who exclaimed: "Blessed is the womb that bare thee," 11:27. The man with the dropsy, 14:1–6. The ten lepers, 17:11–19. The visit to Zacchaeus, 19:1–10. The tears of Jesus over Jerusalem, 19:41–44.

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  OtherEvery now and then I come across a lovely beat that is hard to categorize. Here are some of my favorite ones: The movers scuffed the wall with the table.He was hovering inches from her face.She raised the storefront’s tattered awning.He sang a sprightly melody.A rowdy gaggle of youth.He frittered his life away.Soon, he was lost in the crush of people now spilling out into the streets in droves.Behind the curtains came the tapping. The tap tap tap rhythm of a branch against the window.Now place her in the past, where she belongs.The boy looked up at me, his sweet face clouded with an earnestness only the young possess. His big brown eyes shone with anticipation of a story. She smiled, sat forward and took his soft, freckled cheeks in her calloused palms.We managed to cajole and wind our way through the throng of people.The crowd sang along, clapping and stomping their feet in time with the music.Fog covered the forest, like smoky, distant memories.As herd after herd departed, the earth rumbled faintly under hundreds of clopping hooves.Dashing back to the ladder, she shuffled up the steps quickly. When she hit the metal door, she frantically waved her wrist tag across it.…the man said, after a long minute.Two green spots, like fiery eyes, penetrated the darkness and raised goose-bumps.Her face flushed as she grabbed the bag and slung it on the floor.I could see through the crest of the waves to the clean bottom.She was always mom first, last and in between.I handed the bag over to him and he obediently slung it over his shoulder.One woman scooped it up and set it upon the bank.I wanted to see how the following few days panned out.The cat nuzzled into the warmth of her lap for a while, before she heard his small feet pitter-patter toward the kitchen.I was on tender hooks all day long.She snapped her bag shut.She secreted away the letter as she glided towards him.A bucketful of thoughts needed to go, to make room for new ones.It was as if she could sense every nerve, cell, muscle, drop of blood and hair in her body individually.A near-death experience, described by Eamon Gosney: “ No actual "Being" presented themselves when I arrived as a night swimmer, floating on a silky sea. However, the very molecules of the air and water were made of love. There was simply no room for hate, guilt, or fear. Only love. I was preparing to follow a trusted and comforting voice, which said, “All you have to do is float.” I was turning to walk into the soft moonlight, but I was brought back at that moment by unbearably bright lights and pain that felt like a thousand razor blades cutting me at once.