Trust

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

  Also, this time we decided not to sell stocks, but convertible debentures. If business truly is war without bullets, then debentures are war bonds. The public loans you money, and in exchange you give them quasi-stock in your… cause. The stock is quasi because debenture holders are strongly encouraged, and incentivized, to hold their shares for five years. After that, they can convert the shares to common stock or get their money back with interest. With our new plan, and our gung-ho salesman, we announced in June 1971 that Blue Ribbon would be offering two hundred thousand shares of debentures, at one dollar per, and this time the shares sold fast. One of the first to buy was my friend Cale, who didn’t hesitate to cut a check for ten thousand dollars, a princely sum. “Buck,” he said, “I was there at the start, I’ll be there at the bitter end.” CANADA WAS A letdown. The factory’s leather football shoe was pretty, but in cold weather its sole split and cracked. Irony upon irony—a shoe made in a factory called Canada, which couldn’t take the cold. Then again, maybe it was our fault. Using a soccer shoe for football. Maybe we were asking for it. The quarterback for Notre Dame wore a pair that season, and it was a thrill to see him trot onto that hallowed gridiron at South Bend in a pair of Nikes. Until those Nikes disintegrated. (Just like the Irish did that year.) Job One, therefore, was finding a factory that could make sturdier, more weather-resistant shoes. Nissho said they could help. They were only too happy to help. They were beefing up their commodities department, so Sumeragi had a wealth of information about factories around the world. He’d also recently hired a consultant, a bona fide shoe wizard, who’d been a disciple of Jonas Senter. I’d never heard of Senter, but Sumeragi assured me the man was a genuine, head-to-toe shoe dog. I’d heard this phrase a few times. Shoe dogs were people who devoted themselves wholly to the making, selling, buying, or designing of shoes. Lifers used the phrase cheerfully to describe other lifers, men and women who had toiled so long and hard in the shoe trade, they thought and talked about nothing else. It was an all-consuming mania, a recognizable psychological disorder, to care so much about insoles and outsoles, linings and welts, rivets and vamps. But I understood. The average person takes seventy-five hundred steps a day, 274 million steps over the course of a long life, the equivalent of six times around the globe—shoe dogs, it seemed to me, simply wanted to be part of that journey. Shoes were their way of connecting with humanity. What better way of connecting, shoe dogs thought, than by refining the hinge that joins each person to the world’s surface? I felt an unusual sympathy for such sad cases. I wondered how many I might have met in my travels.

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

  FOR OUR SECOND date we walked over to Jade West, a Chinese restaurant across the street from the office. Over Mongolian beef and garlic chicken she told me her story. She still lived at home, and loved her family very much, but there were challenges. Her father was an admiralty lawyer, which struck me as a good job. Their house certainly sounded bigger and better than the one in which I’d grown up. But five kids, she hinted, was a strain. Money was a constant issue. A certain amount of rationing was standard operating procedure. There was never enough; staples, like toilet paper, were always in low supply. It was a home marked by insecurity. She did not like insecurity. She preferred security. She said it again. Security. That’s why she’d been drawn to accounting. It seemed solid, dependable, safe, a line of work she could always rely on. I asked how she’d happened to choose Portland State. She said she’d started out at Oregon State. “Oh,” I said, as if she’d confessed to doing time in prison. She laughed. “If it’s any consolation, I hated it.” In particular, she couldn’t abide the school’s requirement that every student take at least one class in public speaking. She was far too shy. “I understand, Miss Parks.” “Call me Penny.” After dinner I drove her home and met her parents. “Mom, Dad, this is Mr. Knight.” “Pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking their hands. We all stared at each other. Then the walls. Then the floor. Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it? “Well,” I said, tapping my watch, snapping my rubber bands, “it’s late, I’d better be going.” Her mother looked at a clock on the wall. “It’s only nine o’clock,” she said. “Some hot date.” JUST AFTER OUR second date Penny went with her parents to Hawaii for Christmas. She sent me a postcard, and I took this as a good sign. When she returned, her first day back at the office, I asked her again to dinner. It was early January 1968, a bitterly cold night. Again we went to Jade West, but this time I met her there, and I was quite late, arriving from my Eagle Scout review board, for which she gave me much grief. “Eagle Scout? You?” I took this as another good sign. She felt comfortable enough to tease me. At some point during that third date, I noticed we were both much more at ease. It felt nice. The ease continued, and over the next few weeks deepened. We developed a rapport, a feel for each other, a knack for communicating nonverbally. As only two shy people can. When she was feeling shy, or uncomfortable, I sensed it, and either gave her space or tried to draw her out, depending. When I was spaced out, embroiled in some internal debate with myself about the business, she knew whether to tap me lightly on the shoulder or wait patiently for me to reemerge.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Anselm had no doubt that God existed, so he was not trying to convince a skeptic. The only “atheist” he could imagine was the “fool” quoted in the Psalms who says that “there is no God.” 11 Anselm believed that the idea of God was innate: even this atheist had an idea of God in his mind or he would not have been able to deny it. Even though we live in such an imperfect world, we have a notion of absolute perfection and completeness. But a perfect thing that existed only in the mind would be a contradiction in terms, since to exist in reality (in re ) is both greater and more complete than to exist merely as a mental concept: If that than which nothing greater [maius] can be thought exists in the understanding alone, then this thing than which nothing greater can be thought is something than which a greater can be thought. And this is clearly impossible. 12 Therefore, Anselm concluded, “there can be no doubt at all” that this “something greater” exists “both in the understanding and in reality.” 13 A modern person, who inhabits an entirely different intellectual universe, cannot assume that simply because he thinks he has a hundred dollars, the money will materialize in his pocket. 14 But Anselm was not attempting a scientific or logical “proof;” rather, he was using his reasoning powers to stir up his sluggish mind so that it could “involve” itself with the immanent divine reality. And built into this “proof” was the apophatic conviction that any idea that human beings could conceive of God would inevitably fall short of the reality. For the monks of medieval Europe, lectio (“reading”) was not conducted simply to acquire information but was a spiritual exercise that enabled them to enter their inner world and there confront the truths revealed in scripture to see how they measured up. Reading—in private or in the communal practice of the liturgy—was part of a process of personal transformation. 15 Every day, a monk spent time in lectio divina , ruminating on the sacred page until it had become an interior reality. Lectio was a pleasant, leisurely exercise; a monk could proceed at his own pace until the words ignited and he “heard” their inner meaning. In his Prayers and Meditations , Anselm was taking this practice a stage further. Instead of communicating with the divine through the words of the Bible, he addressed God directly in his own words.

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

  1978 S trasser was our five-star general, and I was ready to follow him into any fray, any fusillade. In our fight with Onitsuka his outrage had comforted and sustained me, and his mind had been a formidable weapon. In this new fight with the Feds he was doubly outraged. Good, I thought. He stomped around the offices like a pissed-off Viking, and his stomps were music to my ears. We both knew, however, that rage wasn’t going to be enough. Nor was Strasser alone. We were taking on the United States of America. We needed a few good men. So Strasser reached out to a young Portland lawyer, a friend of his named Richard Werschkul. I don’t remember ever being introduced to Werschkul. I don’t remember anyone asking me to meet him or hire him. I just remember suddenly being aware of Werschkul, extremely conscious of his presence, all the time. The way you’re aware of a big woodpecker in your front yard. Or on your head. For the most part Werschkul’s presence was welcome. He had the kind of go-go motor we liked, and the credentials we always looked for. Stanford undergrad, University of Oregon Law. He also had a compelling personality, a presence. Dark, wiry, sarcastic, bespectacled, he possessed an uncommonly deep, plummy baritone, like Darth Vader with a head cold. Overall he gave the impression of a man with a plan, and the plan didn’t include surrender or sleep. On the other hand, he also had an eccentric streak. We all did, but Werschkul had what Mom Hatfield might have called a “wild hair.” There was always something about him that didn’t quite… fit. For instance, though he was a native Oregonian, he had a baffling East Coast air. Blue blazers, pink shirts, bow ties. Sometimes his accent suggested summers in Newport, rowing for Yale—a string of polo ponies. Surpassing strange in a man who knew his way around the Willamette Valley. And while he could be very witty, even silly, he could change on a dime and become scary serious. Nothing made him more serious than the topic of Nike vs. U.S. Customs. Some inside Nike worried about Werschkul’s seriousness, fearing it bordered on obsession. Fine by me, I thought. Obsessives were the only ones for the job. The only ones for me. Some questioned his stability. But when it came to stability, I asked, who among us will throw the first stone? Besides, Strasser liked him, and I trusted Strasser. So when Strasser suggested that we promote Werschkul, and move him to Washington, D.C., where he’d be closer to the politicians we’d need on our side, I didn’t hesitate. Neither, of course, did Werschkul. ABOUT THE SAME time we dispatched Werschkul to Washington, I sent Hayes to Exeter to check on things at the factory, and to see how Woodell and Johnson were getting along. Also on his agenda was the purchase of something called a rubber mill.

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

  intruding and wasting their time. But within minutes their gruff exterior dissolved and they were warm, friendly, pleased to meet someone from back home. We talked mostly about sports. Can you believe the Yankees won it all again? How about that Willie Mays? None better. Yessir, none better. Then they told me their story. They were the first Americans I ever met who loved Japan. Stationed there during the Occupation, they fell under the spell of the culture, the food, the women, and when their hitch was up they simply couldn’t bring themselves to leave. So they’d launched an import magazine, when no one anywhere was interested in importing anything Japanese, and somehow they’d managed to keep it afloat for seventeen years. I told them my Crazy Idea and they listened with some interest. They made a pot of coffee and invited me to sit down. Was there a particular line of Japanese shoes I’d considered importing? they asked. I told them I liked Tiger, a nifty brand manufactured by Onitsuka Co., down in Kobe, the largest city in southern Japan. “Yes, yes, we’ve seen it,” they said. I told them I was thinking of heading down there, meeting the Onitsuka people face to face. In that case, the ex-GIs said, you’d better learn a few things about doing business with the Japanese. “The key,” they said, “is don’t be pushy. Don’t come on like the typical asshole American, the typical gaijin—rude, loud, aggressive, not taking no for an answer. The Japanese do not react well to the hard sell. Negotiations here tend to be soft, sinewy. Look how long it took the Americans and Russians to coax Hirohito into surrendering. And even when he did surrender, when his country was reduced to a heap of ashes, what did he tell his people? ‘The war situation hasn’t developed to Japan’s advantage.’ It’s a culture of indirection. No one ever turns you down flat. No one ever says, straight out, no. But they don’t say yes, either. They speak in circles, sentences with no clear subject or object. Don’t be discouraged, but don’t be cocky. You might leave a man’s office thinking you’ve blown it, when in fact he’s ready to do a deal. You might leave thinking you’ve closed a deal, when in fact you’ve just been rejected. You never know.” I frowned. Under the best of circumstances I was not a great negotiator. Now I was going to have to negotiate in some kind of funhouse with trick mirrors? Where normal rules didn’t apply? After an hour of this baffling tutorial, I shook hands with the ex-GIs and said my good-byes. Feeling suddenly that I couldn’t wait, that I needed to strike quickly, while their words were fresh in my mind, I raced back to my hotel, threw everything into my little suitcase and backpack, and phoned Onitsuka to make an appointment. Later that afternoon I boarded a train south.

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

  Now Jaqua said he’d never seen Bowerman this pumped up about an idea. I liked the sound of that. “But,” he added, “fifty-fifty is not so hot for the Coach. He doesn’t want to be in charge, and he doesn’t want to be at loggerheads with you, ever. How about we make it fifty-one–forty-nine? We give you operating control?” His whole demeanor was that of a man trying to help, to make this situation a win for everyone. I trusted him. “Fine by me,” I said. “That… all?” He nodded. “Deal?” he said. “Deal,” I said. We all shook hands, signed the papers, and I was now officially in a legal and binding partnership with Almighty Bowerman. Mrs. Jaqua asked if I’d care for more hot chocolate. Yes, please, ma’am. And do you have any marshmallows? LATER THAT DAY I wrote Onitsuka and asked if I could be the exclusive distributor of Tiger shoes in the western United States. Then I asked them to send three hundred pairs of Tigers, ASAP. At $3.33 a pair that was roughly $1,000 worth of shoes. Even with Bowerman’s kick-in, that was more than I had on hand. Again I put the touch on my father. This time he balked. He didn’t mind getting me started, but he didn’t want me coming back to him year after year. Besides, he’d thought this shoe thing was a lark. He hadn’t sent me to Oregon and Stanford to become a door-to-door shoe salesman, he said. “Jackassing around,” that’s what he called it. “Buck,” he said, “how long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes?” I shrugged. “I don’t know, Dad.” I looked at my mother. As usual, she said nothing. She simply smiled, vaguely, prettily. I got my shyness from her, that was plain. I often wished I’d also gotten her looks. The first time my father laid eyes on my mother, he thought she was a mannequin. He was walking by the only department store in Roseburg and there she was, standing in the window, modeling an evening gown. Realizing that she was flesh-and-blood, he went straight home and begged his sister to find out the name of that gorgeous gal in the window. His sister found out. That’s Lota Hatfield, she said. Eight months later my father made her Lota Knight. At the time my father was on his way to becoming an established lawyer, on his way to escaping the terrible poverty that defined his childhood. He was twenty-eight years old. My mother, who had just turned twenty-one, had grown up even poorer than he had. (Her father was a railroad conductor.) Poverty was one of the few things they had in common.

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

  Days later Sumeragi sent Sole to meet me. Given the man’s reputation, I was expecting some kind of godlike figure with fifteen arms, each one waving a wand made out of shoe trees. But Sole was a plain, ordinary, middle-age businessman, with a New York accent and a sharkskin suit. Not my kind of guy, and I wasn’t his kind, either. And yet we had no trouble finding common ground. Shoes, sports—plus an abiding distaste for Kitami. When I mentioned Kitami’s name, Sole scoffed. “The man’s an ass.” We’re going to be fast friends, I thought. Sole promised to help me beat Kitami, get free of him. “I can solve all your problems,” he said. “I know factories.” “Factories that can make Nikes?” I asked, handing him my new football shoe. “I can think of five off the top of my head!” he said. He was adamant. He seemed to have two mental states—adamant and dismissive. I realized that he was selling me, that he wanted my business, but I was willing to be sold, and more than ready to be wanted. The five factories Sole mentioned were all in Japan. So Sumeragi and I decided to go there and look them over in September 1971. Sole agreed to be our guide. A WEEK BEFORE we were to leave, Sumeragi phoned. “Mr. Sole has suffered a heart attack,” he said. “Oh no,” I said. “He’s expected to recover,” Sumeragi said, “but traveling at this time is impossible. His son, who is very capable, will take his place.” Sumeragi sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, more than me. I flew alone to Japan, and met Sumeragi and Sole Jr. at Nissho’s office in Tokyo. I was taken aback when Sole Jr. stepped forward, hand outstretched. I assumed he’d be young, but he looked like a teenager. I had a hunch he’d be dressed in sharkskin, like his father, and he was. But his suit was three sizes too big. Was it in fact his father’s? And like so many teens, he started every sentence with “I.” I think this. I think that. I, I, I. I shot a glance at Sumeragi. He looked gravely concerned. THE FIRST OF the factories we wanted to see was outside Hiroshima. All three of us went there by train, arriving midday. A cool, overcast afternoon. We weren’t due at the factory until the next morning, so I felt it important to take the extra time and visit the museum. And I wanted to go by myself. I told Sumeragi and Sole Jr. I would meet them in the hotel lobby the following morning.

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

  The two theories of the apostolic history, introduced by Neander and Baur, are antagonistic in principle and aim, and united only by the moral bond of an honest search for truth. The one is conservative and reconstructive, the other radical and destructive. The former accepts the canonical Gospels and Acts as honest, truthful, and credible memoirs of the life of Christ and the labors of the apostles; the latter rejects a great part of their contents as unhistorical myths or legends of the post-apostolic age, and on the other hand gives undue credit to wild heretical romances of the second century. The one draws an essential line of distinction between truth as maintained by the orthodox church, and error as held by heretical parties; the other obliterates the lines and puts the heresy into the inner camp of the apostolic church itself. The one proceeds on the basis of faith in God and Christ, which implies faith in the supernatural and miraculous wherever it is well attested; the other proceeds from disbelief in the supernatural and miraculous as a philosophical impossibility, and tries to explain the gospel history and the apostolic history from purely natural causes like every other history. The one has a moral and spiritual as well is intellectual interest in the New Testament, the other a purely intellectual and critical interest. The one approaches the historical investigation with the subjective experience of the divine truth in the heart and conscience, and knows and feels Christianity to be a power of salvation from sin and error; the other views it simply as the best among the many religions which are destined to give way at last to the sovereignty of reason and philosophy. The controversy turns on the question whether there is a God in History or not; as the contemporaneous struggle in natural science turns on the question whether there is a God in nature or not. Belief in a personal God almighty and omnipresent in history and in nature, implies the possibility of supernatural and miraculous revelation. Absolute freedom from prepossession (Voraussetzungslosigkeit such as Strauss demanded) is absolutely impossible, "ex nihilo nihil fit." There is prepossession on either side of the controversy, the one positive, the other negative, and history itself must decide between them. The facts must rule philosophy, not philosophy the facts. If it can be made out that the life of Christ and the apostolic church can be psychologically and historically explained only by the admission of the supernatural element which they claim, while every other explanation only increases the difficulty, of the problem and substitutes an unnatural miracle for a supernatural one, the historian has gained the case, and it is for the philosopher to adjust his theory to history. The duty of the historian is not to make the facts, but to discover them, and then to construct his theory wide enough to give them all comfortable room. The Alleged Antagonism in the Apostolic Church.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  They are symbolic reminders of how that power must be cared for and respected. Moses and Elijah are the twin brothers of the second vision quest. They stand on either side of Jesus. They are symbolic of the tradition that must be maintained if the energy of the Transfiguration is to be appreciated and channeled into sustaining life. They represent the response to the vision that takes us beyond Peter’s small-minded desire to limit it to any one religious container. The Hopi died rather than give up the tradition of their elders, of their Hitsatsinom. Moses and Elijah, the embodiment of elders, do not stand outside the vision, but within it. They are integral to it. The Hopi did not cling to the past out of some misguided attachment to old superstitions, but rather as a fundamental theological principle. Tradition is the only true container for vision. Tradition is the bearer of revelation. Tradition is not a thing of the past, but of the future. The message of Jesus as the Native Messiah is balanced in the energy field of tradition. It is not to be received as separate from what our ancestors have experienced; it is not a disembodied new idea being handed to us by another culture; it is not in the box of any denomination or culture. The gospel of the Native Jesus is held within the embrace of Native American spiritual tradition. It is a power of transformation that serves the people and honors the teaching of the ancestors. To receive it, the Native people only need to respect their own Covenant. Unlike what the Spanish conquerors tried to tell us, we do not have to deny ourselves and our own history. The second vision quest is a bright reminder that our future is our past made new. The ancient wisdom of the Hopi, as for all Native nations, is integral to the new Covenant of the Native Messiah. The two emerge from the same source. They are part of the same story. What the ancestors saw is what we see today, if we look through their eyes to behold the power of God in our lives. Ultimately, this is why the cloud of mystery descends over the mesa. The arrogant assumption of any one people that their experience alone contains the truth, the religious paranoia that demands total conformity to any one cultural expression of faith, is exposed as the opposite of true vision when the cloud descends. One of the most common names for God among traditional Native American societies is the Great Mystery. This name was accorded to God because Native people understood that when all was said and done, the function of the vision quest was not to take away mystery, but rather, to lead us deeper into mystery. As bright as the vision may be, it resides in the mystery that is God; it resides in a cloud we can never penetrate. The kiva is a place of mystery.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  I remember explaining to the bishop that in the Native way a person cannot become a “holy man” or “holy woman” just by going to school for a few years. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. It takes the slow work of a whole community, affirming and supporting the development of that person; it takes mentors and teachers, especially the elders who can show the person how to live in a sacred way. I told the bishop I had received a vision and had to honor it. I had to wait. I had to find myself, my whole self, before I could even consider being ordained. My bishop was a good man. He understood and supported me. He released me from my commitment to become a priest and prayed me on my way to find what I was seeking. I remember hanging up the phone after speaking to him. I remember sitting there wondering what to do next. I had just stepped off the path I had been following from childhood, the path my grandfather and great-grandfather had both followed to ordination, the path I thought God had called me to take to find my vocation. I thought I knew what God wanted from me when I started seminary, but after my vision on the roof all I could do was trust the voice. The voice of God is vision internalized. It is not what we see outside of ourselves, but what we hear within ourselves. The crow that I saw in my vision was a messenger of God. The voice I heard was the message itself. The challenge of the vision quest is not only to believe what you see, but trust what you hear. Trust is the fulcrum of faith. To believe is to trust. Spiritual truths are not scientific truths. We cannot put hope in a test tube or compassion under a microscope. In the end, what we believe is what we trust, even if there is no tangible evidence that can guarantee that our faith is well placed. One of the fundamental differences between European and Native cultures is how they understand trust as a spiritual value. When I was a seminary professor I would tell my students that the easiest way to express this difference is to say that white people want to see the data and read the fine print before they commit themselves to believe something. In other words, their motto is, “I will believe it when I see it.” On the other hand, Native Americans assume that only an experiential encounter with the holy can reveal the truth. They follow the motto, “you will never see it if you don’t believe it.” Reading the gospels in the Native American context, Jesus confirmed this traditional attitude on more than one occasion.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  While some may be skeptical about these forms of care, my thought is that if you are making a fully informed decision and you believe the treatment will help and not harm you, it can be a useful supplement to conventional medicine. While some diagnoses may require medication as part of the most effective treatment plan, as with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for example, there are so many additional supplemental aids that can benefit anyone. We need to expand our view of what can work. Just as how research has shown that therapy is most effective when the client-therapist relationship is strong—regardless of the therapeutic orientation and interventions, the most effective self-care strategies are likely those that feel most congruent for the client. 167 Given that at least more than 38 percent of Americans utilize CAM treatments, with satisfaction with treatments landing at about 71 percent, it’s important that we include a whole host of options for healing. 168,169 Of course, it’s worth mentioning that there is the possibility that these additional treatments may not be effective for you. At a minimum, they should never harm you or make your symptoms worse. It’s also worth noting that many of these treatments are not always covered by insurance, which is important to consider before you pay for different options. Furthermore, given that some of these treatments may not have as much empirical support, there is the possibility that you don’t always see the improvements you’re hoping for. However, you just might find that some of these strategies offer their own forms of transformative healing. Whether they help you process a trauma, or you notice a reduction in the physical experience of your anxiety, perhaps it’s worth giving some of these additional sources of support a shot if you’re open to it. Here’s a list with some ideas to get you started as you consider what you’d like to incorporate into your own treatment. This list is by no means exhaustive. Once again, keep in mind that not all of these modalities have extensive research demonstrating their effectiveness—in fact, some have shown limited support for symptom improvement when clinically tested. However, if a particular addition to treatment works well for you and benefits your overall well-being, then good for you. As you look through this list, circle what has helped you in the past, as well as what you’re open to trying.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  They walked with Jesus, the Native Messiah on the path of stones, under the open sky, toward the next sacred mountain. They did not waver in their trust in the one great human family, the origin and the destination of all that we are and all that we were ever meant to be. Chapter 7THE MOUNTAINIn 1680 the several small communities known as the Pueblo people of the southwestern part of North America rose up in revolt against their Spanish occupiers. Among them were the farmers known as the Hopi, a name that translates into English as the “Peaceful Ones.”1 These men and women, renowned for their religion of peaceful coexistence, attacked and killed every Spanish settler they could find, including every priest and friar of the Catholic Church. Once the killing was done, they dismantled the Catholic mission, tearing it down stone by stone, scattering the evidence of the church until it was no longer visible. To put their actions into context, imagine the Amish suddenly going on a killing spree, massacring every Catholic they could find and tearing down their churches so that not even the foundations remained. What could have provoked the peaceful Hopi into such an act of desperate vengeance? For centuries, these quiet people had remained pacifists, preferring to move rather than fight, living on isolated mesa tops in the desert in order to avoid conflicts with any neighbors. What had caused them to change? What had driven them to set aside their deepest spiritual beliefs? What had caused them to murder other human beings? Searching for answers brings us to the heart of the second vision quest of Jesus. Like every Native nation, the story of the Hopi begins in mystery. The Hopi themselves trace their beginnings to the Hisatsinom, their ancestors who built the beautiful cliff dwellings that still nestle in canyon walls throughout the Four Corners region of the American southwest where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet.2 For some seven hundred years, from around 600 to 1300 CE, these early Hopi people built apartment-like structures and underground worship sites called kivas beneath the natural overhanging cliffs of the canyons. However, according to Hopi religion, even these ancient places were only part of a much longer narrative of migration going back to the dawn of human history, to what the Hopi call the Emergence, when human life first came out of the Earth to populate the world according to the will of God. The mystery remains. Archeology suggests that the Hopi may have once lived on the desert plateaus before descending into the canyons, but where they came from before that is unknown. As with all Native peoples in North America, the thread of historical fact frays at the end of a brief timespan, leaving only the spiritual memory of the People to recollect early migrations across the continent. For the Hopi, this memory is especially vivid and important. Hopi religion is based on a cosmology that rivals that of Hinduism.

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Jesus, as the Native Messiah, understands what his oldest relatives, the stones, are trying to tell him. They are the many that embody the One. They are not there just for him, but for the People. In recognizing that truth, Jesus understands how his own mind is putting him to the test. His profession of faith – “the People do not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”15 – would be the way that the stones helped him to return to proper spiritual balance. The vision of the stones establishes from the outset of his quest that he will be true to the oldest principle of the Native Covenant. He will stay grounded in the faith in the One God. He will not let any sense of self lure him away from his calling to be one with the People. Spiritual unity will be maintained, and therefore, spiritual equilibrium. The many will always be the one. The second vision of his first quest is a sky vision. Like many traditional Native vision quests, the Native Messiah would have chosen a “high and holy place.” Often the traditional vision quest took place on a mountain, a hill or a butte. These were places with a view. They would allow the person making the quest to see the world around them. When I made my own first quest, I chose to go to the roof of my apartment building, not to the basement. I instinctively wanted to be in the open. I wanted to see out. I wanted to be in a place where I could also be seen by God. What was the meaning of the sky vision for Jesus? What did he see when he looked out to the world around him? One of the ironies of the vision quest is that the person stands on a tiny circle of land, but that circle encompasses the whole universe. In his first vision quest in the wilderness, Jesus looks out at the endless sky, the metaphor for forever. Poised on this spiritual edge, the connecting point between his own finite circle of reality and the limitless expanse of God’s reality, Jesus hangs on the brink of faith. Matthew’s text says that the Devil, that voice that Native tradition identifies as the Self, tempts him to “throw himself down” from his high place so he will force God to save him. The idea that Jesus is tempted to test God is one that Native Christians can certainly understand, but our reading of this vision has a slightly different nuance. The image of the Native Messiah teetering between God and God’s creation, between the earth and the sky, raises theological imagery from the Native Covenant about the harmonious relationship between Mother Earth, the tribe of the human beings, and the Maker of All Things.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  ful Ne 9% ON) i עד‎ true and faithful witness Je 42°; נאמנים פצעי אוהב‎ facthful the wounds an a loving one Pr 27°; 6. DN W785; BY Ho r2'; 2 01 thing » 78" ; sma-b33 in all my fede ‘(of Moses) Nu 127 (E). Hiph. POST Gn 45%+4(18t.); Impf. יאמן ,יאמין‎ Ib 15° +(30t.); Jmv, האמינו‎ 2 Ch 20" + (2 t.); Pt. POR Dt 1” Jos 25". 1. stand firm Jb 39" (c.neg. of the horse when the trumpet sounds Di De MV RVm; but netther believeth RV, hardly trusts Da). 2. trust, believe: (a) abs. Ex 47 )3( 18 7° 28° Hb 1? 116" Jb 29”; (6) with ל‎ of person, trust to, believe Gn 45° (E) Ex 4° (J) Je 40% 2Ch32”; with God Dt 9” Is 43%; ל‎ of thing Ex 48° (J) ש‎ 106% 1K 10% 200% Is 53' עע‎ 14%; (c) with ב‎ of person, trust in, believe in Ex - (J}-25 2777 2/0 20” Jb 5 15 Pr26” 161 2% Mi7*; the usual construction with God Gn15° (E) Ex14 Nu 14" (J) 20" (Bp bi 2k ייד‎ 2Ch-20” 78" Jon 3°; with 3 of thing Dt 28° 0157 24” 397 78" 106” 119"; (d) with "3 trust or believe that Ex 4° (J) Jb 9” La 4”; (e) so with infin. Jb 15” 1 27; also trust to do a thing, almost=adlow, Ju Fi”. NON perfect‏ אכ[ n.[m. | faithfulness;‏ אמ juithfuiness (faithfulness, faithfulness) Is 25".‏ TON adv. verily, truly 13% 27779012 t.)1K 1° Ne 5 Jerr’ 28° & doxologies 1 Ch 16* 4 106%(; ESC) JOS Nu 5” ‘(P) Ne 8°, & in the dole wy 41 cee 89% 106%. + duny= Amen: RVm ; cf. Rev 3% or God of faithfulness, God of ero (RV) (perh. rd. 28 Che Di). Tyan (ommdn) n.m. master-workman, ar- tist Ct 7° (Mish. Talm. אוּמָנוּת , אוּמָן‎ handiwork, Syr. ד‎ 6 Ex 28", where=Heb. W120 & is likewise used of gems; Nab. אמנא‎ Vog", As. mar ummini, Lyon Sargontexte *% cf. Tim BP ap cf. (אָמוּן .זז‎ 53 ; generations ש‎ 100° 119” OION n.[m. | ae faithfulness (on‏ אמןז format. cf. Ges'**™™), . D2 לא אָמִן‎ ae children in whom there ae nO trusting Dt 32” (poet.) 2. DFS pl. abst. faithfulness ; א"‎ V¥ messenger of faithfulness, trusty messenger Pr 137; עד א'‎ faithful witness Pr14?; cf, “8 WS Pr 20°; שמַר א"‎ keeping faithfulness Is 267, perh. also y 31% נצר א'‎ y, 1. [JOS].

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  home mid-February. In late January, our crew received some troubling news from mission control. For a whole host of reasons, we wouldn’t be landing until April now.” This wasn’t like being an hour later for dinner; Shane would be two months late. Shane was ready to be home. Shane’s wife and kids were ready for him to be home. The entire crew ached to get home. Yet they would not be going home. “How in the world did you cope?” I asked him, and in response he said four words I’ll never, ever forget. “I trusted my training.” Shane so believed in his work, in his mission to serve humanity, in the fact that mission control had his best interests at heart, in God’s faithful provision, come what may, that he was able to arrest the thoughts that would have otherwise derailed him and think on more useful things. “I spent years and years learning how to be a successful astronaut,” he said. “I believed the best, I called my wife, and I got busy finishing my task.” “I trusted my training,” Shane told me, words that lingered with me for days. It’s not easy to stop believing lies. We can’t simply sit back and wait for our minds to heal, for our thoughts to change. We train. That’s how truth gains the victory in the battle for our minds. We stick our heads in our Bibles day in and day out. You might not be able to fully grab hold of truth on day 2, but on day 102, it will be taking hold in your heart and mind. We wake up in the morning, and rather than get on our phones, we get on our knees and we submit our thoughts to Jesus. We invest in healthy relationships and intentionally go to them when we start to spiral. We choose well. Daily. Moment by moment. We train our minds. And when a new temptation to spiral presents itself, we trust our training. Think of Who You Really Are Kate, my sixteen-year-old daughter, looked up from her sushi and said, “Mom, my mind is spinning! I know the right answers, but I need you to remind me:

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  So though I went as often as I was able to my box at the Palace, and watched and applauded her as she sang, and received those secret looks and tokens, it was a full week before I made my way again back stage, and presented myself, all pale, sweating and uncertain, at her dressing-room door.But when I did so, she received me with such kindness, and chided me so sincerely for having left her unvisited so long; and we fell again to chatting so easily about her life in the theatre, and mine as an oyster-girl in Whitstable, that all my old qualms quite left me. Persuaded at last that she liked me, I visited her again - and then again, and again. I went nowhere else that month but to the Palace; saw no one else - not Freddy, not my cousins, not even Alice, hardly - but her. Mother had begun to frown about it; but when I went home and said that I had gone back stage at Miss Butler’s invitation, and been treated by her like a friend, she was impressed. I worked harder than ever at my kitchen duties; I filleted fish, washed potatoes, chopped parsley, thrust crabs and lobsters into pans of steaming water - and all so briskly I barely had breath for a song to cover their shrieks with. Alice would say rather sullenly that my mania for a certain person at the Palace made me dull; but I didn’t speak to Alice much these days. Now every working day ended, for me, with a lightning change, and a hasty supper, and a run to the station for the Canterbury train; and every trip to Canterbury ended in Kitty Butler’s dressing-room. I spent more time in her company than I did watching her perform upon the stage, and saw her more often without her make-up, and her suit, and her footlight manner, than with them.For the friendlier we grew the freer she became, and the more confiding.‘You must call me “Kitty”,’ she said early on, ‘and I shall call you - what? Not “Nancy”, for that is what everyone calls you. What do they call you at home? “Nance”, is it? Or “Nan”?“‘Nance”,’ I said.‘Then I shall call you “Nan” - if I might?’ If she might!

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  When he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, he says to Martha: “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”1 When Thomas cannot believe that Jesus himself has risen from the dead, Jesus says to him, “Because you have seen me you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.”2 Seeing and believing are the essence of a vision quest. They operate in the process of trust. We create faith each time we are willing to step out onto the ice of God’s word. When the voice of God told me to be patient, I had a choice to accept that word on trust or not. When the voice returned to tell me that I had just read the first vision quest of Jesus, I had the option to accept that idea or ignore it. There was no proof in the beginning of my quest that if I remained patient I would discover the path the crow had shown me in my rooftop vision. There was no guarantee that if I heard a voice speaking to me in South Dakota that it was telling me the truth. The connecting point between what I thought I saw and what I thought I heard was faith. Either I believed it or not. The choice was mine. The spiritual glue that held the Native community together around the Native Covenant was not doctrine or dogma as much as trust. The value of telling the truth was one of the first virtues Europeans commented on when they encountered Native people. In traditional societies a person’s word was more than their bond; it was their religious identity. Without truth there could be no trust; without trust there could be no belief; without belief there could be no faith; without faith there could be no community. Therefore, the truth claim of Native religion is not contained in a creed, but in a behavior. Red Jacket’s famous response to a Christian missionary is one of the best known examples of this spiritual principle in Native tradition. Red Jacket was a leader of the Seneca nation. In 1805, when his people were asked to convert to Christianity, Red Jacket turned the “seeing is believing” focus back on the missionaries. He told the missionaries that his people were familiar with white Christians because some of them lived nearby the Seneca nation. He said that his people would wait a while and observe these Christians. If the Christian religion did what it claimed to do, if it made these Europeans less likely to cheat Native Americans or take their land, then Red Jacket’s people would seriously consider adopting the white religion.3 This story finds an echo in the gospel stories about Jesus.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  When you are working with a therapist, there is an inherent power differential. You trust your provider to work in your best interest. While I don’t believe my therapist meant to induce harm, I’m also keenly aware as a client myself how easy it is to want to do what we’re told in the name of a treatment plan. But hear this: it is always okay to say, “No, this exposure exercise is too difficult for me.” Just voicing your boundaries is doing great work. You’re facing the anxiety of people-pleasing when you stand up for yourself. Remember—you are in the driver’s seat, and no one should ever force you to go at a pace that makes you feel unsafe or too uncomfortable. That’s why it was so crucial that Luís had full consent throughout the process. We had a safe word that he could use whenever the exercises got too difficult. I always wanted him to feel challenged so that he could feel a change, but I never wanted him to feel like he was drowning in anxiety during an exposure. Once he had coping mechanisms in place, including breathing techniques and distress-tolerance skills, he was ready. At first, Luís did great with the tangible exercises. When he could behaviorally make a change, such as not washing his hands as often or not circling the block, he was able to take action in a way that felt empowering. Just as ERP predicts, we started to see his anxiety around these fears go down. As he saw that his worst fears didn’t come true, he learned that his compulsive behaviors did not need to dominate his life. However, where we hit a snag was with the obsessions themselves. Unlike with the compulsions, which can often be targeted behaviorally (you either do them or you don’t—unless they are mental compulsions, such as counting or praying, which can be harder to control), Luís struggled to reevaluate the validity of his obsessions. Here’s why: BUT IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE When we’re struggling with OCD, or any form of anxiety for that matter, we want something simple: answers. When it came to whether or not Luís’s worst fears would come true, he desperately wanted these answers from me, and I couldn’t give him those in good conscience. We often want to know, with full certainty, whether something is going to happen or not. We want to be sure whether we’re going to get sick or not. “Tell me whether my partner is going to leave or stay.” “Assure me that I’m going to get fired or that I’m not.” I’ve seen the pleading eyes in many a client. Of course, the honest answer to all of these questions is “I don’t know.” I know that’s the last thing you want to hear.

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

  As to doctrine, Calvin had previously sent to Melanchthon a summary, in twelve articles, on the crucial topic of the real presence. To these Melanchthon assented without dispute,552 but confessed that he had no hope of satisfying those who obstinately insisted on a more gross and palpable presence.553 Yet he was anxious that the present agreement, such as it was, might be cherished until at length the Lord shall lead both sides into the unity of his own truth. This is no doubt the reason why he himself refrained from such a full and unequivocal public expression of his own view as might lead to a rupture in the Lutheran Church. He went as far as he deemed it prudent by modifying the tenth article of the Augsburg Confession, and omitting the anti-Zwinglian clause (1540). As to ecclesiastical discipline, Melanchthon deplored the want of it in Germany, but could see no prospect of improvement, till the people would learn to distinguish the yoke of Christ from the papal tyranny. As to worship, Calvin frankly expressed his objection to many ceremonies, which seemed to him to border too closely on Judaism.554 He was opposed to chanting in Latin, to pictures and candles in churches, to exorcism in baptism, and the like. Melanchthon was reluctant to discuss this point, but admitted that there was an excess of trifling or unnecessary Roman Catholic rites retained in deference to the judgment of the Canonists, and expressed the hope that some of them would be abandoned by degrees. After the Colloquy at Regensburg the two Reformers saw each other no more, but continued to correspond as far as their time and multiplicity of duties would permit. The correspondence of friendship is apt to diminish with the increase of age and cares. Several letters are preserved, and are most creditable to both parties.555 The first letter of Calvin after that Colloquy, is dated Feb. 16, 1543, and is a lengthy answer to a message from Melanchthon.556

• From Pleasure Activism (2017)

  In my relationship coaching work, I often see people push down their deepest desires because our society measures our success by a relationship, even if it’s a bad relationship—being “alone” is still read as a sign of failure. These denied desires become toxic energy that strives for daylight. Desire shifts and changes over time, but my mom always taught me that it doesn’t disappear. Opening a relationship in some way can release a desire and allow it to nourish the relationship, relieve pressure, and feed trust and satisfaction. Nonmonogamy looks different for everyone. The model I’ve been most excited by recently is relationship anarchy, which operates around a set of principles that can strengthen any connection.124 I find this model makes room for all kinds of relationships, increasing the freedom and truth in any formation. It’s a deeply feminist model, founded in the equality of all partners and the idea that everyone gets to determine what works for them. Trust is a core aspect of relationship anarchy and a core part of reprogramming the parts of us that believe we can never trust those we love, that we have to be suspicious and deceitful in the pursuit and maintenance of relationships. What if, instead, we started from trust, and we kept returning to trust, measuring intimacy by how much it made us trust ourselves and trust those we hold close to us? Because let me testify—trust feels incredibly good. We often take for granted the kind of trust we have for friends and that we can trust our friends to love us and also love other friends, to get different needs met in different friendships. Bringing this kind of trust to our intimate relationships, whether the needs include sex or just other ways of knowing, means more time can be spent on the pleasure of connection. Hot and Heavy Homework At the top of a blank page, write down your ideal structure (monogamy, open marriage, lovers, et cetera) for sexual connection, love, and relationship. Create a map from the bottom of the page to that ideal, showing what skills, conversations, and practices are needed to get there.